Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The glass was supposed to make it easier.

That was what they told him during training - that the observation room created distance, that the reinforced pane filtered out fear, muted scent spikes, softened the weight of another omega’s panic. Watch. Measure. Advise. Remain detached. Jimin had learned early that the glass didn’t stop anything. It only made it quieter.

On the other side of the mirror, the omega subject sat at the metal table with his hands folded too neatly in front of him. Not resting. Folded. Fingers pressed together, knuckles pale. Control forced where calm should have been. Jimin knew the difference.

The room carried the faintest trace of scent even through the filtration system - washed thin by suppressants and stress, sharp with something metallic underneath. Fear that had been leached down to its bones. He should have been watching that. Instead, his attention kept drifting to the man standing beside him.

Min Yoongi hadn’t moved since they entered. He stood a step back from the glass, hands loosely clasped behind his back, posture relaxed in a way that didn’t read as casual so much as deliberate. His weight was evenly distributed. His shoulders loose. His breathing slow. He wasn’t leaning forward, wasn’t pacing, wasn’t doing any of the small, aggressive things interrogators did when they wanted to be felt through walls.

He was silent.

Not performative silence. Not tension. Just… absence of noise.

Jimin had read his file - everyone had. Lawful interrogation specialist. Exceptional clearance rate. No formal complaints. A résumé that explained nothing and somehow said too much. Men like that were either very good at their jobs or very good at hiding the damage.

Yoongi was still enough that the room seemed to settle around him.

And then there was his scent.

It reached Jimin before he consciously registered it - sandalwood, deep and steady, laced with something heavier beneath it. Not sharp. Not aggressive. Weighty. Anchoring. The kind of alpha scent that didn’t press; it waited. Jimin’s own scent stirred in response without permission, a soft bloom of tangerine that he tamped down out of habit. He hated when his body reacted before his mind caught up. He shifted his stance, crossed his arms, refocused on the glass.

The subject swallowed on the other side.

Inside the interrogation room, questions were being asked - measured, neutral, carefully phrased. Yoongi’s voice came through the speakers low and even, giving nothing away. No raised tone. No pressure. Just space.

Too much space, Jimin realized. He watched the omega’s breathing hitch. Watched his fingers tighten, then still again. Watched the moment when silence stopped being neutral and started becoming unbearable.

Jimin leaned forward slightly without meaning to. “Now,” he said. The word left his mouth quietly, almost reflexive.

Yoongi didn’t look at him. Another beat passed. The omega across the glass dropped his gaze, shoulders curling inward, scent spiking faintly - panic creeping in through the cracks.

“Yoongi-ssi,” Jimin added, sharper this time. “That’s the threshold.”

Only then did Yoongi turn his head. Their eyes met in the reflection of the glass, not directly - two images overlapping with the room behind them. Yoongi’s gaze was dark, unreadable, but not cold. Assessing. Listening.

“For you,” Yoongi said calmly, voice still coming through the speakers, “or for him?”

Jimin held his gaze. “For him,” he replied without hesitation. “If you go any further, he’ll say anything just to make it stop. You’ll get words, not truth.”

The silence that followed was different.

Not heavy. Not sharp.

Considered.

Yoongi inclined his head a fraction, an acknowledgment so small it could have been missed by anyone not watching for it. He turned back toward the room, lifted one hand slightly. “That’s all for now,” Yoongi said. “We’ll take a break.”

The omega sagged in his chair, relief immediate and devastating. Jimin exhaled slowly, only then realizing he’d been holding his breath.

When Yoongi finally spoke again, it wasn’t into the microphone. “You read stress patterns quickly,” he said, tone neutral.

“So do you,” Jimin answered. “You just don’t interrupt them.”

Yoongi’s lips curved - not quite a smile. Something quieter. Something thoughtful. “Someone has to know when to stop,” he said.

Jimin nodded, his tangerine scent lingering faintly in the air between them, mingling - just barely - with sandalwood and that heavy, grounding note beneath. He had the strange, unsettling thought then that this would not be the last time they stood on opposite sides of a line, deciding how much pressure was too much. And that Min Yoongi, silent as he was, would always hear him when he said enough.

Jimin had been in the department for exactly three weeks.

Long enough to know the layout of the floor, the way the lights buzzed faintly after midnight, the brands of coffee people pretended not to rely on. Long enough to recognize which doors stayed closed and which were always half-open, which desks accumulated files like sediment and which were obsessively clean.

Not long enough to know the people.

Transfers were always like this - being dropped into a system that already knew itself, already had rhythms and unspoken rules. Jimin was used to observing quietly at first, letting patterns reveal themselves before he made judgments. He knew some of them already, by reputation or prior overlap on cases. A few by name and brief exchanges.

One of them, thankfully, was Kim Namjoon.

Namjoon made a point of checking in on him the first week, subtle and unintrusive. No formal welcome, no territorial probing. Just a quiet, “If you need context, ask,” said without expectation. It had earned Jimin’s trust faster than any handshake could have.

So when the room finally emptied and the case was handed off for review, Jimin found Namjoon in his office with the door open and the lights dimmed low.

Namjoon looked up from a tablet as Jimin knocked once against the frame.

“Do you have a minute?” Jimin asked.

“For you? Always,” the alpha replied, setting the tablet aside. “How are you settling in?”

Jimin hesitated. He hated circling. Hated pretending his questions were casual when they weren’t. “I wanted to ask about Min Yoongi,” he said instead.

Namjoon’s eyebrows lifted - not in surprise, but recognition. “Of course you did,” he said mildly. “What do you want to know?”

Jimin leaned back against the doorframe, arms crossed loosely over his chest. His scent was calm - tangerine kept carefully light - but there was a tightness in his shoulders he hadn’t quite managed to shake since the observation room.

“I’ve read his file,” Jimin said. “I know what’s on paper. I want to know what isn’t.”

Namjoon studied him for a moment, expression thoughtful rather than guarded. “People talk,” Namjoon said finally.

“That’s exactly the problem,” Jimin replied.

Because they did. They always did.

Jimin had heard the whispers already, threaded through late-night debriefs and half-joking comments over coffee. Too quiet. Too effective. You don’t want to be in a room with him if he decides you’re lying. People spoke about Min Yoongi like he was an event rather than a person—something that happened to you rather than someone you worked with.

Jimin didn’t trust that kind of reputation. It made his stomach tighten in a way he didn’t like.

“What do they say?” Namjoon asked gently.

Jimin exhaled. “That he breaks people without touching them. That he knows when to push and when to wait - and that the waiting is worse.”

Namjoon’s mouth curved, not quite amused. “And what did you see?” he asked.

Jimin thought of the observation room. The silence. The way Yoongi had stopped without argument the moment Jimin said now. The way his sandalwood scent had stayed steady, heavy, grounded - even when the subject began to unravel.

“I saw someone who listens,” the omega said. “Which is what makes me nervous.”

Namjoon nodded once, slow. “That’s fair,” he said. “Yoongi doesn’t intimidate. He gives people room. Most don’t realize how dangerous that can feel until they’re in it.”

“Is he cruel?” Jimin asked, quieter now.

“No,” Namjoon answered without hesitation. “He’s precise.”

That didn’t ease the knot in Jimin’s chest. If anything, it tightened it.

“And off the record?” Jimin pressed.

Namjoon leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled loosely. “Off the record, Min Yoongi believes most people tell the truth eventually - if you don’t rush them. He stops when others wouldn’t. That’s why I trust him. It’s also why some people don’t.”

Jimin absorbed that, his thoughts turning slow and deliberate. “He stopped today because I said to,” Jimin murmured.

Namjoon’s gaze sharpened slightly. “Yes. He did.”

“That’s not nothing,” Jimin added.

“No,” Namjoon agreed. “It isn’t.”

Jimin straightened, uncrossing his arms. His heart was beating a little faster now, curiosity and unease threading together into something sharper. “I don’t like not knowing,” the omega said honestly. “And I don’t like judging someone based on what people say about them instead of what they show.”

Namjoon smiled then, small and approving. “Then you’ll do fine here,” he said. “And with Yoongi.”

Jimin nodded, though the nervous energy didn’t leave him. Because knowing of Min Yoongi wasn’t the same as knowing him. And Jimin had the growing, unsettling sense that learning the difference would matter far more than he was ready for.

By the time Jimin returned to his desk, the case already had a name. Not an official one - those came later, once paperwork hardened into something permanent - but a shorthand the department used when something refused to stay small.

Case 17-Ω.

The omega from the interrogation room.

Jimin pulled the preliminary file onto his screen and leaned back in his chair, eyes scanning while his mind replayed the way the man’s shoulders had collapsed the moment Yoongi called the break. Relief that had come too fast. Too practiced. Like someone used to being pushed right up to the edge and pulled back just in time.

That, more than the confession itself, bothered him.

The omega’s name was Lee Seonho. Twenty-six. Courier. No priors worth noting. Picked up during a sting operation tied to a larger investigation into illicit scent-manipulation networks - coercive suppressants, falsified bonds, black-market pheromone enhancers. The kind of case that never stayed contained, because it relied on silence to survive.

Seonho had confessed quickly. Too quickly.

Jimin tapped his pen against the desk, gaze flicking to the observation notes he had typed in real time. Elevated cortisol markers. Delayed response to direct questions. Microexpressions of panic rather than guilt. A scent profile that spiked not when Yoongi asked what he did, but when he asked who else was involved.

Fear of consequences, not exposure.

Someone else was holding the leash.

A soft knock sounded at the edge of his awareness. Jimin looked up to find Hoseok leaning against the partition, tablet tucked under his arm, expression open but alert in the way only someone who worked closely with omegas learned to master.

“He’s asking for water,” Hoseok said quietly. “And for reassurance that he’s not going back in.”

Jimin nodded. “Did you sit with him?”

“Yeah,” the beta replied. “He keeps saying he messed up. That he talked too much.”

That settled it.

Jimin stood, grabbed his jacket, and followed Hoseok down the hall toward the holding rooms. The space between interrogation and aftercare was deliberately neutral - soft lighting, warmer tones, air filters tuned to calm rather than suppress. It was where the truth usually surfaced, stripped of fear but still raw.

Seonho looked smaller here. Curled inward on the edge of the chair, fingers twisting in the hem of his sleeves. His scent was still sharp with anxiety, but underneath it was something else now - confusion. Regret.

Jimin crouched in front of him instead of sitting across the table. Kept his voice low. “You didn’t mess up,” he said said. “You stopped when you needed to.”

Seonho’s eyes flicked up. “He didn’t push,” he whispered. “I thought he would.”

Jimin felt that settle somewhere deep in his chest. “He won’t,” Jimin said. “Not like that.”

Seonho swallowed. “They said he would. They said if I didn’t talk fast enough, he’d… break me.”

They.

Jimin filed the word away carefully.

“Who said that?” Jimin asked.

Seonho hesitated, scent flaring. Then - just barely - he shook his head. “If I tell you, they’ll know.”

Jimin straightened slowly. “Seonho,” he said, measured and calm, “they already know you’re here. What they don’t know is whether you’re protected.”

That earned him another glance - longer this time. Searching.

Behind the glass of the corridor, Jimin caught a glimpse of movement. Yoongi stood near the far wall, speaking quietly with Namjoon and Seokjin. He wasn’t watching Seonho. He wasn’t watching Jimin. He was giving space.

Jimin turned back to the omega. “We’re not interested in punishing you,” he said. “We’re interested in who taught you to be afraid.”

Seonho’s shoulders sagged. “I was told what to say,” he admitted. “What not to say. They gave me suppressants that weren’t… normal. Said they’d keep me calm. Said I wouldn’t feel anything if I followed instructions.”

Jimin’s jaw tightened. “And if you didn’t?”

Seonho’s voice dropped to almost nothing. “They said they’d make sure no alpha ever touched me again. That I’d be… ruined.”

Jimin stood slowly, every piece of the case clicking into place with quiet, dreadful clarity. This wasn’t just about Seonho. This was about control. About weaponizing omega biology and fear. About a network that thrived on silence and misinformation.

Behind him, the door opened. “You were right to stop when you did,” Yoongi said - not to Seonho, but to Jimin.

Jimin turned. Yoongi’s gaze met his, steady and unreadable, sandalwood scent heavy but calm. No dominance. No pressure. Just acknowledgment.

“We’ll reopen the interview later,” the alpha continued, voice even. “With protections in place.”

Seonho exhaled shakily, relief washing over his features.

Namjoon stepped forward then, already tapping notes into his tablet. “This isn’t a standalone case,” he said. “It never was.”

“No,” Jimin agreed quietly. “It’s a thread.”

Yoongi inclined his head. “Then we pull it carefully.”

Jimin looked at Seonho. Then at Hoseok, who was already settling back into his role at the omega’s side. Then at Namjoon and Seokjin, who were exchanging looks that spoke of strategy and law and long nights ahead.

And finally, back at Yoongi.

This investigation wasn’t going to end quickly. It would stretch and twist and resist them at every turn. It would demand patience. Precision. Trust.

All things that scared Jimin far more than chaos ever had.

But as he stood there, the faint trace of tangerine in the air steadying instead of spiking, Jimin realized something else too. Maybe, Min Yoongi was not the danger people whispered about. He was the one who knew when to stop. And that meant Jimin intended to stay very close - for the length of the case, and maybe longer…

Chapter Text

“I feel calm where I shouldn’t”

Yoongi had learned, over the years, that silence was not the absence of sound. It was a presence. A thing that could be shaped, sharpened, softened - used. He had built his career around it.

Before this division, before the glass and the observation rooms and the endless careful language of lawful interrogation, there had been other rooms. Smaller ones. Dirtier ones. Rooms where people believed fear was the fastest way to the truth. Yoongi had learned quickly there what fear actually produced: noise. Words piled on words, lies tangled with half-truths, desperation masquerading as confession. He had left before that noise became permanent.

Transferred. Re-trained. Re-certified. He learned how to slow things down instead of speeding them up. Learned how to sit still while people unraveled themselves. Learned that most lies collapsed if you gave them enough space to breathe. That was how he ended up here - Internal Affairs, Special Investigations, Omega-Coercion Oversight. A division that required patience and a tolerance for being misunderstood. He had been here longer than most. Long enough to become part of the background. Long enough that people stopped trying to figure him out and settled for rumors instead.

Yoongi preferred it that way. So when Park Jimin joined the division three weeks ago, Yoongi had done what he always did with new colleagues. Nothing.

He’d heard the name first, passed casually between departments. Behavioral analyst. Omega. Someone with a reputation for precision and an annoying habit of noticing things other people preferred stayed unnoticed. Yoongi hadn’t asked questions. Names came and went. People rotated through divisions all the time.

He hadn’t expected Jimin to matter. The realization that he did came quietly. It came in the observation room, with glass between them and an omega who was folding his hands too neatly on a metal table. It came in the way the air had shifted - not spiked, not sharpened, just… steadied.

Yoongi was used to being hyperaware of his surroundings during an interrogation. He tracked breath, posture, micro-movements, scent fluctuations. He tracked his own body most of all - kept his shoulders loose, his stance neutral, his scent anchored and unprovocative. What he wasn’t used to was noticing when his body relaxed. He realized it only after the fact.

After the break had been called. After the subject had been escorted out. After the room had emptied and the tension that usually lingered like residue simply… wasn’t there. Yoongi stood alone for a moment, hands clasped behind his back, and took inventory. His jaw wasn’t tight. His shoulders hadn’t crept up toward his ears. His breathing was slow. Even. That shouldn’t have happened. He replayed the moment in his head - not the interrogation, but the interruption.

Now.

One word. Calm. Certain.

Not challenging him. Not overriding him. Just… stating a line.

Yoongi had stopped without thinking.

That, more than anything, unsettled him.

He had spent years training himself to listen - to subjects, to his own instincts, to the quiet cues others missed- but he did not defer easily. He did not adjust course based on impulse. He adjusted based on data. And yet, when Park Jimin had spoken, Yoongi had felt something click into place, like a lock recognizing the correct key. He hadn’t looked at Jimin right away. He’d needed the extra second to assess himself before acknowledging anyone else.

That was new.

Later, alone in his office, Yoongi reviewed the footage again - not because he needed to, but because he wanted to understand what he had missed.

Jimin barely appeared on the recording. A partial reflection in the glass. A shift of posture. A slight lean forward. But Yoongi caught the details now—the way Jimin’s attention hadn’t been on him, but not on the subject either. The way his gaze had moved between both, tracking the invisible line where pressure turned into harm.

And the scent.

Yoongi frowned faintly.

Tangerine.

Soft, restrained, carefully controlled. An omega who knew how to keep himself contained without suppressing himself into nothing. Yoongi had registered it subconsciously at the time, noted it as neutral, non-disruptive.

He hadn’t noticed how it made the room feel… lighter.

Yoongi closed the file and leaned back in his chair.

Three weeks, Namjoon had said, when Yoongi had asked - casually, deliberately - how long Jimin had been with them. Long enough to find his footing. Not long enough to be jaded.

That explained some of it.

New people still believed systems could be better. Still believed intervention mattered. Still believed stopping was as important as pushing.

Yoongi had lost that belief once. He hadn’t realized how heavy it had been to carry its absence until it wasn’t pressing down on him anymore.

The next time they shared a room, it wasn’t during an interrogation. It was late - past the hour when the building began to thin out, when conversations softened and footsteps echoed longer than they should. Yoongi was at the coffee machine, staring at the options without really seeing them, when Jimin stepped up beside him.

Not close. Just… present.

“Chamomile’s empty,” Jimin said, tone neutral. “I put in a request.”

Yoongi nodded. “Thanks.”

They stood there in silence, the machine humming quietly between them. Yoongi waited for the familiar itch - the need to fill the space, to say something practical, to excuse himself. It never came. The silence didn’t press. It rested.

“That was the right call,” Yoongi said eventually, surprising himself with the admission.

Jimin glanced at him, expression unreadable but attentive. “It usually is. When it feels like that.”

Yoongi studied him for a moment - really studied him this time. The careful posture. The alert eyes. The way he occupied space without demanding it.

“I don’t relax easily in rooms like that,” Yoongi said.

Jimin’s lips curved, just slightly. “Neither do I.”

And there it was again - that quiet, unsettling calm. The sense that something inside Yoongi had eased without being asked to.

Yoongi took his coffee and stepped away, but the awareness lingered. He had spent years believing that tension was the price of this work. That vigilance was permanent. That ease was dangerous. But standing beside Park Jimin, in a room where he should have been on guard, Yoongi felt something unfamiliar settle into his bones.

Not trust.

Not yet.

Just the sense that, for the first time in a long while, he wasn’t carrying the silence alone.

The order came in the way most inconvenient things did - quietly, officially, and without room for negotiation.

Joint assignment.

Primary interrogation specialist: Min Yoongi.

Behavioral analysis lead: Park Jimin.

Yoongi read it once. Then again. He felt no irritation at the workload. No resistance to collaboration itself. He had worked with analysts before - competent ones, cautious ones, some who talked too much and some who hid behind data when things became human.

What unsettled him was the very specific awareness that followed.

So this is happening.

They were being made a unit.

Namjoon didn’t look up when Yoongi stepped into his office, tablet balanced in one hand, stylus moving steadily. “You’ll balance each other,” he said, as if Yoongi had already voiced the question.

“I work alone,” Yoongi replied evenly.

“You work effectively,” Namjoon corrected. “That’s not the same thing.”

Yoongi said nothing.

Namjoon finally lifted his gaze. “Case 17-Ω isn’t linear. It’s coercion, misinformation, layered fear. You’ll need someone who can read the damage before it becomes evidence.”

“And you think that’s Jimin.”

“I know it is,” Namjoon said simply.

The decision was already made.

Working together, Yoongi learned quickly, was not the same as sharing space. Their first few days were… inefficient. Not because either of them lacked skill, but because their methods ran parallel without touching. Yoongi worked from structure outward - timelines, statements, controlled silence. Jimin worked from reaction inward - body language, scent fluctuation, emotional thresholds.

They interrupted each other. Not verbally - never that - but in subtler ways. Yoongi would let a silence stretch, waiting for a fracture that didn’t come. Jimin would mark the moment as harmful before Yoongi believed it had crossed that line.

“Give him thirty more seconds,” Yoongi said once, eyes on the glass.

Jimin shook his head. “You’ll lose him.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” Jimin replied, calm but firm. “His scent is spiking for the wrong reason.”

They stared at the subject - then at each other.

Yoongi relented.

Later, reviewing the footage, Yoongi saw it. The moment when thirty seconds would have turned truth into panic. He didn’t comment on it. Neither did Jimin.

But the next time, when Yoongi lifted his hand just before Jimin spoke, Jimin noticed.

That was how it started.

Not trust.

Adjustment.

They argued in margins. In footnotes. In post-session reports. In quiet exchanges that never quite became conflict. Jimin questioned Yoongi’s patience. Yoongi questioned Jimin’s thresholds.

“Stopping early teaches them they control the room,” Yoongi said during one late-night review.

“No,” Jimin replied. “Stopping early teaches them we’re listening.”

Yoongi considered that longer than he meant to. He began asking questions he hadn’t before.

What did you see there?

What changed just now?

Would you have stopped earlier - or later?

Jimin answered without defensiveness. Without ego. Sometimes with uncertainty, which Yoongi respected more than confidence. And then - somewhere between the third week and the fifth - it happened. Yoongi stopped needing to ask. He began to feel the shift at the same moment Jimin did. The subtle tightening of breath. The wrong kind of silence. The scent spike that meant fear, not evasion.

Once, mid-interrogation, Yoongi raised his hand without looking away from the subject. “Break,” he said.

Jimin turned sharply toward him. “You felt it too,” Jimin said, not quite a question.

Yoongi nodded once.

The room exhaled.

Outside of work, the change was quieter but no less significant.

They shared coffee without scheduling it. Sat in companionable silence during late nights that stretched longer than they should have. Yoongi noticed - without quite meaning to - that his body no longer braced when Jimin entered a room.

His shoulders stayed loose. His scent stayed steady. The sandalwood weight he carried didn’t press as hard against his ribs.

Once, when Yoongi realized he had started timing his breaks to overlap with Jimin’s without consciously deciding to, he stopped short in the hallway and closed his eyes.

This is unprofessional, he told himself.

But the thought lacked conviction.

Because whatever was forming between them wasn’t distraction.

It was clarity.

Together, they unraveled threads faster. Safer. They caught inconsistencies others missed. They recognized patterns - coercion disguised as consent, fear masquerading as loyalty. Case 17-Ω widened under their hands, revealing a network that relied on people like Seonho believing no one would stop in time.

Yoongi understood then why Namjoon had paired them. Jimin knew when to stop. Yoongi knew how to wait. Separately, they were effective. Together, they were precise. The realization settled into Yoongi slowly, the way most dangerous truths did - not with alarm, but with calm.

Working as a team should have made things harder.

Instead, Yoongi found himself thinking - more than once - that this was how it should have been all along. And that understanding, quiet and steady as gravity, was far more unsettling than any chaos he’d ever learned to manage.

+++

With time, Jimin began to hate how easily he exhaled near Min Yoongi.

It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t come with racing heartbeats or trembling hands. There was no rush of scent, no sharp pull that set off alarms in his head. It was worse than that - quiet, insidious, almost polite.

He would step into a room and realize, a second too late, that his shoulders had already dropped.

That his breath had already slowed.

That the constant, low-level vigilance he carried everywhere - through corridors, briefing rooms, elevators, cafés - had eased without asking permission.

It unsettled him.

Jimin had learned early not to trust comfort. Comfort made you careless. It made you assume safety where there might be none. As an omega in a field that still liked to pretend neutrality erased power dynamics, he had built his instincts carefully, deliberately. He noticed exits. He tracked tone shifts. He controlled his scent until it was second nature.

Near Yoongi, those instincts didn’t disappear.

They simply… rested.

Jimin told himself it was professional alignment. That working the same case, sharing the same language of pauses and thresholds, naturally reduced friction. That it made sense to feel less on edge around someone whose job was to stop before harm happened.

That explanation should have satisfied him.

It didn’t.

He caught it in small moments first.

In the observation room, when Yoongi stood beside him and Jimin realized he was no longer bracing for the silence to turn sharp. In the way he leaned closer to the glass without thinking, trusting Yoongi to hold the line if it crossed into danger.

In meetings, when Yoongi spoke, Jimin found himself listening with a different kind of attention - not wary, not defensive, just… open.

He hated that most of all.

“Your threshold is shifting,” Yoongi said once, quietly, after a long session reviewing footage.

Jimin blinked, pulled out of his thoughts. “Mine?”

Yoongi nodded. “You’re stopping them later than you did the first week.”

Jimin stiffened instinctively. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t,” Yoongi replied evenly. “I’m asking why.”

The question lingered between them, unpressured.

Jimin swallowed. He hadn’t noticed the change consciously. That was the problem.

“I trust the room more,” he said finally. “When you’re in it.”

The words left his mouth before he could stop them.

For a moment, Yoongi didn’t respond. His gaze didn’t sharpen, didn’t soften. It simply held, steady and unreadable.

“That’s dangerous,” Yoongi said at last.

“Yes,” Jimin agreed immediately. Relief and irritation tangled together in his chest. “Exactly.”

Yoongi studied him for a beat longer, then looked back at the screen. “Then we’ll watch for it.”

We.

Jimin pretended that word didn’t echo.

He tried to ignore the feeling.

When he noticed his tangerine scent blooming warmer near Yoongi’s sandalwood, he tamped it down harder than necessary. When he found himself lingering after briefings, he packed up quickly and left first. When Yoongi’s presence in a room registered not as something to monitor but something to lean into, Jimin corrected himself sharply.

This is work.

But the case didn’t allow distance.

Case 17-Ω grew teeth. New names surfaced. New victims emerged - omegas coerced into silence through scent manipulation, false information, threats disguised as protection. Each lead dragged them deeper, demanded longer hours, closer coordination.

They worked side by side more often than not.

And every time Jimin thought he’d adapted, the ease returned.

One night, well past midnight, they sat across from each other at a table littered with files and empty cups. The building was quiet in that way that felt earned rather than abandoned.

Jimin rubbed at his eyes, fatigue creeping in.

“You should go,” Yoongi said. “You’ve been staring at the same paragraph for ten minutes.”

Jimin huffed softly. “You’ve been staring at the same timestamp for twelve.”

Yoongi’s lips twitched.

The sound that escaped Jimin then - soft, unguarded - felt like a betrayal.

He froze, breath caught halfway in his chest.

Yoongi looked up.

Something passed between them - not acknowledgment, not tension. Recognition.

Jimin straightened abruptly, gathering his things. “I’m fine,” he said, too quickly. “Just tired.”

“Mm,” Yoongi replied, not challenging him.

As Jimin left the room, he realized his pulse hadn’t spiked. His scent hadn’t flared. His body hadn’t gone into defense the way it usually did when he caught himself slipping.

He hated that too.

Because the most frightening part wasn’t that Yoongi made him feel safe.

It was that Jimin no longer felt the need to prove that safety to himself.

And that was not a habit he could afford to form—not in this line of work, not with this case, and not with a man whose presence had begun to feel dangerously like somewhere he could rest.

So Jimin told himself he would be more careful.

He told himself ease was temporary. Contextual. A side effect of shared focus.

He told himself he would stop exhaling so easily.

But the truth settled quietly, stubborn as gravity:

Around Min Yoongi, Jimin’s body had already decided something his mind was still refusing to name.

Taehyung clocked Min Yoongi in under five minutes.

Jimin knew the exact moment it happened because Taehyung’s expression shifted - subtle, but unmistakable. His gaze slid over Yoongi once, then again, sharp and assessing in a way that had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with survival.

They were in the briefing room, lights dimmed, screens filled with timelines and stills pulled from surveillance feeds. Case 17-Ω had officially grown past its placeholder name. It had teeth now - aliases, shell companies, supply routes for illegal suppressants and scent modifiers. Too many moving parts for any single unit to handle alone.

Which was why Jungkook and Taehyung were already attached.

The young alpha stood near the door, tactical vest stripped down to its basics, arms folded as he listened. He was security - entry, extraction, worst-case scenarios. He tracked rooms the way other people tracked conversations, eyes constantly mapping lines of sight and exits.

Taehyung, on the other hand, was sprawled half-sideways in his chair, tablet balanced on one knee, fingers moving fast as he cross-referenced data streams. Surveillance, background intel, pattern recognition. He looked relaxed in the way only people who lived on the edge of chaos ever did.

It was the younger omega who spoke first. “So,” he said lightly, eyes still on his screen, “that’s him.”

Jimin followed his gaze to Yoongi, who was standing a step back from the table, listening without interruption as Namjoon outlined the next phase of the investigation.

“That’s who?” Jimin asked, already knowing the answer.

Taehyung tilted his head, studying Yoongi openly now. “Your guy.”

Jimin bristled. “He’s not—”

“Relax,” Taehyung cut in, finally glancing at him. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Jimin wasn’t sure how else it could be meant. “What do you mean, then?” he asked.

Taehyung hummed, thoughtful. “He’s creepy calm.”

Across the room, Yoongi shifted his weight slightly, still silent, still attentive. Jimin opened his mouth to argue - and stopped. Because… yes. Creepy calm was one way to put it. Not predatory. Not cold. Just unnervingly steady. Like a body of water that never rippled no matter what you threw into it.

Jungkook snorted softly. “That’s a compliment coming from him.”

“It is,” Taehyung agreed. “I don’t trust people who get loud. Or people who pretend they’re harmless. He’s neither.”

Jimin glanced at Jungkook. “And you?”

Jungkook shrugged. “I trust him.”

Just like that.

Taehyung shot him a look. “You trust everyone until they give you a reason not to.”

“No,” Jungkook replied evenly. “I trust people who don’t posture.”

Jimin felt something in his chest ease - and hated himself a little for it.

Namjoon wrapped up the briefing, assigning next steps. Surveillance would dig deeper into the shell network. Tactical would prep for potential extractions. Jimin and Yoongi would continue interviews, behavioral mapping, and ethical oversight.

Together.

As people began to disperse, Taehyung slid closer, lowering his voice. “Be careful,” he said to Jimin, not joking now. “Guys like him? They don’t push. They don’t pull. They just… wait. Makes it easy to forget where the edges are.”

Jimin swallowed. “I know.”

Taehyung’s eyes flicked between them - Jimin and Yoongi - quick, perceptive. “Do you?”

Jimin didn’t answer. Because the truth was, he didn’t know where the edges were anymore. Not when Yoongi stood there, hands clasped behind his back, sandalwood scent heavy but restrained. Not when Jimin felt his own tangerine settle instead of spike, his body responding to that calm like it recognized something familiar.

As they filed out, Yoongi fell into step beside him without comment. “Creepy calm?” Yoongi asked quietly.

Jimin startled, then groaned softly. “He didn’t mean it badly.”

“I know,” Yoongi said. A pause. “It’s accurate.”

Jimin glanced at him, caught off guard by the lack of offense. “That doesn’t bother you?” he asked.

Yoongi considered. “I’d be more concerned if it didn’t.”

Jimin huffed a quiet laugh before he could stop himself. There it was again - that ease. That exhale. Taehyung watched them go, head tilted, eyes sharp. Jimin felt it like a weight between his shoulder blades - the awareness of being seen by someone who missed very little. And as the investigation tightened its grip around all of them, Jimin realized something else:

This case wasn’t just pulling them together professionally.

It was aligning them.

And Min Yoongi - creepy calm and all - was at the center of it, whether any of them were ready to admit it or not.

Chapter Text

“It doesn’t burn - it pulls”

Namjoon didn’t believe in instincts the way people romanticized them. He believed in patterns. In years of oversight, in watching cases collapse or hold depending on who was placed where, in the subtle math of personalities under pressure. He believed in evidence - but he had learned not to dismiss the quiet sense that came before evidence caught up.

That sense was the reason he stood outside the review room now, tablet tucked under his arm, listening to the low hum of the lights inside. The room was small. Deliberately so. One table. Two chairs. One screen mounted too close to be comfortable. No windows. No excess space to retreat into. It wasn’t a punishment room - nothing so crude - but it was designed to encourage focus. Proximity. Conversation, if it came to that.

Namjoon had chosen it on purpose.

He stepped inside.

Yoongi was already there, standing with his hands loosely clasped behind his back, eyes on the frozen frame of an interrogation paused mid-sentence. Park Jimin stood near the table, jacket draped over the back of a chair, stylus tapping softly against the edge of the screen as he scrolled through timestamps. They looked… neutral. Professional. Exactly how two people who had not yet realized anything should look.

“Good,” Namjoon said. “You’re both early.”

Yoongi inclined his head. Jimin straightened slightly. Namjoon activated the screen. The image shifted - an omega from five years ago, eyes glassy, hands folded too neatly in his lap.

“This,” Namjoon said, “is why you’re here.”

He watched them carefully as he spoke.

“Over the last decade, we’ve closed seventy-four omega coercion cases. On paper, they’re done. Confessions obtained. Networks dissolved. But in the last year, we’ve identified inconsistencies - confessions made under questionable conditions, suppressants later flagged as illegal, aftercare that stopped too early.”

Jimin’s jaw tightened. Yoongi didn’t move.

“I want a joint review,” Namjoon continued. “Every case that involved silence as a primary interrogation tool. Every omega who complied too quickly. Every confession that felt… tidy.”

He turned to Yoongi first. “You know the rooms. You know the thresholds.” Then to Jimin. “You know the damage. The signals we missed.”

They exchanged a brief glance. Not defensive. Not curious.

Aware.

“You’ll work together,” Namjoon said simply.

Jimin nodded slowly. “Under whose final call?”

Namjoon didn’t hesitate. “Yours. Both of you.”

Yoongi’s gaze flicked to him - just once. Namjoon met it without flinching. “I know what I’m asking,” Namjoon said. “And I know you’ll challenge each other. That’s the point.” He tapped the tablet, pulling up a timeline. “Start with footage. No interviews yet. I want to see what you see when no one’s watching.”

As he turned toward the door, Namjoon paused. He rarely explained himself beyond what was necessary - but this time, he allowed it. “I didn’t assign you together because it was efficient,” he said. “I did it because you stop in different ways.”

Both of them looked at him now.

“Hyung,” Namjoon said, “you know when silence turns sharp. And Jimin-ssi,” he continued, “you know when people break quietly.” He allowed himself a small, thoughtful exhale. “I’ve spent too long watching good people work alone and burn out,” he said. “This case doesn’t need brilliance. It needs balance.”

He didn’t say and you calm each other. He didn’t say I saw it before you did. Those were thoughts for later. Namjoon stepped out and closed the door behind him, leaving them with the screen, the silence, and each other. In the hallway, he finally let his shoulders relax. Call it pattern recognition. Call it experience. But Namjoon had learned to trust the feeling that came when two people were placed in the right room at the right time - and the air didn’t resist it.

Whatever was unfolding between Min Yoongi and Park Jimin hadn’t announced itself yet. But Namjoon was certain of one thing. If anyone was going to untangle the truth buried in those old cases, it would be them.

The alpha didn’t return to his office right away. Instead, he took the long way down the corridor, past the glass-walled rooms and the muted activity that never quite stopped in this division. He needed a second set of eyes on his decision - two, actually. Not for permission, but for opinion.

Hoseok’s office door was half open, soft light spilling out into the hall. Seokjin was already there, perched on the edge of a desk with a tablet in hand, glasses pushed up into his hair in a way that usually meant he’d been reading something that irritated him.

“Tell me you didn’t put them in the small room,” Seokjin said without looking up.

Namjoon paused in the doorway. “I put them in the small room.”

Seokjin sighed, long-suffering. “Of course you did.”

Hoseok glanced up from his notes, expression calm but searching. “Min Yoongi and Park Jimin?” he asked.

Namjoon nodded. “Joint review duty. Old interrogation footage. Coerced omega cases from the last ten years.”

Seokjin slid off the desk and turned fully now. “You’re either very smart,” he said, “or you’re setting up the most awkward professional pairing I’ve seen in a while.”

“Both can be true,” Namjoon replied mildly. He leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms. “They see the same problem from opposite ends. Yoongi-hyung understands rooms - how silence moves, how pressure builds. Jimin understands people - what breaks them, what lingers after.”

Hoseok’s gaze drifted, thoughtful. He was quiet for a moment longer than Seokjin liked. “They are very different,” the beta said finally.

Namjoon waited.

“Not just because Yoongi’s an alpha and Jimin’s an omega,” Hoseok continued. “That’s the obvious part. Easy to point to. But it’s not the reason I’m… cautious.”

Seokjin raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

Hoseok tapped the edge of his tablet absently. “Yoongi regulates by withholding. Jimin regulates by reaching. One waits. The other watches. They’re both careful - but in opposite directions.”

Namjoon nodded slowly. “That’s exactly why I paired them.”

Hoseok’s mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Or exactly why it could go wrong.”

The words weren’t accusatory. Just honest.

“I know,” Namjoon said. “But this case doesn’t need similarity. It needs correction.”

Seokjin scoffed softly. “You’re talking like a philosopher. On paper, that sounds great. In practice? People don’t always balance each other. Sometimes they clash.”

“They already have,” Namjoon said. “Quietly. And neither walked away.”

That earned him a look - from both of them.

Hoseok studied him closely now. “You’re trusting a feeling,” he said.

“I’m trusting a pattern,” Namjoon corrected. “Every time Yoongi’s been paired with someone who pushes, he shuts down. Every time Jimin’s been paired with someone who dominates, he overextends. Put them together, and neither has the room to do either.”

Seokjin hummed, considering. “So you’re betting they’ll… self-correct.”

“Yes.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Hoseok asked gently.

Namjoon didn’t answer immediately. “If I’m wrong,” he said at last, “we’ll see it early. And we’ll intervene. But if I’m right…” He trailed off, gaze flicking briefly toward the corridor where the review room sat, sealed and quiet. “…then we might finally understand how many of those closed cases were never really finished.”

Hoseok exhaled slowly. “I hope you’re not wrong,” he said. “Because if this works, it won’t just change the case. It’ll change them.”

Seokjin crossed his arms. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s not,” Hoseok replied. “It’s just… irreversible.”

Namjoon straightened. “Everything worth doing is,” he said simply.

He pushed off the doorframe and headed back into the hall, the murmur of the division closing in around him again. Behind him, Hoseok and Seokjin exchanged a look - one cautious, one resigned.

Namjoon didn’t turn back. He had already made the call. And if he was right - if those two really were as different as Hoseok feared, and as complementary as Namjoon believed - then the truth buried in those old cases wasn’t the only thing about to surface.

Sometimes, the right pairing didn’t explode.

Sometimes, it pulled everything into alignment.

And Namjoon had learned, long ago, not to ignore that kind of gravity.

+++

Jimin lost track of time somewhere between the third and fourth interrogation file.

The room had no windows, no clock within easy sight. Just the low hum of the screen, the faint whir of the ventilation system, and the frozen faces of omegas caught mid-breath, mid-blink, mid-break. Old footage. Years old, some of it. Different rooms, different lighting - but the same patterns repeating with unsettling consistency.

He hadn’t spoken in hours.

Neither had Yoongi.

At first, Jimin had been acutely aware of the silence, the way it stretched and settled around them like a third presence in the room. He’d waited for it to turn awkward. For Yoongi to clear his throat, to comment on a timestamp, to narrate what they were seeing in the way interrogators sometimes did when they couldn’t stand their own thoughts. It never happened. Yoongi never filled the silence.

He stood or sat with the same quiet focus, eyes fixed on the footage, posture loose but attentive. When he paused a clip, he did it without explanation. When he rewound, it was precise - ten seconds back, sometimes less. He didn’t narrate his thinking. He didn’t perform expertise. He just watched.

Jimin became aware of something else gradually - something more unsettling. Yoongi hadn’t once glanced at him. Not in avoidance. Not in dismissal. Just… trust. As if Jimin’s presence required no monitoring. As if his attention was assumed, steady, unbroken.

The omega realized, with a flicker of surprise, that he hadn’t moved much either. No bouncing knee. No shifting in his chair. No restless adjustments to relieve pressure. He’d been leaning forward slightly, elbows on the table, chin tipped just enough to keep the screen in full view. Still. Engaged. Grounded.

Yoongi noticed that. Jimin felt it not as a look, but as a change in the air - a subtle recalibration maybe. Yoongi paused the footage and leaned back, eyes unfocusing for just a second.

“Break,” he said quietly.

Jimin blinked, momentarily disoriented. “Already?”

The alpha finally glanced at him then - quick, assessing, gone almost immediately. “You haven’t eaten.”

Jimin bristled. “I’m fine,” he said automatically, straightening. “We can keep going.”

Yoongi was already standing. “We won’t.”

That irritated him more than it should have.

They stepped out into the corridor, the brighter lights feeling almost intrusive after the dim review room. Jimin rubbed at the back of his neck, irritation simmering just under his skin.

“I don’t need supervision,” he said, sharper than intended. “You should mind your own business.”

Yoongi didn’t react the way Jimin expected. He didn’t bristle. Didn’t defend himself. Didn’t even look at him. “I am,” the alpha said evenly. “This is my business.”

Jimin scoffed softly. “Making sure your colleagues eat?”

“Yes.”

That earned him a look.

Jimin stopped walking. “You don’t even know me.”

Yoongi turned then, fully, meeting his gaze for the first time since they’d left the room. His expression was neutral - calm to the point of being unreadable - but there was no challenge in it. No judgment.

“You look thin,” Yoongi said simply. “You’ve been leaning forward for four hours. Your scent dipped twice. And you ignored it.”

Jimin’s mouth opened. Closed. “That’s not—” He stopped, frustration flaring. “You don’t get to monitor me.”

“I’m not,” Yoongi replied. “I’m offering food.” He glanced toward the cafeteria without waiting for permission. “Treat’s on me.”

Jimin stared at his back, pulse ticking louder than it should have. The audacity of it. The calm assumption. The complete lack of dominance or insistence - just a statement, left there to be accepted or refused. He hated that it worked.

“Fine,” the omega muttered, falling into step beside him. “But this doesn’t make us anything.”

Yoongi nodded once. “It makes us less likely to miss something later.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence. Jimin accepted the tray when Yoongi slid it toward him, irritation still simmering - but underneath it, something else stirred. Something quieter. Something dangerously close to gratitude. He took a bite, then another, and hated the way his body relaxed around the simple act of being taken care of without being asked.

Across the table, Yoongi ate without comment, gaze focused on nothing in particular, as if the earlier tension hadn’t registered at all. That, more than anything, unsettled Jimin. Because for the first time since the transfer, he had the distinct sense that Min Yoongi wasn’t watching him to control the room. He was watching him to make sure he stayed in it.

They returned to the review room with the faint, awkward quiet that always followed a disagreement neither person had apologized for. Jimin settled back into his chair, tray long gone, irritation dulled but not erased. The food had helped - he hated that too. His body felt steadier, his head clearer, which only made him more aware of Yoongi’s presence across the table. Not looming. Not watchful. Just there, already pulling up the next file as if nothing unusual had happened.

The screen flickered to life.

Another omega. Another room. Different year.

Jimin leaned forward instinctively, fingers curling around his stylus as he scanned the metadata. Date. Location. Division. His eyes skimmed the header - and stopped.

Lead Interrogator: Min Yoongi.

The reaction was immediate and unwelcome. A tight pull in his chest. A flicker of hesitation.

Jimin ignored it.

The footage began to play.

At first, it looked… clean. Too clean. The omega sat upright, hands folded, answering questions with practiced compliance. No raised voices. No threats. No visible force. The kind of interrogation that passed audits easily. Jimin watched closer. He slowed the playback. Rewound ten seconds. Then five.

“There,” he said quietly, tapping the screen.

Yoongi’s gaze followed the motion without comment.

“Pause it,” Jimin added.

Yoongi did.

Jimin studied the frame - the omega’s shoulders drawn just a fraction too tight, breath shallow, scent readings spiking in delayed waves rather than immediate response. “This is coercive,” Jimin said. The word landed heavy in the small room.

Yoongi didn’t react. Not outwardly. But something in the air shifted - subtle, contained. “That interview was cleared,” the alpha said evenly.

“I know,” Jimin replied. His voice stayed calm, professional. “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t coercive.”

He gestured again. “He wasn’t responding to your questions. He was responding to the anticipation of them. That pause before you spoke? He panicked there. Not because of what you said, but because of what he expected you to say.”

Yoongi remained still, eyes fixed on the frozen image.

Jimin pressed on, heart beating a little faster now. “His scent spikes after compliance,” Jimin continued. “That’s not relief. That’s collapse. He’d already decided resistance was pointless.”

Silence stretched.

This time, it was different.

Not neutral. Not resting.

The alpha leaned back slowly, folding his arms. “That was seven years ago,” he said. “Different protocols.”

“I know,” Jimin said again, softer now - but no less firm. “I’m not accusing you of intent. I’m saying the system failed him. And you were part of that system.”

There it was.

The line.

Jimin felt the tension coil tight between them, sharp but controlled. Professional. Restrained. Neither of them moved toward it - but neither stepped back either.

For a long moment, Yoongi said nothing. Jimin waited, pulse steady but alert. He didn’t apologize. He wouldn’t. This wasn’t personal - it was truth, and truth didn’t soften itself to spare feelings.

Finally, Yoongi exhaled. Not a sigh. Not frustration. Acceptance. “You’re right,” he finally said. The words were quiet. Precise. Jimin blinked. Yoongi’s gaze stayed on the screen. “I see it now. I didn’t then.”

Jimin searched his face for defensiveness, resentment - anything. There was none. “I thought restraint was enough,” Yoongi continued. “I didn’t understand yet that silence can still be a weapon.”

Something in Jimin’s chest loosened, unexpectedly. “That’s why we’re reviewing,” the omega said, more gently than before. “Not to assign blame. To understand patterns.”

Yoongi nodded once. “Flag it.”

Jimin did. As the file was marked for reclassification, he became acutely aware of his own breathing - slow, steady, unforced. Of the way the tension had spiked and then… settled.

Not resolved.

Settled.

They moved on to the next file without comment, but something fundamental had shifted. Jimin no longer felt like he was working with Min Yoongi. He felt like he was working alongside him. And that realization - quiet, grounding, and dangerously reassuring - made him far more uneasy than the confrontation ever had.

+++

Yoongi didn’t interrupt Jimin while he flagged the file. He could have. There were procedural arguments he could have made, contextual details he could have offered, justifications that would have been technically correct. He had spent years learning how to articulate those things clearly, calmly - how to make them sound reasonable enough to be accepted and archived.

He chose not to.

Instead, he watched the frozen image on the screen: an omega from another lifetime, sitting too straight, eyes too empty. The silence in the room no longer felt neutral. It pressed - quietly, insistently - against a realization Yoongi had learned to live with a long time ago.

Jimin hadn’t accused him.

That was the thing.

He’d named the harm without attaching malice to it, had pointed to the system without pretending Yoongi stood outside it. That kind of clarity was rarer than forgiveness. It required more honesty to accept.

Yoongi leaned back, arms folding loosely - not in defense, but because he needed the space to think. “That interview,” he said at last, voice even, “was one of the ones that made me leave.”

Jimin stilled. Yoongi didn’t look at him. He kept his gaze on the screen, on the past he had already dissected more times than he could count. “I transferred divisions two years after that,” the alpha continued. “Not immediately. It took me longer than it should have.” He paused, not to dramatize, but to be precise. “I was good at getting confessions,” he said. “Fast ones. Clean ones. On paper, I was efficient.”

Jimin said nothing. He didn’t rush the silence. Yoongi noted that, filed it away.

“It took me time to understand that speed isn’t justice,” Yoongi went on. “And that a confession isn’t the same thing as truth. Especially when fear makes people cooperate.” His jaw tightened slightly - not with regret, but with resolve. “I started noticing patterns,” he said. “Omegas who complied too quickly. Who thanked me afterward. Who stopped showing up to follow-ups.”

He finally turned to Jimin then. “I realized I wasn’t hurting them,” Yoongi said. “And that was the problem. I was letting the system do it instead.”

Jimin’s expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes softened - not pity, not judgment. Understanding.

“So I left,” Yoongi said. “I retrained. Learned how to wait instead of push. Learned how to stop before silence turns sharp.” He exhaled quietly. “It didn’t fix what I’d already done. But it stopped me from doing it again.”

Jimin nodded once. “That matters.”

The simplicity of the statement caught Yoongi off guard. He hadn’t offered an explanation to be reassured. He didn’t need absolution. He had already made peace with his choices - or at least with the necessity of continuing to answer for them. But hearing Jimin say that - without drama, without consolation - settled something he hadn’t realized was still restless.

Yoongi turned back to the screen. “Flagging those files is the right call,” he said. “Even if my name is on them.”

Jimin met his gaze briefly. “Especially then.” There was no heat in the exchange. No edge. Just alignment.

Yoongi reached for the controls and pulled up the next file, fingers steady. As the footage began to play, he became aware of something else - quiet, unassuming, but unmistakable. The tension from earlier hadn’t lingered. It had passed through them and left something sturdier behind.

Yoongi didn’t mistake it for trust. Not yet. But it was something adjacent to it. Something earned not by agreement, but by honesty. And as the next omega appeared on screen, Yoongi understood - fully, clearly - why Namjoon had put them in this room together. Not because they would make each other comfortable. But because they would make each other better.

The alpha felt the shift before he named it. It wasn’t relief. It wasn’t agreement. It was something quieter - like two mechanisms clicking into a different alignment without friction. He’d learned to recognize that sensation in rooms where people stopped lying, when the posture changed and the air lost its sharpness.

This was similar. More precise.

Jimin didn’t press. That was the first thing Yoongi registered. After the explanation, after the admission, Jimin didn’t ask follow-up questions meant to probe for guilt or justification. He didn’t soften his tone to spare Yoongi’s feelings, but he didn’t harden it either. He simply absorbed the information and adjusted his posture - forward, attentive, ready to move on.

Not accusatory.

Yoongi realized, then, how much he’d been bracing for that without knowing it. The subtle tightening that came whenever his past surfaced, the expectation that acknowledgment would be mistaken for weakness or defensiveness.

It wasn’t.

Jimin treated it like data. And in doing so, stripped it of its power to wound. Yoongi let his shoulders drop a fraction. Not consciously. Reflexively. He hadn’t earned anything, and Jimin hadn’t offered it - but he hadn’t needed to defend himself either. That, strangely, felt like respect.

Across the table, the omega glanced at him - brief, searching - and something else passed between them. Yoongi saw it clearly: the reset.

Jimin had come into this room prepared to challenge authority, to push back against a system that often hid behind procedure. He had expected resistance. Ego. The subtle maneuvering of someone protecting their reputation.

He hadn’t found it.

Yoongi watched Jimin’s jaw unclench, the tension at the corner of his mouth ease. The omega’s focus sharpened - not so wary now, but intent. As if a variable had been removed from the equation and the solution had simplified.

He isn’t defending himself, as if Jimin was realizing.

And Yoongi, in turn, understood something equally important.

Jimin hadn’t flagged the file to make a point. He hadn’t been posturing, hadn’t been looking to establish dominance or prove moral superiority. There was no satisfaction in his expression when Yoongi agreed, no triumph in being right.

He isn’t attacking me, Yoongi thought. He’s protecting the pattern.

That mattered.

Yoongi reached forward and adjusted the playback speed, a small, practical gesture that signaled movement rather than stalemate. “Let’s mark the window where anticipation spikes,” he said. “Not the questions themselves.”

Jimin nodded immediately, already moving. “And cross-reference it with aftercare notes,” he added. “If they exist.”

They worked in tandem then, the rhythm smoother than before. Not because they’d resolved anything personal - but because they’d stopped misreading each other’s intent.

Yoongi noticed it in the small things.

Jimin didn’t hedge his observations anymore. He stated them plainly, trusting they’d be heard. Yoongi didn’t feel the need to contextualize every choice, didn’t brace for misinterpretation.

The silence between them returned - but it was different now.

It wasn’t a test.

It was a tool they both knew how to use.

As the file closed and the next loaded, Yoongi felt the recalibration settle fully into place. Not trust. Not comfort.

Alignment.

They weren’t on opposite sides of a line anymore. They were standing on the same side, looking at it together - measuring where it bent, where it broke, and where it needed to be redrawn.

Yoongi didn’t allow himself to think about what that might mean beyond this room. He’d learned better than to project. But as he watched Jimin lean forward again, steady and unguarded, Yoongi acknowledged the truth of it. Whatever tension had sparked between them hadn’t burned.

It had tuned.

And that, in work like this, was far more dangerous - and far more valuable - than heat ever was.

Chapter Text

“I feel calm where I shouldn’t.”

The room felt different before the witness arrived.

Jimin noticed it the moment he stepped inside - before the lights fully adjusted, before the door sealed shut behind him. The air was too still, carrying the faint residue of recycled scent and something sharper beneath it. Fear, probably. Or anticipation. The kind that settled into walls after too many people had broken quietly inside them.

A new omega witness. Scheduled, protected, and already afraid.

The omega set his bag down on the narrow counter along the wall and began unpacking without thinking too hard about it. Muscle memory took over - ritual more than routine. He lined up grounding tools with careful precision: textured stones, a weighted band, scent-neutral wipes, a small vial of diluted citrus meant to cut through panic without overwhelming. He didn’t look at Yoongi while he worked.

Across the room, Yoongi stood near the table, jacket already off, sleeves rolled just enough to free his wrists. He didn’t ask what Jimin needed. Didn’t hover. He simply opened his folder and began reviewing his notes, eyes moving steadily over the page.

Questions.

Not accusations. Not traps.

Jimin registered the cadence of it distantly - the way Yoongi’s pen paused, then moved again, striking through a line and rewriting it cleaner. Slower. Each question pared down until it held only what was necessary. They worked in parallel. No coordination. No verbal check-in. No confirmation of roles. And yet, nothing overlapped.

Jimin adjusted the chair placement subtly, angling it so the omega wouldn’t feel cornered. The alpha shifted the table a fraction of an inch to open space on one side. Jimin placed the weighted band within easy reach. Yoongi slid the glass of water closer to where the witness would sit.

It should have unsettled him - this quiet synchronization, this ease of movement without discussion. Jimin was used to asserting his presence in rooms like this, making sure his role was visible, respected, acknowledged.

Here, it simply… was.

He paused, fingers resting on the edge of the counter, and finally glanced up. Yoongi hadn’t looked at him once. Not out of dismissal. Not avoidance.

Trust.

The realization landed heavier than expected. Jimin swallowed and turned back to his work, focusing on the tactile reassurance of the tools beneath his hands. He told himself it was professionalism. Experience. The natural rhythm of two people who knew what they were doing. But his body responded anyway - breath evening out, shoulders loosening just slightly. He hated that. The door chimed softly, signaling that the witness had arrived and was waiting just outside.

Jimin straightened, rolling his shoulders once to release tension. “I’ll lead the grounding,” he said, voice calm and steady.

Yoongi nodded without looking up. “I’ll start with context. We’ll go slow.”

We.

Jimin didn’t comment on it. He didn’t need to. As they took their places, the room seemed to settle around them - not empty, not charged. Just ready. For the first time since the case had begun, Jimin felt a flicker of something he didn’t fully trust yet. Not confidence.

Readiness.

Whatever happened once the door opened, he knew this much. They would hold the room together.

The moment didn’t announce itself. There was no raised voice, no visible flinch, no obvious shift in posture when the omega began to speak. On the surface, everything looked controlled, too controlled. The witness sat with their hands folded in their lap, answering in a voice that was careful and flat, eyes fixed somewhere just past the edge of the table.

Jimin felt it anyway. It hit him low in the chest first, a wrongness that made his breath catch half a second before he understood why. His senses sharpened reflexively, tuning toward something his conscious mind hadn’t processed yet.

The scent. It spiked, but not forward. Not sharp panic, not the sudden flare of fear that usually accompanied direct pressure. This was delayed, curling inward instead of outward, a suffocating swell that came after compliance rather than before it. The kind of reaction that followed resignation, not resistance.

Jimin’s fingers tightened around the stylus in his hand. He leaned forward slightly, eyes flicking to the scent monitor mounted discreetly along the wall. The data lagged. Still green. Still nominal. But his body already knew. Across the table, the omega nodded once, agreeing too quickly. Their shoulders drew in by a fraction of an inch, breath going shallow - not fast, just… thinner.

Jimin’s pulse ticked faster. This was the edge. The place where fear didn’t explode, it folded. He opened his mouth.

Yoongi stopped him without looking at him. “Let’s pause here,” Yoongi said calmly.

The words landed into the room like a held breath finally released. The omega froze, then blinked, confusion flickering across their face. “Did I—?”

“No,” the alpha said gently. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Jimin stared. The monitors chirped softly - late, but catching up now. A subtle spike registered, the line trembling just enough to confirm what Jimin had already felt in his bones. He turned slowly toward Yoongi, shock flaring sharp and immediate.

Yoongi was watching the witness, not Jimin. His posture was open, voice even, hands resting loosely on the table. There was no tension in him, only certainty. Jimin’s heart hammered.

He stopped.

Not because the data told him to. Not because Jimin had signaled. Because he’d seen Jimin tense. Because he’d trusted it.

The omega’s shoulders sagged a little, relief seeping in despite their confusion. Yoongi gestured toward Jimin without shifting his tone. “We’re going to take a short grounding break. Jimin will sit with you.”

Jimin moved on instinct, chair scraping softly as he slid closer, the stylus forgotten in his hand. He placed the weighted band gently on the table, voice low and steady as he guided the omega’s breathing back into something safe. But part of his attention was still elsewhere. Locked on Yoongi. While the room was recalibrating, Jimin’s mind raced - not with analysis, but disbelief.

Yoongi had noticed him. Not the monitors. Not the scent data.

Him.

The realization sent a quiet jolt through his system, equal parts alarm and something far more dangerous. When the omega’s breathing evened out and the room settled back into neutral, Jimin finally looked up again. Yoongi met his gaze this time. Just for a moment. No triumph. No question. Just acknowledgment. Jimin swallowed, throat suddenly dry. The stop should have been his call. It always was.

The fact that Yoongi had reached it first - had trusted Jimin’s reaction enough to act on it - rewrote something fundamental in the way Jimin understood control in these rooms. The interview would resume later. The case would move forward. But as Jimin sat back, hands steadying, he knew with unsettling clarity that something else had already shifted.

They weren’t just sharing responsibility anymore. They were sharing instinct. And that - quiet, unspoken, and already proven - shocked him far more than the stop itself ever could.

+++

The room had settled back into itself by the time the door closed. The omega was safe for now - grounded, escorted, breathing evenly again under Hoseok’s watch. The monitors had reset. The table was clear except for a faint indentation where the weighted band had rested. Yoongi stood by the counter, rolling his sleeves back down, the echo of the stop still humming through his bones.

He felt Jimin before he heard him.

“Why did you stop?” The question wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t accusatory. It was quiet, almost careful, like Jimin was testing the weight of it before letting it fall.

Yoongi turned.

Jimin stood near the table, posture composed but eyes intent, that particular stillness he fell into when something had unsettled him more than he wanted to admit. His scent had steadied again, tangerine soft but contained, though Yoongi could still sense the aftershock beneath it.

The alpha didn’t deflect. He didn’t reach for protocol or phrasing or the neutral language that made answers palatable. “Because you were about to,” he simply said.

The words landed between them without ceremony.

Jimin blinked. Once. Then again. “That’s not—” He stopped, lips pressing together briefly. “The monitors hadn’t—”

“I know,” Yoongi said evenly.

He crossed the room, not crowding, just close enough that the space felt shared rather than divided. “You leaned forward. Your grip tightened. Your breathing changed. Not fast - focused.”

Jimin stared at him.

“That’s your tell,” the alpha continued. “When you’re about to intervene.” A beat. “I trust it.”

The silence that followed wasn’t neutral. It was full. Jimin’s jaw unclenched slowly, the tension easing out of his shoulders as if he hadn’t realized how tightly he’d been holding himself together. Yoongi watched the recalibration happen in real time - saw the moment the omega stopped searching for a hidden motive and accepted the answer at face value.

“You didn’t wait for confirmation,” Jimin said quietly.

“No,” Yoongi agreed. “I waited for you.”

That seemed to land harder than anything else he could have said.

Jimin exhaled, a slow, measured breath, eyes dropping briefly to the floor before lifting again. “That’s not standard.”

Yoongi’s mouth curved just slightly, not a smile. “Neither is this case.”

Another pause.

“Thank you,” Jimin said at last.

The alpha inclined his head. “Anytime.”

They stood there for a moment longer, the room holding the echo of what had passed - not tension anymore, but something newly aligned. Yoongi felt it settle into place with the same quiet certainty he’d learned to trust in interrogations: the sense that a line had been crossed without being broken. They turned back to their notes without further comment. But Yoongi knew - precisely, unmistakably - that from this point on, he would always be watching the room and Jimin. Not to control. Not to lead. But to stop… exactly when it mattered.

Yoongi didn’t miss the shift inside himself. That was the problem. His inner alpha had been quiet for years - not dormant, not gone, just… disciplined. Trained into stillness the same way Yoongi had trained his body and voice and presence. Control wasn’t instinct for him; it was practice. Repeated, deliberate, earned. So when the low, instinctive awareness stirred - subtle as a pressure change - it caught his attention immediately.

Omega.

The thought surfaced unbidden, not sharp, not possessive. Just a recognition that carried weight. Yoongi dismissed it as reflex at first. Jimin was an omega. His senses were calibrated to register that, especially in close quarters, especially under stress. It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t have to.

Except his alpha didn’t react the way it usually did. There was no urge to loom. No spike of dominance. No pull toward control or claim. Instead, there was… interest. Focused, intent, restrained in a way that felt almost reverent.

Yoongi hated that. He had spent too long dismantling the parts of himself that society had encouraged him to lean into - the assumption that interest meant entitlement, that awareness meant action. His alpha had learned, the hard way, that restraint was not weakness. And yet. When Jimin leaned forward during the interrogation, Yoongi had felt it in his gut before he’d named it in his head. Not attraction. Not desire.

Alignment.

His alpha had stirred not because Jimin was vulnerable, but because he was precise. Because he knew when to stop. Because his presence regulated the room rather than inflamed it. That was dangerous territory. Yoongi grounded himself the way he always did - through logic, through memory. He reminded himself of the facts:

Jimin was a colleague. This was a case. Power dynamics mattered. Interest - any kind - had to be contained. He forced his scent to remain steady, sandalwood kept carefully neutral, no edge, no invitation. He kept his posture open but distant. He did not step closer when Jimin spoke. He did not linger when their gazes met.

Still, his alpha watched. Not hungrily. Not impatiently.

Protectively.

The realization settled heavy in his chest.

No.

Yoongi tightened his grip on the counter, fingers pressing into cool metal until the grounding sensation anchored him again. Protection without consent was still possession. Interest without boundaries was still threat. He would not become that. And yet - he couldn’t ignore the truth of it either.

His alpha didn’t want to claim Jimin.

It wanted to follow his lead.

The thought unsettled him more than any surge of dominance ever could have. Yoongi exhaled slowly, deliberately, forcing the instinct back into its place. He had mastered suppression before. He could do it again. He would do it again. Whatever this pull was - biological, psychological, or something else entirely - it had no place here. Not in this room. Not in this work. Not between two people tasked with holding others together.

So Yoongi chose what he always chose. He chose restraint. He chose silence. He chose to stand exactly where he was and let the moment pass without acting on it. But even as the instinct quieted, even as his alpha settled back under discipline, Yoongi acknowledged one unavoidable truth.  This wasn’t a fleeting reaction.

It was attention. And attention, once given, was not so easily withdrawn. Yoongi would suppress it. He would contain it. He would do everything right. But some part of him - deep, instinctive, and newly awake - had already marked Jimin as someone worth watching. Not to take. Not to claim.

Just… not to let fall.

+++

Jimin didn’t turn on the lights when he got home.

He kicked off his shoes by the door, let his bag slide to the floor, and stood there for a long moment in the dim quiet of his apartment, listening to the familiar sounds settle around him - the hum of the refrigerator, the distant traffic, the soft creak of the building shifting as it always did at night.

Safe. His space. Controlled.

He exhaled slowly and only then realized how tired he was. Not the bone-deep exhaustion that came after long cases, but something subtler. The kind that followed sustained awareness. Monitoring. Holding himself in check for hours at a time. It had been drilled into him early. As an omega, yes - but more than that, as an omega who refused to let the world decide what that meant.

Watch yourself.

Know how you’re coming across.

Never give anyone a reason.

He had learned to track his posture the way others tracked time. Learned how to regulate his scent until it became second nature - never too soft, never too sharp. Learned to read rooms before he stepped into them and to never, ever assume safety just because someone seemed calm or reasonable.

Especially then.

Safety was not a given. It was something you verified. Repeatedly. Constantly.

The omega prided himself on that vigilance. On the way he could sit across from alphas twice his size and never let his guard slip, on the way he could sense the moment a room began to tilt toward danger and pull back before it broke. That awareness had kept him alive. It had kept him respected. It had kept him in control. Which was why the realization crept up on him now, unwelcome and sharp. He hadn’t been monitoring himself around Yoongi.

The thought made him still.

Jimin sank down onto the edge of the couch, elbows braced on his knees, fingers interlaced tightly. He replayed the day in fragments - the review room, the silence, the way hours had passed without his usual restlessness. The lunch break, irritation flaring when Yoongi commented on his eating… and the way he’d followed him anyway.

The interrogation. The stop. The aftermath.

At no point had he checked his scent deliberately. At no point had he calculated his posture or softened his voice. At no point had he asked himself the questions that usually ran like a second pulse under his skin.

Am I safe?

Am I being read correctly?

Am I giving away too much?

The questions hadn’t occurred to him. That was what frightened him.

Jimin leaned back, staring up at the ceiling, heart beating a little faster now. He tried to recall the last time that had happened - when he’d let himself simply exist in a space with someone else without constant internal calibration. He couldn’t remember. Yoongi hadn’t asked for his trust. Hadn’t pressured him, hadn’t closed distance, hadn’t asserted anything at all. And yet, Jimin’s body had responded as if the threat assessment had already been completed… and passed. Without his conscious approval.

That’s dangerous, he told himself firmly.

He sat up straighter, forcing the familiar mental discipline back into place. Whatever ease he’d felt today was situational. Professional alignment. Shared ethics. Nothing more. He would correct for it tomorrow. Reassert boundaries. Monitor himself the way he always did. He had to.

And yet - even as he made the promise, even as he carefully catalogued the ways he would regain control - another truth lingered, quiet and persistent. Around Min Yoongi, Jimin hadn’t relaxed because he was careless. He had relaxed because some part of him hadn’t felt the need to stay braced. That part scared him far more than any overt threat ever had.

Jimin closed his eyes and pressed his palms briefly to his face, grounding himself in the familiar weight of his own body. Tomorrow, he told himself, would be different. He would watch himself again. He would remember the rules.

But as he lay back against the couch, breath finally slowing in the quiet dark, one uninvited thought slipped through before he could stop it:

What if I didn’t watch myself… because he already was?

The question lingered, unanswered, as Jimin drifted into uneasy sleep - aware now that something inside him had shifted, and uncertain whether vigilance alone would be enough to move it back.