Eunsook laughs when Kibum’s face purses in disgust, the bitterness of the coffee she’d brewed not sweetened enough by the cubes of brown sugar she’d added to their cups.

“Here, have another,” she says as she hands him the jar with the golden cubes. He takes one tentatively and lets it fall into his cup. She watches him swirl it around gently before taking another sip, this time sighing in delight with closed eyes. “Improved?”

“Much.”

“I have prepared oats & berries for our morning meal. We will stop again for midday, and arrive just before evening meal.”

“A long journey,” Kibum muses.

“Yes. A third of it was covered yesterday, the other two thirds will be covered today.” She leans in, teasing, “And I will drive the entire way.”

“Omegas are not allowed to drive,” he replies quickly, seemingly startled by her statement.

“Of course.” She smiles stepping back and toward the pot hanging over a small fire. The bowl she had handed to Kibum the night before with stew she ladles now with oats and berries, handing it to him with a spoon before taking a seat in the same purple chair she had then. He takes timid bites, taking his time to blow cooling air over the steaming breakfast and she turns her eyes out to the valley where the sun has already risen, burning bright against the woods they’re camped in.

Eleven hours will get them from this campsite to the warmth of her home, a bit more depending on how long they stop for midday meal. A long journey, yes, on that Kibum is right. Yet she has driven it so many times that it is almost nothing to her at all.

The only worry to her now is how Kibum will endure.

Turning back, she sees that he has nearly finished his bowl.

“I will take that as a compliment!” she says enthusiastically, pointing. He looks down, embarrassed.

Kibum does his best to help clean up, though it’s clear that every step is unfamiliar to him & she finds herself a bit puzzled as to how he knows so little after so many years of Hunts. A quick learner, though, and not afraid to ask questions, a glimpse into a personality she hopes to know better.

It takes a little time, but soon they are on the road again, further along on their journey back to her house, their new home together.

“I know it will seem long. Just think, though, that a hot shower and a soft bed wait for both of us when we arrive. That is reward enough, yes?” She glances at Kibum with an enthusiastic smile that immediately turns to a confused frown at the panicked expression on her bond mate’s face. He has a thumb pressed to his lips and his eyes are slightly widened and cast to the side, and he’s begun fidgeting in a way that she slowly recognizes as him subtly moving away from her. “Are you alright?” she asks in concern, glancing again. Kibum only nods, mumbling something about being tired, curling up as tight as he can into a ball on his side of the cab. And, just as before, he falls quickly asleep.

Eunsook grips the wheel, glancing over at her mate’s sleeping form, and gnaws at her lip. She sighs and looks up at the sky through the windshield. The day is bright with a clear blue sky, not a cloud in sight as they slowly travel away from the valley and Kibum’s home.

Kibum shifts in his sleep and she glances again at his sleeping form. He’s still wearing the clothes she had gifted him yesterday at the campsite. The memory of helping him out of his bonding gown has her frowning and a bit flushed, wondering why such a garment was chosen when whoever had chosen it must have known it would have to be undone by her hand.

Though they could not have known of the mark she would have seen at his shoulder.

Only Taemin would.

~

Eunsook pulls into the drive with Kibum still sleeping across the cab from her. She’d managed to rouse him long enough to eat a meal, but he had otherwise been asleep for the majority of the ride. It had occurred to her that he might be a type to sleep easily in a moving vehicle, but it also crossed her mind that he may not have slept well the night last, or especially the one before. Or that his body was still adjusting to the changes her bite was causing.

The mountain glows golden with a melting sun as the engine dies. Eunsook pulls the key out of the ignition and turns to Kibum who doesn’t stir. She reaches over to rub his shoulder.

“Kibum,” she murmurs gently, “we’re here.” He makes a soft noise before opening his eyes, lashes fluttering as he slowly blinks awake. He looks startled to see her and she can almost see him trying to process who she is before finally remembering.

“Already?” he asks, clearly confused as he sits up and looks around. Eunsook chuckles as she opens her door.

“Welcome home.”

The door opens on to a house that is warmer than the outside, though still chilly and a bit dim from being left empty the last three days. He follows her in quietly. Eunsook looks at Kibum’s bleary eyes and wonders if she should begin a tour or send him to bed.

“You seem tired,” she says as she reaches behind him to shut the door.

He shakes his head as he steps to the side, eyes not quite meeting hers yet. “I am fine. The…um…shower…and…” He glances up, a tight smile at his lips.

“Of course. And then I’ll show you the rest of the house?” He nods silently, glancing around the room they stand in.

She leads him through a main room where a long sofa sits perpendicular to them with a deep purple cushioned chair facing it. A tall bookcase stuffed with books sits on the other side of the sofa behind a round table beneath a lamp, and all three pieces, chair, table, bookcase, are tucked away in a little rectangular alcove bursting with light from half a dozen shoulder-high windows.

As they pass by a small table and a pair of chairs sitting to the side of a tiled floor, she says, “This is the eating area. And that,” she adds, pointing to an L-shaped counter space complete with a sink, stove, oven, a cold cupboard, and a metal cupboard beneath the sink, “is the cooking area.” Half a dozen cupboards hang above the counter, none above the sink.

Just beyond the kitchen is a doorway leading to a wide hallway. A bathing room is to their left, a bedroom to their right. She opens the door to the bedroom wide and steps inside.

“This is your room. And Taemin’s, when he gets here.”

A bed sits just inside the open door with a closet entrenched in the wall beside the entrance, and an armoire sits across from the door. The bed itself rests on a patterned rug and faces a wide window that is covered in thin reed blinds that run parallel to the wooden floor. The bed is covered in white linens with a simple wood headboard that matches a pair of stands on either side, though the armoire is of a darker hue.

A large pile of boxes sits stacked beside the armoire and along the wall at the foot of the bed.

“My room?” Kibum asks curiously, stepping inside gingerly and looking around. The closet door sits open and is obviously empty. Eunsook assumes the armoire is equally so.

“I didn’t think sharing a room so early would be a good idea,” she answers carefully.

Kibum looks at her in confusion. “Last night…”

Eunsook chuckles as she shrugs. “It was the only sleeping bag I have.”

Kibum nods as he turns back to his inspections. With a hand on the closet door, he asks “You had a room already prepared?”

“In truth, it was a spare for when my sire comes to visit.”

“Where will he sleep now?” Kibum asks curiously.

“It will be dealt with when he comes in winter,” Eunsook answers. The look on Kibum’s face and the stiffness of his shoulders makes it clear that he is not satisfied with her answer.

He steps away from the closet door and she watches as he touches the armoire gingerly before opening the doors. The drawers are opened, the blinds tugged at, fingers brushed over the bedding. She watches it all in anticipation of a verdict because try as she might she can’t tell if he’s pleased with what she’s presented him with; he just seems overwhelmed.

He stops at the head of the bed, fingertips still on the covering and eyes cast down. “I don’t…” She holds her breath, waiting to hear what’s wrong and wondering if she’ll be able to make it right. “…know why I didn’t think…it didn’t occur to me…” Kibum stumbles over his words before finally looking up. “Thank you,” he gestures at the room, “for this.” Eunsook nods, grateful that what had been a neglected guest room less than a month ago has so easily been converted into a sleeping room for her unexpected mate.

“I am only sorry there is so little color,” she says apologetically, remembering what he’d said the evening before.

He shakes his head with a little laugh. “A blank canvas means it will be that much easier to make it my own.”

Eunsook laughs herself as she steps out into the hall. “This is your bathing room.” Kibum follows her out of the bedroom and crosses the hall to look inside the room she has gestured to.

The bathing room is large and airy with two beveled glass windows letting in sunlight. Tiny light gray octagon tiles dot the floor with large, deep blue square ones patterning the wall. A thriving green plant sits in a window sill beside a sink and an oval mirror. A tub and shower are encased in a nook with a silver curtain that hangs on matching hooks on a shiny steel rod. It is the room she is the proudest of, the most self-conscious of too, the last she had completed and only just so.

“Is it to your liking?” she asks self-consciously. It was designed with a specific person in mind, not just any guest.

“Yes,” Kibum says breathlessly, “it’s beautiful.” He turns to her then, brows furrowed in confusion. “You said this was my bathing room?”

“Yes,” Eunsook answers with a nod.

“Not yours?”

“No,” she says with a soft laugh. “I have my own in my own sleeping room.”

“Oh.” Eunsook watches him hesitate. “And where…”

“At the end of the hall.” Eunsook points to the door that sits closed, the one that crowns the other four. The first two are the bedroom and bathing room she has just shown Kibum. The third leads to a project yet unfinished, the fourth to a room she hasn’t yet shown Kibum because she is getting him the shower and soft bed she promised. He stares at the door too long to be comfortable and she finally asks if he’d like to see it. His eyes are wide when he looks up at her and he shakes his head.

“I was only wondering…”

“The equinox?” He nods, swallowing, looking back at the door.

“Yes. That is where…” Even she finds herself hesitating though she’s the one who pushed through the words when speaking with Jinki. “That is where we will spend the Equinox. Here are where the linens are stored,” she hurries on, pressing her hand to a panel in the wall that swiftly rises revealing shelves stocked with quilts blankets, bedding, and towels. She pulls a violet one from a shelf and hands it to him with what she hopes is a friendly smile, the tension between them now almost palpable and she doesn’t miss the way he quickly moves his fingers away when they accidentally brush hers. “Enjoy your shower.” They stand there awkwardly a beat too long before she turns and hurries back to the truck and the relief of the mindless chore of unpacking the supplies.

Eunsook has the truck unloaded when Kibum emerges from the hallway door. His hair is damp and his neck bare, a gray tunic matched with black pants and black slippers. It’s clear that he’s unaccustomed to his new hair length as it sits in a ruffled mess on his head, jostled and tucked and moved about, but ultimately unstyled. She herself had changed into a pair of loose pants and a short-sleeved shirt, an easy outfit while she waited for Kibum to return.

“Are you feeling better?” she asks tentatively, hopeful that the tension from before may have waned in the time they have spent apart.

“Yes, much. Thank you.” It’s not as convincing as he attempts, but the attempt is enough to bolster her hope further.

“Are you hungry?”

He nods. “A little, yes.”

“I know that a lot has happened quite suddenly within such a short time,” she begins slowly, “but I was wondering if you would like to have evening meal tonight in the city? I know a place-”

“Yes!” Kibum interjects eagerly, eyes bright.

“Good,” she says with a chuckle, relieved. “Let me bathe quickly and then we will leave.” He nods in agreement though it’s obvious he’s disappointed to have to wait. “You can begin to unpack, perhaps, in the meantime? Familiarize yourself with your room.” His eyes brighten again and he nods before hurrying down the hall.

Eunsook follows, glancing once as she passes, closing her door unfamiliarly behind her. The bathing room clouds with steam and she closes her eyes and lets the water fall over her shoulders, loosening muscles tight from driving for hours. Unlike Kibum, she had been awake for all eleven hours of their ride back and the adrenaline rush of travel was beginning to dissipate. At least things were well between them. Now all she had to do was keep the conversation going.

Her hair is braided and knotted at her nape when she emerges. Kibum is on the floor kneeling beside an open box, carefully making piles of garments when she knocks at his doorway.

“Are you ready?” He starts at the sound of her voice before nodding, standing up quickly and moving toward her. He’s at the door before she puts up a hand.

“Ah, you should finish dressing.”

He looks at her in confusion, looking down at the clothes he’s wearing. “What do you mean?”

There’s no gentle way of saying it, and yet she can’t bring herself to be blunt. “Ah…when we go out…when you go out…you-” Her hands ghost in front of her neck as she speaks. Suddenly his eyes widen and his hand slaps at his throat. He hurries past her to the bathing room and she listens to his footsteps click against the ceramic tiles, and then return to the wooden planks of the bedroom floorboards.

He’s beside her with the collar in his hands, eyes staring at it. When he looks up, his eyes are filled with confusion and a little fear.

“Do you put it on me? Or do I put it on from now?”

Without thinking, Eunsook laughs. “Apologizes,” she hurries to say when his head bows slightly. “You do.” Kibum nods and lifts the collar to his neck, brow furrowing in concentration as he attaches the clasp in the back. He shakes his head and looks at her with a tight smile.

“Ready.”

The ride to the tower she had chosen to take them to for their evening meal isn’t long, fifteen minutes, and soon Eunsook is parking in a lot that overlooks a lush park. Kibum’s eyes had widened when she’d pointed to where they were headed, and when he’d asked if it was very high up she’d shaken her head.

“There are higher towers. And don’t worry, we’re not going to the top floor.”

Now they ride side by side in an elevator with half a dozen other people and Kibum is growing stiffer as the numbers grow larger. Just as Eunsook is about to ask what’s wrong, their floor ‘dings’ and the doors open. She leads him out to the foyer where a breath-taking view of the city lies before them, the sun nearly set and painting the shimmering city lights in swaths of crimson, gold, and violet.

Suddenly, Kibum’s arms are gripped tight around her bicep and he’s shaking so violently she’s not sure he’s going to be able to stand much longer. A few chuckles from passersby distract her for a moment, a murmured, “Oh, isn’t that precious?” pulling her focus back to her mate.

“Kibum?”

“Yousadiitwasnthigh,” he whispers urgently, teeth nearly chattering.

“I didn’t think it was,” she says, placing a hand over his as she guides them slowly back to the elevators. They’re halfway down before he stops shaking, and they’re back at their parking level when he finally lets go.

Eunsook opens his door and lets him get seated before closing it tight. She takes the walk around the back of the truck to take a deep breath and blow it out through pursed lips. When she gets in, she turns to Kibum’s profile with a smile.

“Let us try again. I know a place that is flat to the floor that makes excellent soup. We’ll go there. Perhaps you’ll have forgiven me by then?”

He chuckles softly, his thumb rising to his lip. “Perhaps.”

The ride home is quiet yet calm. Kibum had in fact, to Eunsook’s relief, abruptly stated, “All is forgiven” as their meal had come to an end. Her spoon had been at and she had been so relieved that she had nearly knocked her nose with the soup. The action had caused him to laugh leaving another bit of the tension that had risen earlier to fall to the side.

Now the sound of the truck rumbling over the roads is the only noise, Kibum’s tired yawns a welcome distraction to Eunsook’s own tired mind.

When they pull into the drive, she’s halfway up the steps to the deck when she hears him murmur, “It’s so quiet here.” She looks around, the silence so familiar, ever since she was little, that it never crossed her mind to think it might be foreign to him.

~

Kibum marvels at the moon only a moment longer than he’d like, all too aware that Eunsook is waiting for him at the door. He hurries up the stairs and past her, stepping into the still unfamiliar home that smells so much of her.

“Is there anything you need before we go to bed?” she asks, slipping off her coat and hanging it on a hook that he hadn’t noticed when they’d arrived earlier that evening. It seems familiar in a way that takes him a moment to process, finally realizing that it’s identical to the one just inside the kitchen door at Taemin’s home. The question suddenly registers and a clench to his chest is immediately followed by relief when he remembers that she does not mean “to bed together”.

“No, thank you. I found everything I need while I waited to leave this evening.”

She nods and begins moving through the house, he following her as she leads the way, lights brightening and dimming in her wake.

When they reach the door to his bedroom she stops and smiles.

“Good night, Kibum. I will see you in the morning.”

“Good night, Eunsook.” He watches as she disappears down the hall, her bedroom door closing until there is only an inch left open. He steps into his own room, closing the door completely. Light streams through the window, moonlight covering the bed and floor. He had pulled the blinds up as high as they would go for just that purpose.

The collar he had nearly forgotten earlier in the evening he takes off and lays on the table beside the bed. From the clothes he had been organizing earlier he pulls a pair of sleep clothes, breathing in the smell of the Chois’ home that reminds him of Minho which reminds him of Taemin. He hurries out of the clothes he’s worn this evening, the ones that have begun to smell of Eunsook, and slips into the sleep clothes greedily.

He climbs on top of the bed and lies on his back, just as he had the night before, and stares out the window, at the moon and at the stars. When sleep takes hold, he is smiling.

Morning sunlight streams through the window onto Kibum’s face, burning his eyes. He squints them tight, fighting the intrusion into his dreams. Taemin’s face fades away as the scent of Eunsook grows strong. He blinks against the burn of the light and bites his lip when he remembers where he is.

Nothing that has happened so far matters in as much as this is his first morning in his new home. This is the day he takes hold as the bonded omega of the household. Of an alpha he has now known…thirty-six hours. He his lips and burrows his head beneath a pillow, wills the unfavorableness of the world away.

The sound of footsteps passing outside his door causes his breaths to stop as he listens intensely for any new noise. He can hear music and the quiet rumblings of a kitchen being used. It’s all muted and unfamiliar. After a minute, the warm scent of coffee wafts through the air and he pokes his head out from beneath the pillow to breathe it deeply.

Tentatively, he steps off of the bed, toes curling on the sun-warmed rug. He looks down at his sleep clothes and wonders if he should dress before stepping into the hallway. Before meeting with Eunsook. He decides he should and tugs out an outfit not dissimilar to what he had worn the other night. His hand is on the knob when he remembers his collar.

The same sunlight that woke him is pouring in through the windows of the front of the house and Eunsook is using it to read at the sofa when Kibum comes out. There is a cup of coffee in one hand and an authentic book in the other, and he can still hear music playing. There is no immediate move on her part to indicate that his presence has been noticed and he hesitates to make it known. Unlike himself, she is still in her sleep clothes, plaid pants and a short-sleeved shirt with her hair knotted up on top of her head.

Finally, he decides to wish her a good morning, walking through the cooking room and past the table and chairs to stand before her. It takes her a moment to look up, startled by the sound of another’s voice.

“Ah, Kibum. Good morning. How was your sleep?”

“It was fine. The sun woke me,” he answers awkwardly, pointing over his shoulder to the hallway he had stepped out of. She nods in understanding, glancing over at the windows that sunlight bursts through and onto the pages before her.

The book is placed page down on the sofa and she stands, the cup still in her hand as she asks, “Would you like a cup? Or something to eat?”

“I…,” Kibum stutters, “shouldn’t I be the one preparing morning meal?” Eunsook looks at him in amusement, already moving toward the cooking area.

“Why would that task fall to you?”

Kibum falters to draw up a response as he follows: The answer seems obvious. “Because…because I…”

“Because you are the omega?” Eunsook finishes as she reaches up into a cupboard, pulling down a set of bowls. Another cupboard opens and a pot appears. Another and a canister of oats is added. “I can no longer make meals because of you?” The wiggle of her eyebrows and the quirk of her smile has him giving an uncertain chuckle of his own.

“No, you cannot.” He makes no move to stop her, though, and she only laughs at his response. “And besides, you have made every meal so far. It seems unfair.”

“You are not familiar enough with my home to begin cooking meals, Kibum,” she points out, pouring water into the pot and adding the oats.

He frowns. “Then…teach me.” Turning a knob on the stove, Eunsook nods. “Watch what I do. We will start there. You are unfamiliar with my home entirely, other than your own rooms. After our meal I will remedy that.”

“Yes,” Kibum murmurs, watching closely as Eunsook stirs the oats in the pot with a spoon made of wood she pulled from another cupboard. “You will return to your trade eventually and I will be left alone. I will need to learn how to care for the home by myself.” He looks up when he sees Eunsook pause.

“Ah. Actually, I do much of my work here. I will not be gone as much as you think.”

“Oh.” There’s an awkward pause between them punctuated by the music still playing and the soft bubbling of the oats on the stove.

Without turning to him, Eunsook quietly asks, “Would you like berries or sweetener for your oats?”

He quickly answers, “Yes.”

When they sit at the table, their bowls steaming before them, a bottle of nectar between them and berries a deep blue in their oats, Eunsook suddenly nods, smiling encouragingly.

“Taemin will join you soon after the Time of Solitude comes to its conclusion. Join us, I mean. Once he arrives you will not be alone. And the seasons will change even sooner. You will be able to plant a garden, just as you had said you wanted. And travel to the river when it is warm enough to swim.”

Kibum his lips and nods. “Yes, of course.”

“I only mean,” she continues hastily, “that you will not have only the household to keep your attentions.”

Kibum shakes his head, laughing lightly. “I only meant that I want to know how to do the things that must be done to run a household. The things an omega should know how to do. And I will find ways of keeping busy, Eunsook. Do not worry about me becoming bored.”

She nods uncertainly. “Of course. It is only that I am often referred to as being dull with my singular hobbies. I am unsure of how to keep another in my company occupied.”

“I will not be in your company,” Kibum points out.

Eunsook laughs. “In my home.” He nods, taking a bite of the cooled oats. “Good?” He nods again, chewing as he thinks.

They eat their meal in quiet.

When Eunsook finishes, she takes her bowl and cup over to the black cupboard made of metal that sits beneath the sink. Kibum watches as she opens it and puts them both inside.

“What is that?” he asks curiously.

She’s wiping her hands on a towel and putting the pot in with the bowl and cup as she answers, “A machine that washes dishes.”

Kibum stands, his nearly empty bowl forgotten as he hurries to stand beside her. “It washes dishes?”

“Yes,” she answers, clearly amused by his enthusiasm, “Have you never seen one?”

He shakes his head. “I have not been in a kitchen since my grand dam became unliving. And we had no such thing in our own home, we washed all our dishes by hand.”

“Well since Tae-I…when I was designing I chose to make everything as functionally simple as possible. And if this excites you,” she says, closing the cupboard door and pressing a button. Kibum starts, taking a step back when the machine begins humming softly. She smiles, turning toward the hallway. “I think you will be interested with what I have to show you here.” He follows her down the hall, curious to see what else she has to show him.

They pass the door to his bedroom and bathing room, stopping at a panel just across from the door down the hall from his and not yet opened. She presses a hand to the panel and slides it open revealing a machine he recognizes.

“It washes clothes,” he says triumphantly. The clothing they had worn during the evening and morning after their Ceremony of Bonding sit in a woven basket on top waiting to be washed.

“Yes. It runs a bit differently than ones you have used or seen, though. Here.” She hands him the basket and opens the lid. “Put everything inside and do not worry about it being sorted. It will be fine.” He looks down uncertainly before turning the basket over and letting the clothing fall into the empty machine. “Now close the lid.”

“But-”

“Don’t worry,” she says calmly. He follows her instructions and starts when the machine begins to hum without any further actions.

“How did it do that? I did not press any settings and there was no cleanser added.”

The same panel that had slid open now slides shut beneath Eunsook’s palm and it seems as though nothing has changed. “The machine can sense what is to be cleaned and how. And the cleanser is added automatically. There is a repository that it is pulled from.”

Kibum frowns in confusion, head shaking. “How do you know that there is enough?”

“The machine will signal when it is low.”

He turns back to the panel, still frowning. “How are the clothes dried? I saw no lines in the yard...”

Eunsook smiles proudly. “The machine does that as well.”

Kibum turns then, clearly amazed. “So much in one small machine. And so quiet.”

“I thought since Tae-” Eunsook stops, coughs and smiles. “It seemed a wise investment. It gets very cold here. And I get distracted with my work and lose track of time. My clothes might freeze in winter just from being forgotten.”

“You said you do your work here?” Kibum asks. He points to the closed door just behind them. “Is that your office?”

“Ah. Yes. Here, let me show you.” The door opens up onto a room with a desk covered in papers with drawings and outlines, a few tablets with black screens scattered about. “Actually, this is the spare room. I have been using it as an office of sorts while I get the sketches for my actual office done. For now, much of my work is done here. I plan to begin building after the spring equinox and finishing before the summer solstice. Once I do, this will all be moved out and the room will be…” Eunsook pauses and Kibum freezes, suddenly realizing what she isn’t saying. This isn’t a spare room, not any longer and perhaps it never was. If it was not intended to be her office, despite her living alone, and if she has not built one until now then this room had a purpose and an unbound alpha would not need a spare room when an office was in need. The Covenant she had been in: She had prepared for the omega’s arrival. He knows what the room will be used for, what it is now intended for. And the mention of the equinox and the solstice sends a shiver up his spine. “We’ll see. Come, there is more to show you.”

~

Eunsook doesn’t miss the way Kibum responds to the mention of the equinox and solstice and she regrets marking the days of construction in that manner. It is only that those were the markings with which she had done so in her own mind, and they had not yet been altered in consideration for her bond mate’s feelings.

He knows what the room will be used for, of that she is sure. What it was always intended for when it was only going to be her and Taemin in the home. The question of young was never a question when it was she and her soul bond living together: They would have them. With Kibum, though, with how new they are to each other, it is too early to even fathom speaking on: A day and a half is not enough time to ask another to bear one’s young. And it is not a request she is ready to make in any matter.

They step out into the hall and the choice is made at the last moment to offer her room for his viewing. A part of her does not want to share that piece of her home with a stranger. Kibum, however, is her bond mate and will be in that room in the most intimate of ways in six days. It is better that she shows him now when they can both choose to be present.

“Would you like to see my room before we continue? You do not have to. I only thought you might like to see it before the equinox arrives.” Kibum flinches, eyes guarded though he only nods and follows.

Her bedroom is set up identically to the one she had shown him the night before, though with an extra window that faces the opposite side of the house and no armoire. It is decorated in shades of lavender, white, and pale gray; calming colors. He stays in the doorway, looking around the small space that Eunsook spends her nights in and she looks around as well wondering how different his view of her room might be from her own.

He points to a door just beyond her bed and asks, “What is that?”

“My bathing room,” she answers self-consciously, though she had already explained that she had one attached to her room.

“Of course,” he says quietly. “You said that.”

She nods, waiting for any other words. When none immediately follow, she abruptly blurts out, “Would you like to see it?”

He raises his brows. “Your bathing room?” The incredulity of his tone has her chuckling and she shakes her head.

“I must confess, Kibum, that I am at a loss. I think we are both uncomfortable. Perhaps it is better that we go and I can amaze you with more of the machinations of my home?” She tucks a non-existent strand of hair behind her ear and smiles hopefully. He laughs and nods as he turns to lead them back down the hall.

To her relief, Kibum is quickly distracted by the system for cleaning the kitchen floors, startling him up onto a chair with their suction. More than once, in her explanation of how a network of solar panels energizes most of her home, and how much of the appliances work off of some form of touch pad technology, Eunsook finds herself inadvertently slipping Taemin’s name into the conversation. “I didn’t want Tae-”; “I thought that Tae-”; “It was for Tae-”. If Kibum catches the pattern he never shows it, his interest seeming only to lie in learning more of how the home he will now live in runs. For that Eunsook is grateful.

“These are the harvests from my garden,” she says, opening a cupboard and pointing to a series of mismatched jars lined up on a shelf. “As you can see, it is not much, just enough for myself for some of the autumn and winter. A little bit of my own along with what I purchase from the markets.”

Kibum points to a small jar full of something dark. “Are those night berries?”

“Yes. The same as those we’ve had with our morning meals these last two mornings. That will be my last jar, sadly,” Eunsook answers with a sigh.

He looks at her in wonder. “You grew them yourself?”

“Most of them,” she confirms. “A few are from my sire.” She chuckles. “He sends me a small crate at the end of each harvest with a letter. I would not be surprised if one arrives in the following weeks with a congratulatory message on our bonding.”

“Ah,” Kibum answers distractedly. Suddenly his eyes light up. “Golden roots! I have not seen those in ages! My grand dam and I grew those in the village where I was raised, but we could not get them to grow in Minho’s city.”

“Come,” Eunsook says, already marching toward the door. “We should go look at the garden as it sits and you can plan in your mind what you would like to plant when the weather warms.”

“It is not too late in the season to plant some roots or gourds,” Kibum protests as he follows her through the main room toward the door.

“No,” she agrees, stepping out onto the patio and waiting for him to join her, “but the garden is at present mine and the soil would need to be tilled and marked for you to begin planting. And it will be a cold winter, I think, and anything planted after the equinox would not thrive.” This time she turns away before she can see his reaction, knowing already that it will not be a joyful one. She takes the stairs two at a time and leads him to the patch of earth that she has cleared for growing and watches with pride at the awe with which he marvels at her handiwork.

With a teasing smile, he turns to her. “You said you were afraid you would forget your laundry yet you have managed to remember a garden so well.”

“One is much more interesting than the other,” she answers with a laugh.

The garden is not vast though it is not as modest as she claims either. Many hours have been spent building it up because gardening is something that she loves to do. It reminds her of her dam and of her sire, it is a thing that she loves and derives pleasure from. It is also something that she knows that Taemin will never be a part of, at least not directly. And yet Kibum will. “Those are the trees I was telling you of,” she says, pointing to a small orchard. A variety of fruit trees, most with barren branches, sit nobly in the sunlight.

“You have so much,” Kibum says in awe, “why would you ever go to a market?”

“Oats,” Eunsook answers easily. “Nectar, bread, things of that sort.”

Kibum frowns. “What do you do with all the excess? There truly is so much.” Eunsook shrugs. “Trade. Barter. Gifts. Gifts, mostly. Homemade preserves are often welcome gifts. My clients often appreciate the extra touch. A lot can be done with small favors.”

“Will I be allowed kitchen privileges?” Kibum asks curiously.

“Of course,” Eunsook laughs. “Why wouldn’t you?”

He tilts his head. “I am already having to share the garden. I only wanted to be sure I would be able to share the kitchen as well when the time came to make such things.”

“When the time comes to make such things, you can have the kitchen for as long as it takes to make them. As long as you allow me a little time to make a few jars of my own.”

He glances at her, his thumb coming up to rest against his lip. “If you insist.”

She laughs again, shaking her head. “Come inside,” she says as she begins walking back toward the house. “There is one last room to show you and then we should prepare to leave.”

“Leave?” Kibum repeats curiously as he follows behind. “To go where?”

Eunsook marches up the steps and presses her palm to the door, pushing it open and waving Kibum inside. “The market. We should go today so that you can see where it is and what it is like. If you want to learn to run this household, you should know what will need to be bought and where to find it. Now, this is the main room,” she says, gesturing to the space they now stand in. It is the area just inside the doorway. Whereas the floor of the doorway itself, and that of the kitchen after, is a warm wood, the main room has a rich carpet that reminds Kibum of the type that lies across the floor of the main room of Taemin’s home.

He moves to the center of the room and turns slowly, admiring the bookcase full of books, the sofa Eunsook had sat on earlier, the tables beside it, the deep purple chair across from it, and the bright windows still pouring in late summer light.

“You have no images on your walls,” he notes.

“No,” Eunsook answers with a shake of her head.

He looks again at the bookcase and the tables beside the sofa. “None framed and set out either.”

“No,” she repeats. “Does this surprise you?”

“No, it is only…” He looks over at her curiously. “Are you opposed to them?”

Eunsook tilts her head in thought. “I am not fond of them. I would not want them in the main room, if that is what you are asking.”

Kibum nods. “In my own room then? Would that be acceptable?”

“Of course,” Eunsook says with a laugh. “That room is yours to do with as you wish.”

Kibum glances down the hall with a slight frown. “What of the bathing room?”

To that she shakes her head. “That would require more of a conversation. I don’t think you would want framed images in there, besides. If you want to change something in any of the rooms other than your own, we can discuss it.”

Kibum nods again. He turns to her with a smile, biting his lip briefly. “Before we leave, might I try to make our afternoon meal? Something simple. A soup, maybe.”

Eunsook hesitates long enough for him to quickly add, “Or a sandwich, perhaps. Whatever you think I might be capable of given how little I know. And I should be the one to put away the dishes once the machine has finished. The laundry as well?”

“Kibum…”

“Please?”

In the end, Eunsook stands to the side, giving nods of encouragement and a quick bracing of an arm across the clothes washer when Kibum’s movements would have caused them both more harm than good.

He makes them an afternoon meal of golden root salad with a sandwich made of nut butter and a dollop each of Eunsook’s night berry preserves.

“Is it alright?” he asks nervously as she takes the first bites.

“I’m eating it, aren’t I?” she answers casually, taking a drink of the milk she had watched him pour into a glass before her. His shoulders visibly droop and he presses a thumb to his lip before picking up a fork. She watches a few moments before chuckling. “Kibum?”

He doesn’t look up. “Hmm?”

“Kibum this is a very good meal. Thank you for making it for us.” He smiles shyly and takes a bite of his own salad.

They’re halfway through the meal and Eunsook has a list half-formed in her head when Kibum quietly says, “You do not thank the Ancients before your meals.”

Eunsook shakes her head, swallowing a bite of her sandwich. “No, I do not.”

“Is that…is that another thing we need to have a conversation about? Like framed images?”

“I think we are having it now, are we not?” Kibum nods, quickly taking a bite of his salad and chewing it thoughtfully. “You want to know if it is allowed? Or if it is permitted only in your room?” He looks at her as he finishes chewing, swallows, and then nods. “It is. I am not accustomed to sharing my meals, and when I do I am not accustomed to being the elder, the one to lead in giving thanks. And I did not know what your thoughts were.”

“Shall I share them now?”

Eunsook laughs at the timidity with which Kibum asks his question. “Unless you would like to postpone the conversation?”

“No,” he answers, laughing self-consciously. “I would like to give thanks. The Chois did not, but my grand dam always did. And I have missed doing so aloud.”

Eunsook nods decisively. “Then we will begin from evening meal.”

Kibum nods as well, murmuring, “Thank you,” as he takes a last bite of his salad.

~

Kibum waits in the main room for Eunsook to join him. He is ready for their trip to the market but she is not, never having noticed that she was still in her sleep wear the entire time they had spent together. It was only when she had finished overseeing his cleaning up of their afternoon meal that she realized she was not dressed and had left him to ready herself for the ride into town.

Not the city, she had explained, when he had begun growing anxious, the outskirts. “Closer in size to where Minho lives,” she had explained as she disappeared down the hall. At the closing of her door he had remembered his collar and hurried to put it on before taking the seat in the purple chair he now sits on in the main room.

It is not a long wait and soon she is leading him to the truck parked near the foot of the stairs at the base of the deck.

“Is there anything you would like while we are there? A sweet, perhaps?” she asks as they pull out of the gravel drive onto the paved road. He doesn’t recognize any markers, having been asleep when they’d arrived yesterday evening. The trees that surround Eunsook’s house begin to fade the further they go. As they pick up speed, they travel downhill and from his seat Kibum can see glimpses of a city through the waning foliage. “Kibum?”

“Hmm?”

“Is there anything you would like while we are at the market?”

“Nothing that I can think of. Everything that I need I found last night.” A thought crosses his mind and he stiffens, jaw clenching. “Unless there is something I might need for the equinox?” The truck pulls to a stop at a passing, traffic crossing in front of them.

“No,” Eunsook says quietly, her eyes on the traffic coming toward them. “Everything is taken care of.”

The market is unremarkable, smaller than the ones he had visited with his cousin when he had stopped by to shop for Kibum and his grand dam. Smaller even than the one Minho had taken himself, Jongin, and Taemin to once before he was of age and they were all still young to buy them cool treats on a hot day.

Eunsook chooses everything and Kibum agrees to it all, no choice to which he has any aversion. When she asks him if he’d like a sweet he looks at her incredulously and without thinking replies, “You must think me so young.” A pained look flickers across her eyes.

“No, it’s only that I usually get one for myself and thought you might like one as well. We won’t be coming back for at least a week, maybe two. What we have in our basket and at the house is all that we will have. A treat for the road might be fun.”

He shakes his head in regret. “Apologies, I-”

“No formalities, Kibum,” Eunsook mumbles, looking around, “it is not necessary. Now, would you like something before we leave?”

“A drink would be nice,” he answers quietly. “Or whatever you are having.” She nods and he follows, nodding himself when she points to a glass bottle on a rack.

They stand behind an elderly alpha who is slow to load his items onto the half-moon counter, slower still to make his way to the clerk waiting patiently. Kibum looks down at the basket and the drink inside and up at Eunsook’s profile. The elderly alpha takes his small bag and walks away.

Eunsook places their basket on the half-moon counter and Kibum watches it rotate toward the clerk as he follows Eunsook to stand in front of them. The clerk and Eunsook exchange pleasantries, though neither acknowledge Kibum directly. A pad he had not seen from where he & Eunsook had stood before sits on a high counter before them and he watches in fascination as Eunsook presses her palm against it, the black screen suddenly lighting up beneath her touch. The clerk thanks them for their patronage and then they are leaving the store with bags of their own.

Kibum waits until they return to her truck, the bags tucked away in the back seat, and his safety belt tightly fastened to offer his thanks, the drink she had chosen held tightly in his fisted hands.

“Of course,” she demurs with a smile.

They’re at the passing from before, traffic crossing briefly. Eunsook looks again past Kibum before turning onto the quick road and away from the town. They ride in quiet with Eunsook tapping her fingers absently at the wheel & Kibum watching the passing scenery & slow fade from the city to a quiet countryside.

Abruptly, he turns to her and asks, “Is that how all payments are made?”

Eunsook glances over at him, brows furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Payments. I’ve never seen one before.”

“You’ve never…,” she glances at him again. “How have you purchased things in the past?”

“I haven't,” Kibum retorts, surprised by the ignorance of her question. “Unbound omegas aren’t permitted. A cousin did all of the purchasing for my grand dam and I, the Chois for me after she became unliving. I was never there to witness the payments, though. Not even when Minho took us to the markets once. Is that how it always is?”

“Yes,” Eunsook answers, brows still furrowed. “In the city, at least. The farther away you get the easier it is to barter or trade. In the towns and cities, though, that is how payments are made.”

“Ah,” Kibum sighs in wonderment, leaning back in his seat. They’re pulling onto the gravel drive when he hears her say, “You will be able to make purchases now. The same pad that scanned my palm will scan your wrist.”

“My wrist?”

“Yes.”

Kibum shifts the bottle so that it’s held tightly in one hand so that he can twist his left arm and better see the mark left by Eunsook’s bite two days ago. The bright red of its earlier shade has begun to fade to a dark pink. He’s so focused on the imprint of Eunsook’s teeth in his arm that he does not notice when the truck comes to a stop.

“That is how bonded omegas make purchases when their alphas are not with them.”

Eunsook’s door opens and he catches the sound of a bag crinkling behind him, another joining in. Her door slam shuts and he hurries out of the truck to follow her toward the stairs. Stepping out, Kibum is struck again by how quiet it is. Eunsook’s home isn’t that far from the city, but the driveway to it is long, and they are far enough away from the road to give the illusion of great solitude, especially in the crisp September air.

“Why wouldn’t their mate be with them?”

Eunsook shrugs as she reaches the door, pressing it open and leaning against it to let Kibum inside. He takes a bag from her as he makes his way toward the kitchen.

“Many reasons. There are shops that cater exclusively to omegas where alphas are not permitted, for example. Also, alphas often simply do not want to accompany their mates on errands such as shopping in the markets.” She shakes the bag in her hands gently for emphasis, the paper crinkling. “I am not one of them, though I am willing to let you take charge on occasion if it turns into a task you’d prefer to undertake alone. Just as long as you allow me to add on an item or two to your list.”

Kibum chuckles. “I will see what I can do. These shops that cater to omegas; What kinds are they?”

Eunsook laughs, emptying the bag and wordlessly directing Kibum in emptying his. “Salons, tea shops, eateries, film houses with selective screenings, gated parks, to name a few. Having never gone to them, I cannot tell you specifically where all of them are. I only know that they exist.”

“And will I…” Kibum chuckles, pressing a thumb to the bottom of his lip as he leans against a counter. “Well, why would you tell me of their existence if you were going to keep me from them?”

Eunsook watches him quietly, her eyes softened by a tender smile. “We will find where they are and you will go. We won’t be able to until after the equinox, though,” she says gently. “Not because I want to keep you from knowing, but because of the Time of Solitude affects the information I can access, especially this close. Once it has passed, however, we will look for them and I will take you to whichever one you choose.”

“Only one?” Kibum teases nervously.

Eunsook chuckles. “Well. Perhaps two.”

Another day passes much like the first, mostly in the gentle companionship of strangers who have met and have no reason to dislike each other yet, finding only the good or neutral in one other in the short time they’ve been given. Only the reminder of the approach of the equinox ever causes any tension so they neither of them mention it this one day it is not necessary to do so. Not mentioning it means that it is always at the edge of their thoughts, remembering that they are purposing to forget to remember that their time is slipping away. Still, they try, and in the moments they manage to forget, they find themselves not wholly uncomfortable with each other.

Their unfamiliarity shows in small ways, though. Kibum carries all of his clothes into the bathing room with him and dresses in the steamy air. Eunsook twice forgets that Kibum is there and even at afternoon meal begins to prepare food only for one. They walk outdoors, a closer look at the garden and the fruit trees. Eunsook describes the house she has built down by the river and points at the bundle of trees, which look no larger than a bouquet of flowers, marking its general location.

The offer is made to take him for a ride there, or to the city or to town, or just to have the crisp near-autumn air blow through their windows as they drive nowhere in particular. He declines for reasons he cannot explain and so he does not try. Instead, he retraces their steps from yesterday and relearns everything again so that he is certain he understands it.

Morning and afternoon meal Eunsook forgets that they had spoken of giving thanks to the Ancients, but at evening meal, without Kibum having ever mentioning it, she does so with an amber tone. He listens with a little smile, caught in the moment, eyes open though they should not be, cast to the table as he listens to the prayer he has not heard for so many months. When she finishes he thanks her. It does not cross his mind that by doing so he has made the circle complete.

Evening comes and they go to their separate rooms after tiredly murmuring a “good evening” to each other. Kibum changes into his bed clothes and lies down upon the bedding, his window uncovered as it has been each night.

The moon has grown fuller in just the two nights he has slept under Eunsook’s roof, fuller tonight even. It mesmerizes him. That and the silence.

When Kibum had lived with his grand dam in the village where she raised him it had been a quiet neighborhood, but there had still been noise. A few animals down the road, the occasional late-night motorist, neighbors who had forgotten the hour and were still talking late into the night. Even the Chois, who lived in a secluded neighborhood on the edge of town had some distractions in the night, though it too was quiet there, far away from the noise and bustle of the city, and much closer to the cool and calm of the woods.

It’s the darkness, he realizes, sitting up. There’s no artificial light to warring against what is glowing naturally in the night sky. He walks to the window and rests his arms on the ledge, looking up. Stars sparkle all around a sky that is blacker than any he has ever seen: He is not accustomed to such darkness.

On a whim, he steps gingerly around his bed and towards the door, pressing slowly on the handle before pulling it open. He leans his head out to look up the hall towards Eunsook’s own door. It's partly open, as she always leaves it, and he thinks he can hear the bed creak softly beneath her.

He counts to twenty to see if he hears anything again, and when he doesn't, he turns the opposite way and heads down the hall towards the kitchen. He passes the dining table and turns when he reaches the sofa. The windows of the alcove face the trees beside it and he leans on them with both hands to look up into the night.

The stars sparkle in the sky, tiny diamonds on a ream of velvet. The moon blazes beside them in a spectacle of glory all its own. Even clearer than what he could see in his room, and yet still not enough. Kibum's seen stars before, sometimes even as clearly as he can see them now. The last time was with Taemin when they laid in Taemin’s bed playing with each other’s fingers waiting for their next visit to the heat houses. Now, though, he stares at them in wonder in a home he now shares with an alpha that he is bonded to, Taemin nearly a day’s journey away.

On impulse, he turns and head towards the door, pulls it open, and steps out onto the deck and into the blackness.

The air is sharp, biting cold. He doesn’t feel it enough to step back inside. Instead, he takes the stairs down to the yard and a few steps away from the house so that he can stare up at the sky with nothing between him and the stars.

“So beautiful,” he murmurs. He wraps his arms tight around his waist and watches as the moon moves slowly in the sky above him, the earth rotating gently away. There’s something more than celestial beauty pulling him out into the dark night. He can feel it. Instinctively he knows that it is in some way tied to the equinox and his impending heat. The thought sends a shiver up his spine. As long as he can stand it, he pushes it away and stands in the cold to watch the stars. It’s when his teeth start chattering that he knows he must go back inside, surprised when he begins walking to discover that he had gone out in bare feet.

The wood stairs are cool under his toes as he climbs back up, arms still tight around his waist. He reaches for the door and realizes then that he does not know how to open it.

Eunsook had been the one to do so every time they had gone indoors and every time she had had it open already by the time he reached it. Looking at it now, he’s startled to discover that it has no handle for him to grasp. In the moonlight, he leans in and peers at the molding around the door frame itself. A panel appears and he presses it. Nothing happens and he begins to panic.

The door is locked and he’s trapped on the deck out in the dark and cold.

“There must be something,” he mutters, patting again at the molding and finding nothing but the panel he had already tried. He bites his lip and tries not to cry the tears of frustration beginning to burn in his eyes.

He presses the panel again and leaves his palm there, remembering how the payment pad had lit up beneath Eunsook’s hand at the market. It remains dark and silent. He takes a few steps back and looks down the deck to where Eunsook’s window sits at the very far end of the house, too far for him to reach by any method. He bites his lip again as he steps forward and presses the pad a third time. To his relief, a small circle turns red and stays. There is no sound, but at least there has been some response to his actions. He hugs his arms across his chest and tucks his fists beneath his biceps and hopes that there will be a response from inside as well.

Enough time passes that he begins to shake from the chill and there’s no one at the door. He’s about to lean in again when the kitchen light suddenly glows through its window down at the other end of the house and he swallows anxiously when he hears the click of door opening.

Eunsook stands before him bleary-eyed. She wears an over-sized mauve shirt paired with mauve and black plaid flannel pants. The hair that he has only once seen her wear down in their three days together is so now, ebony waves tousled and touching her elbows. She sways a little to the side as she blinks. “Junghee?”

“No,” Kibum replies with chattering teeth, frowning in confusion and fear. Her hand is still on the door and she’s braced the other against the door frame: He can’t get in until she moves. Eunsook blinks a few times before leaning in and squinting at him. “Kibum?”

He nods quickly. “Yes.”

“What are you doing outside?”

Kibum swallows, blinking back the frustrated tears that are threatening again to spill. “Looking at the stars. And the moon. May I come in?”

She nods sleepily, stepping aside. He’s taken one step across the deck when her eyes open wide. “Oh! Kibum! Come on! Get inside, you must be freezing!” The door is pulled all the way open and she waves him in briskly. He hurries the three steps across the deck and then through the doorway into the living room. It’s lit by the light of the kitchen and he watches her shut the door again. “Are you alright? Here. Take this.” A blanket that she had been curled up in earlier that evening, a book in hand and a cup of tea in the other, she pulls up off the sofa and quickly tucks it around his shoulders like a cape. “Are you alright?” she asks again. “Were you out there very long? I can make you tea.” She begins to turn toward the kitchen and he quickly shakes his head.

“I am alright. It was not long, no. I was just frightened. The door would not open for me.”

Eunsook nods, chewing on her lip a moment before sighing. “No, it wouldn’t. Not for anyone but myself. The panel is imprinted. Only mine will unlock the door.”

Kibum’s eyes widen. “Then I can never unlock it?”

“No,” Eunsook laughs awkwardly, a hand rising to rub at the nape of her neck, “that is not it at all. That is not how it will be. You will be imprinted as well. We just have not done it yet. Many of the shops are closing in preparation for the equinox. And, of course, I could not have you imprinted before we were bonded. Apologies for not explaining earlier. I didn’t think to mention it. I did not think it would ever come up.”

“I did not mean to inconvenience you this night,” Kibum answers tightly, tugging the blanket close. “Apologies of my own.”

“Oh, Kibum,” Eunsook sighs. “The fault was mine. Let us leave it at that. Was the moon very beautiful? And the stars as well?”

“Yes, quite.”

Eunsook shakes her head. “I do not believe you.”

Kibum frowns, fists tightening. “I-what?”

“No,” she says, moving toward the door and stepping into a pair of gardening boots. She picks up Kibum’s shoes and lays them on the ground before him. Standing up, she adds, “You are going to have to show me.” Kibum’s eyes narrow as he watches her slip into the coat she had hung on the familiar hook just inside the door.

“Am I to wear the blanket?”

Eunsook shrugs. “If you like. Or you can put on your own coat. And then the blanket on top. Either way, I want to see the stars as well.”

A part of Kibum wants to fight, to argue, to point out that she doesn’t need him to stand out in her own yard and look up at the night sky. It is a tiny, fractured part born out of the fear he’d felt alone in the dark, and eclipsed by warmth of Eunsook’s smile from the doorway when she says, “Hurry!” She’s doing this for him and she doesn’t have to. He does want to go back out and look up at the sky, but he doesn’t want to go back out alone. And now he won’t be. He nods, handing her the blanket so that he can slip on his own coat and step into his shoes. He takes it back and bundles himself tightly within its thick folds.

Her hand at the door, she asks, “Ready?”

With a quick nod he answers, “Yes.”

~

Eunsook wakes up knowing she needs to talk to Kibum. The wall stares back at her blankly as she rubs a hand at her chest and thinks of her dam. There were so many moments in their brief time together where the refrain “Lead well and lead wisely” were whispered into her young ears and she is now met with a scenario where that guidance is sorely needed.

And the overriding ache of a lost dam causes her eyes again to close.

What might her dam give as advice now? Or rather, what would she have given before the Ceremony of Bonding had taken place? As it is, what Eunsook has are Junghee’s words and her own memories of Junghee’s eyes the days after that first solstice together. Eunsook is an alpha, though, and she knows what that means. And now she must explain it to Kibum, if he does not understand it already.

And she does not think he does. Because she had seen the way he looked at the sky the night past and she had felt the pull of the moon herself. There are still two moonlit nights between Eunsook lying in her bed thinking of their mating cycle and when Kibum will be in that bed with her.

She opens her eyes again and stares at the wall.

When she steps out into the hallway, the smell of a meal being prepared meets her nose. She sniffs tentatively as she follows the scent to the kitchen where her bond mate stands beside the stove. A simple meal of oats is cooking. “Good morning,” she says softly, hoping that her presence does not disturb him. He seemed frantic in the night, though calmed by her arrival at the door, and positively at peace when they had returned inside. That was beneath the moonlight and now it is in the stark of a morning light that she looks upon his face. He turns to her with a smile that is almost sheepish, a bit self-conscious.

“Good morning,” is his own reply. “I began morning meal. It is only oats, though. I thought something simple would be a good start to begin practicing to care for the home.”

She nods encouragingly, regretting the loss of the night berries the day before. “Oats are good. They are often what I have. Perhaps we could have some pears chopped in with a little nectar? I will go pull some from one of the trees.” He nods as she walks away. At the door, she slips on her coat and steps into the boots she wears for gardening, keeping her eyes low as she steps outside.

The air is brisk and she does not hurry across the yard to the fruit trees. There is a rush but she is avoiding it as much as she can. It is a conversation that must be had but she is not the one who should be having it. Or rather, she does not want to have it. It is, however the topic that has caused the only tension in their brief time of knowing one another. It is also the topic that must be addressed soon. Their actions will soon overtake their words.

Kibum smiles with gratitude and dismisses her offer to slice the fruit. Instead, he hands her a cup of coffee, eyes suddenly widening as he gasps, muttering, “Apologies. I did not ask how you enjoy your drink.”

“Kibum-”

“I know,” he hurries on, bustling through the kitchen and searching through the cupboards, “no formalities.”

Two cupboard doors bang closed and a third opens as Eunsook stifles a laugh. “Yes, true, but I only meant to say that I drink my coffee with brown sugar. The cubes are in a glass jar in the second cupboard beside the coffee.” Eunsook presses the knuckles of a fist to to keep from laughing as Kibum quietly repeats her instructions, finding the jar and carrying it to her as though it were filled with precious objects rather than simple sugar. “Thank you.” He nods, rubbing at his neck absently and she frowns slightly when she sees that he is wearing his collar. “You do not have to wear that. There is no need when we are alone.” Kibum looks down and then turns away, his hand dropping to his side.

He turns back to the oats and stirs them with a wide wooden spoon. “I understand. Please, have your drink. I will say when the food is finished.” He stands with his back to her in a manner that seems somehow sad and defeated. It has to have been the collar, but it seems an odd thing for him to become despondent over. Eunsook thinks to say something more when the sudden thought of what the collar currently covers bursts into her head. To thwart the thought from growing, she takes a steep drink.

Eunsook lets their morning meal pass without broaching the subject of the equinox. After they eat, she watches from the deck as Kibum moves about the garden, taking visual measurements and calling out questions to Eunsook. He walks through the fruit trees, moving in and out of her line of sight, coming back with a smile, shirt held out and filled with a small pile of ripened fruit. “For our morning meals!” he calls as he walks across the yard to her.

Their mid-day meal passes in a similar fashion with Kibum again preparing and Eunsook being left to observe. This time, as Kibum finishes clearing their dishes, she catches his attention just as he closes the dishwasher.

“Kibum.” It is only his name but somehow the way she says it seems to set him on edge. Before her eyes, he turns from an omega happy to have finished their domestic task to an omega cowering in submission before their alpha. She despises it. “It is time that we spoke of the equinox.” He nods and places the towel in his hand on the counter, walking meekly to where she sits at the kitchen table and taking a seat across from her. He keeps his eyes on the table. “We do not have much time left,” she begins, “and I wanted to let you know that I am anxious as well. If there is anything I can do or anything you need to know-”

“Will it hurt?” His eyes stay cast down and his voice is so soft. Eunsook blinks and tilts her head in confusion. “Will what hurt?” Kibum’s mouth opens and closes, his eyes suddenly falling shut. The struggle to ask his question has him digging his nails into his palms and Eunsook frowns. When he opens his eyes, they turn quickly back to the table. “What is it?” she asks, growing concerned. He his lips and looks back up, taking a deep breath.

“A knot.” Eunsook’s brows furrow further. “A…what were you told?”

Kibum looks at her warily. “Told?”

She nods. “Of mating. Of a heat with an alpha. Of a first heat with an alpha.”

Kibum’s frowning, beginning to look frightened. “I…why would a first heat be different?”

Eunsook’s heart begins to beat in her chest, her stomach dropping. “Did no omega speak to you of this before the bonding?”

Kibum shakes his head slowly. “No.”

Eunsook sighs and shifts in her seat, eyes closing and the bridge of her nose pinched between two fingers. “Ancients,” she breathes out. “So, you know nothing.” Her eyes burst open in a sudden panic. “Were you at least seen by a healer before the ceremony?”

Kibum blushes, leaning back slightly. “I was,” he assures her. “And I do know a little. There is…a knot.”

“Yes,” she sighs, looking up. “There is a knot.” She takes a deep breath and looks back down at her mate. “What else do you know?” Eunsook watches as Kibum begins to fold in on himself.

“Alphas…you…” He swallows heavily before barely whispering, “A bite.”

Eunsook sighs from across the table, her heart breaking. “No, it won’t hurt. Knots do not hurt. The end of the cycle, of the whole cycle, will leave you exhausted and sore, though. Especially the first one. And the bite may hurt for another day or more.” Kibum’s eyes widen and his knuckles begin to turn white from the crescents of his fingernails digging into his palms. Eunsook sits up and leans back, arms crossed tightly across her chest and one leg thrown over the other, ankle tapping against the other calf. “An omega should have explained this to you. A guardian or an Avowed. There are…alphas are not the ones to explain a first heat to an omega.”

To her surprise, Kibum puffs in indignation at her words. “I have had heats before.”

Eunsook watches him thoughtfully. “What were they like?” she asks softly.

He seems perplexed by the question and a bit of the indignation fades. “They were…they were normal.”

Nodding, she presses on. “What did you during your heats?”

“I went to the heat houses,” he answers with a single shoulder shrug.

“When?”

His eyes narrow and his tone is cautious when he asks, “What do you mean?”

“Only just,” Eunsook sighs, tapping her leg, “how soon before your heat did you go?”

“The morning before,” Kibum answers confidently.

“And how long would you stay?”

“We stayed until the afternoon after.”

“Then it was for two night and three days that you were under the care of the Avowed in the heat houses?”

“Yes.”

Eunsook nods, slowly beginning to understand what Kibum may think his heat might be like. “And what did you do during those hours?”

“The Avowed brought us drinks that made us sleep.”

She raises a brow, a bemused smile at her lips. “For two nights and three days?” He nods quickly. “You slept in beds?”

He’s quick to scoff at her question. “Of course.”

“Were you in these beds alone?”

“The beds were in a room together,” he explains. “There were many rooms with many beds. Taemin’s village is too small to have their own heat house. He and Jongin go to the one in Minho’s city. That is the one that I go…that I went to as well.”

“So,” Eunsook begins, skipping over Kibum’s misstep, “you have never been awake for a heat?”

Kibum shakes his head. “No.”

Eunsook sighs and her leg, that has been tapping the entire time they spoke, stills.

“That is not what will happen.”

Kibum’s voice is very quiet when he asks, “What will?”

“The same fevers that were treated with drink will take hold. They will be stronger now that you are bonded. And your body will respond to my scent in ways that will confuse you. The same will happen with me. The knot will not hurt, Kibum, but…” She pauses, uncertain how to explain to the omega before her what she, the alpha, will do to him in so few days. And what he will do to himself. “You may be hurt, Kibum. No, that is not true. You will be hurt, Kibum. How much depends on how willing you are.”

Eunsook watches as Kibum leans back looking absolutely terrified. “Willing?”

“Omegas fight the alpha their first heats. Always. Whether they have known each other for ten years or ten days. The intensity of the struggle may depend on those factors, but the fact remains that there will be a fight.”

“No,” Kibum argues, shaking his head, “I won’t fight.”

“Kibum. It’s a frightening thing, to be so vulnerable to another person. Especially an omega in heat, a true heat for the first time presented with an alpha in rut. Ruts are intense, they can be dark. And the omega’s response is built up over generations. It has nothing to do with the individuals and everything to do with genetic memory. What you believe you will do now is not the same as what will happen.”

Kibum shakes his head again, gaze resolute. “I won’t fight.”

Eunsook sighs. “Every omega fights, Kibum.”

“Have you been with many omegas?” he asks curiously. To her surprise, she’s shocked by his question.

She shakes her head. “Just one.”

“Then perhaps it was just them,” he says confidently.

“Kibum-”

“You said that an alpha should not be explaining this to the omega,” Kibum says carefully. “Maybe it is because the alpha does not know as much as an omega? Thank you for explaining what you know.” He stands, fingers finally unclenched and she can see the dark red divots in his palms. “However,” he adds, shaking his head, “I won’t fight.”

There is nothing more she can say. Everything that she had needed to warn him of she had and if he was unwilling to heed it there was nothing more she could do. She nods her head with a tight smile and looks down at the table.

When Kibum doesn’t leave, she looks up to find him watching her with an inscrutable gaze.

“Kibum?”

“I have another question,” he broaches carefully, “about the equinox.”

“Of course.” She uncrosses her arms and shifts in her chair so that she is leaning forward and resting her arms on the table, fingers folded the way she always had when Junghee became afraid. “Ask me anything, please.”

“Will I…” he stops abruptly, a slight flush to his cheeks. Before she can press further, he closes his eyes and blurts out, “Will I become pregnant?”

She watches him in wonder, thinking herself a fool for not having thought to speak of such an obvious topic.

“No,” she answers gently. That definitely won’t happen. Not yet.” The shiver that rustles up his spine doesn’t go unnoticed by her watchful gaze, but he only nods before murmuring an excuse to leave. Soon, she’s alone in the kitchen with her fingers linked together thinking of Junghee and wishing she had asked her friend better questions before they had been forced to say good-bye.

When her head falls again to her pillow, and her gaze again to the wall in the darkness of her room, her eyes refuse to close and she is left even more concerned after having spoken to Kibum than she was before. He doesn’t understand what she is saying to him. And if he doesn’t trust her words… She blinks in the blackness. If he doesn’t trust her words now how little will he trust them after her actions in the next three days? At least she warned him. There is that consolation.

Eunsook stares blankly at the wall as the moonlight moves slowly along its flat surface.

~

The water is cool against the heat that’s beginning to burn beneath Kibum’s skin. He looks up from beneath the gentle waves at the ceiling, the wooden panes blurred. To his eyes, it’s not as different as they appeared when he had looked at them before submerging.

The lights are off and there’s only the faintest glimmer of a setting sun slicing through the window. He had kept the water colder than usual, though still warm, a mix that in its own way reflects the imbalance of his mind and body. Everything is different but not enough, not quite, nothing he can pinpoint yet. It’s obviously his heat, but it’s so soon: There are still two days until the equinox.

He can’t breathe.

Bursting through the water, he still can’t catch his breath, his lungs gasping at air that they can’t hold, not enough, not nearly enough.

He lies his head against the edge of the tub and stares at the wall across the room. It’s beautiful, he thinks, such a beautiful shade of blue. Closing his eyes, he groans in the water, his hand gliding over the planes of his body, never sure of where it should land.

After he’s bathed and dried and redressed, he wanders through the house, blinking. He feels warm, confused. Kibum rubs his chest and frowns at Eunsook who watches him from the kitchen. He stumbles to the main room, falling finally to the sofa.

“I don’t even know you,” he mumbles from where he sits, not sure what he’s saying or why, only that he needs her to know these things. She turns her back to him and continues slicing the laurel peppers.

It’s too soon for him to feel this way, he thinks hazily. Maybe he’s made himself a little sick from too much time in the yard. A chill has set in, though it is still only mid-September, and he has not taken as much care to keep warm as perhaps he should have.

He feels warm now. His hand rubs against his chest and he sighs in discontent. “I don’t even know you,” he mumbles again, quieter this time. The muscles in her shoulders flex and he watches them too long, too intensely. He can smell her from across the room and over the spices brewing on the stove waiting for the peppers that splice beneath her knife.

And he wants her next to him.

He falls to the pillow beside him and clutches it close as he whimpers, “I don’t know you.”

She offers him some of the soup but he waves her away. Her nostrils flare minutely and her pupils are slightly dilated. The day has darkened and so have her eyes.

Instead, he leaves the room, walking on shaky feet until he stumbles near the hallway door. He presses a hand against the wall to steady the remaining steps to his bedroom. The door thuds heavily behind him and he weaves in the darkness, the light of the moon now disorienting rather than comforting: He could have sworn he only just woke up.

His body burns and aches. He loses his shirt in a struggle of weakening limbs, shivering with fever by the time he falls against the pliant sheets. Asleep almost immediately, he’s bound in fitful dreams that have him curled into a ball with tight fists, whispering the names of his love and of his alpha as he shivers in the dark.

~

There are only hours now, barely more than a day, and neither of them are well.

Kibum has never been awake for this part of his heat and Eunsook has never been with an omega she was bonded to at this point.

Neither of them know what they are doing or how to respond, though Eunsook knows the most.

It is only that Kibum’s refrain from the night before “I don’t know you, I don’t know you” won’t stop echoing in her head even as words and thoughts begin to dull.

She does not know him.

And that is terrifying.

~

Kibum cannot catch his breath and he cannot catch his vision. He is so hot and dizzy and tired, as though he had done so much and needs to rest to recuperate. And yet so hungry too. He had eaten under Eunsook’s watchful eyes, noting the way her nostril’s flared and her eyes were darkened in the morning light. They didn’t speak, only ate, and soon he was again in bed, writhing in a fit of dreams that kept him down for he didn’t know how long.

He wakes up long enough to eat once more, falling asleep to the sound of Eunsook in the kitchen.