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sugar-petals · 1 year

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The Canvas (m)⎮𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚘𝚘 𝚖𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚕!𝚓𝚓𝚔

/ - CANVAS (n.) a tattoo client or professional ink model.

pairing. › dancer!jungkook + female tattoo artist!reader

❞ SUMMARY. jk serves as your canvas for a renowned LA tattoo competition. experienced in keeping it calm, you lift the trophy by giving him a full torso makeover. the prize money and glory is yours, plus his new tattoo couldn’t look any better. so, what are you gonna do with all that?

MASTERLIST | [READ IT ON AO3]

↳ WARNINGS/TAGS. slow burn, femdom undertones, ponytail jk, friends to lovers energy 💕, smut + slice of life, jk is buff and shy (...and a sucka for pain 😛), warning for needles obviously, profanity, jk earns money as a camboy, riding, sub-ish koo {terminology note: `skin break´ ≠ injury, but blank skin space left between ink bits}

word count. 14k

↦ CARO’S NOTE. happy 5th year blog anniversary — gotta celebrate it with a story! you will find a lot of tattoo slang and the various schools of practice in this, but it will be explained along the way. enjoy, and thank you for all the support over the years 🐯

✪ PS. in the banner you see a famous tattoo artist, miss ryan ashley and her partner. it’s just for the aesthetic 😄 the reader insert doesn’t look like this, her description is vague as always :)

„Turns out we got actual money to blow!“

You overlook the six tied-up cash stacks on the makeshift plastic table, presented in a small iron case. In between, a massive champagne bottle: Unopened, because neither of you drinks. And, to be honest: It would not be necessary, nor pleasant in today’s oppressive heat.

The shaky nervousness from before the contest, far gone. Only adrenaline remains. And a jumping joy that makes Jungkook cover his face with both palms flat.

„I still can’t believe it!“

Since it’s his first time doing something like this, the whole event has left him increasingly weak in the knees. Jungkook really did look surprised when the results were announced in bright screen colors and the room was in absolute shambles. Standing ovations, even a couple cameras, big noise, everything.

„I know, man,“ you reply. „Wild day.“

„We did it.“

„Yeah. We can definitely be satisfied.“

You sitting down after all that maneuvering around on stage and behind it — it felt like a good way to cool off. Standing before an audience for two hours was something not to be underestimated.

Thank God there was an actual aircon back here. But still, there’s so much excess energy in your body. You can’t help but turn and turn the metal trophy in your hands, and kick your feet ever so lightly at the thought of really taking it home this time. Jungkook can’t settle on a chair at all. He’s just pacing around not knowing what to even do with his hands.

„The competition… They were so strong,“ he puffs out — the tone loaded with genuine respect rather than the much stricter attitude of discernment shared among today’s attending pros, yourself included. „They really preferred yours and not the tiger. Or the guy with the Leonardo DiCaprio portrait. That’s incredible.“

„Maybe. I think we got a better rating because yours healed so well,“ you gaze over your work again. The masterpiece of ink on him. You’re carrying a certain admitted pride in your words, but also relief. This has been one of your most ambitious tattoos in all the 15 years you’ve been in the game. It’s seriously been a journey.

In fact, the preparation cost more time and effort than inking a month’s worth of regular clients. Yes, daily practice was one thing. Competing, another. Especially with a model like that: Jungkook, whose performance had been nothing short of electric and stellar. On the ink bed, and on stage alike.

Even your fiercest opponent trying to impress the judges with their wannabe surrealistic tiger didn’t stand a chance against the level of 3D shapes and shading you created on his body. But the decision of the jury seemed close regardless, maybe for dramatic effect, so you retired backstage overjoyed. Where, and you really feel like you did his body justice, his tattoo looks just as vibrant under more crisp and cool energy-saving lamps overhead.

„Yeah, it really did heal nicely, though,“ he pats his solar plexus, almost massaging it. „It feels good.“

You bet it does. Jungkook is the type of client you would describe as— well. Very healthy.

Your mind would add some more colorful adjectives to that. But that string of thought really does stay at the back of your brain where some of your naughtier tattoo ideas reside as well. Which, and you were fine with that anyway, was certainly not the topic of today’s contest. Which rather wanted artists to show off their clean lines and some pretty harmless motifs, mind you.

Sure, the process of contests was always a little different. You didn’t care much. Some tattoo awards had the artists ink their models literally a couple hours beforehand. Others did a speed challenge on-site. Mutually nerve-wracking, but it was doable. Artists with a tight schedule did the same in their personal studios, after all. Canvasses would walk on stage with red blotchy skin all around the tattoo. This show, however, placed emphasis on longevity, the final result. To be prepared until the last detail, Jungkook had walked up in your downtown studio ten times beforehand.

As of now, a highly stylized XL rendition of Jungkook’s Doberman graced his torso. An illusion of color, created by brush strokes in ink rather than an exact replica of the polaroid pictures he had given you. Bam was a pretty cute pet dog, but also a very lively sight to see. Since you had insisted to watch Bam in motion like a live study, Jungkook brought him to the parlor more than once, which added to the hours you had spent together.

He was quite a majestic, eye-catching, streamlined dog. You had often tattooed smaller portraits of pets. Their faces usually, but not the entire animal, on a whole upper body for that matter. People usually wanted other tattoos to take precedence, like a landscape design. It took you five hours to come up with a dynamic winding pose. One that showed Bam in a slightly right-twisted bird’s eye perspective. Not in actual brown that was true to the real-life dog, but black, adding to the feel of a severe-looking brushstroke painting. Which apparently left an impression with the judges.

„And, the jury wanted enough contrast,“ you cuff your shirt on either side. „Was a good idea we went just as dark as your hair. Wouldn’t have worked as well otherwise.“

„It all fits together really well, I think. It’s become a bit, how do you say. One with me.“

Although you wouldn’t blurt that out like a preschooler, you do think so, too. Jungkook stood out among your clients as one of the cutest, with a body that was nothing short of meticulously sculpted. A waist that shocking, you’d never seen it. Even some of the bodybuilders you had tattooed didn’t have this kind of hourglass. Perfect to pick up on some carefully planned artistry, and easy on the eye anyway. However, nothing you’d say to his face.

Yet.

Who knows. You keep your expression neutral enough when he’s around. All day, you paid special attention to maintaining a stern composure in general, given how it was such a hasty crowded event to begin with. Not that competition would always favor the stern, but it sure helped with focus.

„To be honest,“ you put the trophy onto the table now, „The judges don’t splurge their points if it’s some muddy shit. The tiger paws looked pretty washed out from some angles. Your tattoo will fucking pop in any lighting. It has to.“

Bam was as eye-catching as a tattoo as he was in real life. You paid special attention to adding enough solid black. Contrast always needed a certain amount of courage. On your side, and a client’s.

Even now, in the solely artificial lighting of this shabby backroom, the heavy blocks of extra strong ink on his ribs, sternum and stomach create a nice interplay with the shape of his upper body. Unsurprisingly, Jungkook didn’t remember to put his top back on yet. And why would he bother. It’s been piping hot in the valley districts since 9:30 AM. So hot, a couple palm trees on your way to the contest site have been looking crispy.

„That’s one of the best parts,“ he nods, all while toweling down his neck from all the sweat. The stage had burning hot overhead lights and the audience number was breaking the four digits. Stressfully enough, in terms of decibels as well. Jungkook walked offstage with you saying his ears were reeling for a solid minute. It was more than necessary to get away from all the hustle and bustle after the supposed celebration was dispersing.

„Glad you like how it turned out, then. Took a lot of risks here.“

„I, uh. Really gotta thank you though,“ Jungkook proceeds to retie his little wavy ponytail, plucking the crown and baby hairs that went astray on stage back in.

He leaves some side bangs to the front, which is what you once remarked looks the best on him with his current hair length. Little did you know he’d take this so seriously, but you haven’t seen him without a hair tie since.

„You invested so much time,“ he continues. „You couldn’t take so many other clients because of me.“

„Time doesn’t bother me that much,“ you shovel some money bands into the bulky grey rucksack you drag out from underneath your chair, then take out some bottled sparkling water instead. This backpack has been both your lifeline throughout the day. „Those weren’t the easiest sessions, that’s what I mean. But you made it through.“

„Yeah,“ he smiles. You can tell he is a bit flustered by the money.

„The other clients can honestly wait. They know I do competitions from time to time. The regulars, at least.“

A dozen people sure said they missed you. Some newbies at the studio resented you for spending your „efforts and talent on one singular canvas“, but as today’s MC of the show had said: It’s for the greater good of a career to pursue contests, and helps a tattooist to be out there. „It’s an adventure!“ was the cheesy contest tagline. Not to mention that an artist who was good enough… would meet attractive people as a `pleasant byproduct‘ as one of your fellow West Coast contestants had joked backstage.

You had rejected that mentality beforehand. Craft came first. Ironically, it was you who simply searched for the right skin, motif, and proper frame who ended up with someone attractive indeed. Those things always happen if you don’t search for it. And it was an adventure, sort of.

Jungkook didn’t exactly pass out when you moved up to the rib with your tattoo gun, but damn. He was bleeding. In essence, the first appointment turned out to be a three hour groaning session. Since he already had a complete and partially reworked sleeve, it appeared like another tattoo following many. But the second visit was so intense, it had your canvas screaming out loud at some point — albeit he stubbornly refused to take a break. `Keep going… I can handle it.´

You usually did mid-range tattoos as your specialty, but his one was gigantic and painstaking. How he muscled through that psychologically, at his tender age, you’re not sure how. After the session was done, you would hang out eating pizza in the shaded backyard of the studio, listening to pop music and talking about tattoo shows as if nothing had happened.

„You mean, it was demanding?“

„Oh yeah,“ you screw the bottle open. „Demanding is the word. I mean, count the elements. That’s almost 150 sepearate parts to fill out.“

„Right.“

„If you want a tattoo to look like a real ink stroke, you need to consider how the separate hairs of a brush would behave. The color needs to be, sorta— like disconnected. I’ve freestyled a lot of it.“

That’s also a reason why you’re sure the tiger didn’t win, and Jungkook got full points. Which surprised you more than him, something that caught you off guard in a peculiar way, even if you were endlessly happy, of course. That Jungkook was sure that you had winning potential was definitely an emotional pat on the back.

Your New York-based opponent sure did ace the Old School American style. It had some pretty memorable turquoise highlights that made the other competitor’s trendy watercolor freestyles look boring, and his canvas was beautiful. But: In your eyes, the design didn’t have an elaborate sketch behind it, and tried too hard to be East Coast.

To their demise and Jungkook’s gentle content, the judges ruled that your tattoo had 99% razor-sharp edges and a smart construction of the design: „You’ve done your studio justice.“ Because Jungkook looked promising as a canvas and he was kind as a person, you were willing to sacrifice some things to approach that level of hard perfection, even if it was `just an edgy tattoo of a random guy’s pet´ as some of your rivals had criticized you arriving on stage.

It took you three days to draw it all beforehand, and one to make a stencil that could even remotely fit on a body as curved as that. You didn’t wing it. Got creative. Stayed up. Talked a lot. Played around with the dog. Filled in every blank, and calculated every skin break to make actual sense from a distance. Jungkook had an unbreakable patience, too. Making the tattoo a big deal and taking it this far was worth the extra eye-squinting hours.

„It was fine by me. I’ll have this masterpiece for life,“ Jungkook rubs his stomach, almost as if he could caress the motif. He really does genuinely like it.

„You will. Those colors won’t fade anytime soon.“

Three weeks of successful healing time proved the durability of the tattoo and the raw diligence of preparing all this. It all went by in a hurry. The whole competition was a sequence of travel, rehearsing, check-ins, and finding some suitable lotion to oil Jungkook up with since you quickly ran out of what you brought along. He was okay with you touching him like this. Jungkook said, since you had been under his skin, being simply on it was not the slightest inconvenience.

You did over a dozen contests before. You wanted your canvas to be shining bright in front of the discerning jury. Oil would add a gleaming touch to any tattoo, and helping Jungkook apply it was more than gratifying — not just artistically. You gotta drink a big sip on that.

„Amazing,“ he continues looking down on himself, his eyes really telling how exhausting the show was, but how rewarding. The 6’3 guy who got an entire sleeve and snake motif looked like an amateur canvas next to your model. Sure, the micro tats of some other competitors weren’t exactly precise and outstanding either so it had been easy to move to the Top 10, but when a tattoo artist was talking big game, big motif, big color, they better deliver.

„So— what do we fancy for the evening,“ you wave your backpack left and right, letting the cash tumble around. „Bowling? You’d be killin’ it. Buying some clothes? Or maybe we’ll go to an expensive club. You dance on the tables, I watch random people. You know, to judge their bad tats.“

He’s laughing at that. You’re sure you’D just be watching him move at best, he’s a dancer professionally — but anyway.

You continue listing ideas, but Jungkook sort of gapes at all the options without saying anything. He’s from a modest home like you were, the big city overwhelms him, as does the fact that you won 20,000$.

„You know what,“ the bottle wanders back into your rucksack, half empty. „We probably don’t have the energy to just straight up throw some big balls at a couple bowling pins, eh.“

Jungkook laughs again.

„Guess not. Would all just land in the gutter.“

„And shopping, that’s running a marathon. Maybe we can go to the club next week. What if we just sit on my terrace and watch some clouds? Back to the roots. I always do that to get inspiration.“

Jungkook perks up. You already invited him to your house before. It was a quicker, gentler recoloring session on a pretty dull rainy morning. To make sure he was competition ready, you carefully retouched some of his existing tattoos. His oldest, dearest ones. That’s how he got to see the Grey Room. Your art atelier, so to speak. Why grey? Because you don’t smudge — and the chair will prove it. Messy tattooists won’t go far, that was your opinion. Buying a black tattoo chair was an excuse.

„Hm, why not, I mean,“ he stumbles over his words, but you can tell he’s interested.

„Okay,“ you get up from your creaky chair, collecting the rest of your stuff, and he helps you with it. „It’s a done deal. You’ll see more of the house. The food is all prepared. Like, to perfection.“

During his recoloring session, Jungkook had to catch the bus right after, plus another client, Namjoon, came in for a lengthy consultation. It was all about whether you’d be sending Namjoon to an aesthetician for a laser treatment, or try to cover up the botched crooked rose on his pecs with a bigger design to one-up your precursor, this absolute idiot of a ‚line artist specialist‘. Your ass. It’s a crime to soil a person’s skin like that. Namjoon came in completely devastated and in need for help, so Jungkook quickly left. It ended up being the latter option, you tattoed a big fat 3D bonsai tree across the rose.

You only got back to Jungkook two days later, checking how his color was healing through video chat. He had stripped down enough for you to see the progress, and you tried your best to be professional, analyzing the next steps. Which had you excited, he always recovered exceedingly well, but you were both in a busy phase. Yet, you really couldn’t complain about not having him around. This tattoo and contest was a once-in-a-lifetime two-people project. It felt like being an Italian designer, taking your flagship testimonial to fashion week.

„Food?“

„I had Yoongi handle the ice cream maker this morning,“ you put on your shades, ready to go with your backpack filled to the brim. „But don’t tell anyone, lest my house gets robbed again. Banana flavor, by the way.“

Jungkook strangely doesn’t look as happy as you thought he’d be. But then again, not so strangely. Once the needle is inside and the first drop of ink settles in, you can read a canvas’ mind. It’s a connection that cannot be explained.

„Okay,“ is the lukewarm reply. He shoulders his own cross-body bag without really checking it once. Since he forgot his tank top, you hand it to him. It takes a couple seconds to register at all.

„Something not right?“

„It’s just, I wondered,“ he fumbles with the bag’s kinda tucked-in zipper. „You have— a boyfriend? Yoongi?“

„Ah, him,“ you chuckle. „No, Yoongi is my personal chef.“

„Oh, I see, the chef. I just, um.“

Jungkook looks wildly flustered at that realization, trying to find an excuse of looking away by fixing his ponytail, and rubbing his neck. Almost as if he got caught red-handed.

„And assistant. And the one who cleans my pool. And he schedules all my clients unless I do it myself. Yoongi handles everything on demand basically, so I can do this,“ you point at the surrounding hallway after opening the backroom’s lanky door.

A big red banner reading - LOS ANGELES ANNUAL TATTOO AWARDS - stretches well across the wall, and the area seems completely swept of people.

You did spend quite a lot of time talking backstage after you gave an interview for the local press while Jungkook posed for the camera — despite his first time doing this, like a natural.

„Seems like the competition headed home already,“ is your dry comment, but you’re not that surprised. It was too warm to linger in this building complex for any longer than the show lasted. You didn’t even register how stuffy the air was since you got so carried away together, talking. Although you would have loved to talk to some of the attending experienced masters, maybe it had been a good idea to dodge the hype.

„They really did hurry home.“

„That’s what we’ll do as well. Fifty scoops for each of us. Yoongi always makes a generous amount of ice.“

„Wow, it’s really all taken care of then,“ Jungkook finally manages to stuff the tanktop back into his bag, absent-minded. He hasn’t even considered putting it on, then. He’s too busy admiring that you have such a thing as a personal assistant and cook. The two of you tread down the hallway, causing a bit of an echo.

Jungkook looks at ease learning that Yoongi is more of a janitor. You give him the side eye, which he shamefully returns with a nervous laugh.

„I figure you like banana. And walking around like Abercrombie and Fitch.“

You point at the mauve-colored tank top that’s hanging out of his bag, caught by the zipper.

„Oh, oops!“ it finally clicks with a big flinch. He’s really been half-naked all the time, and only now makes an effort to pull the crumpled little piece of clothing back on. „I didn’t notice! I think the tattoo makes me feel dressed, um.“

„Car’s gonna be piping until the A/C runs full throttle,“ you head the way to the motor park, sandals randomly clacking onto the heated concrete. „Next thing you know, you’re gonna chuck your jeans into the Malibu beach waves and don’t even notice.“

„No, no worries. I uh, I’m back to behind the scenes mode,“ Jungkook’s giggling to himself, trying not to make it too obvious that he was quick to react.

„Took you almost half an hour,“ you say through a big grin, getting out your dangly car keys with the miniature plush bunny attached to it. Flashback to last month, Jungkook bought it for you as a thank-you present after he heard you mope about always overlooking your keys.

„Dancer thing,“ he says, sounding wildly apologetic. „I usually don’t wear that much.“

„Talk about getting naked,“ you both settle in the car, a block of heat hitting you in the faces. „You can use my shower to scrape off all that oil. There must be some kind of special cleanser I got, the one with the light green stripe on it.“

„Yeah, it’s gotten so sticky—“ Jungkook turns to check his back. „My shoulder will smudge that oil on the backrest… sorry.“

„I’ll leave the seat cleaning to Yoongi, he likes looking after the car,“ is all you can comment, kick-starting your car. What follows is the deep humming noise that the engine typically emits when the LA heat is extra crazy. „You can turn on the radio over there. It’s kind of a one-hour ride from here. You said you sing pretty well?“

The now switched-on A/C blows his tanktop around the way it wants. Maybe L.A. is cooking today because Jungkook is out here.

Rolling into your garage, you realize you’ve brought home everything: Except the champagne bottle. Fuck it, the heat in the car would have done weird things to the oh-so sparkling content, and putting it in a flash freezer at home would have resulted in a fizzy explosion that would leave Yoongi with some high ceilings to scrub. Treating yourself to some cold juice sounds much better. You have no interest acting out drunk and passed out on the floor in Jungkook’s presence. And in case an impromptu tattoo happens, alcohol is the last thing you want in his blood. The same goes for everything more than just a tattoo.

The metal trophy, which is elegantly shaped like a stencil and lighter than you thought, is more important. After parking, that one goes straight to the Grey Room award wall. You’re chugging the rest of your bottled water in one whole go. Sitting next to him had your eyes averted from the street more often than not, which in and of itself was a bad idea — but who knew a traffic jam could be a nice thing, especially if it took two hours.

Jungkook is busy otherwise. Exhausted from the black seat’s stored warmth, he exits the car moaning out loud at the heat outside. And, from a later-day sun having grilled the right-hand side of his body. Through the car window, all the way. His body is chilled from the A/C, almost freezing down the sweat on his tanktop, at least that’s what it felt like, until you noticed he was shaky and dialed it down. Jungkook is actually a little hoarse from singing his heart out. That will fade in a minute, though, he says.

While he takes that so needed shower, you dig through an absent Yoongi’s clothing rack, built into his assistant wardrobe. Since Yoongi is on the smaller side, there aren’t too many options, but you guess he’ll survive.

Feeling much better now, Jungkook winds up dangling his legs into your garden pool fifteen minutes later. That is, with extremely tight tennis shorts and otherwise nothing on, yet again. The white of the fabric might be opaque, but his thighs are big enough to let either leg ride up. Yoongi can be glad he buys so much stretch material, otherwise, those shorts would be bursting at the seams.

Unlike during the way home from today’s show, the yellow-pinkish color of the sky is finally worthy of a tattoo artist’s eyes looking at it. The white pillars of your terrace frame the outlook effortlessly like a little arcade, and the pool water feels like it has been cooling down significantly around your calves. No smog, no direct sunlight, no skylines. You’d not allow Jungkook to step even one foot in your backyard topless as he is if the sun was still high up. His tattoo had to be carefully preserved.

„I do like banana. Anything banana.“

He licks up a drop of surplus ice cream from the back of his thumb. It’s all melting in record time despite the 9 PM cool approaching. You both have to be quick. Luxury problems — at the expense of your waiting lemonade. Which you told Jungkook to feel free to pour up for the both of you during your own bathroom break some minutes ago. You changed into something even looser, put your base cap on, and the ice was already getting a little too creamy under the poolside evening glow.

„Mmh. Self-made ice cream is a whole ’nother level,“ you twist your cone. Mainly, to take off the melting edge of your scoop with the right corner of your mouth. „Cools the vocal cords, does it.“

„Seriously didn’t sing that much in a while,“ he cracks a smile, and you can tell he missed having free time like this.

„You’re not out of the loop, though. I could have taken you to America’s Got Talent and we still would have won. Hell, the Masked Singer. Dressed as a Green Raccoon. Or a fencing man. Lord knows what. You got a beautiful voice.“

Jungkook almost chokes on his ice cream at the mental image of that.

„I guess I’d rather be dancing,“ he shakes his head, „and walking around at a tat con. I’m really nervous about that one.“

„We can chill, that’s four weeks from now,“ you sip on your lemonade eventually, swallowing an ice cube that has melted down to a peanut-sized chunk. „You’ll get used to your new look by then. And everyone is out there, it’s packed. They all wanna outdo each other. We’ll blend in somewhere. Even if it’s probably not gonna be much cooler and we’ll still look like glazed donuts. We might as well leave the oil at home.“

Which didn’t sound to unrealistic. You’ve had Yoongi book the two of you for a tattoo convention display down at Hacienda Heights. Body Art Expo — one of the biggest events in the area. You could finally showcase your latest craft and meet some of your role models. This year, an influx of famous contemporary Japanese masters was guaranteed.

The overarching theme was announced to be traditional horimono craft. You’ve been dying to set up a little booth and take Jungkook with you to see the best of the best, and also flaunt his own frontal tattoo.

„Yoongi might as well park an ice cream truck for us there,“ he jokes.

„You’ll definitely need ice indeed after I go buckwild and give you a whole beginner’s hand poking treatment.“

„Hand what?“

„Hand poking,“ you laugh. „Tebori artists don’t really use automatic needles with some exceptions. It’s all done manually. You prick the skin by hand. Even the tattoo needle you have make on your own.“

„Like DIY, completely yourself?“

He got you started on one of your favorite topics. Well, well.

„Yes. It’s like a small wooden or metal stick. It has a grouping of needles fastened to it by string.“

„Oh… so that’s why— by hand.“

„Yes. And it doesn’t stop there. A machine has say, nine to 35 needles. My favorite tattoo gun has 22. Japanese traditional can go as far as 42. That’s why outlines are so difficult to do in that technique. And the gradients. Those are fucking hard. Getting a tebori tattoo is expensive with good reason.“

„42 needles!“

„Depends. It actually bleeds less. You feel relaxed after a session. The whole thing is like. Eleven inches long, bit more. The artist has ultimate control over how deep it locks in the coloring fluid.“

„Um, yes,“ is all he can say staring.

„The artist will use a sponge to pick up the ink, and drive the stick in by hand. Hence they call it hand poke. A full-body tattoo can take a year to complete. But the color has the best saturation. The needles are thicker, you can put lots and lots of ink under the skin that way.“

Which is why you’re so interested in it. Six years plus until you’d be able to fully practice that technique on someone. It’s your goal for your later career. To have your own tattoo family, apprentices, and letting the art live on through your canvases.

Maybe settling in Japan itself to learn from the best, or remaining overseas. As long as you’d be able to hand poke a clean line like a true master and sketch properly, artfully, just as the craft demanded. Time and place wouldn’t matter.

„You said that Japanese tattoos work with woodblocks, right?“

„It’s inspired by woodblock carving art,“ you nod, pulling out your phone. Plenty of pictures to show him, over 600, if not more. You shade the display with one hand and sit closer to Jungkook, swiping through the gallery.

„The actual design is painted with soot ink beforehand,“ you keep on explaining. „Like, a phoenix. A river, with flora. Some scenes of a kabuki theatre play. Or a goddess figure, that’s pretty common.“

Jungkook does look as hooked as you are. And— as a side note: He smells damn good from the cleanser you gave him. That shower must have been thorough. You sort of don’t smell it anymore when you use it, but when it mixes with his scent, that’s a whole different thing.

„That’s so cool… Would you do that on me?“

„Jungkook,“ you raise your brows at him. „That technique takes years to learn. With a mentor— And endless copying practice of their grand pieces.“

„You even need a teacher and copy what they do? That’s crazy.“

„When we go to the fair, I might get my hands on a bamboo needle to see how it’s like to hold. But I’ll probably just stand there and watch in awe just like you.“

„Wow. We’ll really be able to see a lot there.“

Jungkook’s posture appears significantly less tensed-up now, and you know you took his nervousness about the convention by directing his mind to a new idea. That he asked you to give him a traditional-style tattoo by hand without even hesitating has left an impression, but you try not to let your face show your respect. Most canvasses would be skeptical, frightened, or completely dismissive of the technique. Jungkook is nothing short of sexy, it’s literally right next to you — but it’s his open mind that makes him interesting.

„I know, right. But you still might be lucky getting a Japanese tat from me.“

„Really?“

He almost jolts up, which makes his left thigh rub against you by accident.

„Okay, I can’t just walk up and hand carve an entire body suit into your skin. Right. But you can actually do parts of horimono with, you know, automatic needles and stuff. Many traditional studios do outlines by machine these days, and only the coloring or shades by hand.“

„They do it both?“

„Pretty much. Hybrid tebori. The art of doing precise lines by stick is recently dying out. If we use the gun instead, for everything? You can still get a goddess tattoo like an original motif. It does take practice and immense research. But it’s doable with modern machines and an excellent design.“

If you think about it, Jungkook might just be the perfect canvas to dive deeper into Japanese tattooing, even more so than you already did. Not being able to do it the manual way would irk you, but you can work with what you have.

„Any suggestions where?“ he looks across his body, traces his hands, deliberating. „I mean, it could go anywhere for me. But, I mean you should choose where it fits the best.“

You do know a perfect spot, in fact.

The slimness of his hip makes it so that an ascending motif would widen up perfectly on the shoulder area. On the other hand, the extreme curve of his spine could easily warp the design when looked at from afar, so that had to be carefully considered. It’s all a matter of adaptation. You can already see details of this next project form before your inner eye, still.

„Your back is completely virginal, so. What about that.“

„Right, of course!“

„And that’s where you find a traditional placement anyway.“

Some proper skin breaks between the shoulder blades, maybe some more grey towards the waist level, putting in more contrast across the shoulders and neck… it all starts to form in your head. Fuck, Jungkook’s neck is actually your dream target area. Front and back. The underside of his jaw as well. Peak difficulty.

A pet peeve for many of your colleagues in the field because the skin is so delicate and hard to put a design on. Many people just say fuck this shit and freehand it completely. But to you: Sweetest spot you can think of. If he’s good to go, you’ll ink him with his neck hung from the edge of your tattoo furniture one day with an extra anesthetic. Maybe some kind of animal or interlocking pattern. It’s gonna look fucking awesome.

„Would you like, actually sketch something for me?“

„Sure. Or we’ll work together with a master who will design something with ink on paper to suit your body perfectly. We still need an entry piece for next year’s tat awards.“

„But I only want your stencil,“ he finishes biting off the lower half of his ice cream cone, looking pretty disgruntled at the idea of someone else being in charge of his back. You would rather consider an expert, but you can see his point. Everything on his body should look coherent, as in one singular handwriting. And you heard it. He only wants your stencil or nothing at all.

Of course the back has to match the abs and the pecs. Only a consistent style would ensure that Jungkook’s tattoos would come together as an aesthetic whole that carried your signature, which was not just something a show jury would appreciate. It was a just because thing.

„Fine by me, it’ll just take longer. And we do color.“

Which means, more time spent in the Grey Room, where you would keep all of your treasures. The inner city studio you share with your colleague, Taehyung, who was more of a Neo Traditional and portrait enthusiast. He also did blackwork just like you. That meant the present ink supply was either batshit crazy colors and dark shades only. Hence, you set up your own extra coloring studio at home to specialize.

„Love the idea!“

„So it’s a done deal, huh. We’ll do the project in the Grey Room by then, I’m thinking.“

It needs a different atmosphere and lighting to really get the most out of the hues. And: You created this area to make a canvas open up and relax. With your technique and shading style, coloring in the big areas was always a real pain in the ass for anyone with skin that wasn’t super thick.

Taehyung’s philosophy was always to ‚paint‘ his clients in a suave and fleeting way, whereas your approach was always go hard or go home. Jungkook could handle it, and his skin was rewarding to work on when it came to recovery. You can tell he’s more than excited.

„Really, thank you for this…“

„If a couple months work sounds like fun to you, we’re gonna walk up with another 20,000€ price money next year.“

You are starting to enjoy this idea of Jungkook being a tattoo muse, sort of like the faux Greek statues and busts that you had Yoongi put up around the garden when you moved in here. A lot of tattoo artists you were friends with were inspired by the renaissance, and you could see the appeal. That Jungkook was a walking Greek aesthetic with his curls and decadent body really does fit well into your home, now that you think about it.

„I have no problem hanging out here at all,“ he’s munching, tongue in cheek. „Your house is amazing. I bring along some groceries and such when you’re too busy. If, if you want.“

„Really?“

„Long as you can sketch in peace. I like doing laundry and those things.“

„Yoongi will appreciate it. More time for cooking his latest creations. You’re already renting out his clothing, we can cut him some slack there, huh. Doing a full landscape and figure will take us twice as long as with your ribs.“

And those were already insane to do. The skin was behaving almost like paper in some bits. Only the fact that he works out decently enough has probably saved Jungkook from losing his mind then and there. His back is going to be much easier to tattoo.

„A background landscape as well? “ he drops his jaw. „This is genius… Maybe we should do it later this year, September or so.“

„Good call,“ you blink. „Gonna be a bit colder. And you’re gonna be a birthday boy. A tat’s always a nice gift to yourself.“

The reality is: Most tattoo artists would kill to secure a canvas that was so patient. It was a biased view, but Jungkook would not just be a wanted man in his dating pool (which he already is, he’s told you about a lot of concerning things in his DMs) if he graced the cover of `Inked´ magazine.

The whole ink world would come running. You already brace yourself for the storm of showing him off at Body Art Expo. He would be noticed. Today’s experience showed his potential. People found him likable and sweet, and the muscles got them going. You worried if Jungkook would have to be protected from too much attention in the community. It wouldn’t be long until you wouldn’t be alone in a cool-down room. Today’s show wasn’t the busiest, but an Expo would be. People would absolutely bother him. Rather than asking you about your tattoo journey, or anything else constructive and useful.

„I’m really getting a back tattoo,“ Jungkook is buzzing with energy, splashing around water with his feet. His voice is just fine by now, only a hint of raspy at best. The energy low of the backstage room is pretty much forgotten.

„I’ll sit myself down with some books and I’ll get back to you next month with a first rough draft, yeah?“

„Can’t wait!“

„And after that,“ you shoot him a warning gaze more jokingly, „I’m sketching for your legs, too. Maybe with a realistic thigh tattoo. Or with some big red highlights and otherwise black only.“

„Woah! Red and black?!“

„Anything’s possible. Though, you know. Only if you want to, of course. I’m just brainstorming.“

But those thighs basically scream for ink, oh my god. You can’t even hold yourself back. Was he actually okay with that? By the looks of it, Jungkook didn’t have a single problem with you planning out his whole body’s new design.

„I have nothing against being a BLACKWORKS gallery,“ pats his thighs the most innocent way you could imagine. „I know I’m in good hands.“

BLACKWORKS was the name of your tattoo parlor, carrying with it the color you had specialized in. Ironically, setting up the Grey Room was the exact opposite, making a space to dabble in color. It was sort of the bane of your existence. One or the other, both, or alternatingly? Your sentiment changed with every larger project or every other client.

„Well, thank you. Any further questions?“

„I um… I don’t want to sound rude, but.“

„You don’t sound like it’s anything offensive, though,“ you lower your shades to squint at him.

„What are you like planning,“ he kneads his palms against each other, „I mean, with the prize money? I was, you know, just, uh curious. You always create cool projects and stuff, that’s why.“

„Oh that? We need that money for all the fucking ink you’ll be wearing!“

„Help!“ he squeals out, just as joking now.

„Seriously though. You’re gonna be my most expensive canvas. Taehyung spent a fortune finding the right pigment for all the True Black that went here,“ you point at his chest. „Only the highest quality Acrylic components in there. No metals, no allergens. No nothing.“

„Is it organic? That’s so Los Angeles,“ Jungkook giggles into his hand, trying not to make some organic this, organic that joke most probably.

„Better than having that shit in your lymph system. We don’t want that.“

„Thanks, you’re looking out for me.“

No toxins for your canvasses. And nothing you don’t know the effects of. More clients gotta get some education about this.

„Just duty. And LA sucks, I don’t care. Cheers.“

For the last sip of lemonade, you toast, and Jungkook reiterates that he’s feeling very much in safe hands — especially now that you offered him a sofa place to sleep on.

It’s really too late to drive him home. The highway ride would take ages, the traffic is even more terrible at this hour. Returning at like 2 or 3 AM would set you up for a lackluster sleep routine. He’s living alone in his flat so there’s nobody to inform, he’s not urgently missed and needed for something. That there’s no one waiting for him always surprises you.

That Jungkook is his own best roommate and doesn’t cohabit with his parents, all in a decently well-off part of the city on top of that — not the most flashy one, cozier, but still — tells you that he must dance pretty damn well and knows how to live life. He probably thinks the same about you anyway, although he keeps on saying you work too much for your own good, which might have a grain of truth.

You do wish you lived a bit like him. Then again, you’re well aware he has a hard time sometimes. Going by pictures he showed you, the flat he has isn’t a bad one at all. You don’t charge him for the tattoos, obviously. They’re competitive entries based on your decisions, not commissioned pieces. He offered pay, but you rejected the eight hundred bucks.

On a day where he let his guard down after three hours of conversation, Jungkook told you he’s selling his pics and videos between otherwise casual sentences. That was about two month ago. He didn’t say what pics and what videos, but you were beginning to connect the dots.

All the signs, they were there. The way he undressed, the way he was aware of how he came across, the way he was so photogenic. You worked extra hard on getting the clarity of the tattoo right. It’s one thing to look at black ink pigments in daylight or below the artificial lighting of a studio, but on camera, it’s absolutely a different thing.

Why he opened up to you, you don’t know. It was inconsequential. He didn’t mention it again, and it didn’t look like he was observing your reaction to it.

There was no telling what his shy tone of voice was supposed to say, or his intent, and you guess it all had many meanings at once. Maybe he just said it to say it. To get something off his chest. Jungkook often hesitated to vent, but he was honest telling you that. If anything — he trusted you enough to do so.

„I’ll just give you one of these at this point,“ you weed through your closet, pulling drawers, checking metal hangers. Eventually, Jungkook catches a white sporty tee that you’re tossing him, and lays down on the white king-size couch in the center of the living room. 11 PM. Sunday tomorrow. None of you caught a heat stroke. You’re both not that tired yet. There might as well be something left to do. So… Well.

„Have a good night’s sleep then,“ Jungkook smiles, already half settled— about to put on the shirt. You gotta stop him in this tracks somehow before he’s dressed again.

„Maybe it’s still time for a little treat,“ you say, wiggling your eyebrows at him, which he reciprocates with unbridled surprise.

„Did Yoongi put some other desert in the fridge, or—“

You shake your head.

„No, no. Something else. Actually, way else. Wait here, Jungkook.“

„O.k.?“

„Heading back in just a minute,“ you turn your head across your shoulder. „Look at my drawings on the wall or something.“

He does, gazing around the spacious room that is actually pretty bright and light at this hour. The team that did the electrics in here were absolute top tier in their field, although the house did not pass as 100% interior art. Rather, the tall walls were clad in big unfinished pen sketches and other blackwork ideas behind frames, mostly showing anatomical poses and various animals from all around the globe. Looking up, Jungkook got lost in a painting that showed a distorted self-portrait of you while drawing something on a table. Art of the artist doing art.

„You need to get yourself some of this,“ you interrupt, posturing yourself in the doorframe upon returning. Jungkook’s head twists in record time. His confusion is more than visible all across his face reacting to what you’re holding up with your right hand.

„Is that… Is that— Lubricant!“

Someone looks pretty damn flustered right now and it’s not you.

„Oh my god Jungkook,“ you shuffle closer to the sofa, thoroughly amused. „Actually read what’s on this tube. Here.“

You hand the mysterious black item to a very panicked mess of a weekend guest.

„Aftercare cream?!“

„Read on.“

„…for protecting tattoos.“

He just looks mighty exasperated now. Oh Jesus.

„Come on. It’s not some kind of after-bondage ointment,“ you laugh. „Just plain ole tattoo balm, okay. Nothing BDSM going on here.“

„Yeah… Yeah.“

„The whole thing’s pretty much a vibrancy serum, healing cream, moisturizing lotion, et cetera. All in one. That is considered a treat in my book. Treat as in skin treatment.“

„I uh, should have figured.“

Jungkook’s knee-jerk reaction has him crouching together in a gullible pose on the sofa, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. Broke a sweat for a minute there, did he.

„Your tattoo had a lot of stuff going on today. Oil and sun and sweat and chlorine, too. We’re not gonna let it rest unprotected tonight. There’s some regeneration it has to do.“

As per the contest rules, tattoos need to be fully healed to enter anyway, so today he’s not been freshly inked under the UV rays outside. But it’s still better to apply cream to support the tattoo as it is. And exposing Jungkook’s dirty mind for the sheer fun of it.

„Am a bit of a dummy,“ he hands the lotion back to you.

„The clean air around here has you wearing tennis shorts… and your mind in the gutter, does it,“ you snap the tube open, squeezing a generous double dime-size amount into your palm. It’s not like you didn’t check him out all day. Two minds in the gutter? That’s twice the fun.

„Sorry.“

„Don’t be. Now let me work it in, I’ll do that for you. The shirt needs to wait for another minute again. Fine by you?“

„Okay!“

„Then relax. It needs to be spread out properly.“

Running your hands across one’s favorite canvas should be considered a therapeutic method for any tattoo artist out there. You need to listen to a lot of shit, discuss a lot of shit, compete against a lot of shit, and draw a lot of even more shitty shit. It’s only fair you get to enjoy the silver lining as well. Savoring what you all do it for: Enjoying the aesthetic and the feel of the skin.

Jungkook is as pliant as ever accepting the treatment, and the balm does what it’s supposed to do. Seeping in, refreshing the skin, cooling it off. You knead his body in broad strokes of your palms, making sure the coverage is even. The tattoo again proves its bold winning ways shining bright even under the low ceiling lamp, and you again congratulate each other. No scabs at all, and the whole jury convinced. You beat a tiger, the watercolor dudes, tiny tat mania, Leonardo DiCaprio, and the tall snake bloke. The result was a memorable rendition of a pet dog that your client could not get enough of. What more could you really ask for.

Jungkook visibly hums under your touch and seems to react with cozy noises having his sides massaged. You’re careful with the ribs, his sensitive area. You’re totally not lingering on the pecs for a little longer. Your mind revolves around the thought of sitting down on his thighs to unpack the real treat and finally ride out your craving.

„What if we,“ you start, „You know. Actually use some lubricant. Here on this sofa.“

„Huh—? Really? In a way that…“

Jungkook awakes from his half-slumber that your hands had so calmly induced. In fact, he goes from sleeping beauty to wide alert in two seconds, propping himself up from the sofa cushions. To meet you face to face — he’s incredulous. Well, you aren’t exactly feeling coherent either, which surprises you, too.

„Sure! I mean. If you want to. There’s some of it in the other room that I can fetch. I figured we might. Just for fun, and… We know each other for a while now. To me it would be nice. Nothing fancy, just. We just do our thing if we like it. I’m still your tattooist. I wished we could sleep with each other at some point. I didn’t say anything because we had to focus on competing. Sorry for that.“

„Please, please don’t.“

„I preferred to make it about work until we sat at the pool today. If we’re fucking… It should be a comfortable moment where we really got to know each other already. You were pretty shy. So I was careful, right, although I’ve been teasing you anyway, I don’t know what you thought about that, if that was funny or not. But you know, the heat of the moment.“

„Don’t worry, I liked it.“

„I also didn’t want to make it look like I was trying to get in your videos for money or just because you do them, or mess with your personal business. I know this is a separate thing. So I was more, uh, asking casually. With the conventions and our projects, I want nothing to change there.“

„No, of course.“

„If we make this a big deal, I thought it would be risky. When I ask you this, there’s always the chance that it gets weird, people are being particular and act different when getting intimate like that, no matter if the night is good or bad or boring. But to me, I thought, after all our sessions being the way they were we had a body feeling for each other that was more progressed than just having sex. And I was curious how it would be naked, how we’d be catching up. Because you’re really hot to me… I really want to be on top of you. I waited so long to say this. God, fuck, Jungkook.“

„Yes.“

„Hm?“

„Yes, I want to. I’ve… been thinking about it as well.“

It’s a bashful confession that comes with a lot of baggage off his shoulders, you can tell. This all has been simmering underneath the surface. At least you managed to spill it all out yourself. Drawing a 3D face was infinitely easier, tattooing an inner fucking lip was easier. But now he was in the know, if he wasn’t before.

„Makes two of us,“ you twirl at his curly bangs with one digit finger. „Should I get it? And some other stuff. So we’re safe.“

„I, I have some protection in my bag,“ Jungkook goes on stumbling over his words, clearly not prepared for you touching his hair so playfully. „Just a minute. It’s upstairs. In the shower.“

Standing up, you both separate ways with telling, loaded glances. Jungkook couldn’t climb the stairs any faster, his expression is so sheepish. You really fucking did it. You asked and he said yes. Damn, hell yeah.

Walking into your dark bedroom, you pick up a non-fragrant wet wipe to clean your hands from any tat cream residue, although you’ve really worked it into him. Every last corner of his torso. The sleeve as well.

You constantly taught him how to take care of his arm and the other tattoos, but this was a new one. Jungkook will keep the healing cream, you’ll gift it to him. It’s high-priced stuff, but why’d you care. Your home tresor now holds a whopping 20,000$ in cash, and you can topple into your bed happy and content after knowing you own the L.A. tattoo scene as of today.

Jeon Jungkook, he was truly a standout client. Picking up the bottle of lube from underneath your bed, you couldn’t believe you just make the step to breach the professional, invisible wall of being artist and canvas. The excitement gave you a nice gut feeling that was similar to walking up at the show’s venue this morning. You’d have him on the couch, you’d get some fucking dick tonight, no sketching, no planning, no phone calls, no nothing.

You bring a large towel that Jungkook puts under his back and legs, protecting the sofa. Two water bottles, too, there he goes. Although you don’t want this to be the most sweaty exercise of all time, you both have to stay hydrated. After such a stuffy long day, anyhow.

He looks hot chugging it down up to the half-a-litre mark, and you drink from your own bottle with one hand pulling down your pants to the knees. He helps you remove them across your ankles, and he leaves two little kisses on your lower shins. It’s the first time feeling his lips are on you, and it’s a peck just as unique as you thought it would be.

When you hook your index fingers at the top of his shorts, you notice that Jungkook already fitted a blue condom inside his pants.

He didn’t want to do it in front of you and make it awkward, or expect you to touch him just for practicality first rather than touching him for sensuality first. Obviously it could be hot rolling it down on a guy, feeling up what would be inside of you, the whole girth. But safe to say he knew what he was doing. Jungkook didn’t want to compromise you. With all your thoughts that you had, that was a subtle act of reassuring.

Since you brought along the lubricant, you could still get to enjoy having your hand wrapped around him, spreading the heavy liquid rather liberally, feeling it melt around him. You wiped your hand on the towel and climbed up to his lap while Jungkook was kicking off his pants with a hip-to-knee coordination that you haven’t seen yet.

It dawns on you. How could you forget what he usually does. He wasn’t just a dancer by profession, but at heart. Those things were hard to suppress or not do. Just like you couldn’t look at Jungkook without feeling inspired to create tattoos. Which, and you couldn’t lie to yourself, his bare skin was desperately begging for, it was so inviting. You already saw him more than scantily clad, but with his shorts down, his waist and hip showed themselves in their best light. You loved his body shape.

And damn, it felt so good to finally be naked in that summer evening heat, feeling the A/C lightly tickle up your spine and neck from behind. It cooled down your back just right, and you chucked away your underwear for it not to lay around on the sofa. Although the lube was more than enough to go by, you gathered some saliva in your mouth to spit on his dick. It made him twitch and moan, „Yes please.“

There was no need for any aperitif, you weren’t in the mood to go through any foreplay. Jungkook looked delicious enough to have you on edge, and the lubricant would do the rest to make him gliding inside even smoother. You squatted over him and aligned yourself, got comfortable in stabilizing your legs this way.

Jungkook closed his eyes and only looked when the tip was way in, approaching the mid-length of his cock squeezing inside of you. Of course you were still a little tight, but some positioning would change the angle for the better. Jungkook asked if he could use his hands and got green lights from you. Judging by how they were slightly dry on your skin and the scent they had, Jungkook soaped them down when he was picking up his cross-body bag from the bathroom some minutes ago. Everything by the book.

One on your hip, the other playing with your clit, you began to realize just how good he was with his beautiful fingers. It wasn’t just you having the manual skills in this relationship. He was remarkably cautious and had concentrated eyes. So far, you enjoyed that Jungkook was more observing rather than staring, and had such a nice ring to his moaning voice as if he was a singer.

From your perspective, seeing his tattoed fingers curl between your labia and his tight chest muscles moving right along made you crave more cock inside. It slid in almost naturally with the stimulation that came from his fingertips. Jungkook’s voice went right along with it, describing in sounds rather than words what the situation was like.

„That’s really good, stay in that spot,“ you told him, and added a slight up and down to your movement on his dick. Only a slight drag on his shaft made it harder to push him inside further, but that was likely because he had been growing in size a little more.

Learning how to tattoo meant studying some architecture as well to be able to pull it off, and in your case, you soaked up all historic Greek building styles there everywhere. If you were to describe Jungkook as a column, it would be Doric. Full in the middle, definitely not Corinthian in length, actually more Roman Tuscan which was full and convex with a slender, triangular tip that extended toward a nice curving girth the further down you went to the middle.

„So pretty. Your dick feels good.“

„I really hoped you’d like it.“

Meanwhile, he had less circumference at the base. Which you found pleasing to the eye, and pleasing when you sunk down on him fully. That meant squeezing down some lube which would squirt on his balls and made your labia extra slick and juicy, stretching on the sides of his shaft like soaked little lips.

A bit would splatter to the side and smear across the lower side of your ass. It pulled threads when you were reaching the lowest point of your bounce, which alerted Jungkook’s usually waist-bound hand. He had noticed that you felt discomfort with it and wiped it flat to the side in one go.

To your surprise, he gently licked across the sides of his fingers to clean it up. Jungkook licking his tattoos had to be something you didn’t know you needed and one of the top five things happening today. The innocence but quick efficiency with which he did it, priceless. He didn’t stick out his tongue that much, just a decent fourth of it. His calm and naughtiness spoke of low performance anxiety, which you attributed to him being camera-savvy, doing his solo videos.

Still, going balls deep had Jungkook whimpering through his teeth with his eyes closed again, an immense tension spread across his face. Even his left hand on your clit briefly stopped. He had to accommodate to being inside, so you wouldn’t go on moving until his features would relax a little more and he sighed out. It was all fully in the moment and you loved to continue moving up once he was okay again.

Jungkook and you were comfortable with one position for now. In your head, you have a thousand things just like a full-body tattoo would look like, but in reality, you can only ink one thing at a time. Perfecting his little quickie would pay off much more than bending each other around. He had been hectic enough going up the stairs, he had been nervous and confused all day. You had so many ups and downs of adrenaline yourself. This had to be deliberate.

Although you told him he didn’t have to if he couldn’t do it, you found yourself asking Jungkook to give you some understated hip work. Just to begin meeting you halfway, to press his balls against you softly, to create some more lewd noises — and to see his whole body go like clockwork so you would see his tattoos dance above his muscles.

Since he observed you well, Jungkook amped up the stimulation enough for you to feel your pleasure starting to build up fast like a coil waiting to be undone, at its very peak of feel-good. The thought of having a climax right on his dick was spurring you to move, chasing the high and needing the smack of your ass against the jerk of his desperate thighs.

„Keep going… I can handle it!“

Jungkook sounded like he was about to cry, which told you he must have cum inside the condom. Hell, he was moaning so passionately, it could have been at any point in time. Going by his usual policy, he didn’t want to put pressure on you or mess up your own timing. He left you to do your own thing, just like you said you wanted. Lord knows he might have popped a pill in the bathroom to keep his dick up for long enough.

All you knew was, the suction created by you riding him very roughly at a high pace kept him erect, leaving you space to cum on his sloppy dick before Jungkook would enter a post-sex delirium. It was sudden and left you clenching up, heart rate thumping and a huge wave of release making the round through your torso. You squeezed him tight, he reacted by slowing his waist down. That way, you could savor the orgasm without disturbance, and leave your eyes shut for a moment. Jungkook helped you go from squatting on the heels of your feet to the knees, coming much closer to him now and leaving him buried deep.

„Fuck, so good!“ you plant your hands on either of his shoulders, cooling down. The A/C continues to release a calm stream of air into the room, which is deeply needed. You can’t believe it’s already happened. Or, how fast it could happen once you asked this way. He gave himself away freely without expectations, Jungkook went along like a champ.

You stay seated this way for a long time. Relaxing. Up until you both have normal breaths, up until your sleep hormones are kicking in. You glide off his dick with Jungkook’s help, him kissing the inside of your thigh while you lift it across his face.

Jungkook insists to stay on the couch, he doesn’t want to move or just come along to the bedroom he’s never been in out of nowhere. He mumbles that he’ll somehow get himself to the bathroom in ten minutes, it’s okay, he doesn’t want aftercare just more to drink. And a little snack from the fridge, maybe.

He cleans you up with love and care, then discards the more than ruined condom that had to endure being soaked from either side, outside, inside. It didn’t rip, but it looks as mushy as it gets. You really fucked the shit out of him. Everything wet and full of lube. Although it looked messy, it didn’t feel like it. Jungkook was effortlessly good in bed and immediately grasped what you wanted. The fully wet condom was a mere testament.

Seeing just how drenched and mixed up everything was, though, Jungkook points to his bag, you pull out a flat paper box.

„Yeah, just to be sure,“ you nod and pop the contents on your tongue, downing the little pill with a bunch of water. Jungkook probably made the cutest babies ever, but your whole stomach was your former first teacher Boa freestyling the absolute madness of an impeccably scaled dragon in every available color that was your lucky charm, so that wasn’t happening.

Where stretch marks would mean a ruptured masterpiece, a whole C-section would give you a thousand years of bad luck for chopping off the dragon’s feet. It would be an aesthetic crime for someone aspiring to perfection, and you wouldn’t want to draw the wrath of Boa for the sake of a kid you had zero time for to begin with.

Come to think of it. Your conservative neighborhood would probably call the cops if they learned about how the eccentric tattoo artist raving about ‚hand poking‘ and homoerotic Greek culture all day had a lovechild with the Doberman chest guy whose main source of income was shaking his ass into a camera.

So — Jungkook himself was more than just prepared. Even if he didn’t look nor act like it, he had his sex life together. Hacks, contraception, technique, hitting perfect pitch on his moans, everything. This guy was a professional in a way that you would tattoo abstract art. You admit to yourself that you tasted blood despite 85% of California men not doing it for you, and that included the majority of model canvasses. Jungkook had something completely unoffensive and pleasing about him. Something intricately submissive that was worth exploring.

Even if he came too early, he didn’t complain about it or give himself a hard time, or get in your way with it. If anything, it let you know that Jungkook liked what you did. You felt complimented that he reached his climax so easily with you, though you have to ask why he wanted to remain in the living room when your bed was much less improvised than the couch.

„Not making it a big deal,“ he says, smiling a little at you. „Nothing much changes. You’re my tattooist.“

And he’s right. He would have slept here if you didn’t fuck. The couch is big and comfortable, anyway.

While you get dressed in the bedroom, you hear him sneak upstairs. Using the tap, and you hear the clothing dryer being switched off.

You’re already tucked in when a little „thank you for todays session 🐰“ text lights up on your phone screen, followed by „and congratulations 🎊“. You reply with a „right back at you“ and call it a day, recounting today’s events in your head with an excited feeling. Good one. You even forgot you actually had a phone. Today felt like the longest 24 hours of this year.

Jungkook gets comfortable with a cold drink on the living room table next to him. Even if he’s not getting the hang of this house yet, that’ll do. He’s closing his eyes at some point. Everything that’s happened feels like it’s locked into his body. Big show, big lights, photoshoots, karaoke, brainstorming for the future. The two of you need some well-deserved rest tonight. He’s not going anywhere, and you’re not going anywhere.

The heat of the summer nights in this part of the town is reliably stable. Still, you left him the shirt in case he still needs it. Yoongi will take care of breakfast before either of you wake up tomorrow, and the kitchen will be clean as day. A nice thought to hold onto, as well as the confetti raining down on stage. And that fact that you just hooked up.

„Rise and shine my queen,“ resounds the upbeat voice of Yoongi. You always twist around under the duvet for a solid minute, then realize every time that it’s just your phone alarm sounding off like that. On a grumpy day, you once told Yoongi to record something that will get you out of bed, and this was the result. By the time you’re waking up, though, your house is all prepared. Yoongi took off for errands already.

After handing Jungkook an illustrative traditional tattoo book from your little house library to get a feel for possible designs, you sit down together. At the kitchen counter-turned-bar-turned-breakfast-table, Jungkook is fresh out the shower in a bathing gown he found nearby. Again — a garment way too short for someone with tempting legs like that.

On him, it’s basically a mini wrap dress. Not to mention the cleavage, where his tattoo is boldly peeking. Crisp edges, deep color, the black consistent. Not to brag, but you want to pat yourself on the shoulder for that job. It looks just as scrumptious as the little buffet that awaits the two of you.

„How’d Yoongi react to the tennis pants on you?“

„No idea,“ Jungkook ruffles his hair, damp and strongly curling. „Probably didn’t even register that it was his clothing at first. I was sleeping anyway when he arrived.“

„Right, he comes in around 5:50,“ you pick up a brimming sandwich, stacked with lettuce, bell pepper, and extra-layered vegan cheese. „You just saw him leave or so, right.“

„We said hi for like ten minutes when I woke up,“ Jungkook gets busy putting cherry jam on a croissant, „and he congratulated us.“

„I sent him a link to the interview we did after the competition.“

Your group chat is just a cat picture, event info, and meme dump at this point, this was one of the more serious entries. You know Yoongi for too long.

„Then I asked if he also got tattoos from you,“ he stirs his tea, and a little smile rises. Of course he had to ask that. Yoongi was plastered in freestyle 3D tattoos and song lyrics. „Then he told the story about how he started working here. So that was hilarious.“

„Abbreviated, though.“

„Abbreviated?“

“Yoongi never tells the full version where he freeloaded getting a portrait of Holly on his underarm. He didn’t have the cash, but we were college friends. I almost fell for the trick when he wanted a matching one for his girlfriend. As an exchange, he was cooking here for a week. I ended up hiring him, he’s really good at those things.“

„I was still so tired, I think I didn’t quite pay attention to the story anyway,“ Jungkook laughs. „After he showed me his knuckle designs up close, I was thinking about how I got my own.“

„Hand tats are different gravy,“ you fill up an empty glass with extra orange juice, one eye still in Jungkook’s cleavage. „Probably ’cause you see ’em all day.“

You think he does notice your gaze tracing his body. But you never know when Jungkook is terribly shy or ready to flirt the house down when he does that one wide-eyed expression.

„And then Yoongi said, I should just put on his stretchy sweatpants from the lowest drawer? I didn’t really know where that was.“

„Oh right, he doesn’t use that drawer anymore. That chapter is closed.“

„Anymore?“

„Yoongi stopped playing golf. He had his shoulder messed up in an accident.“

„Oh no…“

„Five years ago, I think. He got hit by a delivery car a mile up the lane. Never fully recovered.“

„Ouch…“

„So all that golf stuff is unused. Might as well steal a polo shirt and socks from there as well. Down the hallway, last door to the left. I make sure nobody eats your croissant in the meantime.“

He’s giggling. Golf clothes, it is. The morning is significantly cooler, you can feel it in your bones. A welcome refresher.

„Sucks. Sorry about Yoongi’s injury,“ Jungkook gets up, which loosens his belt a little too much. The bathroom gown really is falling apart left and right. You can see his thigh exposed, all the way up to the right hip. Your dear guest tries to hold everything in place shamefully with two hands, then pulls the belt now twice as tight. „Down the hallway, last door, left, correct…?“

„Yup.“

Off he goes with bouncing hair. You browse through the tattoo book while obliterating your sandwich, shifting your brain back into business mode. Shit, why’d he pick that short fucking gown instead of a regular damn towel.

In the assorted picture part of the later chapters, you find some beautiful ornaments that would literally, and you can tell right away, work so well as a frame for his back tat. Some almost naturalistic shapes, and either clouds or wind on top. Maybe even both, most deity figures in the book had several elements surrounding them. A playground for anyone who knows what they’re doing. The sketch was going to be fun to make, and interesting once it came to application.

You already put in an extra hour for Namjoon’s bonsai cover-up. Jungkook’s September appointment would be twice as intricate and dynamic. Because of the sheer overwhelming size, anyway, and Jungkook’s body shape presenting the challenge of tweaking the design’s perspective. Now that you’ve seen him stripped down all the way — maybe you do have a better understanding of him even more so.

You shiver at the thought of an unskilled tattoo artist ruining a beautiful physique like that, especially across such a large area. Thank God Taehyung sent him to you after realizing that ‚suave and fleeting‘ was clearly not what Jungkook was looking and suited for. JK’s first tattoo had been a simple refresh of some letterings on his sleeve, and the heart on his hand. A month later, he was ringing you up again.

„I think you’re the one. I have a shoulder bit that needs a touch-up. And maybe… you have an idea for the right underarm.“

What surprised you, Jungkook has never been the one choosing the tattoos. He quite liberally had you picking it all— and even without his request, you’ve now been coming up with motives to add on.

Laid-back as he is, „you do you, all access“ is all he thinks about that. Jungkook does an impromptu trust fall into your tattooing chair every time. To be honest, you could never. Boa was the only one you’d confide in like that because she knew what your taste was like and had the best technique you knew. When she told you that she’ll be moving to San Francisco and you were ready to open up your own parlor, that your 5-year education was complete, you cried, it was the best and worst day of your life. Maybe, she’ll be hosting at the next convention.

The road to San Francisco was a 6-hour drive, you do see her every other month at least. Hanging out at her own gigantic studio was one of the best things to do on the weekends. But it sometimes feels like she’s missing in presence and advice, still. Hell, you text Boa almost every day. You like all her Instagram posts, she sends you almost every larger tattoo or notable smaller ones she did on clients, so you could study the way she did it.

Just when you ended a session contouring Bam’s ears and eyes and paws, Jungkook once met your former mentor when she dropped by on a Friday evening at BLACKWORKS. Boa was depositing some ink and needles that she didn’t need, and she said well, maybe you could those try out if they work for you. However, she refused to give you any counsel. Boa insisted you had to figure out Jungkook for yourself and own up to that. Knowing her, Boa was always 90% right about the things she said.

So, all else aside, she would be the only person you’d allow making a surprise design on you. But anyone else? You’d tell your tattooist when and how and why to fucking move the needle one split inch to the left and to the right, even if they were tattooing your back and you couldn’t see a thing. In your deepest sleep, you could feel and hear and smell an idiot not filling out a corner properly.

You’d tell them exactly when to switch colors, disinfect their tools on your own, and not allow a single deviation from the stencil. Or else you’d instigate a general lawsuit to shut down their studio, good riddance. And Jungkook was the precise opposite of that.

Switching colors? He didn’t even care about those things. It was all about lying down and letting it happen instead. Taehyung once remarked to you over a very strong coffee: „He’d still think you’re cool if you ruined him entirely“.

The vast majority of your clients would rather give you their idea and you execute it for them. Point blank. Modify it at best. Maybe correct it a lot or give a second choice of the same aesthetic. Say, you’ve had this lady Hyuna come over, she wanted a cute teddy bear, but the area on the leg was better suited for an elongated cotton candy motif, so you both went with that and put the teddy bear on her shoulder blade and her husband got the same one later.

But you never got someone begging for you to decide it all to the last millimeter. Not even the canvases that flirted with seasoned contestants at the show were ready to surrender their skin this way. If someone wanted to kiss their tattooists’ ass? They’d rather spill out the most dramatic speech of praise on their work. At this point, you’re sure Jungkook likes you in a way you don’t yet understand, or never experienced.

Even the most trusting veteran clients of yours wouldn’t act like he would, and even canvasses of absolute genius tattooists would come to the revered maestros with their own suggestions and some big no-gos. Jungkook’s `do what you want, and only you can touch my body´ attitude has almost made even Taehyung’s eyes fall out. And Taehyung’s seen a lot of unhinged clients over the span of his career.

It was quite obvious to you that he’d be your award show canvas for more than just one gig. He had the kind of enthusiasm and an empty space on his legs and back. His dance background had also given him the gift of even subconsciously presenting himself well in front of crowds because of his posture and way of walking.

In a way, you were almost too happy that Jungkook came back for more now, and he was trusting. You’d reward him with poker straight edges and extra time for creativity. For some reason, you were biased, and that already happened way before you slept together. Jungkook would spend the birthday of his lifetime getting his back tattoo.

While you ponder, there’s some noise from the other side of the house, and he’s returning.

„Did he mean those?“ a little question poses from the entrance of the hallway, and it’s Jungkook standing in the frame all dressed up.

„Sporty!“

„Yeah—“

„Can you still feel your circulation or not?“

„I needed to try several socks until it felt comfortable,“ he giggles, in typical manner, and does a little spin for fun.

Even though you’ve seen Jungkook’s naked back a thousand times in your studio, in fact you know every hair of peach fuzz on it, you’re carefully surveying it now more than ever, painting a tattoo across the bones and muscles with your eyes. Maybe his ass was next in line after the thighs, by the way. You’d run out of conventional space anyway.

„And I always thought Yoongi’s feet were pretty large. Turns out yours are bigger than his?“

„I can’t really explain it either, maybe the socks ended up in the dryer somehow?“

Yoongi really is quite a bit smaller than Jungkook. Formerly just a normal fitting piece, the polo top is pretty much a muscle shirt now. Preppy fashion runway? No, he can make your house look like a gym outfitter. The light-colored pants — it’s obvious he’s not wearing anything underneath. That silly riffled waistband is holding on to dear life. He couldn’t even tie a ribbon with the strings.

„Turn this place into a laundrette, I don’t mind. I’ll leave you in charge of the washing machine next time. Yoongi bought enough fabric softener last Wednesday.“

„I saw! Cotton candy flavor.“

He might as well be a tailor, too. Most of the clothing construction threatens to fall apart at the widest point of his thighs, at least the slender calves fit in these pants. But: It stretches, and he’s got something on.

You drop your empty juice glass into the sink, alongside your plate and sandwich knife. Your wink is far from unsettling to him.

Jungkook doesn’t want to wait until Yoongi returns to take care of the dishes. He also hand-washes his clothing from yesterday in the sink. It’s funny seeing it hang and sway dry outside, but the approaching sunshine heat promises that he’ll be good to go soon enough: With proper underwear.

For the time being, you pour some water into the fridge’s icemaker and give Jungkook a house tour. There’s finally someone you can play table football with. On the first floor, where you arranged your luxury woman cave five thousand. Yoongi could only play the defense with one arm, so you had to rely on random color tattoo clients being down to square up against your national team after a consultation. It was more fun to play with a friend.

Powered by his now-tied ponytail, Jungkook is actually too good to play against, which you notice being five-nil behind. Regardless, you `magically´ recover at seven-nine, right after he whines how a stray lash keeps poking in his eye.

There is no stray lash to be found when you check up close, but you still enjoy looking in his eyes. Jungkook was definitely blessed with some of the most reassuring bambi-like eyes. That deep reflective hazel tone looks better than any pricey brown ink of yours ever could.

Nature, after all, is the best tattooist.

read it on ao3

[dom!reader MASTERLIST]

note. thank you for reading to the end <3 i hope i got you dreaming of back/chest tattoos for jk now 😂 i love this topic, it was really intricate to write and i hope you enjoyed!

#jungkook smut #jungkook x reader #jungkook fanfic #jungkook #bts smut #bts fanfic #bts #bangtan #sub!jungkook #dom!reader #kpop smut #+ yoongi makes a cameo as a chef #kpop fanfic #sub!bts #sub!kpop

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gukyi · 4 years

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into the wilderness | pjm

summary: alright, so last summer’s camp was... disastrous. from the murky green showers to the wasps nests, it was all-around a bad time. but none of those things could be quite as catastrophic as the end-of-camp counselor campfire, when you told park jimin that you were in love with him. and if telling him was terrible, then seeing him again this summer, one year after your fruitless confession, just might be the death of you.

{camp counselor!au, unrequited love!au, friends to lovers!au}

pairing: park jimin x female reader genre: angst, fluff, comedy word count: 27k warnings: unrequited love, camp shenanigans, awkwardness, secondhand embarrassment/hurt, ot7 cameos a/n: hello and welcome to the one thing that guyi has wanted to write for literal years now but never go around to! finally i can cross camp counselor au off my list. anyway, it’s been over a year since i wrote for jimin so i hope that this monster 27k fic can make up for that !!! i swear the ending is happy. i swear. i promise.

Something about last summer sucked.

Maybe it was the record six wasps’ nests you found around the cabin, leaving you with more bee stings than mosquito bites by the end of camp. Maybe it was that weird murky green color of the water in the showers and the sinks that didn’t go away until three weeks in, when you were already positive you had contracted some sort of pond disease from brushing your teeth. Maybe it was the lack of Namjoon, who had an internship and couldn’t come, therefore removing all sense of order and leaving you and the rest of the counselors in a state of chaos.

Or maybe it was the fact that, on the very last night, at the very last counselor campfire, you told Jimin that you loved him.

Truth be told, you weren’t sure how badly it would go. But telling him was so much easier than keeping it hidden, than letting it drag on and on, this boulder sitting on your chest for the rest of time. You had spent the whole eight weeks of camp rationalizing it to yourself, so much so that by the time the last counselor campfire rolled around, you were convinced that it wouldn’t be that disastrous.

There was no part of you that thought Jimin would reciprocate your feelings. No part of you that secretly hoped that maybe he felt the same, and that you could end the summer with more money in your bank account and a boyfriend on your arm. You knew he didn’t. Jimin was sweet, and thoughtful, and gentle, which is exactly why you fell in love with him, but he was like that to everyone. You didn’t think that telling him would suddenly make him fall in love with you.

You told him because people like Jimin deserve to know that somebody loves them.

You told him because you thought that nothing would change.

What you didn’t really expect to happen was this:

Your marshmallow is burnt beyond recognition, poking off of the edge of a stick like a sad piece of coal rather than a sweet treat. At this point, it’s even darker than the chocolate sitting on the graham cracker in your lap, waiting to be smushed together into the sugar-fest known as a s’more, so eloquently named because you will apparently always want some more.

“Uh, hello? Earth to Y/N?”

Taehyung’s hand waves furiously in front of your face as he leans forward to make eye contact with you.

“Huh?” You ask, shaking yourself out of your thoughts. Your mind has been awfully cloudy these days, overcast like the weather around here. It’s a wonder you’re able to make your way through.

“Are you alright?” He asks, an eyebrow raised. “Your marshmallow looks like what happens when I try to make scrambled eggs.”

“Your scrambled eggs look like that?” Seokjin interrupts, pointing accusingly at your charred marshmallow. You’ve seen Taehyung in the kitchen. It’s not that bad, is it? “Next year you should sign up for some of Yoongi’s cooking classes. The six-year-olds can cook better than you.”

“You’d have to pay me way more than the shit they’re giving us to get me to teach Taehyung how to cook,” grumbles Yoongi.

“I’m fine,” you promise Taehyung as Yoongi and Seokjin launch into a tirade about raising minimum wage. “I just—” You glance at your marshmallow. You don’t even think the fish monster at the bottom of the pond would eat it. And he apparently eats people whose hearts have turned to stone. Like Seokjin, who swears that it had eaten the tip of his pinky finger. “—like my marshmallows really cooked.”

Taehyung looks skeptical but drops the subject nonetheless, turning back around so he can find a different conversation to barge his way into. You’re willing to put money on him finding some way to annoy Jungkook.

Insecure about your apparent lack of marshmallow-roasting skills, you pull your stick away from the campfire, blowing on it until you decide that you’re willing to risk burning the tips of your fingers. You pluck the marshmallow from the skewer, hissing to yourself as you quickly plop it onto the graham cracker, squishing the whole thing together.

The marshmallow is so burnt that it barely gives underneath the press of your fingers, bouncing back up like rubber. You frown at your s’more, which clearly should be renamed to something else because nothing about the thing in your hands makes you want some more.

Next to you, Jimin laughs at your pitiful attempt at a classic campfire treat.

“You want mine?” He asks with a smile, holding out a flawless s’more, the kind that they make in movies to perpetuate the illusion of perfection. You look up at him and in the light of the fire he glows, like a spark from the flames had created him right then and there, like he had been born with light in his eyes, a halo surrounding his body.

You wonder if Jimin knows how beautiful he is. How beautiful he has always been, radiating kindness and joy and laughter. He must know, right? It must be impossible for him to notice how everyone falls in love with him. You certainly aren’t an exception.

He holds out the s’more in his hands, laughing as he looks at you because there must be something endearing about being a shitty s’more maker, and you think, what’s the worst that can happen?

“I’m in love with you.”

The s’more drops to the ground, hitting the grass with a thud.

Jimin’s eyes meet yours, and for once, they are unreadable. This tragic sort of confusion, like he can’t believe the words you’re saying to him. Like his mind refuses to accept them as true.

He opens his mouth, but you answer for him.

“It’s okay,” you assure quickly, reaching a hand out to rest on his own. The touch makes him look away, like your fingers are the flames of the campfire, burning him where they touch his skin. “I—I know you don’t feel the same.”

It’s not a secret. Not to him, and not to you. Jimin purses his lips because he feels guilty for not loving you back. Because he is so good, so kind, that he feels as though he has wronged you because he doesn’t love you the way you love him. Like it’s his fault.

“Y/N—” He starts, but he does not finish.

“You…” you interrupt, looking down at your feet. You can’t look at Jimin because looking at him hurts, and you can’t look anywhere else because Jimin is all you think about. All you ever think about. “You don’t have to say anything.”

He speaks, and it’s as if the words don’t belong to him. Don’t belong to anyone.

“What are we supposed to do?” He asks.

You shrug, resigning yourself to this. You knew that he wouldn’t feel the same. You didn’t know how terrible he would feel because of it. “Nothing,” you tell him. “I just thought you should know.

He nods, because he knows, and he nods, because he can’t do anything else.

The fire crackles beside you, s’mores forgotten on the ground as your friends laugh and cheer, distant sounds that echo in your head like white noise. Jimin is all you can think of and right now you’re thinking about what happens next.

“I’m sorry.”

Maybe telling him wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“Me too.”

Your busted-up sedan revs angrily as you rally up the mountain, shaking your head in an attempt to rid the memories of the campfire from your mind. Unfortunately, the nasty thing about memories is that the more you try to forget them, the more you seem to remember.

You sigh. Something about last summer sucked.

Nothing about this summer makes you feel like it’ll suck any less.

The good thing about being thirty minutes late is that you’re still thirty minutes earlier than Taehyung, who does not have a single punctual bone in his body. You can count on one hand the amount of instances where he’s actually been on time, all of which are because you and the other counselors conspire to tell him that events are an hour earlier than they actually are just to make sure he doesn’t stroll in an hour late and improperly dressed.

The bad thing about being thirty minutes late is that everyone besides Taehyung is already here, waiting for you.

Your sedan crawls to the clearing at the top of the mountain, fighting against gravity and itself as it chugs up the last few feet, coming to a rough stop in the dirt, sunken in from countless tires tracking across it.

Through your windshield, you can make out two figures with two clipboards, only one of which has something genuinely useful on it.

“Y/N!” Hoseok cries out excitedly, splaying his arms out as if to hug the entire front of your car only to reveal the near-blank clipboard in his hand. All that’s on it is a neon green Post-it note with a caricature drawing of who you assume to be Yoongi, if the grouchy expression and chef’s hat are anything to go by. There’s no signature or name, but Hoseok’s art skills are on par with those of the campers you work with and Jungkook has a fun and quirky habit of vandalizing all drawable surfaces with pencil sketches of the counselors, so you take a wild guess as to who the artist is.

You pop the door of your car open and step out into the sticky weather, warm and muggy despite the clouds above. It’s the same as when you step into your bathroom after your two roommates have showered, using up all the hot water and leaving a layer of fog on the mirrors for you to all play hangman on. Only, this steam never goes away.

“Hoseok!” You cheer, letting the man wrap you up in a sweltering hug, your hands gently patting the top of his back so as not to come in contact with the dampness soaking through his thin cotton t-shirt. You haven’t seen each other for nearly a year, though, so you give in more than you usually would and relax into his hold. “You look good, I like the hair,” you compliment, two fingers coming up to twirl at his bright red locks, deep and vibrant like the cherries you pick.

“Dyed it just so I could tell the kids I’m a superhero!” Hoseok grins. He’s already heading over to the back of your car to pop the trunk and pull out your duffel bags so that he can park your car in the garage at the other end of the campsite.

“Then who’s the villain?” You call, tossing him your keys.

“I guess that would be me.”

You whip around to find a platinum-blonde Namjoon standing happily before you, looking at least a little bit resigned as he grins at you. His hair is longer this year, like growing it out would somehow compensate for frying it with layer after layer of bleach. And with his silver-white hair and the fact that he is the only counselor any of the kids are genuinely afraid of disobeying, you suppose he would be the antagonist after all.

“Namjoon, nice to see you again.” You go in for a hug even though Namjoon clearly had no plans on instigating one himself, because someone as hardworking and patient as Namjoon deserves a little platonic affection every one in a while. What, with everyone else constantly conspiring with the campers to oust him every summer.

The truth is that all of you know that without Namjoon, this camp would be nothing but chaos in its purest form, with the counselors unable to wrangle the kids and the kids using that knowledge to their fullest advantage. Take last year, where everything seemed to go wrong because Namjoon had his stupid internship with a business firm and spent the entire summer drilling finances into his head instead of losing brain cells watching kids eat sand.

If you had any dignity left you’d blame your rotten confession to Jimin on Namjoon’s absence as well.

“Nice to see you, too, Y/N,” Namjoon says when you part, checking your name off of the list on his clipboard. “I feel like it’s been ages since I was here.” You can see red marks all over the page, blank only where the name Taehyung is written.

Some things never change, you suppose.

“Well, we definitely missed you last year,” You say with a chuckle, trying not to immediately associate your personal misjudgements with the lack of Namjoon, who you can hopefully keep from ever finding out what happened at last year’s end-of-camp counselor campfire. The problem is that Namjoon picks up on social cues and body language like a sociologist, so your only hope is pretending that the campfire never even happened. “Camp was pretty much a mess without you.” In more ways than one.

“Namjoon!” Someone calls. You and him both jerk around to the source of the sound when you see a figure barreling towards the both of you, face obscured in shadow.

You almost don’t recognize him, with his pitch black hair and thick voice, like he has somehow become a new person in the nine months you’ve gone without seeing him. But the moment he comes into view, you know, and you can’t even pretend to not know, not with the way your heart freezes in place, mid-beat, like the sight of him has turned you to stone. Not with the way that Namjoon is right beside you, and how you don’t think you can bear explaining to him why you and Jimin aren’t as close as you used to be. Not with the way that Jimin looks as beautiful as he always has and always will be, no matter how many summers pass, this timeless portrait, this piece of art that’s come to life.

There’s a part of you that’s shocked still at seeing him, like you had almost thought that after last summer at least one of you would bail on this shitty summer job, filled with mosquitoes and mud and wifi that only works in the room that doubles as the gymnasium and the mess hall. It’s the same part of you that wants to go back to pretending that nothing ever happened last summer.

But Jimin is here, in front of you, eyes wide and out of breath and gorgeous, and pretending that last summer never happened is the same as pretending that you never fell in love with him at all.

“The water in the boys’ cabins sinks is green,” he says with a tense smile, making Namjoon nearly smack his clipboard into his forehead.

“Ugh, seriously?” He asks, and you can’t tell if you’re thankful or hurt that Jimin’s failed to acknowledge you. “Fine,” he scribbles something down on the clipboard, this handwriting scrawl that only he can read, “I’ll figure out what to do with that later. In the meantime, just don’t drink it.”

“Seokjin’s already made lemonade with it, though—”

“Great,” Namjoon says, exasperated as he takes off towards the main cabin, where Seokjin is sitting on the balcony with his feet up on the railing with a glass of suspiciously murky lemonade in his hand, one that he’s offering up to Yoongi with a devilish grin on his face.

His disappearance leaves only you and Jimin left standing at the entrance, rocking back and forth on the balls of your feet in the hopes that one of you will either leave or spare the other the torture of a conversation.

“Hey,” Jimin says quietly, trying to meet your eyes.

You look away, pretending to smack an imaginary mosquito on your arm while an actual one bites your leg. “Hey, yourself.”

“It’s been a while.” The last time we saw each other you told me you loved me.

“Yeah, it has.” I know.

“How are you doing?” Do you still love me, or was the distance and time enough?

“I’m alright. Same old, same old.” I never stopped. “How are you?” What about you? Did you stop seeing us as just friends?

“Doing well, thanks.” No. You’ll always be just a friend to me. Jimin sighs, looking up at the overcast sky with his hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts, taking in the scenery before him. He exhales, long and heavy, before turning to you with a soft little smile, the kind of grin that almost makes you feel like forgetting might not be the best thing to do after all. “I just feel like this summer is a fresh start, you know? Like, I feel like there’s something different about being here this year.”

Maybe this summer, you can learn to move on from me, too. Because something’s gotta give.

“I hope you’re right about that,” you tell him, because being around him hurts and being away from him makes you replay that night over and over, wondering what would have happened if you had just kept your stupid mouth shut. You open your mouth to say something, anything else, anything to break the ice that didn’t used to be there before, cut between the tension that has settled between the two of you, but your tongue is dry and your heart is sore just looking at him.

Defeated, you walk over to where Hoseok’s left your duffel bags, hiking them onto your shoulders and heading towards the girls’ cabins, ready to end this conversation before it tears you in two.

Jimin seems to flounder, standing awkwardly for a few moments as he watches you walk towards the cabins, skirting around him a few feet away because brushing by his side seemed too close for comfort. But then he says, “Hey, Y/N?”

And it makes you stop dead in your tracks, unable to deny him an answer.

You turn around to look at him, and he offers you a grin.

“Are we good?”

Your love for me, will it affect our friendship?

You swallow.

It already has. It always has. From the very beginning, loving you was part of our friendship. I don’t know how to be friends with you without it. Even when you didn’t know it, I loved you. In a way, it was easier back then. Telling you was the one thing I shouldn’t have done.

“Yeah, Jimin,” you tell him. “We’re good.”

The trek to your cabin from the main buildings of the camp is nothing if not familiar. Familiar in the way that the ground curves beneath your feet, leading you up to the top of a small hill where the building sits, looking out over the rest of the clearing. Familiar in how the scent of the woods that surround you fills up your senses, this fresh, airy feeling, like the very oxygen is smothering you. Familiar in how this place reeks of the memories of summers gone by, summers spent beneath the stars and by the campfire.

Summer memories that make your heart burst with fondness and summer memories that… don’t.

The fact is that it has always started and ended here.

When you kick open the door to the cabin, there is only one other occupied bed. It belongs to Hazel, a counselor in her sophomore year in college who joined the crew last year and assumed that the Namjoon-less pandemonium that was camp last summer was just the norm. Hopefully she can take a much-needed break this year now that Namjoon’s back and she’s not the only one fruitlessly trying to cajole the campers into behaving.

You beeline towards the bunk bed that has been your summer home for the past three years, the one shoved right up against the back right corner, giving you a perfect view of the entire cabin. The downside is that it’s the same corner that spiders seem to prefer as their location of choice for their webs, but better you, a stone-cold college student, than a terrified six-year-old.

Plopping your duffel bags on top of the mattress, you let out another sigh. You wonder what it is about this summer that is so damn tiring, so exhausting that you can’t help but outwardly exhale every ten seconds, like merely being here is wearing you out, bit by bit.

You’re looking forward to when the campers arrive tomorrow. Sleeping alone (well, nearly alone) in a cabin feels uncomfortably empty. Plus, you’re hoping that they’ll provide you with some sort of distraction so you don’t have any free time left to spend dwelling on the what-ifs and the should-have-dones. When there’s only a dozen of you, it’s much easier to run into him.

The moment you collapse on your bed, a messy brown head of hair comes bounding out from the shared bathrooms in the center of the cabin.

“Y/N!” Hazel cries out, launching herself across the room and into your arms for the tightest hug you’ve had in a long while.

“Hey, Haze,” you greet in return, offering her a squeeze back. You didn’t often mix in your camp activities, with Hazel in charge of the nature walks and animal conservation activities while you hide in your air-conditioned arts and crafts room, but living together brought upon you a closeness you otherwise don’t share with anyone else. Plus, Hazel keeps a family-sized pack of Oreos and a gigantic jar of smooth peanut butter by her bunk at all times for emergencies.

“I feel like it’s been so long!” She laments when she finally releases you, looking positively thrilled to be here right now.

Not long enough, you think to yourself, though you don’t suppose any more time apart from Jimin would make seeing him again any easier. “Yeah, but the year goes by so quickly,” you agree half-heartedly. Too quickly.

“I’m so excited for this year.” Hazel grins, clapping her hands together. “I have so much planned for all the nature walks and everything. I spent all of last week reading up on edible plants and berries found in this part of the country. I’m gonna teach all of the kids what they can eat in case they get stranded in the forest!”

“Fun,” you say with a hesitant nod. It’s not that you don’t trust Hazel to have done her research, it’s more that, knowing the campers and knowing the counselors, someone’s going to try and get lost in the woods around the camp, eating everything they can. Not to mention the fact that Hazel’s so innocent she’d probably reveal to someone like Seokjin or Jungkook which plants were poisonous without even realizing it.

Camp last year was a mess, but at least nobody died.

“Hey, aren’t you excited, too?” She asks, a hand on your shoulder as she notices your reluctance. “Apparently Namjoon’s a great leader so this year isn’t going to be as bad as last year.”

“Last year wasn’t bad just because Namjoon wasn’t here,” you comment vaguely. Hazel doesn’t need to know about all of the drama that goes down between the counselors. Hopefully she can get out of here without being dragged into something by one of you.

“Well, this year is supposed to be better!” She cheers you on, determined to get you to feel as enthusiastic as she is. “No matter what did or did not happen last summer. Plus, you know that if anything bad happens I always have my secret stash, counselors only.” She winks.

“Thanks, Haze,” you say, sighing again like it’s your job to be worn out by life. “I think I just need a bit of time to get back into the swing of things.”

“That’s the spirit!” She rallies. “I’m gonna head back to the main camp and see if there’s anything good to drink. I’m thirsty.”

“Stick to soda,” you advise, eyes wide at the thought of her downing anything that Seokjin’s had a sneaky hand in making.

She doesn’t seem to notice your worry, already bounding towards the door, light on her feet. “I was feeling a Fanta anyway. See you at the camp counselor meeting if I don’t see you around beforehand!” She pulls open the heavy wooden door, half outside when she stops to turn back at you, wagging a finger in the air. “Remember, Y/N, leaves of three, let them be!”

The door slams shut behind her, creating a cloud of dust in its wake. You watch helplessly as the particles dissipate into the air, as the silence that was once so comforting begins to terrorize you once more.

You collapse back onto your bunk. If only last summer’s murky green water had poisoned you. Then maybe you’d finally have a good enough excuse for your utter lapse in judgement, and you wouldn’t be sighing so much.

There were no camp counselor meetings last year. There were only haphazard caucuses, irregular get-togethers where no one knew quite what was going on and there were no real announcements to be said, no real orders to be given. You had almost forgotten what it was like to have someone with genuine leadership skills working here.

The problem last year was not getting everyone into the same room for thirty minutes. It was keeping everyone focused in that same room for thirty minutes, which was essentially impossible because, at your age, submitting to someone of authority is the very last thing you want to do. Especially when the consequences pretty much only amount to having to drink Seokjin’s murky green lemonade.

But like with everything else, Namjoon has, somehow, made the impossible possible.

“Guys, guys, can we stop drawing on the board, please? I need that,” Namjoon begs as he walks into the room to find Jungkook and Taehyung with chalk in their hands and a chalkboard at their disposal. What they’ve accomplished so far is an expert drawing of Spongebob and Patrick with their faces missing, waiting to be filled in by one of the unlucky people in this room.

“Okay, so who’s Patrick?” Taehyung asks the audience.

“Hoseok!” shouts Seokjin.

“You!” shouts Hoseok.

“Seokjin!” shouts Hazel, too, just because she likes being involved in things.

Jungkook lets out a cackle at that. “Are you kidding?” He asks. “If anything…” He does a quick sketch on the board, hand flying across it so quickly you’re actually a little bit impressed, “Seokjin would be Plankton.”

He steps away from the board to reveal a scarily-realistic drawing of Seokjin’s angry face on Plankton’s tiny, antennaed body, making everyone—even Namjoon, who usually tries to keep the roasting between counselors to a minimum—laugh.

Seokjin scowls, and normally you would feel bad for him always being the butt of Jungkook’s endless jokes, but you can see a half-empty glass of green lemonade by Jungkook’s side, and you decide that he can hold his own just fine.

“I think you guys would be Spongebob and Patrick,” Jimin pipes up from the back. You freeze, turning your head slightly just to see him sitting on the table pushed up against the wall. You hadn’t even noticed him. Or maybe you had, and your brain just decided to pretend that you hadn’t.

Nevertheless, hearing his voice doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“Jimin’s right,” Jungkook agrees, already beginning to fill in the blank space where Spongebob’s face would normally go with a caricature of his own. “I’d be Spongebob because I have a wider face than you, Tae.”

Taehyung doesn’t object, instead moving his hand to an empty spot on the board. “Yeah. Oh, and Namjoon’s Mr. Krabs, obviously,” Taehyung says, adding his own drawing of Mr. Krabs with Namjoon’s camp get-up on—cargo shorts, a short-sleeved flannel shirt, a baseball cap, and high-tops.

“I would not be—hey, give me that!” Namjoon shouts, indignant, before ripping the chalk from Jungkook’s hands as he cackles wickedly, clearly pleased with himself. Namjoon shoos the both of them away from the board before wiping it with the eraser, which has very obviously not been cleaned since last year, leaving a trail of pale yellow dust in its wake wherever Namjoon drags it across the chalkboard. “Chalkboard for official matters only.” He glares at Jungkook and Taehyung, who high-five each other.

The chatter soon subsides as Namjoon writes down the meeting to-do list on the board in his same old scratchy handwriting. Namjoon’s one of those people that writes exclusively in capital letters, simply enlarging any letters that actually need to be capitalized. You’re almost one-hundred percent positive it’s to establish written dominance over the rest of the counselors.

“Okay, first order of business,” Namjoon begins after coughing to get everyone’s attention. “It’s come to my attention that the entire cabin water system is green.”

“Hasn’t it always been—?” Hazel asks, innocent eyes wide in confusion.

“I called the utilities people and they’re coming tomorrow to fix it, so in the meantime, do not drink the water. Showering and using the bathroom is fine. I would use water bottles for brushing your teeth, though,” Namjoon says, crossing off something on his clipboard as the rest of the counselors murmur in approval.

“See, this is what happens when Namjoon’s here,” deadpans Yoongi, motioning up to him where he stands at the front of the room. “Shit gets done.”

“Okay, secondly, no swearing in front of the kids,” Namjoon says, adding that onto the board as a final reminder. “The fact that I have to tell you guys this multiple times every year is ridiculous.”

“Fuck you, I can do what I want!” Taehyung shouts, earning a chorus of fuck yeah’s.

“You guys do know that I have the power to fire you, right?” Namjoon says pointedly, making Taehyung shut his trap. “Okay, moving on. Everyone’s been assigned to the same things that they were assigned to do last year, and if you weren’t here last year, then the year before that.” Namjoon receives some cheers and some groans in response to this, the former mostly from people who work indoors, and the latter mostly from people who don’t.

“Seriously?” Seokjin whines. “I don’t think Yoongi has stepped foot out of the kitchens in literal years.”

“And I would like to keep it that way, thank you very much!” Yoongi counters.

“Oh, shut up, at least you get to spend some time indoors teaching all of the kids how to play Hot Cross Buns on their guitars,” Taehyung counters. “I got more mosquito bites than freckles last summer.”

“My students have long advanced from Hot Cross Buns,” Seokjin says proudly and a little bit devilishly. “We’re working on something more technical now.”

“Like what?” Jungkook challenges.

“Okay, continuing…” Namjoon says loudly, eyeing Seokjin suspiciously. “If you’re new, you should have already received notification as to what activities you’re in charge of, but if you’re not sure, come and talk to me.”

“Oh, so Jimin’s still on first aid, then?” Taehyung asks, wiggling his eyebrows. “What do you think Y/N’s gonna do to get herself sent down to his tent? Glue her fingers together? Burn herself with a glue gun?”

“Shut up,” You mumble tensely, embarrassed that somehow you and Jimin’s relationship has turned into a counselor affair.

Last summer, you had accidentally given yourself a palm full of splinters from the birdhouses that you had the campers paint to bring home with them, and the first aid tent is the only place that has bandages. Jimin was there, as he always is, and the two of you spent the evening plucking out all of the pieces of wood from your hand and patching it up with Band-aids that had Spiderman and Moana on them. Contrary to apparently popular belief, it was not on purpose, even though the hour of hand-holding was rather nice.

“Or Jimin can just find some excuse to visit Y/N in the arts and crafts room,” Seokjin tacks on unhelpfully. “You know, last summer I don’t think I saw them eat lunch in the counselor room at all. They were always finding secret places in the woods.”

“Maybe we were just busy during lunch?” Jimin suggests, clearly equally uncomfortable.

“Busy fucking, probably,” Taehyung mutters.

“It’s none of your business,” you snap, because the last thing you want to be talking about right now is how wonderful your relationship with Jimin used to be, when all that’s left this summer are the burned remnants of it, the ashes of something that could have been. You don’t need a reminder of why you thought that you and Jimin would be alright, of why you thought that telling him wouldn’t be that bad. It was terrible, and now all you can do is pick up the pieces, patch together a friendship whose thread has come loose.

“Alright, let’s keep going,” Namjoon says, picking up the weirdly tense atmosphere and doing his best to bring the attention back to him and the meeting at hand. “You guys should know that this year, Hoseok is thinking of adding in a counselor dance to the end-of-camp show…”

You look over at Jimin, who immediately turns away when he spots your gaze, making to pick at the rips in his jeans, doing anything and everything he can to avoid eye contact with you, and your shoulders sink.

Jimin had asked you, “Are we good?”

And you had responded, “Yeah, Jimin, we are.”

And the two of you must have both known that was a lie.

You turn back to face the front, focusing on how Hazel is rubbing your forearm and not asking questions, and you try to feel a little bit better.

After the meeting, you and Hazel decide to spend the night holed up in your cabin eating from her Oreo stash instead of eating dinner with everyone else, half because it’s only the first day and already being around all of the other counselors is tiring, and half because you don’t think you can handle seeing Jimin any more today, but not before Namjoon stops you on the way out of the door.

“Y/N,” he says, making you pause in your tracks. “Can we talk?”

“What about?” You ask, hoping to God that it’s not about everyone thinking you purposely injure yourself just so you can see Jimin at the first aid tent.

“Just quickly, you and me,” Namjoon says casually, pulling you to the corner of the room, away from any windows so no one can see you two talking. “Did today’s meeting make you uncomfortable?”

“No,” you lie like a liar. “What are you talking about?”

Namjoon’s too observant for his own good, you decide, when he frowns at you, clearly not buying whatever it is you’re trying to sell him. “You don’t have to tell me everything,” he says quietly. “But I know that something happened between you and Jimin.”

You open your mouth to object and tell him that you and Jimin are fine, but Namjoon raises his eyebrows at you, like he’s challenging you to tell him another lie.

“Well…” you begin, resigning yourself to the truth. “Yeah. Last summer.”

Namjoon purses his lips, nodding in understanding. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“You’re not my mom, Namjoon,” you say with a smile, even though maybe telling someone about it might not be a half-bad idea after all. Plus, Namjoon’s your friend and the only one around here who’s any good at keeping secrets, so getting the words off of your chest could be good.

“You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to,” he reminds you, because he’s wonderful like that.

“No, it’s alright…” you sigh. “I guess someone else has to know.” You close your eyes, willing the words to come up from your throat, willing them to not hurt you as they leave your lips. “Last summer at the campfire I told Jimin that I loved him.”

Namjoon doesn’t say a word.

“And he doesn’t love me back, which is not the problem because he shouldn’t change how he feels about me just to make me feel better. It’s not his fault, and I’m not angry at him or anything. I knew that he didn’t love me back when I told him,” the words come up like bile, slowly and carefully before spilling out in front of you. “But I was an idiot, and I thought telling him would make me feel better, or something. And it didn’t, because now Jimin and I don’t know how to act around each other anymore, and everything sucks.”

Namjoon offers you a careful, hesitant smile.

“So yeah. That’s what happened.”

“Sounds like you and Jimin should talk about it,” Namjoon suggests, and maybe he’s smart, and a good leader, and attends a prestigious college along the coast, and studies business and sociology, but that is the worst idea he has ever had.

“No,” you immediately say, shaking your head. “It’s no big deal. Jimin and I are still friends.”

“Are you, though?” Namjoon asks.

You sigh, reaching up to rub at your forehead. “Yeah, we are,” you insist, perhaps more to yourself than to Namjoon. He looks skeptical, but doesn’t ask any questions. “It doesn’t even matter. I made a mistake and now I’m gonna deal with the consequences.”

“I can try to get the rest of the boys to stop teasing you and Jimin. I know it must be weird for you both right now,” Namjoon offers, always wanting to help. You scoff. Weird would be the biggest understatement of the century.

“Jimin and I can handle it,” you say, not wanting to disrupt the rest of the counselor dynamic just because you and Jimin are dealing with things right now. Besides, the teasing has always been in good fun, and you know the boys well enough to know that they aren’t doing it out of malicious intent. “But I appreciate your concern.”

“Just doing my job,” Namjoon says proudly. You stand there in silence for a few more seconds until he coughs awkwardly to fill up the space. “You can go now, by the way, Y/N. I just wanted to make sure you were doing alright.”

“I’m fine,” you promise, silently hoping that one day, when you talk to Namjoon, you won’t have to lie to him anymore. “Thanks for checking in.”

“I’ll always be here for you,” he says in that comforting way, that warm way that wraps around you like a mug of hot cocoa on a cold winter night.

You crack open the door to find Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook tossing around a frisbee on the open lawn as Seokjin and Yoongi watch from a picnic bench, soda cans sitting next to them. Someone must have mentioned the green lemonade. Jungkook purposely tosses the frisbee too high for Jimin to reach, making him jump wildly in a fruitless attempt to grab it. He falls backwards onto the soft grass, laughing alongside Taehyung and Jungkook as Taehyung pulls him back up to his feet.

You smile to yourself, the longing and the pain and the love settling deep within your heart, finding a home amongst the wishes and the dreams. Seeing him there, the widest smile on his face as he tosses around a frisbee with some of his best friends, letting the rays from the setting sun fill him up with joy, it reminds you why you fell in love with him. It reminds you why you’re still in love with him.

Something seizes up at your heart, clenching it between its fingers. That used to be you, the thing whispers. You used to make him laugh like that.

You did. From the moment you met him, you let his laughter fill your senses, burned the sound of it into your brain. You used to be so close. You used to think that maybe, just maybe, Jimin might love you back.

You should have never told him, it murmurs, grip growing tighter. Look at where it got you.

If I could turn back time and redo that night, I would, you fight back.

But you can’t.

The wicked thing releases your heart, lets it drop to the floor. You don’t pick it up.

Every year, you and the other counselors keep a scorecard on the chalkboard in the meeting room to see how quickly someone gets sent to the first aid tent, whether it be from stumbling over a twig or contracting poison ivy or drinking the green water. Last year, it took two hours and thirteen minutes.

This summer, it happens barely an hour after all of the campers have arrived.

You make a mental note to write down the time on the scorecard as you run over to help the poor boy off of the ground after slamming into a spruce tree while playing an early game of tag with his friends. The side of his cheek is imprinted with the texture of the tree bark, and he has some scrapes on his hands and knees from the fall.

“Whoa, hey, you alright?” You ask, leaning down to help him up. “You gotta watch where you’re looking, okay? Don’t want you to get hurt.”

The beauty about young children is that very little actually causes them great pain. If it weren’t for all of the overprotective counselors, the kids would probably run themselves into the cabin walls and trees for the entire duration of camp.

“I’m not hurt,” the young boy says, standing up proudly. “I’m fine. My mom says I have thick skin.”

“What’s your name?”

“Eli,” the boy tells you matter-of-factly. “That’s my cabin.” He points to the one to the west of the camp that Taehyung and Jungkook are in charge of. Why Namjoon continuously assigns them to the same cabin year after year is beyond you. Once, they convinced everybody in their cabin that Seokjin and Yoongi’s cabin was haunted, and the only solution was to out-scare the ghosts by yelling and screaming right outside.

“Is this your first year at camp?”

“Yup,” Eli says, rocking back and forth on his feet. He is not at all fazed by the blood and broken skin on his hands and knees, nor the pieces of wood and bark sticking out of the side of his face.

“Alright, Eli, even though you have thick skin, I have to take you to the first aid tent. Really quickly, okay? Just to make sure you aren’t gonna get an infection. Then you can go and tell all of your friends how thick your skin,” you say, already beginning to usher Eli towards the first aid tent.

“I think I have the thickest skin out of everyone here,” Eli says, as if goading you on.

“You know what? I have to agree with you,” you say. “I get hurt really easily. My mom always says that I need to be extra careful here.”

“I’m sick of listening to my mom,” Eli pouts, stomping on the ground as you lead him towards the first-aid tent.

“Me too,” you agree. No point in telling him that he needs to yield to his parents when he probably won’t even remember this conversation by the time he wakes up tomorrow. Besides, it’s never too early to begin teaching kids about rebelling against authority figures. “But you won’t have to listen to everything I say, okay? We’re just gonna be really good friends.”

“Like with my babysitter,” Eli says.

“Exactly,” you say, stopping right outside of the first-aid tent. You’re not even positive that anyone’s inside, especially since it’s barely been an hour since camp officially started. Hopefully, Jimin’s somewhere else so you can just patch Eli up yourself.

The first aid tent is not so much a tent as it is a shed with a fabric entrance, two curtains attached to a rod above the entryway to provide some semblance of privacy since nobody in the camp is handy enough to actually install a working door. But calling it the first aid tent is better than calling it the first aid shack, which, in the wise words of Yoongi, makes it sound like “a hospital where people go to die.”

When you push open the curtain, the first thing you notice is Jungkook and Seokjin in the far left corner, each with ice packs and suspiciously identical markings on them. They’re both making desperate attempts to patch each other up, fighting with the gauze and bandages that are laid out on the table beside them, as if in a competition to see who can better take care of the other.

Besides that, Jimin is lounging along the wall, leaning back against it as he gazes into nothing, deeply lost in thought. His eyes trace the lines of the shed, foot tapping to an imaginary beat, brows furrowed. You wonder what the hell it is that Jimin could possibly be thinking about so intently, what it is that is making him not even pay attention to the two overgrown children in the corner of his tent, attacking each other with first-aid materials.

Watching him, you almost don’t want to disturb him. Almost want to grab one of the kits on the shelf by the doorway and pull Eli outside, partly because you don’t think Jimin absolutely needs to be present for you to clean Eli’s wounds and give him some Spiderman Band-aids, and partly because you don’t think you can bear having to say hello to him.

Eventually, and only because Eli would start thinking it was weird you weren’t talking to each other (and not because a part of you just wants to hear his voice again), you take another step forward, coughing.

“Wha— oh, hi,” Jimin says, the sound of your arrival breaking him out of his trance. He rubs at the nape of his neck, clearly trying to brush off any awkwardness. “How can I help you guys?” His voice is unrecognizable.

“Eli here crashed into a tree while playing tag,” you say tensely, doing your best to look around the room, anywhere else, literally anywhere else, just so you don’t have to look at him. “I just brought him here to make sure he’s alright.”

“I’m fine,” Eli insists.

“Well, Eli, we just have to double check that,” Jimin says comfortingly, reaching down to bring Eli over to one of the benches. He sits him down and kneels so that he can be at eye-level with him, and says, “Sometimes our bodies say that they’re alright even when they really aren’t.” Out of the corner of his eye, Jimin meets your gaze, looking at you like there’s nothing left that you can do, looking at you like there is so much that he wants to say but no way to tell you.

You open your mouth, willing for the words to come out, but your throat is dry and your heart is pounding in your ears, a painful thud with every breath that you take. He must have known that what you said was a lie. He must have known what you were going to say when he asked, but he asked anyway, not to get the truth but to see where your relationship stands.

As it seems, your relationship doesn’t seem to be standing at all.

It lies in front of you, shattered into a million pieces like a broken mirror, cursed but still doing its job, still showing you this fragmented reflection of yourself. Mixed together like this, you can’t see where your friendship ends and your love began. Mixed together like this, it is impossible to repair.

“Y/N—” Jimin begins.

“I should go,” you say at the same time, making the two of you stop in your tracks once again. “Thanks for, uh, patching Eli up. Just make sure he gets to the mess hall in time for dinner.”

“I will,” Jimin says with a nod. There is so much that he wants to say but you don’t think you can bear listening to another word come out of his mouth, to another apology for not loving you back when it wasn’t even his fault to begin with.

You ruined your friendship but Jimin seems to think that he is the one to blame.

“I’ll see you at dinner?” Jimin asks.

You look back at him, wanting so desperately to say yes, to pretend that everything is back to normal, to act like this is the beginning of last summer instead of this one, where you loved him and he didn’t know and everything was alright. But you can’t, because it’s not last summer. It’s this one, and you still love him but he knows now. He fucking knows and just thinking about it makes your heart shake in its cage, holding itself together but unable to stop itself from cracking from within.

Jimin must have known you wouldn’t have agreed. Why did he ask?

“Wait, Y/N, hold up!”

You’re already halfway out of the makeshift door when you turn around to see Jungkook barrelling after you, leaving Seokjin in the dust as he joins you outside, pulling you away from the entrance instinctively. No one has ever been particularly good at keeping secrets here.

“Can I help you, Jungkook?” You ask, blinking at him, trying to act as normal as possible.

“Are you alright?” He leans in close, looking into your eyes, concern washed over his features.

“Everybody seems to be asking me this,” you say, acting like you don’t know why. “I’m fine.”

Jungkook, for all of his wide-eyed innocence, for the way that he views the world as perfectly imperfect, doesn’t buy it. “You don’t have to tell me anything,” he says. “I don’t know what went down between you and Jimin.”

“Nothing happened,” you say, forcing a laugh just so you don’t sound miserable.

“Whatever it is, I just want you to know that it doesn’t always have to be like this,” he says, reaching out to take your hand in his own, his calloused thumb rubbing soothingly against your skin. “But you should be honest with your feelings, don’t you think?”

“You and Namjoon both think that I don’t have a handle on this, when I do.” You don’t. And being honest with your feelings is what got you into this mess in the first place.

“Come on, Y/N, you don’t think we haven’t noticed, have you?” He asks, soft and sad and desperate to get through to you.

“It’s no big deal,” you insist. “Jimin and I are alright. We’ve always been alright.”

“If you say so…” says Jungkook, no less skeptical than he was when he initiated this conversation.

“Are we done here?” You ask, already pulling your hand from his grasp so you can go back to your cabin and pretend that the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

“Yeah,” Jungkook says, resigned as he lets you go. “But you know I’ll always be here for you, right?”

“I know, Jungkook,” you promise, because he always has and he always will be. “Thanks for looking out for me.” You begin to scurry away from the first aid tent, praying that Jimin didn’t hear you and Jungkook and wishing that everything was the way that it used to be.

“Be honest!” Jungkook shouts when you’re a hundred feet away, rushing back towards your cabin.

Jungkook wants you to be honest?

Telling Jimin that you love him ruined your life. It ruined camp, it ruined your friendship, and it ruined your future. Seeing him now makes your heart ache and your brain dizzy. Every night you replay that conversation in your head, over and over, wondering if there was something that you could have done differently, something that you could have changed so you wouldn’t have ended up like this. Jimin wants to be friends again but you don’t know how to do that without him feeling guilty for not loving you back.

You want to be honest?

Jimin makes you feel like there is a fire beneath your skin that you can’t extinguish, the flames creeping towards your heart.

The only solution, it seems, is to smother them.

The worst part about being in love with Jimin is that he’s impossible to avoid.

You peer into the mess hall to see if lunch that day is any good and you see him laughing at a table surrounded by elementary schoolers munching on hot dogs and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You go hunting in the storage shed for some extra packs of popsicle sticks and find him cleaning out the old flower pots to use in the greenhouse. You lead your group of campers from the arts room to the lake and see him and Taehyung setting up the net for some friendly water polo, laughing as they try to tie each other up in the rope.

It feels like you’re watching a movie unfold in real time, one where he is the star and you are nothing but a background character, the desperate loser who confessed to him in the beginning of the film just to develop his character arc, make him seem personable and relatable, then forgotten about until the end when you spot each other on the street and nod silently to each other, as if to say you’ve both inexplicably reached a peace between the two of you.

Is that what the future holds for you? A wordless camp, an empty conversation? Will you simply go the rest of the summer without speaking, then nod to each other right before you leave? Will this be the last time you ever see each other?

The worst part about being in love with Jimin is knowing that just because you want things to be different doesn’t mean they will be. Just because you want Jimin to love you back doesn’t mean he will. Just because you want everything to go back to normal doesn’t mean they will.

As it turns out, love confessions don’t always end in fireworks.

Park Jimin is impossible to avoid not only because he’s everywhere but also because he is everybody’s best friend, the campers’ favorite counselor and the counselors’ favorite companion. He is kind and thoughtful and electric. He is magnetic. He makes others laugh without even trying, he names the plants in the greenhouse after the people he loves, he stays behind after activities to clean up when no one else will.

Falling in love with Jimin wasn’t you picking out your favorite traits of his, wasn’t you seeing him do one selfless thing and deciding that he could do no wrong. It was submerging yourself in the lake, little by little before you dive in headfirst. It was catching glimpses of his goodness until you were consumed by it. It was knowing that you prefer yourself when you’re around him.

Falling in love with Jimin was like the heat in summer—endless.

If only falling out of love with him would be just as easy.

The weather has been unusually nice today. There isn’t a cloud in the sky as the sun beats down on you, rays peeking through the tall branches and leaves of the spruce and oak trees that surround you, casting hazy shadows on the grass beneath your feet. It isn’t too muggy, isn’t too sticky and sweaty, this perfect medium between warm and hot, between dry and humid. It’s the sort of day that you romanticize every day of summer being, only to realize that summer actually consists of sweating through three different t-shirts and needing to eat your ice cream in ten seconds before it melts into a puddle on the concrete.

Nonetheless, camp policy has always been that when it’s a beautiful day, the campers are going to spend every hour they’re awake outside, going on nature walks and playing capture the flag and eating watermelon on the splinter-y picnic benches. It’s nice, because it gives you a break from having to tell the kids not to touch the tips of the glue guns, but it also stinks, because it forces you to leave your sweet, air-conditioned paradise in favor of a mosquito-infested summer hell.

Luckily, the kids have been washing off the summer heat in the cool water of the lake with the counselors that actually prefer being outside, playing volleyball in the shallows or canoeing out where it’s deeper. Sometimes, you wonder why Namjoon will let so few counselors supervise so many campers, and sometimes, you decide that it’s better them than you.

You take a seat on the picnic bench by Yoongi, who is drinking notably clearer lemonade than in days past, so you assume that Namjoon got the water problem fixed like he promised. The two of you have never been outdoorsy people. Why you’ve been working at a summer camp for the last three years escapes you both. You and him lean back against the edge of the built-in table. From here, you have a perfect view of the lake, clear and blue and filled to the brim with rambunctious children, keeping at least somewhat of a watch over them so that Namjoon can’t shout at either of you for slacking off.

“You know that Seokjin gave you murky water lemonade earlier, right?” You ask, just to make conversation.

“I know,” Yoongi says, wholly unfazed. He takes another sip and sighs, feeling refreshed. Without batting an eyelash, he deadpans, “You know that you and Jimin aren’t going to get any better if you don’t talk to each other, right?”

“What are you talking about?” You scoff, playing dumb.

“Just because all of those other idiots didn’t hear what went down between you and Jimin last summer doesn’t mean I didn’t,” Yoongi mutters monotonously.

You jerk up, stick straight at his words, eyes wide as you glare at him. He heard you?

Yoongi laughs at your reaction, reclining back impossibly farther. “Relax, I haven’t told anyone. You know it’s none of my business.”

“Well,” you sputter out, “if it’s none of your business then why are you talking to me about it?”

Yoongi frowns. “Because you’re my friend, Y/N. And I hate seeing you like this,” he says, that soft lilt to his voice peeking through the rigid words spilling from his lips. “I feel like I don’t even know who you are anymore. A lot of the other counselors do.”

You purse your lips together, guilty.

“Especially Jimin.”

“I just need time,” you say, trying to be honest for once in your life. Loving Jimin was never going to go away without a fight.

“You need to talk to each other,” corrects Yoongi.

“Talking is what got us into this mess,” you huff out, dejected. Yoongi heard it himself—your confession sent you and Jimin’s relationship down the garbage chute.

“And talking is what’s going to get you out of it,” Yoongi tells you pointedly, truthfully, in that horrible way where you know that he’s right but refuse to accept it. “Promise me you’ll try?” He reaches out to place a hand atop yours, looking into your eyes with hopeful promise. “We want you back.”

“I’ll try,” you sigh out, because it’s never been worth fighting with Yoongi. Not when he cares so deeply.

“Try what?”

You and Yoongi whip your heads around to find Jimin standing on the opposite side of the picnic bench, helping himself to a piece of sliced watermelon.

“Try enjoying the outdoors more,” Yoongi covers for you instantly, making you breathe out a little sigh of relief. “We both hate when Namjoon makes it an outside day.”

“It’s not that bad,” Jimin says with a smile. The only reason Jimin doesn’t mind it is because he gets the best of both worlds—half the day spent inside the first-aid tent, the other spent inside the greenhouse by the woods. “There’s beauty in everything.”

Yoongi scrunches up his nose. “Like that?”

In the distance, you spot three things: Jungkook and Taehyung, laughing evilly as they run down along the rocky beach. The clothes clutched in their hands, crumpled up in their grasps while they hoot and holler. And Seokjin, hair sopping wet and half-naked, with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist and ugly lime green water shoes on, chasing after them.

“I’m out,” Yoongi says without missing a beat, grabbing his lemonade and dashing off to safety. Yoongi’s exit leaves you and Jimin standing there, stranded, frozen in place, as Jungkook and Taehyung rush by you, each grabbing a piece of watermelon on their way. Something falls from Jungkook’s hold as they pass you, and Jimin reaches down to pick it up. It’s one of Seokjin’s socks.

“Give that back, Park Jimin!” Seokjin’s banshee screech rings in your ears.

“Run,” Jimin says, and you don’t get another say in the matter before Jimin is grabbing your wrist and pulling you along with him, Seokjin’s angry caws echoing throughout the clearing.

Even though Jimin didn’t even actually steal his clothes from the locker room by the lake, Seokjin has determined that anyone who runs from him is automatically guilty, thus lumping both you and him into a wild goose chase alongside Jungkook and Taehyung, who are almost always the guilty parties when it comes to practical jokes like this. For a few moments, it’s the four of you running across the open field with Seokjin hot on all of your heels, desperate to catch up to at least one of you despite being severely out-matched, both in athletic ability and footwear, and then suddenly Jimin is pulling you behind the shed as Jungkook and Taehyung make a sharp right, headed in the opposite direction.

Crouched behind the shed, you and Jimin stop for a minute to catch your breath, chests heaving after doing more exercise in the last thirty seconds than you have in the last week alone. You’re pressed up against the back siding, and only after your heart rates finally slow down do you become faintly aware of Jimin’s hand still gripping your wrist, like he’s simply forgotten to let go.

“You think we lost them?” He asks with a wicked grin, and it’s impossible to avoid his gaze when he’s so close like this, when there’s barely a foot of space between your bodies, when his fingertips still press against your skin.

“I think so,” you heave out in response.

“Better stay here for a bit longer just in case,” Jimin says, and it’s the flirty sort of thing that he would say if it were last year, the flirty sort of thing that he would say if you two were friends like you used to be, but you aren’t anymore, and now it feels like Jimin is trying too hard and you aren’t trying hard enough.

“I… I mean,” you say, pulling your wrist out of his grasp, rubbing at where your skin sizzles from his touch. “We’re probably fine.”

“Are we?” He asks, and this is exactly why you shouldn’t try to talk to him, exactly why talking won’t erase the tension that has settled between you two, repair the cracks in what you are. You’re not fine, because everything changed when you told Jimin that you loved him, and you’ve never been good at adjusting. You’re not fine, because for the first time in your years-long relationship, loving him is getting in the way.

“I hope we are,” you admit, more to yourself than anyone else. Oh, how you so desperately wish that things were back to normal. Oh, how it would be so easy if only things were just a little bit different.

“Me too,” Jimin says, and he smiles and, oh, how it makes you feel real and true and whole. He stands back up and reaches an arm out to help you do the same. For once, it doesn’t feel like a Band-aid on top of a stab wound. It feels like a lifeline.

You let Jimin help you back to your feet, and for some reason your heart feels just a little bit lighter.

“You think we’re alright?” Jimin asks.

“Yeah,” You respond with a nod. “I think we will be.”

One thing that Namjoon is big on is interdisciplinary recreation. This is half due to the fact that he attends a private liberal arts school on the east coast and half due to the fact that he doesn’t always trust some of the counselors when it comes to chaperoning a whole group of kids on their own. You aren’t going to name names, but they’re the same people that steal clothes for fun.

He’s got a list up on one of those massive sheets of lined paper filled with suggestions for all sorts of things that combine two or more of the basic activities the camp offers, ranging from making handmade bird seed treats in the kitchen to put out on nature walks to dodgeball in canoes. Some of Namjoon’s ideas are a lot more feasible than others.

Namjoon’s never been a pushy person. He’s repeatedly said that he purposely avoids telling people what to do within their activity sectors because he doesn’t want the counselors to think that he’s stepping all over them or doesn’t trust them to come up with their own entertainment. The list in the counselor meeting room is titled: ACTIVITY SUGGESTIONS, bolded and circled, just so everyone knows that he isn’t forcing you to do anything (if you’re being honest, the emphasis on suggestions somewhat works against his whole niche). But sometimes, especially for someone whose greatest fear is stripping away others’ creative freedom, he can be rather insistent.

Take, for example, the two stacks of plain flower pots left anonymously inside the arts and crafts room when you walk in to set up the activity for the day. You were originally going to have the younger kids color in their own guitars to hang up in the music room—an activity that was not on the activity suggestions list—and give the older ones some clay and let them go to town, but you suppose that decorating flower pots will be just as entertaining. At least you didn’t have to go hunting for the materials.

The only problem with decorating flower pots is that, once the campers have painted streaks and polka dots and glued charms all over them, the flower pots have a rather specific place to go. A place that is part of a notable Park Jimin’s domain.

A sneaky little feeling beneath your skin suspects that someone may have let it slip to Namjoon that you and Jimin could do with a bit of relationship repair. And Namjoon and Yoongi have been bunking in the same cabin for as long as you can remember.

Sighing to yourself as you begin to set up the flowerpots on old newspapers spread out on the wooden tables, you decide that spending an hour with Jimin in the greenhouse (maybe even less if you can find an excuse to get yourself out of there!) couldn’t be any worse than being crouched down behind that cobwebbed old shed with his hand on your wrist and his eyes gazing into yours. At least you’ll have thirty campers to maintain the distance between the two of you.

You suppose that you do have the easier of the two jobs. Arts and crafts is a rather simple activity to oversee, barring the occasional papercut or glue gun burn. Luckily, painting flower pots means that you will really only have to worry about the campers mod-podging their fingers together, and even then, the bathroom is just down the hall. Jimin, with his having to wrangle the kids to garden neatly and not hit each other with the trowels, is going to have it much harder.

There’s a part of you that knows you’ll stick around. Not just to lessen the load of campers for him, but just so you can spend a little more time in the same room, breathing the same air, pretending that things are the way that they used to be.

When you leave the arts and crafts room to hike the ten minutes to the greenhouse, followed by all of the campers dutifully carrying their brand new flowerpots in their hands, you feel like a young bird leaving the nest. Taught to fly little by little, but one day forced to face the real world and exist without the safety net you’ve called home for so long. The arts and crafts room hasn’t always been your favorite place in the camp, but this year it’s felt like you’ve been holding on particularly tight.

Jimin is already waiting happily in the greenhouse for your arrival, this stupid old gardening apron tied around his waist with a faded picture of a cartoon cactus on the front that says free hugs. He watches fondly as all of the kids shuffle into the greenhouse, the whole room just barely big enough to fit all of you, wide eyes peeking out from behind seed packets and green leaves.

You stay in the back corner as Jimin gets to work, having all of the campers place their pots on the tables in front of them, bright plastic buckets of soil at the ends of their tables, flower seeds waiting to be planted.

As much as Jimin is fantastic at patching kids up inside the first aid tent, the greenhouse is where he really belongs. The harsh rays of the sun are softened by the glass walls as they beam down on him, surrounding him with this warm yellow halo, painting him into the scenery behind him. Here, amongst the lush vegetables and flowers and ferns, Jimin doesn’t look like an underpaid camp counselor carrying the weight of thirty children on his back. He looks like this fairy in the woods, this forest sprite that has grown up amongst the trees and the moss and the wildflowers, who has learned to tend to the world’s greatest garden. He looks like someone whose mere presence makes the plants smile a little wider.

Jimin’s like that with everyone. It should come as no surprise to you that the plants feel better when they’re around him, too.

Jimin has always been so good with kids. More so than any of the other counselors, really, though they all try their best to be fun and friendly and gentle and stern all at once. But there’s something in Jimin’s nature that just makes him the best at it, something about the way he cares for them so deeply, something about the soft lines of his face that earns him their trust the fastest. He’s good with everything that camp throws at him, from frisbees to murky water to lake monsters, but nothing has ever seemed quite as right for him as his connection with the campers.

The children don’t know how lucky they are to know someone like Jimin. Someone who believes wholeheartedly in the goodness of others, someone who will stop at nothing to fix what has been broken.

You think about how lucky you are to love someone like Jimin every day of your life.

“Mr. Jimin?” A squeaky little voice pipes up. It’s a young girl named Zoe, whose flower pot is decorated with a painting of her entire family, a group of four stick figures with red shirts and purple dresses holding hands together, loopy smiles drawn onto their faces.

“Just Jimin, alright?” Jimin corrects.

“Are you sure these seeds are going to turn into flowers?” Zoe asks, looking skeptically at the packets in front of her.

Jimin laughs, and it is as warm as the rays of the sun that stream through the glass walls. “I can’t promise that they will, Zoe.”

“Then why are we doing this?” She pouts.

“Because,” Jimin says, pointing to the packets in front of the campers, “the only way that I can promise that these seeds will turn into flowers is if you guys can promise to love them. Because no matter how much sun they get, no matter how much you water them, they will only bloom if you really, really love them.”

“How do they know?” Another girl pipes up.

“Flowers are just like us,” Jimin tells her gently. “They can feel when they’re loved, and they love us back by blooming for us.” He shuffles around the back of the greenhouse where he stands, fishing through the shelves lining the walls until he emerges with a rather large pot in his hands, placing it down on the table beside him with a thud. “Take this hydrangea, for example.”

Your breath catches in your throat, the blue flowers flashing before your eyes.

You planted those together. Last summer. You and Jimin snuck out to the greenhouse while everyone else was eating potato salad for lunch and spent the hour listening to pop songs from the eighties and planting a baby hydrangea.

They will bloom every year, Jimin said.

So they’ll always remind us of us, you responded.

It’s the first time that you and Jimin have looked at each other since you entered the greenhouse. He catches you off-guard, eyes wide as you stare back at him, suddenly feeling this gut-wrenching ache from deep within your belly. And Jimin—

God, Jimin looks like he’s tried everything under the sun and moon to keep that damn hydrangea from wilting.

“They were planted early last summer. And they bloomed, right? But they look so sad,” Jimin explains, rallying himself and turning his gaze away from you. “And I gave them new soil and watered them regularly, but I’m still missing something.”

“Love!” Zoe shouts.

“Right,” Jimin says with a tense nod, eyes flickering to yours once more. Your shoulders slump. “But I have a lot of love to give, so hopefully they’ll be alright soon. You guys just have to remember that love is the most important thing that you can give to your flowers. Just like you and me, the flowers need to know that there is someone who loves them.”

But you do know, you want to shout out to him. You’ve known this whole summer and you knew back at the campfire and you probably knew even before that. You’ve known for so long and still the flowers that we planted together are fucking wilting. Like they can’t even bear that this is what we’ve come to. What do you mean, they need to know that there is someone who loves them? You do. And I love you. You must know that, don’t you?

You feel the vines of a thorny rose wrap around your heart, clenching it tight. It’s been in bloom for a year now, thick red petals filling up the empty spaces between your bones, nectar swimming within your veins. And when you picked it, cut it off at its stem to place in Jimin’s hand, it grew only stronger, bloomed only harder.

Oh, if only that hydrangea knew how much you loved him.

Afterwards, you stay back to help clean up. There’s soil all over the floor, buckets knocked over in the campers’ frenzy to go play games in the gym with Jungkook, discarded paper seed packets and trowels left littered across the tables.

Jimin doesn’t put on any eighties music. Instead, you stand there in silence, brushing the leftover soil into dust pans and buckets, placing the gardening tools on the rack by the entrance.

Even though you know flowers don’t wilt that fast, it feels like with every second that passes, the hydrangea is a moment closer to death. The color seems to fade every time you look at them, going from its vibrant pale blue to a sallow green, no longer able to tolerate being in the same room as the two of you.

Your love doesn’t seem like it’s going to fix it this time.

“I didn’t know that it was doing so badly,” you say, and the words don’t even feel like they belong to you when you hear them back, making Jimin stop dead where he stands.

“What?” He asks.

“The hydrangea.”

Jimin looks over at the pot on the table, and he sighs, helpless. “I’ve tried everything. It just doesn’t seem to be working with me this year.”

It’s no secret to the both of you why.

“Hopefully you can figure something out,” you offer alongside a half smile. “I would hate to see them die after only a year in bloom.”

“Me too,” Jimin sighs.

“How have you been?” You ask him, because you never really did get a real answer when you asked him that very first day. And because no matter what you do, you’ll always be curious about him.

“Alright,” Jimin says, and it’s not a lie. “I’m looking forward to graduating next year.”

“Yeah, me too,” you say, even though you’re only looking forward to the not-being-in-college part of graduating. Not so much the being-chucked-into-the-real-world part. “How’s the major coming along?”

“Well, physics never gets any easier,” Jimin jokes, and even though it’s a little bit forced it makes the two of you both laugh, desperate to get back to the way that things used to be, step by step. “What about you? Still going for English?”

“With a side of business so that I don’t end up a broke poet,” you remind him. “But yeah.”

“Maybe you can write me into one of your stories,” Jimin suggests.

Oh, but doesn’t he know already? He’s the main character in every single one. All of your poems are about him. He is your inspiration and your muse. He fills up each blank page all on his own. Doesn’t he know?

“Maybe,” you agree, even though there has never been a ‘maybe’ when it comes to him.

You nearly drop the plastic bucket of soil on your toe when you hear his next question.

“Have you, uh, been seeing anyone lately?” Jimin scratches at the nape of his neck, clearly nervous. Your heart sinks. Out of all of the possible questions he could ask you to keep this relatively casual conversation going, he chooses that one?

You look up at him, wondering why on earth he’s asking you this when your love has already been laid out bare in front of him, every corner unfolded so he can read across the lines like a map, memorize the splotches of color. You look up at him and you are helpless, desperate for him to realize that even with thousands of miles and hundreds of days between you, for you, it has always been him.

You wonder if the only reason he’s asking is to see if you were starting to move on.

“No,” you mutter lifelessly. “I haven’t.” And then, like a devilish whisper in your ear, “Have you?”

You almost expect him to say yes. You almost expect to hear him recount all of the fantastic dates he’s been on, all of the loving relationships he’s been in, but instead, he says, “Me neither.”

And that? That makes your heart stop dead in its tracks.

“I tried to, you know,” Jimin says, and each word is a puncture wound inside of you. “But I just couldn’t. Nothing really stuck.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” you tell him, because you are. Because Jimin deserves to love someone who will love him back. Someone that isn’t you, someone who hasn’t been hopelessly pining after him for a year.

“No, it’s alright.” Jimin shrugs. “I’m kind of glad that nothing stuck.”

And if hearing the words “me neither,” leave his lips made your heart freeze up, then hearing these words set it aflame. You don’t respond, instead choosing to let the words etch themselves into your memory, carve themselves into your heart, give you hope, if only a droplet of it. Any is enough to have your heart beating a little faster.

“I miss this,” Jimin breathes out, and if you closed your eyes and pretended that you were somewhere else it would almost sound like a confession. You glance up at him, and he is so empty, clinging hopelessly onto the remnants of things past just like you, and you realize that being honest is really the only option you have left. “I miss doing stuff like this.”

The with you goes unspoken, but it rings loud and clear in your ears anyway.

“I miss it too,” you say, because Jimin must know already, doesn’t he? How if you could choose to go on loving him without him ever knowing, then you would do it in an instant? How loving him silently was painful but loving him like this, unbearable. “I feel like it’s been a long time.”

A long time since you both really spoke to each other. A long time since you were friends the way you used to be. A long time since you first began to love him.

“Can’t we go back?” Jimin asks, a foolish question. He should know better than to ask for something he already knows he can’t get.

“You know we can’t,” you tell him. You’ve already tried.

“Then can we begin again?” He proposes, the two of you meeting in the middle of the greenhouse, right in front of the hydrangea. You hadn’t even realized you were barely three feet away from him until you were already there. “Please? I miss us, Y/N. Don’t you miss us, too?”

Gazing at Jimin, you feel your heart tremble. One thing that hasn’t changed is how weak you are to his touch, to his eyes, to the way that they make every part of you feel like jelly, feel like you’ll collapse without him to hold you up. You’ve never been able to say no to him. It’s one of the things you don’t think you’ll ever outgrow.

“We can try,” you say, because being honest may be hard, and talking even harder, but now you would rather try to piece yourselves back together than spend the rest of the summer wondering what to do with the shattered remains on the floor, stepping around them instead of cleaning them up, repairing what has been broken.

It’s like the words are music to Jimin’s ears, the way he lights up, grinning wide and real and true. He inhales and it feels like a breath of fresh air, like a brand new season has come to rest upon the two of you. It feels like relief. It feels like hope. It feels like new.

You hadn’t realized it before, but you’ve been dying to make him smile.

Next to you, the hydrangea seems just a little bit brighter.

It’s getting easier.

No longer are you turning in the opposite direction whenever you see him hanging around the center of camp, praying that he hasn’t spotted you from where you stand. Nor are you making excuses about having to go help Namjoon with something or run back to your cabin whenever he shows up to spend time with you and the other counselors.

And even though it’s still a little tense when you accidentally look up at the same time and meet eyes, even though it still feels like you two aren’t quite the same, it’s getting easier.

You’ve even begun to eat lunch together again.

It’s not exactly like it was before, not like when you would scurry off to the greenhouse or the shed or some other hidden place, spread out a picnic blanket and bask in each other’s company, laughing about anything and everything, but it’s better. It’s better than how it used to be, when you would always bring your lunch back to your cabin to eat in silence, drown yourself in your comforter and your thoughts, letting them pile on top of you, one by one. It’s better than how you used to pretend that you didn’t even know each other.

Slowly, step by step, things have almost started to feel normal again.

“You guys seem happier lately,” Taehyung commends mindlessly as he sits down across from you and Jimin, three pieces of meat lover’s pizza on the paper plate he sets on the tabletop.

You and Jimin smile at each other. You suppose that you have been.

“Three, Tae?” The moment gone too soon, Jimin’s focus is immediately redirected to the behemoth meal in front of Taehyung. “Seriously? Aren’t you lactose intolerant?”

“The meat balances it out,” Taehyung says matter-of-factly, even though it definitely doesn’t. He takes an enormous bite out of one of the slices, eating nearly half the pizza in a single chomp. “But seriously, I mean it. You guys look a lot happier. Yoongi!”

Yoongi freezes in his tracks from where he’s walking by your table, spilling his open soda can all over his plate of pizza at Taehyung’s shout of his name.

“Don’t you think that Jimin and Y/N seem happier?” Taehyung asks, motioning to the both of you.

“I don’t know,” Yoongi says with a shrug, aloof as always. You chuckle to yourself, knowing fully well that it was him who got Namjoon to leave two stacks of flower pots in the arts and crafts room to give you an extra push towards talking with Jimin. Taehyung huffs, disappointed but not surprised that Yoongi contributed so little to the conversation, but he doesn’t notice how Yoongi gives you a smile and a thumbs up as he heads over to where Namjoon and Hoseok are sitting.

“Well, I think you guys do,” Taehyung says pointedly.

“Did we seem… unhappy to you?” Jimin asks, an eyebrow raised.

“No,” says Taehyung. “I don’t know, you guys just seemed different. You know, I was talking with Jin and he and I were convinced that the two of you were dating last year and then broke up sometime before this summer because you guys were acting so weird earlier.”

“Really?” You ask, cracking an awkward smile just to keep the mood light because god, Taehyung really is a lot more observant than you give him credit for. “That’s so funny, honestly.” It’s not. “You know that we’re just friends, Tae.”

Next to you, Jimin is staring down his lunch like it’s insulted his family. Out of the corner of your eye, you watch as he opens his mouth to say something, anything, goddamnit, anything that will make you feel like you’re not the only one who wants you two to be friends again. Anything that will remind you that being friends is all you have left because he will never love you back.

“You could have fooled me,” Taehyung acknowledges. “Seokjin was pretty convinced, too. We even had a bet going to see which one of you would admit it first.”

“You guys bet on us?” Jimin asks, a little horrified and a lot of something else, something that you can’t quite place.

“Not with money!” Taehyung defends. “Marshmallows for the end-of-camp counselor campfire. But neither of you ever said anything so we ended up just dropping it and ate as many marshmallows as we wanted.”

Oh, if only Taehyung knew. Oh, if only he had heard you that night, heard you pour your heart out in front of that fire. Oh, if only he had noticed, noticed the warm yellow glow that made Jimin look like he had been bathed in candlelight, noticed those roasted marshmallows over the heat, noticed the words that replay in your head like a broken record.

There’s a part of you that wants to know who Taehyung was betting on. A part of you that is wondering why on earth would either of them ever assume that Jimin would be the one to confess first when he has only ever seen you as a friend and you have always seen him as something more. Seen him as this dream come to life, seen him as the answer to all of your prayers.

Jimin never would have confessed first. That hasn’t changed.

“Thinking back, it was kind of stupid of us to bet on you guys when you hadn’t even confirmed anything,” Taehyung says with a sigh, pursing his lips together tightly. “I don’t know. I guess that Seokjin and I both really, really wanted you guys to get together.” He chuckles, but it isn’t funny anymore.

Believe me, Tae, you think to yourself. You guys weren’t the only ones.

“Eh,” Taehyung hums, shrugging to himself. He clearly isn’t as caught up about it as you and Jimin, who wonder every day how different things would be if you had just kept your damn mouth shut that night, if you had never loved him in the first place. “I guess I’m just glad to see you both smiling again.”

“Thanks, Tae,” you say, because even if Taehyung doesn’t know the whole story he’s still hit the nail on the head, and even if he can’t pick up the way that Jimin’s body has tensed up beside you, even if he doesn’t notice how normal feels like the furthest thing to describe the two of you right now, he has always wanted the both of you to be content.

“Makes me kinda sad to know you guys are just friends, even though I’m obviously not going to force you into anything.” Taehyung takes another bite of his pizza, the words just conversational to him even if they clearly aren’t to either of you.

Slowly, Jimin looks back up from his lunch, like he’s finally made up his mind. You meet Jimin’s eyes when he does, and for once you don’t dare jump into the swirling sea of his irises, for once you can hardly tell if the waves are calm or rough. For once, it feels like Jimin is looking at you the way you look at him—helplessly.

Taehyung smiles, looking fondly at the both of you. “You guys would have been cute together,” he says it because he means it. “You make each other so happy.”

He means that part, too.

The end-of-camp show is a longstanding tradition where all of the kids, divided by age group, celebrate the best part about summer and going to a sleepaway camp: being away from their parents. There are dance performances choreographed by the counselors (namely Hoseok, who has the most free time because his other job mainly consists of making sure Namjoon doesn’t lose his head), a guitar performance organized by Seokjin (who has promised not to rickroll everyone this year), and an art show setup by you to display all of the treasures that the campers have created. But your favorite part of the show is how, no matter how much time time is spent practicing and rehearsing, the performance will always end in chaos. The only predictable thing about it is its unpredictability.

This year, as suggested by Hoseok and immediately implemented by Namjoon, the counselors are being roped into a performance of their own, one that is bound to be even more disastrous because even though you can all listen to directions, you are all also just as capable of purposely disobeying them.

Part of you suspects that the only reason Hoseok even recommended that you all do this is because he enjoys watching the camp counselor collective crash and burn. Like there’s something cathartic about watching you go up in flames.

Nevertheless, you do it, because if not for yourselves then for Hoseok, and if not for him then for Namjoon, both of whom tirelessly to make sure that camp is a place where you and the other counselors can do the dumbest things without repercussions. If it weren’t for the two of them, camp would be a lot less fun.

Hoseok also just absolutely relishes in being in charge of something, something that involves dancing and singing and performing, which are his favorite things to do, and it would be cruel of all of you to deny Hoseok this opportunity, if only for a silly little camp performance.

Hoseok manages to wrangle a time and space for rehearsal thanks to one of those magic scientists that perform cool things with chemicals, one that Namjoon has arranged to visit camp to give you and the other counselors a much-needed break from the endless excitement of children.

And so, you all trickle into the empty counselor meeting room at three in the afternoon exactly, waiting to see what the hell Hoseok has come up with now.

All of the tables, chairs, and other miscellaneous furniture has been pushed up against the walls, leaving just enough room for all of you to fit relatively comfortably, with Hoseok standing smack in the middle of the room, looking proud.

“I’m scared,” Hazel admits to you as you pass by Hoseok to stand where the rest of the counselors have gathered. You sneak a peek at the clipboard in Hoseok’s hand, which isn’t empty this time, and is instead filled with sheets of paper that look like they belong in the hands of a sports coach, X’s and O’s and arrows littering the pages.

“Don’t be,” you say, though the tremble of your voice is probably doing very little to calm her nerves. You end up grouped together with Jimin and Yoongi, who are both standing in silence, waiting for something to pull them out of their thoughts. “Hey,” you say softly, giving Jimin a nudge.

“Hey,” Jimin responds, face lifting a little when he sees you. From behind him, Yoongi is eyeing the both of you, but he doesn’t seem very worried. Jimin laughs tensely. “I’m nervous about what Hoseok has in mind for us.”

You glance over to Hoseok as he talks animatedly with Namjoon, who looks a little bit in over his head. Namjoon must have known that Hoseok would spare no expense when it came to a counselor performance.

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad,” you assure him with a squeeze to his wrist, making him smile weakly at you.

“First Namjoon makes us sit outside, and then he makes us do exercise?” Yoongi huffs. “When will it end?”

“High time he got you out of the damn kitchens,” Jungkook mutters to himself, making all of the other counselors within earshot laugh. Yoongi turns around to give Jungkook half of a noogie before Hoseok claps to get everyone’s attention.

“Alright, hi everyone!” Hoseok cheers. “Glad you all could make it.”

“Did we have a choice?” Seokjin asks.

“Nope!” Hoseok grins. “Anyway, as you know, this year Namjoon and I have been thinking of doing a counselor performance at the end-of-camp show to show unity and entertain the kids, since they’re the ones who have been doing all of the work thus far to make the camp show a reality. And I, as your assistant head counselor and dance choreographer, get to set it up!”

“Oh, God,” Taehyung says.

“It’s not going to be a super serious thing because this is camp and we’re literally performing for prepubescent children, so don’t worry!” He says, doing nothing to ease people’s worries. He turns around to face the chalkboard, and begins to magnet the pieces of paper from his clipboard onto it, page by page, as the rest of you stare on in horror. “But I have come up with a bit of a dance for us to perform…”

“Oh, God,” Seokjin repeats dramatically.

“Anyway,” Hoseok says, clapping his hands together once more to redirect everyone’s attention from the mess on the board back to him. “It’ll be a bit of a partner dance for the first half, and then everyone gets about five seconds worth of a solo in the middle where you can do whatever you want—” when Hoseok spots Jungkook, Taehyung, and Seokjin already beginning to scheme, wicked smiles widening, he quickly adds, “—within reason, and then a big old group thing to finish it up. Does that sound good?”

“Whoop,” Yoongi deadpans.

“Great!” Hoseok says, fumbling for another piece of paper in the stack that he still has left on his clipboard.

“God, a partner dance?” You ask awkwardly, feeling noticeably more worried than before. It’s not that you’re dreading having to dance, or even having to perform in front of a bunch of kids, it’s the idea of having to dance with someone else, a specific someone else in particular, that has your stomach doing flips. “Why did Hobi think that was a good idea?”

“It might be fun, don’t you think?” Jimin says, trying to keep the mood light. It’s clear he has no worries about the potential for being paired up with you, which might have been able to fly last year but this summer, you’re not so sure. You and Jimin just managed to start eating lunch together again without wanting to curl into a ball and hide. What’s going to happen if you have to dance with each other?

“I’m not a very good dancer,” you admit, a weak excuse for your real fear.

“Then I’ll teach you,” Jimin says, and the words are hopeful and filled with light as he works so desperately to remind you that not all has been lost. That you can begin again.

“Okay, partners,” Hoseok says, looking at his list. “Namjoon and Yoongi, Jungkook and Seokjin, Taehyung and Hazel, Maria and Ruby, Jia-yi and Quinn, and Jimin and Y/N.”

Shit.

Yoongi, noticing your alarm, immediately interrupts, “Uh, is it possible for us to switch partners?”

“Why?” Hoseok asks innocently.

And in that split second, that moment of pause, you look from the wide-eyed Yoongi to Jimin, who is gazing back at you like he’s finally got it right, like he’s finally been given an opportunity to fix what you had broken, to repair your relationship, brick by brick, if only for a stupid counselor performance. Jimin, who is smiling and smiling and smiling because you are finally eating lunch together and you are finally watering that damn hydrangea and you finally get to dance together, and everything in the world is slowly beginning to feel right, the dust is beginning to settle after a month’s worth of storms.

You inhale, then you exhale, and you say, “I’m fine with my partner. I don’t think we need to switch, do we?”

And you swear, your heart feels lighter already.

Jimin pops into the arts and crafts room more often these days. Sometimes he actually does it because he needs to drop something off, because a camper left something in the greenhouse or because Namjoon is making him, but most times, he does it just to say hi, just to charm all of the campers as they make collages out of old magazines or glue together fabric for no-sew pillows.

And every time he does it, every time there is that familiar knock on the door, you nearly tumble over yourself from excitement. The best part about it is how normal it’s all beginning to feel, how familiar it is. You are almost back to where you used to be.

Almost back to when you loved him, and he didn’t know, and everything was alright.

Today, the kids are making cards for you to mail back home before the summer is done, before camp comes to a close and they return to their lives and you return to yours. Normally, you’d automatically send the letters back to the parents, but this time, you offer up an alternative.

“These cards are going to be mailed back home to the people that you love,” you say, holding up your own as an example. It’s a basic one, yellow cardstock with daisies made out of construction paper glued onto it, but it serves as a good guideline for whatever the campers want to do with their own. “You just need to provide their address so that we can make sure it gets to the right person.”

“It doesn’t have to be our parents?” One boy asks.

“Nope,” you say with a smile, shaking your head. “You can send it to anyone you love. It’s just to let them know how you are, and that you miss them.”

“Who are you sending yours to?” A different girl, Rose, asks.

“I’m not sure yet,” you say, because you don’t really need to let your parents know how you are when you text each other constantly, and all of your friends from back home can see all of the shenanigans you get up to on your social media, but a letter is no fun if only one person ever gets to read it.

“You should send it to Jimin,” Rose suggests matter-of-factly, making you sputter out the water you were taking a sip of all over the table in front of you.

“Jimin?” You repeat, forcing a smile. “I see Jimin all the time.”

“But you really like him, don’t you?” She asks, even though she obviously already knows the answer. Goddamn, kids pick up on everything. “I can tell.”

“Is that so?” You return, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, me too!” The boy chirps up. “You always look so nervous whenever he comes to say hello. Like you don’t know what to say. That’s what my mom looks like whenever she comes home from a new date with a boy she really likes.”

You do? That is news to you.

“It’s okay, though,” Rose interrupts. “I think that he really likes you too. Otherwise he wouldn’t just be popping in every other day to say hello!”

“Maybe he really likes seeing you guys, instead!” You offer, feeling your cheeks heating up at the thought that you and Jimin have laid yourselves out bare like a board book for everyone to read.

“I don’t think so. He looks too happy when he sees you.” The girl shakes her head. “You should send your card to him, so he knows that you love him.”

Oh, he knows, that’s for sure, you think to yourself. There’s no way that Jimin hasn’t already realized that you still love him. That you have always loved him. Even the campers have it figured out, and they’re still in elementary school. But you think that the worst part of this, the worst part of all of these freakishly observant children verbally beating you up with reminders of your relationship with Jimin, is how they seem to think that Jimin likes you back. That Jimin sees you as something more.

Because he didn’t, last year. And he didn’t, earlier this summer. And there is no way things have changed that much.

“You guys should keep working on your cards,” you say, desperate for the subject to drop, desperate to talk about anything, literally anything, besides Jimin. “We want to send them by the end of the week so that the people you love will get them before camp’s over.”

“So you do like him!” The boy exclaims.

“Cards, Oliver!” You reprimand him, earning a chorus of giggles, though there is no mistaking the way your body has tensed, the way your words are shaking. No mistaking how your heart trembles at the thought of Jimin, sweet, wonderful, beautiful Jimin, actually liking you back.

It can’t be.

You and Jimin have always just been friends. That’s all you’ll ever be. You swear.

You swear.

“The hydrangea looks better,” you comment as you enter the greenhouse, eyes immediately darting towards the pot on the table at the front. In it, the hydrangea has blossomed fully, its petals a vibrant sky blue, basking in the faint glow of the sun as it streams into the greenhouse, peeking between the misty gray clouds, painting everything with a hazy yellow warmth.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Jimin asks from where he’s wrestling with an enormous packet of soil, pausing his battle to turn and look at the blossom, smiling to himself. “I think we must have worked some sort of magic.”

“Or maybe it’s just your expert gardening skills,” you tease, hauling in some plants by the door that Jimin has been meaning to bring inside the greenhouse for days now. “I’m not in here enough to make any sort of noticeable difference.”

Jimin scoffs disbelievingly. “You’re in here almost as much as I am nowadays.”

“Just to help out,” you defend weakly, pouting to yourself. It’s not like you’ve completely abandoned your air-conditioned arts and crafts room to fool around in the balmy greenhouse, soil underneath your fingernails and seeds stuck to your clothes. You just prefer to spend your free time here. Nothing criminal about that.

Plus, Jimin sure doesn’t seem to mind.

“And for that, I thank you,” says Jimin with a grin, the bag of soil finally beginning to cooperate with him. He hauls it over his shoulder to bring into the back room, where he keeps all of the bigger tools and plants that are too advanced for the campers, and you pretend not to ogle the way his biceps bulge as he carries the soil away, the bag easily fifty pounds or more.

What? You didn’t fall in love with Jimin just because of his electric personality.

“Besides, you come into the arts room so often that all the kids are starting to think you work there instead of here,” you remind him pointedly. He laughs, and the sound bounces off of the glass walls, filling up the room.

Jimin comes out of the back room, a little bit of soil smudged onto his cheek from his gloves, and he’s smiling. “Maybe I just like seeing you.”

“Next time we do a craft I’ll make sure to prepare an extra one so you can do it with us,” you joke, ignoring the way his words warm you from the inside out, convincing yourself that this is what it was like last year, too, so Jimin doesn’t mean anything by it.

Convincing yourself that Jimin has never loved you the way that you love him.

“Am I going to be allowed to sit next to you?” He asks as he walks up to where you’re working, that same flirty lilt to his voice, that teasing tone that he always used to use on you, especially whenever it came down to spending time together.

“Only if you’re good,” you chide in response, leaning over to pick up a flower pot just so you don’t have to see his damn face, so you don’t have to see the way his eyes glint in the sun as he toys with you, as he presses all of your buttons with ease.

Obviously, you had seriously miscalculated how far away he was, because by the time you’re standing up straight he’s right behind you, playfully pinching at your waist, the sensation sending an electric jolt through your veins. You jump and gasp at the feeling, nearly dropping the goddamn flower pot, body suddenly turning to jelly. Behind you, Jimin is in stitches.

“I could have dropped this!” You scold him as he doubles over in laughter, giggling and giggling and giggling, so much so that you can’t even pretend to be angry at him, too endeared by his happiness, by his pure joy, to shout at him any more.

“You’ve always been so ticklish, Y/N,” Jimin says between puffs of air, trying to catch his breath.

“I am not! You just surprised me!” You defend, even though Jimin’s right and he knows it. Your outrage leaves him in hysterics still, amused by the way you so easily fall right into his trap.

“Whatever you say,” he singsongs, helping you haul in the last of the flowerpots. “I think that’s the last of them.”

“Next time I show up, a whole different part of the greenhouse will need work,” you say with a sigh, because no matter how much you do, no matter how much you clean and reorganize, there will always be something left.

“The work is never done,” Jimin says with a smile, having already resigned himself to this fate. “But I think it looks pretty good.”

And looking at the greenhouse, looking at the vibrant hues that fill the room, from the rich golden marigolds to the bright pink lilies, from the rich green leaves to the soft blue hydrangea, you have to agree. It’s no wonder why Jimin loves this place so much, spends so much time in it despite its severe lack of circulation and the absence of reliable shade. It’s because everything in here he has had a hand in making. Everything in here is here because of him.

This place will never not remind you of him.

“It’s getting late,” Jimin says, checking his watch. “You think they have dinner ready for us?”

“God, I hope so,” you say with a sigh. “I’m starving.”

“Then shall we feast?” He asks, holding his arm out for you to take.

You wrap your arm around his own, and you grin. “We shall.”

Then the thunder cracks, and the sky begins to sob.

You’re barely three feet out the door before you feel the wet splotches on your shoulders, cold drops on your skin, made thicker by the leaves above your head, forcing you to retreat back into the greenhouse. Thanks to the glass, the raindrops that hit the rooftop ring like mallets on a drum, booming and loud, echoing throughout the room.

“Damn,” Jimin says, staring out at the once sunny clearing, now shrouded in a grey haze. “It was sunny two minutes ago.”

“It’s just a summer storm,” you assure, arm still wrapped up tight in his own. “They never last long.”

“Think we should wait it out?” He asks.

“Whatever you want to do.”

Jimin grins, squeezing you tight. “How about this? Five minutes, and if it doesn’t stop, we make a run for it?”

You nod. “Five minutes.”

Five minutes pass and the rain has no intention of letting up, seemingly getting heavier as you count down the seconds, the light grey fog that has blanketed the clearing turning to an angry deep blue, thick and endless. The alarm on Jimin’s watch goes off, signifying your wait’s end, and you open your mouth to suggest that maybe you should wait here a little longer, but barely get the first letter out before Jimin is flinging open the door to the greenhouse and pulling you out into the rain.

You shriek as the drops hit you, little pellets of water striking you like beads, soaking your clothes and your skin everything in between. Jimin looks back from where he’s running in front of you, one hand still wrapped around your wrist, and his hair is in strands and his shirt is sticking to his torso, and you don’t think that, in your three years of knowing him, you’ve ever seen him happier. He pulls you out into the rain and he looks like a shot from a movie scene, looks like the hero in a coming-of-age film, letting the rain wash away his worries and his insecurities, letting himself be reborn beneath the crying sky.

And he stops, and you stop, and you stand there in the pouring rain just looking at each other, picturesque frames, moments in time, letting the water soak into your skin, letting it trickle down your cheeks, decorating your eyelashes. You feel his hand sink down to your own, feel your fingers intertwine. And he is smiling, God, he is smiling so fucking wide, smiling at you like there is no place he would rather be, smiling at you like you smile at him when you think he isn’t looking, like you are the reason he is filled with light. Jimin stands there in the rain with his hand on your wrist and droplets of rain dotting his skin, and he is brand new. And you watch him, watch the way it rains down upon him, and you wonder what the hell he is thinking.

You wonder what on earth he sees when he looks at you.

(Is it the same as what you see when you look at him?)

“Aren’t you cold?” You ask him, feeling like your voice is a distant melody, feeling like it’s coming from somewhere else.

He shakes his head, and you can see the rain spraying from the ends of his hair, soaked strands framing his face. “Isn’t this wonderful?” He asks up to the sky, tilting his head up to let it rain down upon him, let the droplets drizzle down his cheeks. “Don’t you love it?”

“It’s nice,” you admit, because there’s something refreshing about being here, about being caught in the midst of a summer storm, washing away the dirt and sweat and worries.

“It’s perfect,” Jimin corrects, voice trampled by the rain, thick and heavy. “I feel like this is just what I needed.”

“Needed for what?”

He looks back at you, looks at the way your bodies are still connected, at the way you’re standing barely a foot apart in the pouring rain, and he grins and says, “Just what I needed to know.”

You don’t have time to ask him what he needs to know, what he has been so desperate to learn, before he’s pulling you back into him and up onto the deck, wet footsteps on the wooden porch as you heave yourselves out of the rain and into the counselor meeting room, drenched from head to toe.

“Oh my God, what the hell happened to you guys?” Seokjin asks, shocked when he spots the two of you, still holding hands.

“Got caught in the rain,” you say sheepishly, still feeling out of breath.

“In the rain?” Taehyung asks. “For how long?”

“Long enough,” Jimin answers this time, finally letting you go to run towards the back of the room. You watch helplessly as he does, your hand clenching around nothing, missing his touch. When he returns, he’s got a dry windbreaker in his hand, crumpled up from being in his backpack for so long. “Here, use this,” he says, placing it over your shoulders, pulling the collar tight at your front.

“Thanks,” you say breathlessly, wondering what the hell Jimin is going to use to dry himself off, clothing so soaked not even a day in the sun could dry it.

“That was fun,” Jimin says, fixing the windbreaker over your shoulders to make sure it’s covering as much of you as possible. “Who knew, right?”

“Right,” your voice trails off, too focused on the way his brows are furrowed as he tries to dry you off with a jacket made of fabric meant to repel water rather than absorb it, mouth pressed into a pout as he shuffles it around, drying off whatever he can.

“Maybe we can do it again sometime,” he says when he’s satisfied, gazing into your eyes, trying to get you to gaze back into his own. When you falter, he chuckles, this little huff of air dispelled from his lungs. “I’m gonna go bother Hoseok for something dry. Don’t stay in those clothes too long, or you’ll catch something.”

With that, he disappears into the other room, soggy footsteps leaving prints in his wake. You’re so busy watching his back disappear from view that you don’t even notice Namjoon coming up to you, a sage expression written all over his face.

“What?” You challenge, not liking the way he looks so suspicious.

“Nothing,” he says with a laugh and a shake of his head. “I just… don’t know if you really do have anything to worry about when it comes to him.” He nods his head in the direction of Jimin before vanishing, called over by Seokjin and Jungkook to complain to him about something, leaving you floundering in the doorway to the counselor’s room.

Does Namjoon know something you don’t?

Are you missing something here?

Because as far as you’re concerned, you and Jimin are finally getting back to where you used to be. As far as you’re concerned, you and Jimin did these same things last year, worked in the greenhouse together, planted flowers together, ate lunch together (okay, maybe you didn’t stand in the pouring rain together), and you are positive Jimin didn’t love you back then. As far as you’re concerned, this isn’t different. This is normal.

Outside, the rain has stopped, a rainbow hidden behind the trees the only reminder that it was ever there in the first place.

Despite the fact that you will literally only be performing for a bunch of children, Jimin is insistent on teaching you how to dance.

At least, that’s it looks like, when he asks you to meet him in the counselor’s room one day half an hour before the mandated practice that Hoseok’s arranged for the whole group of you while the all the campers are off on a nature hike with some of the local rangers from the reserve nearby. You don’t know why this couldn’t wait until during practice, when Hoseok puts on some upbeat dance music and lets everybody do what they want, which usually ends up in someone getting twirled (usually Seokjin), but you don’t really mind. Your other option was to lie around in your cabin waiting for the next social event.

Jimin’s already inside by the time you arrive, this smooth, soft jazz playing from the little speaker that he brought with him, set up on a table at the front of the room. The furniture hasn’t been moved back to their original spots since the first practice, so anytime Namjoon calls a meeting everyone ends up sitting on the floor like a kindergarten class, but at least it makes dance practice easier.

Even though he’s not really dancing, his body is still moving, absorbed in the music as it echoes around the room, hips swaying and head bobbing. He loses himself in the melody so easily, letting each and every note pluck along to the strings of his heart, this deep, mellow sound that fills him up like a wine glass, dulcet and sweet.

“Hey,” you say softly from where you stand, watching him from the doorframe.

Jimin jumps a little bit at the sound of your voice, almost embarrassed that he hadn’t spotted you sooner. “Hey,” he says in return, coming to a halt. “I didn’t, uh, see you there.”

“That was kind of the point,” you joke, walking into the room and joining him where he stands in the center. “Why did you want me down here?”

“You mean I need a reason to see you now?” Jimin teases in return, a little smirk playing along his lips. You frown, narrowing your eyes at him, unimpressed. He gives. “Alright, you got me. I promised you a dance lesson, didn’t I?”

“This isn’t the kind of music that Hoseok puts on, though,” you point out, even as Jimin intertwines his hand in your own and pulls you in close to him, the two of you stepping in time to the beat, not too slow but not too fast, either, this even, steady swing, the sort of thing an old bar would play during the evening rush. Jimin doesn’t pay your comment any attention, instead focusing on his hand on your side, your fingers laced together between your bodies.

You have, admittedly, never been much of a musical person. You never go out to clubs because sweaty, drunk people just aren’t your style, you don’t ever dance, and you can barely keep a beat when you sing in the shower. Your body has always been stiff as stone despite your (and your friends’) best attempts to achieve otherwise, and as such, you had long resigned yourself to the fact that you do better with your mouth than with your feet.

But still, Jimin rallies on, because you’re here, goddamnit, and even if you never dance again after this, at least you can say that you have. He moves you around the room in time with the honeyed melody, even daring to pull some advanced tactics like spinning you beneath his touch, hand held above your head as you twirl in place. And you try to let loose, try to lose yourself in the music like he does, but it’s hard when you have always been more of a wordsmith than a dancer.

What’s also not helping is how every bone in your body always seems to freeze up at his touch.

“Relax, alright?” He says, guiding you across the old wooden floor, boards creaking beneath your feet. “It’s just me.”

That’s the problem, your brain supplies unhelpfully.

“I told you that I wasn’t a very good dancer,” you say bashfully, unable to look Jimin in the eye when he is so close, when his body is practically pressed up against yours, when his fingertips leave burn marks where they press against his skin, sparks flying.

It’s different than when it was raining, because when it was raining, even though you were close, there were other things for Jimin to look at besides you. He gazed up at the sky and thanked it for its tears, gazed around the clearing and surrounded himself in the navy blue haze, closed his eyes and felt the drops on his skin, felt them wash away his nightmares and replace them with dreams.

It’s different now, because there is nothing impressive about the counselor room. Because the janky old tables and dirty windows aren’t something to be gazed at. Because Jimin’s focus is on you and only you, and it makes you feel like he’s staring right through you, like he’s gawking at your heart where it sits in its cage, trembling beneath his eyes. Jimin makes you want to board yourself up, wall yourself in, and reveal yourself bare all at once, like there is so much that he already knows but so much more that he could, if only things were just a little bit different.

“You’re doing just fine,” Jimin promises, voice as soft as his steps, padding on the hardwood. You’ve lost track of the number of times you’ve circled the room, Jimin guiding you without reason or rhyme, just rhythm. He makes sure you’re always looking at him, reaches a hand out to tilt your chin back up if you dare glance away, keeping his steely gaze trained on you, determined to have you do the same. “Isn’t this nice?” He murmurs.

“It is,” you agree. You don’t even have to think about your response, letting the words fall off your tongue, because even if you do feel tense, even if your bones are stiff, there is something about this that sets you at ease.

And you stay like that, wrapped up in each other, swaying to the beat of this song, a beat that is strikingly similar to the drums of your hearts, and the moment feels as though it’s freezing. Feels as though the rest of the world is fading away, leaving only the two of you and the warm, rich tune that floats through the air, slowing down as time seems to come to a halt.

“Do you still miss us?” You breathe, and you can see the words as they leave your lips, see them written out in puffs of smoke between you before they fade into nothingness.

“No,” Jimin responds, equally as speechless. The word disappears quickly in front of you, replaced by his next ones, “because this is what I had been waiting for.”

The words stare down at you angrily, your eyes raking over them, line by line, letter by letter, hoping to imprint them into your skin and your brain and your heart, hoping to keep them locked up besides your love for you to replay, over and over, one of many memories that keep you up at night, that you flicker back to watch like an old film, reminiscing of who you used to be, what you used to do.

They disappear far too quickly, and suddenly time begins again, and you get dizzy just from how much the rest of the world needs to catch up, whizzing by you in fast forward. Or maybe you’re just dizzy because Jimin has always made you feel this way, always left you gasping for air, weak in the knees, heart pounding.

God, he makes your heart pound. He makes it drum in your ears like the Nutcracker, like thunder during a summer storm.

“Don’t you want…” he asks, trailing off, eyes hazy and deep, absolutely unreadable.

“Want what?” You respond, and you swear you aren’t doing it on purpose but you feel yourself leaning forward, closing the gap between you, inch by inch—

“Want to see me lift Seokjin up in the air?” Jungkook’s voice rings out into the room. “I can, you know, he weighs like two pou—whoa, alright.”

A hoard of people stop behind Jungkook as he stands in the doorway like a floundering fish, blinking at you and Jimin. His arrival does not give you enough time to part without things looking suspicious, without all of the damn counselors already making their assumptions, leaving the two of you separating awkwardly, smiling tensely.

“What were you guys doing?” Taehyung asks, breaking the silence that has blanketed the room.

“Practicing,” you say quickly, looking as far away from Jimin as possible. Not even you are buying into your excuse.

“Sure thing,” Taehyung responds, eyebrows raised in understanding, already having formulated his own, likely more realistic answer.

“Alright,” Hoseok says, appearing from behind the crowd with a clap of his hands. “I guess that means that Y/N and Jimin don’t need to be joining us today, off you guys go.” He gestures for the two of you to leave, but the only exit doubles as the entrance, which means the two of you are left to shuffle past a crowd of counselors, all of whom are staring at you as you pass them by. Jimin doesn’t reach out his hand, and you don’t make any attempts at changing that.

You nearly suffocate on the way out, overwhelmed by the tension that has filled the atmosphere, leaving everyone helpless to it.

Jimin goes in one direction and you go in the other, the both of you clearly too stupefied to say anything meaningful to each other, determined to spend the rest of the night apart in an effort to dispel the dozen rumors that you know have already begun to circle the camp.

On your way back to your cabin, alone and lost in thought, you finish your conversation.

“Do you want…” Jimin asks, voice trailing off.

“Yes,” you say. “I want it all. I want you.”

You wonder if Jimin feels the same.

There is something eerie about the camp late at night, when the only lights that shine are the dim yellow wall sconces outside of the cabin doors, when everyone is sound asleep in their bunks, when there is only the moon and its stars to keep you company, watch over you from their place in the universe. There’s something eerie about the quiet, not because you have a reason to feel unsettled but because you’re so used to camp being this lively, bustling place, filled with things to do and people to see.

When you see it like this, empty and silent, it almost makes you think you aren’t even in the same place anymore.

The one and only place that you go when you cannot sleep is the pier, extending out over the lake, the cool, clear lake, looking out into the midnight horizon, a perfect view of the stars and their reflections, cast over the water, twinkling endlessly. You take a seat on the edge, legs dangling over the water, and you stare out into the world, a cool breeze tickling your skin.

You wonder what it is that’s keeping you awake tonight. What it is that is holding sleep just out of your grasp, your dreams suspended above your head. Camp ends in three days and for once you finally feel satisfied, feel as though you have done what you wanted and accomplished what you had hoped. The last few days of this summer are a far cry from those of last summer, where you were wearing yourself thin thinking about your confession, thinking about what you would say and when you would say it, and what you would do based on the fifteen thousand different things that Jimin could say in response, so hung up on telling him that you barely focused on anything else.

But this summer, you and Jimin are finally starting to be alright again. And even though you don’t think you will ever move on from loving him, you have moved on from the fact that he will probably never love you back, moved on from your failed confession, and you are learning to be okay with what you have, even if it’s not what you want.

The truth is that you and Jimin have never felt closer. Driven by your mutual desperation to be friends again, to return to the way that things were when you were together, when you were inseparable, you have been pulled together like moths to each other’s flames, like the thunder and the lightning. You can’t think of anything from this summer that you have wanted more than to be by his side again. But things are different from last summer, different because you and Jimin are not only friends but friends who have had to reckon with love, with its disastrous effects.

So maybe that’s why you’re awake tonight. Because this summer feels inexplicably stranger than last summer, and you feel like you’re missing something.

“I thought I’d be the only one still awake.”

You whip your head around at the voice to find Jimin standing at the other end of the pier, ink black hair hanging over his eyes, stars swimming in his irises. You can barely make out his face this late at night, when there is nothing to cast upon him a glow besides the moon and its lonely companions, but you will never mistake his soft, honeyed voice, never mistake the way his eyes sparkle and shine. He is grinning at you, warm and kind, as he slowly makes his way towards you, footsteps tapping along the worn wooden planks, until he sits down next to you, feet hovering above the water.

“You and me both, I guess,” you feel yourself whisper, not daring to speak a decibel louder.

“Lots on your mind?” He asks, looking out into the horizon. You sigh, too tired to respond. He understands anyway, just like he always does. “Mine too.”

You let the silence wash over you like a wave that bathes the shoreline, gazing out into a world that carries on no matter the time of day, no matter who watches over it. Like this, you and Jimin don’t need to explain yourselves to each other. Don’t need to force a conversation just for the sake of filling up the quiet night. Like this, your presence is enough, the knowledge that he is here beside you, staring out into the same sky, into the same moon and stars, is all that you need.

Something has long gone unspoken between the two of you. Something that you can’t quite place. Jimin has had something to say for a long time but he lets his body do the talking, lets you fill in the gaps. But this time, it feels like the more you try to read between the lines the less you understand, and goddamnit you wish that he would just tell you, would just say it so you don’t have to keep wondering and wondering and wondering—

“I never did tell you,” Jimin says, breaking you out of your reverie.

“Tell me what?”

“Tell you what I was thinking, that night.”

He doesn’t need to elaborate any further for you to know what night he’s talking about. You stare down at the lake, at the way it seems to move into itself even though there is nothing to disturb it.

“I guess I was just so shocked that you, you know, liked me like that, that I didn’t really focus on anything else. Didn’t think about why, or how, or when, or what to do. It existed separately from all of that,” he admits, breaths heavy.

“You didn’t need to focus on that stuff,” you assure him softly. “It was my burden to hold. I was the one who chose to tell you. It wasn’t your fault.”

Does he know? Does he know that you never hated him for not loving you back? That you didn’t expect him to do anything about it?

“I just felt so bad,” he says, and you hear the way the words prick at his tongue, leave burn marks along his lips. “Because I didn’t know what to do after that. I wanted to love you back so badly but I just couldn’t.”

And even though you already knew this, even though you were already well aware that Jimin has always only seen you as a friend, for some reason hearing him say it aloud still hurts, still pierces your heart, wounds that your love for him alone cannot fix.

“It’s not your fault,” you promise him, because throughout all of this, no matter what, you have never, ever blamed him for not loving you back. “I didn’t expect anything. At all. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Don’t I, though?” Jimin asks, and God, he sounds so helpless, sounds like he’s tried everything under the sun to figure things out and still, nothing has felt right. “We had always been so close. I wondered why I couldn’t fall in love with you and the things that we did together when you could. I thought that I was doing something wrong. You deserved someone who would love you back, and I so desperately wanted to be that person.”

“You owed me nothing,” you declare. “You still don’t owe me a damn thing. All I wanted was for you to know.” And look where that got you.

“Knowing didn’t feel like enough,” Jimin divulges. “I wanted to do more for you than just acknowledge it. I replayed that night in my head, over and over, wondering what more I could have said to you.” He sighs, deep and slow and filled with weight, filled with a year’s worth of thoughts he never told anyone else. “You told me you loved me and it was all I could think about. Then and now.”

“You still think about it?” You wonder aloud, sad because Jimin doesn’t deserve to have this weight on his conscience when you are the one at fault, and hopeful because maybe, just maybe, your confession meant just as much to him as it did to you.

“I can’t stop,” he confesses. And then he turns to you, turns to you in the glow of the moon, his eyes drowning in starlight, and he says, “Every time I look at you I think about how you love me.”

You don’t know what to say. You are too absorbed in the swirling sea of his irises, letting the warmth wash over you in waves, filling you up before emptying out again, shocks of cold before the heat races through you. Jimin is right there, right here, and he is gazing at you and you wonder.

You wonder, what if.

You wonder, what if he loved me back?

“Even when I was away from you I thought about it,” he chuckles to himself, amused at his own obsession. “I thought about you, that night, at the campfire. You were wearing this neon pink camp t-shirt and your marshmallow looked like coal and you had this warm orange glow on you, and I swear to God, that image is imprinted in my brain. I see it every time I close my eyes.”

You didn’t know that.

“When I went on dates, I saw you instead. I would be sitting in a booth with some girl and she would be trying to talk to me about the menu and all I would see is you.” Jimin exhales, filling the pauses that he leaves between his sentences, eyes raking you up and down as if he’s trying to commit this scene to memory, as if this night on the pier is something worth remembering. “They knew, too. All of them told me that I should get over my ex before going on a brand new date.”

Get over you? What about you was there to get over? Your love has always been one-sided. You have never known a world where it hasn’t.

“And I wouldn’t even try to explain to them that I didn’t have an ex to get over, and that you were the one who confessed to me, and that I didn’t love you like that,” he forces another laugh, like he doesn’t even believe the words he’s saying himself. “Then this summer rolled around, and I saw you arrive and I just can’t tell you in words how happy I was to see you. How looking at you just lifted my spirits.”

“I hardly recognized you at first,” you admit shyly.

“I dyed my hair,” Jimin reminds you. That’s right. He had brown hair last summer. “And I wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t know how to without bringing up all the shit that happened last year, and things were awkward between us, and I guess…” he trails off, thinking for a moment. “I guess I just really, really wanted us to get back to the way things were, but I didn’t know how to. And I didn’t know what had changed.”

“Nothing changed,” you say, even though everything did. But loving Jimin has always been a constant in your life, a truth, and this summer was no different. “I wanted to go back to being friends with you, too.”

“I thought I wanted that, too.”

This time, you are the one who turns to look at him. What could he possibly mean by that?

(Can it be?)

“At first, that’s all I wanted,” Jimin begins. “I wanted us to go back to being friends, I wanted us to eat lunch together and have it not be weird, I wanted us to spend time in the greenhouse and the arts and crafts room together, I wanted us to hang around the rest of the counselors without them noticing how different we were. But then I noticed that the hydrangea was wilting no matter what the fuck I did to keep it alive, and I realized that wanting our friendship back wasn’t enough for me anymore.”

You are frozen in place. You are locked into his gaze, body turning to stone, unable to even utter a single word. To breathe a single breath. And you look into his eyes, Jimin’s beautiful, ocean eyes, Jimin’s sparkling, ink eyes, and you pray.

“And then Hobi partnered us up for the stupid camp counselor performance, and we got caught in the rain, and then we danced in the counselor meeting room and I just—” His chest heaves, words flounder. As if he has so much to say, as if the words are practically spilling off of his tongue, and yet they are still not enough. He closes his eyes. Pauses. Catches his breath. And then he asks, “If I asked you if you still loved me, would you say yes?”

“Yes,” you breathe out.

“If I asked you if you wanted me to love you back, would you say yes?”

“Yes,” you whisper again.

Jimin blinks.

“If I asked you if you wanted me to kiss you, would you say yes?”

You barely get out the first letter before Jimin is pulling you into him and pressing his fiery lips upon yours. His hand cradles your cheek, the other one splayed out on the wooden pier to keep his balance, dragging you into a messy, desperate kiss, one that sends sparks ricocheting throughout your body, turning your blood into liquid flames, that fills you up from the inside out. The feeling of his lips pressed upon yours makes your heart shake so wildly in its cage that it frees itself, growing a thousand times wider. The rose inside of you vanishes, finds itself replaced by a blooming, bright blue hydrangea, one that settles deeply within your soul.

Your legs dangle off the pier as your arms wrap around Jimin’s body, curling around his torso in a futile effort to bring him closer than he already is, to feel the warmth of him press against you, sending jolts down your spine, into your bones. You feel yourself getting dizzy just at the feeling alone, kiss drunk, the rest of the world spinning like a goddamn teacup ride, but you cling onto him and you know that he will always be there to catch you if you fall. You know that he will always be there to steady you when you feel the world slipping out from beneath your feet.

You have him, you have him, you have him. You have him, and he is right here, and he loves you like the sun loves the moon, and you love him like the waves love the shore.

When you part, you almost lose your balance and fall right off the damn pier. Jimin reaches out to grab you just in time, saving you from a watery grave (or just major embarrassment), and the two of you laugh, letting your voices fill the moonlit air, heads light, bodies blissed out.

“Honestly, I was a little nervous you were going to say no,” he admits with a laugh.

“Impossible,” you chide. “You know I’ve always loved you.”

No matter what, that will never change.

“And now,” he says, pressing another kiss to your forehead, this one gentle and plush, “you know that I will always love you, too.”

It doesn’t feel like something long overdue. It doesn’t feel like something that you have been waiting and waiting and waiting for, something you have expected from the moment you told him.

No. This feels like something new.

This feels like your heart is in bloom.

The end-of-camp show, no matter how much time and effort Namjoon puts into making it go smoothly, is a train wreck. But it is a train wreck in that wonderful way, in that way where you would be suspicious if things actually went according to plan, in that way where chaos and disarray reign supreme. Quite frankly, when it comes to the end-of-camp show, you never expect anything less.

The truth is that the majority of the end-of-camp show performances are just for the counselor’s entertainment, an afternoon of fun to wrap up the end of camp, topped off by a fun meal (usually pizza) and a night around a bonfire, letting the heat warm your bodies from the inside out. Unless Jungkook and Taehyung pull some extremely ridiculous prank, the last official day of camp is usually everyone’s favorite, filled with snacks and music and laughter.

The performances by the campers go about as well as any performance by a bunch of elementary schoolers can go—that is to say, the kids remember the first five seconds of the choreography before they devolve into pandemonium, dancing as many weird, trendy dances as they can, and some you don’t even think have been invented yet. Nonetheless, Hoseok is proud, and beams at all of the campers as they scurry away from the center of the gymnasium once their dance is done, grabbing little snacks on the tables by the windows before settling in to watch the next stage. Hoseok does a good job of keeping the music current and upbeat so that nobody falls asleep, and gives the campers enough creative liberty so that it doesn’t feel too practiced.

Lightly rehearsed, Hoseok likes to say.

Absolute madness, Yoongi usually corrects.

After the dances, Seokjin and his hoard of campers with guitars the size of an overgrown ukelele make their way to center stage, and you and the other counselors bet on what stupid song he’s taught them all. He starts it off with everyone’s favorite and the most timeless of all tunes—Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star—before the musical highlight.

(“It’s gonna be Fireflies,” Taehyung insists, so confident in his choice that he even wagers two of the homemade Rice Krispie Treats that Yoongi got all of the campers to make for today’s celebration.

“It’s been too long since he rickrolled us,” Jungkook says, eyes narrowing suspiciously to Seokjin at the front of the room. “I’m just waiting for it.”

“Wonderwall, obviously,” Hoseok contributes, even though Seokjin got all of the campers from last year to play that.

You and Jimin are both almost positive Seokjin has chosen to perform Let it Go, a song that will never truly escape you, but you keep your comments to yourselves.

“I’m thinking Photograph,” Namjoon comments mindlessly, late to the conversation.

“The Nickelback song?” Yoongi says with a scoff. “Dude, we’re the only ones old enough to even know that song. No no, I think it’ll be Despacito.”

“If I have to hear Despacito one more time, I’m going to jump out of the f—” Taehyung stumbles on the syllable as Namjoon turns to glare at him, making Taehyung sputter for a replacement. “F… -reaking window. Watch me.”)

In the end, none of you guess correctly, because Seokjin has chosen to teach all of the campers how to play Country Road, Take Me Home, and honestly, none of you can even be mad about it because by the thirty second mark, you’re all singing along. There’s just something about that song that forces you to belt out the lyrics, something magical and irresistible.

Afterwards, it is finally time for the counselor’s performance, which, if the camper’s excited screams are anything to go by, is apparently the peak of the afternoon. Hoseok puts on the same upbeat dance music and all of you go to town, following his choreography without any hitches before jumping into the solo section. Namjoon and Yoongi both attempt a trendy Internet dance and fail miserably, Taehyung and Hazel do a little tango that involves no accidents, and then it’s you and Jimin’s turn.

The music isn’t really appropriate for the slow dance that Jimin taught you in the counselor meeting room, but he makes it work and you follow along, tracing his footsteps and laughing at the prickly sensation his hand on your waist sends shooting through you. You really have always been ticklish there. Hoseok only gives everyone thirty seconds before they’re booted off to the sideline, but thirty seconds is just enough time for Jimin to spin you once before pulling you into a kiss in front of dozens of campers and all of the counselors, whose hollers and hoots fill the gymnasium, bouncing off of the walls and ricocheting into your ears, when they watch you. It has your cheeks heating up something fierce, all embarrassed by Jimin’s big reveal, but the great big smile on his face makes it all worth it. He looks so happy to be here with you. He looks so goddamn happy to have you.

It makes you feel like you can do anything.

Ultimately, Jungkook and Seokjin get the greatest applause, because Jungkook lifts Seokjin into the air figure-skating style before Seokjin comes crashing down on him, and they land in a puddle on the gymnasium floor to the screams of all of the campers and counselors, who have never seen anything quite as artistically dramatic in their lives.

Afterwards, you and Jimin retire to the snack tables alongside the rest of the counselors as the campers are free to roam the building, check out the art on display and eat as many ants on a log and homemade Rice Krispie Treats as they can get their grubby hands on.

“Congrats, you guys,” Namjoon says, raising his dixie cup filled with lemonade. “It worked out after all.”

“I’m proud of you,” Yoongi murmurs to you, a soft smile gracing his features.

“Love always prevails,” Jungkook declares, sighing happily, always a hopeless romantic at heart. You sure hope that one day, Jungkook will fall in love with someone who loves him back unconditionally, because he deserves it.

“Which one of you confessed first?” Seokjin says, Taehyung nodding furiously behind you. You see that the bet is still on.

“Me,” you say.

“Me,” Jimin says.

You both look at each other, eyebrows furrowed, clearly on separate wavelengths.

Seokjin narrows his eyes. “Alright… which one of you said ‘I love you’ first?”

“That would be me,” you admit sheepishly, having a year’s headstart on Jimin when it comes to love confession.

“I fucking knew it,” Seokjin says, palm out. Taehyung begrudgingly smacks five dollars into Seokjin’s hand, muttering to himself about how he was convinced that Jimin would tell you first. It makes you wonder, just a little bit, how long Jimin had known.

You open your mouth to defend yourself and your weak, weak heart, when you feel a tap on your side. Behind you is the same girl from the day that you were making cards to send back home to people you love, the one who absolutely grilled you about your feelings for Jimin.

“Yes, Rose?” You ask happily.

“So did you send it to him?” She questions.

“Send what?”

“Your card. Did you send it to Mr. Jimin?” She elaborates, eyes wide in curiosity. You make a mental note to remind her to never stop being inquisitive. It will take her far.

“No, I didn’t,” you say with a laugh, shaking your head. You look back at Jimin, where he’s laughing with Seokjin and Taehyung about their stupid bet on you, and you grin. He is so beautiful. It’s still hard to believe he’s yours. “Jimin doesn’t need a card to know that I love him.”

Not when he’s right here, and not when you know he loves you back.

The counselor campfire is held on the day very last night that you spend together, after all of the campers have left the mountain, returning home, and you finally have the place to yourselves. Namjoon and Yoongi light it because everyone else has been banned from doing so after the Great Flame Incident two years ago, and then you all sit on the logs around the fire pit, reminiscing of the summer gone by, musing aloud about what the future holds.

You and Jimin snuggle up together, and this night faintly reminds you of the one from last year in the way that Jimin still glows, warm and yellow, in the light of the fire, in the way he seems to make perfect s’mores no matter what, in the way that he laughs at everything that you say. But even with all of the similarities, nothing, literally nothing, could top how you feel right now, dancing on cloud nine with Jimin by your side.

Never in your wildest dreams did you imagine you’d have him. Never in your wildest dreams did you think your confession would amount to anything more.

“You’re burning your marshmallow again,” Taehyung points out crudely, the side of your marshmallow already turning an ashy coal color.

“Ah, fuck,” you mutter to yourself, yanking it away from the fire as you blow on it.

“You’re never gonna learn, are you?” Jimin teases. He plucks his off of his stick, perfectly toasted, and holds it out for you. “Here, have mine.” You open wide and he pops it onto your tongue, the crisp, sweet flavor melting in your mouth as all of the other counselors groan, clearly wishing that they were somewhere other than here. Jimin’s fingers reach up to your chin, tilting your face towards him, before a thumb comes out to wipe away at the smudge on the side of your lip, a sticky white crumb that he pops into his mouth, earning another round of whines.

“Gross,” Seokjin says, nose scrunched up. “Just because you guys are in love now doesn’t mean you have to keep showing us. We get it.”

“Oh, just leave them alone,” Yoongi chides. “They’ve been pining after each other for so long, let them have this.”

“Thanks,” you murmur to Yoongi. You have a lot to thank him for. He has always been on your side, even when you weren’t.

“Anytime,” he promises.

“If they’re gonna be like this next year, then I don’t know how long I’m going to last,” Taehyung admits with a fond sigh, because no matter how much he pretends to be annoyed, you know that he’s happy for you.

Namjoon sucks in a breath. “Uh, yeah, about next year…” he says, wringing his hands together. “I’m not going to be coming back.” You fall into silence, the only sounds the crackle of the fire, the rustle of the wildlife in the woods. “I have another internship at a firm, and then I’m going to be going into the job market, so I don’t, uh, I don’t really see myself coming back here.”

“Me too,” Yoongi chirps up, earning a surprised look from everyone else. “I’ve just been given an offer to produce music for this small record company, but they’re located across the country, so I’ll be moving soon. I guess—well, I guess now’s as good a time as any to tell you all.”

“Congrats,” you tell him, sad to hear he won’t be back but thrilled to know he’ll be doing something he truly loves instead. “Seriously, Yoongi. That’s amazing.”

“Yeah, man, that’s sick,” Jungkook pipes up. “When you’ve won your Grammy you have to remember to mention us.”

Yoongi chuckles to himself, small and quiet, but even in this orange light you can see the way his cheeks are turning cherry red, relishing in the praise. “I’ll miss you all,” he says.

And slowly, one by one, you all begin to admit that even though you love it here, being a camp counselor had always been temporary, and it just wouldn’t be the same without everyone else here with you too. You and Jimin will be graduating this coming school year. So will Taehyung. Seokjin has a Master’s degree in acting that he wants to pursue. Even Jungkook, who is younger than all of you besides Hazel, has said that he plans to travel with his college lacrosse team next summer.

“Damn,” Taehyung says when everyone is finished, as you all begin to count how many of you there will be left for next summer. “Who’s gonna do Namjoon’s job?”

“I already asked,” Namjoon says with a proud grin, “and Hazel said she is happy to take on the responsibility.”

“Oh, fuck yeah!” Seokjin shouts, giving Hazel a massive hug, nearly crushing her in two. “Hell yeah, Haze! You are going to be kick ass at that. I’m proud of you!”

The rest of the counselors soon follow suit, congratulating Hazel and cheering for her future. It almost makes you want to come back, but you know that Hazel will be fine without you. As long as she still has her secret stash.

“Nice work, Haze,” you tell her, earning a shy smile from her in response. “You’ve always been a leader.”

“I’m just nervous I won’t be as good as Namjoon,” she admits timidly, clearly a little overwhelmed at such an enthusiastic response.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Namjoon assures her. “I know you’ll be fine. Plus, you won’t have all of these losers to worry about, so your workload will be much lighter.”

“Hey!” Seokjin, Taehyung, and Jungkook all shout at once.

“Don’t get me started on the two of you,” Namjoon chides, eyes narrowed. “You’ve caused me more stress than my senior thesis.”

“Out of love,” Seokjin swears, Jungkook and Taehyung nodding enthusiastically next to him. Namjoon rolls his eyes, even though you know that he secretly loves the extra work that they give him. It keeps him young, in that old-timey kind of way.

“Then I guess this is it, isn’t it?” Hazel asks, standing up and holding out a finished s’more, already taking on her newly-bestowed head counselor duties. “I suppose I’ll do the honors. Congrats to Y/N and Jimin for finally figuring their relationship out, congrats to Yoongi for getting into that record company, congrats to Namjoon for getting his internship, and congrats to everyone else for doing what they love, and for not letting their dreams be dreams. This summer feels sort of like the end of an era, in a way, don’t you think? I mean, lots of us are moving on to bigger and better things, celebrating the past and aspiring to become people that we hope will be admired in the future. And I guess that I just want you all to know that no matter who you become, no matter what you do, I’ll always be someone who admires you.”

If you were a little drunk or just a little more sentimental, Hazel’s words would almost bring tears to your eyes, but instead you just join everyone in cheers, standing up and clinking your s’mores together.

And in a way, it really does feel like the end of an era. No more summers on the mountain, no more late-night camp pranks, no more hydrangeas in the greenhouse. You’re moving on, not only from this part of your life but from your almost-fruitless quest for love, from the place that led you to fall so deeply for Jimin, the place that has housed every memory you have ever saved of him. You’re moving on to a world where Jimin is with you every step of the way, where you know that he will always be there for you, where you no longer have to fight yourself to keep from loving him, where you have to do everything you can to preserve an already-fragile friendship.

No. Now, you can take your first step forward with Jimin by your side.

“Cheers!” Everyone shouts.

“Cheers,” Jimin says to you, pulling you in for a quick little kiss, and no matter how hot the campfire burns Jimin’s lips upon yours will always be what warms you from within. “Cheers to us.”

You grin against his lips, pressing back because you can never get enough, and you murmur, “Cheers to us.”

“Hey! Jungkook!” Seokjin shouts right as Jungkook hops into his car. “When we text you in the group chat you better fucking respond!”

“I will, I will!” Jungkook screams back, voice so loud you can hear it despite the fact that all of his windows are rolled up.

“No, he won’t,” Yoongi deadpans as he passes you by, duffel bags hanging from his shoulders. “You know he won’t.”

“He never does,” you agree. Getting a text from him is almost as impossible as winning the lottery. “I’ll call you, alright? I know you don’t really like texting, either.”

“Talking is just easier,” he says with a nod. “I’m looking forward to it. Call me whenever you need me.”

“I will,” you promise, watching as Yoongi bids you one final goodbye before heading to his own ride. He plops his bags into the trunk of Namjoon’s car before getting into the passenger seat. Namjoon pushes his head out of the window to wave, smiling wildly at you as he starts the car. You grin, waving back, and watch him, Yoongi, and Jungkook, disappear down the mountain.

“You’re next, right?”

You whip around to find Jimin standing behind you, a frisbee in one hand and a suitcase in the other. He won’t be leaving for another couple of hours, when Taehyung’s finally ready to go. They live close to each other so they figured they’d save money by splitting an Uber, which will be waiting for them at the bottom of the mountain.

“Yeah, gotta get back before college starts,” you say, dropping your bags at your feet. “But we’ll see each other before then, right?”

Jimin and you attend universities on opposite sides of the country. Loving each other is the easy part. Staying in love is what will challenge you.

“Of course,” he promises. “I’ll visit whenever I can. And I’ll come see you on all my breaks during the semester, too. You and Jungkook.”

“Good, you better,” you say, and you pull him in for a bruising hug because you know that this will be the last time for a while. Not a long while, but a while, and even if you have committed every slope of his figure, every inch of his face to memory, you still have to remember how warm he is when you hold him, how soft his lips are when they touch yours. Those things… those are new. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll see you soon,” he assures you. “But I’ll miss you too.”

Several feet away, Hoseok honks the horn of your car to let you know that you’re all ready to go.

“I’ll call you when I’m home, okay?” You promise, pulling him in for another hug, one last time, feeling this strange desperation rush through you, like you won’t see him for weeks and this is all you’ll have left. “Isn’t it weird? You’re right here and I miss you already.”

“We’ll see each other again before you know it,” he says, pressing his lips to yours in a sweet, quick kiss. No matter how many times he does it still sends sparks shooting through your veins, but you suppose that that’s just another thing you’ll have to remember. When you part, he notices your worry, eyes softening at the sight. “Hey,” he says, lifting your chin up so you look at him. “I love you.”

You crack a smile. “I love you, too.”

It’s not a goodbye.

It’s an until I see you again.

You grab your duffel bags and hike them over your shoulder, footsteps heavy and weighted as you slowly make your way towards your car. Every four steps or so, you turn back just to make sure that Jimin’s still there, and sure enough, he’s watching you, this lopsided, love-drunk smile lacing his features.

You place your bags in the backseat of your car before heading to the driver’s side, hand on the handle as you look up one final time.

There Jimin stands in the middle of the clearing, the warm afternoon sun bathing him in a halo. There he stands, beautiful, and kind, and lovely, and in love. And you are so in love. You wave. He waves back.

And you know that you two will be alright.

You jump into your car and tug the door shut behind you, keys in the ignition, engine revving, and you sigh, content and feeling confident in life. You peer into the rearview mirror to see Taehyung running up to Jimin, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and waving goodbye to you. You lift your hand up in response, watch as they bid you farewell as you creep towards the slope down the mountain.

As you drive down the mountain, you take a deep breath, inhaling the fresh summer air, and you smile.

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#jimin angst #bts angst #jimin fluff #bts fluff #bts fic #jimin fic #jimin x reader #bts x reader #jimin au #bts au #w: into the wilderness #UHH THATS THE FUCK RIGHT THATS WHAT I SAID !!!!!!#okay but also i havent felt as emotionally redeemed abt a climax scene in a long time #anyway i hope you all enjoy !! this is my baby so you BETTA TREAT IT THAT WAY

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