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ugh-yoongi · 11 months

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the retreat | jhs

(or, the one where namjoon just wants hoseok to take care of himself, but then there's a fake relationship, only one bed, a guy who doesn't talk, and maybe a weird cult.)

✤ pairing: hoseok x f. reader ✤ genre: childhood bf2l, fake dating-ish au; crack, fluff, smut ✤ rating: explicit. minors do not interact. ✤ warnings: there is a lot of talk about food and eating in here, so i would not suggest reading this if you are sensitive to those kinds of triggers. tropes galore! side taegi. 5th muster jimin from that one vcr. hobi is pansexual and i do not wanna hear from the weirdos during pride month, or ever. he is a millionaire tho so he's not off the hook. a slight astrological dragging. a strained mother-daughter relationship. the smut is not super explicit or detailed but warnings are as follows: kissing, oral sex (f. receiving), biting, hair pulling, hobi may or may not rip a pair of underwear, fingering, protected vaginal sex. a brief but canonical breaking-the-fourth-wall appearance by park bogum. beta'd by me, so any mistakes are my own. ✤ wordcount: 19.6k ✤ thank you: @the-boy-meets-evil, as always, for the encouragement and reading every draft of this. @hot-soop for both the astrological advice and advice in general. @effortandmore for reading this over recently and telling me it was worth finishing. i would get absolutely nothing done without the three of you. ✤ author's note: i was supposed to have this posted for jess's birthday two years ago. we're not gonna talk about that, because this just means i'm a month early for this year. happy early birthday, jess! anyway~ this is basically a 20k love letter to jung hoseok bc i miss him. i hope you enjoy it.

Jung Hoseok is overworked.

(He’s also filthy rich, the proud owner of not one but two Lamborghinis [that he doesn’t even drive], and smiling on the cover of Forbes. He has a top floor penthouse in the most expensive high-rise in the city and a vacation home along the Italian coast. When he needs to go on a business trip, his driver takes him straight to the tarmac where he boards a private plane. His tailor just sends him clothes now, the cost of dressing Jung Hoseok far outweighed by the dozens of other filthy rich men who flock to his store to buy whatever he’s wearing.)

Jung Hoseok is also going to have a stroke and die before the age of 30, because what’s a little money at the expense of his mental well-being and cardiac health?

“All things considered, it wouldn’t be the worst way to go out,” he argues, clammy palms flat on his expensive desk. Rosewood, because not only is he a millionaire, he’s a millionaire with taste. None of that monochromatic minimalist bullshit for him, thank you.

In front of him, Kim Namjoon also looks to be on the verge of a stroke. Not of the same variety. Namjoon is paid well because he works for Hoseok and Hoseok insists on it. None of that heartless, dickhead-to-everyone, impossible-to-work-for CEO reputation for him, either, thank you.

Namjoon is also a militant vegan and has twenty-six plants and one bonsai on his desk named Bonnie. He insists on spending his lunch breaks in Hoseok’s office, lecturing him on the benefits of plant-based diets and exercise and meditation. Despite his perpetual smile and sunny demeanor, no one else speaks to Hoseok this way, but Namjoon does. Absolutely doesn’t give a shit.

“It absolutely would be the worst way to go out. Have you even been listening to me?”

Hoseok sighs and closes the symptoms of a stroke tab in his browser. “I always listen to you, Namjoon, I just don’t always listen.” A smart choice, too, judging by the swamp-colored sludge Namjoon has in a glass container, because he doesn’t use plastics.

Following his boss’s line of sight, Namjoon frowns. “It’s a pitaya bowl. Don’t look at it like that.”

“It looks radioactive,” Hoseok says, face contorted in a wince. “Like it’s going to become sentient and sprout six arms.”

Namjoon scoffs. “If it does, I hope it uses all six of them to slap the shit out of you.”

“I could pay it to spare me,” Hoseok insists, chin jutting out indignantly.

One of the reasons Hoseok had all but demanded HR hire Namjoon—despite there being a plethora of other candidates who were just as qualified and nowhere near as hell-bent on him taking care of himself—was his grit and determination. He’d showed up two hours early to his interview and steamed his suit jacket in the employee bathroom. It was completely insane and even more neurotic, but Hoseok had been taken with him immediately.

Now, it seems that determination and hard-headed nature is coming back to bite Hoseok in the ass.

“Oh, yeah? You’re gonna pay your blood to not get cut off from your brain and your heart, too? Well, good for you, Hobi. I heard blood has even started taking American Express. You’re in luck—”

Unable to take anymore, Hoseok groans and waves his arms to cut him off. “Okay, I get it! God, why did I hire you? Your desk alone has to be violating at least fourteen different health codes. Your office is humid. Do you know how impossible that is to achieve outside of a greenhouse?”

“You hired me because I’m good at my job and I’m not afraid of you, so I have no issue slapping your fourth double bacon cheeseburger of the day out of your greasy, on-the-brink-of-dying hands. Christ, you act like it’d actually kill you to eat a vegetable for once.”

Hoseok squawks. “Hey! That definitely didn’t come up in the interview, and I have never eaten four cheeseburgers in a day. Stop being hyperbolic.”

“Speaking of things that start with hyper- and have a Bin them, hyperbaric therapy is great for people with infections from oxygen-starved tissue—”

“Is this what you do all day? You just sit on the internet and search for diseases I could potentially die from and then you come in here and harass me about them?”

Namjoon’s face, which had previously been scrunched up in righteous indignation, smooths over into something far more serious. (He doesn’t even have wrinkles. Namjoon’s skincare routine must be immaculate.)“Someone has a stroke every forty seconds in this country, Hoseok. I wouldn’t joke about this.”

Well, okay. Every forty seconds is far more often than Hoseok had been expecting. Not that he thinks about stroke statistics often, and definitely not outside of Namjoon’s overbearing presence—but, in his defense, it’s not like he’s had much of a reason. He gets a physical and routine blood work done every year and his doctor has never rung any alarm bells, so why would he?

But the resolution with which Namjoon is hammering away at this is definitely giving him pause.

It doesn’t go unnoticed by him, either. “See, you are concerned! Look, you’re far more likely to stick with something if you don’t overwhelm yourself, so let’s start small, okay? One salad per day. And a real salad, Hoseok—not one of those ones loaded with cheese and bacon and drenched in ranch dressing.”

Hoseok’s jaw snaps closed. “Then what’s the point of eating a salad?”

“To prevent you from dying before your thirtieth birthday. We’ve already established this.”

“Okay,” Hoseok drawls, “but it’s not the salad’s fault if that happens. You shouldn’t take it out on him.”

Namjoon gags. “Leave it to me to work for a man who thinks salads are male.” He casts his gaze skyward. “Please, Lord, if you’re listening, please put me out—”

“Please put me out of my misery first,” Hoseok interjects, also staring at the ceiling. Then, with a leveled glare, he says to Namjoon, “Fine. State your terms.”

“Really?” Namjoon asks, having the audacity to look shocked.

“Yeah, if it’ll get you off my back. I can’t spend one more lunch break in here with you.”

Namjoon smiles. Nothing friendly, either—it’s purely sinister and mocking. Then he says, “Great success!” in a horrible impersonation of Borat and the moment’s gone, lost to the stagnant air conditioning of Hoseok’s office.

Unsurprisingly, Namjoon’s terms include a lot of vegetables.

Hoseok has a private chef, of course, so it’s not like he has to really do much other than smile through the pain. But, really, would it actually kill him to be allowed a steak or some lamb skewers? What had started off as salads for lunch has turned into a full-blown war between the two of them. Hoseok had shown up with cheese and bacon on his salad one time and Namjoon nearly went off the rails, performing a very enthusiastic speech about how Hoseok cannot be trusted when left to his own devices, so here they are.

Namjoon’s trying his hardest to crack Hoseok, and Hoseok wouldn’t have become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company by the age of twenty-eight if he were so easily cracked.

So, yeah, here they are. Locked in a stalemate like two idiot deer with their antlers tangled together, except instead of feuding over territory or a mate, they’re ready to spear one another over vegetables.

Darwin would have a lot to say about this.

On Friday, at exactly one-o’clock on the dot, Namjoon barges into Hoseok’s office and slaps a stapled-together pile of papers onto his desk. “New terms.”

“Oh, no thank you,” Hoseok replies airily. “I’m not much of a Dua Lipa fan.”

“Wha—that’s ‘New Rules.’”

“Is it?” Hoseok’s smiling, eyebrows raised in that way that makes him look super charming and innocent.

Namjoon isn’t fooled, though. “Cut it out. I saw you eating ribs under your desk the other day. You owe me this.”

Not much shocks Hoseok, but being outed like this so brazenly sure does. “How did you know about that?”

“Uh, did you forget your office walls are made out of glass?” Namjoon twirls a finger in a circle, as if to say look at your four glass walls, you fucking idiot. Isn’t it great to be rich and have no privacy? “Not to mention you had a glob of barbeque sauce on your shirt that I could smell from a mile away.”

“I could’ve put it on my salad,” Hoseok reasons.

“Oh, please.” Namjoon rolls his eyes. “Six ribs and a side of potato salad does not a salad make.”

“What do you mean? It’s literally called potato salad, isn’t it? God, you’re uptight.”

Namjoon sucks in a deep breath, most likely reciting meditation mantras in his head while he thinks about his plants. “I didn’t come in here for this,” he eventually says, and Hoseok is honestly impressed at how collected he sounds. “The point is you can’t be trusted, so there’s new terms.”

Grabbing the stack of papers, Hoseok flips through them casually. “And if I don’t agree? Don’t forget I’m your boss.”

“If you don’t agree, I’m posting the security footage of you eating those ribs on Twitter.” Hoseok’s looking positively scandalized now. He wouldn’t. Namjoon wouldn’t do that to him. “Honestly, Hoseok. You should be ashamed of yourself. You looked like that video of that oversized baby covered in peanut butter.”

“Are you blackmailing me?” Hoseok asks, eyes narrowed. “Seriously, who are you? Because the man standing across from me is not my sweet baby Namjoon. Sweet, sweet Namjoon, who always checks the toilet bowl before he uses it because he saw one of those videos from Australia of a snake being in there and he’d feel too guilty to even piss on a snake—”

Namjoon plants his palms on Hoseok’s desk and puffs out his chest a little. It’s a great chest, Hoseok must admit. Namjoon had mentioned in passing he’d started going to the gym, so he’s not—“I’m not afraid of you,” Namjoon reminds him. “Try me.”

“I have thirty-two lawyers.”

All Namjoon does is quirk an eyebrow. “I have thirty-thousand Twitter followers.”

“I can fire you.”

“Please do. Capitalism is a scourge on this earth and I no longer wish to participate in it.”

“I can fire you and make sure you never find employment in this city ever again.”

Namjoon shrugs. “Fine by me. I’ve been thinking about moving out of the city, anyway. Too much air pollution and I have no space to garden.”

Two things become clear very quickly: 1. Namjoon is far more cut-throat than Hoseok ever anticipated him being; and 2. Hoseok is woefully underprepared for this particular battle. No matter. He’s business-savvy. There’s no shame in conceding an unwinnable battle if he can still win the war, and that’s exactly what he’s going to do.

“Fine,” he relents after an awkward staring contest that lasts two minutes too long. “What are your new terms, then?”

“You have to go to a wellness retreat.”

Hoseok can’t stop the giggle that bubbles out of his mouth. “Sorry, did you say a retreat? How is that a punishment?”

“It isn’t,” Namjoon says. “It’s meant to reset your body and mind. No phones allowed. Just you and your partner in the refreshing, reinvigorating air of the rainfor—”

“What was that?” Hoseok interjects.

“What, the rainforest part? Don’t worry, it’s safe. You’re not, like, sleeping outside with tarantulas and shi—”

“No, not that. Me and my who?”

“Oh!” Namjoon grins. “Your partner. See, I did a lot of research and found the absolute best and most effective wellness retreat for people of your… uh, standard. And the man who runs this retreat is incredible. Like, world-renowned. But the catch is it’s a couple’s retreat, so you’ll have to find someone to play pretend with you for a month.”

Hoseok is a great businessman. He’s good at negotiations and managing relationships and making smart, anticipatory decisions. He has the bank account and name plate with accompanying title on his desk to prove it. But, as he takes in Namjoon’s words, the only thing his brain can come up with is the Windows shutdown sound and a glaring blue screen alerting him to danger.

Nevertheless, one of Hoseok’s rules for business is to never let the opposition see him frazzled. “Why don’t you just come with me?” he offers casually, his tone completely at odds with the pained, panicked expression on his face.

“Two reasons,” Namjoon says quickly and without hesitation, as if he expected this and had all the time in the world to prepare a rebuttal. “First, you couldn’t pay me enough to act like we’re a couple. No offense, but you’re kind of insufferable and I would never date a carnivore—”

Hoseok clicks his tongue. “Wow. Some offense taken.”

“—Second, someone has to stay behind and hold down the fort if you’re going to be gone for a month.”

“Why can’t Brad do it?” Hoseok asks. This time his strained tone completely gives him away.

“You don’t trust Brad.”

Hoseok’s brows furrow. “I never said that.”

“You absolutely did say that,” Namjoon responds immediately, pulling out his phone. “On April nineteenth at approximately ten-twenty in the morning, you said, and I quote, ‘Namjoon, why do you think I hired you? If I had to suffer through having one more Ivy League white guy who played lacrosse and got grandfathered into a fraternity as my assistant, I was going to throw myself down this elevator shaft.’ To which I replied, ‘Oh, you don’t like Brad?’ And you said, ‘Brad’s fine, I guess. I just don’t trust him.’ So, I asked you why, and you said, ‘I wouldn’t trust Brad to order a box of staples, let alone to know the difference between tteokbokki and hotteok—’”

“That doesn’t sound like something I’d say at all,” Hoseok lies. It absolutely sounds like something he’d say at ten-twenty in the morning on the nineteenth of April. “Also, did you really make a note of that? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Of course I didn’t,” Namjoon fires back. “I obviously took a voice recording of it first and transcribed it later. Sometimes I listen to it on repeat when I really want to strangle you and it calms me, because it serves as a reminder that if I go to prison for attempted murder, Brad will take my job. And we can’t have that, because you might simply distrust Brad, but I fucking hate him.”

Hoseok gapes a little. “We sure can’t,” he agrees. Tense air settles between the two of them as they both wait for the other to make the first move. Namjoon’s patient, having already played his hand knowing Hoseok has nothing to trump him, but Hoseok’s stubborn. He’ll drag this out as long as humanly possible. He’ll be ninety years old, on his fourth heart transplant, and still waiting to go on this trip. He’ll—

He’ll have to step down as CEO, because he has, once again, severely underestimated Kim Namjoon.

“Stop thinking so hard. It’s already booked and paid for.”

“With whose money?”

“Company card.”

“Which has my name on it. I’ll just cancel it.”

“It’s non-refundable, but go ahead. You’re still out all that money, though, so you might as well go.”

“I can’t just take a month off,” Hoseok says. He’s grasping at straws now. No one would dare tell him no, even if he wanted to take the next six years off. Human Resources would simply say of course, sir, have a great vacation, sir, see you in six years, sir, and off he’d go.

“Sure you can.” Namjoon stands, wipes his hands on the dress pants stretched to their limit across his thighs, and looks entirely too smug. “Better start looking for a date. Maybe you’ll have some luck on Tinder.”

Bile rises in Hoseok’s throat. “Tinder? Are you joking? I’m too rich to go on there. What if I find a nice date, take them home, and wake up in a bathtub full of ice because they found out who I was and decided to sell my organs?”

“No one would want them,” Namjoon deadpans. “I see the absolute filth you funnel into that body of yours and I can say, with one-hundred percent certainty, that your organs are worthless. Mine, on the other hand. Pristine—”

“Get the hell out of my office. I can’t even look at you right now.”

Good thing, too, because Namjoon’s still wearing that stupid little smirk. The really smug one that infuriates Hoseok to no end because it brings out his dimples, makes him look innocent and cute even though he’s not. The one that gloats Namjoon’s victory, like he’d known all along it was going to end this way. He’d hid those cards so far up his sleeve, Hoseok’s surprised they hadn’t started sprouting from his ears. God, he’s really insufferable. Makes Hoseok’s blood pressure spike something fierce.

“Did you ever stop to consider you’re the problem?” Hoseok calls to Namjoon’s retreating frame. When had he gotten so broad? “That maybe, if my heart does give out, it’ll be because I have to deal with you, the most stressful person on earth?”

“Nah, it’ll definitely be because two of your desk drawers are full of those disgusting oatmeal creme pies.” Somehow, Namjoon looks even more smug as Hoseok tries to discreetly glance at the aforementioned drawers. How does he find out all these things? “Anyway, you leave in two weeks! Good luck in your search. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon, sir.”

Just as he’d assumed would be the case, Hoseok has no luck on Tinder.

See, he’d fucked up from the beginning, deciding to be honest and truthful and explain his plight to any sympathetic pair of eyes that may have gazed upon it. He’d also decided to use his real name, and anyone familiar with those List of Billionaires We Should Eat listicles had snuffed him out immediately. Long gone were the days of genuine conversation and playful flirting. Now, Hoseok’s inbox is full of more genitalia than he’s ever seen in his life. He’s literally drowning in it and can’t even take time to appreciate the situation in which he’s accidentally found himself.

He’s absolutely going to kill Kim Namjoon once this is all over.

After getting over the embarrassment of the next day’s MULTIMILLIONAIRE CEO JUNG HOSEOK SPOTTED ON TINDERheadline, because he hadn’t even had the good sense to use Raya, Hoseok resigns himself to scrolling through the contacts list in his phone. He’s not desperate or stupid enough to invite his ex, or any of the myriad of names he can’t put to faces because, despite what Namjoon says, he’s still concerned about his organs, so he also resigns himself to calling you.

His best friend.

Who’s going to spend the rest of her life roasting him over this.

“What a pleasant surprise,” you greet him. “Haven’t heard from you in weeks. Let me guess, you need me to make another burner account and explain to Rose Emoji and Hammer and Sickle Twitter why they shouldn’t eat you?”

“No—”

You tsk. “That’s a shame. I think I missed my calling in life.”

“Being a Twitter troll?”

“Yeah, obviously,” you agree. “Do you remember that time I set up the fake Gofundme to pay for my conservative cousin’s cephalanalectomy surgery because the liberal snowflake surgeon refused to perform it and he was going to die if they literally did not remove his head from his ass? That was fucking gold, Hobi. I’m a natural.”

“You’re definitely something,” he acquiesces. Then he has an idea. “Hey, do you wanna help me troll Namjoon?”

Your silence is deafening. “Uh, that depends.” Oh, Hoseok does not like your hesitation at all. “He has, like, a lot of Twitter followers, so I’m not trying to beef with him publicly, even if it is on a burner account.”

“Don’t tell me you’re afr—what the fuck kind of Twitter following does this guy have?”

“It’s probably better if you don’t know,” you say, voice laced with faux-concern. “I like Namjoon and I’d like him to remain employed by you simply so he can annoy the absolute fuck out of you until the day you either retire or die. So, yeah, let’s keep that between him and I.”

Hoseok feels dizzy. Probably because he’s been eating all these goddamn salads and now he’s nutritionally deficient. “Whatever. I do actually need your help with something, though.”

“You know my rates.”

“Why do I have to pay to hang out with you?” Hoseok whines. “Isn’t my life-long friendship enough?”

You snort. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Why is everyone bullying me lately? Can’t you spare a crumb of empathy for your best friend?”

“Empathy machine broke,” you deadpan. “Come on, ask me what my terms are. I already know what I want this time.”

Hoseok sighs. He wouldn’t relent this quickly for anyone else. He has a reputation to uphold, after all. “Fine. What are your—”

“I want a Birkin bag and dinner from that new Brazilian place by your office.”

“That’s a definite no on the bag,” Hoseok says. “I’m not spending that much money on anyone who isn’t my future spouse. We can have dinner, though.”

“I think you misheard me, sunshine. I said I want to go to dinner there. I’m going to gorge myself on expensive all-you-can-eat meats and I do not want to taint my experience watching you shovel a miserable, wilted salad into that pretty little heart-shaped mouth of yours. I’ll get agita.”

“Agi—I can’t believe this,” Hoseok whines, feeling the apples of his cheeks tinge red. “Have you and Namjoon been getting together to conspire against me? Is that why the two of you are bullying me?”

Hoseok expects you to say no. He expects you to say that you and Namjoon don’t even speak, you’d only met him once at that Christmas party a year ago, during which Namjoon spent the entire time waxing poetic about conifers and that time he dropped acid at Yosemite and cried for a week straight. But no. No, you don’t say anything at all, and if Hoseok was feeling bullied and just a little scandalized before, he’s absolutely feeling tortured now.

Namjoon, on his own, is bad.

You, on your own, are worse.

The two of you, together? No. Hoseok simply can’t—and won’t—allow it.

You suck in a breath. “In my defense—”

“You absolute traitor,” Hoseok seethes. “You, of all people, have betrayed me?”

There’s a tiny gasp on the other end of the line. “Oh, come off it, Hobi!” you snap. “Have you ever seen yourself eat? It’s foul. Like something straight out of Animal Planet.”

“It is not!”

“It is, and you know it,” you fire back. “I once watched you eat an entire personal-sized pizza in forty-two seconds. I don’t even think you chewed it. You just detached your jaw like some kind of creepy snake and inhaled. Something needed to be done.”

It’s Hoseok’s turn to gasp. “And that something was going full Judas Iscariot and selling me out to the Romans for thirty pieces of silver?”

There’s a pause on your end. “Is Namjoon the Romans in this scenario? Because, if so, I’ve got to say—”

“Who cares!” Hoseok snaps. “Who fucking cares who the Romans are—”

“The Romans, probably,” you chime in unhelpfully.

“—because the two of you have officially given me agita. How’s that? Huh? First I have to sit through all of Namjoon’s lunch lectures—”

“He should trademark that. Has a nice ring to it. Namjoon’s Lunch Lectures.”

“—then, I had to start eating salads. Salads. Then he signs me up for some stupid wellness retreat in the goddamn rainforest and tells me I have to find a fucking date, so off I go to Tinder, but everyone on there only wanted me for my harvestable organs, so I was like, ‘You know what, Hoseok? You know who you can always count on? Your best friend of twenty years. She’s never let you down. She’ll go with you, and the two of you will have a good time, because she’s your best friend and you enjoy her company.’ But no, come to find out—”

There’s a very loud shriek of laughter. “Oh my god. Holy shit, Hobi, is that really why you called? Namjoon actually signed you up for that couple’s retreat?”

Now, there’s a very loud shriek of disbelief. “You fucking knew about that?” You try to contain your snort. Really, you do, but it’s no match for Hoseok’s palpable ire. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me?”

“Oh, come on! It’ll be good for you, sunshine. You’re clearly overworked. You had visible stress lines in the last selfie you posted on Instagram.”

“I did not, I use hyaluronic acid!” he insists, but if Hoseok swipes out of your call to pull up his Instagram account, no one has to know.

You groan. “Why do you keep arguing with me? I’m never wrong.”

“Yes you are.” There’s a very pointed pause during which Hoseok can very clearly, in his head, hear you say see?

“Listen,” you say, voice strong with all the conviction of a person who hadn’t spent the last five minutes being a menace to society—and Hoseok. “I’ll go with you. I have some time off from my program and there’s nothing I’d rather do than spend a whole month in the rainforest with you.”

“I feel like that was sarcastic.”

You tut. “Honestly, Hobi, it’s like you don’t even know me at all. You know number three on my bucket list is going to Costa Rica to hang out with sloths.”

His phone pings a second later with a text from you. An article about a sloth sanctuary greets him, and he swallows the immediate ew that’s on the tip of his tongue. Sloths are cute, sure, but they also have bugs. “Great,” he chokes out. “Are you gonna meet a sloth and turn into Kristen Bell? Because I’m not signing up for that. You look like Kim Kardashian when you cry.”

“Fuck you.” Hoseok is a millionaire, he doesn’t deserve this treatment. “Now, what are your plans for tomorrow night? Let’s do dinner. We need to take a bunch of selfies during sunsets so we look like a plausible couple.”

When he was eight and you were seven, Hoseok witnessed his first act of violence.

A kid on the school bus had been giving him a hard time. Nothing totally awful, just being a bit of a dick the way kids are wont to do, and Hoseok was a pushover back then. Just wanted everyone to like him so he never really stuck up for himself. Just smiled and laughed off the teasing and cried about it later.

Apparently this was unacceptable to you.

You tossed your bookbag in Hoseok’s lap, pushed up your sleeves, made your way to the back of the bus, and told that kid you’d slam his head into the window if he didn’t stop picking on Hoseok.

He’d gotten his head slammed into the window approximately fourteen seconds later.

(Never messed with Hoseok again, though.)

Since then, the two of you have been nearly inseparable. Sure, there had been petty arguments here and there, and Hoseok had gone to an Ivy League across the country, but it was rare for the two of you to go more than a few days without talking. Even now, when Hoseok works eighty hour weeks and is busy being a Very Important Person, he still makes time for you. Sometimes that time is just exchanging stupid memes over text, but he always makes the effort.

Which is why, even though you don’t see the point in crafting some elaborate backstory and had only said the thing about the sunset selfies to con him into coming over, he stays quiet and shows up to your apartment for dinner and worldbuilding anyway, because it’s been too long since he’s last been here and he misses you.

“Are you taking notes?” Hoseok asks, pointing at you with his fork. “This is important.”

You groan into your wine glass. “Fake dating is so hard,” you whine. “Why can’t we just tell the truth?”

He levels you with a stare. “Because! Don’t you think it’s a bit…”

“What, you think it’s totally unbelievable that I could be in love with you?”

Oh. Hoseok doesn’t like this at all, either. Doesn’t like the way the words sound in your mouth. Doesn’t like the way his stomach drops as he digests them. Doesn’t like how nice they sound, like you’d just waded through all the extracurricular bullshit to get straight to the point and arrive at the inevitable conclusion, which is the two of you riding off together into that sunset you’d mentioned before.

He doesn’t like feeling like he might want that.

It’s not like he’s never thought about it. You’re his best friend and he has 20/20 vision, so of course he has. It's always just been one of those things: didn’t want to ruin your friendship, moved across the country, got too busy, didn’t think you’d want him like that in return.

“I—no,” he says unconvincingly. “I just… it’d totally be weird, right? Us pretending to be a couple?” He throws in a chuckle for good measure, as if the thought of dating you is so preposterous it simply has to be a joke.

You just shrug. Where Hoseok is all nervous jitters, you’re solid and unshaken, always. “Not really. We’ve been friends forever. We’re obviously comfortable with each other. You showing up to my place in those disgusting crochet shoes is proof enough of that.”

Hoseok looks down at his feet and frowns. “They’re Valentino.”

“More like Valenti-no.”

He rolls his eyes. “See, that right there is why we can’t wing this. I can’t pretend to like your awful jokes. I’ll out myself immediately.”

You roll yours right back. “Nah, I think it works. You’re obviously the high-strung CEO who doesn’t appreciate good humor when he sees it and I’m the sad housewife who just wants you to laugh at my jokes.” You jut out your bottom lip and pretend to cry. “Why won’t you just laugh at my jokes, Hobi?”

He flicks a green bean at you. “How’d we go from fake dating to fake marriage? Stop trying to swindle me.”

Once again, you pout dramatically. “God, first you refuse to laugh at my jokes, now you refuse to marry me? You’re breaking my heart here.”

“I’m not buying you a ring,” Hoseok scoffs. “I know for a fact you’ll just turn around and sell it for triple the price to some poor, unsuspecting bastard.”

“Not my fault there’s a lot of poor, unsuspecting bastards in the world. All of this just proves, for the billionth time, that I’m the better businessperson between the two of us.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Hoseok sighs. “Just because your lemonade stand outsold mine once doesn’t mean—”

“I also outsold you during that candle fundraiser in the fifth grade. And the candybars during Little League. And that bullshit one in high school with the pineapple pizzas—”

“Fine!” Hoseok throws his hands up. Then, with as little of a grimace as he can muster, he says, “Let’s go to Costa Rica, Mrs. Jung.”

It doesn’t land.

Your jaw drops immediately, an exaggerated gag spilling from your lips. “I changed my mind,” you deadpan. “No marriage for us unless you take my last name.”

“What’s wrong with mine?”

“Feels bad in my mouth. What’s wrong with mine?”

Hoseok rolls his lips together. “Nothing, really. Just—”

“Is this some kind of male pride thing? You refuse to take your wife’s last name for fear of public ridicule and castration jokes?”

“No.” Hoseok glares at you. “It’s just—the reservation’s in my name. Besides, if someone made shitty jokes about you, I’d slam their head into a window, too.”

“Oh.” As soon as your jaw snaps shut, a brilliant smile splits your face. “That was unexpectedly wholesome, Seok. You’re getting soft in your old age.”

Only for you, he wants to say. Instead, he shoves another forkful of rice in his mouth and a copy of the itinerary in your direction.

(For all your bravado and willingness to slam the heads of elementary school bullies into windows, you hate flying. So, if you squeeze Hoseok’s hand too tight and he snaps a photo of it under the guise of how comically purple-red it’s turning, and not at all because it’s the first time you’re holding his hand and some weird, sentimental part of him wants to commemorate it, that’s his business.

If his heart is so full it nearly bursts out of his chest at the sight of you crying over a sloth, and if he memorizes the stars in your eyes as you hold one—not caring about the bugs or the giant claws or the fact that sloth fur kind of looks like a bird nest, algae included—that’s his business.

If he posts the photo of you crying to his Instagram, knowing damn well you’re going to yell at him for it later, and he cackles wildly over Namjoon’s comment:

[namjooning commented: why does she cry like that kim kardashian meme? junghoseok replied: Right? That’s what I said]

—that’s his business. It’s only because he’d said you look like Kim Kardashian when you cry and, if nothing else, Hoseok loves to be proven right. It has nothing to do with wanting to remember you that happy forever. Not at all.

If he feels like he’s going into cardiac arrest when you hug him tightly, murmuring a quiet thank you in his ear on the last night of your stay at the sanctuary, it’s simply because you’re not very tactile. Hugs—and outward affection—from you are rare. That’s all. His skin absolutely does not break out in goosebumps. Doesn’t feel tingly all over. His breathing continues as normal.

If he finally comes to the startling realization that he’s in way too deep when you fall asleep on his shoulder during the drive to the resort, well…

Hoseok may be deadly smart, but he’s always been a complete fool when it comes to you.

If he sends a panicked text to Namjoon asking how he’s supposed to survive the next month, and if Namjoon misinterprets it as an ambitious, live-to-work type-A personality freaking out over not knowing how to unwind and tells him to just take it easy, and Hoseok misinterprets that as go for it, well…

The next four weeks sure are going to be interesting, aren’t they?)

See, the thing about Hoseok is he has all the money and prestige a man of his status could want.

He’s filthy rich, he’s well-respected, he’s kind. People love him. He loves people in return. He’s been called the living embodiment of actual sunshine more times than you or he could possibly count. There’s truly nothing he wants for in this world.

Hoseok is also the type of person who gets anxious at the thought of calling the Malaysian restaurant you two frequent to place a delivery order. Namjoon has to force him to make his own personal appointments under threat of death. He changed doctors because his new one lets him schedule appointments online. He won’t go to a fast food drive-thru unless they have mobile ordering.

It’s just the way Hoseok is. He’s been that way as long as you’ve known him—at least since that time in the fifth grade when his mother once gave him twenty bucks and told him to call the pizza place and order dinner for the two of you and he totally balked, resigning the two of you to toaster oven Ellio’s that tasted way too similar to skating rink pizza to be a coincidence.

Which is why he balks again as soon as the two of you reach the front desk of the resort, shoving you in front of him to talk to the man behind it.

Maybe it’s the raging pansexual inside Hobi rather than his uncharacteristic fear of talking to literally anyone, but you totally get it. You don’t really want to talk to this man, either. He’s ash blond and bathed in golden light, highlighting his already golden skin to look completely ethereal, and he’s got a smug look on his face that tells you he knows exactly how intimidatingly good-looking he is.

Still, you’re not easily shaken. Jung Hoseok is your best friend—and fake boyfriend, lest you’ve forgotten—for fuck’s sake. You’ve committed violence for him. Golden Desk Boy is going to have to try a whole lot harder than this. “Hiii,” you say, lips painted in a saccharine smile. God, you’re so fake. “We’re checking in under Jung.”

The man—whose name badge says Jimin—returns your fake smile. “Great! Thank you so much for joining us for your stay.”

You take a moment to look around while Jimin pulls up your reservation, purposefully skipping over Hoseok’s form. He’s not doing anything, just sitting in a plush armchair as he pretends to read the newspaper, but you feel the flames of annoyance licking at your heels nonetheless, because you wouldn’t be here to begin with if it weren’t for Hoseok and his subordinate micromanager, and what kind of weird place has he brought you to?

Everything is white. Not in the sterile kind of way, because the monotony is broken up with lush greenery and the occasional piece of teak furniture, but there’s enough white for you to wonder if it’s some sort of statement. The floors and walls are white. All the non-wooden furniture is white. Jimin’s silk uniform and teeth are both blindingly white. Not that you’d seen many people since you stepped into the lobby, but the ones you had seen had been wearing white, too.

Jimin looks up from the computer screen and you’re almost surprised to find his irises aren’t white, too. Maybe it’s rude, but he seriously gives you the creeps. “Everything is ready for your stay, Mr. and Mrs. Jung. I’ve requested someone come to retrieve your luggage.”

You gawk. “Oh, we’re not—we’re not married.”

“Oh?” Jimin asks, one perfect eyebrow arched as his eyes twinkle with intrigue.

“Yeah,” you insist. “Not that I need to explain my morals and ethics to a stranger, but I don’t believe in the patriarchy.”

“Really? That’s great,” Jimin lies. This man is overflowing with shithead energy. “Neither do I.”

You scoff. “Oh, sure. That’s why you just assumed my bes—my partner and I were married.”

“That’s what the reservation says.” He looks very amused now. Kim Namjoon is going to receive a very lengthy text message in approximately ten minutes. “I do apologize for this mistake. I’ll make sure to correct it right away.” Amusement slowly morphs into a challenge. “Is there a new last name I can put on the reservation for you instead?”

Call it a hunch, but you think it best to not give this person any of your identifying information. “No.”

“Shall I leave it as Jung, then?”

It physically pains you to say this, but you manage to choke out a very strained, “Yes.”

“Fantastic,” Jimin sing-songs. “I’m very glad we were able to sort out this issue for you, Mr. and Mrs. Jung.”

Choke on a dick and die is what you want to say (for no reason, really; it isn’t like Jimin’s been outright cruel to you), but as much as Hoseok avoids people—and avoids confrontation even more—he appears at your side, looking every bit the sunshine after a storm he always is. “Everything okay?” he asks, placing a gentle hand at the small of your back. “…Dear,” he tacks on as Jimin’s eyes study the two of you.

“Everything’s great!” you chirp, determined to cast away Jimin’s obvious suspicions. “Jimin here says someone’s coming to get our bags.” Another fake, saccharine smile. Like sweet’n low. “He’s been very helpful.”

Everything’s great, in you-speak, translates to I once, foolishly, thought Kim Namjoon was on my side. I now see the errors of my ways and I demand justice and revenge. Fool you once (getting roped into being Hoseok’s fake partner to come to a weird wellness retreat), shame on Namjoon. Fool you twice (allowing him to book the reservation and label you a married couple), shame on you. There won’t be a third time, because Kim Namjoon’s days are numbered once you’re both in the same country again.

“Will you be needing a tour?” Jimin asks, voice tinkling like expensive crystal.

You grasp Hoseok’s hand far too tight to be believable and wave off the receptionist. “No, thank you! Just a map will do. That’s how we met, you know—at a… map… class.”

“A map class?” Jimin parrots. “Riveting.” He smiles. Sweet’n low.

“It sure was!” You turn to Hobi. “Wasn’t it? …Babe,” you choke out. The word tastes so gross on your tongue.

When you look up at him, Hoseok’s wearing that trademark expression of his: the one where his eyes are too wide, tight-lipped smile stretched too thin. Hoseok’s convinced it’s convincing. It isn’t. It’s terrifying and makes your skin feel itchy from the inside. “Mmm, yep,” he agrees easily. “Love a good map. Some good… cartography.” He pinches three fingers together because he’d seen it on The Sopranos and it’s just a thing he does now.

Sometimes you forget Hoseok is rich-rich.

Of course Namjoon had mentioned booking the trip on the company card and of course you know what someone like him having access to a company card implies. It’d implied you were going on an all-expenses-paid trip on some massive company’s dime. But, perhaps naively, you’d just envisioned a fancy hotel room at some resort near a beach. Shoreline bonfires, tiny portions of food on massive plates when you order room service, colorful drinks with tiny umbrellas and a skewer of fruit stuck inside, three-digit price tag.

Instead, the two of you follow the map to a secluded, private house. There’s a balcony. The shower is made entirely of glass and surrounded by the lush greenery outside. The exterior wall in the bedroom is also made of glass and affords you panoramic views of the beach and forest and everything in between. The thread count of the Egyptian cotton sheets is disgustingly low.

(Which, speaking of Hoseok and all his money—he’d been the one to teach you about thread counts to begin with. You’d wrongfully assumed the higher the number the better, but Hoseok had gently grabbed the scratchy 1500 count sheets out of your hands with a pained grimace and handed you a set of Supima cotton sheets with a startlingly low thread count instead.

Rich people have everything backwards.)

Truth be told, it’s exactly the kind of place you’d see on some influencer’s Instagram account. The kind of place they’d delude you into thinking you could afford, too, because having your influencer boyfriend take a picture of you sinking into the lush white duvet and plastering a $10 filter on it is more important than affording your student loan payments.

But you digress.

Either way, you’ll have to send a thank you card to the board of directors.

Hoseok, on the other hand, balks for the second time. Takes one look at the singular bed and completely shuts down, Windows sound effects practically blaring over an invisible loudspeaker above his head once again. “Where’s the other bed?” he asks stupidly.

You snort. Stash your suitcase in the corner. You’ll unpack it later… or next week. Whenever you get around to it, really. “What other bed?”

“You know, like. The other one.”

“There’s only one, Seok. Why would there be two? This is a couple’s retreat.”

He pouts. “Not every couple sleeps together, you know. My grandparents have separate bedrooms.”

“No offense, bud, but your grandfather also wears diapers.”

“So?”

“So there might be a correlation, is what I’m saying.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t sleep in the same bed as your husband of seventy years just because he might pee the bed sometimes?”

You level him with a look. Unpacking doesn’t sound like such a bad idea anymore. “I’m well past the age where I could conceivably be married to someone for seventy years, so it doesn’t matter.”

“You’re not even thirty yet.”

You click your tongue. “Hoseok, you of all people know I never expected to live past the age of thirteen. There’s no way I’m making it to ninety-seven.”

“You only thought you were gonna die when you were thirteen because you had your appendix removed.” You give him another look. “And you got your tonsils removed that same year.” Another one. “What?” he huffs. “What’d I forget?”

“That time we were playing volleyball in gym class and you spiked the ball right in my face and broke my nose.”

“Not a life-threatening injury.”

“Thirteen was a really hard year for me,” you retort, overdramatic as always. “It’s a miracle I survived.”

“Oh my god—”

“A miracle, Hobi.”

With a disapproving shake of his head, he’s off to unpack his luggage, because Hoseok is filthy rich and has expensive clothes that, according to him, cannot, under any circumstances, go hours without being hung up properly. You’ve never seen a silk shirt with a wrinkle in it, let alone a wrinkle on any article of Hoseok’s clothing, but you learned a long time ago it’s much less stressful to just let him be neurotic about his wardrobe.

You, on the other hand, are going to do no such thing. You’ll live out of your suitcase for as long as you can get away with it, so you flop face-first onto the bed, careful to leave your shoes dangling off the edge. Hoseok’s already going to give you shit about—

“Yah!” he wails, his fifteenth white button-down shirt draped haphazardly off a hanger. “No street clothes in the bed!”

You roll your eyes. “Street clothes? Who says shit like that? Most people just have clothes.”

“You’ve been wearing them all day,” Hoseok argues, because there’s very little he loves more than an argument. “They’re dirty, and now they’ve made the bed dirty, too.”

However, to the detriment of Hoseok’s well-being, you love arguing, too. You look down at both your clothes and the pristine duvet and vaguely gesture at both. “Ah, yes. So filthy. The bed—which you’d nearly had an aneurysm over sharing with me not even ten minutes ago, might I add—is so dirty. How will we ever be able to sleep in it?”

Watching Hoseok mentally tabulate through the Seven Stages of Grief is the most entertainment you’ve had in hours. Jaw clenched, he simply stares at you for a few seconds before leveling his voice and repeating, “No street clothes in the bed.” Then he tacks on a please that’s clearly an afterthought. “Didn’t you bring loungewear? Can’t you just wear that instead?”

You did, in fact, bring loungewear. It would’ve been irresponsible not to, considering the length of your stay and proximity to paradise, but stubbornness seems to be the flavor of the day so you just shrug and toe your shoes off. “I’m not going to change. We don’t have long before we have that welcome dinner, anyway. I’m not going to put on loungewear only to change into dinner-wear and then come back, shower, and change again into pajamas.”

Hoseok’s nose scrunches in distaste. “What welcome dinner?”

“Do you not read?” you tease. “There was a whole itinerary attached to the map. We have a welcome dinner tonight with that guy Namjoon’s in love with.”

“Which one?”

You click your tongue. “The guy who runs this place.” Then you furrow your brow. “What do you mean ‘which one’?”

“Nothing. Just—you know how Namjoon is. He falls in love at least eight separate times whenever he goes to the gardening store.”

“Guess he doesn’t herb his enthusiasm.” Hoseok groans loudly as you point finger guns at him.

He lobs a mated pair of socks at your head that bounce off your ass instead. “Please just get ready for dinner. I can’t do this.”

To put it mildly, Kim Seokjin is fucking weird.

Hoseok hadn’t noticed. He’d taken one look at him and his mischievous eyes and welcoming smile and dove right in, engaging him in endless conversation about god-knows-what. That’s just how Hoseok is. Aside from his justifiable distrust of Tinder dates, he makes and keeps friends effortlessly. It’s the sunshine in him, your mother always used to say, because Hoseok was always the sun and everyone else were sunflowers, desperate to bask in him and reflect his light.

(Namjoon has always said it’s because he’s an Aquarius. You don’t know what that means, but you assume it’ll click once you buy a few crystals and start exclusively listening to Fleetwood Mac.)

And that has always been okay—good, even. He’s never lost that innate goodness, even when he’d been placed at the head of a billion-dollar corporation where ruthlessness is encouraged. Hoseok’s edges remain rounded and soft; he emphasizes a need for kindness, shows it has a place amongst the cold, calculated world of business. Really, it’s great. You can’t be more proud to call him your best friend.

However.

It doesn’t mean Hoseok isn’t a fucking idiot sometimes.

Because he’s good, his first assumption is always that others are good, too. No matter how many times you’ve grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him away from a fire, his first instinct is still to reach out and touch it.

His first serious girlfriend, back in high school? Yeah, you’d warned him about her. Told him she was messing around with a kid on the soccer team on the side, but Hoseok had insisted she’d never do that. “She’s into embroidery,” he’d said, as if that excused someone from being a two-timing cheat.

That guy he’d been partnered with for a serious project in business school? You’d listened to Hoseok talk about him over Skype once and suggested he find a new one. Kept silent as he unloaded on you a few weeks later after the guy had fucked him over.

You’d even advised him against hiring Namjoon. Couldn’t fathom why Hoseok would even be considering hiring someone who showed up to an interview hours early. Obviously he hadn’t listened, and look where it’s gotten the two of you.

It isn’t that you’ve got a sixth sense for assholes or anything. It’s just that Hoseok’s such a terrible judge of character that it makes you look like Sherlock Holmes in comparison.

So it comes as no surprise to you when Seokjin excuses himself for a moment and Hoseok turns to you with hearts in his eyes only to be greeted by your Hoseok you’re doing that thing again where you put people on a pedestal who are not to be trusted look.

“No,” he dismisses immediately. “Him? No way.”

Your nostrils flare. “Hoseok. Don’t be an idiot about this. He’s weird.”

“He’s just eccentric. Aren’t all these New Age hippie types like that? The guy runs a wellness retreat for fuck’s sake—of course he’s weird.”

“His vibes are off,” you retort, which admittedly sounds like a New Age hippie thing to say, but the longer Hoseok insists you’re wrong, the more you begin to wonder if you are. The two of you had been sent here by Namjoon, and he’s easily one of the weirdest people you’ve ever met. Maybe Hoseok’s right.

You allow yourself two minutes of self-doubt. Then you’re shaking your head and poking your tongue into the fat of your cheek because you know bad vibes when you feel them and Kim Seokjin has them in spades.

The man in question returns a few moments later, two new men in tow: a taller one with a boxy smile and a tan and a shorter one with a scowl that looks permanent but not on purpose, like it’d just shown up on his face one day and forgot to leave. The grumpy-looking one sits across from Hoseok, looking every bit as unsure as you, while the other one takes the empty seat to his left, right in front of you.

“I’m Taehyung,” he says, ass barely in the chair before he’s leaning over the table to shake your hand. His feels like a hand that’s shaken many others—firm, warm, soft. Feels a lot like shaking Hoseok’s hand might feel, an importance simmering beneath the surface, but you’ve never had a reason to do so. “This is Yoongi.” Taehyung gestures to the man beside him. “He doesn’t talk much but you get used to him, I think.”

“You think?” Hoseok laughs, an eyebrow quirked, fully in his element. Words soft, edges softer. Hoseok was born for these types of moments. Meeting strangers, knowing what to say.

Yoongi stays quiet. Barely looks around the room, which is a feat in itself. Seokjin had invited all of you to dinner in a grand dining hall, walls tall and floors gleaming, both stark white like the rest of the resort. Immediately sat at the head of the table like some sort of king, and you would’ve thought something of it, maybe looked at Hoseok and mouthed what’s this guy’s deal? But then he placed his napkin neatly across his lap, looked at the two of you, smiled dazzlingly, and said, “Is cereal soup?”

It had all gone downhill from there, really.

Now Taehyung and Yoongi are seated across from you and Hoseok and Yoongi still hasn’t said a word and you’re hoping maybe, just maybe, he’s also picking up on how weird all of this is. Taehyung has that exuberant optimism that reminds you a lot of Hoseok so you disregard him as a comrade immediately. Just the kind of guy to love any and everyone, oblivious to bad vibes. No, Yoongi’s the one you need on your side and it’s glaringly obvious.

One small hiccup, though: he really doesn’t talk.

Like, at all.

Taehyung talks enough for the both of them, endearing everyone with a smile and an endless supply of stories told in that deep baritone voice of his. Every now and then he’ll turn to Yoongi and say isn’t that right, dumpling? and Yoongi just hums an acknowledgment. Doesn’t seem put off by the pet name at all, despite looking like someone that’d be put off by pet names.

They’re cute. You mouth as much to Hoseok and he just smiles at you in return, a soft little thing. Yoongi and Taehyung are the kind of couple who give off we’ve been together for decades energy even though they don’t look much older than you. Just two people completely at ease with one another, and it does something to your stomach. All small, hidden touches and words communicated through looks alone. Best friends and lovers. Partners both in crime and in life.

It’s a sweet moment.

It’s a moment completely negated by Seokjin’s booming voice at the head of the table. “Well, this was fun, wasn’t it? Let’s move to the lounge.”

Yoongi doesn’t look to Taehyung. Yoongi looks to you, and it’s only because you’d looked at him instead of Hoseok that you notice the subtle downturn of the corners of his mouth, the slight pinch between his brows. He doesn’t outright ask it, but there’s a question in his body language: What’s this guy’s deal?

It’s one you’d also like an answer to.

Yoongi keeps his eyes on you the entire time the five of you talk in the lounge. Well, Taehyung’s once again speaking for both of them, hands and arms gesturing wildly all around him, and Yoongi seems more than content to sit in silence. Seokjin and Hoseok chime in where they should, asking questions and emphasizing words and generally being agreeable. You, on the other hand, sit next to Hoseok and try to exude the same energy Taehyung and Yoongi do. The we’re so in love and comfortable with each other we don’t even need to touch type. The we only post selfies together three times a year because we don’t need to flaunt our relationship variety.

But, as all inevitable things inevitably do, the conversation moves to relationships. Seokjin sneaks it in under the guise of getting to know everyone, and Taehyung takes the bait immediately, seemingly always looking for a reason to show off Yoongi and talk him up. You hate that it’s endearing. You hate that you want something like it—someone enamored with you without preamble. A just because kind of love. Something solid and bone-deep.

“It was totally by accident,” Taehyung’s saying as your attention drifts back to him. Not soon enough, because he’s clearly halfway through a story and you have no idea what the plot is. “We’d both been backpacking through Europe, and I was trying to check in at this tiny hostel in Thessaloniki but my Greek is terrible, understandably, so I was really struggling. Trying to tell the poor woman behind the desk my name and that I’d booked a private room, and she just kept shrugging and looking at me like I was crazy. It was, like, midnight, so I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep, and then out of nowhere this guy”—He jerks his thumb at Yoongi, who remains silent and still—“just comes up behind me and starts speaking fluent Greek.”

Hoseok’s eyes widen. “Fluent Greek? Wow,” he says, eyebrows disappearing beneath his fringe, “that’s really impressive.”

“You have no idea,” Taehyung continues to gush. “He speaks, like, fifteen languages fluently, I swear to god. Anyway, turns out the hostel never received my reservation, which makes sense because I’d tried booking it from the top of a mountain. Yoongi took pity on me and let me share his room since they were fully booked.”

Seokjin smiles and touches a hand to his heart. It’s completely performative but it works—Taehyung looks like he’s just passed some silent test and won the lottery. “Adorable. And so noble, Yoongi. Not many people would do that for a stranger.”

Yoongi shrugs.

Undeterred, Seokjin turns his attention to you and Hoseok. “How about the two of you? Set up by friends? Blind date?” His beady eyes are studying you both diligently, eyes raking over your face for the tiniest tell. “Childhood friends turned lovers?”

Hoseok coughs.

“We met at a cartography class,” you explain, voice even despite Seokjin’s prolonged eye contact making you want to lock yourself in the nearest bathroom. Hoseok had nearly given the two of you away, and it was all you could do to recall whatever bullshit you had tried selling Jimin to cover your asses.

Yoongi’s fighting off a smile. Taehyung looks enthralled. “Cartography? Whoa, now that’s something you definitely don’t hear everyday.”

“A lost art, if you ask me,” Seokjin says. “Are either of you geographists, then?”

Hoseok tenses, fidgeting ceasing immediately. The two of you hadn’t talked about this—about how honest you wanted to be, how much would be fabricated—so while this is typically the kind of environment he’d thrive in, you pluck the reins from his hands and take over. “Double majored back in undergrad. Geography and psych.”

“Interesting combo.”

You nod. Not the first time you’d heard that. “Well, there are things you want to do and things you should do, so I did both.”

“And what was it you wanted to do?”

You wave your hand, gesturing vaguely. “Ah, you know. You go into university with all these aspirations, have all these starry-eyed ideas. You’re gonna be someone, you’re gonna help people, you’re gonna make an impact and travel all over and be super important. People are gonna pay to hear you speak and all that bullshit.” Hoseok’s looking at you—you can feel it, but you can also see the blurred outline of his profile. “What did I want to do? Something in human geography, maybe cultural or political geography.”

“The psych degree?” Seokjin continues prodding, and you find you don’t mind it. Hoseok certainly never had. Was always far too busy doing important business things on the opposite side of the country.

“Picked it up about halfway through. Figured I should have a back-up plan in case I wound up being the only geopolitician working at Starbucks.” Your fingers start picking at your pants even though there’s nothing to grab onto. You’d only packed your best, keenly aware of the standards required to be in Jung Hoseok’s inner circle. “A lot of the research and analysis courses overlapped, so I just… did it.”

“That’s very ambitious.” Seokjin’s compliment feels like some weird kind of approval, like another unspoken test Taehyung would grin over passing. “And now? You’d mentioned undergrad.”

“Started a post-bacc in GIS since I liked doing research. Hence the cartography class.”

Hence the cartography class, as if that’s the end of it and there’s nothing else to say. Like you hadn’t dropped out of that to pursue a Master’s in psychology and maybe med school or a PhD to follow, because your mother would be proud of someone with a doctorate, right? You could finally stop hearing—

Did you hear Hoseokie got an internship at Google? They pay $8,000 a month!

Did you hear Hoseokie graduated at the top of his class? His mother said he didn’t even have to apply to any MBA programs, they recruited him! He’s torn between Stanford and the University of Penn. Isn’t that a nice problem to have?

Did you hear that Hoseokie finished his program early? He’s so smart. His parents must be so proud of him.

Did you hear Hoseokie’s moving back? Just an associate vice president position for now, but his mother says there’s already talks of him being promoted to CEO within the next few years.

That’s not to say you weren’t proud of him or that you were resentful. You’ve always been Hoseok’s biggest fan, but Hoseok had moved across the country and still casted a shadow so large it was impossible to not be swallowed up by it, and it’s hard to have all the things you want to hear be said about someone else.

So, yeah, hence the cartography class.

“What about you, Hoseok? You’ve been quiet.”

Hoseok’s never quiet. When you turn to look at him, he’s already staring back. There’s no perpetual million-dollar smile, no wrinkles at the corner of his eyes from laughing too much, smiling too much, enjoying life too much. There’s just a concerned look that you don’t really know what to do with, because you’ve spent so much of your life worrying over Hoseok—over his concerning judge of character, his inability to cook, those kids on the schoolbus, his diet and now his organs—that things feel out of sorts now that the script is flipped.

It takes him a while to come back down to earth, realize someone has asked him a question. “Business,” is all he says.

He’s still staring.

Things are tense.

Weird-tense, because things are never tense between you and Hoseok. Not even back in high school when you’d threatened his then-girlfriend, the one who was cheating on him, and she ratted you out. Hoseok had shown up all red in the face, talked a lot about what would happen if you ruined things for him, but you’d just said alright, Hobi, whatever you say and things had gone back to normal.

But back in your overpriced rental house, things are definitely weird-tense.

“You never told me any of that.”

Ah. You shrug, toweling off your hair after your shower, and rifle through your suitcase for suitable pajamas. “You never asked.”

“I thought the map story was bullshit. You never—you double majored?”

Isn’t this so typical, you think. You could write a biography on Hoseok, all his accomplishments and dreams and all those silly little subplots that connect at the end, and he didn’t even know your college major. Majors. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

In the bathroom, you go through your skincare routine on autopilot and floss and brush your teeth. Try to rid yourself of the taste of disappointment. Smear cold cream under your eyes and try to pretend the sting is from the scent and not welling tears, because this is not something to cry over. This is stupid and unimportant, and you now have two and a half degrees in psychology that tell you how to deal with it.

But Hoseok’s reluctant to let it go. Wants to talk it to death when you’re more than happy to never discuss it again. You’re twenty-seven, meaning you’ve had at least five years to accept the fact that your mother had given all her pride to Hoseok instead. You’re not really keen on spending another five years feeling inadequate. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He appears in the doorway of the bathroom looking positively distressed. “Mom had only told me about the psych degree and that you were trying to get into UCLA for your Master’s. She never said anything about the geography degree.”

You just shrug. “Things you want to do and things you should, right?”

Hoseok doesn’t buy it. “Was telling me what was going on in your life not something you wanted to do, then?” He looks stung.

You’re tired, still a little fucked up from the jet lag and sitting through a bizarre dinner and serving yourself up on a silver platter to an even more bizarre man that now knew something about you that not even Hoseok had known. “I’m going to sleep,” you say, because you’re even more loose-lipped than usual when tired and prone to irritability, and provoking an argument on the first night of a month-long vacation is not something you’re going to do.

And Hoseok—

Hoseok must get it, you think, because he seems to deflate. Just sighs, shoulders hunched, before he steps aside to let you out of the bathroom. No argument, no thinly-veiled threats, no guilt-trips. Resignation: the same kind Namjoon had spoken about when he’d relayed the story of how the wellness retreat came to be.

A resigned Hoseok is probably a dangerous Hoseok, but you’re too exhausted to give a shit. You’ll strategize in the morning, come up with a new plan.

Except the morning comes and Hoseok doesn’t mention it at all.

He doesn’t say anything about it for the next three days, actually, which are all the same and go like this:

On the morning of day two, Hoseok reluctantly wakes you up just after six. There’s a small offering of fruit and coffee waiting for you on a tray that you promptly ignore in lieu of going back to sleep, which lasts until approximately 6:06am when Hoseok wakes you again. The two of you are scheduled for a morning yoga session at seven-o’clock, which is supposedly mandatory and can’t be canceled.

Taehyung takes the mat next to you, leaning over to ask, “Have you ever done this before?” with a slightly panicked expression on this face.

“Every Saturday morning back home,” you answer. Taehyung chuckles nervously, and your experience becomes painfully clear when you’re nailing your Sugarcane pose and everyone else topples over sideways. Yoongi doesn’t make a sound as he hits the floor, and he’s so quiet that your instructor misses him completely when they fret around the room helping everyone else.

You’re so distracted by helping Yoongi yourself that you miss the deep furrow of Hoseok’s brow. And the crestfallen look on his face. Just another thing he hadn’t known.

After you survive yoga, the two of you sit through an awkward breakfast with Taehyung, Certified Chatterbox, and Yoongi, Not One. Taehyung doesn’t comment on Hoseok’s newfound quietude, which is a little surprising, but Yoongi quirks an eyebrow at you that makes your coffee suddenly taste stale.

Between the hours of nine and one, Hoseok disappears to go to the spa or the gym or the gift shop, because he is literally incapable of not spending money. You’re waiting for him to realize how weird it is for a wellness retreat to sell souvenirs but he never brings it up, just strolls back into the room each time and dumps a concerning amount of magnets into his suitcase.

(You wonder if any of them are for your mother. You wonder what she’ll think about this—you and Hoseok going to a couple’s retreat together, playing pretend. You wonder if bagging someone like Hoseok would finally make her proud of you and how shallow that is.)

After lunch, which is barely less awkward than breakfast, the four of you are ushered into a so-called Meditation Clinic, hosted by a very muscular guy with a baby face and a lot of tattoos. His name is Jungkook, and he nearly sends Hoseok into Sexuality Crisis Episode No. 2. Hoseok doesn’t do a damn second of meditating for three days, just stares at the wall looking like a baby who’d just been tricked into sucking on a lemon. Taehyung chatters away at you the entire time, completely oblivious to Jungkook’s annoyed stare. You share an exasperated look with Yoongi on your way out.

Hoseok returns to your rental home on the evening of day three looking scandalized. Apparently, this is the result of him running into Jimin, who’d offered to read and analyze his birth chart for him. Apparently, this is Jimin’s second job when there’s no new check-ins to harass. Apparently, Hoseok has been “read for filth” by “the stars” and “doesn’t wish to discuss it further.”

(Interestingly, Jimin corners you not long after. There’s a dangerous twinkle in his eye as he says, “Curious?” and gestures to a small room just off the lounge.

“The curtain’s kind of corny, isn’t it?” you say, scoffing as one strand of beads smacks you in the side of the head. “Like, this all feels very mysterious carnival tent and not billion-dollar resort, y’know?”

Jimin takes a seat behind a large desk, completely void of decoration. You’re not sure what you expected—some tarot cards, maybe a crystal ball to sell the illusion—but it’s empty. “You must have Leo placements,” he mutters.

“Moon and Mars, actually. Lucky guess.”

He gestures for you to take the seat in front of him. “Mm, not really luck, they’re just really good at lying.”

“And what am I lying about?”

Jimin ignores your question. Instead, he cocks his head to the side and says, “When’s your birthday?”

“Aren’t you the astrologer? Take a guess.” Jimin just stares, looking endlessly amused. Eventually you huff and answer. “March 15th.”

Overdramatic as always, Jimin fake-gags. “A Pisces sun with a Leo moon? Horrendous, truly. How do you function?”

“Stunted, clearly.”

He actually laughs at this, rewarding you with a brilliant smile and an endearingly crooked front tooth. “No matter.” He shakes his head, blond locks falling elegantly around his face as if arranged by the gods themselves. “You may have a truly tragic sun-moon pairing, but it bodes well for you and that neurotic mess of a best friend you’re fake-dating.”

You choke so hard Jimin actually offers you a glass of water.)

Dinners are spent as a five-piece. Seokjin asks more idiotic questions, such as are eyebrows considered facial hair, which prompts a very deep exhale from Yoongi, and did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons, which sends Taehyung into an existential crisis he’s yet to recover from.

Sometimes there are bonfires on the beach at night during which Jungkook plays an acoustic guitar and sings like an angel. Hoseok is conspicuously absent during these.

He’s also absent during your nightly routine. You shower, smear your skincare all over your face, and brush your teeth alone. You change into your pajamas and crawl into your side of the bed alone. By night three, you’re so annoyed you build a pillow wall between the two of you that you instruct Hoseok, under threat of bodily harm, not to demolish.

On the morning of day five, you’re awake before the sun. You sit in the darkness for a while, listening to Hoseok’s soft breaths on the other side of the pillow wall. He hasn’t gone five days without talking to you in twenty years. Even when he’d threatened you over his high school girlfriend, you were back in his good graces within 48 hours, and all of this for what? Because your mother is kind of an asshole and you’re kind of jealous and Hoseok is kind of self-centered sometimes?

“Hobi,” you say, leaning over the wall to nudge his shoulder. “Hobi, wake up.”

He doesn’t budge, mouth hanging open as he continues snoring quietly, these little hiccups of breath every now and then. All you can do is sigh. “Hoseok.” Nothing. “Jung Hoseok,” you try again, voice hardened into a baseless threat. He keeps snoring.

You groan, run your hands over your face in exasperation. Stupidly, you’d assumed that Hoseok would be easier to wake up now that he’s a Very Important Person worth millions of dollars. Clearly he’s not. So you throw the duvet off your legs and stumble to the bathroom in the dark. Brush your teeth and wash your face and throw on a loose long-sleeved shirt and a pair of yoga pants. It’s the weekend, so you’re free to do as you please, no mandated schedule, and you know exactly who you’re going to see.

Unsurprisingly, Taehyung is on the beach, cross-legged in the center of a large blanket close to the water but far enough away that the tide isn’t a concern. His curls are blowing gently in the breeze and every now and then he lets out a huff as he tries to flick them out of his eyes. No wonder Yoongi took pity on him back in that hostel in Thessaloniki. You’ve barely known him a week and are already hopelessly endeared by him.

“Good morning,” he says, eyes closed. Even the sun is barely awake this early, but it spills across Taehyung’s cheeks in dusky, golden rays nonetheless. “The beach is beautiful at this hour, isn’t it?”

Ah, so Taehyung’s one of those. Chatty at all hours, just like Hoseok. You groan. “Yeah, sure.”

“I have a thermos of coffee if you want some.”

“You just carry around thermoses of coffee?”

Taehyung laughs. “No. I don’t drink it, but I always make some in the morning and put it in a thermos in case today’s the day Yoongi decides to wake up before noon and join me.”

You eye the empty space next to him. “I’m guessing today’s not the day.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “After forcing him to wake up at 6am to do yoga the last few days? I might never see him again.”

“It’d be deserved, in his defense.”

Taehyung seems to think on this. Has a laugh just as airy as the gentle ocean wind, one that makes you feel like you’re the funniest person in the world. So much like Hoseok. You wonder if you’re like Yoongi. If you’re just as closed off but more talkative. You wonder if there’s a reason Yoongi holds his cards so close to his chest or if he simply sees no reason for anyone to know him. He’s got Taehyung and fifteen languages and a lifetime’s worth of stories, what more could he need? “You’re probably right. Where’s your other half?”

“Also asleep.”

“Wow,” Taehyung deadpans, “there are parallels everywhere.”

You don’t know him well enough to know how he means it. If it’s sardonic and taking the piss out of that sort of thing the way Yoongi would mean it, or if he’s genuine how Hoseok would be. So you just hum a maybe-agreement and stare out at the ocean.

Truth be told, you’re not sure why Taehyung was the one you wanted to find. He just seems like the type to know a lot about relationships, people. Seems like someone who’d meet and befriend more people in a day than you would in five years, so someone like that’s gotta have some sort of answers.

“How long have you and Yoongi been together?”

“Oh. A long time. I was nineteen when I went to Greece and Yoongi was twenty-one, but it was such bad timing, you know? Like, I was only two months into a year-long trip, and Yoongi has to be dragged into everything kicking and screaming, so we didn’t reconnect for over a year after we met.”

“That must’ve been hard.”

Taehyung smiles: small, tender, fond. “A little, yeah, but I think that sort of stuff is inconsequential in the long run. What’s a year’s worth of distance when you’ve got the rest of your lives?” He shifts on the blanket, a frown dragging down the corners of his mouth. “Although I went to Australia a month later and got bit by this huge fucking spider, so I guess the rest of my life was questionable for a while. In that case, yeah, it would’ve been really hard.”

You hum again, and in a need to fill the silence, Taehyung asks, “What about you and Hoseok?”

“What about us?”

“How long have you been together?”

We’re not, really, sits on the tip of your tongue. Jimin has already seen straight through the bullshit, so why not Taehyung, too? What’s the worst that can happen—they kick you out because you’re not a proper couple? What does that even mean? You’ve known Hoseok for twenty years. You watched him grow into a successful, kind, intelligent adult from a stupid-as-fuck eight-year-old. You’ve watched him fall in love and get his heart broken and piece it back together again. You know his takeout orders and his favorite color and the movies he still cries over but lies and says he doesn’t. You know the smell of his mother’s perfume when she squeals and hugs you like you’re her own. You’re one of two-hundred followers on Hoseok’s private Instagram account—the one you and Namjoon and Hoseok’s sister always join forces to bully him on when he tries posting a thirst trap.

You know what Hoseok looks like when he cries. You know what he’s like when he’s vulnerable and insecure and you know how to be a pillar for him when he’s like that, and he knows the same about you.

Some couples don’t have half of that, so what does it mean or even matter if your coupling is proper? Isn’t what you have enough?

You sigh. “We grew up together. I’ve known him for twenty years.”

“Oh.” Taehyung sucks in a breath. “I thought you’d said—”

“Yeah,” you interject. “We’re not, like, romantically involved.” Another sigh. “It’s a long story.”

Taehyung just smiles, looks at you with those butter-soft eyes, and you’re diving into twenty years of history and backstory. You tell him about punching the kid on the bus. You tell him about Hoseok’s first serious girlfriend in high school and how it made your stomach hurt—

(“Because you had a crush on him?”

“What? No.”

“Hm. Okay.”)

—and you tell him about your mother and all her misplaced pride. He laughs at every story you tell him about Namjoon and how you and Hoseok wound up at this weird wellness retreat. He stops laughing when you tell him that you and Hoseok haven’t spoken properly in days, and his eyebrows get very serious when you admit it’s the reason you came to find him.

“You just look like someone who might know how to help me fix it,” you finish.

Taehyung tries—and fails—to not look pleased as punch at this. “I’m generally very unhelpful. Well, Yoongi says I’m not-not helpful, but sometimes I try to help too much and wind up making things worse.” You shoot him a dubious look. “I won’t do that this time, though, I promise! Please consider me your official relationship fixer.”

“I’m not sure this is a good idea anymore.”

“It probably isn’t, if I’m being totally honest, but if I can manage to make Min Yoongi fall in love with me, I’m extremely overconfident I can do just about anything.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

He claps his hands together. “Great! We can start with you apologizing and telling him you’ve been acting out due to temporary insanity on the basis of being in love with him for years and never saying anything.”

“Excuse me—”

“It’s best to be extremely honest about these sorts of things as to leave no room for misinterpretation or misunderstandings,” Taehyung says, tone condescending like you’re a child though it’s working overtime to not sound that way. At your slack jaw, Taehyung’s eyes grow wide. “Have you seriously never thought about it?”

“Me and Hoseok?”

Of course you’ve thought about it, it was just dismissed immediately each time. You love Hoseok; he’s the most important person in your life, and that’s exactly why you shooed those intrusive thoughts away every time they crept up. You’re not generally one to overthink on consequences, but Hoseok is always an idea you’ve treated with kiddie gloves. Something delicate. Something placed in an enclosure with 21mm glass walls and eighteen security alarms. So, sure, you’ve thought about it in the same way you’ve thought about winning the lottery or telling your PhD advisor to fuck off and moving to some remote island paradise where there’s always someone to wait on you hand and foot.

Of course you’ve thought about you and Hoseok, in the same way you think about all inevitable things (like the heat death of the universe) and also impossibilities, both wistful and staunch.

“Yeah,” you eventually answer. “Of course I have.”

Taehyung blinks owlishly. “I thought for sure you were gonna deny it.” Then the smile is back and it makes his eyes glitter like tiny stars. “But that’s great! The first step is admitting you have a problem, or whatever. Anyway! Do you still have feelings? Yoongi thinks I’m bad at reading people”—Yoongi is right, you think—“but I’ve seen the way he looks at me a million times, and sometimes that’s the same way Hoseok looks at you. So I think you should tell him.”

Snorting, you turn your gaze to the ocean. Even the water seems to still be sleepy at this hour, the waves small and gentle as they lap against the shore. “Maybe later on. Getting rejected a few days into a month-long trip doesn’t really sound like my idea of fun.”

Face scrunched up in disgust, Taehyung whines, “You wouldn’t! You’re gonna waste all this time because you think you’d get rejected when in actuality all you’re doing is wasting some really great glass walls to fuck against.”

You blanch. You can say, with one hundred percent conviction, that you’ve never thought about sleeping with Hoseok. Okay, so that’s not entirely true. There was the one time you had to defend him from Rose Emoji and Hammer and Sickle Twitter when they threatened to eat him and one person suggested sparing him because, excessive wealth aside, he had big dick energy. That’d given you pause. Did Hoseok have a big dick?

“No way,” you retort, “Hoseok is like a Ken doll. Completely smooth from the waist down. Dickless.”

Taehyung heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Another L for the gay community.”

Hoseok sleeps until noon.

You’ve already washed the sea salt from your hair and returned to the rental house with your own small haul of gift shop magnets by the time he stirs awake, groggy and looking worse for wear. “Wha’ time s’it?” he slurs, voice far too deep for you to remain unaffected.

“Just after twelve,” you answer. “I can make you some coffee if you want.”

All you get in response is a muffled groan, Hoseok’s dandelion bed-head disappearing under the fluffy duvet once again. You’ve known him long enough to know that means yes, to know he takes his coffee with far too much cream and sugar, the liquid something close to bone white by the time he’s done adding and mixing.

You set the mug on his nightstand and sit on the edge of the bed, leaning over to peel down the duvet and scratch at his scalp. “Coffee’s ready, sunshine.” Eyes still sealed shut, you move your fingers lower to tickle at his neck. “C’mon, Hobi, you’re pissing away another beautiful day in paradise.” You don’t bother telling him it’s overcast and drizzling; not like it matters, because Hoseok groans again and swats your hand away before shoving his head under his pillow.

He says something you can’t catch, words unintelligible beneath layers of down. “What’d you say?” you ask. When his head pops up, expression frustrated and cheeks flushed red, you poke the dimple in his left cheek. He has to fight off a smile.

“I asked why you’re being so nice to me.”

You frown. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”

Hoseok sighs. Adjusts until he’s sitting up, long, skinny legs tangled in the comforter. Something about his hands is so interesting he’s unable to focus on anything else. “Because I’ve been a dick to you.” When you move to protest, he tacks on, “And not just on this trip, either. For a while.” For a second, you think he might cry. Hoseok used to cry a lot as a kid—had too much empathy for such a small body to know what to do with so all the excess tended to leak out. “God, there was so much I didn’t know? Like your majors? And the yoga? I just…” He trails off, looks lost. Picks up the coffee mug just to do something with his hands. “It feels bad. It just feels really bad.”

You return his sigh, wishing Hoseok was a little less honest. Always the first to put himself out there, be vulnerable, and sometimes it’s nice and sometimes it makes you feel guilty. “It’s okay.”

“It isn’t,” he argues.

You hold up a hand. “I know where you’re coming from, and I get it. I would probably feel bad, too, if I were in your position.” He whimpers, earning a soft laugh from you. “But I’m telling you it’s okay. I don’t blame you, all right? I never have. I don’t lay in bed at night agonizing over it. This isn’t like that for me.”

“Then what’s it like?”

You hum, knowing this is a moment to handle with care. You can’t be reckless here. So you think it over, and you say, “It’s… I don’t think this happened because you don’t care, because I know you do. I know I’m your best friend in every way someone can be your best friend, and you’re my best friend in all the ways someone can be mine. It’s just that those two things look different, is what I’m saying. And I think that’s okay.”

“It’s unbalanced.”

You nod. “Yeah, maybe it is, but sometimes that happens. It hasn’t always been unbalanced.”

This seems to calm him, and his smile is slow, reluctant, but it’s there nonetheless. “Okay.” He exhales the weight of the world. “Okay. I’d still like to be better, though.”

“We have all the time in the world, Seok.”

You normally eat most of your meals with Taehyung and Yoongi anyway, but since your conversation on the beach, Taehyung attaches to you like a limpet.

The first time had been unnerving. He’d cornered you outside the dining hall, stomach rumbling even as he demanded to know everything, please spare nothing, no detail is too small. There hadn’t been much to report, just that the two of you had talked and things were better.

“Did you tell him you’re in lo—” had earned him an elbow to the ribs.

He hasn’t asked again.

But he’s still hard to shake during mealtime, especially breakfast, because he wakes up ready to talk, conversation locked and loaded on his tongue. Yoongi, of course, doesn’t talk at all, so he offloads onto you and Hoseok, who’s too good-natured to ask for some peace and quiet.

“Seokjin asked me last night if water was wet,” he says, spearing a long piece of pineapple on his fork. “Like, obviously it’s wet? It’s water.”

“It isn’t, though,” you argue. “Water is just water. Wet is a state—”

Taehyung, cheeks bulging around the fruit like a hamster, frowns. “Huh? No. California is a state.”

Yoongi faceplants onto the table.

“No, Tae.” You shake your head. “Like, a state of being. Water makes other things wet, but it’s not wet itself.”

His frown deepens. Looks to Yoongi for help, clarification, but he’s still face-down, so he looks to Hoseok instead. He, very steadfastly, says, “She’s weirdly smart, man. I dunno. I’m not arguing with her.”

“Why? Because you’re also—” Another elbow to the ribs. He coughs, makes a very valiant attempt to look cool, calm, and collected. “You’re also very smart, Hoseok,” he amends. “I am very interested in hearing what you have to say.”

“In business, though. I’m not really smart in science stuff.”

“Interesting,” Taehyung muses. “Would you say you’re smart in love?”

Hoseok is good-natured enough to look genuinely confused. “Huh?”

Yoongi finally picks his head up. Sends Taehyung some kind of look that must mean something to only the two of them, because Taehyung just sighs, put-upon, and shoves a piece of cantaloupe in his mouth. He doesn’t talk to Hoseok for the rest of the day.

Two weeks pass in a blur.

The schedule remains the same. Yoga, shared meals, weird quasi-therapy sessions which you have come to realize are just minor cult recruiting, bonfires on the beach. You and Hoseok stay up late talking and barely make it on time to whatever activity you have first thing in the morning. Jimin corners you at least once a week to talk about your “fucked up and frankly demonic” birth chart because he refuses to believe it’s real. Jungkook offers to teach the four of you how to surf but abandons that five minutes into the first session after Yoongi refuses to touch sand and Hoseok nearly passes out from seeing Jungkook shirtless.

…Which Taehyung catches, of course, because he just sidles up alongside you. Says, “Ooh, interesting,” again, in a really smug way, before intercepting Jungkook and leading him far, far away from the beach. You think he winks at you over his shoulder.

Bastard.

But it works, much to your surprise. Of course the two of you have talked it to death, but part of Hoseok’s bid to be better also seems to include being more tactile. Which… is nice, you’ll admit. Hoseok’s fingers are long and slender and perfectly manicured, his hands soft, so it feels nice when they play with your hair or scratch gently at your back or hold your hand, but it also fills you with an anxious kind of dread.

Uncertainty, maybe.

You know how these things work. Forced proximity, only one bed. You’re two-thirds of a psychologist, after all, so you wouldn’t be surprised if Hoseok is just caught up in the moment, at the relief of overcoming an obstacle and making it to the other side. (God knows the bender he’d gone on after graduating business school attests to that.)

Curiously, none of that stops you from leaning into it.

It doesn’t feel weird. It doesn’t feel awkward or strange or anything besides natural. Hoseok’s bare face is the last thing you see before you fall asleep and the first thing you know you’ll see when you wake up, and just having that certainty, that security, makes the early mornings bearable. It makes them something worth looking forward to. It makes all the tension in your body unwind. Makes you pliable, has you laughing freely and leaning into Hoseok’s side during all those meals Taehyung spends talking. Except he’s not talking so much anymore—now, he’s studying. Smiling. Sending little glances only you and Yoongi catch.

Everything comes to a head at another of Seokjin’s weird dinners.

“A question for your discussion,” he begins, and you swear you hear Yoongi groan under his breath. When you look over at him, he’s nonchalantly chewing his food, no indication at all that he made a sound for the first time in two and a half weeks, so you convince yourself you’re hallucinating. “If no one ever sneezed again, how long do you think it’d take you to notice?”

Yoongi must feel you looking this time, because he offers up a dead stare in return. While Taehyung and Hoseok debate their answers—

(“Well, I work in an office, so probably not long.”

“Ah. I work from home, but I think it’d be pretty obvious? Especially during allergy season.”

“Yeah, for sure. It’s one of those things you’d definitely notice. It’s like—you know when you’re cooking and finally turn off the vent hood and the quiet is a little disorienting? It’d be like that, I think. Like, you definitely—”

“You notice something’s absence more than you notice its presence.”

“Yeah! Yes, exactly.”)

—that dead stare of Yoongi’s morphs into something more mischievous, slow like molasses. He catches your eye, winks, and fakes a yawn.

Taehyung startles, like he forgot Yoongi had been sitting next to him the entire time. “Oh, you’ll have to excuse him,” he says, cheeks dusting pink. “Someone told him once he’d been a rock in a past life and it catches up with him every now and then.”

Seokjin lets out a high-pitched giggle, looking absolutely delighted at this. “A rock, huh? Fascinating. Please tell me all about it.”

“Well, I think a lot of people would assume igneous, but that’s always seemed a little shallow to me, you know? I think he’s more metamorphic—”

As Taehyung rambles on, Seokjin turns his attention to you and Hoseok. “What about you two? What do you think you were like in a past life?”

“He had to have been a monk or something,” you declare, poking the crater of one of Hoseok’s dimples. “He’s been hoarding good karma for centuries and cashed it all in for this lifetime.”

“Aish,” Hoseok replies, cheeks matching Taehyung’s as he scratches at the back of his neck. “I don’t know about all that. It’s just luck, isn’t it?”

You look at Hoseok. Really look at him—at the way his lips curl around his teeth as he tries not to laugh at the way Taehyung’s still going on about rocks; at the way he pouts and gags a little whenever he takes a sip of champagne; at the way the stars in his eyes turn to glitter when Seokjin gives him an opening to talk about his dog. You look at Hoseok and you think yeah, it could be luck, but it feels more monumental.

It feels predestined.

And you’re not sure what that means. Of course friendships can feel predestined; you’re not one to discount the importance of platonic relationships. You’re not sure what it means in the context of yours and Hoseok’s friendship. You’re not sure if your stomach hurt back when Hoseok got a girlfriend back in high school because it was predestined to be platonic.

You frown as you swirl the wine around your glass.

Truth be told, you’re not sure about much of anything right now.

“Hey,” Hoseok says, patting your thigh to get your attention. You’re in a dress. A nice one: silk, a slit up the side, drapes perfectly over the lines of your body and clings where it should. Does absolutely nothing to spare you from the heat of Hoseok’s skin through the fabric. “You okay?”

You’re fucked, is what you are.

“Yeah,” you reply, offering what you can only hope is a convincing smile. “Think I drank this a little too fast.”

“Do you want to go back to the house? We don’t have to stay. Taehyung’s still talking about the difference between limestone and sandstone, so I don’t think we’ll miss anything.”

You nod, dropping your voice to a hushed whisper. “Yeah, that might be a good idea. They look like they’re about ten seconds away from mixing up geography and geology and being really offended when I don’t know anything about rocks.”

The two of you stand, and Hoseok’s hand immediately moves to the small of your back. Warm, warm, warm, and you can’t convince yourself it’s the wine that’s making you lightheaded.

“Oh-ho-ho,” Taehyung chimes, looking pleased as punch at the sight of Hoseok’s hand at your back. Throws an elbow into Yoongi’s ribs. He doesn’t even flinch. “And where are the two of you going?”

“Uh, home?” Hoseok answers at the same time you say, “Fuck off, Taehyung,” because your face feels like it’s on fire and you’ve had enough of his ribbing.

Except, as it turns out, some amalgamation of home and fuck off sounds a whole lot like home, to fuck, and Taehyung might’ve been serious about the matchmaking thing, but even this kind of misunderstood forwardness has him choking on his sip of wine. Yoongi slaps at his back in the most patronizing way you’ve ever seen someone try to save another person from choking.

“Is he okay?” Hoseok asks, completely oblivious.

You shrug. “No. In so many ways.”

Through his choking, Taehyung manages a glare. “Takes one to know one,” he childishly responds, and you roll your eyes at the exact moment Seokjin grins and does a little wiggle, starts up a very enthusiastic fight, fight, fight! chant.

The thing is—Taehyung is drunk. You know he’s drunk, so him overriding Seokjin’s chant with one of his own—kiss, kiss, kiss!—certainly excuses and explains his behavior, it does absolutely nothingto extinguish the wildfire that’s sparked in your belly.

It’s a bad idea.

You and Hoseok have kissed before, when you were twelve and he was thirteen and he landed on you during a game of Spin the Bottle. Everyone around you had erupted into excited jeering, but the two of you shared a mortified look before he shuffled over on his hands and knees looking less like he was about to have his first kiss and more like he was being dragged to his death.

Looking back, that had been offensive, but he’d still puckered his lips and kissed the pout off your face all the same.

So it’s a bad idea, and you should tell Taehyung that the two of you have already kissed and to knock it off, because the second time you kiss shouldn’t only be to shut him up, but you’re both a little drunk in general and a lot drunk on the thought of redemption. If you pursed your lips the way he had fifteen years ago, leaned in close enough for him to smell your perfume, would he wear another mortified look? Or would he—

Fuck it, you think.

Because, once he realizes you’re serious, that you’re actually considering kissing him, the look he wears is not mortified. He looks a little awestruck—slightly dumb, if you’re being honest; definitely dazed—and it takes all that wildfire raging in your gut and unleashes it. Inspires just enough confidence to step closer, lean in; close enough to feel the warmth emanating from Hoseok’s skin, but still far enough for him to pull away if he wanted to.

Hoseok doesn’t want to.

And his hands are already at the small of your back, so it’s so easy to pull you closer. So easy to move them to your hips, grip a little tighter just in case you start to drift away. So easy to press his lips to yours and kiss the absolute life out of you.

You've kissed a lot of people over the span of fifteen years. None of them had lips as soft as Hoseok’s.

He must’ve done a lot of kissing, too, because the way he moves his mouth is sinful. Precise and confident, just a tease of his tongue. You can feel his smile against your lips and it nearly makes your knees buckle. Reminds you, more than the taste and smell of him, that it’s Hoseok you’re kissing, and the thought alone has you gripping at his dress shirt.

Any other time he’d complain about the wrinkles.

Not this one, though.

“Are you nervous?”

The question finds you halfway out of your dress. “Not really,” you answer. “I think my strap is stuck.”

A nervous laugh is punched out of him, but he moves to help you nonetheless. Gently touches your arm and spins you around, fingers ghosting along your skin as he untangles the strap and pushes it off your shoulder. The fabric pools on the floor, emerald and glittering, as you step out of it, and you laugh. It’s been three days since you and Hoseok kissed. The two of you have done a lot of kissing since then, and he’s still so hesitant; eyes still widen every time you lean in close, like he can’t believe it.

Hoseok is still so shy.

“Why would I be nervous?” you ask, because keeping him talking is the best way to keep him out of his head. “It’s you.”

He whimpers, like that’s the worst possible reasoning you could’ve given him. “Yeah, that’s exactly why I’m nervous.”

“It’s okay if you are,” you say, turning around to fully face him, and Hoseok looks struck. Torn between the way his nerves are eating him alive and the sight of you in just a pair of lacy panties. “We can do whatever you want, Seok.”

“I—no.” He swallows hard. “No, no, I think—we should definitely… you know.” You quirk an eyebrow. “My dick is fighting for its life right now.”

You dare a glimpse downward. Hoseok’s dick doesn’t look like it’s fighting for its life, outlined and half-hard in his expensive trousers, but what do you know? “Taehyung asked me about your dick once.”

“What.”

“Well, not exactly. He’d asked me if I ever thought about having sex with you—”

Hoseok whimpers again. “Please do not tell me what your answer was.”

“—and I told him you were like a Ken doll.” At his questioning look, you clarify, “You know. Dickless. Smooth from the waist down.”

“Wow. Why would you tell me that? Not gonna lie, it’s a little emasc—”

“I might need to see it. For science.”

Hoseok startles. “M-my dick?”

“Yeah. For science,” you repeat. “Taehyung is gonna be thrilled. He called your dicklessness, and I quote, an L for the gay community.”

Your best friend seems to ponder this. His hands hover uselessly in the air, and it’s ten seconds, twenty—you think he might call the whole thing off, but then he shrugs and undoes his belt, the metal clanky in his haste. “For the gays,” he explains as he pushes his pants down his thighs.

“Of course,” you agree, nodding seriously. “They deserve it.”

“What else did Taehyung say?”

“Nothing much. Just that we need to get our shit together because we’re wasting some really good windows to fuck against.”

Hoseok doesn’t fuck you against the windows the first time.

The first time is slow and unhurried. Because it’s Hoseok, he lights a candle and the two of you take your time touching, learning, shaking off the dregs of apprehension. He flushes crimson and nearly does a runner anytime something goes less than perfectly, and it’s so endearing you have to stop yourself from sinking through the mattress under the weight of all your affection.

The second time is all raw, desperate need. After a day of sly smiles reserved only for you, Hoseok meets you in the bathroom at the end of another night. There’s a spot of toothpaste on your sleep shirt that he disregards at the sight of your bare legs. His eyes meet yours in the mirror and then there’s only enough time for anticipation to start simmering beneath your skin before he’s moving.

(Technically, the third time is only a few hours later. Just like it has everyday since you arrived, your alarm goes off at six sharp, time for yoga, but instead of ushering you out of bed, Hoseok hits the snooze button and pulls you closer. Fits himself to your back and slides your panties to the side, speaks an is this okay? in his impossibly deep morning voice, and then you’re nodding your head and he’s pushing inside.)

Now, though—

Nerves have been shaken off. Another weird dinner has been sat through to which you’d worn a two-piece outfit, the top cropped just enough to show off a strip of skin—modest enough for the motley crew you share your evenings with, but apparently scandalous enough to drive Hoseok insane. He’s all barely-contained energy beside you, hand gripping your thigh, not paying a lick of attention to the conversation.

You lean over, speak the question just below his ear. “You okay?” Goosebumps erupt all over his skin.

“We need to leave right now.”

“Really? Why? You aren’t having a good time?”

Hoseok makes you pay for your smart mouth. Has you pressed against the expanse of windows in your bedroom, stripped down to just your underwear and the top he insisted you keep on, only your shoulders pressed against the glass. Presses wet, open-mouth kisses along your calves, the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, and then he’s canting your hips forward to nip at you over your underwear. More silk and lace—thin enough to feel the warmth of his breath, then nothing but warmth when he licks a stripe up your folds, spit seeping through the fabric.

“Fuck.”

He does it once, twice more before he leans back, refuses to meet your gaze. Your brows furrow because your hands are tangled in his hair, tugging as you try to get him to look up at you, wanting to see the evidence of your arousal on his face, but then he’s smirking out of the side of his mouth, hands reaching for your underwear.

You register the cold air of the room on your skin before the sound of fabric ripping.

Then you’re saying, “What the fuck, Hobi, did you just—” and he’s laughing as he nods, not a care in the world except getting his mouth back on you. He licks and sucks until you’re nearly trembling with the need to come, begging him to let you, and you think if you were anyone else he’d drag it out longer. Make you beg a little more. But regardless of whatever he’s told himself over the years in order to cope, Hoseok can’t deny you anything, so he presses two fingers inside, right on the spot that whites out your vision.

He touches himself to the sight of your orgasm.

Rolls the condom on. Runs his cock through your folds, tells you to slick him up. As he presses inside again, crowding close, breath fogging the glass behind you, he tells you to thank Taehyung for the idea.

You’re gonna have to thank him for a whole lot more than that.

In hindsight, you should’ve known Namjoon was nothing more than a dirty little schemer.

There’s three days left of your stay, and the question had been nagging at you ever since you cut through the reception area to get to the meditation class you were running late for. Jimin, of course, gave you shit for it: wordlessly, because he was busy checking in a man with far too much luggage. A man who was checking in alone, and that was not a thing, so far as you were aware, so your curiosity was to be expected.

“Can I just ask,” you say, once again in Jimin’s strange little room behind the beaded curtain. “Why a couple’s retreat?”

“Huh?”

“Isn’t it less effective for Seokjin’s weird cult? Like, statistically speaking, you’ve got to be more likely to recruit single people, right?”

“Huh?”

You blink. “What part is confusing you? And don’t say the cult, because I had that pegged on, like, day three.”

“No,” Jimin agrees quickly, “Seokjin is definitely officiating a cult. I just—why do you think this is a couple’s retreat?”

“Uh, because Namjoon said it was? That’s why me and Hoseok are faking being a couple—”

“Were. Were faking.”

“—and it just sort of made sense, considering the people who showed up after us were literally a couple.”

Jimin sighs, schools his expression to the one he always uses when he has to be condescending and speak to you as if you’re a woefully stupid child. “I don’t know who Namjoon is, but I’m assuming he lied in order to get you two to do… exactly what you’ve done.”

“What.”

“This isn’t a couple’s retreat, buttercup, just a regular ol’ wellness one.”

“That Seokjin also uses as his cult recruitment headquarters.”

“Yep.”

“I feel betrayed.”

“Pisces usually do.”

“Excuse me—”

“You’re excused,” he dismisses, shooing you out of his closet.

Despite his innocent nature, Hoseok isn’t nearly as shocked as you to learn Namjoon deceived him.

That’s life, I guess, was all he’d said, the picture of comfort and nonchalance as he lounged in bed, wrapped in a fluffy robe, arm behind his head like a king. You had been shocked—no longer at the betrayal, but at Hoseok’s quick acceptance of it. Hoseok from a month ago would’ve been flustered and on the brink of a meltdown. Hoseok today just shrugs it off.

“I’m just saying.” He dangles a stem of grapes over his mouth like an asshole. “Jimin called it a wellness retreat, right? I didn’t get roped into Seokjin’s cult and we’re… well, whatever we are, so a win is a win. Seems like wellness to me.”

“Whatever we are,” you mimic, pitching Hoseok’s voice up a dozen octaves. “Wow, how romantic.”

Hoseok rolls his eyes, pats the spot next to him on the bed. “If you’d like to come over here, we can have the highly-anticipated ‘what are we’ discussion that no one in the history of human relationships has ever once dreaded having.”

You wave him off. “No need. It’s you, and I trust you, so I don’t think we’re going to go back home and you’re going to write this off as a weird forced proximity thing and ghost me.” You finish the application of your facemask, laughing to yourself at Hoseok’s offended scoff. “Besides, constantly having to defend you from Rose Emoji and Hammer and Sickle Twitter is the pinnacle of devotion and love. That’s the kinda shit that forms a trauma bond.”

“For my peace of mind, then.”

“Fine. Hoseok, I love you dearly as my best friend and I’m probably halfway in love with you as a romantic partner, and even though this vacation has been incredible and rewarding and you are very good at sex, I am also very much looking forward to having my own space again because you are almost impossible to live with.” You roll your lips at the sour expression marring his face. “That said: you still owe me dinner at the Brazilian spot near your office, so I would like it very much if you took me there as a date. You can tell Namjoon I’m your girlfriend if you wish.”

“And are you?”

“Ugh. Of course I am, Hobi. What do you take me for? You think I’m the kind of woman who agrees to spend a month in the rainforest and almost get roped into some sketchy cult with anyone who asks?”

“Well, I don’t know! Maybe!”

“You’re impossible. Do you want to be my boyfriend or not?”

At this, Hoseok’s face lights up so bright it puts the sun to shame. Smiles so big you can hardly believe it. “I would love nothing more.”

During your last group meal, Seokjin invites the new guy to join you.

Taehyung is enthralled immediately, gesturing for him to take the empty seat to his left. “Hello, nice to meet you! I’m Kim Taehyung and this is Min Yoongi. Are you here for the wellness retreat part or the cult part?”

Seokjin chokes on a slice of mango.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kim Taehyung. I’m Park Bogum,” the man responds. “I’m here for the cult part.”

Seokjin promptly stops choking.

Saying goodbye to this place, these people, is bittersweet.

The last four weeks have undoubtedly been the weirdest of your life, but they’ve more than made up for it with what you’ve been given in return: a blossoming relationship with Hoseok, Taehyung and Yoongi’s friendship. Even Jimin and Jungkook come to see you off, and Jimin surprises you by wrapping you in a tight hug, assuring you that you’ll still be his second-favorite Pisces long after you’re gone.

“Wow, rude. Who’s the first?”

“Yoongi.”

“Yoongi? How is he your favorite? He doesn’t talk!”

Jimin smirks, smug and patronizing. “Exactly. Have a safe trip, buttercup.”

Jungkook, on the other hand, doesn’t say much at all. You suspect he showed up only to look hot and catapult Hoseok into his final sexuality crisis, and that suspicion is confirmed when he leans against the wall and pushes his hair away from his forehead. The sound that comes out of Hoseok is part whimper, part pain and suffering, and truly catastrophic for his ego.

“Get it together,” you plead, but it falls on deaf ears. Hoseok is in a Jungkook-induced haze until you’re halfway to the airport, Taehyung chattering the entire way.

And then—

And then.

“Well, that was fucking weird, huh?” Yoongi asks.

Hoseok is running late.

He’s gotten better at equalizing his work-life balance since returning from your trip, but he still gets held up sometimes. A lot to catch up on, he’d said, and you can understand that. He’d spent his first week back doing nothing but haranguing Namjoon, so that surely ate up a lot of time.

Still, he’s never been quite this late.

The waitstaff are looking at you with concern. They used to look at you only to see if your water needed topping up, so this is an unfortunate development, especially for someone who looks as you currently do. Any person in this overpriced Brazilian steakhouse would be honored to even sit at the same table as you, let alone be able to call you their date, so Hoseok really has a lot of nerve.

You’re halfway to telling him as much over a very angry text message when he appears in front of you, face flushed, chest heaving, hairline dotted with sweat. “Sorry I’m late,” he apologizes, leaning down to press a kiss to your cheek. “Got a little caught up.”

“No shit,” you whisper-yell, “that waiter over there looked like he was about ready to call the cops on me. I probably can’t even afford the water in this place.”

Hoseok grimaces. “In my defense, I have a very good reason.”

“Oh yeah?” you retort, crossing your arms over your chest. “And what is that?”

Wordlessly, Hoseok hands over a garishly orange shopping bag emblazoned with a very familiar logo and brand name. Suddenly, it feels impossible to breathe. “You didn’t. Hobi, tell me you didn’t—”

“You know how much bullshit you have to go through for one of those things? God, I had to put in a request. Not to mention it was like fourteenseparate credit checks…”

You tune him out. Instead, you peek inside the bag with what you can only describe as pure dread. Not at the implication, because that has you thrumming with joy and affection, but at the cost of—

“You got me a Birkin.”

Hoseok looks at you like you’ve sprouted a second head. “Um. That’s what you said you wanted, right?”

“You said you weren’t spending that much money on anyone who isn’t your future spouse.”

The look doesn’t budge. “Yeah? I’m clearly not following.”

“When did you put in the request?” If your voice is audibly waterlogged, Hoseok doesn’t mention it, but you can feel the tears pooling at your lash line nonetheless.

The confusion finally clears and gives way to another brilliant smile. A little bashful, too, because he hides behind the menu and refuses to look at you. Says something you don’t catch, can’t hear over the dim chatter of this restaurant, and he groans in pleased faux-annoyance when you tell him to repeat himself.

“I said… I put it in the night you kissed me.”

It feels like you’ve been punched in the chest. “You’ve known that long?”

And Hoseok—Hoseok ducks behind the menu again, but this time you can hear him loud and clear: “I’ve known a lot longer than that.”

author's note pt. 2: if you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! i really hope you enjoyed this. as always, any reblogs are greatly appreciated and my inbox is always open for feedback. ♡

#hoseok x reader #hoseok x you #hoseok x y/n #jhope x reader #hobi x reader #hoseok fluff #hoseok smut #hoseok imagine #hoseok fanfic #jhope smut #jhope fanfic #bts x reader #bts smut #bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic

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olderthannetfic · 1 month

Note

Okay I NEED to know what the current most popular slash ships are, being on tumblr just feels like slash fandom is dying out, and I'd like to look up some ships because even if I don't like them, following other slash shippers feels so much nicer than seeing people bash them all the time.

On AO3, the m/m category is a tag like any other.

That means you can go directly to that tag and look at the sidebar, either in general or filtered for the past year. (No need to rely on those faulty ship stats.)

Broadly, the really massive juggernauts are still going, chugging along on fanon long after their canons have ended or gone to shit. A bunch of fandoms that younger people like are huge. And a lot of older people who used to only be into Western fandoms fell for The Untamed a few years ago and are now into lots of other danmei and BL fandoms. Thai dramas seem to be really heating up lately.

Here's the sidebar in general:

Castiel/Dean Winchester (108832)

Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski (68896)

Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter (66461)

Sherlock Holmes/John Watson (66324)

James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers (60107)

Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) (51611)

Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (44020)

Sirius Black/Remus Lupin (42921)

Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson (42063)

filtering those out:

Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku (39754)

Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian (37086)

Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V (36739)

Keith/Lance (Voltron) (32031)

Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester (30843)

Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood (29711)

Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin) (29591)

Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter (28681)

Jeon Jungkook/Park Jimin (28574)

Dazai Osamu/Nakahara Chuuya (Bungou Stray Dogs) (28260)

Or filtered for updating in the past year:

Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens) (14878)

Sirius Black/Remus Lupin (12640)

Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson (10617)

Dazai Osamu/Nakahara Chuuya (Bungou Stray Dogs) (10353)

Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku (8964)

Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter (8391)

Alhaitham/Kaveh (Genshin Impact) (8284)

Regulus Black/James Potter (7721)

filtering those out:

John "Soap" MacTavish/Simon "Ghost" Riley (6879)

Castiel/Dean Winchester (6751)

Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Stede Bonnet (6723)

Getou Suguru/Gojo Satoru (6253)

Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian (6245)

Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV) (6228)

Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor (5725)

Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know (5632)

Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V (5201)

Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter (4199)

In general, I would look at things with canon gay and/or at big anime, c-drama, and kpop RPF fandoms.

And block dickheads liberally when you see them in the tags on tumblr.

If you want to hang out with oldschool people, you could always come to Escapade con. We should be having an online one some time in the summer. There's also a discord. We're currently doing a group watch of Mysterious Lotus Casebook among other things.

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jmvore · 8 months

Text

Jokes on You ➻ Prologue

» RATING › 18+ [M I N O R S D O N O T I N T E R A C T] » GENRE(S) › smut, angst, fluff » AU › infidelity, polyamorous, married!au » PAIRING(S) › jimin x reader, yoongi x reader, & jungkook x reader » WORD(S) › 700(w) » SYNOPSIS › It was supposed to be your annual Christmas date that you have every year. A chance to talk and to try to get an understanding of where you are within your arranged marriage but... He didn't show, leaving you sitting in the middle of a crowded restaurant and embarrassed about being stood up by your spouse. It’s okay though at least you have three other men who want to spend time with you. » WARNING(S) › no warning(s) to account for aside from your husband being an absolute shit-head. » SMUT WARNING(S) › none here. will put on each chapter. » ORIGINAL POST DATE › 12/26/2001 » RE-POSTED DATE › 9/9/23 » A/N › Thank you @/saradika for the divider(s)! they’re so cute. Anyway thanks for reading lovelies.

[11:23pm] dickhead: I won’t be able to make it, baby but I’ll make it up to you. I promise. I’m so sorry.

You’ve been staring at his text message for damn near an hour in utter disbelief. What pisses you off more is the fact that he waited until he knew you would be there to tell you. You would have been fine. There are other places you could have been spending your time. Other (deserving) people you could be spending your time on.

However, leaving you here with nothing to go on but this text message he sent an hour ago?

Frustrated doesn’t even begin to describe your mood. You’re trying your hardest not to break your phone or make a scene because what the hell? If this was any other type of dinner, you wouldn’t have cared.

But…

It’s Christmas Eve (soon to be Christmas) and it was his idea to spend the night celebrating. He was the one who made the reservation for the night. He was the one who said he had planned a night in the town. He was the one who told you to wear that red bodycon dress that shows off your assets and makes you look and feel pretty.

And it was him who had you sitting in this fancy-ass restaurant waiting like a damn fool.

You reached out to him to try and figure out where the hell he was but he didn’t even have the decency to call or text you back. It’s only when you leave him a shrew of messages cursing him out is when he shoots back with that half-ass apology.

No explanation as to where he is.

No care in the world of how him leaving you here made you feel.

Sometimes you wonder why you let your parents marry you off to him in the first place. You knew it was for their benefit. Something about their business being in debt and you being the one to (hopefully) bring their business back from the dead through this union. You weren’t truly paying attention. In the end, it didn’t matter because soon after you said your vows they went bankrupt, forcing them to give up everything they worked decades for. You never forgave them for forcing your hand. Especially after you learned the reasoning behind the marriage.

You were their wild child. Their problem child. They hoped you being married would force you to settle down. To give them the grandchildren they desired seeing as their only other child, your sister Eun-ji, had cut all ties (and now you see why honestly).

After a while, you found yourself distancing them from you and your life until you got to a point where you only talked to them every once in a blue moon. Which, wasn’t often. Maybe once every two or three months.

As for your husband… Over time you grew to tolerate his presence within the confines of your house. You could even say you grew to like him but you never loved him.

Not the way he used to love you.

And now, this whole sham of a marriage has been nothing but disappointment after disappointment. That feeling of ’like’ you had slowly dwindled into disdain and in return, you gave up. You're not as upset as you should be but it doesn't matter. You hoped that he would slowly realize how irrelevant he is because you realized it very early on. Honestly, you’re ready to take that next step to leave this burden of a marriage. It not benefiting you anyway.

The first step, however, is getting the hell out of here.

You stand to leave. Brain on overdrive because you want to leave this establishment as soon as possible. You flag down a waiter as another waitress makes her way toward you with what looks like a bouquet of lilies. She mentions he had them reserved for you before bowing and apologizing. You’re getting more pissed off as the time ticks by and the more you look at the flowers, the angrier you become.

All you want to do is go home.

You pay what little bill you had before bowing and apologizing. You hoped the walk to the valet outside wouldn’t be that terrible but, of course, nothing ever goes to plan.

You turn to leave and immediately smack right into a waiter holding a tray of drinks. The tray crashes to the floor as the vase of lilies falls and crashing to the ground causing it to shatter. She apologizes profusely, trying to wipe off the remnants but it’s a little too late. Your favorite dress is ruined and you’re already growing sticky. It’s uncomfortable and it makes you feel repulsed. You know it’s not her fault, rerouting your anger to your soon-to-be ex-husband. You tell her it’s fine when she offers to get you another vase for the flowers but you refuse. You didn’t even want them in the first place.

Finally outside, you wrap your coat tighter around your body as the valet brings your car around. You thank the man and give him a small tip before settling, you let your tears of frustration fall. Embarrassing doesn’t even begin to describe how you feel. From being stood up to having drinks dumped on you (not intentionally of course), you wondered how could this night get any worse.

Glancing at the clock you realize it’s almost thirty minutes away from being Christmas and you’re about to spend it alone. Although, you don’t want to go home. You don’t want to see his face and you for sure, don’t want to be in the same house with him. You much rather spend it with someone you know who wants to spend it with you.

You groan, tossing the present (you wish you hadn’t had) for him to the back seat. You don’t want to look at it anymore, a reminder of a horrible night.

“I should call him…” You grumble and scroll through your contacts until you see the person you’re looking for. You dial his number and he picks up on the third ring. Excited that you had time to call. You shouldn’t be this thrilled to talk to another man that’s not your husband but… the would have mattered if this marriage was a complete farce.

“Hey…” You sigh in relief, knowing the night is going to be just fine and he leaves you in a much happier mood after the shit show you’ve just endured

You can skip chapters to who you want to read!💖

Prologue

Choice 01⇢ Yoongi ⇢ Bittersweet ⇢ 6k+

Choice 02 ⇢ Jungkook ⇢ You Make Me Better ⇢ 5.6k+

Choice 03 ⇢ Jimin ⇢ You & Me ⇢ TBA

Epilogue

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sour-ggrapess · 1 year

Text

20 MINS

IDOL!HOSEOK x FEM!READER

I met that girl right up at my show

Left her man in the crowd on the floor

Out of town never saw her before

Told her, "Baby, we don't got that long"

A/N; was making a yoongi grammy fic but uzi is a lyrical god so here I am

summary; your boyfriend came to lalaplooza for kid laroi and you came for jhope but you got jhope and his d!ck.

warnings; very rough s3x (doggy style), unprotected s3x, cheating, mentions and slight dr#g usage.

You and your boyfriend stood up front at the lalapalooza stage, you were waiting for jhope to come back on stage with a new outfit but your dickhead ass boyfriend waited for it to be over. "HE LOOKED SO FINE!!!" you cheered out to your bestfriend that was on facetime with you until a security guard tapped your shoulder telling you to follow him backstage. Just leaving your boyfriend looking confused and lonely and bored.

"Left her man in the crowd on the floor."

"jhope would like to speak to you ma'am" a staff said as jhope walked over to greet you with a mischievous smile on his sexy ass face. "I hear the way you scream for me. Can I make you scream even louder?" he asked as he cupped your chin making you almost faint. "y-yea," you approved as he took your hand and led you to his changing room.

"So I told that girl that I'm gonna slaughter it."

Hoseoks lips slammed into yours as soon as he closed the room door. His tongue down your throat and hands ripping your lime green slit top off of you and exposing your boobs to him with full access. His soft lips you never thought you would feel in your life moved down to your neck as he played with your hard nipple. "You came here dressed all slutty like this for me, hmm?" he questioned you while already knowing the answer. "Ye-yes da-hoseok." You moaned out with a high pitch.

"Baby, we don't got that long"

Hoseok groaned out in your ear as he turned you around now making your face lean against the door. His hands sliding your thong down and lifting your very short skirt you could see your lower ass cheeks in. He slid his baggy black jeans and black tommy hilfigure boxers down and instantly stuck his long hard dick in you making a scream escape your lips. Fast and hard thrust into you making you scream with each time he hit your stomach. "Dose that little bitch you was with fuck this tight pussy like this?" Hoseok growled against your ear as he pulled your head back to his chest to fuck into you deeper.

"Only twenty minutes before the show."

His long dick slamming into to your wet dripping cunt even harder than before due to the euphoria he was experiencing from the amphetamines he took before the show to hype him up but it got him really horny too. "m'gonna cum daddy!" You yelp out as he grasps your hips and turns you into his little fuck toy. "Cum on daddys dick baby, we still have 5 minutes left," Hoseok snickers causing you to squirt on his cock with every thrust and scream.

"I got your girl and you already know"

Skin slapping, the sound of him mixing up your guts, and your loud moans. You have seen the fan fiction but he was the best dick you ever felt and most likely the best you ever will feel. "i-i cant wait to tell the members about you. Do you think they might fly you out just to taste you?" He moans as he slows down and gets more deeper. His cock twitches as he spreads your legs and nuts all in your walls. His deep thrust dont stop causing you to erupt cum all over his balls.

"I understand that is your girlfriend, bro But you know I gotta keep her close."

He hands you your pantys and a sweater as he walks out the door. "I dont want you back with that fucking lame, that pussy is mine and your coming home with me and jimin."

#jhope #jhope x reader #jhope imagine #hoseok #jung hoseok #jung hoseok bts #jhope smut #bts smut #hobipalooza #bts hobi #hobi x reader #fypppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp

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adorejungkook · 1 year

Text

Baby Got Back!!

CHAPTER 7

Synopsis; Jeon Jungkook has the fattest fucking crush on you meanwhile Jimin and Taehyung don’t find you too hard to look at either. Now Jungkook has to find a way to confess his feelings, maybe even show you, before the other two find their ways into your pants during your “staycation”.

Warnings; you guys said you'd be interested in longer chapters, so this is 5 pages long! We'll see how well it does :) happy reading lol

word count; 2k

chapter. 1 , 2, 3, 4 , 5 , 6, 7, 8

As soon as Jungkook opened the door, he was met with two pairs of eyes and two empty chipotle bowls.

Woah, they even paid for extra guac!

Ugh, they would do that while Jungkook wasn’t here.

“Oh!” Taehyung exclaimed, jumping out of his seat and pulling you into his chest like a soldier who hasn’t seen his spouse in seven years, “You brought my baby back~”

“Tae,” You giggled, playfully shoving him away.

Suddenly, Jungkook doesn’t feel as bad about stealing you away and not buying the guys food. He’d probably do it again.

“Stop touching her.” Jungkook said shortly, shoving his arm in between the two of you.

Taehyung stared into his eyes with a small smile on his face, though the look he was giving him wasn’t friendly. It was like he was challenging Jungkook, maybe even mocking him.

“Why?”

…SHIT.

Jungkook had just pushed himself in between the two of you and seemingly for no reason. He knew that the guys knew exactly why he was acting this way, but you might be more than a little shocked to find out how much his heart panged when you laugh so sweetly, and not because of him.

Plus, it would be a little more than humiliating to confess his crush this way and he had to go to bed with you tonight! He’d like to tackle one problem at a time.

“Um,” Jungkook mumbled out, eyes seemingly searching the floor for an answer before seemingly finding it in the smirk plastered on Jimin’s face.

“Because dickhead, you just had chipotle and she’s allergic to pinto beans!” He scoffed, shooting them both sharp looks with their faces both fell in realization.

“Fuckkkk,” Taehyung groaned, rushing away to clean up their leftover plates.

Jungkook had won.

“We really did forget babe,” Jimin frowns as he wipes the table down, giving an apologetic look, “Shoulda got Mcdonalds or some shit…”

“Oh, you’re good! Don’t worry about it,” You assure with a soft smile before turning to Jungkook.

“Hey, you wanna watch a movie later?”

This is the most Jungkopok has ever talked to you and it seems like you’re both enjoying it, even though he’s been acting a little off.

He wonders if you don’t mind or if you’re just used to it.

Either way, as long as you weren’t tired of him, he was going to keep trying his best to impress you.

“Oh yeah, do you want me to tell the guys too? I think Jimin knows where to pirate that new one coming out!” He giggled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Oh,”

You paused.

Well, Jungkook was done for! You finally realized that you were done talking to him. Was it something he said? Maybe Jimin was right and girls really didn’t like it when you explained pokemon storylines to them…

Or maybe you realized that he stole another one of your delicious cookies?

Either way, Jungkook fucked up.

“I mean, yeah! I was talking about when we go to bed, but you can ask them,” You said with a stale laugh before taking off to change into your pajamas.

Oh, you DON’T hate him and his pokemon lore! You want to spend more time with him, and maybe even find out about Squirtle’s origins! Jungkook couldn’t be happier right now.

Except for the fact that you just told him to ask the guys if they wanted to join.

Jungkook definitely didn’t want to do that, but at the same time he had already lied to you once a day and Taehyung would snitch on him as soon as he caught on to what he did earlier today.

At the same time though, you did say that he could invite them if he wanted to.

They would probably just come in if they heard the TV, but Jungkook didn’t want that either.

He knew exactly what to do.

He strutted into the kitchen, a man on a mission.

Both boys looked up from the dining table, seemingly having finished with their mini-cleaning session.

Jungkook took a deep breath before bowing his head.

“ (y/n) wanted me to ask you if you wanted to watch a movie with us but I really don’t want you to watch it with us so please please please don’t come to our room, I’ll pay you back,” Jungkook yapped out, hands clasped as he waited for his elders’ responses.

“Huh?” Taehyung chuckled out, looking at Jimin in disbelief, “See, you can’t tell me they’re not fucking!”

Jimin just rolls his eyes before tapping at Jungkook’s shoulder, “Fine, we’ll leave you alone for tonight, but if she’s not your girl by tomorrow then I’m gonna be pissed.”

“Man,” Tae groaned, resting his face in his hands, “She’s gonna look so hot in her little nightie dress-thing too..”

Jungkook’s gonna act like he didn’t hear that.

He giggles sweetly before rushing to his room to get ready for bed.

For your bed, which you were going to share and watch movies in.

:)))

Should he find a movie before you get done or let you pick? Did you want popcorn or like, some poptarts to snack on? A million thoughts a minute flashed through his head, including some mini panic when he came across the pair of panties that he practically (literally) stole from you while rummaging through his suitcase before pulling out exactly what he was looking for.

Grey sweatpants.

No undies.

Perfection.

He decided on not wearing a shirt either, partially because he wanted to impress you but also because he never wore shirts to sleep anyways.

After quickly changing and washing his face, he ran back into the kitchen while ignoring Taehyung’s eyes glaring at the back of his head.

Even though he wasn’t a baker like you, he was a certified snack master.

Jungkook grabs a bowl and fills it to the brim with popcorn, pretzels and chocolate candies before mixing it up and dusting a little salt over the top.

If this doesn’t make you fall for him, he honestly isn’t sure what will.

He carefully brings it back to your room, sitting it in the middle of the bed while he waits for you. He chuckles to himself when he hears you singing your favorite song from the bathroom, Wildflower he thinks it was called.

Okay, he knows that’s exactly what song it is.

He follows you on spotify, you’ve got a real gift for playlist-making.

“Okay, I’m ready!” You say as you walk out of the bathroom, putting the last bit of your hair up into the scrunchie you had on your head.

Jungkook’s eyes drag down your body, before falling back onto the scrunchie. He noticed that you had matched the color with your very sexy, almost princess-like nightgown . It fell just before the middle of your thighs and the lettuce-hem at the bottom only made it that much more enticing to focus on.

Jungkook was stronger than that, though.

Well, strong enough to wait until you were looking at him to stare, but strong nonetheless!

As you hop onto the bed, you place the snack bowl on Jungkook’s lap before scooting closer to him and putting the blanket over you both.

“Are you cold? I can grab another blanket,” Jungkook laughed nervously, paying more attention to your side pressing onto him than he needed to.

He could feel the blood rushing to the tips of his ears.

“Nah,” You said nonchalantly, plucking a pretzel and some m&ms from the bowl, before looking up at him, “You feel nice,”

You pick up the remote and start scrolling through movies while Jungkook prays to god than you can’t hear his heart trying to break out of his chest.

@yourbobaeyestell @coralmusicblaze @koikooky @jjkrinvgs @distinguisheddestiny @theladyblue @yopjm @jungkooksseuphoria @hollowtree10 @livorna @slutforwwh @hopewxride @namjoonimtheman2 @kooscameras @treethatswithpetra @canarystwin @idkreallys-blog @daisies-and-dandelionpuffs @jalexd @emeraldjade23 @jaehyunsbreadbasket @thatfatbussy01 @bigbootyjoonie @jiimtaee @boys0verflowers @kooklovesu @petalsofink @tornparts @telepathytae @jkjeon9709 @uarmyhopelover @multilingual-kpop @swga-recs @straybangtan @taeisbae13 @such-a-wh0re @m00li55a @foulempathpsychicherring @tearyjjeon @www-interludeshadow-com @Sugaluvmyg @pamzn @sunghoonswh0re @milkxgukk @shxnz @kleirielk @sugaluvmyg

#jeon jk #jeon jeongkook #jungkook #jungkook smut #kpop smut #bts v #taehyung #park jimin #bts jimin #jimin smut #taehyung smut #bts fic #bangtan #kook.series #jk.bgb

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joyswonderland1108 · 8 months

Text

It ain't just a ship.

When people absolutely hate Jikook that they forget that the name is literally a combination of both their names and can be meant as a duo too, not necessarily in "shipping" content or context.

Seeing people "bravely" admitting in comments that they liked an edit or compilation of Jimin and JK that doesn't have one trace of "shipping" in it and then removing their like because of the hashtag "Jikook or Kookmin" Um? Hello?

Are we talking about a polyamory when we say 3J then? Cause clearly 3J ain't a member just saying..

Like please tell me why on earth are Army butthurt over the mention of Jikook, putting the same compilation or edit and not tagging it under Jikook won't make it any different you dickheads.

If Jimin and Jungkook are being gay at some instances, not tagging it under Jikook won't make their action any less gay or any more straight? Get a grip on yourselves Army!

If we're about to police over a damn duo name then i don't want anyone of y'all to be dropping them "Aw look at Yoonmin, my Vmin soulmates, Namjin my babies" etc..

The more i see shit in this fandom the more i believe there needs to be an Army manual on decent behavior and conduct. Get your shit together mfrs and stop with the herd thinking, y'all have brains in separate bodies to use them we ain't working with a motherboard that controls everything else.

Also stop projecting your own disgraceful ignorance on our boys goddammit, go learn some proper fan etiquette then come back when your pea sized brain has matured enough to behave like an actual fan.

(Tagging this under Jikook because i can)

#jikook #kookmin #minkook #mingukkie

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borathae · 1 year

Text

↳ Index [Chapter 09 - Ghost]

Warnings: lots of emotional stuff, just emotions man emotions

Wordcount: 14.9k

a/n: hehe (with intent)

“Jimin? Holy shit, how? I saw you die.”

“Yeah, uhm…about that.”

You reach out and touch his chest. Hard and firm and most definitely real.

“What? How? What?" you stutter, “how? I literally saw the pile of ash.”

Jimin takes a step back, forcing your hand to slip from his chest.

“Resurrection spell. Good stuff, only works once and when done right. Fucking the brains out of a witch in secret has its advantages.”

“I think I’m gonna black out. You’re alive? All this bloody time you’ve been alive?”

Jimin scrunches his nose up in slight distaste.

“Geez, I see that you’re still dramatic.”

“No. Ohohoh no, you dickhead are not pulling that now”, you say, pointing an accusing finger at him, “you’re such a little shit, do you know that? Taehyung cried himself to sleep for months because of you and you are not going to appear here with accusations of me being dramatic.”

Jimin falters before sadness washes over his face.

“Taehyung cried because of me?”

“Yeah?” you laugh in disbelief, “maybe he shouldn’t have, given how you decided to act dead.”

“Now wait a minute”, Jimin hisses, “I was barely alive for months. You think being reborn from ash is something fun? Hell no, I’m back to ground zero.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I lost six centuries of strength.”

You snort.

“Don’t laugh”, he spits.

“I’m sorry, but this serves you so right.”

“You bitch”, Jimin gasps, blinking his eyes in disbelief, “where’s your compassion? I thought you were oh so nice.”

“Yeah, to people who didn’t try to kill me multiple times and on top of that abandoned their best friend.”

“I didn’t abandon-”, he stops himself, breathing in loudly. He raises his finger, pointing it at you vigorously, “you hah”, he laughs with fiery eyes, “you”, he steps closer, pointing his finger right at your face.

“What?”

He flicks your forehead.

“Ah. What the hell? That hurt”, you gasp, rubbing the aching spot.

“Serves you right”, he grumbles, taking a step back.

You huff out air, sending him an angry look.

Jimin crosses his arms in front of his chest.

“Where’s your bodyguard?”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Min Yoongi. Where is he?”

“Yeah, about that”, you begin, “I may have lost him. As a matter of fact, I’m kind of lost in general.”

Jimin scoffs.

“Don’t laugh.”

“I’m sorry, but this serves you so right.”

“Shut up.”

He gives you a shiteating grin, then gives you a nod of his head.

“Come with me”, he says and turns to leave.

“Excuse me? Why should I come with you? I have to find the others.”

Jimin looks over his shoulder.

“Because it’s getting dark and vampires here are different. They see an unfamiliar face wandering the streets at night and next thing you know, you’re dinner.”

“What the hell? Wait. Is this neighbourhood owned by vampires?”

“Yeah. It’s the norm here to eat humans”, he shrugs his shoulders, “now follow me, I’m hungry.”

“Well, I’m not going to follow you now.”

He groans, “fine then die here, what do I care.”

“Fine.”

Jimin turns his back to you and leaves. You watch him leave. You must be hallucinating. Jimin can’t be alive. You saw his body turn to ash. You literally watched it happening. This must be a trick of your lost, panicky brain. You are imagining stuff as your last resolve before officially losing your mind. Jimin is dead. He died a year ago. He isn’t alive. This right here never happened.

“Bonsoir.”

You turn upon hearing the unfamiliar voice to your right.

“Uuh..hello”, you greet the woman by your side. Her demeanour seemed friendly, yet her eyes as cold as ice.

She looks at your face, giving you a friendly smile.

“Oh? You speak English, thank god. I thought I needed to flex my very terrible French skills with you. Are you lost too? My name’s Stacey and I can’t find my way back to my hotel”, she says in a heavy French accent (almost as if her name wasn’t even Stacey and she was, in fact, French) and laughs shyly, “I saw you standing here that’s why I approached you. Girls helping out girls, am I right?”

“Yeah totally”, you say, eyeing her suspiciously.

“So are you lost?” she asks, still wearing her smile.

“I uhm…”

“Are you lost?” she repeats as her smile grows. She inches closer.

It makes you take a step back.

“Actually I am-”

“You are lost”, she says and her smile drops, “yes, you are lost.”

“I’m actually waiting for someone. He should be here any second.”

“Mhm okay”, her smile returns, “I’ll wait with you until he’s here.”

Then she stares, not blinking once. She stares and stares and stares and while she stares, the streets around you get darker and darker. You have figured her out by now. You know exactly what she is. The knowledge doesn’t make it easier. You are so scared. Your boys are nowhere to be found, your phone is dead so you can’t call for help, a vampire is just waiting for the sun to set behind the buildings so she can eat you and to top it all of Jimin, someone who may have helped you, is gone too. You fucked up. You fucked up big times.

“It’s getting darker”, she says and smiles again, “when is he coming?”

“He, he must be here soon.”

“Okay. Let’s wait.”

“I, I actually have to go somewhere else.”

“I will come with you.”

“I want to go alone.”

“No, you don’t. I will come with you.”

“No, it’s seriously not necessary he’ll be here any second now.”

“Yeah? I’ll just wait till he is.”

“He is Min Yoongi.”

“Yeah? I bet he is”, sarcasm drips from her voice, “I’ll just try my luck then.”

“What?”

She inches closer. You can watch the sun set behind her. Just a few more seconds and the street would be dark. You take a step back. She chases you.

“Scurry off Millicent.”

She turns her head, locking eyes with someone behind you. Awesome. Another bloodsucker just joined. You feel fearful shivers run down your spine.

“Oh? She’s yours? I’m sorry, I didn’t know she was.”

“Well she is”, the person says and drapes his arm around your shoulders.

You turn your head, feeling a million pounds lift from your chest.

“Now leave her alone”, Jimin says and flashes his fangs.

“Of course, truly I apologize”, she says and then locks eyes with you, “I’m sorry for scaring you”, she laughs, “I didn’t know you were Jimin’s girl. Please don’t tell Yoongi about it, I promise I was just joking.”

“It’s uhm….okay?" you mumble.

The woman turns and then disappears into the night.

You sneak a glance at Jimin, who seems displeased.

“Believe me now?”

“Yeah”, you give up, huffing out air.

He scoffs, then makes you walk with a gentle push.

“Come on, my place’s not far from here.”

You follow him, clutching his waist as if your life depended on it. In a way it does. Yes, you are embarrassed about it, hoping that Jimin won’t call you out on it.

He does, sneaking a glance at you, “what are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you hugging me?”

“I’m not”, you break away, huffing out air, “idiot.”

“Scaredy cat”, he teases, earning himself a nudge to his side.

“I wasn’t scared, okay? I was just…making sure you’re real.”

“Mh-hm sure”, Jimin scoffs and chuckles, “seriously though, why are you here?”

“I told you, I’m lost. I wanted to meet up with the others at this bar, but my phone died before I found it.”

“What bar?”

“Peony. It’s somewhere in Belleville.”

“You are so far off then. This is Quartier Latin, you’re not even on the right side of the Seine.”

“What? But I took the right bus. Or did I? What number did I get on?”

“You probably took the wrong one.”

You look around yourself, “I guess I did. Crap. I’m such a fucking mess.”

“So why didn’t you call one of them? I’m sure they’ll help you.”

“Because I don’t know how to call people”, you say sarcastically, “obviously my phone’s fucking dead, dipshit. I told you.”

Jimin lets out a lazy laugh.

“Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not”, he says, lifting his hands in defeat.

“You don’t possess over a charger for my phone, do you?"

“What model?”

You show it to him.

“No. I actually don’t own a phone anymore.”

“Crap. This is such a mess.”

Jimin leads you into a narrow alleyway. The lights aren’t working, except for one flickering weakly above your heads. You shiver, drawing closer to him as fear fills your veins.

“Where the hell are you taking me?”

“A safe zone”, Jimin says.

“Can’t you take me to Peony?”

“No, the city’s different at night. It’s best that we stay somewhere safe until it’s daylight again.”

Just as he said the sentence, you can hear a blood curling scream behind you. You flinch, looking at Jimin with widened eyes.

“What was that?”

“I told you. The city’s different at night. Stay close, the hunt’s begun.”

“The hunt?” you gasp.

“Yeah. The vampires made a treaty with the locals here. They won’t touch humans during the day, but every human out after sundown is free food.”

“What the hell.”

Jimin shrugs his shoulders.

“And the, the safe zone is really safe?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know that it is?”

“Because I live there”, Jimin says.

“Okay?”

“It’s owned by witches. Vampires can’t enter without an invitation”, he explains.

“I see. So why are you-”, another scream echoes through the streets, making you flinch, “why are you living there? Are you hiding too?”

“Maybe. The vampires here don’t know that I died.”

“Aah, I get it. If they found that you lost- eek.”

Jimin has you pressed against the wall with his hand on your mouth instantly.

“Shut up”, he hisses, “don’t say that out loud. Understood?”

You nod your head vigorously, staring into his eyes. They are glowing ruby in the darkness.

“Good”, Jimin slips his hand from your mouth, “come on, it’s past that corner”, he says in his normal voice.

A small plaza reveals itself to you once you crossed said corner. Small booths are scattered around the open place and the darkness of the night seems to disappear magically. It was still dark, but it didn’t feel dangerous anymore. A few fires in barrels were keeping the air warm, slowly dying out now that nobody was around to feed them.

Jimin leads you over the small marketplace, walking with less tension in his shoulders.

“It feels different here”, you say.

“Yeah, we’re in the safe zone. The witches’ magic protects us now.”

“I see. Where is everyone?”

“Some are sleeping, most are hunting down vampires and healing their prey.”

“That sounds like a lot of work”, you say, “I wonder why the wolves aren’t intervening.”

Jimin sneaks a glance at you, “you met wolves?”

“Yes. The Seville pack with Yoongi today.”

“Well damn, you actually met Maël”, Jimin murmurs, clicking his tongue, “that’s actually really impressive.”

“I know, it was really cool”, you say nonchalantly, “I wonder why Maël isn’t doing anything against it.”

“Because he knows better than to fight vampires in their own territory. If he attacked us here, the peace treaty would be over and war would break out again. Trust me, nobody wants that. As long as the vampires don’t hunt in other neighbourhoods, he can’t do anything against them.”

“I see. So it’s actually as bad as Yoongi told me.”

“Yes, it is. I was present when the actual fighting happened, you know?”

“You were?” you gasp.

“Yes. Tae and I. It was in the 1820s and Maël’s grandfather was still in charge. Yoongi was present too. He was the only one who could talk to all four factories without them wanting to kill him. I think he did a lot to keep the war from spreading to other cities.”

“Who were the four factories?”

“Vampires, wolves, witches and humans. Although the humans soon gave up in trying and concentrated on fleeing instead. The witches helped them and soon only vampires and the wolves continued the war.”

“Well that’s…were you and Tae involved in the fighting?”

“For a little while until Namjoon grew bored of it and fled to Mexico with his little bitches”, Jimin says and scoffs, “that was us, by the way.”

“Well damn. I’m sorry this happened to you guys. It’s fucking awful that he had you hostage for so many decades.”

Jimin glances at you, “thanks”, he murmurs, scratching the side of his neck. He points up a metal staircase then, “my room’s up there.”

You lead the way while Jimin follows with his eyes glued to the back of your head.

“Why are you guys in Paris?” he asks you.

“We’re hunting Namjoon.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. Fredrick’s men told us that he was seen in Paris, so we’re trying to find him. Yoongi and Maël are going to eradicate a big group of his followers the day after tomorrow.”

“You’re very chatty with those details, aren’t you?”

You stop and turn. Jimin stops too. Like this, you are towering over him just enough that your lips could brush against his forehead if you allowed them to. Jimin tilts his head up, facing you with confidence in his look.

“What do you mean by that?” you ask him.

“I’m just saying, I could be one of Namjoon’s spies and you are just telling me all of your plans. Aren’t you scared that I’ll rat you out?” he challenges.

You study him. His cheeks have fallen in, dark circles are under his eyes. He looks so tired and weakened by life.

“I don’t want to step on your toes, but I doubt that Namjoon would let someone with the strength of a Year One do his spy work. Especially not a Year One who went up against him. If you were still under Namjoon’s influence, you’d be his torture toy, not his spy.”

Jimin takes a sharp intake of air, releasing it in a painful shudder. He lowers his eyes.

“I hate that you’re right”, he whispers, trying to hide the tremble coursing through his body by rolling his shoulders.

“But you’re safe from him. You know that, don’t you?”

Jimin pulls a grimace of flustered distaste.

“Don’t act like you care”, he hisses, bumping his shoulder with you as he flees upstairs.

You let out a defeated sigh. You figured that he wouldn’t accept your kindness. You turn and follow him, taking two steps at a time.

He is waiting by the door, turning the keys once you are close enough.

“Come in, I guess”, he murmurs, getting inside.

You follow him.

He closes the door behind you. Seconds later, the lights flicker on. A small room reveals itself to you. Just big enough for a double bed, a tiny kitchen and a small desk with one chair. It smells like wet walls and dust in here. Dark water spots on the greyish walls let you know why it does.

“Well damn”, you say, “I didn’t expect that.”

“Yeah, bask in my ruin all you want”, he murmurs, pressing himself past you to get to his fridge. He opens it to get a blood bag out. He bites it roughly, drinking the blood rather greedily.

You watch him as he does, finding the scene most peculiar. You can still remember how he walked into the kitchen covered in the blood of his prey or how he ripped your neck out without a care in the world. And yet here he is. Drinking cold blood in a small, dirty room.

Jimin drops the empty bag into the sink.

“What are you looking at?” he hisses.

“Nothing”, you say, breaking your eyes away to stare out the small window. The glass was fogged up from dirt, dust has collected on its wooden frame and cog webs are spanning along the corners.

“I know what you are thinking”, he hisses, “I know you think that it’s so fucking funny that someone like me ended up living in such a shithole, but save it, at least I’m alive and that’s all that matters.”

“I really wasn’t thinking that”, you say and somehow in this moment you feel bad for him.

He carries the slightest sign of embarrassment on his face, maybe even shame.

He kicks the kitchen counter quietly. Just a little nudge. The gesture reminds you of a small boy getting caught doing something he shouldn’t have done.

“I’m taking a shower, don’t touch anything”, he says coldly and seconds later, the door slams closed.

So this is actually real. Jimin is still alive. Living in this shithole of a home and drinking blood from a blood bag. There was a time – many, many months ago – where you would have basked in his ruin. After all, he did terrible things to you. But you can’t anymore these days. You know a person broken by the world when you see one. Taehyung carries the same aura around him as Jimin does. They must miss each other so much. You have to convince Jimin to come with you. You want Taehyung to know that he is still alive. He deserves to know after the awful year he had been through.

You have just sat down on his bed when Jimin comes outside.

“Geez”, you gasp, covering your eyes quickly.

“Chill, it’s not like you haven’t seen it before”, he says, strutting past you in nothing but his towel and his hair wet.

He drops said towel a second later as he puts on his pants. You don’t notice that he does, too busy with covering your eyes. Jimin fastens the strings tightly, studying you from head to toe.

“Here.”

You gasp as a piece of fabric lands over your head. You tug it away to inspect it. A grey t-shirt. You look at Jimin, who is staring at you with his torso still bared and his arms crossed in front of it. He is leaning against the kitchen counter.

“It’s freshly washed. Use it or not, I don’t really care.”

“Thanks, I’ll pass.”

He shrugs his shoulders, “whatever, then sleep in your clothes. Want some tea?”

“Uuuuh…sure?”

“Fine, take a shower, I’ll prepare it.”

“Uh sure?”

“Fresh towels are on the rack above the toilet.”

“Yes. Okay.”

You take a shower solely because being with Jimin in the same room feels so wrong. The water is freezing. The bathroom is tiny, offering just enough space that you don’t have to stand on top of the toilet to get clean. It is not far off however, that much can be said.

You end up wearing Jimin’s shirt because your other option would be walking outside in a towel and you are not for that life. Not with Jimin. Never.

Jimin sits on his bed, having his back turned to you so he can look out of the dirty window. Somehow a dark halo of loneliness surrounds him. Loneliness and maybe sadness as well. He is so different. Not only because his hair has turned from silver to ebony or not only because he seems to hunch these days rather than sit up straight. But in general. He doesn’t show off, he doesn’t act as if he was better than you, he doesn’t even try to look well put together. There was also this big silver mark on his back. Its edges remind you of the edges of a hole in a wall when someone punched their hand through it. The mark is on his left upper back, right where his heart would be. It makes you wonder if this has something to do with how he died.

“Are you going to stare at me any longer?” he says.

“I uh”, you break your eyes away, “I wiped down your shower with my towel.”

“Yeah”, he acknowledges you, “your tea’s on the desk.”

You eye it. It’s not in a cup, but in an empty marmalade jar. It is still steaming, carrying golden liquid.

“Thanks.”

You sit down next to Jimin. Your eyes meet. You and him break eye contact instantly, looking to the side awkwardly. You try the hot beverage. It tastes like lemon and ginger.

“The tea’s good. What brand is it?”

“I don’t know?” he scoffs, “Thea bought it, told me that it’ll do me good. I’ve been trying to use it up.”

“Well, it’s good. It has a slight lemony taste to it, don’t you think?”

“Don’t try to small talk with me. I hate nothing more than small talk.”

“What else do you want me to do? Sit here in silence?”

“It’s better than pretending that we care for each other.”

“Seriously though, how the fuck are you still alive?”

Jimin sneaks a glance at you.

“I told you, resurrection spell. Thea did it.”

“Who is Thea?”

“The leader of this coven. A witch. She did the spell”, Jimin says and points at a picture above his bed, “that’s her.”

You study the woman on the photography. Her curly hair is grey and her skin carries the marks of a well-lived, happy life.

You scoff.

“What?”

“So you’re telling me you’ve been fucking the brains out of this woman in secrecy?”

“Okay first of all, save that weird tone in your voice and second of all yes I did, what about it?”

“Nothing, you just don’t strike me as someone who-”

“-who’s into older women?” he interrupts you, “well I don’t care, I’m six hundred years old. Age becomes miniscule once you’ve seen too many people around you age and die. I’ve known her since her twenties.”

“I actually wanted to say that you don’t strike me as someone who is into witches.”

Jimin scoffs, turning his head away from you. He takes a sip of his tea, pulling a grimace as if the taste doesn’t please him.

“Did it hurt?” you ask him.

“What do you mean?”

“Coming back to life.”

“Imagine finally feeling nothing until all of a sudden, it feels as if you are being burned alive but it’s in reverse. So it starts off so unbearable that you want to scream but you can’t because your voice’s been burned too and then suddenly you wake up and you feel and it’s fucking awful because you’re alive again.”

“I’m sorry, that sounds awful.”

“Save it, I know you don’t mean it.”

“No, I do.”

Jimin scoffs.

“Is the silver mark on your back connected to the spell?” you ask him, sneaking a glance at his chest. The mark is there as well, spanning over the spot where his heart was supposed to be.

Jimin touches it, jaw tightening in emotion, “I guess”, he whispers.

“It’s where he…you know, isn’t it?”

He nods his head.

“Does it still hurt?”

He shakes his head and sneaks a glance at you.

“What?” he hisses, “just touch it if you keep fucking staring at it and stop being so nosy.”

You reach out. Hesitation. A fleeting look into his eyes.

“Touch it”, he insists.

You place your fingertips against the mark. His skin is cold like that of a vampire consuming cold blood, but the silver mark is icy. Merely tracing it for a few seconds makes your skin sting as if you got frostbite. You gasp, moving your hand away.

“It’s ice cold.”

“Yeah. You’re happy now?”

You reach out again, tracing the mark along its edge. Just enough not to hurt yourself, but still enough to feel it. His skin feels calloused and rough in contrast to his otherwise soft skin. As if someone placed silver leaves on his skin, the marks span against the ivory background. In a twisted way it looks beautiful, if it wasn’t the reminder of his death.

You pull your hand away, brushing your fingertips over his skin involuntarily as you do. Your eyes flit up. Jimin is looking at you, fingers clutching the jar and eyes racing between yours in suspicious nervousness.

“I think the mark is beautiful.”

“Beautiful? Why is it beautiful? It’s fucking hideous. Look at it. It’s the reminder that I fucking died.”

“I know and that’s why it’s awful that you have to carry it, but I think it’s beautiful in the sense that it shows that you were brave in your last moments.”

Jimin looks at you with widened eyes.

“You could have fled with Tae, but you chose to go up against your abuser and I think that’s really brave”, you say.

Jimin clenches his jaw.

“Thank you for keeping Taehyung safe”, you whisper.

“Shut up”, he hisses.

“I’m serious. I know you died protecting him and I just want to tell you that it means the world to Tae.”

Jimin lowers his head.

“And that he wishes you peace.”

“Fuck”, he presses out, covering his eyes quickly, “shut the fuck up”, he spits.

“I’m sorry, I know I should be quiet”, you whisper, considering whether or not you should reach out and comfort him. You decide against it, using your hands to lift the jar to your lips instead.

Jimin takes a deep breath, releasing it oh so shakily. Then he drops his hand from his eyes, looking at the moon outside. Dark clouds are covering it, keeping the light away from him. Perfect for his fucking life, he thinks. Darkness and no light. That’s just his life summed up.

“I’ll leave tomorrow”, you say.

“Good, I would have thrown you out either way.”

“Tzt”, you send him a look then look back outside, “you should come with me.”

“Why?”

“Because Taehyung misses you.”

“He’s better off that way.”

“No he’s not. I know you guys. You miss him too.”

“Doesn’t matter, he’s still better off without me.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Yes he is.”

“Holy fuck, you stubborn idiot. Taehyung has barely been functioning in grief ever since you died. He’s not better off without you.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve been taking care of him. He talks in his sleep you know?”

Jimin looks at you.

“He doesn’t know that I know, but I do because he wakes me up with it. He dreams about you, it’s always the same dream. About you coming back to life and it’s always the same thing he says. Jimin, you’re back. Jimin please don’t ever leave me again. It’s always the same thing.”

Jimin lowers his eyes sadly.

“And if it’s not that dream, he dreams about dying. It’s what he wants to do. To die. He tells me in his sleep.”

Jimin’s eyes fill with tears.

“And I know him. He says that I’m the person he can’t live without, but that’s a lie. I know that Tae also knows that that’s a lie. You’re the person he can’t live without, because I’ve been with him as he tried and it’s not working.”

Jimin spills his tears, lowering his head.

“Fuck”, he presses out, “fuck. What do you want me to say?” he hisses.

“Just that you’ll come with me.”

“Fuck”, he presses out, running his fingers through his own hair.

“Do it for Tae please. You’ll regret it if you don’t. We won’t be in town for long anymore. Just till Wednesday. Come with me please and show yourself to Tae.”

“What should I even say to him?”

“Nothing. Just give him a hug and promise him that you’re back.”

He grinds his teeth in contemplation.

“Fine”, he gives in, blinking the glassiness in his eyes away, “I’ll come with you.”

He stands up then.

“Where are you going?” you ask him.

“For a walk. I need to think.”

“You’re not running away, are you?”

“No?” he hisses, “that’s my place, why should I run away from it?”

You shrug your shoulders.

Jimin scoffs.

“Don’t wait for me”, he says, locking the door behind him afterwards.

You won’t see Jimin for the rest of the night. He comes back, but you have long fallen asleep when he does. So he stares. He stares at you sleeping in his bed with his shirt on and his blanket keeping you warm and for just a second he wonders what would happen if he did it now. If he broke your neck right this instant and then fled the scene, could he live a good life? He thinks of it and then thinks of how heartbroken Taehyung would be because now he not only lost his best friend but his lover too. That is the moment when Jimin turns away from the bed and decides to go for another walk. One which will take the entire night and keep his thoughts from suffocating him.

The smell of tea wakes you the next morning. You sniffle happily, expecting blue sheets and blues walls and the beautiful face of your boyfriend as he is waiting for you with breakfast in bed. You smile, peeling your eyes open. You are so ready to smooch him.

“Huh?”

There is no breakfast waiting for you. Nor are there blue sheets or blue walls. And especially not Yoongi’s handsome face.

“Finally.”

You turn upon hearing the unfamiliar voice. For just a second you startle until everything comes back to you. Jimin is sitting on the chair, having his legs crossed. Jeans adorns his legs and an oversized hoodie is keeping his torso covered. The clothes don’t go together and look as if he found them at places he would have never shopped at in the past. Even his shoes seem to be passed down to him by a stranger.

“You scared me.”

“Why? Forgot I’m alive?”

“Yeah”, you say, sitting up, “holy fuck, Jimin. You’re alive.”

He scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“You’re so dramatic”, he says coldly, “get dressed. I don’t want you here any longer, the sheets already stink of you.”

You roll out of bed, inching closer to the desk on which a single jar of black tea was waiting for you. Judging by the teabag in the sink, Jimin was the one making it for you.

“Thank you for the tea, I’m so cold.”

Jimin eyes your neck, “same”, he says dryly, making you hide your neck behind your hand.

“Don’t look at me that way.”

He rolls his eyes, sighing loudly.

“That woman really thinks so highly of herself”, he murmurs to himself, “relax girl, I don’t want to be anywhere near your neck”, he says and stands up, “let’s go downstairs. I’ll bring you back to the others.”

“Yes, uhm. Can I at least put on my clothes?”

He runs his eyes up and down your exposed legs.

“Sure”, he says and turns. He leaves you in the small room with the tea he made for you and so many confusing feelings in your chest. Jimin is really back, isn’t he? Well damn.

You get dressed quickly, taking the jar of tea with you.

Jimin is waiting for you in front of the door, studying you from head to toe again.

“Can we go?” he asks.

“Yes. We can.”

The plaza is bustling with life this morning. The fire in the barrels has been distinguished, except for one. A group of people is gathered by it, cooking what you assume to be food. The small booths are open, presenting the most beautiful of handmade treasures.

“Good morning, Jimin. Who is that lovely lady by your side?” an elderly lady greets him and a few other heads turn as well. You know that lady from the photograph. She must be Thea. She looks even happier than she did on the picture.

“___, old friend. She stayed here tonight.”

“I see, I see. Tell me ___, did you eat already?”

“She’s not hungry”, Jimin says, trying to tug you away by your elbow.

“Actually I am”, you say loudly, “I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning.”

Jimin huffs out air, sending you an annoyed look.

“Oh dear”, the lady claps into her hands, “then come here and eat with us. We just finished preparing breakfast.”

“I would love to”, you wiggle out of Jimin’s grasp, “thank you so much.”

The lady, you assume to be Thea, welcomes you by placing her hands on your arms. She seems to space out for a moment before her eyes fill with great grievance.

“Oh dear, you have seen a lot of grief haven’t you?” she asks.

“I’m sorry?” you gasp.

“Dear child”, she caresses your arms, “don’t you worry, you won’t have to worry about vampires here. Well”, she looks at Jimin, “except for him, but he wouldn’t dare to act up”, she says and snickers.

Jimin rolls his eyes.

“I’m sorry, but who are you? How did you do that?” you ask.

“My name’s Theanna, but most people call me Thea. I’m the leader of this coven here.”

“A coven. So you are all witches?”

She laughs fondly, as do the people having gathered around you by now.

“Of course we are my dear and we’re the reason your friend here is still alive.”

You look at Jimin. He seems annoyed, sending Thea a dark look.

“You look as if you have seen your first witch”, a younger witch says, showing you a friendly smile.

“I have”, you say, “I only heard of you guys and I read many of your spellbooks in my freetime, but I never met someone who can actually use magic. This is so cool, I can’t believe you guys are real. I’m sorry if this sounded weird, but I’m really excited.”

They laugh fondly, gathering around as they lead you to their little dining area. You feel safe in their circle, welcomed and as if you had always been a member of their family.

“Can I ask you a really stupid question?”

“Of course my dear. Every question is allowed.”

“Do you use brooms to fly around?”

Laughter roars in the small alleyways, filling it up with light and honesty.

“Oh you are wonderful”, Thea snickers, “no, we don’t fly on brooms, but we can enchant them to do our chores for us.”

“Okay that’s so cool”, you mumble.

One of the witches hands you a wooden bowl filled with warm soup. It smells like mushrooms and potatoes.

“Here you go”, she says, handing you a piece of bread and a wooden soup spoon as well.

“Thank you so much. It smells amazing.”

“Hopefully it is”, the witch says with a warm smile. She begins handing out soup to everyone, sitting down next to Jimin once everyone was taken care of.

There were around twenty witches gathered around the barrel. Fifteen of them are women and young girls, while the rest are men. They all carried a certain trustworthy familiarity with them. You feel safe eating their food and you feel encouraged to engage in small talk.

“Jimin told me that you tried to help in the hunt last night. I know, you don’t know me, but I hope that nobody got hurt”, you say.

Thea’s eyes soften, “you are very nice, my dear. Thankfully nobody got hurt last night. Eric escaped with a scratch, however it is nothing our ointments can’t fix.”

You look at the man opposite of you. There was a deep cut on his dark skin, stretching all the way over his inner upper arm.

“That looks painful. I hope you’re okay”, you tell him.

“I am”, he says and sends you a sweet smile. He looks at Thea, they exchange a little chuckle.

“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t be so nosy”, you apologise.

“Not at all”, Thea assures you.

You take a few bites of the soup. It tastes so good. Creamy and hearty and as if it was made with lots of love. The bread is tasty as well. The crust crunches as you bite into it and the inside is fluffy and full of flavour. It goes perfectly with the earthy taste of mushrooms and the soft chewiness of the potatoes.

“My grandma partook in witchcraft as well. So meeting actual witches feels very exciting to me”, you explain.

“What? Your grandma was a witch?” Jimin gasps, showing honest interest in the conversation. Before that, he merely stared at the ground in brooding.

The witches seems even more interested in you as well, studying you with curious eyes.

“I don’t think that she was an actual witch, but she knew how to heal people with herbs and always told me that she can speak with her animals”, you say, giggling shyly, “I know it must sound like the talk of a crazy lady to you guys.”

“Not at all. There are various practices of witchcraft in this world. Perhaps your grandmother practiced nature magic”, Thea says.

“Nature magic?”

She nods her head, “witches, who practice nature magic most often than not use their magic to heal nature and its creatures. They help plants grow, keep the environment healthy and in return the plants offer their healing powers to them. And many can speak with animals.”

“Wow. Wait”, you scoot closer to her, “so you are telling me, that my grandma could have actually been a witch?”

“Perhaps. And if not, there was a possibility that she knew of our practices just like you do. She must have taught you a lot.”

“Oh no, I learned all of this in books. I wasn’t really allowed to talk about witchcraft with my grandma. My mother always told me that she was crazy and forbid me from seeing her very often.”

“Oh? I’m sorry to hear that, my dear”, Thea says and touches your hand.

She zones out again before she begins to smile.

“Your grandmother loved you a lot”, she says.

“How are you always doing this?” you feel the need to whisper the question.

“Thea possesses the gift of sight”, Eric explains.

“The gift of sight? So you can see my past?”

“Past, future and present. I can see things which were and which could happen, just as I can see things which are currently happening”, she says.

“That’s remarkable. Can every witch do that?”

“No, only a few can see what happens. And even less can decipher the visions. One has to decide whether the pictures are of the past, present or future.”

“I see. That sounds like such a good gift to have once you know how to control it.”

Thea nods her head, “this is also how I knew that Jimin died. I had a vision of him turning into dust.”

You look at Jimin. He seems bored by the conversation.

“Woah.”

He lets out a loud sigh, “enough stories, Thea. ___ wants to go home”, he says.

“No, I actually like the stories”, you say.

Jimin lets out a little snarl.

The witches snicker in amusement.

“No, but Jimin is right my dear. You should go home before vampires find out that you are here. They don’t like strangers in their territory”, Thea says.

“I guess you are right. Let me just finish the soup, it tastes so good that I don’t want to miss out on one bite.”

You eat one more serving before finally getting up to leave. Thea told you more stories about their fight against the vampires of this city while you asked questions about how magic works. Jimin sat and listened if he wanted to or not. He finally lifts his head once you stand up and help Maria – the witch who handed out the food – clean up.

“Are you done?” he asks you

“Yes. Thank you, everyone. I had such a great time talking to you.”

“The pleasure was all ours. It isn’t everyday that we meet the granddaughter of a nature witch”, Eric says, making you smile.

“So you will be taking Jimin from us today”, Thea says.

You laugh shyly, “I guess”, sneaking a glance at Jimin to check for his reaction.

He rolls his eyes like he always does. You wonder if there will ever come a day where his eyes get stuck from all the rolling he is doing.

“I’ll be back soon, don’t worry”, Jimin says, touching your elbow, “you good to go? Don’t wanna waste any more time.”

“Yes, I’m good. Thank you everyone for hosting me, I seriously had so much fun here.”

“I hope that you’ll be back again one day”, Thea says, smiling brightly.

“Me too.”

You and Jimin leave afterwards, walking to the bus station side by side. He keeps his distance, hiding his hands in the pockets of his pants and kicking the occasional pebble.

“Are you taking me to the bar?” you ask him.

“Knowing Min Yoongi, it’s where he’ll look for you”, he says.

“Yes, that’s right. I really hope that he isn’t too worried”, you say and sigh sadly, "what am I talking about? Of course he’ll be worried. Poor Yoongi."

Jimin studies your face for just a second, wondering why your heart skipped a beat at the thought of the Creator. He dismisses it with a shake of his head. He doesn’t really care about it.

“The witches were so nice”, you say, “I really liked talking to them.”

“I noticed. Why did you ask so many questions?”

“Why not?”

“It’s nosy.”

“It’s not nosy. I rather ask many questions and educate myself than live in simplicity. Only through knowledge you can stop having mean and untrue prejudices about others.”

He clicks his tongue, “I hate that you’re right.”

You step on the right bus and choose an empty seat by the window. Jimin stands, looking outside whilst acting as if he doesn’t know you.

“Do you want to sit next to me?” you offer, “the seat’s still empty.”

“No, I’m good standing”, he answers you, sneaking a quick glance at you.

“Okay, suit yourself.”

Despite his efforts, he ends up sitting next to you after a group of guys entered the bus and looked at you weirdly.

“Changed your mind?”

“Those guys are vampires”, he tells you.

You eye them. They aren’t particularly looking at you, more than that they are looking at every human on this bus with hunger in their eyes.

“Well, then thank you for keeping me safe.”

“Whatever.”

The bus sways from left to right, the city passes you in streaks of different pictures and sceneries.

“I can’t believe that I took the wrong bus yesterday. It should have been so obvious to me”, you mumble.

“It happens. The city’s really big and if you don’t know it well, you can get lost”, Jimin says.

“Yes, you’re right. The city’s really nice”, you say, glancing at him, “Yoongi says that it’s a rancid city, but I think it’s nice.”

Jimin wonders again why your heart is speeding up at the mention of Yoongi. He doesn’t ask.

“I guess”, Jimin shrugs his shoulders, “it was nicer once.”

“I can imagine. Tae told me that you spend many years in Paris. Not just with Namjoon, but just the two of you as well. That must have been really nice.”

“Yes. It was”, Jimin whispers, touching the side of his neck.

“I’m really excited for you guys to meet again”, you give him a smile.

Jimin retorts it hesitantly.

You let out a content sigh, relaxing back against the seat and letting your eyes flit outside. It feels nice to know that Taehyung can finally get his happiness back. You never thought it possible, so knowing that it is makes you really happy. You are also very excited to see the others again. They must have been so worried for you. Gosh, you missed them all like crazy.

The bus comes to a slow stop.

“Let’s go”, Jimin says, leading the way outside and to the right bus.

“So that would have been the right one. I’m so dumb”, you mumble. You and Jimin sit down again and continue the journey you should have taken yesterday. “Do you know Peony?”

“Yes. It has good wine”, Jimin says.

“It has? Did you and Tae go there together?”

“Stop trying to talk to me”, Jimin hisses, “I’m just taking your dumb ass to Yoongi and that’s all.”

“And you are coming with me to meet Tae again”, you furrow your brows, “don’t forget that, understood?”

“Whatever”, Jimin dismisses you and turns his head away.

“I’m serious”, you say, nudging his arm.

“Yes. I understood you the first time”, he mumbles and for the rest of the drive you are both silent.

You were right about where the bar was located. Only a few hundred meters of walking and you can spot the purple peonies logo. And right underneath it with distraught on his face, Yoongi is standing. You begin smiling. He is here. Your Yoongi is here.

You feel like bursting with happiness.

“Yoongi!” you call out and start running.

He turns, eyes widening.

“Princess, holy fuck princess”, he is by your side within seconds, picking you up in his arms and twirling your bodies around quickly. He laughs loudly, beaming up at you with tears streaming down his face, “you’re back. My princess, you’re back”, he presses out and sobs.

“I’m back, my prince”, you choke out, “don’t cry, I’m okay.”

“I, I can’t help it. I was so worried for you”, he stutters in a whiney voice, pouting terribly sadly.

“I know, gosh my love, I’m here now”, you say, wiping the tears from his cheeks.

“Oh, love”, Yoongi chokes out, lowering you closer to him so he can begin littering your face in a million kisses, “my princess, oh my princess. I was worried sick”, he chokes out between his excessive kisses, “I’ve been looking for you all night, oh my ___.”

“I missed you too, oh Yoongi”, you say, melting under his kisses. Now you are finally safe again. Yoongi nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck and begins kissing you.

“Holy fuck, where were you?” he says, inhaling your scent deeply.

“Yoongi, I was so dumb”, you say, resting your cheek on his shoulder, “first my phone died and, and then I took the wrong bus and I ended up somewhere I was never before and, and then every cab ignored me and then it became dark and vampires wanted to eat me and I was so lost.”

“Wait a minute, slow down princess, slow down”, Yoongi sets you down, cupping your face, “vampires wanted to eat you? Who was it? Where are they?” he asks, furrowing his brows in anger, “did you see their faces? I’ll fucking kill them.”

“No it’s okay Yoongi, I’m alright”, you say, holding his cheeks and wiping his tears away, “I’m back again.”

Yoongi’s eyes soften.

“Oh princess”, he whispers, pulling you close to litter your face with kisses again.

You giggle, “that tickles, god Yoongi, that tickles.”

He hums, leaving even more kisses on your face whilst pulling you closer. You stumble, ending up with Yoongi tilting your body back and attacking you with big smooches.

“Yoongi, stop that tickles”, you squeal happily.

“Oh princess”, he presses out, straightening your bodies up so he can nuzzle his nose into your cheek, “I was going crazy in worry”, he confesses with a shaky voice, “don’t scare me like that ever again”, he says, resting his forehead against yours.

“I was really worried too, I just wanted to be with you again.”

“Fuck ___, my beloved princess”, he says, pulling you into a deep kiss.

You kiss him back happily, hooking your arms behind his head just to pull him closer. It feels so good to be with him again.

He sighs, having to press you oh so close to make sure that you won’t slip out of his grasp again. It is a kiss he would never show in public and yet right this moment it is all he wanted to do. Doesn’t matter who sees, he has you back with him again, unharmed and safe and he is bursting in relief.

He rests his cheek on your shoulder after the kiss, hugging you so tightly that you can feel how comfort engulfs you again. Now you are truly home again. Now you are back where it’s the warmest.

“I’m so happy to be back, Yoongi.”

“Me too, princess”, he gives your waist a soft squeeze, “you’re not going to leave again.”

You chuckle, “mhm honestly, I kind of don’t want to either way.”

“Good”, he lifts his head, gazing at you with lovedrunk eyes, “oh princess”, he whispers, reaching out to trace your features, “I’m so sorry for letting you go alone. I should have stayed by your side.”

“It’s okay, I don’t blame you. I was being a total scatterbrain”, you confess, “but Yoongi, I have to tell you something. When I was wandering the streets I met someone.”

“Who did you meet?” he seems wary.

“Yoongi, you won’t believe it but he’s not dead.”

“Who?”

“Ji-”, you stop talking now that you turned around and realised that Jimin was gone, “huh? What the hell? He is supposed to be here.”

Yoongi scans the empty streets, pulling you closer to him just in case.

“Who are you talking about, princess?”

You turn, looking into his eyes.

“Jimin. I ran into Jimin and, and he let me sleep at his place and he, uhm, he kept me safe from the vampires”, you say, “what the hell, he is supposed to be here. He promised me that he would stay and, and meet Tae.”

Yoongi furrows his brows in both confusion and distaste.

“Jimin can’t be alive. I saw his ashes.”

“Yes I know”, you exclaim, widening your eyes, “but he’s alive, Yoongi!” you laugh, “a witch resurrected him again and now he’s living together with the witches in their safe zone.”

Yoongi touches your forehead.

“Hey”, you move your head away, “don’t act like this.”

“Like how?”

“As if you think I’m crazy in a fever. I’m serious, Jimin’s still alive.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes”, you say, nodding your head vigorously, “I stayed the night with him and ate with him and his witch friends. I know what I saw.”

“But he died.”

“Smell me”, you say, offering your neck to him, “really smell me.”

Yoongi leans in and sniffles at your neck and shoulder.

“I smell like him, don’t I?”

He nods his head, looking at you with furrowed brows. He looks confused.

“See? I’m not lying.”

Yoongi inhales deeply, looking at the sky. His eyes race from left to right as he is thinking your words over. He exhales.

“Well fuck”, he says, scratching the side of his neck in contemplation, “let’s not tell Taehyung for now.”

“What? Why? He needs to know.”

“Yes he does, but not yet.”

“But this is so mean. All Tae wants is to be reunited with Jimin again. You know that as well as I do.”

“I do princess, but please listen to me.”

You close your mouth for now.

Yoongi is caressing your arms as he speaks, keeping his voice calm.

“Taehyung has just begun to smile again and we shouldn’t give him false hopes by telling him that Jimin is alive.”

“But why?”

“Because clearly Jimin doesn’t want him to find out or why did he run right now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he got scared that you’d rip his head off or something.”

“I mean, it’s not that I’m not considering”, Yoongi murmurs, earning himself a nudge to his chest.

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth. He deserves a good beating for what he did to you.”

“I know, but…my prince, can’t you come with me and find him? I want to tell Taehyung, but you are right, we should do it once we find out what Jimin’s intentions are.”

“No, we should leave”, he says and pushes you softly to get you to move.

“Please, Yoongi”, you stop him from leaving by placing your hands on his chest.

He studies your features.

“What are you even going to tell him?”

“I don’t know, just ask him why he doesn’t want to see Tae.”

Yoongi grinds his teeth, looking to the side in contemplation. So you step closer, hugging his middle and resting your cheek on his shoulder.

“Please, Yoongi Boongie?”

“You’re cheating”, he whines, “you can’t hug me like that.”

You giggle, squeezing him gently.

“You know that I’m down for every method.”

“Yeah, I know”, he whispers, leaning in just to give your cheek a little bite.

“Ah, hey”, you gasp, “don’t bite me.”

He grins boyishly, “it’s what you get for being a cheater.”

“So mean”, you mumble, giving him a pout as you rub the spot he bit.

Yoongi’s eyes soften, head tilting to the side as he gazes, “I’ll come with you, alright?” he whispers, caressing your waist.

“Yes, wow. Thank you, Yoongi Boongie”, you say, smooching his cheek even if that flusters him big times.

“Yeah, yeah just lead the way”, he mumbles, letting you drag him down the streets.

You board the bus together. Yoongi lets you take the seat by the window while he claims the spot by the aisle. He drapes his arm around your shoulders, pulling you into him. The gesture is very untypical of him and so you sneak a glance at him. He notices, looking at you.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing, you’re just normally not that affectionate in public.”

“Tch”, he clicks his tongue, trying and failing to pull his arm away because before he can, you intertwine your fingers with him.

You grin, resting your head against him.

“I like that”, you tell him.

Yoongi hums, closing his arm around you to begin running his hand up and down your upper arm. He won’t tell you, but he is that affectionate because he almost lost you last night and now he never wants to let you go again. You won’t slip out of his hands again, Yoongi is making sure of that by holding you oh so close.

“Thank you for coming with me”, you say, lifting your head in order to look at him better.

“Yeah well, you left me no choice, didn’t you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you ask in a chuckle.

Yoongi sends you a glance, “you wouldn’t have accepted a no, would you?”

“Maybe yeah”, you grin when Yoongi gives you his signature frown. The kind that tells you that he thinks you’re being a little brat right now.

“See? That’s why I came with you, so you can’t run off again”, he murmurs dryly, earning himself a quick smooch on his cheek. He doesn’t let it show, but it flusters him.

“You won’t regret it. We’re almost there”, you tell him, “he’s living with a coven. Their leader’s name is Thea, do you know her?”

“Not well, but yes I do.”

“Does she like you?”

Yoongi shrugs his shoulders, “I don’t know. I never hurt her.”

“Well, then she’ll like you. She’s really nice. She told me so much about magic. Did you know that there are different types of witches depending on how you gained your power?”

“Yes, I do.”

“That’s so fascinating, don’t you think?”

“Mhm sure”, Yoongi nods his head, making you grin.

“Oh!” you exclaim, “that’s our stop. Get up Boongie, we have to leave”, you tell him once you reached your true end stop, pushing at him gently to get him to move.

Yoongi does so with a little grumble, allowing you to drag him out of the bus and over the street.

“Did you even check for cars?” he asks you.

“Yeah”, you dismiss him, dodging a group of people and then turning on your heels to grin at him.

“Why are you smiling like that?”

“It’s just that this feels almost as if we’re on a date”, you snicker, “should we make good on your promise and make out on the Eiffel Tower?”

“What promise?” Yoongi tries to sound annoyed but ends up smiling when you tug him closer and drape his arms around your waist.

“The thing you promised me on the meadow. You know? When you told me how romantic that would be and that you wouldn’t want anything else. Especially not making out in a hotel room.”

“You and me both know that this is not what I said”, Yoongi says, caressing the small of your back softly.

You giggle, scrunching your nose up, “but you wanted to say it, admit it.”

Yoongi merely grumbles a “whatever” then leans in to kiss your cheek, “just get moving, brat.”

He pushes you softly. You snicker, turning back around in order to walk next to him, holding his hand tightly.

“You know that I’m just teasing you, don’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s why you’re a brat.”

“Admit it, you love it.”

Yoongi answers you by giving you a look from the corner of his eyes and tugging you into him wordlessly to drape his arm over your shoulders. You snake your arm around his waist, holding him close that way. You really love this right now. This is what you needed after last night. Frolicking through the alleyways of a small Parisian neighbourhood with Yoongi by your side. You weren’t lying when you told him that this feels like being on a date, because it does. You and Yoongi rarely walk the streets together, especially not as close as you are right now. Maybe getting lost last night had its advantages. You know that come tomorrow, Yoongi won’t be as affectionate in public anymore. You ought to take advantage of it for as long as possible.

You pass by the little shop where the vampire almost ate you last night. It looks so welcoming now that the sun was shining. It is a clothing shop, the clothes seem handmade and of high quality.

“That’s where I bumped into Jimin last night”, you tell him, “I can’t believe how close to the right bus stop I already was. Goddamn, I would have just had to keep walking and then take the right bus again.” You look at Yoongi’s side profile. “That’s also where that vampire almost ate me.”

Yoongi’s eyes are on you instantly, dark in worry and anger.

“Don’t tell me that, it’s making me murderous”, he hisses.

“I’m sorry, gosh I just wanted to tell you”, you gasp, “don’t worry, Yoongi. I’m really fine. Jimin told me that there are different rules in this neighbourhood and that the vampires living here made a treaty with the locals that once it’s dark outside and a human is still out, they can eat them and in return, they leave the locals alone during the day. I think the vampire thought that I was a tourist.”

Yoongi sighs in annoyance, “I don’t know why our kind always has to make those stupid treaties. Can’t they simply control themselves?”

“Agreed, it’s a little weird.”

“It’s more than weird”, he grumbles, “just come and show me where that bastard lives, I don’t like you being here.”

“It’s just down that block. Follow me, it’s not far now”, you say and lead the way with Yoongi holding you oh so tightly, “did you know that this is one of the neighbourhoods still owned by vampires?”

“Yes”, Yoongi says, sending a random woman a murderous glance over the street.

She stops in her steps and gasps, turning on her heels to hurry away.

“Did she just flee?” you ask.

“Yes and if she has something in her brain, she’ll tell her friends to do the same”, he says and as if on command a few people in front of you flee after spotting Yoongi.

“You’re so cool”, you whisper, feeling oh so safe to walk on these streets.

“Mhm”, Yoongi acknowledges you, darkening his eyes as you pass two strangers. They push and pull at each other as they are trying to flee. In the end, they disappear in a narrow alleyway, never to be seen again.

“Do they all know who you are?”

“Yes.”

“Seriously, you’re so goddamn cool”, you whisper with a fluttering heart.

Yoongi smirks lazily, pulling you closer.

Just like this morning, the plaza is filled with witches. Tourists and locals have joined them now that it is bright outside, gathering in front of their booths of goods and chatting about all sorts of things. Maria notices you first, nudging Thea, who makes it her task of welcoming you.

“___” she calls out, hurrying to you with open arms, “you are back so soon. What happened?”

“Hello Thea, I’m back because Jimin bailed on me. Is he here?”

“Yes, upstairs in his room”, Thea answers you then studies Yoongi by your side, “it’s been decades, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, you haven’t changed much Thea”, Yoongi greets her.

She laughs, throwing her head back, “and I see that you became a liar”, she says, giving him a playful smile, “I changed too much. You however, still look the same, but then something seemed to have changed with you”, she steps closer, studying his features so intently that Yoongi feels the need to look to the side, “you’re in love”, she exclaims and smiles, looking at you, “of course, how could I not see this sooner? Oh look at me! I’m getting old, the visions are so clear now!”

Yoongi grumbles something inaudible, looking to the side with burning cheeks. You snicker, giving his waist a little pinch.

“Just lead us to Jimin, Thea”, he tries to sound angry, but the shyness is obvious in his voice.

“He’s upstairs. Come on in, Yoongi.”

Yoongi takes the step through the magical barrier.

“Follow ___ she knows her way. I’m at my booth if you need me”, Thea says and places her hand on Yoongi’s arm. She zones out for just a second then begins to smile, “you will make her very happy and in return find peace. I can see it clearly.”

Yoongi pulls his arm away, eyes widened in shock.

After granting you one sweet smile, Thea turns and hurries back to her booth, catching up Maria on the whole situation.

You glance at Yoongi, who seems to be frozen on the spot. His hand is pressed to his chest, right where his heart once beat. His eyes are big and his lips are parted. He looks beyond flabbergasted.

“Yoongi?”

He flinches, eyes flitting to you. He blinks rapidly.

“Yeah?”

“Are you coming?” you ask him, tugging at his arm gently.

“Yeah uh”, he stumbles after you, still staring at Thea as if he was trying to make sense of what she just told him.

“It’s really cool that she can see the future, isn’t it?”

Yoongi nods his head, looking at you shyly. You smile.

“I believe her, you know?”

He looks away, touching the side of his neck.

You giggle, hugging his arm, “now come on, let’s get Jimin and then get out of here.”

Just as you had thought, Jimin doesn’t open his door when you knock. Even when you tell him that you know that he is in there, the door stays locked.

“Let me”, Yoongi says, pushing you to the side gently to get to work. He wraps his fingers around the doorknob and with one easy twist the lock breaks. He pushes the door open, “after you.”

“You are so cool”, you mumble, entering Jimin’s room.

The latter is staring at you with widened eyes.

“What the hell? How did you do that?” he squeaks out.

“Why did you leave?” you ask him.

“Why are you breaking into my room?” he throws back, eyes flitting to Yoongi who just this moment takes the spot behind you. He stumbles back in shock, lifting his hands in defence, “please no. Don’t hurt me, please”, he gets out, looking scared.

“Well fuck”, Yoongi says, eyes racing over Jimin, “you were right.”

“I know I was”, you say.

Yoongi scoffs.

“Don’t hurt me”, Jimin says, “I’m serious, just leave me alone please. I, I promise not to cause trouble.”

“He’s not here to hurt you”, you say, placing your hand on Yoongi’s chest, “we’re here to get you. You promised me that you would see Tae again.

Jimin looks at your hand on Yoongi’s chest and Yoongi’s arm around your waist.

“No oh my god, seriously?” he groans and rolls his eyes, “now I get why your heart kept racing whenever you thought of Yoongi. You guys are a thing now!”

“We aren’t just a thing. She’s my girlfriend”, Yoongi hisses.

Jimin snorts, giving Yoongi an amused smirk.

“No need to get so feisty Min Yoongi, we won’t want you getting too emotional now”, he teases with a mischievous grin.

“Can I punch him?” Yoongi asks you, “just once I want to punch him.”

Jimin snickers.

“Later”, you say.

“Hey!” Jimin complains, “what the hell?”

You ignore him, “come back like you promised.”

“No, I changed my mind. He’s better off without me.”

“Jimin, come on.”

“No, I made up my mind. I’m staying here.”

You sag your shoulders in defeat.

“Okay good”, Yoongi says, trying to get you to move with a gentle nudge, “seems that he made up his mind, let’s leave princess.”

“Give me a minute, please”, you insist, wiggling yourself out of his soft hold, “Jimin, come on.”

Jimin sneaks a glance at you, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“What are you so afraid of?”

“I’m not scared. What are you on about?”

“Of course you’re scared, I can see that you are.”

Jimin shakes his head, scoffing loudly.

“Are you scared that Taehyung won’t want you back anymore?”

Jimin stays silent, tensing his jaw.

“Well, you won’t get your answer here, brooding in self-pity.”

“I’m not pitying myself.”

“No, of course not.”

“Can you leave me alone? Piss off and suck a cock, will you?”

“Jimin”, you speak patiently, “just come with us.”

“No!” he exclaims, whipping around to gawk at you with widened eyes, “I don’t want to come back, I don’t know what to say! I goddamn left him for months. I can’t face him. What if he’ll never forgive me? What if he says that I’ll always stay dead to him?”

“That won’t happen, I promise you. Tae misses you like crazy.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Because you’re his best friend, for fuck’s sake and he loves you.”

Jimin closes his mouth, lowering his eyes now that your words flustered him.

“Just come back with us. I promise you, everything will be fine.”

Jimin hesitates. He sneaks a glance at Yoongi.

“Do as she says. She knows what she’s talking about”, he says dryly.

Jimin looks away. He lets his eyes run over his depressive, lonely home. The spot where once his heart was stings. What does he have to lose? Grey walls, no person to talk to and an aching yearning for his best friend. The things he would lose seem miniscule in comparison to what he will gain. He exhales loudly.

“Fine”, he gives up, “fine, I’m coming with you.”

And so you leave the plaza together. You and Yoongi hand in hand while Jimin trots next to you. He doesn’t talk a lot, while you and Yoongi talk about Maël. Tomorrow’s plan is still going to happen. You tell Jimin about it, but he seemed too tense in nervousness to really listen. You can’t blame him. You are really nervous yourself. Taehyung is going to get his best friend back. You are so excited and nervous. You really, really hope that he will like the surprise.

Hoseok opens the door for you once you arrive at the apartment. His face lights up the second he sees you.

“___ holy shit, you’re back! I was so fucking worried for you”, he gasps, falling around your neck in a tight hug.

You stumble with a laugh, twisting his shirt for support, “I missed you too, Hobi.”

“Oh my god”, he mumbles into you, lifting you up just so he can squeeze you, “where were you? We tried calling you but you didn’t answer us.”

“I got on the wrong bus and my phone died, it was such a mess”, you say, laughing when Hoseok bounces you in his arms, making little sound effects as he does.

“___!” Seokjin calls out, running to your side, “holy shit, you’re okay. I thought you died!” he says, hugging you and Hoseok.

You laugh, holding him close as best as the position allows you to.

“I’m so happy to be back, I had such a night.”

“Tell us all about it. Where were you? What happened? Are you okay?” Seokjin asks, breaking away in sync with Hoseok so they can look at you.

“I’m okay and you’ll get the full story later, I promise. Guys, I have to see Tae. Is he home?”

“He isn’t home yet. Why?”

Jimin steps closer.

Hoseok and Seokjin stumble back in shock.

“Uh, what the hell is happening?” Hoseok gasps.

“What’s going on?” Seokjin gets out, gawking with such widened eyes that you fear they might actually fall out of his head.

“I’m alive. Surprise”, Jimin says.

“How?!”

“Resurrection spell.”

“But I saw your ashes”, Seokjin tells Jimin as they follow you.

“I know. I’m back now.”

“How?”

“Resurrection spell, I told you.”

“Damn, seriously. Damn.”

“How is that even possible?” Hoseok asks.

“Right?” you agree, “I promise that you guys will get the whole story, but I really have to call Tae now. Let’s go to the living room guys, the hallway’s cold.”

“Yeah sure. Damn, this is actually happening”, Hoseok says, following you with the rest of the group.

Emma is in the living room. She was drawing before, but lifts her head.

“I’m so happy to see you, ___”, Emma says, “we were really worried for you”, her eyes shift to Jimin and widen, “Jimin?” she gasps.

“Emma?” Jimin gasps, “what are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here? I thought you died.”

“Resurrection spell. Good stuff.”

“Something like this is possible?”

Jimin nods his head, studying her face.

“You look good”, he says, “eternity suits you.”

She snorts and chuckles, “I can say the same about you. You’re really not dying easily, aren’t you?”

“I told you, I’ll always find a way to survive.”

“Clearly you do”, Emma says and then shifts her eyes to Seokjin. He is putting a protecting (almost jealous) arm around her shoulder, eyeing Jimin with suspicion.

“I’m back!” Taehyung calls from the hallway just moments later.

“Perfect timing”, you say and run out of the living room.

“Darling”, you call out.

Taehyung lifts his head and smiles, “darling! What a wonderful way to be greeted”, he says, closing the distance between you and him to kiss you.

“Tae”, you don’t let him kiss for long. You are too excited, “Tae, I met someone last night. I need to show you.”

Taehyung cocks his right brow up in question.

“Follow me. Come”, you say and tug him with you.

“Wait, not so fast”, Taehyung follows you with a fond chuckle.

You enter the living room. Taehyung joins you a moment later.

“Who did you meet, darling?” he asks.

“Look”, you say, pointing at Jimin.

Taehyung looks and stumbles back, almost collapsing on the ground if Hoseok hadn’t caught him under his pits before that could happen.

“Jimin?” the word barely wants to leave Taehyung’s throat.

“Hey.”

Taehyung storms to Jimin, who welcomes him with open arms and teary eyes. Just seconds later and he falls as Taehyung throws him to the ground and moments later begins punching his face.

“I hate you. You bastard! All this time you were alive! Why would you leave me?! I needed you! I fucking needed you!” Taehyung screams, crying the hottest tears as his face is contorted in heartbreaking betrayal.

You expected anything but this. As did Jimin, who does nothing to fight Taehyung off as shock keeps him paralysed.

“Taehyung stop!” you gasp, wanting to step in between, but getting stopped by Yoongi.

“Don’t. You’ll only get hurt.”

“I took your punishment! Hear me?!” Taehyung is crying miserably, punching his own knuckles bloody, “I was rotting away in prison while you were alive?! My heart has been broken for months! Why would you do this to me?!”, he wails loudly, “I hate you so much! You bastard traitor! I hate you!”

“I’m sorry Taetae, I’m so sorry.”

“I needed you!” Taehyung screams the word, picking Jimin up by his collar just to shake him, “why did you never come looking for me?!”

“I’m sorry, I wanted to but I couldn’t.”

“You couldn’t?!”

Taehyung punches him. He punches him so hard that Jimin can’t move for a moment.

“I hate you!” he sobs and punches him, “I hate you so much!”

Jimin groans quietly, trying and failing to speak. Taehyung is blinded by his own emotions, taking out months of heartbreak on Jimin’s face.

“Stop that”, Yoongi stops him, dragging him away, “you’re going to kill him. “

“Let go of me!” Taehyung squirms in Yoongi’s hold.

“Seriously, I’m going to break your spine if you keep moving around”, Yoongi warns.

“Leave me alone!”

But Taehyung is angry, heartbroken, drowning in the feelings of being betrayed. Just this night, he is stronger than Yoongi. Just this night, he manages to rip himself free of his grasp and just this night, you have to watch as Yoongi flies through the room before colliding with the wall so harshly his entire rib cage shatters.

“What the fuck?” you squeak out.

That’s when Taehyung disappears, pushing aside a confused Jungkook, who just came downstairs to check what all this yelling is about. Jungkook falls to his knees, groaning softly.

“What the hell is happening?” he gasps, watching Jimin bleed all over the carpet while you are sobbing and cupping Yoongi’s pain-contorted face. This is the most confusing situation he ever walked in on.

“Yoongi my baby, oh god Yoongi”, you sob, grasping his face tightly.

“That’s….why…I…told you…to…stay….back”, he presses out before having to groan in agony.

“Yoongi, I’m so sorry”, you fall around his neck, “this is all my fault. I’m so stupid. Why did I think this could work? I’m so fucking dumb.”

“Stop crying…I’m okay.”

“No, you’re hurt. It’s my fault.”

“Hush, it’s almost healed.”

You lift your head, dripping tears all over his face. He gives you a reassuring smile.

“It doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

“Yoongi”, you whimper, feeling your lower lip tremble.

He sits up with your help. He doesn’t need your help, but you want to help him either way. Once he is up, you keep your arms around him, making sure that he is supported.

“Don’t move too much, you’ll make it worse.”

“Hey, stop crying”, he says softly, wiping your tears away, “I’m seriously okay. I healed.”

“Oh”, you press out, hugging him tightly.

He hugs you back, caressing the back of your head lovingly.

“It’s okay princess, I’m okay.”

“Can someone please tell me what is going on here?” Jungkook joins the conversation, staring at Jimin with big eyes.

The latter is in the midst of sitting up with Hoseok’s help, sending Jungkook an icy glare before staring at the floor. His face was covered in his own blood, but seems to be in the middle of healing.

“I’m alive”, he says coldly, “you can see how Tae took that fact”, he lifts his gaze to you, “he’ll be so happy to see you. That’s what you told me. He was oh so happy, wasn’t he?”

“You’ll take on another tone if you speak to her”, Yoongi warns.

“I just got my face punched in repeatedly, so excuse me if I’m being pissy”, Jimin says and spits one of his teeth on the floor, “fuck”, he grunts, stumbling to his feet. With way too much pride in his eyes, he straightens his back, lifting his head as high as possible.

“You good?” you ask him.

“Do I look good?” Jimin says, pointing at his face. His bashed open left eye is still in the middle of healing, only slowly coming out from the inside of his skull. Truly it is horrid to look at.

“No. Sorry for asking.”

“Urgh”, Jimin groans and turns his back to you, “what?” he hisses at Jungkook.

“How the fuck are you here? I saw your ashes.”

“I rose from them again.”

“Tzt what? Like a phoenix?”

“Basically.”

“How?”

“Witches. All thanks to ___ bothering Yoongi with releasing Tae that day and distracting him. They did some witchy teleportation shit and gathered my ashes.”

“How the hell did they even know that you died?”

“Visions. They told them I bit the dust. Well, became the dust in a literal sense.”

“Hah yeah”, Jungkook studies him from head to toe, “I have to be honest with you, I can’t say that I’m happy to see you again.”

“Trust me, I feel the same.”

“Good”, Jungkook says dryly then turns to you. Life returns to his eyes, “I’m so happy that you are back, ___”, he says, hurrying to you so he can take your hands.

“Me too Kookie”, you tell him, squeezing his hands gently.

“Do you think Tae is alright? He seemed really upset”, Emma asks.

“I don’t know”, you say, looking at Yoongi for help.

“I’ll check on him”, he says.

“I’m coming with you”, you say, hurrying after him.

“What about me?” Jimin asks.

“Stay until we know more”, you say, “I’m not giving up, so please stay.”

Jimin nods his head and touches his face, “ah fuck, hurts”, he murmurs.

“I can look at it if you want to”, Emma offers and then you drown out their conversation.

Yoongi takes your hand, “come. He’s still here.”

“Is he upset?”

You get your answer by the loud sob cutting through the air. The sound of something shattering follows.

It came from upstairs.

“No Tae”, you gasp, running to get to him quicker.

Yoongi follows you, taking two steps at a time.

Sobbing. Loud and filled with pain. Shattering of something else.

Taehyung appears in your vision. Hunched over and kneeling on the floor with his knuckles bleeding from punching in the mirror. Pieces of it were still stuck in him.

“Stop please! Stop please!” he begs.

“Darling”, you gasp, “what happened? You’re hurt.”

“Stay away!” Taehyung screams. He doesn’t want to scream but he can’t stop it from happening. “I’m going to rip you apart if you come any closer.”

You stop. Yoongi steps in instantly.

“Hey there Tae, it’s okay. I’m here now”, he says.

“Stay away! I’ll hurt you!”

“It’s okay. I’m here, you can hurt me. It’s okay”, Yoongi assures him, coming closer in slow steps.

Taehyung growls and sobs. He tries to look scary by flashing his fangs, but he ends up looking like a scared, cornered animal, staring at Yoongi with a grimace of pain.

“Talk to me, Tae. Talk to me.”

“I’m going to kill him. How could he do this to me?” Taehyung is yelling, “I thought that he was dead. I grieved. Suffered. How could he leave me?!”

“I know, Tae. It hurts so much.”

“I wanted to die each and every day and all this time he was alive? He let me suffer. He, he- oh god”, he chokes out and then he sobs, “why didn’t he come back to me?” he sobs so miserably that he can barely even breathe, fighting for his right to air, “why did he leave me alone for so long?”

He is shaking, wheezing whilst trying to sob, coughing out curses.

Yoongi kneels down in front of Taehyung. He cups his face and brushes his thumbs over his temples.

“Don’t worry, Taehyungie. Hyung’s here now”, he soothes him.

You know that he is currently helping Taehyung calm down by touching his temples. And seeing how Taehyung actually calms down, he wanted it to happen. After all, this type of mind control only works if the receiving end consents to it.

“Hyung’s here now, Taetae. I’m right here”, Yoongi whispers, shushing him softly.

Taehyung’s breathing slows down gradually. With each caress of his temples, his once suffocating emotions become easier to bear. He felt like dying in pain, but Yoongi helped him, coming at the right time to prevent the worst from happening.

“The worst’s behind you, Tae. I’m here for you, right here”, Yoongi speaks gently, running his thumbs under Taehyung’s teary eyes.

Taehyung whimpers, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Hyung”, he squeaks and sobs, “hyung, it hurts so much.”

“I know, but I’m here now. Yeah?”

Taehyung nods his head, “why would he do this to me?” he presses out, voice trembling, “I want to die, it hurts so much.”

“I know Tae, I know. Lean on me, yeah? Trust me to make it better, yeah?” Yoongi whispers in the softest voice, caressing Taehyung’s temple with loving hands.

You kneel down next to them, reaching for Taehyung’s trembling hands. He flinches, looking at you with fearful eyes. He calms down when he sees that it is you touching him.

“Can I remove the shards?” you ask him.

Taehyung looks at them. He seems confused and surprised by their presence.

“Yes”, he gets out. He doesn’t react as you begin pulling out the shards, crying softly as Yoongi continues drying his tears.

“We’re here, Tae. You’re not alone”, he continues whispering, holding Taehyung’s face safely.

At some point, Taehyung stops sobbing to instead whimper. He looks into Yoongi’s eyes.

“Why did he do this to me?” he croaks.

“He was scared of your reaction.”

“My reaction? I grieved him. Each passing day felt like hell.”

“I know, Tae hey”, Yoongi tilts his head up, “I know that and Jimin knows that too.”

“He grieved you too, my sweetest”, you say.

Taehyung looks at you with heartbreak in his sad eyes.

“So why did he abandon me?”

“I didn’t abandon you.”

You look at the door. Jimin is here, looking at Taehyung with nervous eyes and fumbling with his thumbs. His face is healed again, his blood wiped away.

“I spent two thirds of my new life having to recover. It’s actually difficult as fuck to return from the dead, so my body was fucked. I couldn’t even leave bed, let alone talk or eat.”

Taehyung sniffles, sobbing softly.

“I, I really wanted to be with you again, but I was embarrassed, just…” Jimin falters, “just look at me. I’m a fucking joke. I lost all my strength and look like fucking shit.”

“You think I care?” Taehyung presses out, “all I needed was you.”

“I know, shit, I know.”

“I hate you so much. How could you do this to me?” Taehyung sobs.

“Do you…really hate me?” Jimin asks with a trembling lower lip.

“I don’t know! Why would you ask me that?! Why did you leave me?!” Taehyung yells, voice trembling and barely wanting to come out.

“I’m so sorry for leaving you, Taetae. I fucking-”, Jimin tears up, “-I fucking thought of you each day. I missed you so much. Please believe me.”

“Jimin”, Taehyung sobs loudly stumbling to his feet with your and Yoongi’s help. He leaves the two of you behind him as the only thing he can see is Jimin.

Within a second he is by his side. Within a second he has him against his chest. Within another second Jimin hugs him back. Taehyung cries miserably, Jimin tries not to but soaks Taehyung’s shirt in silent tears. They are together again. Their dreams actually came true. They are finally reunited.

“I missed you so much”, Taehyung wails, “oh god, you are real. You are real.”

“I am. I’m real. I love you Taetae, I love you so much”, Jimin laughs and sobs and hugs his best friend as if it was his last day on earth.

But it wasn’t his last day. It was just the beginning. They are reunited and life can finally begin again. Taehyung tightens his arms around Jimin while the latter makes sure that he can never ever escape the hug again.

“I love you too. Oh Jimin.”

“You have to tell me everything that happened, Taetae. I want to know everything”, Jimin says and laughs and sobs and hugs his Taehyung.

“Oh Jimin, I have so much to tell you. Oh god, I can’t stop crying”, Taehyung sobs and overtaken by happiness, he lifts Jimin off the ground just to twirl around.

Jimin laughs loudly, clutching Taehyung in the tightest hug.

“Come”, you tell Yoongi and push him gently, “let’s give them their moment.”

“Wait. Are you crying?” Yoongi gasps, stumbling out of Taehyung’s room.

He twirls once outside, cupping your face, “hey, princess. Why are you crying?”

“I’m just so happy. This is everything Tae wanted. Oh god, I’m so happy”, you say, crying the happiest tears for them.

Yoongi’s worried eyes soften. He brushes his thumb over your cheeks.

“I’m happy for him too. Losing your happiness is terrible, so I’m happy that he has Jimin again.”

“Me too. I still can’t believe that it is real. Jimin’s actually back”, you say and smile, “do you think that things will change for the better now?”

“Come. Let’s check on the others first”, Yoongi says, leading you downstairs where the others are currently gathered in the living room.

They look at you.

“What the hell is going on?” Jungkook asks, “why is Jimin back? I saw his ashes.”

“Resurrection spell. I never saw it work before, so I’m impressed that it did”, Yoongi says.

“Resurrection spell”, Hoseok repeats, “so you’re telling me that all this time I was scared of dying for nothing? We just need a witch to resurrect us again?”

“Calm down. Didn’t I just say that I never saw it work before?”

“It worked splendidly for Jimin”, Hoseok says, shrugging his shoulders.

“Yeah, because he had a good witch to take care of it. Ninety percent of the witches you meet will not be able to resurrect you again and you will stay dead”, Yoongi says, giving Hoseok a nod of his head, “so be careful and try not to die. Got it?”

“Of course, I’m always careful.”

You claim the empty spot next to Jungkook on the couch. Yoongi sits down next to you, placing his hand on your thigh.

“So what does this mean for us? Is he part of our group now?” Seokjin asks.

“If he wants to join us. I doubt that Tae will let him leave again”, Yoongi says.

“I’m sure, he won’t”, Hoseok says and points upstairs, “I bet they have so much catching up to do.”

“I’m sure they do”, Yoongi says, “I still don’t trust him, I’m saying it how it is.”

“Me neither”, Jungkook mumbles with furrowed brows.

“Yeah, honestly? Me neither”, Hoseok confesses, “it’s a little weird that he suddenly showed up. Don’t you guys think?”

“I don’t think that he planned on showing up if I’m being honest”, you say, “we bumped into each other accidentally.”

“That’s still wild to me. Out of all the people you could have bumped into, it was Jimin.”

“Right? Trust me when I tell you that we were both as surprised as you guys. At first I thought that I was hallucinating from the panic of getting lost but nope it was really him. Then a vampire almost ate me.”

“What?!” the guys exclaim.

“My thoughts exactly”, Yoongi mumbles.

“But then Jimin saved me from her and I stayed at his place”, you finish your sentence, “so I’m positive that we have nothing to worry about. He could have very well killed me and continued with his life, but he decided to not only save me from a vampire but also to protect me for the night and he took me back to Yoongi and even protected me from a group of vampires on the bus.”

“Well damn, I didn’t expect that from him.”

“But see? Let’s not expect the worst already and give him a chance and if you can’t do it for Jimin, can we at least try for Tae? Please?”

The others exchange a look.

“Fine”, Hoseok gives in, “we’ll try for Tae.”

The others nod their heads.

“Thank you.”

“But if he puts you in any kind of danger, I can’t guarantee for anything”, Yoongi adds.

“Then let’s not expect the worst and support him on his journey of becoming better, yeah?”

Yoongi studies your face.

“Mhm?” you stress, caressing his knuckles, “can you do that, my prince?”

“Fine”, he gives in with a loud sigh, “I’ll give him a chance.”

“Thank you, that’s very nice of you.”

“Mhm”, he acknowledges you and nods his head, leaning back against the couch with a defeat sigh.

“I never thought that I’d meet Jimin again”, Emma says, “he is my sire.”

“Seokjin told us. It must be weird to meet him again”, you say.

“A little, but I’m also excited. I want to ask him how he is doing and thank him”, Emma says and looks at Seokjin, “because he turned me, I lived long enough to meet my Jinnie again”, she says and smiles.

“Don’t say that, oh my god”, Seokjin whispers, covering his pink ears with his hands.

Emma giggles and leans in to steal a kiss from him, only making his blush grow.

“You are so adorable, my moon.”

“My tulip, come on, I’ll blush even more” Seokjin says in a whiney voice, giving her a cute pout.

Emma coos and squishes his cheeks, stealing another kiss from him.

“Wah, you two are so cute”, Hoseok gushes, “I support it. You guys are in my top three couples now.”

“Your top three couples?”

“Mhm. ___ and Yoongi are number one. I’m your biggest fan”, Hoseok says, sending you a thumbs up.

Yoongi chuckles, caressing your knee while his eyes flit to his lap shyly.

“And who’s number two?”

“Emma and Jin. Number two best couple.”

They chuckle.

“And who’s number three, hyung?” Jungkook asks.

“My parents. They were the best”, Hoseok smiles in melancholy, “yeah, they really were”, he lets out a loud sigh, only to begin smiling a second later, “seriously, everyone’s reunited again. That’s so funky.”

“Totally”, you agree, “now nothing can separate us again. Right? You guys are gonna stay with us.”

“Of course, hello? We’re a family”, Hoseok says to which Jungkook nods his head passionately. Seokjin and Emma agree with a fond smile while Yoongi leans in wordlessly to kiss your cheek.

“You’re so cute”, he whispers so only you can hear, stealing another kiss just to make sure that you know that he appreciates you with his entire heart.

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btsqualityy · 7 months

Note

Hey can we have a drabble of the parks being distant and snappy cuz of the miscarriage. Maybe some arguments, visit to docs and tears concluded by lots of cuddles. Thanks shay 💗

Warnings: mentions of miscarriage

"So, you look to be doing well Y/N," Dr. Choi said as your appointment reached it's end. "Physically, you aren't carrying any lingering scars from the miscarriage."

"Wish I could say the same for my emotions," you joked dryly, making Dr. Choi smiled sadly.

"I do have some referrals to therapists, if that's something you're interested in," she said.

"Uh, I'm not sure," you grimaced. "I'll have to think about it."

"Alright, that's totally fair," Dr. Choi sighed. "If you and Jimin decided that you wanted to start trying again though, you are able to physically."

"Alright, thank you," you murmured quietly. Once your appointment ended and you made it back home, you trudged upstairs to find Jimin sitting in an easy chair in your bedroom, his notebook on his lap as he wrote furiously.

"Hey," you spoke up and Jimin looked up at you.

"Hey," he replied shortly as you sat down on the bed. "How'd your appointment go?"

"Dr. Choi said I'm ok physically," you reported. "The miscarriage didn't leave any scarring or anything like that so we can try again whenever we're ready."

"Hm," he muttered before focusing back on his notebook.

"Hm?" You repeated with an arched brow. "You have nothing to say about that?"

"I'm happy that you're healthy," he said without looking up.

"You don't sound too happy."

"What were you expecting?" Jimin wondered as he looked at you again. "For me to throw you onto the bed and fuck another baby into you, right here and right now?"

"Why do you always have to be such a dickhead about things?" You demanded to know. "You don't have to be so crude."

"And why do you always have to be so insensitive?" He shot back. "You weren't the only one who lost a baby and you haven't even asked me if I'm ready to try again yet."

"The way you've talked since we found out we lost the baby, it sounded like you were," you shrugged. "Sorry I assumed."

"Yeah, whatever," he scoffed, getting up from the chair and walking out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

..............................................

A few days later, things had remained icy between you and Jimin. The two of you hadn't really talked and you had gotten used to falling asleep alone at night and waking up the same way.

You were laying in the dark, your eyes droopy but your body unable to relax enough to let yourself rest. Suddenly, you heard the door to your bedroom open and footsteps fall into the room. You held your breath as Jimin moved over and climbed onto the bed, wanting him to think you were asleep, but you couldn't help the gasp that escaped you when Jimin wrapped an arm around your body and pulled you close to him.

"I know you're awake but I just need you to listen to me," he whispered, waiting until you had slowly nodded your head before he continued. "I shouldn't have snapped at you like that and I'm sorry for doing so. I just....I'm so fucking angry still."

"I know the feeling," you replied.

"And I have no idea how to handle the shit," he added. "My heart aches for someone that I didn't even know. Plus, if things had been worse, I could've lost you and the thought of that drives me insane."

"Jimin-ssi," you whispered as you turned around so that you could look at his face, and you weren't surprised to see tears already streaming down his cheeks. "Baby, if you're hurting, you have to talk to me. Remember when you told me that we were in this together?"

"I remember," he nodded.

"Then come to me and we can cry together," you told him, a sob escaping your throat afterwards. "I already lost our child, I don't wanna lose you too."

"Oh jagi, you could never lose me," Jimin chuckled through his tears, tightening his grip on you.

"Promise me?" You requested, your hands coming up to cup his face.

"I promise," he swore. "I love you so much."

"I love you more," you replied, bringing him closer and pressing his head against your chest as you held him in your arms. The two of you stayed like that all night, crying together until you drifted off to sleep.

#btsqualityy drabbles 2 #drabble day 3

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jungshookz · 3 months

Note

omg how have i never read dickhead!jimin and ta!y/n before it’s such a good premise!!!!!! i can’t wait to see more of them (and by them i mean jimin flirting and being put in his place) teehee

"What can I say? I just can't help myself when I'm around beautiful girls."

"...I'm still not giving you an extension, Jimin. Hand your term paper in by Friday at 5pm or you get an automatic fail."

"...I like 'em fiery."

talk to my characters!

#anon asks #dickhead!jimin #is that the tag for him #LOL #ta!y/n

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ugh-yoongi · 2 years

Text

heart got teeth | knj

(or, the one where namjoon meets his match and isn’t quite sure how to handle you.)

→ pairing: namjoon x f. reader → genre: pwp; smut, angst, enemies to fwb to lovers (kinda) → rating: explicit. minors dni. → warnings: swearing, alcohol consumption, reader is kind of a dickhead for a while but namjoon is a very into it and generally a horny disaster so it cancels out, side jihope because i can, hobi can’t hold his alcohol and namjoon says baby a lot so this is basically canon compliant, this is just porn with a crumb of plot so i will do my best with the explicit tags: kissing, joon has a wet dream, oral sex (m/f receiving), masturbation (namjoon does it a lot, reader once), fingering, i think there’s a handjob, dirty talk, dom undertones but nothing full-on, thigh riding, facesitting, referenced semi-public sex, unprotected sex, hair pulling, one ass slap, very light choking, namjoon is just down really bad idk what else to say. → wordcount: 12k → playlist: 5 seconds of summer - teeth • monsta x - nobody else • waterparks - stupid for you • poppy - all the things she said • namasenda - 24/7 • bastille - goosebumps • monsta x - wildfire → a/n: this is a fic i wrote for an old fandom and reworked/rewrote to work in this context, so if it looks familiar, it is. don’t report me, i promise it's mine. :’) as always, thank you to lauren, jess, and bee for looking this over and catching all my fuckups. you all are the best and i would be a whole clown without the three of you.

To your credit, you truly have no ulterior, unsavory motives as you step inside.

It’s meant to be a simple night out with a few of your friends. A club, of course, because they never pass up an opportunity to go all-out: impeccable hair and makeup, outfits that are more like a second skin, fuck-me eyes with the glossed lips to match, ones that leave very little to the imagination of how low that mouth will go and how it’ll feel once it gets there.

Tonight’s about mourning. No more Seokjin in your entourage, seeing as he’s too busy fucking some boring accountant now. A “one-man man” he’d called himself, and you can’t possibly think of anything worse. There isn’t an accountant on earth hot enough to inspire monogamy.

So, you came to the club. The high-end one your friends like in the city with the hot bartender. Taehyung had wanted to blow off some steam before heading back to Daegu for a few weeks, anyway. Not that he has to wait long—someone catches his eye a few minutes in, leaving you and Jimin on your own.

Just as well. Neither of you have much trouble pulling.

Twelve minutes. Not your personal best, but it’ll do.

You have them pegged from a mile away. The taller one will have money and some sob story about growing up wealthy, fake humility dripping from every word as he waxes poetic about never taking anything for granted, while his friend—shorter by a few inches, hair looking neon red under the club lights, and certainly in his element—will play his good-cop partner in crime. He’s probably very charming, the type who will use his disarming, megawatt smile to secure a seat at the table and learn the drink order and pave the way for the dark-haired one to work his magic.

Because the dark-haired one will definitely work his magic. That smolder alone has probably been the cause of hundreds of weak knees, the kind of look that gets him whatever he wants with few questions asked besides, “yours or mine?”

You don’t bother to hide the disinterested look on your face, which suits you just fine. You know it’s flattering, your honeypot look. All to do with the slightly parted lips, the steeled, blasé stare that men fell over themselves to have focused on them. And, sure, you’ve taken a keen interest in vapid, meaningless sex with attractive strangers, but you aren’t sure you’ll be able to stomach the small talk these two will inevitably require to get to that point.

“Heads up,” Jimin says, nodding to his right.

You snort, hiding the downward tug of your mouth behind your whiskey glass. “I know.”

“Are you not interest—”

Jimin’s question is cut off by the smiley one finally reaching their table, immediately sliding into the booth beside him, both unprompted and unwelcome. Lithe limbs knock unceremoniously against the underside of the glossy table, and you can already see the gears turning in Jimin’s head. He never was able to resist a dancer’s body, which means the other one will be your problem for the evening.

“Would it be okay if I joined you?”

You cock an eyebrow at that. The dimly-lit, grimy club hardly seems like an appropriate setting for that level of refinement. “If you must.”

His bravado falters just for a second. Blink and you’ll miss it. Just as you expected, he isn’t used to being denied anything. “Oh,” he stammers, his eyes darting to his friend on his left who is too busy whispering god-knows-what in Jimin’s ear to notice. “It’s just… my friend,” he tries to explain.

Still gazing up at him, your lips stretch into a challenging smirk. “Mm, I noticed.”

He’s fidgeting. Weight shifts from one leg to the other, fingers flexed around the glass he’s holding before relaxing. “So, can I—”

“I don’t know,” you muse, “can you?”

“For fuck’s sake,” he mutters, his features immediately resetting to appear calm and collected. “May I?”

With a smug grin, you nod, gesturing to the empty space beside you. Your night was bound to be interrupted one way or another, and it’s always better to have it done so by someone so easily affected. There’s something deeply gratifying about making this stranger lose just that bit of control, of seeing his composed mask slip for only a second.

His enormous presence is immediately felt beside you, heat emanating from his flushed skin and calling to you like a siren song. And, god, is he attractive up close, the type of bone structure that plausibly could have been carved from stone, worshiped centuries ago. It takes a lot of self-restraint to not reach out and touch him, to keep your hands wrapped around your glass instead of skimming them along the outside of the thigh pressed against you.

If he’s going to be your only option for the evening, there’s nothing wrong with having a bit of fun, even if you aren’t particularly charmed by him.

Liking him isn’t a necessary prerequisite for taking him home—or to the bathroom, if the situation requires it—and having him fuck you senseless.

This is a game you’ve played—and won—countless times before. Because you can feel his dark gaze on you, each sideways glance lasting longer than the one before. Can see how jittery he still is, as if he feels the electricity between you, too, but is too paralyzed to act on it.

So, really, it shouldn’t be a surprise that you toy with him. He sneaks a glance, you make a show of crossing your legs, the garish club lights reflecting off smooth, soft skin. Another glance and you run your tongue slowly over your bottom lip, pretending to listen intently to whatever Jimin’s saying. You bare your neck to him as you throw back the last of your drink, head lolling to the side just enough to have him wondering how it’d feel to press his lips against the skin there.

A small, private grin to yourself when he sputters and tries awkwardly to cover it by clearing his throat. “Can—can I buy you another drink?”

God, he almost makes it too easy. “I don’t know. Can you?”

There’s a sharp sound as he bangs his fist on the table, jaw clenched in frustration. “I’m not going to ask twice.” Meant as a threat, but you know exactly what it is: just another attempt to regain control. You almost take pity on him. The poor guy really isn’t used to not easily getting whatever he wants.

You lean over, lips close enough to the shell of his ear to make the hair stand on his arms. “You’re lucky I let you ask once.”

He looks positively flustered now, a furious, rapid blush creeping up his neck, and you take his reaction and tuck it away for later. Want to save it, want to memorize the look on his face—the small parting of his lips, the barely-audible groan, the subtle roll of his shoulders. Want to think about it all later, preferably when you’re alone. Maybe in bed.

Jimin’s still engaged in conversation with the one who can’t stop laughing, his eyes lighting up every time he leans in to say something with that heart-shaped mouth only meant for Jimin to hear. When he pulls away from Jimin and turns his attention to you, you’re finally able to take in the lines of his face. Softer than the one you’re currently sitting next to, a bit more feminine, but you know there’s bite to him. Definitely attractive, has that familiar brand of confident swagger, and one-hundred percent Jimin’s type.

You think Jimin calls your name.

You turn your attention back to your friend, who’s looking at you expectantly. “Hm? Sorry, Chim, I couldn’t hear you.”

“Hoseokie-hyung says the next round is on him. D’you want another drink?”

“A few shots of tequila would be lovely,” you smile. “Thanks so much.”

You can feel the man beside you tense as he says, “I’ll join you, hyung.”

He stands, staring at you with a look that says he knows exactly what game you’re playing, giving everyone else all of your sweet and reserving the sour only for him. Seems like he isn’t all that impressed, either, if the tight set of his jaw is any indication. All you bother to offer him in return is a slow, deliberate smirk. Game on.

Jimin leans across the table conspiratorially. “So…? What do you think of Namjoon?”

“Who’s Namjoon?” you answer, nails clacking away as you reply to a text from Taehyung.

“Are you serious?” Jimin frowns. “He’s been sitting next to you all night.”

You chuckle at that. “Why do I need to know his name if you’re just going to fuck his friend?”

“I’m not—” Jimin pauses, pushes his bubblegum pink hair out of his face, chews the thought over. “Okay, I am, but—”

“It’s fine, Minnie. Do your thing. That’s the whole reason we came out, anyway.”

Jimin clicks his tongue. “You don’t like him at all? Not even a little bit?”

“You know he’s not my type.”

“Excuse me?” Jimin nearly shrieks. “Tall, extremely handsome, and rich isn’t your type?”

You roll your eyes. “Stuck-up dickhead isn’t my type. I’m extremely good-looking and rich on my own.”

“I don’t think he’s a dick,” Jimin defends. “Plus, he seems super into you. He was making googly eyes every time I looked over.”

“Guys always look at us like that on a night out.”

It takes a few minutes and a disregarded pleading stare, but Jimin eventually throws his hands up in surrender. “Fine! Just… be nice, at least.”

You quirk an eyebrow. “Why? You planning on keeping that guy around awhile?”

Jimin frowns, moves to protest, but his words are cut off by Hoseok again stumbling back to their table, a massive grin spreading across his face as he sidles up next to Jimin. With none of the same enthusiasm, Namjoon stands awkwardly next to the table, refusing to meet your eye as he hands out shots, two for everyone. Amused, you wonder if there’s a reason he might need to take the edge off. You huff a knowing, soft laugh.

As he reluctantly slides in next to you—distance kept, of course; no contact—you and Jimin move to clink your shot glasses together. You’ve rehearsed this scene a million times before: lean across the table, nearly touching; then, you’ll use a bit too much force, sending the drink spilling over the rim of the glass, sloshing onto the exposed skin of Jimin’s chest, which you lick off with an, “Oops, sorry, babe!” and an innocent smile.

Hook, line, and sinker.

Works every time.

Namjoon shifts beside you, clearly trying to appear unbothered. Some mumbled sentence about the club getting too warm and he rolls his sleeves to his elbows, the slight sheen of sweat covering an expanse of golden skin—the sight of which sends an unwelcome pang of heat straight to your core.

And he doesn’t miss it, either. “See something you like, baby?” he asks, confidence returning with a smugness that doesn’t sit right with you.

“All I see are two sweaty arms, so… no, not really.”

Namjoon studies you, nostrils flared as he tries to seem unfazed again. “You are truly insufferable, you know that?”

“I don’t recall asking for your opinion of me.”

He rolls his eyes. “Consider the first one free.”

“Well, I don’t plan on paying for a second, so I guess you’ll have to sit there like a good little boy and keep your thoughts to yourself.”

He chokes on his drink, sputtering and coughing in a way that has Hoseok leaning across the table to slap him on the back. “Namjoon-ah, are you—”

“I’m fine,” Namjoon snaps, not meeting his friend’s eye.

Jimin, with a knowing look on his face—yet still pointed, since his request for you to be nice has clearly fallen on deaf ears—offers Namjoon a sweet smile. “So, Namjoon-ssi, what do you do?”

“I’m—”

“He’s a psycho,” Hoseok slurs, cheeks flushed from all the alcohol and enough confidence in his answer to wipe the smile from Jimin’s face. “No, wait—”

You try really hard to mask the snort of laughter that manages to escape, but it only worsens when Namjoon says, “I’m a psychotherapist,” at the same time Hoseok clarifies again that, “He’s a psycho?”

“A therapist, huh? That seems important.” You know what Jimin’s doing, still hell-bent on his mission to get you to give Namjoon a chance. “What else are you into?”

“Bicycles,” Hoseok slurs again.

Namjoon groans, tossing back a shot before answering, “Motorcycles.”

“Mm, no, it’s definitely bicycles and you’re lying to seem cool since you don’t even have a license. But whatever.” Then he turns to Jimin, a 24 karat smile on his face as he asks, “Do you wanna come back to my apartment and have sex? I live alone.” Despite yourself and the horrified looks on both Namjoon’s and Jimin’s faces, you have to respect the boldness.

“You’re really drunk, hyung,” Jimin replies hesitantly.

Hoseok just shrugs. “You can stay over. I’ll sleep on the couch and then I’ll make you breakfast in the morning and we can have sex after.”

“So respectful,” you laugh. “I’ll fuck your brains out in the morning, but I won’t defile your honor by sharing a bed with you.”

Jimin seems gobsmacked. “I…” He looks at you, who just shrugs. Not the first time Jimin will leave with someone from the bar and, despite your friend’s initial hesitation, it probably won’t be the last, either. “Okay. But I want a full spread in the morning! All the banchan, too! Nothing weird.”

Hoseok doesn’t press his luck, just tosses some money in Namjoon’s direction, grabs Jimin’s hand, and does his best to stumble out the door while he calls for a taxi.

Namjoon’s presence feels almost overwhelming once the two of you are alone, still sitting too close together on the same side of the table. You know he’s stealing glances at you again, can feel his eyes on you, your skin, as you busy yourself with your phone. Send quick ‘text me when you get to their place and again in the morning’ messages to both Jimin and Taehyung even though they always do and don’t have to be told, but Namjoon’s gaze is heavy and there are implications and questions behind it that, frankly, you’re looking to avoid.

Maybe he’s affected more than he’s letting on. Surely a guy like him—so used to being in control, so used to being chased—isn’t the type to sit around and wait for orders, especially concerning something he wants. And he does want you. That much is clear.

You’ve dragged him so far off course it’s all he can do to tread water. Namjoon is fine with disinterest; not every person in the world is going to want him, despite the ego that tries very hard to convince him otherwise. Sometimes they want the charming, outgoing one instead of the reserved one who doesn’t do anything without a purpose, and such is the reality of being Hoseok’s wingman. That’s fine—really, he doesn’t mind. Always better to go home alone than with someone who isn’t all-in on him.

But he hasn’t been able to figure you out at all.

Worse, you know it.

So, if you accidentally-on-purpose rub your foot along his calf as you cross your legs and smirk at the strangled groan that escapes him, who can blame you?

“Guess that’s my cue to leave as well.” No room for misinterpretation, there. It’s as closed-off and uninviting as it can be, yet Namjoon stays frozen in place, unable to move aside to let you out of the booth. “Well?”

He comes to, coughing a bit as he shuffles into the aisle to his left. “Right, yeah. How are—will—do you need a ride home?”

You roll your lips. “Are you offering? With no license?”

“Yes,” he says, the word breathier than he’d like.

You smile sweetly, a slender finger moving to trace along his jawline. His eyes flutter closed at your touch, thick eyelashes ink-black and out of place against his cheek. Your lips move back to the shell of his ear. “Then no.”

Undeterred, Namjoon gently wraps his fingers around your wrist, keeping you close. “The alternative is giving me your number and letting me know you get home safe.”

“That sounds an awful lot like an order,” you muse. “So, what would happen if I took your number, promised I’ll text, and you never heard from me again? Would I get punished?”

Something dark flashes in his eyes—perhaps your first glimpse of who he typically is, confident and dominant and very comfortable playing this game. “Something tells me you wouldn’t do that to me.”

You smirk, reaching out with your free arm to graze your nails down his side. His muscles flex under your touch, defined and solid, as he hisses. “I think that’s called your ego.” Your eyes trail lower. “Unless it’s… something else?”

“Something else?” he questions. “Didn’t take you for the shy type.”

Entranced, Namjoon watches as white teeth bite down on your bottom lip, your tongue darting out briefly to ease the sting. One brief, fleeting thought about how it’d feel to have that tongue someplace else and his cock twitches in his jeans. Barely an hour together and he’s certain you’ll be the death of him. A million little deaths he’ll willingly endure.

“Like your girls with a dirty mouth, do you?”

All he can muster is a crooked grin. “And if I say yes?”

You laugh softly. “Then I’ll ask you, kindly, to remove your fingers from my wrist and go splash some cold water on that pretty face of yours. You’re about two seconds away from coming in your jeans and not even I dislike you enough to let you embarrass yourself like that.”

His grip on you loosens. “You don’t like me? Don’t you think that’s a bit strong? You barely know me.”

“Oh, were you under the assumption this was something more?” When he doesn’t answer, you extract yourself from him and wink. “Maybe you can think about me later when you’re jerking off.”

And if he spends the rest of his evening doing exactly that? Well, that’s his business.

Namjoon spends the next two weeks doing that, actually.

Your touch is seared into his mind—the feel of your fingers tracing along his jaw, his sides, the way his body reacted to you, an obvious desperation even before he’d let it get this bad, fester this long. The urge was slowly growing out of control, and he told himself each morning that today would be the day, he’d send that stupid fucking Instagram message asking you out—

Because that’d been your play the night you’d met. As promised, you took his number and never texted, just posted a goddamn thirst trap to your Instagram story that was clearly meant for him. Because you knew he’d chase you, figure out some way to find you. Fresh out of the shower, hair wet and droplets teasing down your chest, silk camisole barely hanging on as you snapped a photo over your shoulder in your bedroom mirror. A small winking emoji in the corner as if to say yes, I made it home—alone. And since you’re alone, too, have fun touching yourself.

He’d barely been in bed ten minutes before his pants were pushed halfway down his thighs and he was spilling into his hand.

It became routine somewhere around day six. Instead of sending the message, he’d lose his resolve, fall into bed at the end of the day, and let you consume his thoughts as he got himself off. God, he’d started to get greedy—always wanted more, imagined more, and it never took long. A vague memory of the perfume you wore, a stray thought of the way it’d smell imprinted into his sheets, his skin; the hawkish look on your face as you’d studied him, trying to decide if you wanted to worship him or ruin him.

Bit late for that, Namjoon thinks as he comes into his fist. He’s already ruined.

Part of him wants you to know, wants you to see how undone he becomes just at the thought of you, almost wants you to humiliate him for what he’s just done—and his hips stutter one last time at the thought, shocking him into contemplative silence. That’s new.

Instead, he stands on shaky legs and moves to his bathroom, running a washcloth under cool water to clean off his hands. God, he’s utterly wrecked. He begs his brain to figure it out, get it together long enough to just compose a simple text asking you on a date. The inevitable rejection will quell the wildfire and he’ll finally be able to go more than a second without thinking about you, about how you’ve reduced him to a writhing, nervous mess.

His heart hammers in his chest as he fetches his phone and stares down at an empty Instagram message. Words suddenly don’t seem to make sense as he wracks his brain for a way to phrase his question that won’t make him sound like a complete fool.

I’d like to take you out tomorrow, he types, only to delete it once he realizes the only response he receives will be some variation of “I bet you would.”

Can I… he begins to type again. Quickly deletes that, too, and types May I take you out tomorrow? instead. It still doesn’t feel like enough, he’s sure you’re going to tell him no and tell him to fuck off, but that just means he won’t be disappointed when that’s exactly what happens.

Before he can overthink it, he presses ‘send’ and resists the urge to turn his phone off completely. He can’t remember the last time he was this nervous asking someone out—then again, he was usually able to skirt by on his good looks and a well-executed smolder. Not now, though. Somehow, he’s managed to become ensnared by the one person in the entire country who finds his charm repulsive and off-putting. And it’s not like he can suffer in silence, either. Hoseok had caught on quickly, sometime during the first week, because Namjoon didn’t have much time or desire to go out. He’d been able to fumble an excuse, something about working late, because he couldn’t tell him he couldn’t stop jerking off over a woman who wanted nothing to do with him and still be able to look his friend in the eye afterwards.

Their friendship doesn’t have many limits, but that’s certainly one of them.

He’s halfway to Googling “how to unsend an Instagram message” when his phone vibrates in his sinful hand, his stomach dropping to the floor when he sees it’s from you.

And clearly not meant for him.

It’s a screenshot of a selfie he’d posted weeks ago on his parents’ boat, a picturesque sunset in the background that bathed his silhouette in golden light. Namjoon knows he’s photogenic, looks damn good from all angles and has never taken a bad picture in his life, even candidly, but that one had been especially striking, so he’s not really surprised. He has, however, gone dry in the mouth at the text below it.

Tae, you don’t understand. He’s so fucking hot it pisses me off a little. He’s kind of a dickhead but I’d still fuck the shit out of him.

Oh.

Well, fuck. He certainly hadn’t been expecting that.

His fingers twitch, both to reply to the message and wrap around his cock for the umpteenth time since that night at the club. And he knows the right thing to do is pretend he hasn’t seen it, not mention it, don’t rub your face in it, because if the situation was reversed, he doesn’t figure he’d like someone ribbing him, either. But he’d be a fucking fool to pass this up, so he replies with “Oh?” and throws the winking emoji back at you.

Another ten minutes pass and he’s certain he’s blown it. And then—

He nearly blacks out at what’s on his screen. Desire needles at his skin like a wildfire destined to burn out of control as he drinks in the sight of you, all that naked, smooth skin contrasting against the crisp, white sheets you’re wrapped in. There’s just a hint of indecency, a promise of a whole lot more, and Namjoon suddenly can’t remember having seen anything so perfect, can’t focus on anything except the sound of his blood in his ears and the picture in front of him. Wonders how it’d feel to run his hands over all that bare skin; how it’d taste. What you’d sound like as he took his time unraveling you—if you would even let him.

A whimper escapes him as another message comes through.

You can’t take me out, but I might let you invite me over if you behave and keep your hands to yourself until tomorrow.

“Fuck,” he mutters to himself, already feeling his boxers begin to tent.

You break your kiss and plant your hands on his chest, pushing him backwards into the wall. You’re a vision in crimson red before him, the lingerie leaving nothing to the imagination besides a plethora of unholy thoughts. Fingers twitch at his sides, itching to reach out and grab you.

You take a step back, just out of his reach. “You’re a very dirty boy, aren’t you?” you tease, your head cocking to the side as you take him in. “Can’t ever keep your hands to yourself.”

Lighting himself on fire would feel the same, Namjoon thinks. His blood burns in his veins, thick with such a heavy desire that it consumes him. He’s still fully dressed yet completely unraveled, so hard it’s painful, and he needs you to keep talking, needs you to touch him, needs you—

“Baby,” he whines, his hips betraying him as they thrust against nothing. “Please.”

A slow, sultry smile. “Didn’t take you for the begging type.” He groans again at his words being parroted back to him.

“I’m not.”

“And now?” you ask. “Would you beg for it?”

“Yes,” he says without hesitation. “Whatever you want.”

You quirk an eyebrow. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to give someone that kind of power? You never know what they may do with it.”

The words are out of his mouth before he can reconsider. “Baby, no one has complete power over me.”

He knows immediately he’s fucked, knows it even more when a mischievous smile stretches across your face. You’re so composed, just standing there in front of him as if he wouldn’t drop to his knees and do whatever you asked of him, like you have all the time in the world and this is just a minor inconvenience. As if you aren’t taking him apart at the seams, popping each stitch one by one and letting him hang in freefall. Making him sweat it out.

Beating him at his own game.

“Is that so?” You take a step closer, study him. See the way his eyes flutter closed in anticipation, the intake of breath, almost a plea. “Should we put those words to the test?”

You drop to your knees languidly, still too far away, and look up at him through dark lashes, your tongue rolling across your lips just enough to moisten them and state your intent. “What do you want, Namjoon?”

His name sounds obscene in your mouth. “I—” His brain and his body are at war, too much information to process that he can’t find the words, can’t formulate a single coherent thought. “I don’t, I—”

“Surely someone so in control could use their words?” He’s fucking ruined. “I’m on my knees in front of you and you can’t think of a single thing you’d like me to do?”

“I want your mouth,” he breathes.

“That’s not very specific. There’s lots of things my mouth can do.”

“Like talk a lot of shit,” he responds tartly.

“Yes, but that’s nowhere near as fun as the others.” You huff a laugh as you move close enough to rake your fingernails down his thighs. “Take these off.”

You’re still staring up at him from your place on the floor, your rapt attention doing fuck-all to help the way his hands are trembling. It’s not the first time he’s had a woman on her knees in front of him, but it’s the first time he can’t stop shaking long enough to pop the button on his jeans and drag them down his legs. Usually skilled, deft fingers rendered completely useless.

“You could make yourself useful and help me, you know,” he quips. Another failed attempt at the button before he finally gets it; something between a relieved groan and a hiss as he drags the zipper over his strained erection.

“Would you rather I undo your pants or make you come down my throat?” Namjoon is too dazed to answer. “You need to think before you speak, babe. That smart mouth will get you into trouble.”

“I’m already in a world of it, baby,” he responds, moving to palm himself.

You catch his wrist and move it back to his side. “No touching, yourself or me. You touch me and I stop.”

He barely resists the urge to ask what in the hell is wrong with you, can’t you see how desperate he is, how he’s already at the edge and you’ve barely touched him, that you’ve already won, might as well give in and stop fucking around.

Instead, he barely manages a nod. Plants his hands against the cold plaster of the wall at his back.

And waits.

You’re still kneeling on the floor in front of him, but the smug grin is new. He cocks an eyebrow, whether in question or challenge he isn’t sure, but you ignore it all the same. “How in control are you?” you ask.

“What?”

“No one has complete control over you, right?” You move so you’re laying back, propped up slightly on your elbows. “Would you be in control if I took this off?” you ask, tracing a finger along the lace trim of your thong.

His breath feels thick in his throat. “Yes.”

Hips jut into the air as you shimmy the garment down the expanse of your legs. If he was having trouble breathing before, he’s damn near suffocating now as he takes you in again, laying bare before him. Your nails graze along your skin—slowly, teasingly—and he watches, hypnotized, as they near your core. A hitched breath, wondering if you’re going to touch yourself as he watches. A silent prayer the answer is yes.

And it is. Fuck, it is.

You repeat your question—“Are you in control now?”—and he doesn’t know the answer. He is and isn’t, knows the reality doesn’t quite match up with what he wants to say. It’s a struggle just to tread water, let alone think up some smart response to hide how untethered he really is, to maintain that façade.

“Baby, I—”

“You want to touch yourself, don’t you?”

He groans, his fingers grasping at nothing as they try to dig into the wall. It’s all too much. Sensory overload. The sight of you, the lilt in your voice as you tease him. He’s always prided himself on his control, his dominance, and now that the trap door has given way beneath him and he’s left suspended, he’s simultaneously never felt more terrified and more alive.

“Yes,” he finally chokes out.

Your eyes lock on his as you say, “Go ahead.”

The first stroke brings such relief he’s certain he’s going to black out. A loud, unabashed moan comes with the second. The third—god, the third has his toes curling against the wood floor, that familiar heat pooling in his belly, ready to engulf everything in its path. His thighs begin to tremble as he keeps working himself over, and it’s not a second later that—

It’s nearly the afternoon when Namjoon jolts awake, his heart feeling ready to burst right through his chest. He doesn’t bother peeking under the covers, already knows, without having to look, what a mess he’s made of himself. Again. It hadn’t even been this bad when he was a teenager, and it’s this thought that has him stumbling to the shower to wash away his indiscretions. Sets the temperature all the way to cold as he steps inside, standing right under the spray.

Pathetic, really, how he can’t stop thinking about you. Can’t stop replaying in his mind how you’d felt, how you’d made him feel. The feel of your skin on the pads of his fingers, against his own; the smell of you, the taste of your mouth. The sight of you open and wanting and coming undone in front of him. If you’d managed to overwhelm every one of his senses in a dream, what was the real thing going to be like?

You’d told him to keep his hands to himself, but not even the sting of the freezing water is enough to cool him down, so he thinks about it once, twice, nearly three times before he slips his hand around his cock. What you don’t know won’t kill you, and he’s certainly not planning on coming clean.

Just needs to take the edge off. It’d assuredly be worse to walk around his place all day with an erection, he reasons.

The wait is torturous. Time itself seems to betray him, the clock barely moving every time he sneaks a glance at his phone. If he goes to hell when he dies, it’ll just be this, he thinks—the maddeningly slow wait for a booty call he can’t stop thinking about.

Because that’s all it is. He has to remind himself of this when it starts to feel too real, too comfortable, like he’s waiting for a date or something more serious than whatever this is. You don’t like him, don't like the way he carries himself or any aspect of his personality at all, really. Usually he’d be fine with a quick fling, a casual hook up or two to blow off some steam. But he’s a relationship, commitment kind of guy at heart, so despite his best efforts, the thought of this becoming something more still creeps in every now and then. A daydream.

Send me your address.

Nerves engulf him as the message comes through, and he must type and retype his response a dozen times before he finally gets it right.

Half hour.

The waiting game again. He moves around his place frantically, tidying and straightening, lights a candle, changes into something more presentable than joggers.

There’s a knock at the door and he swallows hard, tries to muster up some of his old confidence again. This isn’t him. Namjoon has never been reduced to a pining, uncertain mess, and he’s so off-kilter he barely manages to make it to the door before the third series of knocks.

As he pulls it open, his face drops unceremoniously. You aren’t standing on the other side, ready to greet him with a sultry grin. Instead, there’s a gangly-looking teenager in a uniform, his hat askew as he holds a pizza box.

“Uh, hi. Can I help you?” Namjoon asks, peering around the kid to look out into the hallway.

“I have a small sausage for you,” comes the response. Nasally and bored.

Namjoon chokes, the choice of words catching him off-guard. “I didn’t order a pizza.”

“Are you Kim Namjoon-ssi?” He nods. “Then this is for you.” The kid tries shoving the box into Namjoon’s hands, but he takes a step back.

“I promise you, I did not order a pizza.”

“Look,” the kid sighs, all politeness tossed aside immediately, “it’s already been paid for. Just take the damn box and throw it away if you don’t want it. I really don’t give a shit what you do with it, but I’ve got other deliveries to make.”

Eyes narrowed, Namjoon grabs the box and slams the door, opting to ignore the muffled you could’ve at least tipped me, you cheap asshole from the other side. Tosses the pizza onto his kitchen counter and stalks towards his bedroom where he’d left his phone.

Did you send me a fucking pizza? he types.

Told you not to touch yourself, comes your response.

It’s another week before he can convince you to see him.

A week of borderline begging—because he refuses to actually do so—and teasing and whispered confessions he doesn’t think twice about. He wants you. He wants you so badly he’s dizzy with it, and he’s done playing games. His desire is out there already and it’s obvious. No point in acting coy now.

You agree under the condition the two of you meet at the club. Have a few drinks with Jimin and Hoseok. No doubt to prolong his suffering, Namjoon figures, but he agrees all the same, willing to play along. He just wants to see you; hopes maybe being face-to-face will extinguish some of the heat.

But it doesn’t.

Of course it doesn’t.

You’re barely in each other’s company twenty minutes before he lets you drag him down a quiet corridor and into an empty bathroom. You let him press you against the sink, dress hiked up around your thighs; let him press a desperate, searing kiss to your mouth, all tongue and teeth and sighs of relief.

The first time scratches the itch. It’s quick—almost embarrassingly so—and rough, right there in the club, and all Namjoon can think about is the taste of you, how all those daydreams hadn’t done you a lick of justice. Swears stars pop behind his eyelids and he can hear a choir. You had been stunning in all his fantasies, but up close, in person, you’re so much better. As if your body is meant only to bring him to his knees, to make him surrender.

Namjoon very quickly realizes he’s got a problem on his hands.

There’s no way he’ll be able to let you go—already can’t stomach the thought of you being with anyone else. He doesn’t want to be with anyone else, and he curses at himself for letting it get this far, for letting someone ruin him this way. He knows without having to hear you say it that you aren’t the type to be tied down. Probably goes running at the first sign of attachment. But he can’t help himself, torn between touching himself to the memory of the way you felt around him and the thought of what it might be like to have something more.

The second time you come to him. Press him against the wall in the entryway and drop to your knees, your mouth working him into a frenzy before he can barely mutter a greeting. Fingers itch to tangle into your hair when he remembers his dream, wonders if he’s allowed to touch you like that, hopes that maybe he isn’t.

He wants you to destroy him.

“Baby,” he says, a fractured moan punctuating the sound of your name that follows. A hand joins your mouth in moving along his length and he swears. “Baby.”

There’s an obscene noise as you release him from your mouth, a trail of spit barely connecting the two of you as you look up at him with a gaze that’s been seared into his memory for weeks. “What?”

“I—fuck.” Your hand’s still working him, still doing that thing where it twists on the upstroke that has him feeling like all the air’s been punched from his lungs. “I want you,” he breathes. “I want—wanna make you come.”

A smile betrays you, the corners of your mouth turning up just enough for him to catch. “Do you want it?” Your free hand moves to his thigh, kneading at the cords of muscle there. Fingers dig into the crease at his hip, the ditch of his knee. “Or do you need it?”

“Yes,” is all he manages to say.

You sit back on your haunches, looking straight out of his wet dream as you stare up at him, bottom lip tugged between your teeth. “Go sit on the couch,” you instruct.

If he’s ever moved faster, he can’t recall when. You follow slowly, items of clothing dropping behind you as you go, only your matching lingerie left by the time you reach him. His breath catches again, both in awe and in anticipation. Yes, you’re stunning, but Namjoon can’t remember anyone else having ever invoked such a strong response from him. Every part of him needs you.

You straddle him, legs anchored at his sides as he grabs the back of your neck to pull you into a kiss. You’ve kissed dozens of times before, desperate, more teeth than anything else. This one he’s determined to take slow, take his time, savor you.

And as soon as he feels you tense, as soon as you pull away and move your lips to a spot just below his ear, he knows he has the answer to a question he never bothered to ask.

Teeth graze his earlobe. “I’ve been thinking about these,” you say, your palms dragging up and down his thighs. “Wanna get myself off on you.” And just like that, all those thoughts of something else are pushed to the back of his mind.

A loud whine escapes him, hips rocking forward to press his erection against your clothed center. Decides to take a risk and dig his fingers into your hips, a stray hope he might leave a mark, have just that bit of claim to you. Uses his leverage to situate you onto one thigh.

“By all means,” he says, lips moving against your collarbone. Hooks the fabric of your thong to the side, hands still on your hips to begin moving you. “But I want to feel it. All of it. Want to watch you make a mess on my leg.”

You move slowly at first, trying to find a balance between what you need and the tempo Namjoon is setting. A relieved moan when you find the right combination, and Namjoon matches it when he feels how wet you are. You move unabashedly, plant your hands on his chest as your hips grind faster, more frantic. Namjoon covers your hands with his own, fingers moving over yours as he digs your nails into his chest, drags them down far enough he knows they’ll leave marks. Thrusts at the thought of being marked by you, of having a reminder to come back to in the morning when you’ll inevitably be gone.

“Fuck, Joon,” you moan. “Feels so good.”

Hands still covering yours, Namjoon moves one to his neck, praising you as you tighten your grip around his throat. “That’s it. Just like that, baby. You look so beautiful using me like this.”

Namjoon can tell how close you are long before you ever bother to tell him. Sees the slight falter of your motions, feels you press yourself harder against him, desperate for more friction, the light sheen of sweat forming at your brow. He wonders, briefly, if you’ll actually let go, if you trust him enough to let him bear witness to you coming undone.

His question is answered as you break into a shaking, gasping mess, collapsing into his arms as he wraps them around you, tangling a hand in your hair and pressing kisses to your temple. Rains praise down upon you, tells you how thankful he is to be able to witness it. Wants to commit all of it to memory—your heaving chest, trembling thighs, the sounds you make as you come down from your high, the dazed look in your eyes as you open them and meet his own.

Knows he’s going to say something stupid, so he crashes his lips to yours, hungry for you in a way that honestly terrifies him. A way he’s never wanted anyone else. And he knows that’s the catch with you, knows this has an expiration date, and so he pushes this thought to the furthest corner of his mind. Knows he has to stay in the moment lest it all comes spiraling down around him.

He grabs the back of your thighs and stands from the couch, waits for you to wrap your legs around his waist before he moves toward his bedroom. Isn’t sure he’ll be able to make it, thinks about just fucking you into the wall in the hallway, but judging from the state of his leg, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to afford the dry cleaning bill if the two of you stay on the couch.

Obscene words spill from your mouth with each step he takes and he spares a moment to marvel at his self-restraint. Wonders when he’d acquired it, because he seems to have lost all of his old sensibilities when it comes to you. “Want you so bad,” you say, words nearly a purr as you speak them into the crook of his neck. “Just fuck me right here.” You use his grip on you to roll your hips, slick center gliding along the length of his cock.

He groans at the contact, lets your words wash over him and bathe him in your indecency. You roll your hips again, a lewd temptation and always a challenge. You want to tempt him straight to the edge and watch as he goes over, want him to regain control and lose it over and over again, want to ruin him for anyone who comes after you. And Namjoon knows you’re going to, knows this has already gone too far despite only having just begun, and he feels the anger seep in alongside the lust, though he can’t tell who it’s directed at. Probably himself, but that doesn’t reign him in.

He presses you against the wall of his bedroom, presses a searing kiss to your mouth—that dirty, unrelenting mouth of yours that never seems to stop—and he wants to kiss you breathless. Wants to shut you up, wants you to surrender, to beg, wants a million things he will never get.

And, all along, you were right. He always wants. Wants you, wants more, wants impossible things. Despite having you exactly where he wants you right now, you’re going to leave. You’re going to leave and he’s going to be left behind, wanting and destroyed and longing, and he’s none too impressed to be on this side for once.

Because, as he moves you to the bed and drapes his body atop yours, your words echo in his mind:

Want you so bad.

Want.

Not need. Never will be need.

“You drive me fucking crazy,” he says, hands everywhere at once, the feel of you beneath him nothing more than an answered prayer. His fingers move lower to your clit, teasing, circling slowly. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want,” you drawl, fingers tangling in his hair and tugging, and he gasps at the sting, “to watch you. I want to see exactly how good I make you feel.” His hips move of their own accord, pressing you further into the mattress. He’s so fucking hard, can barely believe he’s still conscious, and he’s absolutely drunk on the reality of you. “Do you want that? Want me to ride you until you come?”

“Fuck,” he moans. “Yes.”

You pull at his hair again, forcing him to look at you. “Then say it. Tell me you want it.”

“Fuck, baby, yes.” Slips a finger inside your cunt, desperate to make you as needy as he is. Pumps once, twice, before he adds a second. “Want you to make me come. Want all of it. Everything.”

A wordless demand for him to roll over as you nudge his shoulder, but not before your hips jerk upwards to meet his fingers, seeking him even though you’d never dare admit it. He smirks down at you, cheeks dimpling, moves his thumb back to your clit just to watch you writhe. Traces slow circles again just to listen to the way your breath hitches, to hear the small, gasping pants against his neck. Applies a hint more pressure just to feel your muscles clench tighter around him, the grind of you against his hand, hungry for more even when he’s ready to give you everything you want.

“You’re close, aren’t you?” he asks, delighting in the whines spilling from your mouth. “First my leg, now my fingers. I think you’re getting greedy, baby.”

You glare at him through lidded eyes. “Maybe I should hold it in. Think twice about stroking that massive ego of yours.”

He finds your wrist and grasps it loosely, moving it down his body to his cock. “You can stroke something else, if you’d prefer.”

You take him in your hand, pumping slowly. Gather the beads of precome at the head and move down the shaft and back up again. “Notice you didn’t mention anything about it being massive. Is that what the ego’s for? To compensate?”

Anyone else and he might be offended. But, coming from you, it’s just a challenge. Another jab. The game you love to play and have become very, very good at. A lesser man might not be able to handle it, but Namjoon… Well, it’d been his game first, after all, and he knows better than anyone that the only way to win is to not play.

So, he withdraws his fingers right as you’re at the edge. Makes a show of putting them in his mouth and sucking them clean, does his best to ignore the obscene jolt of arousal as you mutter a “Jesus fucking Christ” under your breath. “That’s not a very nice thing to say, baby.”

You roll your eyes, releasing his cock from your grasp. “So what? I’m being punished?”

“Only nice girls get to come.”

He’s on his back before he realizes he’s moved. Your fingers are wrapped tight around his wrists, pinning them above his head. A truly wicked grin forms on your face and he wonders, briefly, how anyone survives you. How no one has combusted under the sheer force of you and that look and everything that comes after it. Namjoon wants to burn beneath you for centuries, or however long you’ll allow.

Your body moves languidly up his own until your core is positioned over his face. “Maybe so, but nice girls don’t take what they want, either,” is all you manage to say before he wrangles his wrists out of your grasp and grabs onto your hips roughly, pulling you down against his mouth.

The first kiss he presses against you is soft, teasing. You groan, curse at him for being a tease, and press harder against his face. He flattens his tongue as he laps at you, desperate and hungry for your taste, pausing every so often to slap your ass, tell you to take exactly what you need from him. As you move above him, hips rolling against his mouth, his own body writhes at the heat between them, the brazen frenzy that’s taken over you.

He’s not sure how long he spends between your legs, but he knows it’s not long enough. He’d spend forever there if he could, drunk on it. You taste divine, and he tells you as much over and over, words spilling from his mouth when you aren’t putting it to use.

Thighs, still anchored on the sides of his head, begin to tremble, energy still pent up from the orgasm he’d denied you. He considers doing it again, payback for all your teasing and that smart mouth, but his body betrays him before he can even make up his mind, tongue flat and anchored against your clit as you grind and roll your hips across it. God, he never thought he’d get off on being used like this, always thought he needed to be in control to enjoy sex, but nothing about you has ever really made sense to him except that he can’t get enough.

As you come a second time, all he can do is gaze up at you in admiration. He wants you to take the piss out of him, loves watching the twinkle in your eyes as you scheme up some tart response. He wants the denial, the what-ifs, the second-guessing that always ends with you a blissed-out, moaning mess on top of him. Even now, when you’re exactly where he wants you most, it’s not enough. He still wants more.

He maneuvers so you’re eye-to-eye. Allows himself only a second of pride at how disheveled you are before he wraps his hand around the back of your neck, pulling you into a rough kiss. Receives a whimper as you taste yourself on his lips, his tongue, his face. Blindly, you reach behind you for his cock, hand wrapping tightly around the base as you pump him. Whispers something about returning the favor, about making him feel good, but Namjoon’s focus went to shit hours ago. Nothing exists in this moment—in this room, perhaps in his entire world—except you.

“Come on, baby,” he urges, situating himself against the headboard. Even though you’re inches apart, he can feel the heat emanating from your cunt and his cock twitches, seeking your warmth. “We’ve gotten a bit sidetracked. I believe you promised to ride me until I came.”

You grip him again, aligning his length with your center. The head of his cock teases against wet folds and he moans, earning him another knowing smirk. “Beg me,” you say.

“What?”

Another roll of your hips, another fractured gasp. “Do I need to repeat myself?”

His brows furrow in annoyance. Says your name in a way that sounds like a slur. “This isn’t funny.”

You lean down, hair draping your face. “Who’s laughing?” you ask before you lick a long stripe up his neck that causes goosebumps to erupt all over his body. “Beg me.”

“Please,” he breathes, the word sounding more familiar than he ever thought it could. “Baby, please, I—I fucking need you so much.”

“Do you?” you tease, fingertips tracing the ridges of his muscles.

Namjoon grabs your chin, forces you to look at him. “Stop teasing me and ride my fucking cock.”

Eyes go wide, pupils dilated at his dominance, the flaring of your nostrils giving away exactly what you think of it. But you smile all the same and sink down on him agonizingly slowly, take the first inch when you say, “As you order, sir,” sardonically.

You feel like heaven.

He’s not sure he’ll ever get used to it—not sure he’d even want to. Being able to experience you over and over, every time feeling like it’s the first… Namjoon isn’t a religious man, but having the privilege of having you so intimately is the closest he’ll ever get to seeing god.

“Fuck,” he moans.

Blinding, wet heat surrounds him as you take all of his cock. Don’t bother taking any time to adjust, just start moving immediately. His eyes roll back in time with the roll of your hips, back and forth the way you rode his thigh. One hand on your hip to brace you, the other palms at your breast, rolls your nipple between his fingers. The moan that escapes you is borderline pornographic. Lust overtakes him, primal and raw, and he moves his hand to join his other at your hips, holding you in place as he thrusts into you roughly.

“A masterpiece,” he praises. “You look so fucking beautiful bouncing on my cock. I’ll never get tired of watching you.”

He’s determined to make this as good for you as it is for him, determined to redeem his first performance. Tries to focus on anything he can besides the sharp slap of your skin meeting, the way your body clamps around him like a vice. But you love to torture him, don’t you, because you’re just as determined to put on a show. You toss your hair back, preen under his watch. You’re an absolute goddess, the most beautiful thing Namjoon has ever seen in his entire life. Perhaps stronger than his determination to make this good for you is his determination to keep you.

He’s a jealous man. He knows this about himself, has had plenty of time to make peace with it. And he knew from the second he laid eyes on you that he didn’t want to share with anyone else, knew he didn’t have the right, but now he thinks the thought alone might kill him.

So, he rolls you over, pins you beneath him so he can fuck you exactly the way he wants. “What are you doing?” you ask, eyebrows raised as you study him.

Proving something to you, he wants to say. Wants to be the best you’ll ever have, ruin every other partner for you. Wants so many things his head is swimming, and as he pushes into your tight, wet heat again, he wonders if he’ll be okay if this is the only one he ever gets.

His pace is slow, sensuous. “Fucking you,” he finally replies. “That alright?”

A loud moan as he adjusts the angle. “More than alright.”

He keeps on like this until he feels himself start to unravel. Starts in his toes, moves to his stomach where it branches out, warm and enveloping. Still, he stays even-keeled despite everything in his body screaming for more. Yours, too—the curling of your toes, your nails digging into his back, pulling at his hair. Your coarse, ragged breaths as you ask for more, more, always more.

“You feel so fucking good,” he growls into your neck. “Incredible, baby. Touch yourself for me. Make yourself come on my cock.”

You moan again. “Why? Can’t get me off yourself?” you tease, but it’s short-lived as he finally increases his pace, slamming into you hard before you can utter another word.

“You were saying?”

He expects another snappy reply, your smile catching him off-guard as he looks down at you. You’re touching yourself just like he’d said to, fingers working at your clit in slow, lazy circles. Another growl as he drinks in the sight of you.

“You like watching me, don’t you?” Namjoon nods. “Then tell me: how do I look?”

He squeezes his eyes shut, knows he’s not going to be able to hold off the longer he stares. “Like perfection.” You seem to whimper at his words. Just another sound he commits to memory.

A few more thrusts before his movements become erratic. He can feel how close you are, wills himself the strength to hold on just a minute longer—plans that are immediately forgotten as he feels your orgasm hit you, your walls clamping around him so tight his vision goes black.

“Fuck, fuck, oh fuck,” you cry out. Namjoon nuzzles into your neck as he follows you over the edge, coming so hard he can’t remember his own name.

Minutes—maybe hours, maybe even days—pass between the two of you, not a sound to be heard except jagged, labored breathing. Once he regains some semblance of consciousness, Namjoon pulls back enough to press a soft, lingering kiss to your lips.

“You’re going to be my undoing, baby.”

His memory’s not so great, but Namjoon thinks he properly falls for you the tenth time you meet up.

It’d been nearing eleven-o’clock on a Tuesday night, thunder rumbling off in the distance, when you texted to ask if you could come by, which had been out of the ordinary. The two of you never met during the work week—a rule you had never clearly stated but one Namjoon had quickly picked up on nonetheless—so he hadn’t known what to expect when you knocked on his door.

“Bad day,” was all you’d said as you shrugged off your coat and pressed a hungry kiss to his mouth.

He’d wanted to ask why. Wanted to know what’d happened, but it wasn’t his business, your relationship not like that. You’d come over for sex, not for him to play therapist. Namjoon knew this, but as he pushed the fabric of your underwear to the side and pressed his mouth to you, he also knew your heart wasn’t completely in it, so he’d told you to make yourself comfortable in his bed while he made some tea. (He hadn’t bothered to mention he’d picked up your favorite brand while out shopping the weekend before, of course, because that would’ve been weird. It would’ve implied things. So, he’d simply fixed your tea and ignored your questioning stare when you took a cautious sip and hoped you knew he cared about you beyond the little arrangement the two of you had found yourselves in.)

(He hadn’t bothered to tell you that, either, of course.)

But the mind is a traitorous thing. As much as he’d wanted to stay logical, his brain and heart teamed up to conspire against him, to wonder and hope for things that couldn’t possibly have been true. Because, as he fell asleep wrapped around you, he’d found comfort in knowing you’d had a bad day and came to him.

Somewhere along the line, things had shifted. The two of you started laughing together, forming little inside jokes. Started texting about things beyond “your place or mine?” You became softer. Not any more available, at least emotionally, but you’d seemed to relax in his presence. Let down a wall or two.

And it’s been downhill ever since, really.

Your meetings have grown more difficult. Feelings had become involved months ago, and Namjoon comes close to admitting them out loud nearly every time you’re together. Sometimes, on Fridays, he lies and says he has to work late; on Saturdays, he has to “take an emergency weekend appointment” or “make a trip back home” to visit his parents for pretend birthdays and anniversary parties. He knows the two of you have an expiration date and he does what he can to prolong it, even when it’s dishonest.

Until, eventually, he can’t anymore.

Until he’s finally out of lies and agrees to meet you at the club, where he has one too many drinks to hide how stupidly smitten with you he is; too many drinks to forget that you don’t feel the same.

Until he’s so drunk he can barely stand and you offer to split a cab with him back to his place to make sure he doesn’t pass out and choke on his own vomit and he declines.

Until you tell him to stop being so goddamn stubborn because you’re just trying to help, you’ve seen him this fucked up before and it’s nothing to be embarrassed of, he’s too drunk for you to feel okay sending him home alone.

Until he tells you no, he isn’t embarrassed, he just can’t be around you any longer because he’s fallen for you and you don’t feel the same and he can’t keep hurting himself by trying to keep you.

Until everything comes tumbling out of his mouth and he thinks he feels the world tilt.

Then, you don’t say anything and just stare at him with a slack jaw and a mildly displeased expression as he calls Hoseok and slurs all his words when he asks him to come pick him up.

Then, he convinces himself you only looked that way because someone like you isn’t used to being rejected, that’s it, nothing more.

Then, Hoseok shows up and Namjoon doesn’t bother to look back as he leaves, missing the tears well up in your eyes.

When he wakes up on Sunday afternoon with a mind-splitting hangover, he remembers just enough of the night before to marinate in his self-loathing. He’d fucked up a good thing. Sure, you and him hadn’t put a label on whatever the two of you were, never bothered to define it, but you didn’t really have to. The no feelings part of the contract had been implicitly stated from the beginning, highlighted in neon yellow and underlined for added emphasis.

But there’s relief, too. He’d told the truth, was hurting himself to keep you, and now it’s over. He doesn’t have to worry about the unknowns anymore—what (or who) you’re doing and how you feel about him.

Because weeks of radio silence go by, so that tells him everything he needs to know. He knew you wouldn’t chase him so he’s not disappointed, but he’d allowed himself a strand or two of hope nonetheless that still feel crushing at times. Mostly on Friday evenings after he showers off his day and climbs into an empty bed, just wanting to hear his phone chime with a text from you asking to get together. Those strands of hope feel worse when he falls asleep alone, no unread texts except some stupid memes from Jungkook he doesn’t understand.

It doesn’t help that Hoseok’s properly seeing Jimin now, so he can’t fully escape you. Still hears bits and bobs about you and what you’re up to, still sees you in the background of Hoseok’s Instagram posts from parties Namjoon declines to attend.

He doesn’t know how long it’s supposed to take to get over a fling, but he can’t help but feel it’s taking an awfully long time.

Another month goes by. Nearly five since the first time you two had met. Namjoon starts to feel normal again; stops waiting for texts that never come and stops avoiding Hoseok because there’s only one thing he wants to talk about, and Namjoon hasn’t quite been in the right place to hear it. But he figures another four weeks have done him some good so he agrees to meet him at their favorite restaurant and they drink until they’re tipsy.

He doesn’t ask about you and Hoseok doesn’t mention a word, just says things are going well with Jimin and he’s planning on making it official soon. Namjoon doesn’t have to fake his enthusiasm and it feels nice. Normal. He doesn’t even make a thinly-veiled threat when the check comes and he sees Hoseok’s back to his old tricks, ordering all the most expensive items on the menu when it’s Namjoon’s turn to pay, just hands his credit card to the server.

It’s another four days when someone knocks on his door at nearly ten-thirty at night. There’s a sinking feeling in his stomach that tells him exactly who’s on the other side before he can pull the door open.

“Oh,” he breathes, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice even though seeing you is anything but.

It bothers him how affected by you he still is, how you’re still able to take his breath away despite not seeing you for months. And you’re still stunning, of course, so it makes sense he’d still go dizzy at the sight of you. “What are you doing here?” he asks.

Cautious eyes stare up at him as you swallow. “Can I come in?”

He fidgets, weight shifting from side to side. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

Braces himself for a quip that doesn’t come. Instead, you shrug and avert your eyes, staring blankly at the wall outside his door. “No, probably not,” you admit. Your tone is quiet, almost soft. That signature smug look is nowhere to be found, and months ago Namjoon would’ve loved this, would’ve delighted at seeing you so vulnerable, but now it just feels all wrong.

He coughs to clear his throat. “Did you, uh—is there something I can do for you?”

“I came to apologize,” you say, though it almost comes out more like a question. “I should’ve called sooner.”

Namjoon blinks. Of all the things he anticipated coming out of your mouth, an apology wasn’t one of them. “Oh. Well, you have nothing to apologize for. I’m the one who—” Ended things, his brain finishes, but he can’t bring himself to say the words. The two of you were only fucking, and ‘ending things’ makes it sound like more than what it was.

“Right,” you agree, though he can tell you don’t want to. “Okay. Well, I guess I’ll just…”

Unsure of what else to do, Namjoon simply nods. His fingers are digging into the door frame so hard they’ve started to turn white, and it’s all he can do to hide how badly they’re shaking. He’s anxious. Why is he so anxious? It only gets worse as he watches you exhale a steadying breath and turn on your heel, not bothering to look back at him.

His brain is screaming at him to go after you. After all, hadn’t he just spent months wishing for this exact thing to happen? But that kind of thing is only meant to happen in movies to people who are in love, and after all this time, he still hasn’t got a clue of where he stands with you. Showing up at his place unannounced should mean something, but you hadn’t pushed when he declined to invite you in, so he figures it was simply for a belated goodbye fuck. But…

“Hey!” he yells down the hallway. There’s relief when you pause and turn around, even though you stay where you are, don’t come closer, but that’s okay—you don’t need to. “Why did you really come here?”

A slow, neutral smile graces your lips. Not sad, but not happy, either. “Guess I figured things out a little late.”

Namjoon’s brows knit together, feels the crease between them. “What, that you miss fucking me?” He doesn’t mean for it to sound so brash and crude, but he supposes it needs to be said regardless. If any of his neighbors happen to overhear him say it, well, he also supposes they would’ve heard everything that came before, too.

“Of course I miss fucking you,” you reply, not bothering to lower your voice at all, “but I think I miss everything else a little more.”

“Everything else?”

“You bought my favorite tea,” you shrug. “And let me in when I had a bad day.”

He still doesn’t understand. “You told me you didn’t like me,” he says. “I wasn’t aware that’d changed.”

“Because I hadn’t told you.”

“And that’s why you’re here now? To tell me… what, exactly? That you don’t dislike me anymore?”

You seem unable to help yourself as you snort. Take a few steps closer until the two of you are nearly touching. “I came to ask if you’d like to go to dinner with me.”

“Right now?” he asks, clearly confused. “It’s nearly eleven-o’clock. I don’t think anywhere worth going is still open.”

“Well, if all else fails,” you quip, that smug grin brilliant as it returns, “we can always order in a pizza.”

Consequences be damned, Namjoon grabs the back of your neck and pulls your lips to his own, desperate to feel his mouth against yours again. Feels nostalgic at the taste of you, the feel—smiles against your lips when it’s all the same as he remembers. Familiar, like coming home. Revels in the way his heart nearly bursts out of his chest when you smile back.

You kiss for what feels like hours. Until you’re both weak in the knees and breathless, breaking apart only to gaze at one another stupidly and punch-drunk.

Namjoon presses a final kiss to the top of your head as he lifts you, not bothering to hide the megawatt smile on his face when you wrap your legs around his waist. “Pizza sounds good.”

“Let’s get a large sausage this time,” you offer, giggling into his neck.

It sounds like the best idea Namjoon has ever heard.

Thank you for reading! My inbox is always open if you’d like to leave feedback. I’d love to hear your thoughts! ❤

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