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Copyright Notice© 2020 by Amethyst_Obsidian.
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This story or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, copied or used in any manner without the expressed/written permission of the author.
⚠️Warning & Disclaimer⚠️
This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the band BTS, trademarked by HYBE Corporation. Any resemblance to all publicly recognisable names, settings, etc., are the property of their respective owners.
The story (characters and plot) is the property of the author and no copyright infringement intended as I simply create my such for personal entertainment and enjoyment, not for professional purposes.
This story contains adult language and mature/explicit content (powerful language, violence and explicit adult topics and may feature sensitive issues that may be triggering or disturbing). It is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18 and may not be suitable for all adult readers.
View at your discretion.
If you're disturbed or triggered by any of the topics listed below, please skip this story.
If you're sensitive to and/or related to:
- M/M
- Implied Top!Tae:Bottom!Gguk
- Alpha Omega Dynamics
- NSFW 🔞
- Absent & Neglectful Parents
- Psychological manipulation &/or abuse
- Mentions verbal abuse
Again, view at your discretion.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
~~~
One
"They have to be your sons," Jimin had accused, "They have your distinct family features stamped on them, you were at the University of New York that one time, kiddo."
Kim Taehyung stood in the now silent room, the accusation his second in command had just made was still echoing through his head.
He didn't need to keep gazing at the photograph Jimin, Min Yoongi's mate had taken with his mobile phone on their way through LaGuardia (NY) Airport.
Jimin was on his way back after visiting his husband's side of the family. He went directly to the penthouse to confirm such a statement, to show me the boys' faces.
They were already carved into his memory for all time.
Two black-haired, honey-tanned-skinned and dark-eyed identical faces looked back at him, their parent kneeling beside them. The three of them were shabbily dressed in cheap-looking clothes.
Tall, dark-haired, with the features of two thousand years of alpha-male victorious Baek-ho warriors, where the determination was sculpted into their psyche and the bones of his handsome face.
"I don't know anything about them," Taehyung said, breaking the silence.
"Of course you don't but you can't deny that they're yours," Jimin retorted, "Just look at those faces. Those children are of your blood."
He looked at the photograph again and then announced curtly, "Of my blood."
Jimin stared at him, baffled and confused, "Huh?"
Taehyung looked at his pack brother, on the verge of quarrelling just as they had always done as children. He turned towards the wide penthouse windows and looked beyond them to where the horizon met the Han river.
Outwardly, he might appear calm but inside his chest, his heart was thudding with fury. Inside his head images were forming, dark memories he had thought well-buried surfacing.
"I know it. They are mine," Taehyung answered, watching as his eyes widened with the shock of his disclosure.
Jimin wasn't the only one who was shocked, he had been shocked himself when he had looked at the image from his phone. Immediately recognising the young man kneeling beside the two young boys who so undeniably bore the stamp of their fathering - his fathering.
Oddly, he looked, if anything, younger now than he had the night they had met in a shady club favoured by young wealthy alpha men and thus the line of the people who chased after them.
Taehyung had been taken there by a business acquaintance, who had left him on his own devices as he picked up an omega girl himself, urging him to do the same.
His mouth hardened, he had buried the memory of that night as deeply as he could.
A one-night stand with an alcohol-fuelled omega boy who dressed in overly tight and incredibly revealing clothes, wearing too much make-up, who made a deliberate play for him.
At one point the omega had caught hold of his hand, as though about to drag him to bed.
The boy had been one of a clutch of such groupies, openly seeking the favours of the well-off young men who favoured the place.
The club, he had been told, was well known for attracting such young people.
Greedy, immoral people, whose one desire was to find themselves a rich lover or better still a rich husband.
It wasn't something any real alpha with any pride or self-respect could ever be proud of.
Not even when there were the extenuating circumstances, there had been that night.
Taehyung had had sex with an omega boy out of anger and resentment, against his grandfather for trying to control his life. He'd been refusing to allow him a greater say in the running of the business which, in his stubborn determination not to move with the times, he had been slowly destroying.
And against his parents, his father for dying, even though that was a decade ago, leaving him without his support, his mother, who had married his father out of duty whilst continuing to have many lovers.
All those things, all that anger had welled up inside him, and the result was in front of him.
His sons.
His.
A feeling like nothing he had ever experienced before seized hold of him.
A feeling that had struck him, he would have flatly denied he would ever experience. He was a modern man of logic, not emotion, and certainly not the kind of emotion he was feeling right now.
Gut-wrenching, instinctive, tearing at him.
An emotion born of a Baek-ho Lycan inheritance that said that a man's children, especially his sons, belonged under his roof, together with his pack.
Those boys were his.
"Get everything you know about them. I want them home by next week."
Their place was here with him, not in some gad forsaken place.
Here they could learn what it meant to be his sons, a Kim of Baek-ho, could grow into their heritage.
Taehyung could father and guide them as his sense of responsibility demanded that he should.
How much damage had they already suffered through the man who had borne them?
Taehyung had given them life without knowing it, but now that he did know he would stop at nothing to bring them home, where they belonged.
~~~
Cursing as Jeon Jungkook heard the persistent doorbell ring, he remained where on her hands and knees, hoping that whoever it was would give up and go away, leaving him in peace to get on with the cleaning.
However, the bell rang imperiously, someone was pressing hard on the bell button.
Sighing again under his breath, Jungkook backed out of the bathroom, feeling hot and sticky, not in any mood to entertain door-to-door religious awakening talks as he tried to clean the toilet whilst his twin sons were at school interrupted.
Jungkook got to his feet, pushing soft brunette bangs off his face before marching towards the front door of the house, he yanked the door open.
"Look, I'm busy mister-," his sentence went unfinished, voice muted by shock as he stared at the man standing at the doorstep.
Shock, disbelief, fear, anger, panic and a sharp spear of something else that he didn't recognise exploded inside himself like a violent thunderstorm with such powerful intensity that his body was drained of such energy he was left feeling shaky, weak, trembling inwardly beneath the onslaught of emotions.
Kim Taehyung.
Of course, the son of a b!tch would be dressed immaculately, in a dark, opulent business suit worn over a crisp white shirt, whilst he was wearing old jeans and a baggy tee-shirt.
Not that it mattered how Jungkook looked.
He had to clench his jaw muscles against the shudder of revulsion that threatened to betray him. The face that had haunted his dreams and nightmares hadn't changed nor aged.
If anything Taehyung looked even more devastatingly handsome and virile than he had remembered, the dark gaze that had mesmerised him so effectively every bit as compelling now as it had been when they met.
Or was it because Jungkook was a man now and not the boy he had been that was so immediately and shockingly aware of what a very sexual man he was?
Jungkook didn't know, he didn't want to know.
The disbelief that had frozen him into silence had turned to a dangerous slash of fear and horror inside his head.
No!
Whatever effect Taehyung had once had on his heart, had no power to touch it now.
"You-" slid from the fullness of the naturally warm-coloured lips, causing a look of mixed contempt and arrogance to flash from the intense dark gaze of Taehyung's eyes.
A prickly sensation raised the hairs at the back of his neck and then ran down Jungkook's spine.
This was ridiculous.
Taehyung meant nothing to him now, just as he had meant nothing to him that night.
But... he mustn't think about that.
Jungkook must concentrate instead on what he was now, not what he had been then. He must remember the promise he had made to the twins when they had been born, that he would put the past behind him.
What he had never expected was that that past would seek him out, now it had…
"What are you doing here?" he demanded, determined to wrest control of the situation, "What do you want?"
Instinctively Jungkook started to close the door on him after a few minutes of silence, he wanted to shut out not just Taehyung himself but everything he represented but he was too quick, taking hold of the door and forcing it open.
He steps into the hall then closes the door behind him, enclosing both in the small domestic space, with its smell of cleaning fluid. Strong as it was, it still wasn't strong enough to protect Jungkook from the scent of him.
Taehyung's mouth might be aesthetically perfect, with that well-cut lip balancing the promise of sensuality, but there was nothing sensual about the tight-lipped look he was giving.
His words were as sharply cold as the air outside the hotel in which he had abandoned him that winter morning.
"I think you know the answer to that," Taehyung said, his English as fluent and as accentless as he remembered, "What I want, what I have come for and what I mean to have, are my sons."
"Your sons?"
Fiercely proud of his twin sons, equally fiercely protective of them, there was nothing he could have said which would have been more guaranteed to arouse Jungkook's anger than his verbal claim on them.
Angry colour burned in his cheeks, his doe eyes were fiery with fierce emotions.
It was over six years since this man had taken him, used him and then abandoned him as casually as though he was nothing.
Jungkook knew that he had only himself to blame for what had happened that fatal night. He had been the one to flirt with him, even if that flirtation had been alcohol-induced, and no matter how he tried to excuse his behaviour it still shamed him.
But not its result, not his beautiful, adorable, much loved sons.
His twins could never shame him and from the moment they had been born he had been determined to be a father of whom they could be proud.
A father with whom they could feel secure no matter how much he regretted ⁰the manner in which they had been conceived, he would not for one minute even want to go back in time and avoid their conception.
Jungkook's sons were his life.
His sons.
"My sons.-" Jungkook began, only to be interrupted.
"My sons, you mean. Since in my country it is the father who has the right to claim his children, not the one who birthed them."
"My sons were not fathered by you," Jungkook continued untruthfully.
"Lying won't get you anywhere," Taehyung countered, reaching inside his jacket to produce a photograph he held up.
The blood left Jungkook's face.
The photograph had been taken at the airport when they had all gone to see his friend off on her recent flight to Japan.
The resemblance of the twins to the man who had fathered them was cruelly and undeniably revealed.
The two boys were cast perfectly in their father's image, right down to the unintentionally arrogant masculine air they could adopt at times, as though deep down somewhere in their genes there was an awareness of the man who had fathered them.
Taehyung allowed himself a triumphant look.
Of course, the boys were his.
He had known it the first time he had looked at the image on Jimin's mobile phone.
Their mirror image resemblance to him when he was 5 years old had sent a jolt of emotion through him, unlike anything he had previously experienced.
It hadn't taken the private agency he had contacted very long to trace Jungkook, although he had frowned over comments in the report he had received that implied that Jungkook was a devoted father who dedicated himself to raising his sons and was unlikely to give them up willingly.
But Taehyung had decided that the devotion to his sons might be the best tool he could use to ensure that Jungkook gave them up to him.
"My sons' place is with me, in Seoul. Ultimately under our laws, they belong to me, that will be their inheritance."
"Belong? They are children, not possessions, and no court in this country would let you take them from me."
Jungkook was beginning to panic, he was determined not to let him see it.
"You are living in a house that belongs to your friend. I, on the other hand, can provide my sons with everything that you cannot. A home, an excellent education, a future."
"Maybe so... but can you provide them with love and the knowledge that they are truly loved and wanted? You can't. Because you don't love them. How can you? You don't know them."
"What I do know is that one day they will want to know who fathered them and what their family history is."
It had been hard for Jungkook to answer the questions the boys had already asked, saying that they did have a daddy but he lived in a different country.
Those words had reminded him of what he was denying his sons because of the circumstances in which they conceived them.
One day, though, their questions would be those of teenagers, not little boys, far more searching, knowing.
Jungkook looked away, instinctively wanting to hide his inner fears from Taehyung.
The problem of telling the boys how he had come to have them lay across his heart and conscience in an ever-present numbing weight.
At the moment the twins simply accepted that many of the other children they were at school with, did not have a daddy living with them.
Taehyung had stirred up all the anxieties he had tried to put to one side.
More than anything else Jungkook wanted to be a good single parent, to give the boys the gift of a secure childhood filled with love, wanting them to grow up knowing they were loved, confident and happy, without the burden of having to worry about adult relationships.
For that reason, Jungkook was determined never to begin a relationship with anyone.
A changing parade of 'uncles' and 'stepfathers' wasn't what he wanted for his boys.
But now Taehyung, with his demands and questions, was forcing him to think about the future and his sons' reactions to the reality of their conception.
The fact that they did not have a father who loved them.
Anger and panic swirled through him.
"Why are you doing this?" he demanded, "The boys mean nothing to you. They are five years old. You didn't even know that they existed."
"That... is true. But as for them meaning nothing to me, you are wrong. They are of my blood, that alone means that I have a responsibility to ensure that they are brought up within their family."
Taehyung wasn't going to tell Jungkook about that insurmountable surge of emotion and connection he had felt the minute he had seen the twins' photograph.
He didn't understand it himself.
He only knew that it had brought him here and it would keep him here until Jungkook handed over to him his sons.
"It can't have been easy for you financially, bringing them up. Even if your friend can keep up helping you, have you thought about what would happen if they wanted to marry and you have to move out? At the moment you are financially dependent on their goodwill. As a caring father, naturally you will want your sons to have the best possible education and comfortable life. I can provide them with both. And I'll even provide you with the money to live your own life. It can't be much fun for you, tied to two small children all the time."
Jungkook was right to be suspicious, he recognised the full meaning of his offer.
Did he expect him to sell his sons?
Didn't he realise how ridiculously offensive his offer was?
Or did Taehyung simply not care?
"You know what? Screw you, Kim Taehyung. The twins are only five. Now that they're at school I'm planning to continue my education. And the boys provide me with all the fun I want or need."
"You'll forgive me if I say that I find that hard to believe, given the circumstances under which we met," was his smooth and cruel response.
"That was six years ago. That was then, this is now," Jungkook broke off.
Why should he explain himself?
The people closest to Jungkook knew and understood what had driven him to the reckless behaviour that had resulted in the twins' conception, and their love and support for her had never wavered.
Jungkook owed Taehyung nothing after all, much less the revelation of his teenage vulnerabilities.
"I'm prepared to be very generous to you financially in return for you handing the twins over to me. Very generous indeed. You're still young..."
In fact, Taehyung had been surprised to discover from the investigation that the night they had met Jungkook had been only seventeen.
Dressed and made-up as he had been, Taehyung had assumed he was much older.
Taehyung frowned, he hadn't enjoyed the sharp spike of distaste he had experienced against himself at knowing he had taken such a young omega to bed.
Had he known his age he would have… what?
Given a stern talking to and sent him home?
Taehyung frowned.
Had he been in control of himself that night he would not have gone to bed with Jungkook at all, no matter what his age or the unpalatable truth that he had lost control of himself.
Taehyung had been in the grip of anger and a sense of frustration he had never experienced either before or since that night.
A savage, bitter emotion that had driven him into behaviour that still irked his pride and sense of Lycan self.
Other men might exhibit such behaviour, but he had always thought of himself as above that kind of thing.
Taehyung's wrong and now the evidence of that behaviour was confronting him in the shape of two sons he had fathered.
He believed he had a duty to ensure that they did not suffer because of that behaviour and that was what had brought him here.
And there was no way he was going to leave until he had got what he had come for.
"'Buy my sons, you mean? Because that is what you're talking about. Leave."
Jungkook accused him.
Taehyung could hear the hostility in the other's voice as well as see it in his doe eyes.
His words were having more of an effect on him than Taehyung liked to admit.
A Lycan alpha of pride and power used to command not just obedience but also the respect and admiration of others, he was stung by Jungkook's criticism.
He wasn't used to being refused anything by anyone, much less by an omega who had come on to him openly and obviously.
Not that there was anything of that boy he remembers. Now, Jungkook is dressed in faded jeans and a loose top, his face free of thick make-up, hair left to curl naturally of its own accord, long bangs tucked behind an ear.
The omega boy he remembered had smelled of cheap perfume but the man in front of him smelled of cleaning products.
He would have to change his approach if he was to overcome his objections, Taehyung thought.
"Listen to me, Jungkook. Have you thought about what I can offer my sons? You speak of their emotions. I wonder how they are going to feel when they grow up to realise that you have denied and refused to let them know of their other father?"
"That's not fair."
Jungkook objected angrily, knowing that he had found his most vulnerable spot where the twins were concerned.
"What is not fair, surely, you know the adage - All's fair in love, business and war. Did you think that denying my sons the opportunity to know their alpha father and the culture that is their birthright is right?"
"Right? Have you forgotten how you left me that morning? And I didn't deny them anything. You said and I quote, 'leave, here's a grand,' do you think I'm a hooker? And what's so great about your lineage? I don't want my sons learning things like that, especially from you."
Jungkook said horrible words that tasted bitter, but it had to be said and he continued.
"As far as I know, you're the one who didn't want anything to do with me and that goes for my sons. So, I will not force my sons to stand in second place to your legitimate children, and no doubt be resented by your mate."
"I have no other children, nor any mate."
It didn't matter to him whether or not Taehyung was married, did it?
So, why was Jungkook's heart hammering heavily, thudding into his chest wall?
"I'm warning you, Jungkook. I intend to have my sons with me. Whatever it takes to achieve that and by whatever means."
Jeon Jungkook's mouth went dry.
Stories he had read online and in newspapers about young children being kidnapped by a parent, stolen away out of the country flooded into his chaotic mind.
Kim Taehyung is a very wealthy, powerful man.
The only Lycan Alpha leader of the Kim Baek-ho pack in South Korea.
He had discovered that in the early days after he had met him when he had stupidly imagined that he would come back for him.
Jungkook had avidly read everything he could about him, wanting to learn everything he could.
Until the reality of the situation had forced him to accept that the fantasy he had created of Taehyung marrying him and looking after him was just that - a fantasy.
Jungkook needed to find someone to replace the parents he had lost and keep him safe. The unwelcome thought slid into his mind that there could come a day when the twins might actually resent and blame him for preventing them from benefiting from their father's wealth and, more importantly, from knowing him and their Lycan heritage.
His sons needed a strong alpha figure in their lives they could relate to.
Everyone knew that.
Secretly, Jungkook had been worrying about the lack of any male influence in their lives, he had been tempted to pray to the universe for a solution to that problem and had certainly not envisaged that solution coming in the form of the boys' natural father.
A kind, father-type figure for them was as much as he had hoped for because after their birth Jungkook had decided that he would never take the risk of getting involved with a man who might turn out to be only a temporary presence in his sons' lives.
Jeon Jungkook would rather be celibate than risk that.
The truth, in his opinion, children thrived best with two parents in a stable relationship, both committed to their wellbeing.
More than most, he knew the damage that could be done when that stability wasn't there.
A sense of standing on the edge of a precipice filled him with an awareness that the decision he made now would affect his sons for the rest of their lives.
Shakily Jungkook admitted to himself, ultimately the boys were his responsibility, their happiness resting in his hands.
Kim Taehyung was determined to have them. He was a wealthy, powerful and charismatic man who would have no difficulty whatsoever in persuading others that the boys should be with him but he didn't love them, he merely wanted them.
Jungkook doubted that Taehyung was capable of understanding what love was.
He couldn't let him take them, for their sake even more than his own.
If he couldn't stop Taehyung from claiming his sons then he owed it to them to make sure that he remained with them. He wouldn't want that, he despised and disliked him.
Jungkook's heart started to thud uncomfortably and far too fast as it fought against the solution proposed by his brain, now that the thought was there it couldn't be ignored.
"You say the boys' place is with you?"
"It is."
"They are five years old and I am their omega father. If you care about their wellbeing as much as you claim then you must know that they are too young to be separated from me. This is New York, it's the law."
Jungkook took a deep breath, hoping that his voice didn't shake with nervousness, he was fighting to suppress it.
Taehyung was forced to admit that he had a point.
"You need to be very sure about why you want the twins, Taehyung," Jungkook pressed his point further, "And that your desire to have them isn't merely a wealthy man's whim. Because the only way I will allow them to be with you is if I am there with them, as their omega father."
There, he had said it.
Thrown down the gauntlet, so to speak, and give him a challenge.
In the silence that followed Jungkook could hear his heart beating as he held his breath, waiting for him to refuse his demand because he knew that Taehyung would refuse it, and having refused it he's forced to step back and accept that the boys' place was with him.
Jungkook could tell from Taehyung's expression that the demand had shocked him, although he was quick to mask his reaction.
Taehyung thought quickly - Mating.
There was no doubt in his mind about that, nor any doubt that they were his but mating their omega father would give him certain rights over them, but it would also give Jungkook certain rights over his wealth.
He mentally assessed his options, he wanted his sons.
'That' was exactly what Jeon Jungkook wanted, right?
Claiming and mating to him, he could read Junhkook's mind so easily.
Even so, he had caught him off-guard, he told himself cynically that he should perhaps have been prepared for such demands.
Taehyung was, after all, a very wealthy man.
"I applaud your sharp-witted business acumen," he said drily using a neutral voice that gave away nothing of the fury he was feeling, "You rejected my initial offer of a generous payment under the guise of being a devoted father when in reality you were already planning to play for higher stakes."
What a ludicrous and ridiculous statement.
What had begun as a challenge to make him back down had now turned into a double-edged sword.
Right now he was wielding it skilfully against Jungkook, cutting what he had thought was a secure ground away from under him.
Now Jungkoom could see a reality he hadn't seen before.
Taehyung did want the boys and he meant to have them - He was rich and powerful.
What chance would he have of keeping them if he pursued through the courts?
At best all he could hope for was shared custody, with the boys passed to and fro between them, torn between two countries and homes.
That was the last thing Jungkook wanted for them.
Why had Taehyung had to discover that he had fathered them?
Hadn't life been cruel enough as it was?
"Jungkook, they are my sons,'' Taehyung interrupted his thoughts angrily, "And I mean to have them. If I have to marry and mate with you to facilitate that, then so be it. But make no mistake, Jeon Jungkook. I intend to have my sons by my side, as heirs to the Baek-ho pack."
Taehyung's response stunned him.
Jungkook recognised now through growing panic, marriage to this alpha wouldn't just provide his sons with a father, it would also protect his rights as an omega father.
As long as they were mated, the twins would have both parents there for them.
Both parents.
He swallowed painfully as thoughts of many sleepless nights worrying about the future and the effect of not having an alpha father figure might have on his sons?
An alpha figure but he had never imagined them having the real one in their lives, not after those first agonising weeks of being forced to accept that he meant nothing to him.
Jungkook wasn't going to give up, he would fight every bit with strength for his sons.
Holding his head up, he told Taehyung fiercely, "Fine, then. If you genuinely want the boys, you'll want to get to know them and be part of their lives. You will also understand that no matter how much this galls you to death, the children need the security of having two committed parents. You will be prepared to make the same sacrifice that I am willing to make through this. The choice is yours."
"Sacrifice? I am a Lycan and a billionaire. I don't think many people would consider mating with me a sacrifice."
Did Taehyung believe that?
It just showed how right he was to want to ensure that his sons grew up knowing there were far more important things in life than money.
"You are cynical. There is any number of people who would be appalled by what you have just said. People like me who put love before money, like me who put their children first, who would run from a man like you. I don't want your money, I am quite willing to sign a document saying so."
"Ha. You will be doing that. Make no mistake about it. There is no way I will abandon my sons to the care of someone who could very soon be without a roof over his head, who would have to rely on charity to feed and clothe them, who dressed like a whore and offered himself to a man he didn't know."
Smack.
Jungkook slapped his face, anger burst from the harsh words he inflicted on him.
He then flinched as though Taehyung's words had physically seeped into his body hitting him, but he still managed to ask quickly.
"Were you any better, oh, great alpha? Or does the fact that you are alpha and I'm an omega somehow mean that my behaviour was worse than yours? I was a seventeen-year-old-boy, you were an adult."
Taehyung assured him ruthlessly with a hard gaze.
Did Jungkook expect him to fall for his lies and 'faked' lack of interest in his prestige and money?
But Jungkook didn't care anymore, he continued, "A seventeen-year-old boy who-"
Angered by the reminder, Taehyung reacted against it with spite, "You certainly weren't dressed like an innocent schoolboy. You were the one who propositioned me, not the other way round. And that's a fact."
And now Taehyung was going to be forced to marry him. He didn't want to marry anyone, much less someone like Jungkook.
What he had seen in his parents' marriage, the bitter resentment between them had made him vow never to marry himself.
That vow had been the cause of acrimony and dissent between him and his late grandfather. A despot who believed he had the right to barter his grandchild of flesh and blood in marriage as though they were just another part of his stocks.
Refusing the proposal would give Jungkook an advantage.
He could and would undoubtedly, attempt to use his refusal against him were there to be a court case over the twins.
Jungkook's obstinacy, his cheap attempt to get the better of him had hardened his determination to claim his sons.
Even if it now meant using underhand methods to do so.
Once they were back to SK, its laws meant nothing to the Baek-ho pack, he would easily ensure that he, as their alpha father, had the right to keep them.
Then a familiar sound of a car drawing up outside, doors opening had Jungkook ignoring his anger at Taehyung to hurry to the door.
Jungkook looked at the old worn-out wall clock to realize what time it was, the twins were being dropped off by the neighbour with whom he shared school run duties.
Overstepping Taehyung and opening the door, he hurriedly fixed his facial expression and headed down the drive to thank him for helping the twins out.
He gathered up their school bags and lunchboxes, scanning over the fact that neither boy had fastened their coat even though it was cold.
Identical in every way, except for the tiny mole on top of Haneul's nose, and Haru has his mole below his left eye, the boys stood and stared at the expensive car parked on the drive, and then looked at him at the same time.
"Who's car is that?" Haneul asked, round-doe-eyed.
Jungkook couldn't answer him at the moment.
Why hadn't he realised the time and got rid of Taehyung before the twins came home from school?
Now they were bound to ask questions he wasn't going to be able to answer honestly and he hated the thought of lying to them.
Haneul, looking at him calmly, was still waiting for his answer.
Forcing a reassuring smile, Jungkook said, "It's just… s-someone's. Come on, let's get inside before the two of you catch a cold."
"Dad, I'm hungry. Can we have toast with plenty of peanut butter?" Haru asked hopefully.
Peanut butter was their current favourite.
"My little prince. How about my other prince? Care to join us for some peanut butter sandwiches?" was Jungkook's response as he pushed them gently into the door, "Let's do that in the kitchen," he told them both, trying to remain as calm as he could.
As they conversed as they entered the house, they then stood and stared in silence at the stranger, who now seemed to be taking up a good deal of space in the hallway.
The stranger was tall, well over six foot, and in other circumstances, it would have made Jungkook smile to see the way Haru tipped his head right back to look up at him.
Haneul, though, suddenly very much the man of the family as the elder of the two, moved closer in front of Jungkook as if instinctively seeking to protect him.
And some silent communication between the two of them caused his twin to do the same on the other side.
"Who are you? Why are you in our house?" Haneul spoke calmly but with authority.