đ đđđ đđ đđ | 33
pairing: jungkook x f!reader | rating: 18+ | wc: 13,2k | warnings: here genre: roommates/e2l, fwb, fuck buddies, emotional slow burn, smut
âtrappedâ
"Youâre baked, bleeding, tipsy, and doing a terrible job pretending Jasonâs words didnât land exactly where your mother left the bruise. Downstairs, Jungkook is discovering that noticing too much is only useful until it makes you want to commit a felony in a Ghostface robe."
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âŞď¸author's note : Okay, hello everyone! Welp. Long time no see, right?Â
I told you I was taking a little hiatus, and apparently I was not joking. Character development for me, honestly. Usually when I say âlittle hiatus,â I mean âI will disappear for three business days, reappear at 4 a.m. with 12k words, and act like that was normal behavior.â This time? No. June grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me through administrative hell.
I already mentioned this in the last chapter of OFL, but for those of you who only read FMU, (obsessed losers. i love you<3) I am extremely overworked this month and basically MIA. Like, spiritually unavailable. Physically present, barely. So, very gently, very lovingly, very âI am kissing your forehead while holding a spray bottleâ:Â
Please donât ask me for updates.
I know it comes from a place of love. I know you guys are obsessed with this story, these characters, and my writing, and I could not be more grateful that you enjoy these two forks being stupid so much. Truly. I would put you all in my pocket and feed you little crumbs if I could. But I am really, really stressed out this month, and I canât deal with the pressure right now. Iâve cried three times this week over paperwork and stress, and I simply cannot add writing expectations to the pile. So please. Iâll kiss all of you on the lips for loving my writing, but do not ask me when the next chapter is dropping. I genuinely donât know. Letâs stay civil, yeah? Mama will be back. Mama is just currently fighting for her life in the paperwork trenches because she has very busy next two years ahead and is working hard for that dream promotion.
In the meantime, I really suggest checking out the rest of my writing if you havenât already! I have a bunch of different stories that share similar DNA with FMU, just in different fonts.
If youâre looking for the same cozy, domestic, slice-of-life vibe as FMU, WGU is childhood best friends to lovers with Hoseok as an ADHD golden retriever overachiever.
If you want spicy, witty banter, 5STF is a rivals-to-lovers street-racing AU set in Tokyo, with Latino Jimin being obsessed with Y/N in a way that is deeply unwell and deeply correct.
If you want contemporary AU plus spicy banter, OFL is enemies to lovers with arrogant soccer player Taehyung, a man who has never been told no in his life, becoming fixated on the one girl who insists on treating him like furniture.
If you want my writing but in a shiny new sci-fi flavor, thereâs 25H, a cyberpunk/superpowers AU where Yoongi controls time and youâve lost your memory seventeen times. Casual. Normal couple stuff.
Thereâs also C:E, set in a dystopian alien semi-military heat-cycle world, with Commander Kim Namjoon being a 100% match to his nemesis. Because why be normal when we can add alien biology and emotional repression to the grocery list?
If you want stalker pathetic subby Taehyung x ballerina flirty dommy Y/N, we have ASW, which is for the mentally ill girlies who looked at âobsessionâ and said, âbut make it poetic.â
And if you havenât read my finished stories yet, KGP and OL are right there waiting for you. Go take a look while Iâm gone. Wander around the Kiki cinematic universe. Touch grass only metaphorically. Enjoy!
Now. As for this chapter.
The first scene comes in strong because Y/N is already in several states that make her extra sensitive. Sheâs on her period. Sheâs baked. Sheâs tipsy. Sheâs overstimulated. Sheâs already emotionally tangled from everything that happened before Jason even opens his mouth. So the word that detonates her is not only the word itself, but everything around it. Please keep that in mind before saying itâs stupid or dramatic, because I promise you itâs not. I have not been building this scene for twenty chapters for you gremlins to gloss over it and go âdamn, all that over one word?â I will appear in your room like sleep paralysis with a tax book and throw it at your head.
Scene two is also extremely important to me because we are seeing Jungkookâs attention to detail. And, as my beloved mod Flo would say, if I hear any of you reducing this to âomg he has romantic feelings,â I will smite you with my powerful writing quill. Or my nails. My nails work too. I donât actually own a writing quill. Point is, yes, Jungkook is protective of Y/N. Yes, there is development. Obviously. I am not writing thirty-three chapters of erotic emotional warfare for the vibes only. But please donât let the romantic subplot cloud your judgment. What happens with Jungkook here is tied to something much rawer and deeper inside him. This hits a core emotional wound. It connects to him, to his mom, to Mia, and to the specific horror of watching someone become smaller inside a relationship. The feeling of being trapped. The feeling of being managed. The feeling of not being able to breathe because someone else has convinced you the cage is care. Ruminate on that, my loves.Â
Also, whatâs a Kiki fic if I donât add social themes and then make everyone suffer through them with pretty prose and emotional damage? Taeâs monologue is not just there for dramatic effect. Itâs not only âbest friend stops best friend from doing something stupid,â though yes, that too. Itâs also there to uncloud Jungkookâs judgment because Jungkook is walking toward a situation where the reality is not in his favor. Asian man in the U.S. against a polite white cis man with academic credibility, glasses, and a vest? Yeah. The odds are not neutral. They are not clean. They are not âwho is morally right wins.â Tae knows that. Jungkook knows that. Yoongi knows that. And I needed that reality to sink in not only for Jungkook, but for you too.
Because what Jason representd doesnât need to be physically violent to win a narrative.
And finally, the last scene. I needed the female solidarity there. I needed Yeji and Irya after the Jason disaster. I needed Y/N to have women outside that door who understand the specific kind of violation that comes from being calmly, reasonably, gently made to feel insane. And I also needed someone who is not Jungkook to talk to her.Because I refuse to cheapen the depth of my side characters for the sake of pushing the romantic plot forward selfishly. FMU is not just about Jungkook and Y/N orbiting each other until one of them combusts. It is also about the people around them. The people who catch them. The people who understand different pieces of them before they can understand themselves. The person who comforts her is exactly the right person. And youâll understand soon why it had to be them.
Enjoy the chapter, my loves. Be patient with me. Be kind to each other. Donât make me tap the sign. Mama will be back. Just busy. Very busy. Horrifically busy. Dream-promotion busy.
Now go read, suffer, theorize responsibly, and behave yourselves.
Or donât.
But if you donât, at least be funny about it. đЎ
The room is smaller than it was this morning.
Which doesnât make sense, architecturally, because rooms donât shrink. Walls donât migrate inward while youâre downstairs eating drugged brownies and letting boys in bath robes corner you against kitchen counters. Thatâs not how buildings work. Thatâs not how physics works. You took a science elective. You passed it. Barely, but the point stands.
And yet.
The blue suite feels different. The ceilingâs lower or the bedâs bigger or the air is thicker or maybeâmaybe itâs just that Jason closed the door behind him with a click instead of letting it drift shut, and the click had a sound to it. A punctuation.
You didnât like it.
You havenât liked any of it walking behind him up the stairs.
He didnât reach for your hand. Didnât put his palm on the small of your back the way he usually does in hallways.
He just walked. And you followed.
And now youâre standing three feet inside the door and heâs by the window and the bed is between you like a negotiating table, and everything was fine earlier. It was fine when you got dressed in this room. It was fine when Irya did your collarbones and Jason called you incredible and held out his hand and you took it.
It was fine twenty minutes ago.
So why does the wallpaper look like itâs breathing?
âŚOkay. That one might actually be the weed.
This was definitely not your best pharmaceutical decision.
Jason turns from the window. Faces you. Brings both hands together in front of his mouthâfingertips touching, pressed to his lips, the prayer gesture. The one people do when theyâre organizing a thought theyâve already finished thinking and are now just choosing the delivery method.
He holds it there.
Drops his hands.
âOkay. So.â
A breath. Through his nose.
âWhatâs going on with him?â
Something catches in your throat. Not a soundâa shape. The shape of a word you werenât ready for, or the shape of being caught, or the shape of every single moment from the last forty-eight hours compressing into a single syllable that sits behind your tongue and refuses to move.
Fuck.
He noticed.
Fuck fuck fuck.
He saw you at the counter. He saw the way you were standingâhow close, how angled, the chocolate on your fingers, the laugh you didnât authorizeâand now heâs standing in this room with the door clicked shut and his hands in that prayer thing and heâs asking, andâ
The shower. The orange. The hallway.
ÂŤCircles, Nix.Âť
The bracelet. The fucking bracelet thatâs still on your wrist pressing the little rain charm into your pulse point.
He knows. He doesnât know how much but he knows something.
Act normal.
You are a normal person who does normal things and has normal friendships with her normal roommate and none of those things involve coming in adjacent shower stalls or the word cookie being used as a double entendre in a kitchen full of witnesses.
âI donât know what you mean.â
Nailed it. Completely nailed it. Meryl Streep would weep. Oscar-worthy. Standing ovation.
Jason looks at you.
âDonât do that.â
Okay. Fuck.
No. Donât be discouraged bitch. Make Meryl proud, come on.
âDo what?â
âThe thing where you act like you donât understand the question.â His voice is level. Measured. Patient in a way that somehow makes it worse. âYou know exactly what I mean. Heâs constantly in your space.â
Okay, Meryl, girl. There was an attempt.
Your fingers find the bracelet.
Automatic. Unconscious. The way your hand goes to a bruise to check if it still hurtsâyou donât decide to do it, you just do, and by the time you realize youâre doing it youâre already pressing the charm into your wrist and looking to the side, away from his face, at the lamp on the nightstand that is doing absolutely nothing wrong and doesnât deserve to be stared at this hard.
âWeâre friends.â You say it to the lamp. âThatâs it.â
âFriends.â
âYeah. Friends. People who talk to each other at parties. Groundbreaking concept.â
âY/N.â
âWhat?â
âCan you look at me?â
You look at him. Force yourself to do itâdrag your gaze from the lamp to his face like itâs a physical act, like your eyes weigh something they didnât weigh ten minutes ago.
Heâs not angry. Thatâs the thing. Heâs not doing the thing youâre braced forâno raised voice, no visible frustration, no clenched jaw or sharp edges.
He looks calm. Concerned. Reasonable.
For some reason, it feels like his most dangerous version.
âIâm not trying to start a fight,â he says. Opens his hands. Palms up. The universal gesture of âI come in peaceâ that people only do when peace is not, in fact, what they came with. âI justâI think itâs worth having a conversation about boundaries.â
âBoundaries.â
âYeah. About whatâs appropriate. In front of other people.â
Something hot flickers in your chest. Not guilt anymore. Something meaner.
âWhat exactly was inappropriate?â
âI didnât say inappropriate. I saidââ
âYou literally just said whatâs appropriate, Jason, which means something was inappropriate, so what was it?â
He takes a breath. The patient one. The one that says âIâm going to let that tone slide because Iâm the mature one here.â
And god, you hate that breath. You hate it the way you hate being corrected by someone whoâs technically right but fundamentally missing the pointâthat specific, grinding frustration of being managed.
âI just donât think itâs a great look,â he says. âHaving another guyâs hands all over you at a party where weâre here together.â
Hands all over you.
Hands all over you?
The kitchen counter flashesâJungkookâs palms flat on either side of your hips, the heat, the proximity, the vanilla bottle sitting there like a prop in a play about your bad decisionsâand your stomach drops because okay, maybe from across the room that did lookâ
âThatâs not what was happening.â
âFrom where I was sittingââ
âThen maybe you were sitting at a bad angle.â
âY/N.â The patient breath again. âIâm not accusing you of anything. Iâm just sayingâas someone who cares about youâI donât think you realize how it looks. To other people.â
His eyes drop. To your wrist.
âAndâI wasnât going to bring this up, but since weâre talking about it.â He gestures. A small tilt of his chin toward your left hand. âThat thing.â
You donât need to look down to know what he means.
âWhat about it?â
âYouâve been wearing it all week. I couldnât help but notice.â His voice is still calm. Still measured. Still wrapped in enough reasonableness that the words almost sound like concern instead of what they are. âAnd I didnât say anything because I didnât want toâbut itâs a bit childish, no? The colors. The beads.â
Yellow. Orange. Red. Little silver letters spelling âRogueâ across.
âItâs a bracelet, Jason.â
âIt says Rogue.â He says it amused in a way thatâs worse than meanâcondescending, like heâs being generous by only finding it slightly embarrassing. âWhat does that even mean?â
âItâs an inside joke.â
âWith who?â
âWithâpeople. Itâs a friendship bracelet. People have those.â
âAt your age?â
The question hangs. Rhetorical. Already answered by the tone he used to ask it.
His eyes move from the bracelet to your hand. To the back of it. To the fleshy part below your thumb whereâ
âAndâis that a bite?â
Your hand snaps behind your body so fast you nearly throw out your shoulder.
Too fast. Way too fast.
The speed of it is its own confessionânobody hides an innocent injury like theyâre palming evidence at a crime sceneâand you watch Jason clock the reaction the way he clocks everything: slow, but sure.
âItâs nothing.â
âItâs a bite mark.â
âItâs not. I just bumped into something.â
âThatâs teeth.â
âIt wasâthe brownie thing. In the kitchen. It was stupid, someone wasâit was a joke.â
âA joke.â Flat. âSomeone bit you. As a joke.â
And the way he says itâsomeoneâmakes it clear he doesnât need you to fill in the name.
His jaw works once. Controlled.
âSo youâre out there getting drunk and high andâwhat, bitten by people at a party? Randomly? While weâre here together?â
âIt wasnâtââ
âThatâs the kind of behavior you think isââ
âIt was a joke, Jason, we were fighting over a brownie and it was dumb and it lasted two secondsââ
âI justââ
He runs a hand through his hair. Looks at you with an expression thatâs trying so hard to be gentle it comes full circle into something sharp.
âThatâs not the girl I know. The beads and the nicknames and theâgetting bitten in kitchens at midnightâitâs not you.â
Not you.
Not the version of you he knows.
Not the version he built in his head from seminar answers and coffee dates and the careful, polished, composed woman who shows up when heâs watching.
The version that wears matching jewelry and speaks in complete sentences and doesnât have an inside joke with her roommate spelled out on her wrist in colored beads like a kid at summer camp.
âMaybe youâve just never known me.â
You say it quiet. Looking right at him.
His mouth opens. Closes.
And for one secondâhalf a secondâsurprise cracks in the diplomacy.
Then the composure reseals. The crack plasters over. The expression returns to its default setting: concerned, measured, slightly wounded.
âI think you should be more mindful. Thatâs all. About how you carry yourself. I think you shouldââ
A pause. Careful. Choosing.
âârespect yourself a little more.â
Respect yourself.
Your mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
âYou deserve better than being someoneâsâI donât knowâphysical prop. Being grabbed and hung on andâitâs not how someone treats a person they respect. And I think you know that.â
The hot thing in your chest is spreading. Climbing up your throat. Making your heartbeat louder in your own ears, which might be the weed or might be fury or might be some volatile combination of both thatâs going to end in either tears or property damage and you genuinely do not know which.
âNobody was grabbing me. Nobody was hanging on me. I was talking to someone. At a party. Like a person. With a social life.â
âYou wereââ
âWhat? Finish that.â
âCan you let me finish a sentence?â
âCan you stop starting sentences that end with me not respecting myself?â
âI just donât think Jimin sees it like that.â
Everything stops.
The room. Your breathing. The weed-warped wallpaper. The hot angry thing in your chest.
All of it hits pause, mid-stride, like someone yanked the needle off a record.
âWhat?â
âI said I donât think Jimin sees it the way you think he does.â
Jimin.
Jimin?
Heâs talking aboutâ
This entireâevery single word of this conversationâthe boundaries, the appropriateness, the respect yourselfâ
âYou think Jimin has feelings for me?â
It comes out flat. Incredulous. Like someone asked you to confirm the sky is blue.
Jasonâs expression doesnât change.
Same steady, reasonable, measured look.
Same concerned furrow between the brows.
Same âIâm saying this because I care about youâ energy pouring off him in waves of cedar and bergamot.
âI think Jimin knows what itâs like to be a guy,â he says, âand have a girl draped all over him.â
Draped.
He said draped.
Like you were fabric. Like you were a decoration. Like the arms you had around Jiminâs shouldersâwarm, platonic, the kind of casual affection you give to someone who just did your eyeliner and trusted you with the shape of his questionsâwere some kind of tactical maneuver. Some calculated display that poor innocent Jimin couldnât possibly interpret as anything other than sexual, because youâre a girl, and heâs a guy, and apparently that equation only has one answer in Jasonâs math.
Your fingernails press half-moons into your palms.
âDraped,â you repeat. Testing the word. Tasting it.
It tastes like your mother.
ÂŤYouâre too much, youâre too loud, youâre taking up space in a way that makes people uncomfortable, and youâd know that if youâd just stop and think about how you look from the outside for once in your life.Âť
You feel the beginning of a compression in your chest.
One that you recognize from a long time ago, from fights in kitchens with marble countertops, from sitting at dining tables where every fork was placed at the correct angle and every word was placed at the correct volume and every version of you that didnât fit the blueprint got folded up and put away.
Your lungs feel smaller.
Thatâs the weed. That has to be the weed.
âJimin is my friend.â You say it slow, clear. âHe did my eyeliner. I hugged him. I hug my friends, Jason. Thatâs a thing people do.â
âIâm not saying you canât have friendsââ
âOh, good. Thank you. Permission granted. Really appreciate that.â
âSee, this is what Iâm talking about.â He gestures at youâat all of you, the sarcasm, the crossed arms, the whole defensive architecture of your posture. âThis. Right here. I try to have an adult conversation and you immediately go toââ
âTo what?â
âTo this. The deflection. The sarcasm. The making me the bad guy for expressing a concern.â
And the fucked up thingâthe really truly fucked up thingâis that heâs not entirely wrong.
You are deflecting. You are being sarcastic. You are making him the bad guy because the alternative is engaging with the actual content of what heâs saying and you canât do that because the actual content requires you to either (a) explain that Jimin is not interested in you because Jimin is currently navigating something about his own identity that is private and sacred and none of Jasonâs goddamn business, or (b) admit that the real problem isnât Jimin at all, itâs the guy in the Ghostface robe who said circles to you across a kitchen like it was a promiseâ
And you canât do either of those things.
Option A outs Jimin. Option B outs you.
So youâre stuck.
Trapped.
Standing in this room thatâs getting smaller with every sentence, defending a position that isnât the real position, fighting a fight that isnât the real fight, and your chest is doing the thing and your hands are doing the thing and the wallpaper is definitely breathing now and you canâtâ
âHe was sitting down,â you say, and your voice is thinner. You can hear it. âI came up behind him and put my arms around him. The same way Iâd hug Yeji. The same way Iâd hug Irya. Are you going to tell me thatâs inappropriate too?â
âYeji and Irya are women.â
âSo?â
âSo itâs different.â
âWhy?â
âBecause it is. Because whether you want to acknowledge it or not, there is a difference between how men and women interpret physical affection, and Iâm not being old-fashioned by pointing that out, Iâm being realistic.â
âYouâre being controlling.â
Jasonâs face does something youâve never seen it do before.
He looks hurt. Real, actual hurt, the kind that flashes across someoneâs face before they can catch it and tuck it behind something more presentable.
âIâm not controlling you,â he says. âIâm asking you to think about how your actions affect the people around you. Thatâs not control. Thatâs consideration.â
Consideration.
Your motherâs favorite word. Your motherâs number-one, gold-standard, go-to weapon for every single time you did something that embarrassed her or surprised her or reminded her that you were a separate person with separate wantsââhave some consideration. Think about someone other than yourself for once.â
You can feel your heartbeat in your fingers, in your wrists, in the base of your throat where the gold chain sits against your skin.
You want to scream that Jimin is already interested in someone else, that possibly he doesnât even like girls.
But you donât.
Because itâs not yours to say. Itâs Jiminâs. It belongs to him the same way the pink nail belongs to him, the same way the question in the bathroom belongs to himââwhat if none of it fits, what if there isnât a word for itââand you donât get to hand that to Jason Calloway like a hall pass just because youâre cornered and scared and your lungs wonât open all the way.
You donât get to sacrifice someone elseâs secret to win your own argument.
So you stand there. Hands shaking. Jaw shut. Pulse hammering against the rain charm on your wrist.
And you have nothing.
No defense that doesnât betray someone.
No explanation that doesnât expose something.
âI shouldnât have to justify hugging my friend,â you say, and it comes out cracked.
âNobodyâs asking you to justify anything. Iâm asking you to be aware.â
âAware of what?â
âOf how you come across. Of the signals youâre sending. Of the fact that youâre at a party with meâwith meâand you spent the last hour hanging off other men and barely looked in my direction.â
The compression in your chest is getting worse. Heavier. Like someoneâs stacking books on your ribcage one at a timeâeach sentence another volume, another weight, another reason you canât get enough air into your lungs to fight properly.
Your eyes burn.
No. Nope. Absolutely not.
You are not going to cry in front of Jason Calloway in a Medusa costume with two pot brownies dissolving in your bloodstream. Thatâs not happening. That is a thing that will not occur.
âI think,â he saysâand thereâs a softness to it now, a careful softness thatâs worse than the accusations because it sounds like kindness, it sounds like concern, it sounds like someone who loves you explaining for the fifteenth time why youâre doing everything wrong, âthat sometimes you donât realize the way you act around men. And I donât think thatâs your fault. I think itâsâa pattern. And I think if you were a little more self-aware about it, a little moreâŚâ
He pauses. Looking for the word.
ââŚmature, youâd...â
You tune out the rest of the sentence.
Because that word.
Mature.
One single, careful, well-chosen, precisely deployed word that lands in the exact center of the thing your parents built inside youâthe architecture of not-enough, the blueprint of every dinner table correction and every lowered voice and every âwhen are you going to grow up and start acting like the person we raised you to beââ
And inside you something bucklesâa load-bearing wall giving way, a structural failure thatâs been building since the shower, since the orange, since circles, since the prayer hands and whatâs going on with himâand you are not going to cry here.
You are not going to cry here, you are not going to cry here, you are notâ
âI need to use the bathroom.â
âY/Nââ
âI need to use the bathroom, Jason.â
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
His expression is doing the thing againâthe hurt, the confusion, the genuine inability to understand why his reasonable words keep producing unreasonable reactionsâand part of you, the part thatâs still rational, knows he doesnât get it.
Knows he thinks heâs being fair.
Knows he genuinely believes that everything he just said came from a place of care and concern and wanting the best for you.
And maybe thatâs the worst part.
That he means it.
That the cage is lined with good intentions and the bars are made of âI just want whatâs best for youâ and the lock is turned by someone who thinks love and management are the same thing.
You grab the door handle. Pull.
âCan we at leastââ
The door closes behind you.
The hallway is empty. The sconce flickers. The fog machineâs output has crept up the stairs and is hanging in thin wisps along the baseboard and you walk through it on legs that donât feel entirely connected to your bodyâone foot, then the other, mechanical, automatic, the way you used to walk from the dining room to your bedroom after the conversations that left you feeling like this, small and wrong and taking up too much space and not the right shape and never, ever, ever enoughâ
The bathroom door.
You push through it. Lock it behind you.
Slide down the door until youâre sitting on cold tile with your knees pulled up and the Medusa skirt bunching around your thighs and the snake cuff digging into your bicep and the gold chains in your hair pressing into the back of your skull against the wood.
The first sob comes out silent.
The second one doesnât.
Itâs ugly. Wrenching. The kind that starts in your stomach and rips upward through your chest like something with claws, and you press your hand over your mouth to contain it because there are thirty people downstairs and the last thingâthe absolute last thing you needâis someone hearing you fall apart in a bathroom at a Halloween party because a boy used the word âmatureâ and your nervous system couldnât tell the difference between him and your mother.
Tears streak through Jiminâs perfect eyeliner, wings dissolving, the careful symmetry ruined, and you think stupidly, absurdly, through the wet gasping wreckage of your breathing, that heâs going to be so disappointed when he sees what you did to his work.
That thought makes you cry harder.
Which makes you laugh.
Which makes you cry again.
You pull your knees tighter. Press your forehead to them. Let the gold chain belt dig into your thighs.
On your wrist, the rain charm catches the fluorescent light.
You donât take it off.
He can taste purple.
Not likeâgrape. Not like candy or medicine or anything thatâs supposed to be purple. Just the color. Just purple, sitting on his tongue like a frequency, and the ceiling is doing something interesting with its textures and Jungkook is pretty sure the decorative cobwebs have been moving for the last ten minutes but in a chill way. A friendly way. Like theyâre also at a party and having a good time.
He shouldnât have eaten that third brownie.
He knows this.
He also shouldnât have taken that last shot of whatever Hobi poured out of a bottle with no labelâa liquid the color of antifreeze that tasted like someone dissolved a green apple Jolly Rancher in paint thinner and then blessed it with a prayer and a middle finger.
But rational decisions have never been his forte and theyâre not going to start now.
Not when the ceiling has this much going on, anyway.
âHoseok deserves jail,â Taehyung mutters next to him.
He says it to the ceiling too. Both of them, heads tipped back against the couch cushions, staring up at the crown molding like it contains the answers to questions neither of them are smart enough to ask right now.
Jungkook chuckles. âFederal.â
âMinimum.â
âConsecutive sentences.â
âNo parole.â
They sit with that for a moment. Satisfied with the verdict.
This lounge is on the far side of the houseâquieter, dimmer, tucked away from the main party like a VIP section nobody asked for. Somebody dragged a floor lamp in here at some point and aimed it at the wall, which means the light is amber and indirect and makes everything look like a memory. Thereâs a smaller couch, an armchair with an afghan thrown over it, and a coffee table covered in jack-o-lanterns that Jungkook carved this morning with a steak knife and what heâd considered, at the time, artistic vision.
He looks at the decorations. The cobwebs he stretched across the doorframe. The battery-operated candles on the mantle. The little plastic spiders he positioned along the bookshelf with deliberate spacing becauseâfilm major.
Composition matters. Even in novelty arachnids.
âYou know what,â he says. âI did a pretty good job with all this.â
He gestures broadly at the room. The gesture is meant to encompass the whole house but his arm is heavier than expected so it mostly encompasses the lamp and half of Taehyungâs face.
Taehyung snorts.
âSure. If you donât count the pumpkins.â
Jungkookâs head rolls sideways on the cushion. âWhatâs wrong with my pumpkins?â
Taehyung stops staring at the ceiling. Lifts his head. Rights himself into something approaching a seated position, which is a productionâbecause Taehyung is currently dressed as Gomez Addams and the costume is committed.
Pinstripe suit. Actual pinstripe, not printed. A burgundy pocket square folded into something that probably has a nameâtriangle? pyramid? fabric origami?âthat matches the deep red of Irikaâs dress because of course it does, because Kim Taehyung looked at his girlfriendâs Morticia costume and said âI will restructure my entire wardrobe around your color paletteâ without a single beat of hesitation. The mustache is drawn on with eyeliner. Thin, precise, curling slightly at the ends. His hair is slicked backâevery strand cemented into place with what smells like an entire can of productâand thereâs a fake rose pinned to his lapel that Jungkook watched him steal from a vase in the entryway and present to Irika on one knee in the living room while she pretended to swoon and Hobi filmed the whole thing for Instagram.
Disgusting. Truly disgusting behavior from a man Jungkook respects and loves.
âAre you kidding me,â Taehyung says.
Jungkook rights himself too. Sits up. Squares his shoulders. The Ghostface robe shifts around him like a bathrobe at a very dramatic hotel.
âThe pumpkins are perfect.â
âTheyâre not perfect. They look stupid.â
âThey donâtââ
âDude.â Taehyung pointsâhazily, finger drifting slightly left of centerâat the jack-o-lantern sitting on the coffee table directly in front of them. âLook at it. Actually look at it.â
Jungkook looks at it.
Itâs⌠okay, the mouth is a little wide.
And the eyes are slightly different sizes, which heâd thought was characterful at the time but might, in the current lighting, read more as neurological event.
And the noseâheâd tried for a triangle, landed on something more rhomboidâ
âIt looks like Willy Wonka,â Taehyung says. âOr some shit.â
âWilly Wonkaâs attractive.â
The words leave his mouth before his brain clears them and he hears them land in the room and thinks, âwell, thatâs a sentence I just said with confidence to another man on a couch.â
Taehyungâs entire head rotates toward him. Slowly. Like a surveillance camera.
âWhat.â
âWhat? He is. Didnât you see that TikTok guy? The one who dressed up as Wonka and got likeâmillions of followers?â
âWhat the fuck is on your For You Page, dude.â
âBro, I swear. He went viral. Hold on.â
Jungkook pulls out his phone. Unlocks it. The screen is brighter than the sun and he squints against it like a vampire encountering daylight for the first timeâwhich, given the costume, feels thematic.
âLook. Wait.â
He opens TikTok. His thumb is slower than usual. The letters in the search bar are behaving strangely.
âHow do you spell Wonka.â
âHow do youâJungkook.â
âNo, I know how, I justâis there an H?â
âThereâs not an H in Wonka. There has never been an H in Wonka. Where would the H go.â
âI donât know, thatâs why Iâm askingââ
âW-O-N-K-A. Five letters. No H. You went to college.â
âTechnically Iâm still going to collegeââ
âYouââ Taehyung groans, snatching the phone, âgimme the phone.â
Somehow, his friend manages to write with the efficiency of someone who doesnât have three brownies and Hobiâs prison cocktail dissolving his neural pathways.
Two seconds later heâs scrolling through results.
Jungkook, on a sober note, would call that blasphemy.
âThis one?â
He holds the phone up. A guy in a purple velvet coat and a top hat, abs out, doing a grinding motion to some remix of âI wanna love youâ.
âThatâs him! See?â Jungkook takes the phone back. Points at the screen. âTell me thatâs not attractive.â
âIâm not telling you that.â
âWhy not?â
âBecause Iâm not going to sit on this couch, in this suit, and confirm or deny the attractiveness of a TikTok Willy Wonka to you at midnight on Halloween. I have limits. I have a pinstripe situation happening.â Taehyung tugs his lapel. âGomez wouldnât do this.â
âGomez would absolutely do this. Gomez would rate every man in a room if Morticia told him to.â
âThatâsââ Taehyung pauses. Snatches his phone again. Narrows his eyes. âThatâs actually accurate and Iâm mad about it.â
âSo the pumpkin looks like an attractive man. Whatâs the issue.â
âThe issue is that a jack-o-lantern is not supposed to look like an attractive man, Jungkook. Itâs supposed to look scary. Thatâs theâthatâs the whole assignment. Scary face. On a gourd.â
âA gourd?â
âA pumpkin is a gourd.â
âSince when?â
âSinceâbotany? Since agriculture? Since the dawn of gourds?â
âI feel like youâre making that up.â
âGoogle it.â
âYou Google it. You have my phone.â
Taehyung looks down. He does, in fact, still have Jungkookâs phone. He stares at it for a long moment, like he forgot how it got there and is now reconstructing the timeline.
ââŚYour wallpaper is still Griffin,â he says.
âYeah.â
âFrom when he was a kitten.â
âYeah.â
âThatâs cute.â
âI know.â
They look at each other. Two grown men on a couch. One dressed as a fictional serial killer, the other as a fictional husband. Both profoundly, catastrophically, beautifully stoned.
Taehyung hands the phone back.
âYour pumpkins still look stupid.â
âNoted. Rejected. Moving on.â
âThe one in the hallway looks like itâs having an allergic reaction.â
âThat oneâs abstract.â
âItâs abstract in the way that a car accident is abstract.â
Jungkook opens his mouth to argue, but his brain has already lost the threadâgone, dissolved, replaced by the observation that the cobwebs on the ceiling are still moving and heâs kind of into it. Like a mobile. Like a very goth baby mobile.
He tips his head back again. Taehyung follows a beat later.
Ceiling.
Cobwebs.
âHey,â Taehyung says.
âYeah.â
âThe decorations are good.â
âYeah?â
âYeah. Not the pumpkins. Everything else.â
Jungkook grins at the ceiling. âThanks, man.â
âThe pumpkins are, like, honest-to-god dog shit.â
âGot it.â
âBut the rest is solid.â
âAppreciate that.â
They sit with it. Content. The kind of silence that only exists between two people who've known each other long enough that not talking is its own form of conversation.
Somewhere in the house, someone drops a glass. A cheer goes up.
Neither of them moves.
Then Jungkook's thumb finds the silver ring. Starts turning it.
He doesn't notice he's doing it. Never does. It's the kind of habit that lives below the threshold of awarenessâa background process, automatic, the way some people tap their foot or chew their lip. He just spins the ring. Round and round. The pad of his thumb catching the flat edge, pushing, rotating, catching again.
"Jason bothers me."
He says it to the ceiling. Same way he said the thing about the pumpkins. Same way he said Willy Wonka was attractive. Just out there. A sentence released into the room without a permission slip.
Taehyung doesn't move. Doesn't look over.
"You've mentioned."
"No, I meanâ" The ring spins. "He bothers me."
"Yeah. You've mentioned that too." Taehyung shifts on the couch. Gets slightly more upright. The jacket creaks. "Multiple times. Extensively. At length. I believe the phrase 'trust fund guidance counselor' was used. And 'discount therapist with a cologne budget.' And my personal favoriteâ"
"I'm not joking around right now."
Something about the way he says itâthe flatness, the absence of the usual punchline, the punchline that should be there because Jungkook always has a punchline, that's the deal, that's the contract between him and every serious moment he's ever been inâmakes Taehyung's head turn.
Jungkook is still looking at the ceiling. But he's not seeing the cobwebs anymore.
"Something's off about him."
"Off how?"
"I don'tâ" His tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. Searching for the word. The right word. "I don't know. Off. Just off, bro. The way heâ"
He stops. Starts again.
"She used eucalyptus soap."
Taehyung blinks.
"...What?"
"Earlier. The showers. Y/N. She used the eucalyptus soap that was in the stall instead of her own stuff."
Taehyung stares at him. The Gomez mustacheâwhat's left of itâcrinkles with the specific bewilderment of a man who was just having a perfectly good conversation about gourds and is now being asked to care about shower products.
"I'm gonna need, like... significantly more context than that."
"She's vanilla, Tae." Jungkook says it like it's obvious. Like it's a fact of the natural world, on par with gravity or the boiling point of water. "Sheâs vanilla everything. Everything. Soap. Lotion. The stuff in her hair. She's got like six different vanilla products in the shower caddy and she didn't bring any of it. She used the generic eucalyptus shit in the stall and she doesnâtâshe still smells like vanilla underneath because it's basically her, like her actualâ"
âJungkook.â
"âbut it's off. There's thisâthis layer on top of it that isn't her and I'd bet you anythingâanythingâthat he said something. About the vanilla. That he made some comment about it being basic or juvenile or whatever the fuck and she justâadjusted. Without evenâshe probably doesn't even know she did it."
The silence that follows has a specific quality.
âŚThe quality of someone deciding whether to call an ambulance or a therapist.
"Jesus, man. The weed really did a number on you. Youâre having an episode over body wash, are you hearing yourselfâ"
"It's notâ" He swats at Tae. "Itâs not about the body wash. It'sâ" He drags a hand down his face. "Okay, the body wash thing sounds insane. I know it sounds insane. That's the problem. Every individual thing sounds insane if I say it out loud. It's only when you put all of it together that itâ"
He makes a vague, frustrated gesture at the air. Like he's trying to grab the shape of what he means and it keeps slipping.
"She doesn't do her tea thing anymore."
"Her tea thing."
"She used to leave the tea bags in the sink. Every morning. Justâsitting there. On the sink. Drove me insane. I texted her about it. Twice. She left me on read and then told me where I could shove the tea bags. It was a whole thing."
He's talking to the ceiling again. His thumb hasn't stopped.
"And then she starts seeing this guy and the tea bags are gone. Justâpoof. Not in the sink. Not anywhere. And the thing isâI should be happy about that, right? I wanted them gone. But they didn't stop because she decided to stop. They stopped because heâ"
No, but that doesnât sound right. Because he doesnât know for sure, does he?
Did you stop the tea bag situation after Jason?
Was it before him? Was Jason the reason?
He wishes he could trust his memory. Or his own brain.
"Iâm really trying to follow the thread here, Jungkook."
"Itâsâitâs justâthe way she is after she's been with him for a while. Like sheâs been adjusted or something."
Taehyung is quiet for a second. Processing.
Runs a hand across the back of his neck, seemingly choosing words carefully, which is very unlike him.
"Look, man⌠She's a grown woman. People date shitty guys all the time. That's, like... a universal experience. It's not reallyâ"
"I know."
"âyour problem. She's your roommate. You guys argue about milk. It's notâ"
"I know, Tae."
"So then why are youâ" Taehyung's hand comes off his neck. Gestures at all of Jungkook. The ring spinning, the jaw set, the whole rigidness of a man who's clearly been carrying this around for longer than tonight. "Why are you like this about it? Since when do you evenâI thought you guys just coexist. She leaves her shit around, you leave your shit around, Yoongi mediates. That's the dynamic."
The ring stops.
Spins again.
"We're friends."
Taehyung's eyebrows go up. Genuinely up.
"You're friends?"
"I think so. Yeah. I've been trying to convince her of that for like a month and she basically just gave in earlier tonightâanyway, that's not the point, dudeâ"
"No, IâI'm justâsince when? Last I heard she was 'the menace in room three' who used all the hot waterâ"
"She's not a menace, she'sâokay, she is a menace. With the hot water specifically. But that's a separate issue and it has nothing to do withâ"
He's losing the thread. Can feel it unraveling. The way it always does when he tries to explain something that lives in the space between what he sees and what he can proveâthe words come out wrong or come out in the wrong order or come out sounding like a conspiracy theory narrated by a guy who's had three pot brownies and a shot of Hobi's antifreeze, and he knows that, he can hear himself, but the alternative is shutting up and the alternative is worse because shutting up means the thing stays in his chest and eats.
"Okay. Forget the soap. Forget the tea bags. Forget all theâthe individual things, because individually they're all nothing. Right? Each one is nothing."
He sits up. Slightly. Enough that his feet plant on the floor and he's not talking to the ceiling anymore. He's talking to his hands.
"But it's likeâwhen you watch a movie. And you can't point to the one thing that's wrong with it. The lighting's fine, the acting's fine, the script is fine. But you walk out and you feel bad and you don't know why, and then two weeks later at three in the morning you sit up and go 'the pacing'âit was the pacing the whole time, the pacing was off and it made everything else feel wrong even though everything else was technically fine."
Catches his breath.
"Jason is the pacing."
Taehyung opens his mouth. Closes it. Tilts his head.
"That's..." he says slowly, "genuinely one of the most unhinged analogies I've ever heard you make. And I was there for the 'risotto is emotional labor' speech."
"It made sense in contextâ"
"It didn't, but go on."
Jungkook's face is on his hands now, resting his weight on his elbows. The way he does when the frustration of not being able to translate the thing in his body to the thing in the air hits critical mass.
"I'm not saying this right."
"You're really not."
"I justâI see her, Tae. I see her before she goes to his place and I see her when she comes back and she's different. And I can'tâI can't point to the exact frame where it changes. But she's smaller when she comes back. Not likeânot physically. Just... the volume on her goes down. And it comes back up when she's home for a while and then she goes back to him and it goes down again and Iâ"
He stops. Presses his palms flat on his thighs. Pushes down. Grounding.
"Something about him makes my skin crawl and I don't know if that's real or if I'mâ"
ÂŤâŚmaking it up, Jungkook. Youâre seeing things that are not there, baby. Youâre projecting.Âť
"âor if I'm just... seeing shit that isn't there because of my own stuff. I'm aware that's possible. I'm aware I could be the problem here. But every time I try to talk myself out of it something else happensâsomething small, something that doesn't matter by itselfâand the feeling comes back and it'sâit'sâ"
He makes a sound. Not a word. The verbal equivalent of throwing a pen across the room because the sentence won't cooperate.
"I'm really not saying this right."
"Hey." Taehyung's voice has changed. Not all the way. Still casual, still on the couch, still Kim Taehyung at a Halloween party. But the tone is softer. "You don't have to get it perfect, man. Just say the part that matters."
The part that matters.
The ring spins.
"Heâ" he gulps down, the pronoun stumbling over itself, "he reminds me ofâ"
And the sentence stops. Not because he chose to stop it. Because the word that comes next has a weight to itâactual, physical, gravitationalâand the weight wins. Holds it in his chest. Behind the sternum.
In the exact place where things live that he brings to Dr. Liao's office and puts on the table between them and says âI don't know what this is but it won't leave.â
He doesn't finish. Just turns his head. Looks at Taehyung.
The look does what the word won't.
Taehyung, who knows what lives on the other side of sentences Jungkook doesn't finish, nods softly.
"Mia?"
Jungkook takes a couple seconds. But then he nods.
Taehyung sits up. All the way up. Elbows on his knees. The stolen rose on his lapel bends sideways.
"What do you mean he reminds you ofâlike, specifically. What is he doing?"
"It'sâit's just a hunch, man. I don't know him. I've barely talked to him, so for all I know I could be paranoid. I'm aware of that." He sighs. "But something about his presence makes my skin fucking crawl andâwhen I see herâwhen I see her after she's been with him for a while, every time she's..."
Loses it. The sentence. The thread. The bridge between the thing he can feel and the thing he can say.
Starts over.
"I feel like he makes her think she's the problem. Like the way she isâher personality, the way she takes up space, the way she's loud and leaves tea bags everywhere and wears vanilla everythingâlike all of that is this flaw he's generously helping her with. And she justâshe takes it. She adjusts. And she doesn't even know she's adjusting, that's theâ"
His hands are moving now. Not gesturing. Just moving. Restless energy that needs an exit.
"âand I can't say anything because we're barelyâI've been her friend for like five hours, I don't get to walk up and be like 'hey, I think your boyfriend is psychologically dismantling you one tea bag at a time.' That's insane. That'sâ"
"Hey." Taehyung's hand on his knee. Firm. "Slow down. Start from the beginning. What specifically has heâ"
The door to the lounge swings open hard enough to bounce off the wall.
Jimin comes through it like the hallway spat him outâfast, slightly off-balance, costume rumpled. The quill pen is gone from behind his ear. His eyes are wide and scanning the room with the specific urgency of someone who needs something and needed it thirty seconds ago.
"Sorryâsorry, is there water in here?"
Jungkook lifts one hand from the armrest. Swallows. Rubs the back of his neck. Points vaguely at the side table where someone abandoned a cluster of bottles and cups sometime around the second hour of the party.
"Over there."
Doesn't take long to notice Jimin's chest is moving too fast.
"Yo." Sits up.
The weed is still thereâstill fuzzing the edges, still making the room feel like it's wrapped in feltâbut something underneath it is starting to sharpen. An instinct. The one that monitors rooms, reads exits, clocks the difference between someone who's out of breath from running and someone who's out of breath from something worse.
"What's up, Jim?"
Jimin picks up the cup. Puts it down. Picks it up again.
Licks his lips.
"It'sâ"
He says your name.
Everything in Jungkook's nervous system goes from THC-saturated haze to full alert in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
"She'sâ" Jimin swallows. Runs his hand through his hair and the careful side-part collapses, which he doesn't notice, which means whatever this is ranks above vanity. "She's in the bathroom. Crying. And Yeji and Irya are outside the door but she won'tâthey can't get her to come out. I thinkâI think her and Jason had a fight or something."
Jungkook is standing before the sentence ends.
He doesnât remember deciding to stand. His legs just did itâunfolded beneath him, pushed him vertical, and now heâs crossing the room toward Jimin and Taehyung is sitting up behind him making a sound that means âwhatâs happeningâ but Jungkookâs already there, already in front of Jimin, already close enough to see the specific kind of worry on his faceânot the general kind.
âWhat did he say?â
âWhat?â
âWhat the fuck did Jason say to her.â
Jimin blinks. Opens his mouth. Shuts it. Opens it again.
âI donâtâI donât know exactly, she was crying and talking really fast and not making a lot of sense through the door and the music, but she saidââ He stops. Regroups. His fingers are gripping the cup and the plastic crackles under the pressure. âShe said something about feeling trapped. That he was being controlling, or she felt controlled, orâI couldnât hear everything, sheâs high and emotional and Yeji was yelling at someone to turn the music down soââ
Trapped.
The word hits different than the others.
The othersâfight, crying, bathroomâthose are bad, those register, those go into the filing cabinet under urgent and get processed accordingly.
But trapped doesnât file.
Trapped doesnât go into a cabinet.
Trapped goes into his chest.
Right next to the place where a different face livesâa word from a different room, a different year, a different woman, except itâs not different, itâs the same fucking word, the same four walls closing in, the same air running out, the sameâ
ââand so I wanted to grab some water because I thought maybe if she just has some water andâJungkook?â
Heâs already at the door.
âJungkook, waitââ
He doesnât wait. His tongue presses into the inside of his cheekâhard, pressure thatâs keeping something behind his teeth that wants out, something with a shape and a heat to it that he recognizes from a long, long time ago.
Not anger. Anger is manageable. Anger is a thing heâs learned to sit with, to breathe through, to hand to Dr. Liao in pieces and say âI felt this, I didnât act on it, are you proud of me.â
This isnât anger.
This is the thing underneath anger.
The thing that has no name in his vocabulary because heâs never let it stay long enough to need one.
The thing that only shows up when someone he cares about feels trapped.
His jaw clenches. The silver ring bites into his finger where his fist has curled without permission.
He rounds the corner into the hallway and the party noise swells and none of it reaches him.
Footsteps behind him. Fast. The pinstripe suit wasnât built for pursuit but Taehyungâs making it workâlong strides, dress shoes clipping the hardwood, and his voice has lost every trace of boneless ice and Willy Wonka and ceiling cobwebs.
âJungkook.â
Doesnât stop.
âJungkookâwait.â
Doesnât stop.
âWait, man. Think this throughââ
He cuts through the living room like itâs not there.
Beer pong table, fog machine, centurion, bunny, bodies in costumes he registers as shapes and colors and none of them are the shape heâs looking for.
The music is too loud and someoneâs laughing near the speakersâhigh, a sound that scrapes the inside of his skullâand his hands are at his sides and his jaw is locked so tight the pressure reaches his temples.
Trapped.
The word keeps playing. Looped. Skipping like a scratched record.
ÂŤThis is what men do.Âť
Not now. Not fucking now.
He reaches the french doors to the garden. Open. Night air. Cold enough that it should register but doesnât. Patio stones under his boots. String lights overhead making everything amber and warm and the warmth is wrongâeverything about this scene is wrong because it looks like a party and sounds like a party and somewhere upstairs youâre on a bathroom floor and the door is locked and you said trappedâ
âYouâre not doing this.â
Jungkook doesnât turn. Steps off the patio onto the lawn.
âHey. Hey. Iâm talking to you.â
Doesnât turn.
The grass is wet. His boots sink.
None of it registers as information worth processing because the only information that matters right now is the distanceâa hundred feet, closingâand the shape of Jasonâs silhouette against the string lights and the sound the word trapped makes when it loops inside a skull thatâs stopped filtering anything else.
âJungkookâyouâre gonna catch a charge. You understand that? A criminal charge. At a Halloween party. In a costume. Thatâs what youâre walking toward right now. An assault charge in a Ghostface robe. Thatâs the legacy. Thatâs the headline.â
Eighty feet. The fountain is to his left now.
âAnd you know whoâs not catching a charge tonight? Him. You know why? Because he didnât do anything illegal. He was an asshole to someone. Thatâs it. Thatâs all it was. And you canât break someoneâs face for that, Jungkook, notânot in the way that counts, not in the way that a cop is gonna care about when they show up and seeââ
A breath. Not a pauseâa reload. Taehyungâs stride lengthens. Heâs beside him now, not behind, shoes squelching on wet grass.
ââwhen they show up and see you. Standing over him. With blood on your hands. And theyâre gonna look at you and theyâre gonna look at him and who do you thinkââ His voice trips. Catches. Goes harder. âWho do you think gets the benefit of the doubt in that scenario? Huh? You? Asian? With the tattoos and theâand him with the PhD program and the glasses and the fucking vest? You think thatâs a coin flip? You think that goes fifty-fifty?â
Jungkook doesnât answer. Doesnât slow down. Seventy feet.
âHis parents probably have a lawyer saved in their contacts. You know that, right? People like himâthey donât fight back, they call their dadâs buddy at whatever firm and suddenly itâs not a Halloween party anymore, itâs depositions and court dates and you trying to explain to a judge why youââ Taehyungâs hand cuts through the air. âA judge whoâs gonna see the exact same thing the cops saw. Who gets believed. I shouldnât have to spell this out for you.â
He shouldnât. They both know why.
Theyâve both been in the rooms where it gets spelled out without anyone saying a wordâwhere looking a certain way in a certain zip code means the margin for error shrinks to nothing and the assumption of guilt arrives before the explanation does.
Taehyung knows. Heâs been in those rooms with him.
Same parking lots, same bloody knuckles, same cops who looked at two Asian kids with split lips and didnât ask who started it.
âThis is exactly what heâs not worth. Youâve been saying it for weeks. You said he was a prick, you said he was a snob, you said he gave you bad vibesâgreat, you were right, congratulations, and now what? Now youâre gonna prove it by giving him a reason to press charges? By handing him the one thing he actually needs to make you the problem? Thatâs the play?â
Sixty feet. Jungkook picks up speed.
âBecause thatâs what happens. Thatâs exactly what happens. You know this. I know you know this because we had the same conversation in high school after Joey Cho got expelled for defending himself in a fight he didn't start. Remember that? Remember what his mom said? She said it doesn't matter who started it. It matters who they believe. And they're not gonna believe you. Not over him. Not when he looks like that and you look like this."
A beat.
âYou hit him and heâs the victim, Jungkook. Heâs the guy who got attacked at a party by his girlfriendâs unhinged roommate and he gets to tell that story for the rest of his life and sheââ He stumbles on the word. ââshe becomes the girl it was about. The girl whose psycho roommate couldnât keep his hands to himself. And thatâs his version. Thatâs the version that wins. You get that, right? You get that his version wins?â
Taehyung is still talking and talking and talking and none of the words are landing because words are noise to him right now.
âAre you listening? Can you even hear me right now? Because Iâm talking and youâre walking and Iâm running out of ways to say the same thing which is that youâre about to fuck your entire life up and he gets to watch. He gets to stand there with his busted lip and watch you get put in the back of a car and thatâsââ Taehyungâs voice goes mean with the effort of keeping it whole. âThatâs not justice, man. Thatâs not protecting her. Thatâs not gonna make you feel any better, Jungkook, you know that. You know why you know that.â
Jungkook clicks his tongue and picks up speed.
Taehyung swears under his breath and matches it. âYouâre not hearing me. Youâre notâokay. Okay.â
Taehyung cuts in front of him. Gets there fastâone long diagonal stride and a pivotâand plants himself in the path with his hands on Jungkookâs chest.
âNo.â
Hands. Flat on his sternum. Holding.
âNo. I told you, bro. Youâre not doing this.â
Jungkook tries to step left.
Taehyung shifts left. Blocks it. Doesnât budge.
Tries right.
Same thing. Mirror image. The hands stay on his chest.
âDo not.â Taehyungâs pointing finger finds Jungkookâs chest. âDonât play me right now, Jungkook. Back the fuck up.â
He grabs Taehyungâs wrist and shoves it off his chest. Sidesteps.
Gets two steps.
Taehyung grabs a fistful of the Ghostface robe from behind and hauls him backward.
Jungkookâs balance goesâboots sliding on wet grass, the robe yanking tight across his throatâand the stumble turns into a pivot and he rounds on Taehyung and swats the grip off the fabric, forearm connecting with Taehyungâs wrist hard enough to crack, and Taehyung doesnât let go, just tightens his hold and braces and Jungkook shoves forward into his chest and Taehyung pushes back and for three ugly seconds theyâre tangledâgrunting, grabbing, both of them too angry for technique.
Taehyung gets both hands on the front of the robe and pushesâhard, this time, the full force of his weight behind itâand Jungkookâs back foot slides out and he catches himself and surges forward and Taehyung meets him and pushes again and they break apart.
Three feet of grass between them. Both breathing through their teeth. The pinstripe jacket wrenched sideways on Taehyungâs shoulders, pocket square crushed, and the Ghostface robe twisted half off Jungkookâs frame like someone tried to unwrap him.
âAlright, you know what.â Taehyung spreads his arms.âCome on then. You wanna fight so bad? Fight me. Right here. Letâs go. Iâm right here, Jungkook.â
His chest is heaving. His hands are open. His chin is up in the specific way that means he isnât bluffing and Jungkook knows damn well heâs not bluffing.
âHit me. Come on. Hit me. Get it out. Because I promise youâI promise you on everythingâyouâre not getting within ten feet of that guy tonight. Not while Iâm standing. So either you put me down first or you stand here and breathe like a fucking adult. Those are your options. Two options. Pick one.â
Jungkookâs tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. Copper taste. His whole body is a live wire looking for ground and the ground is just some feet away laughing and Taehyung is in the way.
He takes a step.
Taehyung takes one to match. Closes the gap. Gets in his space.
âIâve had your back in every stupid fight since we were sixteen, dude.â
Quieter now. Which is worse. Taehyung getting quieter means the real thing is coming.
âEvery single one. I was there. So believe me when I tell youâif you try to get past me right now, I will lay you out on this lawn and I will not feel bad about it. Not even a little. Not tomorrow, not next week, not ever. Because the alternative is watching you throw your entire life at some guy whoâs not worth the skin on your knuckles, and Iâm not doing that. Iâm not watching that. Thatâs my line. Youâve found it. Congratulations.â
Jungkookâs chest hurts. It hurts and he wishes he could rip whatâs beating underneath his chest out.
âYouâre better than this.â Taehyungâs throat works. âYou know youâre better than this. So act like it or I swear to god Iâll drop you myself, Jungkook. You know I will.â
The silence feels like the canteen, like sixteen, like bloody knuckles behind a 7-Eleven after someone mocked Jungkookâs mom and Taehyung took care of it.
âI did not spend two years watching you put yourself back together just to let you blow it up tonight. Not over this. Not over him.â His jaw flexes. âYou wanna get to Jason? Youâre going through me. And I donât go down easy. You know that.â
A beat.
âSo help me god, Jungkook, test me and find out.â
âWhatâs happening.â
From the left, from the direction of the garden wall where the smokers are thinning outâ
Yoongi.
âOne of you talk.â He stops. Positions himself at Taehyungâs shoulder. âNow.â
Jungkook is a locked system. Nothingâs coming out of him that isnât breath and body heat.
Yoongi looks at Taehyung.
Taehyung runs both hands through whatâs left of the slicked-back hair. Wreckage. His chest is still heaving but his voice comes out forced-steady, the way it does when heâs physically holding himself together to deliver information that matters.
âJason. The TA. Him and Y/N had a fightâsheâs locked in a bathroom upstairs. Jimin came in, said sheâs crying, said she told him she felt trapped. That he was being controlling.â
The word lands between the three of them.
Trapped.
Yoongiâs gaze tracks to Jungkook. To the fists. The jaw. The set of his shoulders. The readiness.
He looks at this for a long moment.
Then he looks at the direction Jungkookâs body is pointed. At Jason fifty feet away.
Then back at Jungkook.
He steps forward. Even with Taehyung. Shoulder to shoulder.
His hands go into his pockets.
âOkay.â He sighs. âOkay, Jungkook, tell me what happens next. You get past us. Then what. You feel better for ten seconds and then youâre the guy who assaulted someone at a Halloween party and sheâs the girl it was about. That what you want?â
No.
Thatâs not what he wants.
What he wants is to go back in time fifteen minutes and be in whatever room Jason took you to and stand between you and whatever sentences made you say trapped.
What he wants is to have been there.
He wasnât.
âUse your head for a second here, Jungkook.â Yoongi hasnât moved. Hasnât blinked. âCome on.â
Jungkookâs jaw works. The pressure in his chest is unbearableâa full-body hum of something that needs to go somewhere and has nowhere to go because every exit is blocked by friends who are right, and thatâs the worst part, he knows theyâre right, and knowing doesnât do a single fucking thing about the voltage running through his body looking for groundâ
Over Yoongiâs shoulder, past the fountain, Hobi.
Standing near the garden wall. Drink in hand. Mid-conversation with the Mia Wallace girl.
He catches Yoongiâs gaze across the patio and Yoongi does somethingâsmall, barely visible. A head tilt. A jaw set. The kind of signal that exists between people whoâve done this before and have a protocol.
Jungkook knows this and hates it.
Hates it more because Hobiâs smile drops and he knows heâs read the entire scene in the time it takes to set his drink on the wall and say something short to Mia Wallace and start crossing the patio.
He tries to cut between Yoongi and Taehyung.
To no avail.
Because an arm suddenly loops around his shoulders.
âHey!â
The specific weight of Jung Hoseokâs arm, which has the density of someone whoâs been dancing professionally for a decade and casually manhandles grown men like itâs a love language.
âHave you seen the music room?â
Jungkookâs whole body is rigid under the arm.âHoseokâlet go, I swear to godââ
âThe music room.â Hobi doesnât let go. Steers him. Smoothly, like theyâre two friends walking somewhere together, nothing to see here, just guys being guys at a party. âOther side of the house. Past the library. Tessaâs grandfather was apparently some kind of collector.â
Heâs walking Jungkook away from the garden and Jungkook is aware of the maneuver, so he tries to sidestep with all his might because he will not be persuaded this timeâ
âThereâs an electric guitar in there.â
Jungkookâs stride falters.
âIâm serious.â Hobiâs voice drops a half-register. âVintage, I think. Hanging on the wall. Looked expensive.â
Over his shoulder, Hobi makes a gesture. Quick. Two fingers, a direction.
âCome on.â Hobi squeezes his shoulder. âShow me if itâs any good. I canât tell with guitars. They all look the same to me.â
âThey donât allââ Jungkookâs voice comes out scraped. Ruined. He clears his throat. âThey donât all look the same. Thatâs like saying all dance styles look the same.â
âExactly. Terrible. Tragic. I need you to educate me.â
The arm stays around his shoulders. The garden gets smaller behind them. The french doors pass. The hallway opens. The party noise dims.
His hands are still shaking.
Hobi doesnât mention it.
Youâre still hiccuping and you feel so stupid.
Thatâs the worst part. Not the cryingâthe crying has a reason, the crying has a source, the crying is a physiological response to emotional stimulus and you can rationalize it later into something manageable.
But the stupidity of it. The exact specific humiliating stupidity of sitting on a bathroom floor at a party in a costume you felt good in thirty minutes ago, mascara running, eyeliner destroyed, hiccuping like a child who lost her balloon at a county fair because someone said a fucking word.
A word.
It doesnât get more embarrasing than this.
Except it does, because youâve been here before.
Not this bathroom. But this exact posture. This exact tile-against-spine, knees-to-chest, face-in-hands architecture of feminine collapse, because you are apparently a person who processes her worst moments in bathrooms, and thatâsâ
Thatâs a pattern, isnât it?
Sophomore year of high school. Alicia Gutierrezâs house party. You wore the denim skirt youâd been saving for something that mattered and David Morrison kissed Noor Adil in the living room with his hand on the back of her neck, the exact hand that had been on the back of your neck two hours earlier behind the bleachers, and you walked to the bathroom and sat on the floor and cried.
Different tile. Same posture. Same girl.
Everything big happens in a bathroom. Everything that matters, everything that shifts the axis of your stupid little lifeâit all happens against porcelain and tile and horrible lightning.
The day Jungkook propositioned you in 6B. Leaning in the doorframe like he owned the square footage, smelling like rain and bad decisions, saying words that shouldâve made you slam the door but instead made you stand there with wet hair and a racing pulse trying to formulate a comeback while your brain buffered.
The day he mentioned your cologne before Emmaâs birthday. Justâsaid it. Casually. Like noticing what someone smells like is a thing you mention to your roommate while sheâs brushing her teeth.
ÂŤYou changed it.Âť
Two words that sat in the steam of the bathroom for three seconds too long and rearranged something behind your ribs that youâve been pretending didnât happen.
The first time Jimin did your eyeliner, it was in that bathroom too. And today as well, in the bathroom of the suite you might no longer share with Jason, quill pen behind his ear and his careful fingers on your jaw and the question he asked that wasnât really about labels or aisles or boxes on shelves but about whether itâs possible to exist without a name for what you are.
All your big moments happen in bathrooms.
Thereâs something poetic in that, if you ignore the toilet.
The brownies are definitely hitting now. Everything has a shimmer to it. The grout lines between the tiles look deeper than they should.
Also your fingers feel very far away from your body. Like theyâre suggestions. Theoretical fingers.
Great. Youâre having an emotional breakdown while slowly becoming one with the bathroom tile. This is the human experience at its most dignified.
A knock. Soft.
âHey. Itâs me.â
Irya.
Not YejiâIrya, which means Irya got to the door first or elbowed Yeji aside, and thereâs a difference between those two arrivals that matters.
Yeji arrives like a SWAT team. Irya arrives like an EMT.
Both are trying to save you. Only one is going to kick the door down to do it.
âI brought your phone,â Irya says. âYou left it on the loveseat.â
You donât answer.
âYou donât have to open the door. Iâm just going to sit out here, okay? Just me.â
A pause.
Then, farther away, Yejiâs voiceâgritted like it comes between her teeth.
âAnd me. Iâm also here. With knives.â
âShe doesnât have knives,â Irya says.
âI have metaphorical knives. I have the energy of knives.â
âYeji.â
âWhat? Iâm being supportive. Iâm supportively enraged.â
You press your forehead into your knees. Hiccup.
A sound against the door. The soft thud of someone sitting down on the other sideâIrya, you think, based on the gentle way it happens. Yeji sits down the way she does everything: with intent and aggression toward the furniture.
âBabe.â Iryaâs voice is close now. âCan you tell me whatâs happening? Justâwhatever you want. Even if it doesnât make sense.â
âIt doesnât make sense.â
âThatâs okay. Thatâs totally okay. Tell me anyway.â
Something about the way she says thatââtell me anywayââlike your not-making-sense is not a problem to be solved but a thing to be held.
âHe said I should respect myself more.â
Silence.
Then, from further back: âHe said what?â
âYejiââ Irya, steady.
âNo. No, repeat that. He said she should respect herself? Those words? In that order? From his mouth?â
âYeji, hold onââ
âIâm going to kill him. Iâm going to walk downstairs and Iâm going to commit a crime that will be studied in law schoolsââ
âYouâre not killing anyone. Sit down.â
âI wasnât gonna stand upââ
âThatâs only because Iâm holding your wrist down.â
A huff. Yeji sits quieter.
âOkay.â Irya again. Closer. You can hear her shifting, getting comfortable against the door, settling in for however long this takes. âHe said respect yourself. What else?â
You swallow. The hiccups are slowing but your throat is raw and everything tastes like salt and chocolate.
âHe saidâthat I should be more mindful. About how I act around other people. That I was beingââ
You search for the word.
It comes back coated in cedar and bergamot.
âInappropriate.â
âInappropriate how?â
âHe said I was draped all overâthat I was hanging on someone and it looked bad. In front of people. That I need to think about how I come across.â
âDraped,â Yeji repeats from behind Irya. She says it the way youâd say âcockroachâ. âHe described physical affection between friends as draping?â
âAnd that I should have more consideration. And be moreââ
The word.
âMore mature.â
Silence. A long one.
You hear Irya exhale.
âCan I say something?â
You nod.
Then realize she canât see you.
âYeah.â
âIâm not going to tell you heâs wrong about everything. Because that wouldnât be helpful, and I think what you need right now is honesty, not just someone being angry on your behalf.â A beat. âThatâs Yejiâs job.â
âDamn right,â Yeji mutters.
âBut I want you to hear this. The way someone says something matters as much as what they say. And a person who frames their discomfort as your character flawâwho says you need to respect yourself instead of saying I felt uncomfortableâthat person is not having a conversation with you. Theyâre managing you.â
The word cracks something open.
Managing.
Thatâsâ
Thatâs exactly what it felt like. Not a discussion. Not two people navigating something messy and complicated.
A performance review. A parent-teacher conference.
âHereâs what you did wrong, hereâs what you need to fix, hereâs the version of you Iâd prefer to be dating.â
âHeâs notââ You stop. Start again. âHeâs not a bad person.â
âNobody said he was, babe.â
âHeâs notâitâs not like he was mean. He didnât yell. He was calm. He was beingâtotally reasonableââ
âTotally reasonable is how they get you.â Yeji. âTotally reasonable is the whole con. Being calm while you say controlling shit doesnât make it not controlling. It just makes the other person feel crazy for having a reaction.â
You know that. You know that.
Youâve read the articles. Youâve had the conversations.
You just didnât think youâd be sitting on the other side of it with mascara on your chin.
âCan I ask you something?â Irya. Gentle. âAnd you donât have to answer.â
âYeah.â
âWhen he said those thingsâthe maturity thing, the respect thingâdid it feel new? Or did it feel⌠familiar?â
You swallow.
Irya waits. Patient in that way she hasânot passive, not absent, just genuinely unhurried, like sheâd sit outside this door all night if thatâs what it took.
âFamiliar,â you whisper.
âOkay.â Soft. Like she expected that. âOkay, thatâs important. Thatâs really important. Because when something hurts more than it should, itâs usually because itâs landing on something that was already bruised.â
The sob comes before you can stop it. Just one. Hard, sharp, ripped from somewhere below your sternum.
âI know,â Irya says. âI know.â
âItâsâit sounded like my mom.â Youâre saying it before youâve decided to say itâthe words just coming, tumbling out through the crack in the door like water through a broken seal. âThe way he said it. The tone. The calm. She used toâshe used to do this thing where sheâd sit me down and explain, very patiently, why everything I was doing was wrong. Very gently. Very reasonably. And Iâd sit there and justâtake it. Because how do you argue with someone whoâs being nice about it? How do you say stop, youâre hurting me when theyâre smiling?â
âYou canât.â Yeji. Not angry now. Quiet. âYou canât because the smile is the point. The smile is what makes you feel insane.â
âI feel insane,â you say, and it comes out small.
âYouâre not insane.â Irya. Steady as gravity. âYouâre having a very sane reaction to a very specific kind of hurt. And the fact that you can name itâthe fact that you can say this felt like my motherâthatâs not insane. Thatâs the opposite.
You press the heels of your hands into your eyes. Gold shimmer and black liner smear across your skin.
âBabe, please.â Yejiâs voice is closer now. Sheâs moved up. Right beside Irya, if you had to guess. âAt least drink some water. You had Hobiâs drinks and those brownies and you need to hydrate or youâre going to feel even worse.â
âI donât want water.â
âYou say that, butââ
âYeji. Iâm fine.â
âYou are audibly not fine.â
âI am choosing to be not fine in private, which is my right as aââ
âIf you say âas a feministâ Iâm picking this lock.â
Shuffling outside the door. Footsteps, the clipped sound of dress shoes on hardwood.
A male voice: âHey, is sheââ
Yeji is on her feet so fast you hear the combat boots squeak.
âNo.â
âI justââ
âNo. Absolutely not. Turn around.â
âYejiââ Thatâs Irya. Mediating.
âThe last thing she needs right now is another fucking man outside this door.â
âIâm notâIâm just trying toââ
âOh great. Another man whoâs just trying to. Fantastic. Groundbreaking. Never heard that one before.â
âCan you stop for one secondââ
âCan you stop? Can you maybe read the room and understand that a girl whoâs crying because a guy made her feel like shit does not need a different guy showing up toââ
âIâve been where she is.â
That stops Yeji.
Not completelyâyou can feel her resistance from inside the bathroom, can practically hear the argument building behind her teethâbut the sentence cuts through the momentum the way a stick cuts through water. Not by force. By changing direction.
âYeji.â Irya. Quiet. A hand on an arm, you imagine. âLet him.â
A paus, long enough to contain a full conversation between two people who love each other so much they can negotiate in microseconds.
âIf she says go away, you go away,â Yeji says finally.
âYeah. Got it.â
The boots retreat. Not farâyou know Yeji, sheâs pulling back ten feet and maintaining line of sight like a Secret Service agent in Doc Martensâbut far enough.
Then a sound.
A sigh, long and gusty and annoyed, like heâs been personally inconvenienced by the existence of feelings and the floor and gravity and the entire concept of sitting down in a suit.
Then the thud of a body dropping against the other side of the door with the grace of a man who committed to this before he fully thought through the logistics.
âHey.â
Taehyung.
His voice is different than it was ten seconds ago with Yeji. Quieter.
âYou donât have to talk. I justâIâm gonna sit here for a minute. If thatâs okay.â
You donât answer. Your throat is raw from the crying and your sinuses are packed with concrete and the hiccups have slowed but not stopped, punctuating the silence at irregular intervals.
âIâm not gonna ask what happened. You donât have to tell me anything.â
A beat.
âI just know what that door feels like from your side.â
Something in your chest clenches.
âI locked myself in Hobiâs bathroom once.â His voice is steady. Calm. But thereâs a grain to itâsomething rough, something lived-in. âFor like⌠three hours? Maybe four. Hobi sat outside the whole time. Didnât leave. Didnât push. Just sat there.â
You hear him shift his weight.
âI wasâgoing through something. Something bad. And I couldnât breathe and I couldnât think and I felt really, really stupid for not being able to justâhandle it. Because itâs breathing, you know? Youâve been doing it your whole life. How hard can it be.â
A hic escapes your mouth before you can stop it. Loud in the quiet.
âThat was a good one,â he says.
And despite everythingâdespite the mascara and the tile and the word mature still rattling around in your skull like a bullet in a tin canâthe corner of your mouth twitches.
âHobi didnât try to fix it,â Taehyung continues. âHe didnât say the right thing or give me advice or tell me to come out. He just⌠sat there. Told me about this dumb thing that happened at rehearsal. Some dancer who accidentally kicked another dancer in the face during a lift. And I was crying and laughing at the same time and it wasâreally messy. But it helped. Just having someone on the other side of the door who wasnât trying to make it better. Who was just⌠there.â
He pauses.
âSo Iâm just here. Thatâs it. Thatâs the whole pitch.â
You press your lips together. Hard. Because if you open your mouth right now what comes out is going to be uglyânot sarcastic-ugly, not defense-mechanism-ugly, just real ugly, the kind of honest that has no style to it, no wit, just a girl on a floor who doesnât know how to stop feeling too much about everything all the time.
âI donât even know why Iâm crying this hard,â you say.
It comes out broken. Scratchy. Barely above a whisper.
âYou donât have to know why.â
âIt doesnât make any sense. He didnât evenâhe didnât yell. He didnât do anything wrong, technically. He wasââ Hic. âHe was being reasonable. Thatâs the fucked up part. He was being totally calm and rational and saying things that sounded right and I justââ
âSometimes itâs the calm that gets you.â
The sentence stops you.
âThe loud stuffâthe yelling, the throwing thingsâthatâs easy to point at. You can say âthat, right there, thatâs the problem.â But when someoneâs calmâŚâ He exhales. Long. Slow. Like heâs letting something out thatâs been sitting in his lungs for a while. âWhen someoneâs calm and reasonable and says things that sound almost right, it makes you feel crazy for being upset. Like the problem is you. Your reaction. Not what they said.â
Silence.
âThatâs worse,â he says quietly. âThatâs so much worse.â
Your chin is trembling. You clamp your jaw around it.
âTaehyung.â
âYeah?â
âHow did youââ Hic. Fuck. âWhen did it stop? The feeling likeâlike you were too much. And also not enough. At the same time. How did that stop?â
The door is quiet for a long moment. Long enough that you wonder if heâs deciding whether to answer or deciding how to answer, and you know the difference because you live in the gap between those two things.
âIâll let you know when it does.â
Your breath comes out in a rush.
First one since you locked yourself in this room.
âBut it getsâI donât know. Quieter? It doesnât go away. You just get better at hearing other stuff over it. People who actually mean it when they say youâre enough. People who donât need you to be less.â
A thump against the door. Soft. His head, you think. Tipping back against the wood.
âAnd you learn who to listen to. Thatâs the hard part. Because the ones who make you feel small usually sound the most reasonable. Theyâve got the best arguments. The best vocabulary.â A pause. âReal ones donât need a vocabulary. They just show up and sit outside your door at midnight dressed as Gomez Addams and hope it helps.â
That breaks you.
Not the word mature. Not Jasonâs calm reasonable hands folded in prayer. Not even the memories of marble countertops and correctly angled forks.
This. This stupid, quiet, honest thing from a guy you barely know whoâs sitting on a hallway floor in a pinstripe suit because he once locked himself in a bathroom too and somebody sat outside for him.
The sob that comes out is different from the ones before. Softer. Rounder. Less like something being ripped from your chest and more like something being released. A pressure valve opening. Steam instead of shrapnel.
âOkay,â you manage. Watery. Wrecked. âThat wasâyou canât just say stuff like that to someone whoâsââ
âToo late. Already said it. No returns.â
âI hate you.â
âThatâs fine. Iâm very hateable. Ask Jungkook. He has a list.â
You laugh. It comes out wet and awful and it hurts your ribs and itâs the best sound youâve made in an hour.
On the other side of the door, you hear him exhale. Relief. The kind someone makes when they werenât sure it was going to work and then it did.
âFor the record,â he says. âYour eyelinerâs probably ruined.â
âI know.â
âJiminâs going to be devastated.â
âI know.â
âLike, genuinely distraught. He might never recover.â
âPlease stop.â
âIâm just preparing you for the grief.â
You wipe your face with the back of your hand. It comes away black and gold and wet.
âCan you justââ Hiccup. âCan you sit there for one more minute.â
âYeah.â Immediate. âYeah, Iâm here.â
So he sits.
And you sit.
And the door stays between you, and thatâs fine.
Thatâs actually the whole point.
Sometimes the best thing a person can do is be close enough to hear and far enough to not see, and let the wood do the work that words canât.
A minute passes. Maybe two.
The hiccups stop. Your breathing evens out. The brownies are still doing their thing, but the room doesnât feel like itâs shrinking anymore.
It feels like a room. With a floor. And a girl on it who cried the right amount for the right reasons and is probably going to feel embarrassed about this in the morning but right now, in this specific minute, feels something closer to emptied out than broken.
Your hand finds your wrist. The rain charm, cool against your pulse.
You flick it.
Then you stand up.
Your knees protestâstiff, cramped, the tile having done nothing for the cramps that are still low and persistent in your abdomenâand you catch yourself on the sink.
Your reflection in the mirror is a horror show. Mascara tracks. Eyeliner smeared into grey-black smudges beneath your eyes. Gold shimmer streaked across your cheeks where the tears dragged it. The dark berry lipstick is mostly gone, bitten off, leaving just a stain at the edges.
Medusa, post-battle. Snakes wilted.
Whatever.
You unlock the door. Pull it open.
Taehyung looks up at you from the floor.
He looks like a 1920s husband who got left at a train station and decided to wait.
His eyes move across your face. The damage. The evidence.
He doesnât comment on any of it. Just gets up. Unfolds himself from the floor, brushing off the back of his trousers with one hand, and stands there. Not too close. Not too far.
âDo you know where Jungkook is?â comes out of your lips.
âYeah,â he says. âI know where he is.â
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