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sailoryooons · 1 year

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F*ck Christmas | myg (m)

❆ Paring: Yoongi x f. reader

❆ Summary: Making hating Christmas your entire personality was never the plan. Then again, it seems bad things only ever happen around Christmas - like discovering your fiancé cheating on you, forcing you to move back to your sleepy hometown. But Min Yoongi happens to love Christmas, and if there is one thing your very stubborn childhood crush is going to do, it’s try to reignite your Christmas spirit. Even if he has to force-feed it to you with gingerbread cookies and too-sweet eggnog.

❆ Word Count: 23,466

❆ Genre: smut, fluff, friends to lovers

❆ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.

❆ Warnings: Reader is miserable to start this and isn't very nice to Yoongi because she has Feelings and unpacked issues, a lot of nostalgia, mentions of depression and depictions of anxiety, mentions of parent deaths (Yoonig's mom, readers dad), a lot of familial guilt, reader isn't always The Best, Yoongi's dad has some failing memory with old age, Yoongi and reader and their endless pining, cheesy and very contrived scenarios, explicit language, recreational drinking, explicit sexual content including, unprotected sex, oral (f. receiving) fingering (f. receiving), Big Dick Yoongi, bodily fluids, established safeword, honestly emotional fucking ok, reader being a bit in subspace/overwhelmed during sex, cheesy as fuck ending

❆ Published: December 28, 2022

❆ A/N: Holy shit this is finally done. It is days, late, about 10k more words than it was supposed to be because I couldn't shut the fuck up, and it is not my favorite thing I have ever written, but I hope that you enjoy it anyway, and that you find some comfort if you have a hard time during the holidays like I sure as shit do (which is why this fic is legit so late ijsdgkjng). Eternally grateful to M for being my mental crutch during this process, reading to make sure it doesn't suck and constantly assuring me I'm not writing a total car wreck. Super pleased to have been able to write with @here2bbtstrash @gimmethatagustd and @nabiolive so please please please make sure you check out their fics when they're posted (Jai's is posted now so GO READ!!!!)

Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.

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The monotonous shuffle of feet, mechanical click of the baggage claim conveyor, and three-toned chime before a muffled and completely unintelligible airport announcement work together in tandem to make a grating symphony.

You spot your neon green, plastic suitcase drifting through the black flaps of the conveyer. As it nears, a cluster of people block your access, huddling and waiting for their bags right up against it. With an angry sigh, you navigate around them, throwing a glare as you reach for your back and haul it off the conveyor.

People who crowd baggage claim when their bags aren’t out are at the top of your travel intolerances, second only to people who clap when the plane lands.

Wheeling your suitcase toward the entrance as fast as you can, you look at your lock screen to see that your mother has blown up your phone with text messages.

[Mom]: Gate G

[Mom]: I’m at gate G

[Mom]: I still have the white Macaran. Gate G I am waiting by it.

[Mom]: What are you wearing? I will try to pull up closer.

[Mom]: They are asking me not to wait. Do you have your bags yet? Is it close to Gate G?

“For the love of Christ,” you mutter under your breath, shoving the device in your pocket.

The airport doors open, making a stuttering suction sound as they do. Cold air hits you in the face, making you flinch and squint.

Just near the column marked ‘G’ your mother waits in her white car, waving wildly when she sees you. Despite your temporary annoyance, you give her a tight-lipped grin as she climbs out of the car, running to you with hand motions signaling she wants your bag.

“Hi, hi!” she cheers, grabbing you quickly for a brief hug before making grabbing motions toward your bag. “Here, let me! Let me!”

“It’s fine,” you assure, trying to wheel the heavy bag away from you. You both end up wheeling it together, your mom refusing to let go of the handle until she’s opening the trunk and you’re hauling it into the back. “Thanks.”

Inside the car, the leather seats are heated and the hot air is blasting enough to threaten a nosebleed. You close the vents as your mother gets in, saying something you can’t hear over the blaring horns, slamming of her door, and fumbling with her seatbelt.

“What?”

“How was your flight?”

Awful. Long. Filled with absolute dread of the finality of your one-way ticket. Wondering if the movers had successfully delivered your shit to storage and dropped your car off at your mother’s house.

Naturally, you say none of these things. You offer canned responses with forced happiness that your mother doesn’t detect. She’s just happy to see you. The thought makes you soften a little.

Outside the world is covered in sheets of white. You know the winding roads well. Your mother talks about how it’s just the two of you for Christmas morning, but that she is volunteering at the homeless shelter on Christmas Eve. You take this in with a soft hum, eyes watching as you pass Mulberry street.

If you drive down another mile and take a left, you’ll be at Plaza Center, the mecca of your childhood with a movie theater, a Blockbuster turned Mattress Firm, Lucky Strike bowling alley, and a combination grocery store and liquor store where you used to huddle outside in the cold while waiting for someone’s fake ID to work.

Soft music plays in the background as the tires hum on the road. You pass by the newer additions to the town – Starbucks, Olive Garden, Longhorns – they’ve all replaced longtime restaurants and a laser tag place that you remember having three birthdays in a row at.

“Tired?” your mom asks, drawing you from trying to draw up the red brick houses from memory instead of watching them blur by. You hum. “You can take a nap later, get that airplane yuck off of you. Yoongi is working on fixing those damned cabinets. He ripped out the whole thing-“

“What?”

“What what?”

“Why is Yoongi in your house?”

Your mother blinks at you owlishly as she pulls up to the stop light. You realize suddenly that she’s in one of your father’s old sweatshirts from university. It cuts you like a knife as you readjust yourself in the seat, suddenly tense and griping the door.

“Min Yoongi still lives here?”

“Of course he does,” she scoffs and turns when the light changes. “Do you not keep up with him? You guys used to be such good friends.”

“Why is he at the house?”

“I just told you, he’s re-doing those damn cabinets. They had mold in them.”

For a moment, you just slow-blink at your mother. Min Yoongi is in her house – your house, now. You haven’t seen him since college. You knew he had moved back after school to help move his dad into a home, but he was supposed to leave once his dad was settled.

He was… well he was supposed to be a big-shot architect. You just assumed he was. It occurs to you that you can’t remember the last time you even looked at Yoongi’s social media, though that was more on purpose than you’d like to admit.

Who wants to see what their life-long crush is still up to after they’ve long stopped talking to you?

“So you had him do our cabinets? He’s an architect, not a contractor.”

“You really don’t know shit,” your mom laughs. “Yoongi took over his dad’s shop down on Miriam. Home Depot keeps trying to run him out, but most of us still like the comfort of Min’s Hardware. Plus, he spends the entire last quarter of the year building toys and the like for the children’s home and new chairs and furniture for the old folks home.”

You pause. “Is Old Man Min-“

It’s hard to bring yourself to finish the sentence. You remember the bleak affair of summer 09’ when Yoongi’s mother passed away, but you feel like someone would have told you if his father had passed.

Thankfully, your mother shakes her head. “Still kicking. Yoongi didn’t want to sell out to one of those land development companies, though. They kept trying to pressure him – they want to open up a Super Target – but he said no.”

“Huh.” You lean back in the seat as your mom turns down your street. There is a sense of trepidation as you pass rows of brick-and-mortar homes with nondescript cars in the drive. “Good for him. Fuck Target.”

“Yeah, well. I wouldn’t mind a target, but I certainly don’t want it to replace Min’s.”

A dark blue truck sits in the drive of your home. It’s hard not to focus on it, your eyes drifting from the swan-shaped mailbox to the giant blow-up decorations still wiggling, even covered in snow. The wind chimes are frozen on the porch and there’s a tarp on the swing set in front of the kitchen window.

The kitchen window, where you vaguely make out a shape with his back turned.

Butterflies erupt in your stomach. You have no reason to be nervous to see Min Yoongi and yet the thought of awkwardly walking into the kitchen like hey how are you threatens to make your demand your mom drive you back to the airport even though you have nowhere to go.

No home to go back to. No fiancé to-

Your mom shuts off the dark and slides out. She’s still rattling on about the developers buying up land and putting in condos and luxury apartments that no one can afford. You’re a beat behind her, slipping a little on the icy drive as you scramble out of the vehicle and retrieve your bag.

Inside your chest, your heart pounds against your ribcage. You keep glancing out the window, wondering if you’ll suddenly see Yoongi’s soft, sweet face. Kicking ice off her boots on the porch, your mother opens the door as she talks on, breezing in and to the side to take off her boots.

You step in awkwardly. Unfamiliar.

Everything in your view is the exact way you remember it, except suddenly… None of this feels like yours. Or like anything that has ever belonged to you. To your right, there is an open doorway that leads to the study – or the computer room as your dad chronically called it. It’s dark inside but you can see the indents on the carpet from the faded office chair, and the power-down Dell on the desk with multiple broken drawers.

On the right is a cubby where you can kick your shoes off and hang your bag. You follow your mother’s example and take off your boots, feeling in a daze as your eyes drift down the hall. There’s a set of stairs that lead to the second floor just beyond the door to the computer room, and the living room and kitchen open up at the end of the hall.

Christmas music and the smell of cinnamon float down. There’s a lump in your throat as your mom walks toward the living room – and ultimately where the kitchen is. And Yoongi. Who is apparently hammering at something loudly, from the sounds of all the banging that drowns out the sound of Michael Bublé.

“I’m gonna lay down,” you blurt before your mom can enter Yoongi’s line of vision. You’re frozen in the doorway, eyes wide, heart hammering. “The plane ride really exhausted me and I have a bit of a headache. Yoongi’s banging will make it worse.”

She frowns. “Well at least come to say hello.”

“I’ll see him later,” you assure her, moving toward the hardwood stairs and bending to pull up your bag. “It’s a small town, no big deal. Tell him I said hello.”

You’re halfway up the stairs when your mother says your name, irritation evident. You don’t respond, jogging the rest of the way. The bottom of your bag clips one of the stairs, making you stumble. You curse and recover before rushing down the right side of the hall, past the pictures on the wall and your open bathroom with the mermaid curtains straight into your room where you slam the door.

Leaning against it, you close your eyes and take a few breaths. In and out. In and out. Downstairs, the hammering pauses. You assume your mother is talking to Yoongi. Guilt eats away at you like a worm to an apple. You shove it down and walk into your room proper, trying not to think about how you want to avoid the man downstairs at all costs.

Collapsing on your bed, you flinch and grab the mattress, forgetting how springy it is as they twang under the sudden weight. Your room is exactly how you left it. Aquamarine walls, a sea turtle lamp, a horrible collection of Justin Bieber memorabilia including a lunch box you can’t ever remember using, and an old box TV with a tiny DVD player.

A broken lava lamp stands frozen in time on the white, paint-chipped dresser. You wonder if it even turns on anymore. The rolling closet door is open, empty save for extra sheets and towels and a couple of Vera Bradley duffle bags your mom never tossed out.

Everything is the same and yet… you have never felt more like a stranger in your own home.

Pulling the scale pattern quilt from under you to wrap yourself in, you close your eyes and drift off to sleep, although the hammering downstairs starts once again.

A knock on the door and your mom’s voice telling you to come eat dinner pries you from sleep. Your limbs feel heavy and your back and neck ache with the unfamiliarity of the springy bed. Your thoughts are honey-thick as you try to remember that you’re not in your apartment – your old apartment that is no longer yours – and that your ex is not with you.

Mouth dry and limbs sluggish, you manage to trek down the stairs, footsteps heavy and awkward. There's still Christmas music playing somewhere in the living room, but it’s at a manageable volume now. You try not to think about it too much, finding Christmas music particularly grating this year.

The smell of dinner drifts from the kitchen and your stomach growls viciously, reminding you that you only had cheese and crackers for lunch. You rub your eyes, entering the open concept area with the kitchen facing the living room and the dining room tucked on the side of the kitchen against the glass-paned windows that look out into the yard.

Your mom sets something on the table and straightens, gesturing to something on the island countertop as she says, “Will you bring those potatoes over, Yoongi? I keep forgetting them on the counter.”

Two things happen at once.

The first thing that happens is the slow-blink turning of your head, suddenly aware that a man is standing in your kitchen looking at you. Your feet glue themselves to the floor and your mouth parts a little in surprise and confusion that there is another human being in your house outside of you and your mother.

The second thing that happens is the surge of panic and curiosity slamming into one another, two rogue waves at war as they unsteady the sleeping waters of your mind post-nap. You feel the urge to turn on your heel and run back up the stairs, but you’re stuck staring at Yoongi, both terrified to see him and... well you haven’t seen him in a while. You’re curious.

Yoongi’s hair is blonde - a color he hasn’t had in years - with silky lowlights that look really good on him. Though most of it is tucked behind delicate, round ears that are decorated with his signature silver hoops, a few rogue strands fall endearingly over soft cat eyes. He’s broad in the shoulders, the material of his shirt pulled taught over the hint of biceps.

And Yoongi’s face – devastating as always. You always thought that he looked like a child of the moon goddess, smooth, milky skin with a rose-flushed mouth. His mouth as always looks soft, and as it breaks into a smile now when he sees you, it feels like the entire world might spin out of control.

“Have a good nap?” Yoongi questions. His voice is so much deeper, raspy, and soft, and nothing at all like what you remember. But it’s been how long since you’ve seen him? At least four years. Maybe five.

“Huh?” you can’t stop the words from leaving your mouth, your brain unable to connect the dots and form anything else.

Yoongi chuckles and ducks his head a bit, pink in the cheeks. He picks up the glass dish of potatoes that your mother asked for, rounding the island and putting it on the dining room table. He moves in your childhood home with ease, returning to the kitchen and popping up a drawer for a serving spoon.

“Jet lag, much?” that teasing tone of his is still there and you suddenly remember being in the ninth grade, hiding your face in your hands because he was poking fun at you for something innocent. “I don’t bite.”

“Why are you here?” Again, you’re unable to stop the words from coming out of your mouth. This time, however, you have enough sense to realize how rude it sounds. Swallowing past the rapidly forming knot of anxiety, you move toward the table. “You don’t have a headache from all that hammering you’ve been doing?”

Yoongi shrugs and sits down at the table across from where your mother has seated herself, pouring a glass of red for herself. “You seem to have slept through it fine.”

“Yeah, well.” You sit down next to your mom, suddenly feeling defensive. “A five-hour flight will do that to you.”

Yoongi hums, agreeing as he glances up at you again. You’ve had dreams about those damn eyes, written about them in childhood diaries. Wondered about them late at night, when your ex was fast asleep next to you.

Thoughts and memories of Min Yoongi paint several parts of your life. Childhood crush. Close friend. The subject of your dreamy sighs. The crush had worn off around college, but there was always that something when you looked at him. Perhaps the acknowledgment that he was impossibly beautiful and charming.

Or maybe the inescapable fact that you might always harbor something extra for him.

Averting your gaze, you clear your throat and grab the bottle of wine from your mom, pouring a healthy amount. “Why are you ripping out the cabinets anyway?”

“There was mold in the back of them.” He accepts a plate of meat from your mother. “I came over to help your mom pull down that bone china she keeps hidden away and found it.”

You glance at your mom. “You couldn’t use a ladder?”

“You try having old hips,” she huffs. “Yoongi isn’t that far. He’s a doll and he’s always a phone call away.”

There is nothing wrong with Yoongi helping your aging mom. At least, that is what you tell yourself as she asks Yoongi about a TV show both of them have been watching. You fill your plate and listen to them, hovering on the edge of a conversation you can’t contribute to.

“And then she had the nerve to act like she was holier than thou,” your mother agrees, shaking her head. “The Greens are going to get theirs, now that Alicent was exposed for a snake.”

Yoongi snorts. “I don’t know, no one ever gets punished the way we want on that show.”

“Who is Alicent?” you ask, dubious.

Both of them look at you. Your mom waves you off with a roll of her eyes at Yoongi. “She doesn’t watch TV. I’ve been begging her to watch for weeks now. Thankfully you caved in.”

“I just don’t have time for TV.”

Your mom pats your hand delicately. It doesn’t feel comforting like it should. “I know. Thankfully I can gossip about it with Yoongi.”

They seem comfortable. Your mom laughs as Yoongi rants about some character arch you have never heard of. You watch as your mom cuts into her steak alongside him, handing him sauce for his diced pieces. He thanks her easily, not missing a beat as he uncaps it.

Suddenly, you feel like a stranger in your own house. All this time you’ve been living on the other side of the country, Yoongi has been here doing... whatever it is that he does. Making himself comfortable in your home. Filling a space for you. And now that you’re here, it’s like you don’t exist.

No one asks you how you’ve been. No one asks for a single detail about your life. Whether it’s out of pity because they know you’ve been left out in the cold with no home, no fiance, and leave from work because... well they felt bad that you were cheated on and booted from your apartment.

It's like you don’t exist anywhere. You don’t exist in your mom’s life. You don’t exist in Yoongi’s.

And it drives you mad.

You get up abruptly from the table, startling both of them. “I’m feeling ill,” you mutter tightly. You’re moving away from the table as your mother sputters, surprised. “I’ll try to eat later, I’m going to lie down.”

“Do you need help up the stairs?”

Yoongi’s question and concern seem genuine. It makes the sudden gnawing feeling inside of you even worse. “No,” you snap. “Enjoy your dinner and conversation.”

They both call after you as you turn and hightail it out of the kitchen and toward the steps. Everything feels blurry and the tightening of your threat is the only warning of sudden tears. It feels silly and pathetic, to suddenly be worked up into a frenzy over – well you’re not really sure over what. But it doesn’t sting any less, whatever this sense of feeling left out is.

Crawling into your bed, you pull the covers over your head just like you used to when you lived here last. The tears burn hot down your face and you press the heels of your hands into your eyes, as though you can grind the tear ducts to dust.

You hate being home. You hate that it doesn’t feel like home. But most of all, you hate that at the height of your misery and embarrassing life, Min Yoongi now has front row tickets.

Somehow, you manage to sleep.

The sound of thunder wakes you up in the morning. No, it’s not thunder. Thunder comes and goes in slow rolls of sound, fading, and building in a gentle percussion. This is the constant booming of something bang bang banging in a repetitive pattern.

Irritation drags you from sleep. You peel the covers from over your face, blinking and groaning in the morning light that filters through the curtain. Crust forms in the corner of your eye. You rub furiously until you see colors explode behind your lids.

Blinking until your room swims into view, you stare up at the ceiling a little longer until you remember that you’re in your childhood room. And that the loud banging sound coming from downstairs is probably Yoongi.

The sticky, nasty feeling from last night curls inside of you again. Less potent, but still there. Looking back on it, you feel a little dramatic. Watching Yoongi and your mom exist in a space so easily without you while you were there triggered a sliver of guilt you had been nursing since you decided to move home.

Even now, you ignore the feeling as you slip down the stairs and toward the kitchen. The hunger is demanding and ever-present, and though you’re unsure you want to face Yoongi again after last night, you can’t ignore the dizziness from lack of food.

Sunlight filters in through the kitchen window. Dust motes float in the air, suspended in gold light. There are pieces of wood and metal piles of hinges and knobs, screws rolling across the counter, and plastic-wrapped pieces of hinges and bolts, but it’s still your kitchen.

There’s still white backsplash against the sink with a yellow duck soap dispenser. There’s a black fridge with chip-clip magnets holding up pictures of your family, your graduation photos, and drawings that you created as a child. The island countertop is buried in Yoongi’s supplies, but you imagine that if it weren’t, there’d be fake fruit in a basket with mugs full of tea gone cold.

Today, Yoongi is in a black, oversized t-shirt, and a beanie. There’s a small speaker next to him, Michael Bublé singing clearly through the kitchen as Yoongi slides a shelf into one of the newly constructed cabinets.

“You really like Bublé.”

Yoongi flinches, turning around to see you hovering and hesitating near the kitchen counter. He grins a little, wiping his hands on his pants. His blonde hair just barely peaks out from underneath the beanie and his face is flushed red as he crosses his arms over his chest and leans back on the counter. There are dark circles under his eyes, but he otherwise looks beautiful first thing in the morning.

“I like Christmas music,” he offers with a shrug. “Tis the season.”

“Hmm.” Your eyes scan the kitchen. “Is there a way to make coffee in this mess?”

He nodes and moves a cabinet, revealing the coffee maker. “Ta-da.” You huff once in laughter before going to your fridge in search of creamer. You sense Yoongi’s dark gaze on you as you do. “How are you feeling?”

“Hmm?”

“From last night? Feeling better?”

“Oh.” You shut the fridge and avoid his gaze. “Yeah.”

He hums. You flick the lid on the coffee and pause, looking around the kitchen for one of the pods to make the coffee. Yoongi leans over with a chuckle and pulls open a drawer, revealing rows of neatly placed Keurig cups.

“Thanks,” you say flatly.

“Mhmm.” You pop it in and turn the machine on. “How long is your cabinet project going to take?”

“I’ll be finished by tomorrow. Why? Want me gone that bad?”

“You’re loud.”

“Comes with the nature of the job. Sorry, usually no one is here in the morning. Your mom is at the park.”

“Since when does she go on walks?”

He shrugs, dubious of your confusion. “She always goes on walks. Jeez, you have been gone a long time.”

“So what?” You snap, arms crossed. “You know everything about my mom now?”

“I spend a lot of time with her. I help her around the house and she brings me lunch and makes dinner sometimes. I keep her company.”

Tension creeps into your shoulders and neck. Pressing your mouth into a firm line, you turn your back to him, unable to make eye contact as the little sliver of guilt in you strikes at him, viper quick. “Cause I wasn’t here to do it, right?”

“That isn’t at all what I said.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Your name leaves his mouth with a sigh. “Have I done something to upset you? You haven’t seemed keen on me being here since last night. I was excited to see you after all this time and catch up.”

“I wasn’t gone that long.”

“I mean it’s been five years-”

“Sorry I left town because I had a life. I get it, I left home and left my parents here and my mom has been lonely since my dad passed. You’re a knight in shining armor, I get it.”

“What?” You ignore looking at him, despite shuffling closer to you as you pour creamer into your coffee. You feel a nasty tension in your throat. Somewhere, you know that you’ve launched a hate campaign against Yoongi within twenty-four hours of being home. And yet you don’t look at him. “I - wow. Okay, I didn’t think that of you at all. We seem to be on wildly different pages, why would I ever think that?”

Before you can answer, the front door opens and closes. Your mom's arrival has you slithering toward the kitchen’s exit, throwing Yoongi a glance. His frown is deep and genuine concern flickers in his eyes. “I don’t think that,” Yoongi ventures again, trying to keep you in the conversation. “I think a lot of things about you, but that isn’t one. This conversation has really gotten away from me, can we start over?”

“It’s fine,” you mutter. “Sorry for assuming.”

Your mom waves, shrugging off ice-covered boots and a jacket at the door. You wave and rush out that you’re going up for a shower to wash off the airport funk. She waves you off and grins, heading down the hall and launching into a conversation with Yoongi.

A nasty feeling trails you up the steps. You don’t even make it to the top of the stairs before you already know you’ve been irrational, emotional, and completely out of line. But seeing Yoongi after all this time, seeing the way he’s there for your mom in ways you aren’t, and nursing wounds of moving home against your will and plans… it’s a lot to swallow.

In your room, you sit on the bed with your coffee on the nightstand, head dropped into your hands as you cry. It’s been coming all night. It’s been coming since you caught your ex in the apartment with another person. It’s been coming since you were no longer what they wanted in mind, body, and soul. It had been coming since you were asked to leave the apartments because you had moved in - not the other way around.

The pain festering inside of you for the last two and a half weeks isn’t Yoongi’s fault. In fact, part of you is surprised that your grief and guilt at dedicating the last five years to someone who you didn’t even like that much and who has now cheated on you has surfaced in the face of Min Yoongi.

It isn’t his fault that you rarely came home to start. It isn’t his fault that after Christmas two years ago, you didn’t want to come home at all. Didn’t want to be in a home without your dad. Didn’t want to be in a home that wasn’t in your new city, away from old failures, away from old hurts. Didn’t want to be in a home down the street from the Mins.

“Jeez,” you laugh at yourself, no mirth evident. “What better way to kick off seeing Yoongi again?”

Yoongi finishes the cabinets the next day and you manage to avoid seeing him again, unsure how to fix the weirdness.

A few days later, you come down to see your mom on the couch, tucked into a flannel-patterned blanket, and watching Hallmark movies. You cringe at the thought of poorly budgeted, badly scripted movies. Your mom, however, has always loved them. And your dad always watched them with her.

Something softens inside of you. You can’t remember the last time your ex willingly watched anything they were uninterested in for your sake. Perhaps because they had long been fucking someone else.

Shaking the thought from your mind, you trail to your mom, slipping wordlessly onto the couch and pulling an extra blanket over your legging and socks. Your mom shoots you a wide grin, eyes crinkling at the edges. She reaches over, patting your hand and squeezing it before settling in, keeping her hand on yours.

Though you turn to the TV, your eyes sting as you try to focus on the plot of a newly single woman who has moved back to her sleepy hometown during the holidays. Naturally, there is a storied past with the beautiful but sensitive male lead who owns a failing bookshop. It’s unsurprising when the female lead takes a job there unwillingly, and you watch

“These are very cheesy,” you observe, watching as the two leads fall in love over clumsily spilled coffees, one full of Christmas cheer and one that hates Christmas. “Why do you like them so much?”

Your mom shrugs. “They always have a happy ending, they’re easy to follow along, and they fuel that little hope that the holidays have something a little special.” She looks at you when you grunt and she sighs. “I know you haven’t had very good holidays the last few years. But you used to really enjoy them.”

“They’re just… too much. It’s just another day.”

“Hmm. They mean a lot to some people, though. Take Yoongi for example - he’s doing extra work at the shop selling wares, making pieces for Christmas, and trying to finish making toys for the children’s home this year. He hardly sleeps.”

You think about the dark circles under Yoongi’s eyes that morning. “That’s a lot.”

“He could use the help.” She glances at you from the corner of her eye. “You know where the shop is.”

“Yeah.”

Morning fades into afternoon. You find yourself shaking your head around a mouthful of a sandwich with crunchy chips in the middle as your mom settles next to you, placing a glass of iced tea on the table. Your legs are crossed and you lean forward to press greasy, chip fingers into the paper towel you’re using as a napkin.

“She is so stupid if she doesn’t believe him,” you mumble around your mouth full of food. “Like hello? He has no reason to lie to her.”

Your mom's laughter fills the room and she shrugs. Somehow, you’re on your third Hallmark movie, and you haven’t managed to move or do anything productive with your day, like unpacking your bags or looking at the computer room full of the shit that the movers delivered to your mother’s house now that you don’t have a house.

“If she believed him,” your mom says with a sip of tea, “Then there wouldn’t be any drama. And without drama, there would be no movie.”

“Ugh, all of these movies are the same.”

And yet you make no move to turn it off or leave.

When you finish your sandwich and settle back, full and bloated, you realize that you’re rather enjoying just a day watching cheesy movies with your mom. Even if they hit a little close to home on the narrative of your current situation.

But no - you’re different. Your life is real, and you’re stuck without a home and without a place to go. Clenching your jaw, you force the memories and the words to leave. You don’t want to think about the way your ex gently asked if you had somewhere else to go. You don’t want to think about the words I’m sorry. I love you but I’m not in love with you anymore.

I mean, you weren’t either but… marriage still seemed like an okay option. A good social move. Something you’d be content with, even if you weren’t head over heels in love.

“Here,” you hold your hand to her for her empty plates. “I’ll do the dishes.”

Getting away from the TV gives you a second to breathe. The rush of the faucet drowns out the sound of the TV, warm water rushing over your fingers as you run the plates underwater.

Outside, the world is a blanket of snow. You can see Mr. Park across the street shoveling the drive as his wife gets into the car, the taillights kicking on. The grass is frozen, a sea of ice and frozen Christmas decorations.

In the drive, your car is parked next to your mom’s sedan. She hadn’t mentioned that it was delivered, but you don’t know where you would go anyway. You don’t really have any friends to visit. At least, not anyone you’ve kept in touch with enough to call up and go to lunch.

The absence of Yoongi’s truck reminds you that he had been working on the cabinets, drawing your eyes to his craftsmanship as you flip the sink off. With dried hands, you brush your fingers over the lightly stained wood. It’s smooth and cool to the touch, the curves and indents artfully done.

Yoongi had always been an exceptional artist. His passion has been in buildings and even interior design, but you’re not surprised to see that he’s as easily a handyman and woodworker as he is anything else.

You think back to what your mom said about him, alone for the holidays and working hard. A sour taste sits heavy on your tongue as you think about your barbed words.

Chewing the inside of your cheek, you lean against the counter and pull your phone out, flipping through social media until you find his page. There isn’t much in the way of family and friends, but there are plenty of photos of new projects and a beautiful black cat.

I was excited to see you after all this time and catch up.

Heaving a sigh, you push off the counter and announce that you’re going to get dressed to run a few places, telling your mom to make you a list if she needs anything.

Getting dressed is harder than you expect. The urge to crawl back into bed and go to sleep almost wins out, but you somehow manage to pull on the jeans and thick sweater, followed by a scarf and jacket.

There is something empty and strange about the motions. It feels like you’ve forgotten the movement, the slide of clothes foreign to your skin. After two weeks of making phone calls and arrangements for an over-priced hotel bed, you supposed you haven’t gotten dressed much recently.

Picking up the list from your mom and giving her a kiss, you’re out of the door, glancing down at her slanted script. You huff, laughter cut short by the bite of cold wind. Of course everything she needs is from Min’s Hardware, though you had been planning to go by there anyway.

With a deep breath and squared shoulders, you get in the car and think about how the hell to apologize to Yoongi.

Min’s Hardware had its first building expansion when you were in tenth grade. You remember how excited you were when Yoongi told you that his parents bought out the recently emptied arcade next door to add a lumber department. Even in tenth grade, Yoongi had sketched out aisles and systems for the store, layout after layout of the most functional way to accommodate the expansion.

Before opening day, the two of you and some other kids in the neighborhood had run through the aisles, the smell of cedar and pine and fresh sawdust so wonderfully potent it made you dizzy. Yoongi specifically had shown you the different types of wood and pliability, explaining what he would use each for.

By then, it was summer heading into eleventh grade and he had already decided he wanted to be an architect. He had insane drawings for new shopping centers the next city over, and wild renderings of his dream buildings full of avant-garde but functional structures.

From the parking lot, you can see that Yoongi still occupies the same two spaces Min’s has stood in since tenth grade. Except now it shares a parking lot with a Starbucks and Chipotle building, melded together. The line for coffee snakes around the building into the empty parking lot in front of Min’s, a mismatched creature of metal and purring engines.

Icy ground makes you slip a bit before you steady yourself on the door handle, gasp stuck in your chest before you can breathe out slowly, confident that you won’t slide and bust your ass.

From the outside, Min’s looks both the same and different. There is a new sign above the store, now with its own light humming in the dark, gray winter sky. Tinted windows prevent you from seeing inside entirely, but you can see the faint outline of racks as you approach.

Standing in front of the double doors, you suddenly feel the urge to spin on your heel and run in the other direction. If the inside still looks the same, though, the counter is right next to the door, which means if Yoongi is there, he can see you.

Standing. Staring. Looking at the cold, metal handle of the door and not doing anything.

“Rip the bandaid off,” you mutter to yourself.

Yanking the door open startles you, the bell on the door chiming wildly with the force of your pull. It’s the same bell that was here when you were a teen, and a tingle slithers down your back at the memory.

It's warm. The smell of mixed wood hits you, soothing and fresh. To your left is a counter with an elderly gentleman reading a book. He looks up behind the POS system, grinning at you. He’s dressed in a long sleeve shirt with a festive sweater to match the Christmas soundtrack playing over the speakers.

Your eyes flicker to his badge and you fold your lips to stop the giggle that threatens to escape when you look at his name tag: Elf Ian.

“Good afternoon, miss!” he greets, shuffling behind the counter. There’s no one else in the store as you crane your head away from the register, looking at the rows and rows of hardware and things for sale. “How can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m looking for Yoongi?”

“Mr. Min is back in the carpentry section. I can take you there.”

You wave him off with a smile. “No, that's okay, I know the way.”

“Really? You’ve been here before? You look like a new face.”

“It’s been a while,” you admit, admiring the layout of the store, each of the towering metal shelves marked with aisle numbers and departments: electrical, flooring, lighting, hardware, paint, heating and cooling, and so on. It’s not as comprehensive as a Home Depot or a Lowe’s, but Min’s has everything that a small town needs. “Back and to the right?”

He nods with a smile.

The Rockettes play overhead as you wander toward the back of the store. You take the paint aisle, admiring all of the colorful paint swatch papers. Your shoes scuff on the floor, speckled with some paint splatter near the spray section as though some kids got into the supply.

You distinctly remember Yoongi accidentally spraying a bright pink into the air once.

All of the pricing is written in neat, slanted handwriting on thick brown pieces of paper. You pause at the end of an aisle, reaching out to press a finger against one to trace the letters. You recognize the font from years worth of scribbled and pressed flat architecture designs.

The carpentry section has rows and rows of wood of different shapes, sizes, and variety. Behind all of that is a sizable desk for specialty services, and you know that the door leads to a room that houses Yoongi’s woodworking shop. It had once been the bowling alley section of the arcade before Old Man Min bought out the unit.

No one mans the tall, L-shaped desk. There are several binders with types of wood, types of stains, project ideas, samples, and frames. You smile when you see some you recognize, the peeling plastic of the front evidence of old age.

A large counter behind the desk has a few wrapped items that Yoongi must have to be shipped or picked up. There’s a cup of coffee that looks like it’s gone cold, a jar full of wrapped mints for the taking, and a small button that says ‘push for service’ next to the POS system.

Swallowing thickly, you press the button. An automated chime echoes from behind the wooden swing door that leads to the woodshop. Before Yoongi took over, his father used to make furniture, fill custom orders and make repairs. It’s no surprise that Yoongi has opted to take over this portion, especially if he’s making custom orders for the children’s home.

The door swings open, breaking your trance. Yoongi pulls up short, eyebrows raise as he wipes sawdust from his apron. He’s in a sweater and jeans today, the sleeves pushed up to his elbow to help him work and his blonde hair shaggy and a little unruly. The pink sheen on his cheeks and nose is all you need to know he had been working pretty hard.

“Hi,” he offers tentatively, looking you up and down. You hate that he looks so guarded. “Coming to custom order a rocking horse?”

You grin. “Actually I was wondering if you did chairs?”

“Hmmm.” He shuffles toward the counter, dropping his hesitance as he leans on his elbows, a sideways smirk on his face. Despite everything, it makes your stomach flip. “We do all kinds of chairs. Rocking, dining, bar stools, even church pews.”

“Wow, Min’s really is the best and where expectations are beyond the Minimum.”

Yoongi groans and covers his face with his hands, flushed pink as you laugh at him. “That’s not even our jingle anymore, okay? I was a kid when I came up with it.”

“I thought it was cute!”

“Yeah, you thought Jackson was cute in the fifth grade too.”

“Isn’t he on his third kid?”

Yoongi gives a loud laugh. “Sixth, Miss I Failed Algebra Twice. He and Jiah have their hands full, I just dropped off a new crib yesterday.”

You whistle, crossing your arms over your chest. Yoongi looks at you, eyes glittering as he smiles. It does something to you, to see your childhood crush here and happy. It’s at such odds with where you are in your life that you don’t know what to make of it. Even Jackson is married and happy with kids.

“Impressive. You do a lot.”

He hums in agreement and stands up to stretch. “Holidays are always a demand. I’m just trying to keep up to make everyone’s Christmas magical.” You scrunch your nose at that and he frowns. “What?”

“Why does Christmas have to be extra special? It’s just another day.”

He beckons you to come around the counter and to the back as he turns to head for the swinging door. “Come on, Scrooge. Let me spread the magic of Christmas and lead you on your journey to redemption.”

Ignoring the ‘employees only’ sign on the waist-tall swing door that leads to behind the counter, you scoff and roll your eyes. Yoongi stands in the doorway leading to the back, propping it open with a foot for you. As you pass him, the bright light of his shop and the smell of wood stain and chemicals hits you instantly.

“What do I need to redeem myself for?”

He lets the door swing shut and follows you in, taking the lead as he heads towards a table filled with goods. “For whatever you feel like you need it for.”

Yoongi’s words feel ominous and tug at your heartstrings. You suppose you do feel the need to make up for picking a fight with him. Which is why you ended up here in the first place, despite your mother’s list.

The shop is a little different than you remember it, but some things are the same. There are giant slabs of wood to choose from in neat shelving, massive wood-cutting machines and saws with warning labels and plastic cards over serrated metal, tubs of chemicals to cleanse wood and shelves of bottles of different liquids for all of Yoongi’s processes.

At a young age, you were never allowed back in the woodshop. The first day Old Man Min had finally let you come around the corner was just as magical as it feels now. It’s large and daunting, with all of the unfamiliar machinery and the loud hum of an air compressor near the back of the shop.

A wireless speaker stands on a cluttered counter, blaring holiday tunes over the whine of the compressor until the machine kicks off and it’s just the echo of Grandma Got Ran Over by A Reindeer.

“It’s weird being back here again,” you murmur, eyes sweeping the toys and pieces of furniture Yoongi has on a table with a laminated sign: children’s home. “You’re really making all of this yourself?”

“Mhmm.” He leans against the table, crossing his arms. “Someone has to. They needed extra toys this year but specifically, some serious upgrades to the rooms of the residents. I’m doing what I can, free of charge, of course.”

“You’re a saint.”

He puts his hands together in mock prayer and bats his eyes before you break out into laughter. He shrugs and murmurs, “Just someone who wants to help. They deserve good furniture year-round, but especially on the holidays.”

“Since when do you like the holidays so much?”

“Since I’ve started spending them alone.”

The answer hits you in the gut. Hard. You stop admiring the shop to look at Yoongi. There’s a soft openness to his face that unnerves you. Brutal honesty offered in exchange for nothing. No expectation for you to share, but proof that he has enough trust for you - however unearned - to just admit what he feels out loud.

That kind of introspection and understanding of self terrifies you. So instead of sharing something of yourself or offering a gentle word to communicate that you get it, or you’re sorry, you gesture to the table where he has carving knives and pieces of wood. “What are you working on?”

If your shift in conversation bothers him, he doesn’t show it. Yoongi rolls with your stilted punches, turning and walking to the table. “Working on carving some designs into the drawer faces for these nightstands I made.”

“They’re beautiful.”

And they are. Flowers and vines curl on the edges of the wood, perfectly placed in the four corners of the slab. You reach out a hand and hesitate, looking at him to ask permission. He nods and you press your fingers along the grooves he’s carved, following the rough cuts, careful not to get a splinter.

“You’re still artistic as hell.”

“Thanks. It’s hard on my hands and then I have to sand them all with paper to get into the small details which is hell.”

You chew the inside of your cheek. His words about redemption echo in your head: for whatever you feel like you need it for.

“Need help?” He looks at you, surprised by your offer. You’re a little surprised too, but the way that you snapped at Yoongi haunts you and there’s something… else that is gnawing at you and has been since you saw him in your kitchen that first night on your return. “I’m serious.”

“If you want to sand some of these down…”

You nod. “I think I remember how. Do you still keep the sandpaper in that Husky drawer?”

He gives you a crooked grin and nods. “Oooo she remembers. I’m honored.”

You feel warmth in your cheeks. “Tell me what needs to be sanded. I’ll do my best.”

With a smile larger than what you probably deserve, Yoongi quickly rehashes how to hold the sanding paper, the technique he wants you to use, and assigns you a pile of drawer faces. With your project in front of you, Yoongi goes back to his own thing, the steady hammer against his carving tools drowning out any thoughts swirling in your mind.

At first, it’s slow going. Your shoulders are tense and you keep glancing at Yoongi, a little nervous and wondering why you offered to help. It wasn’t what you had intended to do when you walked into the store, but it feels like the best way to say sorry.

It also means you don’t have to audibly admit that you were being weird and embarrassing with him in your kitchen.

Time passes and the tension in your shoulders begins to bleed out. The scritch scritch scritch of the sandpaper in your hands is soothing, the repetitive motions creating a soft buzz in your ears as you zone out on your task.

Focusing on small things has always been a good thing for you. Even when you were little, having something that you could throw yourself into and let your anxieties and thoughts drift away to somewhere far away where they could not hurt you was paramount.

Now, as the time passes without you noticing, thoughts of your cheating ex-fiance and old apartment melt away like ice on a snow drive. it’s just the pressure in your fingertips, manipulating the sandpaper into different folds to get into the creases of the design.

Yoongi’s presence stirs your stomach and heart as you look up. He looks over your shoulder at your work before leaning in close to pick up one of the slabs of wood. He’s removed his gloves and runs his fingers over the designs.

A shiver brushes up your spine as you zero in on Yoongi’s fingers. You have no idea if it’s your newly single status or the fact that it’s Yoongi that makes you stare open-mouthed and hypnotized. His fingers look a little callused from working wood, but you wonder how they’d feel if-

“Not bad,” he hums, giving you a grin before setting down the wood. “I’m pretty impressed. You haven’t lost your touch.”

“Please,” you mutter, looking down at the table and picking at splinters. “I helped you for hours when we were kids.”

“That’s cause I helped you with your math. It’s getting late and I’m a little tired. You hungry?”

You realize that you are. Fishing your phone out of your pocket, you flip it over to see a few texts from your mom and realize that it’s almost seven at night. A sound of surprise escapes you and Yoongi laughs, tapping your elbow gently before walking away.

“Come on,” he insists. “We close early on Sundays. Help me turn all this shit off and close up and we can get food. My treat for helping out.”

“Yes to food, but you don’t have to-”

He waves you off. “Let me do something nice for you, yeah?”

Closing the store feels oddly familiar. While you have never watched Yoongi do it as the owner and operator, there were times as a kid when you finished your homework at the woodshop counter with Yoongi while you waited for his dad to get off and take you home after school.

The Min’s don’t live far from your home and based on your mom calling Yoongi for every little thing, you assume that he lives in his childhood home now that his dad is in a home for elders.

Outside, the world is winter-dark and bitter cold. it’s not snowing, but it’s that dreary in-between that makes everything feel heavy and cold-wet. Yoongi shuffles you toward his truck, both of you shivering and cursing as you slide into the cab and he turns it on, cranking the heat and turning on the seat warmers.

“Nice truck,” you comment. And it is nice. “New?”

“New-ish. Being the owner of Min’s Hardware really has its perks.”

You hum. “So you do own it? Just you?”

He nods, putting the car in drive and heading toward an unknown destination. Yoongi keeps his dark eyes on the road as he says, “Bought it from the Old Man when he decided to go into a senior living facility. He’s up at Retger’s - he loves it - but he wanted to put everything in my name before his mind started slipping.”

“I see.” You pick at the hem of your jacket, something heavy settling in your stomach. “How is he?”

“Happy. They have a great staff and a lot for him to do. His memory is on the downside of things. He always remembers me but he gets confused about his days and when I last saw him or what we talked about.”

“Is that hard?”

You almost kick yourself for the question. It slips out before you can ask, and you think of course it’s fucking hard. It’s his dad.

“It is,” Yoongi admits with a drawn-out sigh. Dead air hangs between the two of you as he navigates the backroads of your home, little streets and turns stitching into your very being. “Not sure what’s worse, though,” he adds, glancing at you. “Knowing that the days are numbered and being able to prepare, or losing him suddenly.”

It’s like a constrictor squeezes your windpipe as you look out the window. You can’t see the stars through the tops of the trees, but you get a glimpse of a swollen moon for a second. It’s beautiful and bright, your new point of focus as you nod.

“I think we can agree that losing a parent is hard,” you offer. “Doesn’t matter how much notice you had.” You hesitate, then go for it. “I haven’t really figured out how to navigate life post-dad. It’s part of why I never come home. I think… I think my mom suffers from it a little.”

For a few moments, Yoongi is silent. You sink further into the seat. Though the admission weighs heavy on you, pressing you down down down into the leather seat, it also feels… good to admit it. Like running a burn under freezing cold water, the sting poignant but soothing at the same time.

“I think that it’s okay to have your own life.” His voice is very quiet and he looks at you sideways. “And that we all deal with grief in a manner of ways. No one begrudges you for it, least of all your mom. I think you should cut yourself some slack.”

“Hmm,” is your only reply.

Orange parking lot lights come into view. You chuckle a bit when Yoongi turns into Mars Diner. It’s something out of a Jetson’s episode, with large metal pieces like Saturn’s tilted rings arching over the building and a sun-bleached rocket blasting into the sky.

The lot is full and through frosted windows, you can make out shapes of people in booths. A few kids hang around outside, leaning against their cars and sitting on tailgates, breath misting in the cold.

Yoongi parks the truck and hops out. You’re quick to follow, shutting the door with a firm click and hiding your hands from the cold in your jacket pockets. The door opens and the bell dings, sound pouring out as a family deposits themself onto the sidewalk.

“Hey there Yoongi,” one of the men says, backing up to hold the door open as the two of you approach. “How’s it going?”

“Hey Scott, it’s going well. How are those new stairs treating you?”

“Sturdy as can be. Thanks again for swinging by to help out.” The man - Scott Ledgfield, you realize - looks at you and squints before he says, “Holy shit kiddo, I haven’t seen you since you were a teenager.”

You look at the town’s local pharmacist with a tight grin, immediately feeling the eyes of his family and friends turn on you, ears pricked by the sound of someone old-but-new returning to the neighborhood. You give a small wave to the people you know.

“Uh,” you stammer. “Just got back. It’s nice to see you, Mr. Ledgefield.”

Your mom’s friend opens his mouth to perhaps ask more but Yoongi shuffles you toward the door and throws a hand in a farewell wave. “Jin will kill us if we keep this damn door open.”

Just as you step into the restaurant in full, the door clanging shut behind you, a familiar voice hollers behind the counter. “Yoongi, don’t keep that damn door open!”

Inside the diner is exactly how you remember it. A round kitchen sits at the core of the building with two large serving windows facing the door. A full, 360-serving counter circles the kitchen with red vinyl stools in front of them, and booths with planet chandeliers over them are full of people looking over laminated menus.

At the helm of it all is Kim Seokjin standing at the register as he rips a receipt out of the machine, grinning as he hands it over to the woman he’s ringing out. There’s a chrome-color apron tied around his waist and he has a rocket ship name tag that says: Captain Kim.

“Wow,” you mutter as Yoongi waits patiently for the couple in front of him to pay. “Jin running this place with his parents now?”

“Mhmm. Kim Senior is in the back still making everything and his mom does all the billing and admin now. Jin does… well, what doesn’t he do?”

“Yes,” Seokjin agrees as the couple leaves and he leans on the counter, a plastic grin on his face. “What don’t I do?” His eyes slide to you. “Huh. I heard you were coming back to town and thought they were bullshitting me.”

“Who is they?”

He waves his hand, before telling another server to jump on the register before he opens a swinging piece of counter open with his hip. “You know, the collective they everyone uses when they’re referencing the entire town.”

“I see.”

Seokjin looks the same as he did in college - broad shoulders, narrow waist, beautiful face and dark eyes that shine with trouble or mirth, depending on who you ask. He gestures to you and Yoongi to follow and you do, heading to the back corner near a frosted window that still has plates and baskets on the table.

“How have you been?” Seokjin asks as he begins collecting the previous diners' things. “Didn’t think I’d ever see you back here.”

“I’m okay. I think it’s just temporary, I haven't worked it out yet.”

“Hmm, we always say it’s temporary and now look at us - Yoongi is running Min’s and I’m one burnt hash brown from being spatula’d by a customer.”

The vinyl covering sticks to your jeans as you try to slide. You’re forced to hop your way into the booth as Seokjin places the dirty plates and dishes on a round platter and grabs a bottle of cleaner from behind Yoongi’s side of the booth.

“Well,” you venture awkwardly. “There’s nothing wrong with being home, right?”

“No,” he agrees and gives you a look that you can’t read. “There’s not.”

Awkward silence hangs in the air at his tone. You chew on your lip and can’t help but feel like somehow you’ve offended him. You weren’t really friends with Seokjin growing up, but he was a friend of friends, and you knew him well enough to attend birthday parties growing up.

Now, you reach for a menu and busy yourself with it as Yoongi clears his throat and asks how business has been with the holiday only a few days away. Seokjin’s tone with you melts away as he answers Yoongi’s question, slinging a towel over his shoulder while chatting.

A girl who looks in her late teens comes over with an order sheet and pen, sending Seokjin back toward the register where someone has a gift card that no one knows how to ring up. He leaves with a roll of his eyes as the server takes your order before scurrying away.

“Don’t let Jin make you feel weird,” Yoongi says airly, looking over the menu. The dim light from Saturn and Uranus reflect in his dark eyes when you peek at him over your menu. “He thinks you have a chip on your shoulder.”

You smack the table with your menu. “Why on earth does he think that?”

“Have some respect for the decor. We’re not on earth, we’re in space.”

“Yoongi.”

“Look,” he sighs, putting his menu down. “When you graduated, you were very hellbent on letting everyone know that you didn’t want to come back. Then you got a very nice job in the city, and did just that and never turned back. Which is fine, I respect the hell out of you for it. But you didn’t talk to anyone, and now that you’re back under… whatever circumstances, you act like being here is going to hurt your reputation.”

“I’ve barely seen anyone while I’ve been here.”

“It’s… the posture and the way you look at everyone.” You frown and he grins, reaching over the table to poke the space between your eyebrows. “It’s that,” He insists. “You look at everyone with a very intense scowl and like you have better things to do. That’s all.”

“Do you think that?”

“Nope.”

“Really?”

He looks up at you, expression soft. “I think a lot of things about you. Having a chip on your shoulder isn’t one of them.”

Before you can unravel the weight of his words and the rush of something you feel in response, the server returns with your glass of hard cider and Yoongi’s dark beer. You mull over his thoughts while he places his order and you rattle off your favorite, which you’re pleased to see is still on the menu.

Quiet settles over the booth as you sip your drink, averting your gaze. He thinks you have a chip on your shoulder.

When you think about it, you realize that you sort of do.

Back when you had graduated high school and went to college just an hour away, you swore you wouldn’t go back and take up a job just to stay close to family and what you always knew. Coming from a small town, you felt like you had yet to see the world or experience anything real.

Even in college, it always felt like you were too close. All the same kids you went to high school with became your apartment neighbors and your university classmates, and everyone went to the same parties and fucked the same people.

It was like watching high school repeat all over again. Bringing home drama from college to the holidays, and then hearing what so-and-so did while they were home from school.

The thought of ever coming back was suffocating. So you took the first job you found that felt like it was lightyears away, stuck right in the middle of corporate America in a screaming city that you could hardly sleep in for the first few months because you were overwhelmed and a little afraid.

City life had become addicting though, and seeing all your little hometown friends go back to mom-and-pop jobs while you climbed the corporate ladder, got engaged and sent really nice presents home as an apology for going to Aspen for Christmas instead of seeing your parents felt powerful and liberating.

And then your dad died on Christmas. While you were out with friends at a resort. That had been the first blow, the first reason to start thinking that the holidays weren’t for being cheerful, or for celebrating or for… anything, really.

With that mindset, you spent the next Christmas with your fiance tucked away in your apartment, just the two of you. It had been your anti-Christmas, doing everything that was the opposite. You watched horror movies and ate popsicles, you decorated your house for Halloween and Valentine's day, you did everything possible to forget that you weren’t home opening presents with your parents - no just your mom now - and it worked.

Now, you’re sitting in your hometown diner across the table from the one person who has always been the exception to the rule, with Christmas music blaring over the speakers and every person wishing you a happy holiday that walks by the table.

A pit opens up inside of your stomach as you stare at the bubbles rushing to the top of your cider. The same, nasty feeling that made you snap at Yoongi in the kitchen rises up instead of you, a hydra ready to grow more heads and become an untamable beast.

“Where did you wander off to?” Yoongi’s question startles you from your thoughts and you look up at him. “You were so caught up I thought you might make your cider explode like Professor X.”

You laugh, surprising yourself. “Did you just make an X-Men reference?”

“Yeah, I still like comics, okay?”

You hum. “I was thinking that…” You take a large swig of your cider to press the tightness in your throat back. “I was thinking that maybe I do have a chip on my shoulder. I just… the holidays honestly bring out the worst in me, and I think I was already sour about being home.”

Like your admission of guilt on the way over, you feel lighter admitting your thoughts to Yoongi. There’s a pause in the conversation as your server puts down a burger in front of him and your chicken sandwich in front of you.

“I think,” Yoongi says slowly as he pops a fry in his mouth and chews thoughtfully. “That it’s really easy for the people here to write off anyone who dares to do a little bit better than what they grew up with. For people like Jin, he always knew he’d come back home. I think it’s equal parts jealousy and wanting respect.”

“I don’t mean to make anyone feel disrespected,” you murmur. “Honestly, my distaste for coming home is more to do with the time of year than anything.”

“How so?”

Between bites of your dinner, you tell Yoongi about how your holidays have been over the last few years. How you stopped going home for them because it felt suffocating to be in a house with parents who didn’t understand anything about your love for being somewhere far away. How you stopped going home because if you stayed away with your friends and coworkers, you didn’t have to see how much they missed you.

All this time, you’d been running from guilt. Especially after the passing of your father. Even the sound of holiday music and the pressure to make plans to visit and buy gifts for people you were now somewhat unfamiliar with was enough anxiety to make the thought of Christmas and all of its bullshit unbearable.

Once your dad died, the thought of the holiday season was even worse. It meant going home and crying on Christmas because it was just you and your mom. It meant getting thinking of your pity text messages instead of well wishes and happy holidays. It meant forgetting a pair of scissors to open gifts because that was your dad’s job, and it meant that there was an inescapable void in your home.

Yoongi settles against the booth, looking at you with sad eyes. But what’s more, there is empathy there. Understanding. You don’t feel pitied or judged by Yoongi and the relief that washes over you as you spill your guts out at your favorite dinner is overwhelming.

You get another round of cider and you tell him about your cheating ex. How you were kicked from the apartment that hadn’t been yours from the start. How it’s one more negative feeling associated with Christmas, and how it was forcing you to go back to a place you wanted to see least of all, during a time you hated. How you… didn’t even care so much that the relationship was over. That you were just angry about having to find somewhere else to live and a little embarrassed that everyone saw it coming but you.

Sipping his beer, Yoongi sighs. “I’m going to say something that I want you to consider, and not take personally.”

You push around a cold french fry on your plate. “No promises.”

His smile is fleeting. “The holidays didn’t steal these things from you.”

The words hang heavy in the air between the two of you.

Elsewhere, the music has turned down a bit. It’s getting later and the dinner rush has faded to a soft hum in the background. The bell on the door chimes less and there are more empty booths than there are full. Seokjin disappears to the back for a much-earned break.

It’s a simple concept that Yoongi has given you and yet you want to fight him on it.

The holidays didn’t steal these things from you. Well no, they hadn’t. But it seemed that your bad luck was recurring, cycling back at the same time every year. Doomed to make your dread stronger and stronger with each passing Christmas.

“That might be true,” you admit. “But it’s not like I’m the only person who hates the holidays. I mean, at least I have a reason and it’s not some sort of anti-corporate America speel.” He opens his mouth but you cut him off. “Which, by the way, is a very valid point. Hallmark makes all of its money on being a Christmas vampire feeding off the people like me who have trouble going home for the holidays. Except I reject it.”

“There is another alternative.”

“And what’s that?”

“Embrace that life fucking sucks but eventually we can figure it out. If we want to and if we have the means.”

“What if we don’t have the means?”

Yoongi gives you a severe look. “Does your insurance cover therapy?” You nod. “Good, you have the means. If healing from this anxiety and guilt is something you’re interested in. Come on, I want dessert.”

Later that night, when you have had an overwhelming amount of fudge and talked to Yoongi about anything and everything that doesn’t involve Christmas or any of the horrible feelings you’ve spilled to him all day long, you lay in bed flicking through your phone on one hand while you hold a thin, plastic card in another.

Squinting as the phone brightness increases when a new webpage is loaded, you manage to find what you’re looking for, typing in your insurance information and answering a few questions before you hit send.

Once done, you set the phone on the nightstand and settle in your bed, heart pounding as you stare up at the ceiling and wonder how fast you’ll hear back on a request for a therapy consultation.

All the while, Yoongi’s words circle round and round in your mind: Embrace the fact that life fucking sucks, but eventually we can figure it out.

You roll on your side and squeeze your eyes shut and dare to hope that maybe Yoongi is right.

A routine nestles its way into your life before you’re aware of it. You get up and go downstairs for breakfast.

Once in the dining room, you have breakfast with your mom, trying not to get queasy over the fact that your dad’s chair remains empty at the head of the table. Sometimes, Yoongi is there in the morning and has breakfast with the two of you. Those days are much easier to fill the silence.

After breakfast, you shower and pick through your belongings, trying to rearrange your old room and make it somewhat adaptable to the lifestyle you had at your apartment. Adjusting to the fact that your mom is up at six in the morning on the dot and is ready for lunch by eleven nearly drives you to the edge, but you manage.

Most days you find yourself wandering to the back of Min’s Hardware and asking if Yoongi needs help. He always seems surprised to see you back, no matter how many days in a row you find yourself there, chewing on the corner of your lip.

The silence that comes with helping Yoongi has become an addiction. You notice that he no longer plays Christmas music in the shop when you’re around, opting for just general pop. You’re both thankful and a little embarrassed, but you say nothing as he gives you projects to sand or stain.

When you’re both tired and your fingers are cramping and worse for wear, you break for lunch. Sometimes you go to your house where your mom has fixed you both a meal. Other times, you pop by the diner where Seokjin gives you lunch on the house.

Seokjin comes around, the more he sees you with Yoongi. You’re still a little extra nice around him, trying to prove that you don’t think you’re better than him. You just… don’t know how to be him. Don’t know how to settle into life like everyone else so easily has.

It’s two weeks in that Yoongi upends your carefully crafted routine by leaning against your workstation - you don’t know when it became yours - and says, “What are you doing for Christmas Eve? I know your mom is volunteering and she said you weren’t but I don’t want to assume you’re… not doing anything.”

Today, Yoongi is in a green sweater and jeans, the sleeves of his shirt wrapped around his hands as he works. His hair is unstyled, showing just how long it’s gotten. It’s darker at the root where his natural color grows in, but even so, he looks beautiful as ever. Unsettlingly beautiful. The kind that makes you a little shy when he puts his full attention on you these days, especially when he shows you how to do something by gently touching your elbow or your wrist.

“Ummm.” You race to think of a response, but the words are sticky in your brain with his proximity. Usually, he does his own things, but every time Yoongi comes close these days, your brain gets a little out of sorts. “I was going to do like my little anti-Christmas thing and watch Halloweentown, I guess.”

“Maybe one day I’ll join you on that. For now, I wanted to see if you wanted to um - join me.”

“Join you what?”

He presses his lips flat and raises his brow at the poorly articulated question. “For Christmas Eve. It isn’t very exciting or anything, but I usually have dinner at the home with my dad. They make a great honey ham and then Seokjin has a party at his house after everyone leaves their family dinners. Alcohol is encouraged.”

“Oh.” You blink once. Twice. “You want me to have dinner with you and your dad?”

Blossom-pink blush spreads over Yoongi’s cheek and nose. You chew your bottom lip as you watch him. He doesn’t meet your eyes as he picks at stray splinters on the table. “I just thought maybe you didn’t want to be alone.”

Yoongi’s words from a few days ago echo in your mind when you asked when he started being such a fan of the holidays: when I started spending them alone.

The thought of spending time with Yoongi with his dad, tucked into a corner of an elderly home with cheesy holiday decorations and staff that talks too gently, and putting on a show for those who feel alone and sad is dizzying. It terrifies you. It makes you want to run.

Which is why you swallow past the stone in your throat and say, “Um. Sure. Yes. I would like to go with you.”

He bites his bottom lip, trying to fight a smile. You clench all over, seizing up at how cute he is when he does that. “Really?”

“Yeah, Min. Really.”

“Wow, you haven’t called me Min in… a min.”

“God that was so cheesy.”

“Mhmm. We’re closed tomorrow because I’m helping out at the children’s home but I’ll pick you up at five Saturday. They serve dinner really early there.”

“Okay.”

Yoongi grins, all gums and round cheeks and shining eyes and for a moment, you forget that you’re supposed to be heartbroken and sour and pitiful. His smile stops everything and you immediately want to say something clever to make him do it again.

Instead, you just nod awkwardly and say, “Okay.”

Piles and piles of clothes litter your floor as you yank on an oversized peacoat and rush to the bathroom to check your outfit. You’ve been through at least fifteen different combinations and messed up your neatly place hair, and you still are unsure what the fuck you’re supposed to wear to a Christmas Eve dinner at an elderly home with the Mins.

You are very out of your depth.

When your phone dings and you see that Yoongi has arrived to get you, you scream in frustration and decide that wide-leg jeans paired with black combat boots, a black turtleneck and an oversized coat will have to do. It’s something you would have worn back in the city, but you’re unsure if it’s a little too casual for this.

Outside, the wind snaps against your face, stinging your nose and lips. You fight the urge to lick your lips and remove the very faint, pink lip stain there as you rush to the truck where Yoongi waves enthusiastically.

Yoongi’s gummy grin warms you more than the heated interior of the cab when you jump into the passenger seat, shuffling the crinkling gift back in your lap as you shiver and stick your hands in front of the air vents to warm them.

“You look nice,” Yoongi says as a greeting, putting the truck in reverse and looking in his mirrors. “What’s the gift?”

“Um-” Embarrassment heats your cheeks immediately. “I uh, got your dad something? I felt sort of weird showing up without a gift. I don’t know. Is that stupid? I can leave it-”

Your name is soft on his lips as he pauses in the middle of the street to look at you. You stop your rambling, staring at him. His eyes are dark pools, glittering in the dying afternoon sun as he smiles at you. His hair is shaggy again today like he air-dried it and the tawny colored coat makes his hair even more vibrant.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Yoongi says gently, smiling. His lips look soft and pink today - well they always look like that, but you notice a little extra today. “That’s not stupid. It’s incredibly kind.”

“It’s - um - I know he used to really love reading all those mythology books and he was fond of the stuff with Odin and Thor? So I got him a Norse mythology one? It had a cool tree on it.”

For a few moments, Yoongi stares at you, unblinking. The truck is in drive, but he has his foot on the brake so it just sits in front of your house collecting little bits of snow. The weight of his gaze threatens to make you melt into the seat. You drop your gaze to the red and green package in your lap, trying to figure out how to explain that the idea was dumb.

“You are incredibly thoughtful.” Yoongi’s voice is so soft you’re almost sure you imagined him speaking at all. You glance up and he has a look you can’t unpack on his face, but it’s something like fondness, perhaps. “He will absolutely love that. I got him an Egyptian one.”

“Are you sure?”

Yoongi takes a hand off the wheel and reaches over the center console to squeeze your hand where it’s gripped tight on the present. His fingers are calloused and rough from the years in the shop, but his touch is soft. Reverent. Your hand feels like it’s tingling even after he lets go and says, “I promise. Thank you. It’ll mean a lot to him, but it means even more to me.”

Still a little nervous and dizzy from the simple touch of his hand, you nod.

Finally, Yoongi pulls into the road and starts driving, quiet as his eyes focus on navigating to the center of town. Music plays softly in the background and you glance out the slightly frosted window.

Outside, families unpack themselves from cars, hurrying in bundles of jackets and loaded with presents to the doorsteps that are cast open for other family members and friends to help them in. Your heart squeezes at the thought and you look away from all of the houses and lights, instead focusing on the lines painted on the road.

It feels like forever ago it was your family casting open your doors to house Christmas Eve with your extended family. But your uncle and his wife had long since moved away, and their kids had their own kids to celebrate with, and though the invitation was probably there for you and your mom to visit, it felt weird being with your dad's family when your dad was… not around.

“Dad may or may not remember you,” Yoongi hums as he drives. “I think he will because he’s good about people from the past, but he might not get your name right. I don’t correct him because it can confuse and frustrate him, so just go with whatever if you can.”

“Of course. I’ll just follow your lead.”

From the corner of your eye, you can see that he drives with one hand on the wheel, one hand hanging off the center console where he leans on his elbow. “He has a little trouble with train of thought, just let him get it out. He hates when you try and finish sentences for him.”

You smile. “He’s always hated that. You were the most impatient son ever.”

“Well, practice has made perfect. I’m a changed man.”

“Uh-huh.”

The home is covered in holiday decor as you expected. Cars line the lot of what would look like apartment buildings if the sign out front didn’t indicate that it was a senior living center. Honestly, they look better than most of the apartments you’ve had in the city, a single reminder that everything is so much more affordable when you step out of your self-made comfort zone.

Ice and snow crunch beneath your boots in the parking lot. The two of you hurry along, shivering and laughing in the cold. Yoongi surprises you when he pulls you in by the waist, pressing you to his side to walk in a quick, albeit warmer, huddle to the main building.

Warmth hits you in the face and melts back the cold as you step inside, a shiver racking up your spine. There’s a massive Christmas tree in the lobby with a ‘donated’ sign in the front thanking a local company for the tree, and there are hand-crafted ornaments that from another sign, inform you they were made by the children in the orphanage on the other side of town.

Christmas music tinkles lightly overhead as Yoongi leads you to a counter where a woman with a Christmas vest and a bright smile greets him enthusiastically. It’s obvious that she’s familiar with him as she rattles off how his dad has been doing, scribbling his name on a tag with a candy cane heart and handing it over to him.

Tag in hand, Yoongi awkwardly shuffles to the side to reveal you to the woman behind the desk, whose name tag says Esther. Her eyes go round and her mouth forms a small ‘o’ when she sees you, surprised that Yoongi has brought a guest. You hate to admit that you feel a little pleased if it’s not common for him to bring other people here.

Ignoring that, you give her your name and she hesitates, glancing at Yoongi. He nods his head with a tiny frown before she scribbles your name onto the tag and hands it over to you, an unreadable expression now on her face.

“Enjoy.”

Sticking the tag on your jacket, you glance at Yoongi as he leads the way toward the common room where they’re having dinner. “Well, I don’t think she likes me.”

He hums noncommittally and you say nothing more, following his twists and turns until you’re in a large common area nearly bursting at the seams with Feliz Navidad and tinsel. There are people of varying ages inside sitting around pop-up round tables and folding chairs. Red and green plastic table clothes cover the tables, little gift-wrapped boxes act as centerpieces. There’s another tree donated in the corner by Min’s, making you poke Yoongi’s side and gesture to the tree.

Shy, Yoongi shrugs and scurries away from you, spotting his dad sitting on a sectional looking up at the glittering tree. You hesitate to follow, a little lost as you watch Yoongi call his dad’s name gently, catching his attention. They look so much alike that it’s dizzying to watch as his dad stands up, bringing Yoongi into a tight hug.

You clench your jaw, willing the sudden burning in your eyes to go away. You feel your palms sweat and your throat constricts, making you look away from them as they hold each other by the shoulders, exchanging greetings that you can’t hear from the middle of the room.

All around you are people with their moms and dads. The room is crushed with holiday cheer, held hands, kisses on cheeks and tight hugs. You start to realize this was a terrible idea, excuses and ways to leave flipping through your mind like a Rolodex when Yoongi calls your name.

Turning to face them, you feel like a deer in headlights. Eyes wide, mouth agape, frame tense. Yoongi gives you a nod as he leads his dad to you. Old Man Min walks well enough, and is a little shorter than Yoongi with peppered hair, kind eyes and a knitted scarf that looks like something perhaps your mom made.

“You look just like your father!” His dad greets, throwing open his arms when he sees you. Your stomach drops to your ass at the declaration, but you force a smile, bending down a bit to hug him quickly. “I haven’t seen you since… I last saw you!”

That makes you laugh. “It’s nice to see you.”

“I’m just glad Yoongi finally brought you! I’ve been asking to see his girlfriend for two weeks!”

“Dad,” Yoongi admonishes giving you an apologetic look. “She’s… not.”

Old Man Min waves him off as he heads towards the serving line where there is an array of holiday-themed catered food. “I’m starving. I’ve been waiting here all damned afternoon!”

“Sorry,” Yoongi whispers as he goes by you, upping his pace to keep up with his dad who has his sights set on food. “He does remember you very well, by the way.”

Ignoring hot coal burning in the pit of your stomach at the comparison to your father, you shuffle in line behind Yoongi. All of the workers behind the table serving recognize him immediately, brightening and greeting him with dazzling smiles and heart eyes.

Next to him, you raise your brows and watch as he shyly interacts with them all, answering the same questions over and over and thanking them for putting on a wonderful dinner. They bask in the shower of his praise until he leans over to you and insists you get the mac and cheese. Yoongi doesn’t notice the shift, but you do, the staff immediately stiffens and goes quiet when they see you interact.

At a table tucked in the corner for just the three of you, you dig into your meal, answering all of Old Man Min’s questions he throws your way. They’re easy to answer: what do you do now, how is your mom, when did you come back. Some of the questions he repeats on accident or drifts off when asking, but you don’t mind, chewing around mac and cheese and waiting for him to get it out, or repeating your answer with the same vigor as before.

Yoongi seems nervous at first, neglecting his food to look back and forth between the two of you. You nudge him gently under the table and his dark eyes fall on you. You give him a face, trying to convey that you’re okay and he grins sheepishly, looking down at his meal and deciding it’s safe enough to start eating.

“So how did my son finally start dating you?” his dad demands, sipping his sweet tea. “I thought he would finally ask you out in high school and then… uh college, but he never did!”

“Dad,” Yoongi starts gently, but you’re quick to cut him off, touching Yoongi’s arm gently as you smile at his dad. “Recently,” you explain. You glance at Yoongi with narrowed eyes. “Didn’t know he had a crush on me in high school, though.”

“Ha! Of course he did! Why do you think he always wanted you over at the shop? Sure were over there than uh… what’s that girl's name? Jan’s daughter.”

“Jessa,” Yoongi offers softly, not meeting anyone’s eye as he becomes interested in pushing honeyed ham around his plate. “Dad you’re embarrassing me.”

“Yeah, Jenna! She was never at the shop nearly as much as you. Nice girl, not you though.” He stabs a piece of ham and shakes his head. “Always knew you’d be the one. Your dad and I were always sure of it.”

Yoongi tenses but you smile at Old Man Min. “Really?”

“Mhmm. Your dad was a hell of a guy! I remember back when we were in high school…”

Yoongi’s dad launches into a tale of when he and your father were kids and you’re shocked to discover that the unsettling feeling in your stomach starts to fade. You listen, chin in your palm and elbow propped on the table as you sip on cider to the adventures of your dad in his youth.

The wound stings a little but… it’s bearable. And it’s nice, to see Yoongi’s dad come alive and recall so many things from his own childhood. The color on Yoongi’s face and the way he keeps trying to hide his smile in the collar of his jacket says everything about how pleased he is to see his dad happy and healthy.

Almost without thinking, you reach over under the table and take Yoongi’s hand, giving it a squeeze. He looks up at you, brows raised. You can’t help but smile, really glad that he brought you here. Somehow, it is exactly what you needed.

Yoongi squeezes your hand back, making your heart pick up. As you start to pull away, he snatches your hand back, lacing your fingers and squeezing. You stare at him, surprised and flustered and feeling a little breathless as he settles in his chair, refusing to look at you as he holds your hand in his lap, engrossed in the tale his father is weaving.

With a nervous exhale, you lean back in your chair, content with the warmth of his hand and whatever the hell sparks with his touch.

Seokjin is very drunk and very happy to see you when he throws open the front door to his incredibly nice home in the new, gated community just beyond your old high school. The two-story home is full of warmth, people from your high school and college, and a lot of booze.

Immediately you’re uneasy, smiling awkwardly at the shocked faces of your old peers. Yoongi is heedless, though, keeping a hand on yours as he leads you through the party. You’re distracted by the firmness of his hold on you, the way it makes your head spin, the way that you don’t know what holding his hand means, but it’s nice.

And then you’re in the kitchen, pressed close to his side as you field questions from old friends that aren’t as much friends as they are nosy people from your past. No one asks about your handholding, but the way they glance down to where Yoongi has your fingers laced with his is enough to know it’s all anyone is going to talk about in whispered circles and for the next two weeks.

If Yoongi is bothered by this, he doesn’t show it. You however, are very in your head. The loose, happy feeling you had at dinner with his dad is replaced with stiff movements, quiet murmurs of hellos and asking how are you to people you don’t really care about, and cringing when a group of people pass by caroling room to room.

Yoongi senses the way you freeze up, the way you press yourself into the pantry as though you could melt into the wood and remain unseen. He tugs you toward a glass sliding door where there is a patio filled with smokers, all of them shivering and breathing smoke and steamed breath into the string lighting.

Going past them, Yoongi tugs you down into the back of the yard and to a gate. People whistle behind you and Yoongi throws a middle finger over his head, uncaring. He throws the latch and squeezes through the gate, so you follow.

Behind Seokjin’s house is a lake with a lit fountain, frozen and off for the winter season. He trudges toward it and sits down on damp grass, patting the spot next to him. Tentatively, you sit down and look over at him.

“Sorry.” His breath fogs in the cold. “I didn’t think about how shitty that might feel for you before inviting you.”

“It’s okay. I just… don’t really know how to answer their questions.”

“What do you mean?”

You pull at frozen grass to distract yourself from having to look at him. “I mean, I just broke up with my fiance a few weeks ago because I caught them cheating and now I show up to a party where everyone thinks I’m a stuck up holding your hand.”

“Not everyone thinks that.” You give him a look and he amends, “Okay, a lot of people do but not everyone.”

“Great.”

“If they saw you the way I do, they definitely wouldn’t think that.” You shoot him a questioning look as your heart beats a little bit faster. Your nerves start to tingle as you watch him figure out how to phrase what comes next. “You have no idea how nice it was to have you with me tonight. I’ve been doing that alone for years and I love spending time with my dad, but having someone else there to take the pressure off and to see him happy was… fuck it was really nice.”

The icy core around your heart that began to scrape itself together once you entered the party melts just a little bit. You chew on the inside of your cheek, unsure what to say. Thankfully, Yoongi continues. “I know you don’t like the holidays because it reminds you of being home and everything you want to get away from, and of the bad things that happened to you. I didn’t like them for… fuck, for years.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. They sucked without my mom, but it wasn’t so bad because we’d come to spend time with you guys or go over to the Kims. My dad made it work, and even though it felt like a fucking gut punch those first few years after my mom died, I sort of adjusted.”

“And then?”

He sighs heavily, looking up at the moon. “And then dad’s old age happened. The man you got tonight was… man, it was good. He was great tonight, happy and present and vibrant. It’s not always like that though - it’s usually not. There are a lot of times when he might forget my mom is gone or might forget that he sold the shop to me and thinks he has to go to work and… it was really hard at first. Trying to make that adjustment.”

“You’re so patient, though.”

“I wasn’t always. Around the holidays I was trying to run the shop and visit him so he wouldn’t feel alone and deal with my own grief about how fucking alone everything felt. There wasn’t anyone to relate to and I was just…” Yoongi shrugs and runs a hand over his brow. “Honestly, I wasn’t very nice for a bit. It was really frustrating to learn new ways to talk to him and I just… hated everyone.”

Fuck you know how it feels. You look at Yoongi as he stares out at the frozen lake. You would never guess that Yoongi, who makes so many different things in his spare time for the holidays could be mean. Yoongi, who eats something different every time you go to Jin’s diner. Yoongi, who chased a stray cat around your backyard until he could bring it in and warm it up inside before taking it over to the shelter. Yoongi who has been unwaveringly kind, and invited you to Christmas Eve dinner so you wouldn’t be alone.

When you were teens, you could have bought that story. He had always been a little standoffish and hard around the edges. You were always in his inner circle, a rare witness to the way that he could melt for the people that he cared about. But the Yoongi of now does not seem like someone who hates the world like Yoongi of then had the potential to - and did.

It doesn’t make sense, this Yoongi that he talks about in the past and the Yoongi that you see in front of you. The Yoongi in front of you is gentle, kind, and soft with those around him. He never raises his voice, he is gentle with customers, and he often pulls more weight than he should at his own store to take the pressure off his employees.

“What changed, then?” you ask, desperately seeking an answer. In him, you see what you want to be. The calmness, the confidence in who he is and what he’s doing. He’s not drowning in his grief, or trying to reconcile a cacophony of feelings. At least, it doesn’t seem like it.

“Therapy, for starters,” he laughs and gives you a look as he lays back in the grass. You join him, feeling the cold sink into your coat, but you don’t care. You like laying here with him under a blanket of frozen stars with the muted sounds of the party just beyond the wooden gate.

He continues, “But also a lot of introspection and a lot of self-hate. This version you have of me now? It’s gone through a lot of pain and suffering and reconciling with myself. It’s not an easy process, but it is worth it. And it started with me not blaming Christmas for things that were just… beyond my control.”

“Fuck, so I have to apologize to Santa? I’m not even religious.”

Yoongi’s breath turns to fog as he laughs. You watch the way his eyes crinkle, shining with mirth under the gray light of the moon. He glows under the night sky – cheeks frozen-blush, lips chapped a little from the winter wind, nose cherry read. Droplets of dew cling to his long hair, a crown of diamonds on a prince spun from moonbeams.

At least, that’s what it feels like as you watch his laughter settle. Yoongi smiles up at the sky and that tight feeling constricts in your chest again. This version of him is so much softer than the teenager you remember. Warm at the edges, melted with a lifetime of experiences that have thawed that hard exterior.

Something like envy slithers through you. Envy that Yoongi has long healed from his hurts. That he seems to have settled here he is now, in happiness and knowing his path. He doesn’t have everything but he has enough, and as he turns to look at you, dark eyes sparkling, you can’t help but avert your gaze.

You don’t want him to see the inside of you.

“It’s more about Christmas as a concept,” Yoongi sighs, looking back up at the sky. Marshmallow clouds drift across a midnight canvas. You can only make out the brightest of stars here, the light pollution dimming the effect. “I’m not religious either, but the effect that the holidays can have on people is touching. Heartwarming. People love others a little extra.”

“Yeah, well they should do that year-round.”

“Small steps, small steps. Maybe it’s an open conversation at a dinner, or maybe it’s someone seeing family they haven't seen in a while. There are so many opportunities for love and warmth and chances to open your heart.”

“You sound like a Hallmark commercial.”

“Make fun of me all you want,” he chuckles. “I know it sounds idealistic and a little bit naïve. But I’ve experienced too much sadness to keep thinking that’s all there is, and I’ve seen people’s lives change around the holidays. It’s special.”

You hum. “Why wait until the end of the year for all of that so-called happiness, then?”

“Life is hard - like really fucking hard. Sometimes when the end of the year is staring you right in the face, or when you're realizing it may be your last Christmas with an aging loved one is the push people need to brave that first step to being happy.”

“You’re celebrating procrastination.”

Yoongi sighs. He rolls over on his side and props his head up with his hand. You feel a flush of warmth curl through you under the weight of his full attention. Suddenly the cold hard ground you’ve opted to lay on doesn’t feel so bad.

“I’m celebrating people being moved to do something.” His tone is gentle. You glance at him from the corner of your eye. He seems thoughtful, bottom lip tucked between his teeth. “I’m celebrating that sometimes the holidays are the worst time for people. But something small will happen to make them feel even a moment of happiness. Just one small second of relief from the fucking madness.”

You think about everything that’s happened in the last few weeks. A tightness constricts your throat and you try to swallow past it. It takes you a few moments, but you imagine what it would be like to have just a fucking second to catch your breath. To have a moment of pure, unfiltered happiness.

“I just…” Yoongi’s voice is barely above a whisper. “I want people to be happy. And it feels like maybe this time of year has more potential than most. So that’s what I celebrate. Not the gift and the capitalism and the hypocrisy of it all. But the little seconds in between.”

A long, slow breath of air leaves you. You watch it steam and curl toward the sky before fading. “Well, Yoongi. I wish I was nearly as optimistic.”

“Maybe you can be.” You glance at him and see him smiling. “Just give me a chance to persuade you, yeah? My work seems to be paying off so far.”

“It is. I have an appointment to talk to a therapist in three weeks. It’s just an introductory thing, but…”

“That’s great, honestly. I don’t want to say I’m proud of you because that’s pretentious and you’re not doing this for me, but I really hope it helps.” Silence settles between you. It isn’t uncomfortable, but you are cold, despite the warmth that blooms when he studies your face. “Wanna go inside and drink a fuck ton of wine and then Irish exit?”

“Fuck yeah,” you laugh, letting him help you to your feet.

Back inside of the party, you do just that. Yoongi plies you with sweet, red wine until there’s a cotton-soft buzz in your body. You’re a little bit nicer to people who still whisper when you walk by, and you even let Seokjin drag you into a single karaoke performance of Baby It’s Cold Outside.

It’s already embarrassing to show how horrible you are at singing, but to make matters worse, you cannot stop glancing over at Yoongi who leans against the wall of the living room, a plastic wine up in his hand, dark eyes focused only on you.

Heat pools in your lower stomach at his gaze, watching it darken by the minute. You do not miss when Jessa - who Old Man Min has dubbed Jenna - approaches Yoongi tentatively. And yet he is dismissive, the overly-warm and kind exterior replaced with something sharper. Hungrier.

And his focus is entirely on you.

When you finish the song and wander over to him, breathless, he keeps his eyes pinned on you. Fathomless pools that draw you in until you feel like you’re falling falling falling, weightless and breathless. No one has ever looked at you like that. Not even your fiance.

“What?” you ask, voice shaking as you lean against the wall, face tilted up toward him. You feel warm and wine-slow all over, limbs heavy and comfortable. Your lashes flutter when you slow blink at him. His lips are stained red from wine. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

“What way?”

Embolden by sweet wine, your talk on the lawn and your innocent hand holding, you huff. “In a way that makes me want to be stupid and kiss you.”

“That would make you stupid?”

You drop your gaze and press the rim of your plastic cup to your lips. “I don’t know,” you admit. “I kind of want to do it, but I don’t… know?”

His voice is lower and deeper, soft against your sense as he leans in a little. “So you want to kiss me?” You nod. “But you don’t know if you want to kiss me?”

“I don’t want you to think it’s… I haven’t been single for long. I don’t want you to think that of me. It isn’t because of that. I’ve wanted to for like years and - yeah.”

“I already told you. I think a lot of things of you. That isn’t one.” His gaze flickers around the party. You don’t realize how close he is until he turns back to you, warm breath fanning against your head. “How about we do our exit now and talk about that kiss where there’s not so many eyes, hmm?”

Mutely, you nod at him. Now you definitely want to kiss Yoongi. He’s gone from the soft, gummy-grin man full of holiday cheer to a darker, calm version of himself that is new. Confident. And quite frankly toe-curling.

Yoongi wraps his fingers around yours and leads you to the exit, saying nothing to anyone that you pass by. Then you’re out in the cold and he’s unlocking the truck, popping open your door and pulling you toward it.

“Are you okay to drive?”

“Very,” he promises, voice raspy. “I only live across the stoplight, remember?”

“Ohhh.” You get into the passenger seat, leaning your head on it and looking at Yoongi, who is momentarily propped against your door. “You’re taking me home?”

He leans forward, eyes dropping to your mouth as he mutters, “Uh-huh.”

And then he’s kissing you and the entire world fades into the background.

Yoongi’s lips are just as soft as you imagined. You sink into the kiss, leaning forward into the heavenly press of his mouth. Everything shifts, the dizziness of the wine mulling into dizziness of Yoongi - the way he smells like cedar and rose, the way he presses your mouth open with his, the way he tastes like sweet notes of wine.

The soft brush of his tongue against yours makes your thighs squeeze together. He’s slow as he kisses you, taking his time to suck your tongue into his mouth, rolling his over yours languidly and fuck you’re going to die from just a kiss.

Yoongi pulls back and you whine, hands going to the collar of his jacket and pulling him back, missing the warmth of his mouth, the gentle pull of your lip between his teeth. “More,” you whisper, pressing your lips to his.

His chuckle buzzes through your mouth, a gentle tingle as you pull at his bottom lip with your teeth playfully. He groans as he kisses you, a little sloppier, with a little more tangled tongues and spit. The wet smack of his mouth against yours is interrupted when someone’s dog starts barking in one of the yards, startling you.

“Fuck,” he laughs, voice husky. “In your seat, come on. Let’s go.”

“Meh.”

He grins and pushes your leg back into the cab of the truck. “Greedy.”

Yoongi shuts the door and rounds the hood. Your eyes are glued to him as he gets in, your heart pounding in your chest as he starts the car. It occurs to you that you just kissed Yoongi. Min Yoongi, the one person you’ve been spending time with since you got back. The one person who you thought about late at night when your fiance was asleep and you were chasing thoughts of your past.

The one person who seemed to be willing to look a little deeper. To see that the poison inside of you wasn’t because you didn’t like anyone, or because you thought that you were better. It was because you were afraid and sad and didn’t know how to deal with anything.

Wordlessly, he reaches over the center console, placing his hand on your thigh and giving it a squeeze. You shut your legs, stomach clenching at the feeling of his fingers brushing gently over your jeans. When you look at him, there’s a sideways smirk on his face and you know he knows that your stomach is flipping over the simple touch.

It feels like the drive lasts a thousand years. You’re squirming in the seat as Yoongi’s thumb brushes back and forth, giving you a squeeze now and again accompanied by a grin. You can’t help but smile back, heart in your fucking throat as you see all of the familiar houses pass you by.

The Min home is exactly like you remember it but with less cars. Yoongi parks in the drive, popping open the garage with the press of a button to reveal a workshop of tools, shelves for storage and a flickering overhead light that has been faulty since you were in middle school.

Outside, Yoongi reaches for your hand, pulling you close as you pass under the garage and toward the door that opens up into a white-tiled kitchen. The hum of the closing door follows you in as he flicks on a light, revealing a large kitchen with oak cabinets and a counter full of mail, a catch all, and various containers of sugar, and coffee and other items.

Yoongi chucks his keys and shuffles out of his jacket, tossing it on the counter and turning to you. He gives you a cunning smile and beckons you. There’s no denying his summons, your feet pulling you toward him automatically as he catches you by the waist, pulling you into his chest as he brushes his mouth against yours again.

Somehow, it feels normal to be doing this. To press your palms against his chest as he lounges lazily against his kitchen counter, one hand on your waist and one hand on the side of your neck as he tilts your mouth to his, kissing you hungrily. Like he’s waited an entire lifetime to do this.

The thought makes you pull away suddenly. You look up at him, his face flush and lips kiss-bitten and spit-slicked. His eyes flutter open, looking down at you half-lidded and dazed. “Hmm?”

“Did you really have a crush on me?”

He snorts and rolls his eyes, tilting his head backward until it hits a cabinet. The hand on your neck is firm, a steady weight that sends your thoughts wild when his thumb brushes back and forth across the skin of your over-warmed throat.

“Of course I did. You paint so much of my life, you have no idea.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Cause I was terrified. I wasn’t very honest with myself back then, there was no way I could be honest with you. Then after college you got that nice ass job and I realized I was coming back home and I couldn’t go with you.”

“Even in college?”

“Yeah,” he whispers to the ceiling. “Even in college. I had this big idea to maybe tell you when we graduated. I was going to work at that new startup I told you about - it was only thirty minutes away from you. And then that didn’t happen and…” He shrugs. “I realized we weren’t on the same path. It seemed pointless.”

You stare at him for a few moments, thoughts flicking through your mind at a blinding pace. Yoongi had liked you in high school. In college. Had put off telling you because he didn’t think you’d be interested enough to stay, or to figure it out or to-

“I’d have dated you anyway,” you murmur. Carefully, you move a strand of blonde hair from his eyes when he looks down at you in surprise. “Yeah,” you laugh when you see his face. “Yoongi, I was totally head over heels for you in high school and in college. And then you dated Jessa and I just figured it would be embarrassing to tell you later so I just didn’t say anything.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. Those first few months when you never texted me that you had settled in at your new job I figured you had new friends or just didn’t have time for me. I didn’t even…” You sigh. “I didn’t realize you didn’t move there. I was too nervous to look at your social media.”

“I barely update it anyways.”

“I know. It’s all your cat.” That piques your interest and you pull away from him, looking around. “Where is your kitty? I want to see.”

“I love that you are excited about my cat, but I would like to request that we look for him later. I have other things I wanna do.”

“Oh?”

Yoongi’s gaze is dark when you look back at him. Your fingers tighten in his shirt, going still under the razor-sharp look he gives you. “Yeah,” he confirms. “I want to show you how fucking bad I wanted you - do want you. And I don’t want you to think I’m just saying all this, or that I’m using a moment of weakness. Since you walked into the kitchen that night, I have not been able to stop thinking about every second of my life that I liked you. That I wanted to kiss you. That I wanted to fuck you until all you could think about was the way I felt.”

“Yoongi.”

“Hmm?”

“I would like that very much.”

Yoongi’s smile is dazzling, completely at ends with how he just said he wants to fuck you but you don’t care.

Especially when he gives you a chaste kiss to the mouth. Once. Twice. And leads you through the home that you already know. His bedroom is on the opposite side of where his parents slept, and when he opens the door to reveal a room lit by a single salt lamp, you almost expect it to be covered in drawings of buildings and filled with canvas prints of famous buildings around the world and sheets designed like graph paper.

Instead, you’re surprised to see an elevated room with newly painted, limewash walls, a heavy desk tucked into the corner with leather portfolios and neatly stacked papers, dark linen sheets folded neatly on the bed with several pillows - including decorative - against a beautiful headboard with a keen design you know is his.

The room looks lived in and elegant, and it smells like the sage and jasmine reed diffuser in the corner.

“You’re fucking hot,” you blurt, startling yourself and Yoongi. “Like your room is - adult. And you made that desk and headboard right? Fucking-” You look up at him and shake your head. “It’s really hot that you do all of these things.”

“Wow. Just the room does it for you, huh?”

You shove him playfully and he falls back on his bed, sitting with a soft bounce. He opens his legs and leans back on his palms, eyes drifting up and down your frame. He smirks, cool confidence making your hands shake as you take a step forward, suddenly feeling far more nervous than you ever have around him.

“Come here,” he purrs, lifting a hand and patting his thigh.

In a trance, you compy. Carefully you crawl into his lap, knees pressed into the mattress on either side of his waist as you settle your ass between his legs. His hands wrap behind you, pressed into the small of your back as he leans forward, catching your mouth with his. He pulls your coat from your shoulders, dropping it to the floor as you settle your hand around his neck, sliding your fingers through his hair.

Kissing Yoongi makes the world stop. Here, in his bedroom, in his lap, nothing else matters. It doesn’t matter that you’re living in your mom’s house again. It doesn’t matter that you have to figure out what to do about a new place to live. It doesn’t matter that a teeny-tiny part of you was relieved to find your fiance cheating. It doesn’t matter that you were more mad about being kicked out of the apartment than anything else.

All that matters is that something slides into place when Yoongi leans back, letting you fall onto his chest. You giggle into his mouth, letting the slide of your tongues and lips lull you into a sense of longing that you’ve harbored for years without realizing it.

You’re drowning in Yoongi. Your lungs are full of him, sending you gasping into his mouth when he rolls your hips against his, the friction sparking a fire in you. You’re completely lost in him, drifting further and further his mouth places hot, wet kisses on your jaw and neck.

It never occurred to you that you could want someone - Yoongi - this badly. You tremble on top of him as his fingers pull your shirt from the waistband of your jeans, fingers seeking the warmth of your skin.

Breathing becomes difficult, your lips ghosting across the tender skin of his neck, nipping lightly as his calloused fingers brush across your hips, digging in as he rocks you against him. You can’t help but shiver at the feeling of arousal in your stomach, fingers quaking as he lets out a soft moan next to your ear.

Gently, Yoongi rolls the two of you over, slotting himself between your legs and pressing his clothed hard-on where you want him most. You look up at him as he pushes his hair out of his eyes, skin flushed and full of warmth and want. He is beautiful.

Something in you blooms, hungry and feral. You grab his hands and pull them to your chest, squeezing his palms under yours. He grins, getting the hint as he gives your tits a gentle squeeze, working a light moan from you.

“You always had great tits,” Yoongi admits, thumbs circling the gentle hint of nipples through your shirt and bralette. You squirm under his touch and his grin grows wider. “Yeah? Sensitive, hmm?”

“Yes.”

With a pleased hum, Yoongi removes your shirt. It’s cold in his room, but he’s quick to bend down, his hands rubbing up and down your sides, chasing away the goosebumps as he looks up at you, mouth hovering over a peaked nipple.

Slowly, Yoongi flicks his tongue over your nipple. The sensation makes you kick against the mattress, the stimulation something but not nearly enough. You want more, your hands shooting to his forearms and digging your nails in.

Yoongi huffs, warm air gusting over your skin as he gives you what you want, lowering his mouth and wrapping it around your nipple, soaking the fabric of your bralette. Your eyelids flutter shut, one of his hands holding himself up and the other ghosting along your ribs back and forth, making you shiver repeatedly.

Pulling away, Yoongi plucks your nipple playfully with his teeth, making you squeal from a pinch of pain but a flood of pleasure. You feel lightheaded, teetering on the border between present and somewhere far away and he’s barely even touched you.

“You okay?” Yoongi asks. You realize his lips are ghosting against your chin. “You look a little dazed. We can stop.”

“No.” You shake your head, trying to dispel the fog and blinking down at him. “No it’s - it feels good. It’s hard to think when you touch me I just-” The words are stuck in your mouth and you squeeze your eyes shut.

He kisses your nose gently. “You just what?”

“I’m just really into it and it makes me feel all floaty and out of it but present. I don’t know. It’s overwhelming but good.”

“Do you want to keep going?” You nod. “Okay. You can stop at any time, okay? You ever used safe words?”

“No.”

He kisses you sweetly on the forehead, mouth drifting south until he’s nosing you lightly. His next words come out mumbled against your mouth, the hum sending a soft buzz through your lips. “Tell me a word we can use if you need to stop. No matter what we’re doing, the moment you feel uncomfortable, you use the word.”

“Christmas?”

He snickers and presses his forehead against you. “Fine, Christmas is fine.” He pecks your lips. “Okay.” He pulls your hand from your face, giving you a gentle, innocent kiss to the lips. It helps settle you a little. “Tell me what you like.”

“Umm.” Yoongi places butterfly kisses along your jaw, teeth nipping you lightly. You curse and feel your eyes roll back in your head as he sucks at your skin greedily, one of his hands coming up to brush a thumb back and forth over a nipple. “I don’t know.”

“No?” He pinches your right nipple and you moan loudly, earning a smile against your kiss-slicked neck. “You must like something. Do you like it slow? Rough? Messy? Do you like being choked? Hands above your head? Or in control?”

You shake your head. “Want me in control?” You nod. “Got it.” His hand drifts up to your neck and gives the sides a gentle squeeze. A thrill shoots through you and you lean up into him, nodding. “Yeah? Like having my hand around your throat?”

“Yes. I like…” Your words trail off for a moment as you think through the haze of Yoongi’s rasping voice and mouth. “Umm hard but sort of slow?”

“Mhmm.”

“And messy. Messy is good.”

Yoongi gives a satisfied hum. His hand leaves your nipple, brushing down your heated skin toward the apex of your thighs. He presses his fingers firmly over your clothed pussy, not nearly enough friction with underwear and jeans in the way. “And what about being eaten out? Do you like that?”

“Yes.”

You feel his smile against your throat. “Thank fuck. I’ve been dying to taste this fucking pussy.”

Suddenly you’re glad you have a safe word. Yoongi’s words send a fresh wave of arousal straight to your core, a moan leaving your lips as he worships your skin with his mouth. It feels like you could fall headfirst into him and never stop falling. The tension in your stomach is so tight you nearly snap when he unbuttons your jeans, everything he does is so overwhelming that there is almost an urge to cry.

It’s hard to piece together why you feel like this. Why there is an inferno screaming inside of you, begging to be let out. Why the press of Yoongi’s fingers over your damp panties nearly sends you into a blackout, why when he circles your clit through the fabric you let out a strangled noise.

But you think… maybe you know what it is.

Instead of thinking too hard about it, you focus on the way you’re short of breath. The way that your entire body is vibrating with energy. You look down to where Yoongi is on his knees between your legs, dark eyes looking up at you intently. His hands skate up and down the soft flesh of your inner thighs, squeezing periodically.

Way back when, you were always nervous letting people between your legs, letting them see the most intimate parts of you up close. It was anxiety-filled and you were constantly nervous about being wrong - or just. Anything.

But when Yoongi drops his gaze down to where your underwear sticks to your folds and lets out an appreciative curse, there’s no anxiety at all. Just a desire for Yoongi to make you his. For you to dig your fingers into him and make him yours.

Flashing you a wicked grin, he leans forward and gives a slow, wet lick over your panties. “Oh fuck,” you gasp, back arching and thighs twitching shut a little. The stimulation is more, but not enough. “Please don’t tease me.”

“Hmm, no? Want my mouth on this perfect pussy?”

“Please.”

He tucks his fingers under your underwear and pulls them down slowly, pressing a kiss to your knee absently. “You’re so much more pliant than I expected. Just want to be taken care of?”

Something inside you squeezes sharply and you shut your eyes, nodding. Realizing he can’t see you nodding, you whisper, “Yes.”

Firmly but slowly, Yoongi presses his palms into your thighs, spreading you wide. The stretch pulls your muscles but it’s a pleasant burn that is immediately forgotten when you feel his hot breath skate over your aching hole.

You have never wanted someone’s goddamn mouth this bad. Yoongi laughs and you realize that you’re squirming, wiggling your hips a little toward his mouth. You immediately stop, hands covering your face as you groan, realizing that you are pliant for him.

Embarrassment morphs into surprise and white hot pleasure when Yoongi licks you slowly from dripping hole to clit. Your breath gets stuck in your chest at the sensation, his tongue languidly rolling around your clit before he slow-drags it back down, dipping into your hole teasingly.

“Holy fuck,” you gasp as he repeats the motion, the flat of his tongue dragging upward. “Fuck, Yoongi.”

He hums contentedly, flicking his tongue back and forth over your clit playfully. Your thighs tighten and shake, and you’re only able to let out the breath you’ve been holding when he pulls away and gives a soft chuckle.

“Fuck,” he grumbles, shuffling and sliding his hands under your ass. His fingers grip you firmly and he pulls you to his mouth, using the grip on your ass to anchor you to him. “Can you look at me, baby?”

The new endearment makes your fingers clench in the sheets. It’s dizzying when you shift to your elbows, barely able to prop yourself up. The room tilts as he grins between your legs, lips glossed with your arousal.

“Want you to watch,” he murmurs, kissing your inner thigh. It leaves a sticky mouth print. “Such a sweet little cunt.”

Yoongi’s words have no time to land. He leans forward and you watch with acute fascination as he sucks your clit gently between his lips. Your nerves turn to molten lava and though he wants you to watch, your head falls back and you feel your eyes roll, a whimper escaping your mouth as he suckles greedily.

Everything Yoongi does has always been art. He eats you out no different, alternately between eagerly tonguing every inch of you and sucking gently on your clit. You somehow manage to lift your heavy head, swimming with no thoughts but Yoongi Yoongi Yoongi to watch as he closes his eyes, humming delightedly as his greedy tongue slips into your clenching hole.

“Holy fuck,” you squeak. Your legs threaten to close as the knot in your stomach tightens. You know you’re going to come soon, knees squeezing his shoulders as he hums and sucks and licks, not letting a drop go to waste. “I’m gonnnaaa-”

You can’t finish the sentence. He knows you’re going to come, his tongue firmer, his mouth hungrier. His mouth is loud and wet against you, which might gross you out if you weren’t babbling, twisting your hips under him as the pressure in your stomach shot upward. You’re panting and nearly delirious when one hand slides from your ass to your hole, his thumb applying just enough pressure to relieve a bit of the ache.

“Fuck,” you squeak.

You come hard, eyes squeezed shut, Yoongi sucking your clit harshly and humming, the hum of his mouth sending you over and his thumb dipping into your hole to apply pressure. Under the force of your orgasm, you collapse to the bed, full-body twitching as his gluttonous mouth sucks at you, not letting up.

A numb-like tingle settles into your veins. You feel drunk, and not from the wine. Something headier that makes your thoughts white noise and your limbs heavy-soft. Yoongi gives your clit a kiss before squeezing your ass playfully, kissing his way up your stomach to your chest.

“How are you doing?” he asks gently.

“I think I just saw god,” you croak, voice hoarse from overuse. “Fuck. Fuck.”

He hums and licks into your mouth. You taste yourself on him, sticky-sweet and heady. He moans, dropping his hips to press against your slick thighs and still-dripping cunt. “Let me,” you mumble against his mouth, hand dropping between you and squeezing him over his jeans. Fuck. Your eyes flutter open, your hand feeling the full size of Yoongi’s cock. “Oh my god, do you have a big dick?”

Yoongi bursts into laughter, groaning and burying his head in your neck. He busies his mouth with placing sloppy kisses, more tongue than anything, against your pulse point. “I mean, yeah.”

“I mean, yeah,” you mimic in a high-pitched voice. He laughs and you squirm. Even his laugh is hot. “Well show me. I wanna suck you off.”

“Can I be honest?”

“You just made me come from tongue alone, so yeah.”

“If your mouth comes near my dick I might come. I was close to busting in my fucking jeans like a teenager just now. I’d love for you to suck me off another time, but I am living my dream right now and I might bust a nut immediately.”

You look at him owlishly. “Living your dream, huh?”

“Shut up,” he growls playfully. “Roll over on your stomach for me and put that perfect ass into the air, hmm?”

With sluggish limbs and your head spinning, you do what he asks. He snaps the back of your bralette and you let it fall down your arms before tossing it aside. Leaning on your elbows, you put your ass in the air, wiggling it for effect. He huffs out a laugh behind you and you turn your head to watch him pull his shirt off.

Underneath his clothes, Yoongi is flushed pink and smooth. You watch, dazed and appreciative as he undoes his jeans swiftly. There is something alluring about watching the way his hands work his pants off. His strong thighs flex when he straightens, tucking his thumbs underneath the waistband of his briefs to slide them down and -

“Holy fuck,” you blurt. Yoongi looks up at you, blonde hair sticking to his forehead and cock bobbing heavily against his stomach. He does have a big dick - thick and long with a flushed tip leaking precum that makes your mouth water. “You’re joking.”

For a moment, the confident Yoongi from a second ago wavers, face red as he shyly gets on the bed. “If we have to stop we can-”

“Please fuck me,” you beg. You don’t even hesitate, shuffling your knees so that your ass is higher. “I don’t care if it hurts. Please.”

His hands are on your ass, making your heart hammer in your chest. You think it might give out as Yoongi shuffles behind you, his thighs brushing against the back of yours. You feel the sticky crown of his cock against an asscheek, making you press backward to apply pressure. A sharp smack lands on your ass, earning both a cry and a moan from you.

“Don’t fucking start,” Yoongi growls. Both of his hands grip your ass as he slides his shaft between your sticky folds. Your forehead rests on sweaty sheets as you pant, feeling how hard and long he is. “Gonna fuck you open with my fingers a little.”

“Yoongi.”

“You said you wanted me to fuck you, baby. So let me.”

Yoongi’s hands drift from the apples of your ass to your fluttering hole. There’s a pit in your stomach, butterflies going wild as his fingers brush around your ring of muscles, hole twitching. His cock is pressed against your ass as he slides a finger in, a sigh of relief leaving your lips as he presses against your front wall, the smooth glide of his fingers addicting.

“More,” you whisper. “Please.”

He hums in agreement, sliding in another finger. It’s a stretch, but it’s good. Pleasure whites out everything else. There’s just the tight glide of his fingers, pressing against that soft spot in you. Everything he does, your stomach lurches, the pleasure turning you boneless as you continue to melt into the mattress, letting Yoongi slow-fuck you with his fingers until he decides you can take him.

Slowly, he removes his fingers, a line of arousal sticking to your ass as he uses both hands to spread you open. He moans, shuffling so that his cockhead catches your entrance, holding the blunt tip there for a second, letting your hole clench and unclench at the pressure.

“Holy fuck, please.”

“What was that?”

“Min Yoongi, plea-”

Your words turn into an embarrassing sound as he sinks deep into your pussy, so wet that he slides almost to the hilt. The wind gets knocked out of you and for a second, you lay there in white light, unable to think about anything but the painful stretch of his cock reaching deep deep.

There’s nothing else but the feel of him, hips pressed to your ass, hands rubbing up and down your back, letting your walls flutter around him as you adjust to the girth. And you do have to adjust, remembering to breathe through it. When the slight sting fades, you swivel your hips, making both of you sigh.

Taking the hint, Yoongi pulls out, using his hands on your ass to control both of your movements before he sinks back in, finding a smooth, steady rhythm that has stars exploding behind your eyelids. You’re gone in seconds, thoughts replaced by the livewire feeling in your stomach and the way Yoongi fucks you hard and deep, though his movements are slow.

Yoongi makes sounds behind you that make you fall apart that much faster. His hands are reverent and careful as he pulls you onto his cock, fucking you like you asked. Slow. With purpose. Every thrust is weighted, Yoongi putting his entire frame into each stroke as he fucks you into the mattress, punctuated by his stilted breaths.

“Fuck,” he swears. “You have no fucking idea the way I dreamed about this. Fucking-” he breaks off with a growl, fingers gripping you with bone-shattering strength. “Wanted to do everything with you. For years.”

Something inside of you snaps and you let out a muffled cry, realizing that you're near tears. Because yeah. You know what he means. You knew it when you saw him standing in the kitchen making a home with your mom. You knew it when you saw him carving rocking chairs and brushing sawdust out of your hair.

“I’m sorry,” you gasp as he adjusts the angle, hitting your spot on the upstroke. It nearly sends you into space. “But me too.”

He smacks your ass, the sting almost sending you headfirst into your orgasm. “Yeah? Thought of me even when you weren’t here, hmm?”

“Yes.”

“Thought of me even when you were lying awake at night in a city without me?”

“Yes.”

He slaps your ass again and you feel your orgasm, so tight and intense that you think you might die if the pressure doesn’t pop. “Come on,” he grunts, a hand sliding around your waist and reading down to press tight circles on your clit. Your vision goes white. “Come for me, then. Fucking show me.”

It’s all you need. You come around Yoongi, squeezing him so tight and screaming viciously into his sheets. He grabs you tight and curses loudly behind you, immediately coming deep in your cunt, shivering against you as he pants through it. You’re barely aware that his weight is on top of you, your entire being somewhere else far away.

For a while, there is just gasping breaths and tangled limbs. You’re unsure how to string together words, your mind and bones melted. Your body twitching with post-orgasm tremors.

Strings of thoughts begin to pull together. The twine to make coherent ideas. Memories. Things. You feel the weight of Yoongi, who is only half on top of you as he tries to catch his breath. Tries to piece himself together, both of you collapsed and tangled in something beyond just bodies.

Whatever it is that just happened is more than just fucking and you know it. Know that Yoongi knows it. You’ve been dancing around an inevitable thought for weeks, while watching him hunched over his workstation, painting stain on a cabinet with his sweater sleeves pulled over his hand. Watching him shuffle boxes of dreidels that he hand-carved for the synagogue down the street.

The dread of coming home during the holidays was always about the association to your family. To your dad being gone. To the guilt gnawing at you for leaving your mom. But now, as he pulls the rest of himself off of you and rolls onto his back, hands grabbing you and pulling you to his sweaty side, you think that maybe being afraid of home was a little bit about him too. About the memory of him. About the little inkling of a crush that you never got over.

“Your mom is gonna give us so much shit in the morning,” he mumbles, words a little slurred. You curl into his side, tucking your face in his neck. He smells a little like cedar, a little like sex and sweat. “She might never let me in the house again.”

“Untrue. She loves you.”

“Hmm. It’s a start.” He sighs, words drifting off. “And no safe word needed. I could barely choke you out if I wanted. I thought I was gonna come as soon as I put it in. Holy fuck.”

“Fuck Christmas,” you laugh. “I want you to do that again. However you want to.” He snorts. “Also, I want to suck your dick in the morning. I didn’t get you a gift.”

“Fine,” he mumbles. “Sleep, yeah?”

You hum. “Yeah.”

#yoongi smut #suga smut #min yoongi smut #yoongi fanfic #yoongi x reader #bts suga #bts fanfic #minors do not interact #minors dni #bts suga smut

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sailoryooons · 1 year

Text

The Wood | JHS | (m)

☾ Pairing: witch!Hoseok x female reader

☾ Summary: From the moment you step foot in Kill Devil, you know something about the town is off. Determined to find out exactly how your sister went missing in such a small town, you receive unlikely help from the man staying in the motel room next to yours. But there is so much more than what meets the eye with Hoseok and the citizens of Kill Devil.

☾ Word Count: 16,786

☾ Genre: supernatural, psychological thriller, southern-gothic

☾ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.

☾ Warnings: Creepy town vibes somewhere in the south, unreliable narrator because she’s a dumb bitch, missing family member, descriptions of nightmares and night terrors, allusions to toxic citizens and intolerance in the southern US, cryptic exchanges, being attacked and choked by a strange entity, sleep paralysis, depictions of anxiety and panic and deep fear, manipulation, cat Yoongi.... sort of, explicit language, explicit sexual content including unprotected vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, slight hand job, a lot of spit and cum, fucking in a nasty ass motel room, mean Hoseok at the end, I don't know why I reference frogs so much please forgive me, ambiguous ending/unexplained ending, implied death of a side character off-screen

☾ Published: May 29, 2022

☾ A/N: Not only is this absolutely a million weeks late, it also is the longest it has ever - and I mean ever - taken me to write a fic. This was so hard for me to write, and I have deleted anad re-written thousands of words for this. The end result is something that I absolutely did not plan. This fic is ENTIRELY different from the original outline and idea, so at times it might seem where this piece doesn’t know where it’s going because it wasn’t until I got to the end of the smut scene last night that I realized what the hell this story needed.

I want to thank @here2bbtstrash because I could not have written this fic without them, but also for the amazing and thorough beta they gave this. This was one of my choppier/messier pieces and they helped fix this so much and I have giant feelings for M that are very normal. Also a special thank you to @gimmethatagustd for keeping me somewhat sane while really struggling with this piece.

☾ Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.

Masterlist | Ask | To Love A Monster Collab | Song Inspiration

Only God can save us!

It’s probably the tenth sign of the like that you’ve seen. Your palms feel sweaty on the wheel, the unsettling feeling in your stomach as you drive through God’s Country increasing. For some reason, as you catch glimpses of old abandoned churches at the end of red dirt roads and leaning fruit stands with no seller in sight, you think that perhaps God has forsaken this place.

The drive has been unremarkable, but the closer you get to Kill Devil you think perhaps the town is aptly named. You can’t help but get the sense - especially when you stop at a gas station with no one inside and a single working pump - that there is a reason the town sports such a unique title.

It’s hard to imagine why your sister would ever move here, even temporarily. Outside, the locusts whine, a high-pitched buzzsaw hidden in the boughs draped with Spanish moss. The paint on the road has long since faded, single lanes stretching North to South in an endless strip.

Sticky heat prickles your skin. Though there’s no one else around save for you and the locusts, you can’t help but look around nervously, eyes scouring the oak trees. The door to the gas station is locked, and the other side of your single-station pump has a red bag on the handle.

The sk sk sk of the pump is a slow heartbeat. Pulling out your phone while you wait, your stomach flips when you see that you have very little service. You’re about thirty minutes away from Kill Devil and an hour away from any major cities. Peppered along the map are small towns like Kill Devil, home to pecan farms, corn fields, and cotton gins.

You feel a long way from home.

A tingle slides down the back of your neck. You look up from your phone, gaze sweeping back and forth through the trees and over the cracked pavement of the station. There’s nothing else there, but you have the sense that the trees have eyes.

The pump clicks loudly and your heart lurches, hand flying to your chest as you shriek and turn. For a few moments, your heart beats so loudly in your ears you can’t hear the chirping of the locusts or your ragged breathing as you close your eyes, trying to level out your moment of panic.

“Fuck,” you mutter, pulling the handle and jiggling it lightly to ensure any dripping gas is shaken off.

Naturally, you’re a pretty calm person. The jumpiness belongs to your mother, who screams every time someone turns a corner in the house unexpectedly. It’s something about the feeling that clings to you like a second skin as you get in the car that has you shaken.

Or it’s the fact that your sister has been missing for two months.

On instinct, your hand goes to the necklace around your throat. It’s a heart-shaped locket, which would seem cheesy to anyone else. But for you, it’s one of the few coveted items you have from her.

It’s also something that you swear burned you in the middle of the night two months ago. You’re not sure if you believe in spiritual intuition or connection between family members, but what you do know is that you haven’t heard from her, and the local police have been no help.

Trust your gut. That’s what she’s always said. And you do trust your gut on this, this knowing that something is wrong.

On the road again, your tension continues to increase. The land has turned to steep up and down hills, pines lined on either side of the road, pocked with deep canyons.

Orange tire tracks appear and disappear on the highway, turning off onto clay roads with washed-out shoulders and deep ruts from all of the rain over the summer. Your sister had mentioned the house she was renting was nearly impossible to get to when the rain was bad.

A green sign that says Kill Devil City Limits passes by. No welcome sign, no little plaque announcing the population. Your music skips in and out, the connection to your phone weak. You switch to FM, flinching at the roaring static that comes through, finger jamming on the arrows to skip through to something passable.

Country. Country. Church. Country. Rock. Pop.

You leave it on the pop station, turning your eyes back to the road. A logging truck comes roaring up the hill, blasting by your sedan at top speed, making your car shake. Your heart squeezes in fear. You’ve passed over two dozen of them and they never drive any slower or any safer each time.

You’re going to kill Hanna if you find her lounging in her house, making you come all this way.

She had taken up a story there, investigating the town's eerie occult background for the media company that she worked for. Her editor had stopped receiving updates from her around the same time you’d stopped hearing from her.

When you called the landlord she was renting from, he was no help. Some idiot who owned seventeen houses dotted around the country, renting them out for twice the price they were worth.

The local police station had been worse. They’d done a wellness check several times after you called but insisted she wasn’t home. No signs of a break-in, no signs of a struggle. No reason to be missing. They refused to make it an official report, as there was no reason for her to be missing.

Have you considered she just doesn’t want to talk to you? they’d laughed on the phone.

It was a joke. Somehow you could not believe they refused to file a report, and you threatened to take it to the state police and anyone who would listen to you. The woman you had spoken to had chuckled then, her mirth sending a chill up your spine.

Have fun on hold, sweetheart.

You could not fathom how not a single person cared. Not the news, not any authority that you could get in contact with, and certainly not the lawyer you reached out to.

Let law enforcement handle it. Your pleas fell on deaf ears and it was like it didn’t even matter that an entire person was missing. You’d heard about the blunders of the law enforcement system before, but this was a new level of ignorance and oddity.

It was… unexplainable.

Which was why now, you were driving into the backwater town of Kill Devil in the southern part of the United States.

Dropping your speed down, you take the chance to look around. There are a few houses on the outskirts of the town, their yards sprawling with kudzu and their homes leaning heavily with brown vines climbing up the eaves. There are several old, broken-down trucks in the middle of the kudzu fields, swallowed by the invasive vine-like devil’s snare.

You’d heard of one-stop-light-towns but you had never seen one without. Kill Devil is made up of all stop signs. Everything is built around the courthouse, a red brick building dropped in the middle like a fungus growing its roots outward.

The sheriff’s office is just across the street with Crown Victoria model patrol cars. A taxidermist is right next door, the gold cursive font on the front of the glass door telling you it’s been there since the 70s.

Kill Devil has everything you expect. Antique shops with dusty windows and dry-rotted awnings, a convenience store that looks straight out of retro America, closed-down shops with empty shelves and shattered glass, and a single diner with station wagons and mud-slicked trucks in the parking lot.

A single motel stands at the edge of the town center. When you pull into the parking lot, you look up at the sign and frown. Like something out of a horror movie, the Lodging Motel is missing several letters in long-burnt-out neon, three letters blinking in the fading afternoon sun: Lodging Motel.

Die.

With one look at the crusted, three-paneled windows and mold-covered brick face, you think that you just might die.

Pink sun sinks behind the rolling hills of pine. You get out of the car, stretching and popping your joints as you look at your lodging with a sour taste in your mouth. You pass the ‘vacant’ sign as you walk to the small square building at the end with ‘front office’ on the window.

“Yeah no shit,” you mutter. You cannot imagine who would stay here out of anything but necessity.

In fact, it seems like there is no one staying at the hotel. This fact makes you jumpy as you approach the office, which is just a clerk's window and a woman with sunken eyes and a scowl on her face watching you. You swallow thickly as you give her a weak smile and nervous wave, trying to get past the sudden anxiety trembling in your hands.

“Hi,” you say. “I have a reservation for-”

A small window that’s about six inches tall and a foot wide pops open. She hacks, fluid-sounding and phlegmy before saying, “I can’t hear you with the damn window closed. What do you want?”

You clench your jaw. Slowly, you begin again. “I have a reservation.”

“ID and credit card.”

You slide the materials through the window. She holds them up close to her face, scrutinizing them. Crickets join the singing of the locusts. Mosquitos fly around your head and you cringe, swatting at them as you wait while she rolls her chair over to a cabinet.

Wordlessly, she puts your credit card on a manual credit card imprinter. You raise your brows, unsure of the last time you’ve seen someone do paper credit card printing instead of sliding it through a machine.

While you wait, you look past her into the office. It’s dingy inside but you can see a box TV and a window unit air conditioner rattling in the window. There are metal cabinets that form their own little skyscrapers around her office. An episode of I Love Lucy plays on the fuzzy TV screen.

“Here’s your room key.” She tosses it through the window. It’s room three, the key hanging on a diamond-shaped, acrylic keychain with Lodging Motel written in Sharpie. “We don’t got room service or maid service. If you need more towels, the launder-mat is down the street. Don’t run the hot water more than twenty minutes or so. If the AC ain’t on, hit ‘er a few times.”

“Great,” you deadpan. “Anything else?”

She scowls. “Mind the raccoons. They got rabies.”

“Thanks.”

Inside the room is just as expected: peeling wallpaper, red shag carpet with questionable stains and the unmistakable stench of cigarettes, sconce lighting with lampshades that look decades old, a twin with a horrible patterned blanket, frayed at the edges and moth-eaten, and a single, square dresser with a box TV on top and a white, corded phone.

The bathroom is no better. The tub is stained with limescale, cracked tiles, and a lamp that buzzes when you flip it on. You scream when you see the massive roach hanging out in the tub, gagging and running out to look for anything to kill it with.

You settle on a sneaker, and it’s a battle involving your high-pitched scream as you try and kill it. You do win, but you’re covered in sweat and shaking after your victory.

A sharp knock on the door startles you further. You drift to the front door, looking out the peephole to find that it is cracked and you cannot see the person standing just on the other side. You slide the chain lock in and open the door tentatively, peering out into the now early night.

“Everything okay?” a male voice asks. “I heard screaming.”

The voice belongs to someone who absolutely does not belong in Kill Devil. He’s dressed in jeans with large rips at the knee and a plain white shirt that hangs off his frame stylishly. He has a few necklaces on, a single hoop hanging from his right ear that catches the flickering parking lot light.

And he’s beautiful. The kind of beautiful that stuns you. He has a slender face with smooth, flowing skin. His eyes are kind, glittering brown with flecks of lighter shades throughout. The slope of his cheekbones and jawline makes you think perhaps he’s into modeling, which would explain the taste in clothes.

But it does not explain what someone who looks like that is doing in this shithole town.

“I had to kill a roach,” you admit, a little hesitant. Your skin tingles under his gaze, your instincts picking up something that you can’t put your thumb on. “I don’t like them very much and it was fast.”

“Disgusting. I had to buy killer for them - it came in a two-pack if you want?” You don’t answer, watching him warily. He picks up on your anticipation and smiles, disarming. “Sorry - my name is Hoseok. You can call me Hobi, if you’d like. I’m staying next door which is just as gross as your room is I’m sure. I heard you yell and I got worried.”

“That’s kind of you. This doesn’t seem like a place where people would care if they heard screaming.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not from here.” He looks around the parking lot and his eyes focus on a raccoon meandering near the trash. You grimace, thinking about rabies. “Thank fuck, this place feels right out of fucking Deliverance.”

You can’t help but laugh, feeling better at his distaste. “One sec, let me slide the lock off.” You close the door and slide the chain before opening it a little wider this time. “Yeah, this place gives me the creeps. Hopefully, I don’t have to be here long.”

“A night is long enough. You want that spray?”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

Hoseok grins and holds up a finger, asking you to wait as he jogs to his room. He’s only gone for a moment, leaving you in the poorly lit lot with the tk tk tk of the raccoon pilfering through trash and the crickets creek creek creeking.

Hoseok’s door opens and he’s back, handing you a large, red can of lemon-scented Raid. “Just make sure you drown them. They did outlive the dinosaurs. Makes you wonder what the hell is in that stuff.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem…” He drifts off, unsure what your name is. You laugh, a little flustered by the way his entire face lights up when he smiles, and give him your name. “I like it. Well, I don’t know how long you’re here, but I’m your neighbor for a few days. Try not to catch any infections while you’re in there and holler if you need me.”

“Thanks,” you grin. You hold up the can and add, “Especially for this.”

With a wave goodnight, Hoseok returns to his room. The buzz of something instinctual fades with him, replaced once more with the unsettling frequency the town seems to vibrate at.

Closing the door firmly behind you and flicking the lock, you shiver. The eerie feeling that had been following you lingers.

After changing the sheets, inspecting the rest of the room and setting the spray can firmly on the pillow next to you, you lay on your back in bed, mattress lumpy and air conditioner rattling.

Moonlight streams through the curtain, catching dust motes floating in the air and turning them into diamonds. You stand in the middle of the room. Cold but humid air clings to your skin, the air conditioner rattling and dripping as it cools the room but does nothing to suck out the moisture. You don’t know why you’re standing in the middle of the room and you don’t remember waking up and getting out of bed, but you face the window, the curtains open just enough to face the empty parking lot.

Silence blankets the world. The hum of the air conditioner fades and you stare out into the silver-painted parking lot. Above the lot, a street light flickers on and off weakly. It goes out for a minute and flashes back on.

Someone leans against the pole. You can’t make out any features, just that there is a person there, perhaps facing you. The hair on your skin stands on end but you can’t move. Your instincts begin to prickle and there is a sharp feeling in your chest.

Belatedly, beyond your hypnotized stare, you realize the feeling is fear.

Your ears start to ring. You stare out at the shadow and the shadow stares back. Something is telling you to run run run but you don’t know how. Can’t move your feet. Panic begins to rise, your heart beating so fast that you can hear it over the steady whine in your ears.

Thump thump. Thump thump. Thumpthumpthumpthump.

You can feel your pulse skyrocketing, your chest squeezing tight with terror as the beating gets louder and louder -

Awareness hits you like cold water. You lurch forward in bed, hands flying to your chest as you gasp for air. It takes a moment to get your bearings, the pounding in your heart so hard it feels like you might vomit. Battling the sheets, you rip them off of you, legs sticky with a sheen of sweat.

The lamp is still on in your room, the curtains are closed just the way you left them, and the bug killer rolls on the bed as you get up. Several paces away from the window, you catch your breath, running a hand over your face.

“Fuck,” you pant, realizing you were dreaming.

When your breathing levels out, you glance at the closed curtains. Something niggles at your brain. Slowly, you walk toward the window, feeling the hairs on your arms tingle and stand on end.

Lifting your shaking hands, you grip the curtain tight. Taking a deep breath, you hold it in and pull open the curtain just a bit.

Unlike your dream, there’s no moonlight outside. It’s so dark you almost can’t see anything in the parking lot. When the lot light flickers back on, your heart squeezes, expecting to see a shadow leaning against the pole. There’s nothing there, just empty lot and a dumpster. Not even the raccoon is around.

Blowing out your held breath, you close the curtain again and shake out your hands, trying to get rid of the jitters. Rolling your neck and shoulders, you try to work out the tension as you sit on the end of the bed, staring at the faded wallpaper.

The dream felt so real. You swear that if you turn your head, you’ll see silver moonlight through the curtains. That you’ll see that person - that shadow - standing outside of your window.

Exhaustion weighs heavy on you. You crawl back into bed, mattress damp and smelling like mildew even with the sheets that you put on it. You’re under a lot of stress and you hate this motel room as much as you already hate this town that you’ve barely started to explore. It makes sense that you’re having weird dreams.

Blanket pulled up to your chin, you eventually let your lids flutter shut until you’re taken by dreamless sleep.

Morning sun chases away the dregs of your strange dream from the night before. With daylight streaming between the curtains, the room looks no better. It’s a futile hope, perhaps, to keep thinking that the room will suddenly not look nearly as questionable as when you checked in.

At least there are no bugs.

Outside, the balmy air is filled with the voices of the locusts. You lock the door behind you and glance toward where Hoseok vanished the night before. His windows are closed and there’s no sign of him anywhere in the parking lot, so you head to your car, stomach begging for food.

Kill Devil is small in both size and population. The Diner is easy to find, tucked in the southwest corner of the town across from the courthouse. Folks wander about the parking lot, shaking one another’s hands and laughing as the weekend rush of people meanders up the steps for breakfast.

Your arrival is noted immediately. Eyes turn your way as you walk through the lot, loose gravel crunching under your feet. The lot is more packed dirt than pavement, full of holes and mud softened by rain.

Seeing a new face in a wretched little town like this probably isn’t common. Though you’re not familiar with growing up in such a small population, you remember what it was like knowing everyone at school. The same theory applies here when a portly man with raised brows stands, screen door in hand as he stares at you.

The man blocks the way to the inside of the diner. You pause and look up, noting the confusion on his face. After clearing your throat, he realizes that he’s completely frozen from opening the door and coughs, bowing his head and apologizing.

“You uh - visiting?” he asks, holding the door open for you. When you nod, he seems surprised, though that had to be the only answer. “Well, that doesn’t happen often. Welcome to Kill Devil.”

There’s a small host stand with a pile of laminated menus on top. A girl who looks to be about your age stares back at you, wiping her hands on a red apron tied around her waist. She’s in jeans and a t-shirt that says The Diner across the chest, her hair pulled up and stabbed through with a pen.

“Just you?” she asks, eyes fluttering to the man who shrugs behind you. You nod. “Right this way.”

The wooden walls are painted white, some of the paint peeling. There are miscellaneous animal heads with plaques underneath stating the names of their killers with a stamp of Jason’s Taxidermy. You try not to make eye contact with their black, glass eyes as you sit in a chair that wobbles from side to side.

You thank the hostess as she wanders off to get you coffee. The family at the table next to you does their best to whisper about who the hell is that as you look over the menu, flipping it to the breakfast side. The laminate is sticky and peeling at the corners.

It’s a pretty standard breakfast menu. You put it down on the table, nudging the container holding different colored sugar packets and sweeteners while you wait for your coffee. There’s a breakfast bar with people bent over steaming eggs and sitting atop cracked vinyl seats.

The door opens behind you at a steady rate as people pay their bills and leave while new customers are sitting. A presence at your back sends a cool tingle up your spine, making you straighten and look over your shoulder.

Hoseok stands in a shaft of sunlight coming through the window, turning him gold. For a moment, the diner around you falls to a hush of murmured voices, muting the clinking of spoons against ceramic and scraping chairs.

He’s dressed well again, in a simple white button-up with the button undone to reveal a strip of golden chest. His hair is slightly damp and styled back, an outrageously good look on him. The same hoop earring dangles in his ear but today he has on a few necklaces and rings on his fingers. Somehow, he makes the delicate pieces carry an edge.

“You survived the night, huh?” he says by way of greeting and then gestures to the chair across from you. “Would you mind company for breakfast?”

You shake your head, forgetting words for a moment as he smiles, radiant as ever. Hoseok pulls out the chair and sits down, a twinkle in his eye that makes your heart flutter as he plucks a menu from the holder at the center of the table. You can smell his rain and lavender scent from across the table.

“Thanks again,” you say, realizing you haven’t spoken yet. His brown eyes look at you over the top of the menu, and you can’t help but admire how beautiful they are. Warm, both dark and light, with flecks of chipped gold. “For the bug killer. I haven’t seen any more but I just know they’re there.”

“That’s the shitty thing about the South. All of God's least favorite creatures are here.” He glances at the table of scowling men next to you to emphasize. You hide your laughter with the plastic menu. “What brings you to this shit hole?”

“I’m… visiting my sister.”

“You sound unsure of that. Does she not know you’re coming?”

“She doesn’t.”

While they aren’t technically lies, you don’t know how much you can trust him. Instinct makes you hold the truth from him. After all, you don’t want him to know you’re in a town where no one knows you, and where no one knows you are. By yourself.

Hoseok looks at you again, his eyes narrowed. You feel tension creep into the air between you, your mouth drying out as he watches you silently.

The arrival of the hostess who is also your server saves you from another question. You both place your order, and you note the way the girl cuts her eyes to Hoseok, wary. Her hands shake a little.

When she leaves the two of you, you ask, “How long have you been here?”

“A few weeks.”

“Enough to win over the locals, hmm?”

His grin is sly as he drums his fingers on the table. “I’m their favorite - you’re perceptive.”

“My sister is an investigative journalist. She’s made me watch all kinds of shows and read books about psychology and body language with her. I picked up a few things.”

“An investigative journalist, huh?” Hoseok plucks a sugar packet and rips it open with his teeth. He shoots the ripped piece onto the table with a huff of air and dumps the contents on the table. Leaning on one elbow, he begins to trace patterns in the sugar. “So you’re not from here. No one here is smart enough for that.”

“No, she’s been living here since July.”

“What’s she investigating?” You hesitate again. He doesn’t look up from the patterns he’s tracing on the table, finger steady as it cuts through the white sugar.

“I don’t really know.” He does look up when you say that, gaze razor-sharp. A chill slides up your spine. So you add, “Something to do with the occult.”

Hoseok stops moving his finger through the sugar. He doesn’t look at you, but he’s fixated on the mess he’s made on the table. You chew on your bottom lip, eyes dropping to his little sweetened artwork. You don’t understand the pattern that he’s traced, but it buzzes your brain when you look at it.

The silence stretches on. He remains unmoving and silent. Anxiety starts to creep in and you wonder if he thinks you’re crazy or is going to get up and leave-

With a huff of laughter, he leans back and smiles at you.

“The occult huh? Interesting subject.”

“Know anything about it?”

He shrugs a shoulder. “I mean, what is really considered occult? Most of these Bible thumpers around here would consider being queer witchcraft.”

“You have a point there. Don’t tell them I’m a witch.”

He grins. “You can join my coven, then.”

“Do you think they know there’s more than two genders?”

Hoseok’s laugh is infectious. You laugh along with him, visibly ruffling the feathers of the table next to you.

For a moment, the two of you share a secret smile at your little table, wedged between the people who go to church every Sunday and swear by Fox News at brunch. It feels good to know you’re not the only person completely out of place in Kill Devil.

The arrival of your server with steaming plates breaks the moment, but you feel better about your morning nonetheless. Especially when the conversation switches from stilted exchanges about your sister and the occult to things about you and Hoseok.

Over runny eggs on toast and crunchy bacon, you learn that Hoseok is a shop owner in a small town very far from Kill Devil. He brushes over the fact that he’s visiting family to tell you all about his small corner of the world and all of his favorite plants.

“Fiona is a venus fly trap,” he giggles with a snap of bacon. “She’s my second favorite, but what I really love is my pitcher plants. They eat bugs, mostly, but they like to devour frogs too. The frogs love to hide in them, but sometimes the pitcher plants take kindly to them and don’t eat them. It never lasts.”

“I would hate for them to eat the frogs.”

“Hmm, circle of life.”

“But the poor frogs!”

Hoseok isn’t swayed. “There has to be a balance to everything. The pitcher plants will kill the frogs eventually. Sometimes a predator likes to play with its prey. Their ecosystem doesn’t make sense. In order to pay back the food the pitcher plants bring them, the frog must die. It pays for power, in the end.”

“How do you mean?”

“Everything has a give and take.” He pauses to sip his coffee. He makes a face, opens a sugar packet, and empties it into the coffee. “In order to have life, we must have death. In order to have water, we must have fire, for earth, we must have air. There is a give and take in existence, and it has to stay that way.”

“If it doesn’t?”

“Chaos.”

“You know, a lot of theology believes that chaos created the world.”

“And perhaps it did. But in order to make the world, chaos needed…” Hoseok takes his butter knife in one hand and sticks out his pointer finger with the other. You watch as he places the knife horizontally across his finger, sliding it just so until he slowly lets it go, leaving it teetering back and forth, but never falling. “Balance. There has to be even weight on the scales to make it work.”

“Interesting. So you think there is true balance in the world.”

“Not always, which is why we must make it.”

“Hmm. You have some interesting opinions.”

“I am an interesting person.”

You like Hoseok. Conversation flows easily and it seems that he either doesn’t notice or does not care that he draws glances around the room, particularly when he gives a high-pitched laugh, leaning backward on the metal legs of his chair to clap his hands excitedly. You swear you see the table next to you flinch, though you can’t imagine why.

Hoseok insists on paying the bill, though you fight him all the way to the register. The elderly woman behind the till jams the pricing in from the ticket and slams the cash drawer shut when Hoseok hands over the bills. She makes sure not to tell you to have a good day, and you feel her sharp stare as you leave the interior of The Diner.

In fact, the stares of the citizens are just as intense outside. Hoseok rattles on about a time he got really high and forgot to feed his cat. “Yoongi was so mad he wouldn’t talk to me for a week.”

“What?” you ask, distracted by the way a group of men leaning against a red pickup glare. “Your cat talks?”

“Oh- he- well he meows, you know what I mean?”

“No, but I’m sure he was very vocal.” Hoseok smirks, toeing the gravel of the parking lot as you reach your car. You glance over at the pickup truck again, seeing the four sets of eyes fixated on the two of you. “Why does everyone around here stare?”

“They’ll ignore you soon enough if you ignore them.”

“They don’t seem to ignore you.”

He gives you a wry smile. “I guess you’re right. Going to visit your sister, then?”

Digging around in your bag, you search for keys. “Yeah, she lives out in some place called Grave Hollow. How creepy is that?”

Silence is your only answer. You look up, pausing the search for your keys to find him staring at you with a blank expression. Your heart skips a beat - it’s the same wiped-clean face he had when you mentioned your sister investigating the occult.

Licking your lips, you ignore the feeling of a weighted stone dropping into your stomach. Hoseok says nothing.

Then, he’s chipper again. “Well have fun,” he chirps, shrugging and giving a wave as he backs away to leave. “Hopefully she has some cool occult stuff to tell you about. You know where to find me!

It’s hard to keep track of the way Hoseok’s mood flips on a dime. You stare after him, but he’s all smiles and sunshine again before turning on a heel to walk out of the parking lot. His hands are tucked into his pockets and he tilts his face toward the azure sky, whistling a tune with a happy cadence.

Something sticks to you as you watch him leave. You don’t know what it is, this feeling that you’re missing a critical detail. It’s like your instincts are scratching lightly at the door, but you have no key to flip the lock and no crowbar to force it open.

Anxiety returns when you remember the weight of the eyes still focused on you. Hurriedly, you snatch your keys from your bag and get in your car, tossing your bag on the seat and starting the engine. As soon as it purrs to life, you feel instant relief.

You hope that it lasts.

According to the research you’d done on Kill Devil, the town had been officially founded in the 1700s. Of course, being ‘officially’ founded didn’t mean much in the way of Western colonization. You had little doubt that the migration of people to the South chased out Native American tribes, as was the story everywhere.

Kill Devil has been named such since its inception, which occurred a little after Georgia had been named an official state. The abundance of soil for cotton and peanut fields made it a wet dream for the expansion of cotton gins and eventually, peanuts - there was even a rumor that peanut butter had been invented in Kill Devil first, but you knew that to be untrue.

A small town with a small impact. That was Kill Devil at the heart of its existence. It has always had a small population of sleepy folk. No stop lights, one church, a lot of paper companies coming in and cutting down trees, and some farming fields for various reasons.

There’s no reason that for a tiny little dot on the map, the town should be significant.

And yet it had called your sister here.

The car bounces, the suspension whining as you drive down the dirt road. A clay wall comes up on either side of you, roots of trees sticking out periodically. There’s no shoulder to the road, the rain has deepened the ruts on either side. You’re careful to keep in the middle, slowing down as the road tightens on corners.

Pine stretches as far as the eye can see. You pass the occasional neon tape, marking sections of trees for the paper company to let grow a little longer before hacking them down. Several metal gates with keep out and declaring different hunting clubs flash by. There’s even a sign that says Rucker’s Meat Processing.

GPS is unreliable out in the sticks where the cell towers don’t quite reach. You keep an eye on the flattened paper map in the passenger seat, marked with your red marker to make sure you take the right road.

A sigh of relief escapes you when you see a little metal post with a turn-off sign: Kill Ditch South. The house that your sister is renting lives off of that, only a mile down the road or so. Long drives appear between the trees, houses parked at the end of them. You feel a little less alone in the woods now knowing that there are people around.

Though you’re not sure how helpful they would be if something was wrong.

Worry creeps into your stomach as you slow the car. There’s a little mailbox with the address your sister gave you. It’s at the end of a short drive that’s been layered with gravel to make the incline easier on tires. It crunches beneath the tires as you drive toward the modest, white house. Your sister’s Four Runner is parked outside, making your heart thunder.

Turning the car off, you slide out into the humid air, hands trembling. Locusts scream, hidden in the trees. The sun is at its zenith, beating down on you as you slowly walk toward the house. It’s a single-story with two sets of windows facing the front. A wrap-around porch that leans to the side stands empty, save for a single bench.

As you pass your sister's car, you notice that the grass underneath is dead and dry. As if the car hasn’t moved for a while, denying the grass any sun to live. It makes you feel nauseous, feet like anvils as you take your first step up the stairs.

The creak of the wood makes you flinch.

“Hanna?” You call, voice shakier than you want it to be. “Hanna, it’s me! Don’t freak out!”

No one answers. Your stomach bubbles like acid, the slow drip of sweat down your neck making a chill rattle up your spine. You reach the door and swallow thickly, lifting your hands and knocking loudly.

“Hanna?”

Nothing but the sound of the locusts answers you.

Your palms feel sweaty as you knock again. This time, your voice cracks when you call, “Hanna? Please answer the door.”

Wind sweeps across the trees. One thing about the wind in a land of pines and hills is that it’s loud, making a whooshing sound as it’s picked up by the boughs of the trees, rattling and letting their needles shake to the floor.

It’s cool at your back and you feel your lip wobble when you lower your hand to the doorknob. When you twist, the door opens immediately, swinging of its own volition when you let go.

Inside the house is the kind of silence that terrifies you in horror movies. The air is heavy. Your ears ring, searching for any rasp of sound to tell you that your sister is home. Licking your lips, you step over the threshold, the wooden floor cracking beneath the weight of your feet.

To the immediate left of the door is an open kitchen. There are dishes on the dry rack and plants in the window, though they are wilted and dry. You chew your lip as you step further into the house, eyes sweeping around.

A blue, painted table stands in the middle of the kitchen. Piles of mail sit on top of it with a fake plant centerpiece and your sister's car keys.

Across from the kitchen is an open doorway with a stacked washer and dryer, and a folding table. It smells faintly of detergent, clothes folded in neat piles as if Hanna had just completed a laundry day.

Everything is silent in the living room. The couch looks cozy, with piles of blankets draped across it. There’s a faint smell of vanilla, though the wick on the candle doesn’t look like it’s been lit in a while. Dust collects on the TV stand and there are sandals by the door that leads to the back porch.

Chewing your lip, you gently press your fingers to the door of Hanna’s bedroom, holding your breath. The sudden fear that it’s going to swing open and you’ll find your sister dead in her bed nearly incapacitates you, making the room spin a little as the door fully swings open.

Nothing. No Hanna, no rotting smell of a dead body. Just an unmade bed in a room that smells vaguely of her cherry perfume, a bathroom with the door open, and a pile of clothes near the hamper.

The sight of the clothes on the floor and right next to the hamper slams you with a wave of nostalgia. You walk into the room and you unceremoniously plop yourself down on the edge of the bed. It sags underneath you but you don’t care, letting your face fall into your hands and letting a sob rip through you.

Hanna isn’t here. You knew she wouldn’t be, but the relief that you don’t find her dead is so poignant that you can barely breathe past the snot clotting your nose and the way your throat constricts as you let out the fear.

The sobs subside and you wipe your face, hands coming away sticky and wet. Through swollen eyes, you look around the room. With a wipe of your hands on your jeans, you get up and start looking around, pulling open drawers and looking for evidence of the last time that Hanna was in this home.

It’s slow going. You’re unfamiliar with the space and you don’t know what to look for. It doesn’t seem like she had packed anything, but then again, how would you know if she did?

There are signs that she hasn’t been in the house in weeks. Rotted food inside of the fridge, molded bread in the pantry.

Outside, weeds grow around the steps. A cricket pops from the railing to the grass where its green body vanishes. The yard isn’t much of a yard - it’s open to the trees and a kudzu field to the west.

Back inside, you grab Hanna’s keys and open her car. There is nothing inside that looks like she was trying to make a quick getaway. An extra pair of shoes shoved in the back, and an empty grocery bag she was using for trash - all normal things.

In the passenger seat, you strike gold.

Hanna’s journals and folders sit in the passenger seat, stacked in a leaning tower with pages sticking out from the edges of her books and slanted handwriting scrawled on the folder tabs. Gathering all of it, you head back inside and deposit the stack on the kitchen table before looking around the house again to see if there’s any sign of her.

Something in your gut tells you that Hanna hasn’t been in the home for at least a month, if not more.

Dread creeps into your stomach as you gather items and pack a bag. Your intention is to keep it on you at all times in the event that you find her cold and alone somewhere. The thought of needing it leaves a sour tang on your tongue, but you pack it nevertheless.

Bag over your shoulder and stack of Hanna’s investigative work in hand, you head off to your room at the motel. The afternoon sun still burns hot over your head, but you have no intention of sitting in the empty house that carries the scent of your sister’s absence.

… While most historical accounts and official state documents indicate that Kill Devil was founded in 1730, journals buried deep in the city’s crumbling library have written records of townsfolk living in this settled town long before it was declared an official town. The journals reference the town as Covenstead and are filled with generations of the same family names.

Booth.

Park.

Warren.

Kim.

Jung.

Jeon.

Min.

Generations of these families settled in Covenstead and built what is now Kill Devil. From the description of the town in the collection of journals, it appears that the general layout of the town is similar to Kill Devil’s current city map.

Throughout the journals, there is a reference to the Wood. It seems to be a place mentioned in reverence, and there are allusions to celebrations in the Wood with entries dated in alignment with sabbats on the Wheel of the Year.

Only Mabon is referenced in any of the journals explicitly, in a strange entry from a man named Yoongi Min. I have written it here for safekeeping: We bringeth the little lamb to The Wood today for the honor of Mabon. I loathe seeing him go, for he hath brought cheer and many a smile to the Covenstead. May he bring us blessings and warmth in the winter.

Your finger traces over your sister’s writing. She still writes in her cramped, crooked way, with the sabbats of pagan holidays crammed in the margins. You smile, biting your bottom lip again as you go through the written notes of her study. It is dizzying and you’re unsure what exactly you’re looking at, but something tickles the back of your mind as you reread the entry she copied from the long-dead Yoongi Min. There’s something you're missing.

This time, your eyes snag on a word.

“The Covenstead,” you murmur, reading it over again. “Why would he call it the Covenstead? Is that just an older way of speaking?”

A tingle pricks your neck as you stare at the entry. You can’t understand what made your sister think this entry was odd besides the old-fashioned writing and reference to Mabon, because she writes nothing more on her analysis, and none of the journals she had been studying were anywhere you could find.

Sighing, you push away her notebook and pull out a collection of folders and papers that she had on the town. It’s mostly renderings of the town in its heyday with maps and newspaper articles. There seems to be no correlation between her clippings of new business openings and random town news.

Kill Devil Court House Gets New Building

Bird Flu? Poultry Farm in Trouble After Flock Dies

The Grove Neighborhood Building Plans Accepted by Mayor

Mayor’s Son Experiences Fatal Well Accident

Something catches your eye in the article about the mayor’s son who fell into a well and died at the bottom. You reach for your sister's notebook and flip to read the small dates shoved into the margins.

Mayor’s Son Experiences Fatal Well Accident

June 19, 1781

Litha: Summer Solstice

June 19-23

Grabbing the other newspaper clippings, you climb off of the bed and lay them flat against the sheets, each crinkling under the excited press of your fingers as your brain whirs. It’s a puzzle your sister seems to have figured out already, and one you don’t expect to understand.

But you do.

Kill Devil Court House Gets New Building

February 14, 1899

Bird Flu? Poultry Farm in Trouble After Flock Dies

March 19, 1899

Ostara: Spring Equinox

March 19-22

You suck in a breath as you look at the next clipping, using your pointer finger to keep your place on the sabbats calendar your sister has written down to see that the article for the new neighborhood The Grove is dated only a month before the mayor's son fell tragically in the well.

“Holy shit, Hanna,” you mutter, rubbing a hand over your mouth and staring with burning eyes at the dates. “They match with pagan rituals? Something good, followed by something bad… like revenge? Punishment? Payment?”

The question bothers you. A flutter in your gut tells you that you’re asking the right questions as you stare at the pages, unseeing and trying to understand what your sister is getting at. She didn’t write down her thoughts explicitly - in case anyone stole her work, she’d said - and now you’re wishing she weren’t so paranoid. Or that she at least used a computer.

It isn’t an easy answer to puzzle out. An ache has settled deep in your temples and your half-eaten dinner has long gone cold. You decide you’ve earned a shower, though you don’t go into the bathroom without the bug spray armed and ready.

Briefly, you think about Hoseok. Such an oddity to the town. You can’t help but think about the way he changes from light to dark so quickly, face becoming shadowed and eyes masked, expression there and gone so quickly that you’re unsure if you saw it at all.

Strange. It’s all very strange.

There is a shadow in the parking lot again. This time, it’s closer. The bulb burning above the lot flickers, but stays on. The shadow stands just beyond the silver halo of light it distributes.

No moon hangs in the sky. It is dark dark dark - impossibly dark. You stare through a crack in your curtains, watching the shadow as it watches you. Dread weighs down the pit of your stomach and you feel a fresh wave of terror-laced nausea sweep through you.

You slide a foot backward gently, preparing to step away from the window. The shadow twitches and cocks its head to the side, not unlike a dog curious about something it’s heard. You suck in a sharp breath and hold it in, air screaming in your lungs, heart racing a frantic staccato.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck it seems to say, beating until it’s all you can hear and feel, pumping your system so full of adrenaline that you feel light-headed.

Your heart turns into a drum, frantic. It beats louder and louder and you feel rooted to your spot on the carpet, the soles of your feet surgical-stitched to the ugly shag carpet. You stare and stare and stare at the shadow and your heart is hammering so loud boom boom BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM-

Sweat-drenched and gasping for air, you sit up. Your heart pounds so hard you can feel it under the palm you have pressed against your chest. But the banging is coming from the hotel door, a steady stream of closed-fist hammering and Hoseok’s voice calling your name.

Peeling the covers back from your damp skin, you stumble to the door, nightmare-drunk and disoriented. You forget to remove the chain from the door, yanking it open and immediately slamming it to a stop as the chain pulls, refusing to let the door open.

Hoseok is on the other side, hair slightly disheveled, brows pulled together. He’s in a t-shirt and sweatpants, a casual look by anyone’s standards but still effortlessly put together.

“Shit, hold on,” you slur, tongue heavy in your mouth with sleep. Closing the door, you slide the chain out, then reopen it successfully. “Sorry, is everything-”

“What’s going on?”

“What?”

His gaze is thunderous as he looks past you into your room. “You were screaming at the top of your lungs.”

Heat flushes your neck and face. “I-I’m sorry. I was having a nightmare. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I’m not mad. What’s going on?”

In the shadow of the night, he looks dangerous, made up of edges and eyes narrowed. “Can I come in?”

You open the door and move out of his way. “Sure.”

“Thanks.”

Out of habit, you latch the door when you shut it.

Hoseok is a little out of place in your room. Even when dressed down, he looks like he belongs on a private jet, lounging among soft, polished leather and sipping exotic coffee. Not in a rundown motel room with peeling wallpaper and smoke-stained ceilings.

“What’s all this?” Your stomach plummets when he sees the journals and papers on your bed. you rush to shove it all under the blanket but Hoseok is fast, plucking a sheet of paper and looking over it, face pinched. “Is this what you meant by your sister studies the occult?”

“Yeah, sorry, I was just um- looking over her work.”

“You know about the occult?”

“Not at all.”

He glances at you, razor-sharp. “Then why would you be looking it over for her?”

The atmosphere shifts. It occurs to you that he doesn’t know your sister is missing. Has no idea that you’re desperately trying to put together pieces of a broken puzzle, without any clue on where to find the remaining parts to view the entire picture.

You weigh the options of lying, losing precious time as the silence hangs heavy and awkward between the two of you. He watches, brows raised and expectant, fingers gripping the paper.

“My sister is missing.” It feels weird to say it. Your tongue feels heavy and as you stare over his shoulder at a fixed spot on the wall, it feels like someone else enters your body to tell him, “I came here because no one would help me find her. She was here studying the town's occult myths for work and vanished. I had this… horrible feeling when she stopped calling and answering.”

“Have you contacted the authorities?”

You scoff and throw a glare at him. “Of course I have. It’s useless and frustrating. No one seems to give a shit that there is a missing person, and every lawyer, law officer and city official I talk to don’t fucking care. It’s like they’re all programmed to give me the same answer. They keep telling me that they’ve seen her around or that she’s probably ignoring me on purpose. They make me seem crazy.”

You expect him to tell you to leave it to the authorities. That’s what Hanna’s boss had told you to do. No one seems to be alarmed, no one cares. But you do. Desperately. And you cannot wrap your head around them looking the other way.

You’re preparing for the same reaction when Hoseok surprises you by saying, “You’re not crazy.”

“I’m not?”

He quirks a brow and his rosebud lips twitch in a smirk. “Well, you probably are. But not for this. Have you asked around town about her?”

You shake your head. “I only went to the house that she was staying at. I wanted to see if maybe she really was ignoring me or maybe just… I don’t know. In the zone for work. She wasn’t there and it doesn’t look like there was any sign of distress.”

“Take me there.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.” He tosses the papers onto the pile on your bed. “We’ll be safe.”

“First of all,” you hedge. “How do I know that? I barely know you. Second of all, what is going there in the middle of the night going to help?”

“I’m good at investigating. Maybe I’ll see something that you don’t.”

“Sorry, are you a cop now?”

“No, it’s hard to explain but I promise I’m trying to help you.” When you don’t move, Hoseok grimaces. “Look,” he explains evenly. “I really am trying to help you. I haven’t been entirely honest about why I’m here in this town. I came because I was also interested in some things happening here. Now I’m worried your sister is involved.”

Your heart squeezes painfully in your chest. “Involved how?”

“I don’t know. I’m hoping it’s a coincidence. Believe it or not, those do happen. But I’d like to visit her house to see if there’s anything at all that sticks out to me.” You hesitate, chewing on your lip. You don’t really know him, and now you trust him even less with his reasoning. “Please,” he adds.

You relent. “Fine.” Hanna is your main goal. You don’t trust Hoseok, but you wonder if he really can help you when no one else has. “Let’s go.”

Damp air rushes through the open windows of your car. You lowered them as you got in for a quick escape if Hoseok attacks you while you drive. He says nothing in the passenger seat, eyes fixed on the pine trees rushing behind you.

Outside, the world is painted night-blue from the moon. There’s a weird hue to everything, making it feel as though you’re wading with heavy limbs through a dream. It’s no better when you arrive at the dark house.

It looks terrifying at night. There’s no street light to guide you, only that of the silver moon and the bright halogen lights of your car. You turn off your vehicle but switch the headlights on, turning on the high beams to shine on the house.

On the edges of where the light fades to shadow, your fear lies. The trees look taller than in the daylight, their branches like craggy limbs and reaching fingers. Anxiety bubbles uncomfortably in your stomach.

Each crunch of the grass beneath your feet falls too loud against the heavy silence. Here, you notice that the crickets are no longer singing. It’s just the hush of the wind gusting through the canyons and the far-away swell as it blows up the hills.

Though it’s not cool outside, there’s a chill on your skin. Hoseok walks up to the house, the beams of the car’s headlights throwing his shadow across it in jarring, monstrous shapes. You keep your eyes focused on him and your keys tucked in your hand, ready to use them as a weapon if needed.

Hoseok doesn’t seem concerned about your anxiety or the silence thrumming around the home. He walks up the steps and opens the door, vanishing into the dark mouth of the threshold. For a moment, you stand in the front yard, getting tunnel vision as you stare at the darkness in the doorway.

You imagine stepping over the threshold into that cool dark, letting it suck you in. You imagine that as soon as your shoes hit the creaking floor, Hoseok will snatch you by the waist and pull you into the belly of the beast. Once in his clutches, he’ll throw you to the ground and the last thing you’ll remember is-

Hoseok reappears in the doorway. You blink and the waking nightmare melts away, so vivid that you’re shaking where you’re standing, looking at him in confusion. He hops down the stairs, scowling as he crosses the front lawn in a few long strides.

He pauses when he sees your face. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

“I…” you shake your head, trying to dispel the weird vision you had a moment ago. “Nothing. I just don’t like the dark very much.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you find anything?”

His lip twitches. It’s almost impossible to detect, but you’re so focused on his face and trying not to picture him as the man in the terrifying thought you had moments ago, that you see it. “No.”

Lying. He’s lying. You clutch your keys and your breath quickens. He moves to round the side of the car and take the passenger seat, but you step in front of him. He pulls up short, eyes narrowing as you stand between him and the vehicle, blood pumping.

“I think you’re lying.”

“About what?”

“A lot of things.”

“What gives you that impression?”

“My instinct.”

He hums. “Instinct isn’t always a good thing.” He looks you up and down. “I didn’t find anything,” he says again. “I just got a really weird feeling inside of the house.”

“And?”

“And it’s the same weird feeling I’ve gotten in other places where people visiting went missing. Including the motel we’re staying at.” That makes you recoil. You feel the blood drain from your face, making you a little dizzy. You don’t know what’s going on, don’t understand what he’s getting at. “Your sister’s notes were about the covenstead here.”

That word again. The covenstead and not Covenstead, like a town name. “It was the town name before it was Kill Devil.”

“No,” he corrects. “It was a landmark. A covenstead, for people who lived here. A coven.”

“A coven.” He nods. “Like vampires and witches?”

Hanna’s notes had included all of those pagan holidays crammed in the margins of her work. Marking dates of occurrences that coincided with sabbat holidays. “Hoseok,” you say slowly. “Are you telling me that a bunch of witches live here and have kidnapped my sister?”

He regards you for a moment, eyes flickering up and down. His face is unreadable and dark in the night air, eyes shadowed and haunting. “That’s actually exactly what I’m saying.”

“Witches aren’t real.”

He frowns. “I can prove that they are.”

“How?”

He gestures to the car. “Let’s go.”

When you were younger, your sister always believed in magic. You remember spending all of October huddled on the couch with crocheted blankets, watching Halloween movies with the blanket pulled warm over scabbed knees, with popcorn-greased fingers tucked under heated thighs. Hanna always picked the movies - Halloween was her time of the year and you were happy to indulge.

Hanna’s choices were always superb. Hocus Pocus received more airtime than anything else, replayed between Halloweentown one and two, Practical Magic, The Witches and The Addams Family among others. Every night of the month was crammed full of magic and spells and haunted houses, sweetened by candy corn and Butterfingers.

Those were the nights that you loved the most. There was no fighting, no whining and crying over Hanna stealing your hair clips or you breaking her hair dryer. It was just the two of you, pressed skin-to-skin and spelled by the scrolling movies.

It’s as close to magic as you’ve ever been. You don’t think you were ever closer to her than in those moments. Under the blankets and the dim candles your mother lit, you were one being, melded. You knew when she would gasp at every jump scare and whisper each one of her favorite lines.

Thinking back on it, you wonder if Hanna was onto something. She always insisted that parts of the movies had to be true. Stories are rooted in history, and though myth and legend changed with culture, colonization and the introduction of new religions, science and ideas, there was something about the concept of magic and spirit that felt real to her.

It was why she went to school and majored in journalism with minors in folklore and history. She had even started a master's program for occult studies and folklore, spending late nights studying between traveling across the country from haunt to haunt for her job.

Staring at her work on the bed of your hotel room as Hoseok adds some of his own notes and findings, you have never missed her more. There is a sudden ache inside of your chest, so strong that it takes your breath away. Your hand goes to the necklace at your neck, feeling flushed, heart pounding.

Hoseok is explaining how there used to be a coven of witches that lived in the Wood long before Kill Devil existed. The Wood, Hoseok explains, is like a living and breathing conduit of power. It was something that gave the coven power but also needed to be fed.

The Covenstead. You remember the journal entry that had called it the covenstead. A place where witches commune and live together as one functioning body of magic. That much power does things to a place, skews the way the world works a little bit. He gives examples of places all around the world with similar experiences: the Bermuda Triangle, Door To Hell, Reed Flute Cave. All places where an abundance of magic and energy warps the way life functions.

But the Wood was strange before the witches got here. Hoseok rolls out a map, fingers tracing the lines of the city. Clarity snaps like a rubberband stinging against skin as you stare at it, lips parted, inhaling sharply.

The city roads make a pentagram, and at the very center is the courthouse.

“This is on purpose,” Hoseok explains. “There are other places in the world where the way the city or town or village is built is like a pentagram. Usually, these are called portals. They’re different from faerie rings which have their own power and distortions. These portals are for practicing witches and those who know how to use them.”

“Portals for what?”

“Creatures of great power that exist in worlds that don’t belong to us. Part of what gives witches their ability to perform magic is their energy. They are attuned to the world around them in a way that humans are not.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you understand the concept of third and fourth dimensions?”

“Third dimension is what we live in,” you answer mechanically, somewhat familiar with the idea. “If a fourth dimension existed, we wouldn’t know because it moves in a way that we are unable to perceive. The fourth dimension, in theory, is movement and sight we would never have.”

“Exactly. But witches are attuned to that. These pentagrams,” Hoseok murmurs, tapping the map. “Are made to connect to the fourth dimension. Pentagrams are not inherently evil or even paranormal, but similar to sacred geometry, they… radiate at a frequency that other dimensions do. Powerful symbols like this have existed since Mesopotamia.”

“I… how does this prove that magic is real?”

For a moment, you’re distracted by the way Hoseok’s artful fingers pluck your sister's notebook from the bed. He flips until you’re looking at her journal entries and the newspaper clippings with dates and headlines.

“Witchcraft is different in every culture and part of the world. These holidays have roots in Celtic and Welsh craft. It was brought over by the pilgrims when people fled England and traveled here. This is old - not as old as whatever lives in the Wood, but old enough that it’s powerful. These dates you’re looking at? They’re sacrifices to keep the Wood powerful.”

“How do you even know all of this?”

“I’ve studied it my entire life.”

“Why?”

“It’s just something that runs in my family. We’re very spiritual people.” Something about the way his voice wavers makes you look at him sharply. Hoseok isn’t looking at you, busying himself with sifting through papers. There’s a pinch in your gut that makes you think he’s lying, but you’re afraid to push the matter.

“Get some rest,” he says, breaking your exhausted train of thought. “We can talk more in the morning when you’re not exhausted.”

“Yeah.” You rub your weary eyes. “Yeah, okay.”

With Hoseok gone, you crawl into the bed, leaving the light on, staring off into the distance as your hand clutches your necklace. Your lip trembles and your throat constricts painfully. When you close your eyes, you feel tears slide down your face.

Tucking your face into the pillow to hide your tears, you let out a small, aching sound. You just want to know where your sister is, and somehow you’ve landed in the middle of a hateful little town with strange little people and a strange little fantasy.

Crying is inevitable. But at least it puts you to sleep.

This time, you know you’re dreaming. You don’t know how you know, but you do. There’s a watery feeling to the hotel room when you open your eyes. As though you’re both there and you’re not.

You glance at the clock but the numbers are all wrong. You rub your eyes and look again, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t make sense of them.

You want to sit up. You move your arms - no, you try to move your arms. They don’t move, suddenly too heavy to slide under the covers of your blanket and peel it back. Panic sparks in you as you try to shift your legs, but though you can feel them, you can’t move them.

Terror as you’ve never known slides between your ribs, sharp and poignant. You can’t breathe and you know you’re dreaming and yet you can’t move. You close your eyes, brain repeating the same words over and over again: wake up wake up wake up wake up WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP-

It doesn’t happen. You open your eyes and your room still has the dream-glazed light to it, and you still can’t move. Something shifts in your peripheral vision. Your heart seizes in your chest so sharply you think you’ll die.

You cannot turn your head to look at the shadow that moves just beyond your sight. Tears slip from your eyes, hot, wet and burning. You can’t wipe them. They blind you, turn your vision into an opaque, watery mess as something slides to the foot of your bed.

When you feel the mattress dip, you try to scream. The sound is locked in your throat, with so much force behind it that you wait for your vocal cords to explode. The fear is raw now, your eyes wild, tears leaking as you mentally thrash and thrash and thrash.

Weight shifts on either side of the bed and you have the sense that there is someone crawling on you but you can’t see beyond your crying, can’t hear beyond the pounding of your own heartbeat slamming in your ears, blocking out every other noise and-

Something invisible to you grips your throat. You still have the instinct to move, driving you to madness as your brain signals for your hands to fly to your assailant and yank and remove the hold on your neck.

It’s crushing. You gasp for air, no noise coming out as the grip tightens, and you know with certainty that this is it. Whatever dream this is will kill you, this time.

The realization that you’re going to die suddenly mutes the terror. It slides behind a glass door, beating its fists, but it's duller now. You have sharper clarity, and briefly you think of what Hoseok said about beings from the fourth dimension, and how the witches summon them through their craft here. To this place. Where you cannot perceive them.

You wonder if this happened to Hanna. You miss her, your sister, with big dreams and fast smiles and a head full of magic and wondering. This, you think, is how you go. And perhaps you’ll join her.

Thoughts blend together, sloshed wine in a glass. They’re warm and liquid and have no shape to them, no real purpose. It’s like you know you’re thinking, but you don’t know of what. Darkness pools at the edge of your vision. It feels cold and alone but you drift toward it, away from the pain.

And then you can breathe.

Air comes sweeping in, forcing its way into your mouth, into your lungs. Your lungs inflate so painfully that for a split second, you think they’re on fire. Oxygen burns its way through you and bursts of color explode on the canvas of your closed eyes - you don’t remember closing your eyes.

You roll over in bed, coughing, mouth wet with spit and phlegm as you try to gulp in as much air as you can.

High-pitched ringing whines in your ears, and there are muffled sounds on the other end of it. The motel room tilts back into vision, melting into place. You think that the room has reloaded into your world wrong - everything is crooked.

Then you realize you’re laying on your side, gagging and gasping for air. There is a hand against to your back, palm cold, fingertips freezing. The touch, you realize, feels full of energy, your spine tingling where it’s pressed against you.

Lurching away from the touch, you roll to the side of the bed, looking at the person whose hand had been pressed against you.

Hoseok’s tangled in the sheets, hair a mess, shirtless and in sweats. He’s panting, flushed, and there’s a sheen of sweat on his body. But it’s his eyes that stop you from scrambling away. They’re dark, burning like two pieces of coal as he looks at you, kneeling with his hands in his lap, palms facing the ceiling.

Hoseok says something. The ringing in your ears has just started to die down and you shake your head, unsure of what he means and not confident in your ability to speak.

“What?”

“Are you okay?”

You stare at him. “What the fuck just happened to me?”

“This is my fault, I’m so sorry.”

“What?”

He lifts his hands and you flinch. The look on his face is pure heartbreak, shrouded in golden light. “Please,” he murmurs. “Let me help you. I’m not going to hurt you.”

It’s quiet, save for the sound of the humming air conditioner.

Trust your gut, your sister had said.

So you do because he’s offered to help you thus far. You nod, giving him access to you. He sags in relief, shuffling forward tentatively as he takes your face in his hands. His palms are impossibly warm. Your eyes flutter shut at the touch, unable to look at him this close, this boy of light and something, as he cradles your face.

Warmth pools in your face, saturating down to your neck and chest. The ache in your lungs eases, and the lump in your throat continues to recede. You don’t want to ask what he’s doing. You don’t want to think. You don’t want to feel the terror of moments ago ever again, and with the way Hoseok is touching you, so close that his breath fans your brow, and you can smell him like rain and lavender, you want to embrace it.

There’s no thought process to the way you lean up into him. Your eyes are closed, your breath shaking as you seek him. Hoseok makes a surprised noise, but it vanishes as you press your lips against his.

Relief sweeps through you. It’s nothing you’ve ever felt before, every drop of terror fading away, momentarily forgotten. Every ache vanishes. It’s just Hoseok and the way he burns brighter than the sun, and the way it doesn’t hurt anymore.

After a brief moment of hesitation, he kisses you back. It’s sweet and soft-lipped, his fingers pressing into the side of your face gently as he pulls you to him. You follow his pull, both physically and something like a tether, getting up on your knees to get closer.

Hoseok breaks the kiss, nose brushing yours. You open your eyes, half-lidded and feeling dizzy from just the gentle press of lips. His eyes are dark, but you see the light flecks of brown in them, like an entire world of sun and stars exist in their depths.

“Make it go away,” you whisper.

You don’t specify. The pain, the nightmares, the fear, the weird town, the worry about your sister. You want it all to stop and this person you barely know - you feel as though he can take it away. Or mute it.

He nods, eyes closing as he kisses you properly. You forget what you were worried about, and it’s all you can do not to fall headfirst into Hoseok. His mouth is warm and wet, tongue soft but greedy as he pries your mouth open, drinking you in.

Hoseok’s lips tingle against yours, sending a shiver skating down your spine. You wrap your hands around his neck, fingers tangling in the silky strands there. He hums appreciatively when your nails slow-scratch at the base of his scalp.

Carefully, Hoseok shuffles you into his lap. Your knees dip on the mattress on either side of his hips, straddling his waist. His hands find the hem of your sleep shirt and pull upward. You break the kiss, a string of spit connecting your flushed mouths before the garment breaks it.

The room is cold, air hitting your bare chest and hardening your nipples immediately. You whine but Hoseok is fast, pressing your chest to his as he attaches his mouth to your neck, sucking at the tender flesh sharply.

“Fuck,” you whisper, letting your head drop backward heavily. Your eyes are shut and the world feels like it’s spinning. He has one hand on your hip, the other on the small of your back, pressing you to him to keep you warm and to rock your hips gently into his. “Feels good.”

He hums in response, sucking wet stains onto your flesh as he moves toward your chest. You push your tits out to meet his searching mouth, gasping lightly when the rough drag of his tongue swipes across your nipple.

The sensation is overwhelming. Your fingers dig into the back of his neck as Hoseok sucks your peak greedily. You’re grinding into his lap on your own now, panties clinging to your hot, sticky folds as you seek friction. He’s hard beneath you and you want to feel him.

Letting you rut in his lap, Hoseok drags delicate fingers over the curve of your ass and thigh, and his nails leave goosebumps in their wake. The feeling between your legs and at the base of your spine is heady as he lets go of one nipple with a sharp pop, tongue tracing a sloppy line to the other.

Hoseok’s teeth tease the tight bud and you whine. “Oh?” he asks, voice rough and low. “Gonna be a baby about it?”

You shake your head, but your lip juts out as you look at him, dazed. “Want more.”

“Tell me.”

Dropping one hand from his neck, you take the hand resting on your thigh, guiding it between your legs. Hoseok presses the pads of his fingers to your underwear and you let out a keen. It’s not nearly enough, but the pressure sends another wave of arousal flooding through you.

“Hmm,” he hums, dragging his fingers back and forth over the damp cloth. “Soaked from just that, huh?” You nod and he bites your collarbone. Fuck, he’s going to kill you, sending another tremble down your frame. He hooks a finger in your underwear, sliding against your glossy folds experimentally and he curses, “Fuck. Pussy is already messy and I’ve barely touched you.”

“Please.”

“What do you want? I already asked.”

“More.” Hoseok presses your clit, letting you drip onto his fingers, but he doesn’t move them. You grit your teeth. “Want your fingers,” you ask through clenched teeth. “Fuck me with them, anything. Please.”

He grins, face wicked before he kisses your nose. “See, you just had to tell me.”

You’re tense as he pulls your underwear to the side, shoving the fabric against your thigh. Cool air hits your cunt. You can’t recall ever wanting someone like this, vibrating uncontrollably as he traces your slit with his fingers, lazily circling your clit.

A sigh of relief escapes your lips and you drop your forehead on Hoseok’s shoulder. He lets you sag against him as he plays with your pussy, fingers barely dipping to tease your hole and gather juices before coming back to trace your clit, applying delicious pressure.

It feels so good. It’s mind-numbing, letting him do what he wants. Hoseok pants in your ear, breathing stilted between chaste kisses against the side of your head.

Painfully slow, Hoseok inserts a single finger into your wet heat. The sound you let out is high-pitched and loud. It’s not nearly enough, but you lose all sense of asking for more as his finger slides in deep, pressing against your front wall to massage that delicate spot inside of you.

“Oh shit,” you stutter, unable to help it.

He laughs, voice deep when he asks, “Yeah? That the spot?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

He slow-drags his finger in and out of your pussy, fucking you slowly. He curses, teasing you only for a moment before he gifts you another. The stretch is so much better, and you melt. He thrusts leisurely, not hard and fast but deep. Your walls swallow his fingers, gripping them and begging him not to stop as a tight coil winds in your stomach as he presses hard against your g-spot.

It’s messy, the wet drag of his fingers in your cunt. You feel the slow drip of arousal every time he pulls back, soaking his hand. It drops down your thighs as he picks up the pace. You lift your hips a little, adding a bounce to his motions.

“Oh? You wanna do it?” He stops moving his hand and you let out a desperate sound. He laughs. “No, go ahead. If you’re so eager, do it yourself. Fuck yourself on my fingers.”

Seeking balance by holding his shoulders, you grip him tight, face tucked in his neck as you maneuver yourself, using your knees to lightly fuck yourself on his fingers. It feels so good, and you adjust the angle until you feel him hit that spot again, making you see stars.

It’s electric, this feeling rippling in your bloodstream. It feels different with Hoseok and you can’t place why, but your orgasm is building so sharply in your stomach that you nearly stop thrusting, overwhelmed by the sensation.

The pressure in your stomach winds and winds and winds until it snaps, every muscle in your thighs and ass squeezing tight, your hands turning to an iron grip, breath stuck in your lungs as you let out a strangled sound, squeezing Hoseok’s fingers as you come.

Hoseok is whispering something in your ear, but you can’t hear him over the thundering heartbeat of your pulse, shaking as you come down from your high. When you do, you’re vaguely aware that he’s pulled his fingers out, but he’s massaging the tight ring of muscles, making you shiver.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “Wanna see you stretch yourself on my cock like that.”

“Wanna,” you mumbled.

Your limbs are heavy and lazy as you shuffle, uncoordinated. Hoseok laughs, finding you endearing as you scowl and shift off his lap. His touch is featherlight as he pulls your panties off. You need him, completely naked and shivering as your eyes drop from the smooth, carved planes of his chest and abs to the heavy imprint of his cock in his sweats.

And the wet stain mess you’ve made.

Flushed, you watch as he looks up at you, smirking. “Go on.”

Scooting toward him with eager hands, you rest with your feet tucked under you. Dipping your touch below his waistband, you grasp him firmly, cock heavy in your hand. He sighs, head tilting back a little while you slide your grip along his shaft.

Brushing your thumb over his tip to collect hot, sticky precum, you spread it, looking up at him through your eyelashes as you stroke him gently, testing the waters. His hips twitch and his mouth parts, gold light of the lamp turning him into Giovanni’s Apollo. He is ethereal, a burning sun and you suddenly understand why Icarus flew to his demise.

Maybe you will too.

With your other hand, you push Hoseok’s sweats down. Though you could feel the size and swollen weight of him in your hand, it’s still a marvel when you see his thick length, dark tip oozing precum.

A hiss escapes his teeth when you give him a firm squeeze. He lets you pump him lazily, and your mouth catches the underside of his jaw, teething and sucking sharp marks into his skin. He tastes like something electric and a little bit of sweat, your tongue buzzing.

“Hmm,” he hums, fingers gripping the back of your neck to pull your mouth back up to his. It’s more spit and him gasping into your mouth more than anything. “You know how stunning you are?”

You feel heat creep up in your cheeks. Hoseok shuffles away from you and you let go of your grip on him, watching his dick slap against his stomach, smearing precum. He sits near the headboard, leaning against the wallpaper and staring at you with hungry eyes.

“You’re going to make me shy,” you say softly, though you still crawl toward him. You can feel the slick slide of your inner thighs. He pumps his cock lazily, giving you a look that says he doesn’t believe you. “You’re pretty.”

“Think so?”

You nod, a little light-headed and uneven. You tilt toward the side and he catches you, hands sticky from your mixed arousal. Bending down, you capture his lips. Hoseok runs the crown of his cock through your folds and you moan, lips parting. He drinks in your sounds, licking them from the roof of your mouth.

For a moment, it’s just the teasing and sloppy kissing, pausing to pant into each other's mouths, slick from sweat. He presses the blunt head of his dick into your hole, dipping only a little before retreating and sliding back up to tease your clit.

“Hoseok,” you growl, biting on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, the iron tang blooming in your mouth. He hisses out a laugh and does it again. This time, you lower your pussy, trying to catch him on an angle to sink down on him. “Stoooop.”

“Whiny baby,” he teases again. “Cock-hungry, huh?”

“Wanna be full.”

“Mmm.”

Hoseok repeats the motion, but this time lets you sink slowly on the length of him. The stretch stings, hurt-laced pleasure as you suck in a sharp breath and hold it. It feels like your lungs might burst, shaking as you slide down until your ass rests on his damp thighs and you feel the tip of his cock deep in your gut.

“Fuck,” you gasp, leaning forward, palms pressed to his shoulders. They slide a little, his skin warm and sweaty. You dig your nails in for purchase and he sucks in a sharp breath, but lets you claw your way back to sanity from the feeling. “Deep.”

His hands find purchase on your ass, digging in and massaging. “Come on, then. You were so eager for my fingers.”

You lift your hips a little, the slide delicious against your warm walls, and drop down with a wet smack. You both moan at that and you grin, putting the weight into Hoseok’s shoulders as you lift your hips again, hypnotized by the wet schlick of your cunt sliding on his length.

Everything fades away again. Your thighs burn as you increase your movements, chasing the buzz that has settled deep in your stomach. Hoseok lets you use him, his eyes fixed on the way your cunt drips into his lap.

His nails bite into the meat of your ass and you feel dragged under by the pleasure, the sting of his grip and the pressure of his cock hitting your g-spot sending you further and further.

Your legs grow a little tired, movements sloppy. Hoseok doesn’t mind, planting his feet on the bed and thrusting upward to meet you, hands supporting your weight under your ass. He helps lift you, pulling you up and down until you’re mumbling incoherently.

It feels mind-numbingly good, and the tension in your stomach grows taught and tight, your second orgasm oncoming.

“Come on,” Hoseok demands between clenched teeth. “Give it to me.”

You nod, sliding a hand between your thighs, fingers circling your clit with just enough pressure and speed to get you shaking again. White spots appear in your vision as you squeeze your eyes shut, letting him take over and fuck up into you, cunt gushing as you come hard enough around him that you fall forward.

Hoseok lets you lay on his chest, dead weight as he claws at your ass and thighs, rutting up into you. You’re dimly aware of the soaked mess of your smacking bodies, but your ears are ringing and you feel lighter than you’ve ever felt before.

You begin to whine in oversensitivity just as Hoseok slams into you as deep as he can, cock twitching and filling you up. You shiver as he grunts, hips bucking with a wet squelch as he gently fucks you through his orgasm.

Both of you lay there in a messy pile as his cock softens inside of you. Cum pools between your pressed bodies, but you don’t care. The room is humid, the light dim with the haze of how far gone you feel. Hoseok traces soft circles on your hips with his fingers. Your mouth is pressed against his jaw, breath kissing his skin.

You could fall asleep here, you think. It’s nice to forget for a while, to let your body feel the pounding of his heart against your chest, the shaking of his thighs against yours, the ache in your muscles.

Heaviness tugs at you, so close to pulling you under, but Hoseok stirs. You feel drunk, letting him peel the two of you apart until you’re stumbling to the shower. The air makes your tacky, cum-covered skin cold.

It’s hard to fit both of you in the shower, but you manage it, rotating under the rough spray of the hot water, hands exploring and kneading sore muscles. Your lips are abused and feel bruised, but it doesn’t stop you from seeking the comfort of his mouth, the world turning to static every time you kiss him.

The motel room smells like sex and sweat when you return to peel clothes back on. Wordlessly, Hoseok takes your hand and leads you to his room on the other side of the wall. It has the same faded wallpaper, the same dusty and stained lampshades, but it looks more lived in.

There are added pieces in the room. A dehumidifier hums in the corner, and there is a hamper full of clothes. Hoseok has added plants near the window, plasticky leaves vibrant green and shiny. Burnt-out incense sits on the plastic folding table he’s erected, books and papers splayed out over its surface. There’s a collection of crystals you can’t identify.

An inviting bed beckons you. You both fall into it, heavy-limbed and sighing. It smells like Hoseok, a mix of rain and lavender. There’s a sense of trepidation as you roll over on the mattress.

Carefully, Hoseok pulls you to him. He presses your back to his chest, one arm going under his head as he yawns and smacks his lips lightly, the other looping over your waist.

“No one is going to bother you,” he sleep-slurs. “I got rid of them. And they won’t go against me.”

You hum, sleep crawling up and stealing your thoughts. You wonder how he got rid of them and why they’re afraid of him.

It isn’t until he mumbles a response that you realize you’ve spoken your question out loud. “Because,” he sighs, words slow and soft, as he drifts off to sleep. “I told them you’re mine.”

Hoseok’s words are lost on you because you’re long asleep.

No dreams disturb you. When you wake up, you feel the weight of the night before on you. It’s cool and empty behind you as you startle, realizing you’d fallen asleep with Hoseok there. You look over your shoulder, blinking away sleep, and see that it’s just you in the dark room.

From the bathroom, you can hear the shower. You relax a little, groaning as you roll to your back and stare up at the popcorn-textured ceiling. Your thighs still burn with the soreness from the night before and you bite your bottom lip, trying to conceal your grin.

Gently, you bring your hand to prod at your neck where it had hurt so much last night. You remember the lock-limb nightmare, the feeling of needing to scream. The thought that you were dying.

Hoseok had saved you, but it begged the question of how. You remember asking him last night, but you cannot remember what he answered. You’re also surprised to find that you’re not in any pain from whoever or whatever had attacked you.

Unease turns your stomach but you decide to crawl out of his bed, wandering around his room. A salt lamp casts an orange glow on his makeshift desk. You’re drawn to the mess on top of it, looking at the stacks of books and frowning. They’re not in English - or any language that you know, embossed symbols and shapes on the covers and cracked spines.

Lifting a heavy, green canvas book, you flip it over in your hands. The edges of the paper are yellow and oxidized with time and there is a gold symbol pressed on the front. Your fingers trace the groove, remembering what Hoseok said the day before about sacred geometry.

Putting it down, you select another book. It has a pentagram on it. When you flip the book open, the pages are filled with slanted writing, diagrams, and shapes. You recognize sabbat dates and stop when you get to a picture of interlocking shapes. You trace the symbol absently, wondering what it means.

Why does he have books like this?

A current of electricity slides up the finger that’s tracing the symbol. You squeak in surprise and drop it, cringing at the loud clatter that it makes against the table. The shower flips off and you look at the shut door. Hoseok moves around before opening the door, sticking his head out. He’s dripping in water, hair slicked back, golden skin glistening.

Despite the night before, you avert your eyes, shy. He doesn’t notice or doesn’t say anything, instead asking. “You okay?” He glances down at the books. “Good luck reading those.”

“Yeah,” you answer absently.

He grins. “Be out in a second.”

When Hoseok shuts the door, you feel unsettled. Rubbing your arms to fend off a sudden chill, you continue looking through the things on his table. There’s a small glass case with the exoskeleton of a frog. You cringe, thinking about Hoseok’s pet frog awaiting death in his pitcher plants.

Hoseok’s phone starts vibrating on the desk, making you gasp. Your hand goes to your chest, feeling the way your heart pounds violently against your rib cage. Looking at the screen, you see that someone named Yoongi is calling him.

You hesitate, cocking your head. The name rings familiar, and you watch as the call goes to voicemail. The screen fades to black but you keep staring at it. Not for the first time on your trip, you get the sense that you’re missing something, that there is something right there.

A text from Yoongi comes in, lighting up the screen.

Jung, you better not be fucking around with your prey again. We need to prepare.

It doesn’t sit well with you. When the screen goes dark, you tap it, bringing up the preview. What the hell does Yoongi mean fucking around with your prey? And what are they preparing for? You swear you remember the name Yoongi, retracing your thoughts.

You feel the blood drain from your face. You do know that name.

“Yoongi was so mad he wouldn’t talk to me for a week.”

“What?” you had asked him. “Your cat talks?”

“Oh- he- well he meows, you know what I mean?”

Slowly, you stiffen, remembering Hoseok’s words after breakfast. It had seemed silly then, that Hoseok was talking about a cat. But it’s not the only place you’ve seen Yoongi’s name.

Trust your gut, your sister always said.

You look at the bathroom door once before turning on your heel and creep from the room. You pull the front door open slowly, wincing and holding your breath as the outside world makes noise. Slipping through, you’re careful not to let the door click loudly before running to your room.

With the same care, you shut your door, flipping the bolt lock and sliding the chain in the door. The room feels like it’s spinning, your tunnel vision making you dizzy as you sweep your gaze back and forth, looking for the piles of your sister's research. It’s sitting on the floor, shoved off the bed where you let him fuck you last night.

The urge to vomit flips your stomach as you dive for the papers, riffling through them and scanning, feverish and sweaty. You find the entry you want, finger pressing to the page as you read it multiple times, fear making the words tangle.

Only Mabon is referenced in any of the journals explicitly, in a strange entry from a man named Yoongi Min. I have written it here for safekeeping: We bringeth the little lamb to The Wood today for the honor of Mabon. I loathe to see him go, for he hath brought cheer and many a smile to the Covenstead. May he bring us blessings and warmth in the winter.

Yoongi.

A sick feeling coils in your stomach as your hands tremble, eyes scanning the list of names your sister scribbled out as old families in Kill Devil. There’s another one you remember, the one that Yoongi used in his text to Hoseok.

Booth.

Park.

Warren.

Kim.

Jung.

Jeon.

Min.

A shaking hand presses to your mouth. Jung. “Fuck,” you squeak, looking at the wall separating you from Hoseok’s room.

It occurs to you that all this time, you thought the citizens were looking at Hoseok with contempt. How easily hatred can be confused for fear. Hoseok, who had shown up every time you were having a night terror. Who seemingly knew all the right things to do to ease you.

Hoseok, who had flashes of darkness that terrified you. Whose expression could go blank as he thought about something, but flip on a dime to a bright, sunny boy. Hoseok, whose presence always gave you a weird tingle, triggering some sort of instinct you couldn’t place.

Something happens then. With absolute certainty and a razor-sharp resolve that you’ve never experienced, you know your sister is dead. Perhaps you’ve always known. The sudden burning of your locket that night two months ago, the way that it looks like she ceased to exist. The eerie feeling dogging you, nipping at your heels.

Hanna is dead. The pain is only sharp for a second, a slice of agony as you bend over, arms wrapped around your stomach as you let out a silent scream. The grief is powerful but abrupt as you hear Hoseok call your name on the other side of the wall.

You stand. Because now you can’t mourn. Now, you must leave as quickly as possible. Because you hadn’t been trusting your gut, ignoring that weird little sense of something wrong.

Now isn’t the time to scream over what you know. Now you must get away from-

“Was it the books or the phone call?”

You whirl around. Hoseok is leaning against the wall by the door. The bolt is still flipped and the chain is still in place. You’re frozen to the spot, staring at him. He looks at the papers on the floor and back to you, smirk razor-sharp. Of course, he could get into the room without opening the lock.

All of the features you thought were beautiful are suddenly terrifying. “It took you way too long to puzzle it together, but I guess you’re not nearly as smart as Hanna.” You open your mouth but nothing comes out, throat constricted. “You were so easy to convince though, so I guess that’s something.”

“I don’t…” your voice is raspy, shaking.

“When you kept calling the city officials, I knew it was only time before you showed up here. I’ve been living in this fucking shit hole waiting.” He tsks and shakes his head, crossing his arms over his chest. “Took you forever.”

“The citizens?”

“Stay out of my way and stay out of the Wood. They’re the frogs I let live, so long as I find other ones.”

“Why?” you ask, shaking your head. It’s the only question you can think of. It’s the only question that matters: whywhywhywhy. “Why help me?”

“Sometimes a predator likes to play with its prey.”

It dawns on you that he had said as much at breakfast while he was tracing symbols on the table. He had been talking about his frogs, but he had been talking about you too. How many signs had you missed because he fucking smiled at you? Something dangerous lurking behind light flirting.

He points to himself. “Pitcher plant.” He points at you with a grin. “Frog. Ribbit.”

“Fuck you,” you snarl, fear replaced by a hatred that burns so hot the edges of your vision flash red. But it isn’t him you’re mad at. It’s you. For being so easily deceived. For being so casually influenced in a matter of days. “Fuck you, and your fucking town.”

“I did fuck you. You were special, though. I hope that makes you feel better. Didn’t fuck your sister. You’re cute, and I had time to spare.”

“All of this for what? To get off on the chase? The manipulation?”

He scoffs. “I already told you what this place is. It isn’t my fault you didn’t put it together. I almost hand-fed it to you. The Wood gives us power, and the Wood needs sacrifices.” Hoseok pushes himself off of the wall, his smile like the first light of the morning sun. “I’m taking you to the Wood.”

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