BUNNYYKOO MASTERLISTS

Morning arrives not with the harsh rattle of an alarm, but with the slow warmth of a thumb tracing the curve of your cheek.

You stir against the covers, the crisp scent of his laundry detergent and his distinct, sun-warmed skin enveloping you. When you blink open your eyes, the world is a soft, blurry haze of amber morning light filtering through the sheer curtains, yet his face is in perfect, sharp focus. And, of course, he is already looking down at you. He has clearly been awake for a while; you can tell by the way his silken hair is messy but softly pushed back from his forehead, and by how his eyes are clear, dark, and utterly consumed by the sight of you.

"Morning," he murmurs. His voice is a low, raspy velvet, thick with sleep but entirely focused on your face. He doesn't just look at you; he anchors himself to you, as if waking up and verifying you are still here is the most critical part of his day. His warm hand slides from your cheek down to the nape of your neck, his long fingers tangling into your hair, gently guiding your face closer to press a soft, lingering kiss against your forehead. Then to your closed eyelid. Then to the very tip of your nose.

"Jungkook," you giggle, the sound muffled against his bare chest. You attempt to pull the thick duvet over your head, a desperate, instinctive shield against the glaring sunlight and the violent flusters you get from the sheer intensity of the man beside you.

But he simply laughs at your feeble attempt. It’s a low, rumbling vibration that echoes right against your ribs, and with an effortless flex of his arm, he pulls you right back against him. He holds you tightly, your front flushed against his chest, his strong arms locking around your waist with a firm but incredibly gentle grip: the possessive, protective hold you've grown entirely accustomed to over the past year and a half.

"Don't hide from me," he whispers into your hair, kissing the crown of your head, his breath warm and comforting. "Let me look at you. I haven't seen your face all night."

"I was sleeping right next to you the entire time," you point out, a small, sleepy smile tugging at your lips as you rest your chin on his chest, looking up at his sharp jawline.

"Doesn't count," he declares shamelessly, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Your eyes were closed. You weren't talking or looking at me. And you were turned the other way. It was pure torture," He dramatically states before leaning down to capture your lips in a deeply sweet kiss. It’s a possessive sort of affection, the kind that makes your knees weak even whilst lying down, making you feel like you are the absolute centre of his universe, the axis upon which his entire life rotates. To Jungkook, you hang the moon, and he looks at you as if every piece of literature you study, every mundane, passing thought you voice, is absolute gospel.

He pulls away just an inch, his doe eyes searching yours. "Are you hungry? I made breakfast. Oatmeal with the berries you like, and I brewed the dark roast."

"You didn't have to do that," you say softly. He’s a fourth-year law student with a mock trial preparation checklist that could double as a legal encyclopaedia, and yet he spends his precious morning minutes curating your breakfast.

I must've been a saint in a past life to have him, you think. But right on the heels of that thought, a cold, heavy weight drops into your stomach. Or maybe I'm just living on borrowed time before the universe realises a mistake was made.

"I wanted to," he corrects easily, shifting his weight so he can pull you up into a sitting position against the headboard. He reaches over to the nightstand, lifting a perfectly presented bowl of oatmeal, steam still rising from it in lazy curls, alongside a heavy ceramic mug of coffee. He places it carefully on your lap, watching your face with an expectant, eager expression that reminds you of a golden retriever waiting for praise. "Eat up. You have that long seminar today, right? The automatic modernism one? You need energy."

"And you have IP at nine," you say, taking a slow, steady sip of the coffee. It’s perfect, the exact amount of milk, the perfect temperature. Of course it is. Jungkook doesn't do anything halfway. He doesn't know how to fail. "Did you finish revising your brief?"

"Finished it at two," he says casually, stretching his arms high over his head. He shrugs it off as if staying up until the early hours of the morning to master a legal brief while maintaining a perfect GPA and a leading role in the upcoming campus theatre production were simply light work. "It’s fine. I’m ahead of schedule. Tell me about your day instead. Are you going to finish your Pavlov draft?"

"I’m trying to," you murmur, your enthusiastic tone slipping away as you stare down at the dark blue berries in your bowl.

The sudden, suffocating weight of your own academic pressure settles heavily in your chest, instantly souring the sweet taste of the breakfast. Being a second-year Literature major, a field which is volatile, entirely subjective, and agonisingly hard to prove yourself, has had you drowning more times than you’d like to admit. Yet at the same time, Jungkook operates in a world of absolute, ruthless metrics, and he dominates every single one of them without breaking a sweat.

He reaches out, his thumb catching a stray crumb near your lip, his gaze softening into something so profoundly tender it almost hurts to look at. "You will draft it beautifully. You’re the smartest person I know, Y/N. You make my rigid law arguments look like child's play. No need to stress about it."

He means it. That’s the most terrifying part of this: he genuinely, truly believes you are his equal. He looks at you through a warped, beautiful lens of blind devotion, completely blind to the vast chasm between his effortless perfection and your frantic, and practically undignified, sprint just to stay in his peripheral vision. Every compliment he gives you feels less like praise and more like a debt you have no idea how to repay.

You force a tight nod, swallowing past the bitter lump of inadequacy in your throat, and quickly finish the food he prepared so he won't see the panic starting to manifest in your eyes. The clock on his wall ticks forward, cruel, mechanical, and relentless. It’s 7:45 AM.

"I need to get ready," you say, setting the empty bowl aside on the nightstand and shifting your legs to swing them out of the warm bed.

Jungkook instantly hooks a firm hand around your wrist, his grip warm and unyielding as he pulls you right back into his space for one more desperate, lingering hug. He buries his face deeply into the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent. "Stay. Five minutes. Please."

"Jungkook, I don't even have my clothes here," you laugh, though the sound is noticeably strained now.

He groans into your skin, his grip tightening for a fraction of a second, his possessiveness flaring, before he reluctantly lets you go. "Fine. But I’m walking you down to the lobby."

"No, don't," you say quickly, perhaps a bit too quickly, the words slipping out in a sharp, defensive spike. You soften your voice immediately, forcing a playful, easy smile onto your face to cover the slip. "You need to prepare for your formal debate later. I don't want the star of the society looking rumpled and distracted because he was escorting his gremlin girlfriend back to her residence hall. Stay here. Focus." You punctuate your words with a kiss to his cheeks.

He huffs, a sweet, exaggerated pouting expression crossing his handsome face, but he relents under your touch, leaning forward to press one final, firm, breathless kiss to your lips. "Call me the second your seminar ends. I want to have lunch with you. I'll buy you that pastry you like."

"I will," you promise, the word feeling heavy.

You gather your scattered things, slipping into his navy-blue university hoodie that completely swallows your frame. It smells strongly of him: rich, clean, and safe. You slip out of his apartment quietly, the heavy wood door clicking shut behind you with a solid click.

The moment you enter the sterile hallway of his block, the protective warmth of his presence evaporates entirely. It is replaced by the icy, creeping reality of who you are when he isn't around.

You walk briskly down the stairs, pull the heavy hood low over your eyes, step out into the morning air, and cross the wide, bustling quad. You pull the fabric tighter around yourself, feeling entirely like a thief, an imposter who managed to survive another night in a world where she simply doesn't belong. You aren't matching his pace; you are just a ghost wearing his clothes, desperately praying no one notices the difference.

The lecture hall you have found yourself in is grand, old, and suffocatingly prestigious. Wood-panelled walls rise up to high ceilings, and the tiered seating is packed to the brim with students, professors, and esteemed guests. Even the air smells of old paper, leather, and the distinct electricity of competitive intellect.

You sit near the back of the auditorium, your hands shoved deep into the pockets of your jacket, trying to make yourself as small and inconspicuous as possible. You shouldn't even really be here; you have a mountain of reading for your contemporary prose class, but Jungkook had looked at you with those wide, pleading eyes last week, asking if you’d come watch his debate. “I speak better when you’re in the room,” he had told you, entirely earnest.

Down on the stage of the hall, Jungkook is standing behind a heavy mahogany podium. He is dressed in a crisp, tailored black suit, the uniform of the university’s law debate society. He looks terrifyingly striking. His broad shoulders fill out the jacket perfectly, and his hair is neatly styled away from his face. He is currently adjusting his microphone, speaking casually to one of his teammates, completely devoid of the nervous tremors that are currently plaguing every other speaker in the room. He is entirely in his element.

"Is anyone sitting here?"

You blink, jolting slightly out of your thoughts as a girl gestures to the empty seat next to you. She is fashionable, carrying a sleek leather tote bag and a tablet, looking every bit a pristine student.

"No, go ahead," you say softly, offering a polite, small smile.

The girl sits down, smoothing out her skirt, and immediately focuses her gaze down on the stage. She sighs, a dreamy, slightly envious sound. "Thank god I managed to grab a seat. The turnout for these competitions is always insane when it’s the senior tier."

"Yeah, it’s really crowded," you agree, keeping your voice neutral.

The girl turns her head to look at you, her eyes scanning your casual attire, a plain tee paired with an oversized jacket and jeans, a stark contrast to the numerous sharp blazers surrounding you. She tilts her head. "Are you a law first-year? I haven't seen you around the faculty building."

"Oh, no," you say, a familiar tightness squeezing in your chest. "I’m a Literature major. I’m just... visiting."

"Ah, an arts student," she says, her tone perfectly pleasant but carrying that subtle, unvoiced condescension that STEM and law majors always seem to harbour. "What brought you all the way over to this side of campus? Just curious about legal rhetoric?"

You hesitate. You could lie. You could say you were just bored or that you were researching classical speech structures. But a small, stubborn part of you, the part that loves Jungkook and wants to claim the space he so willingly gives you, makes you speak the truth.

"I’m actually here to watch Jungkook," you say, pointing a finger toward the podium where he stands. "I’m his girlfriend."

The girl’s eyes instantly widen. They snap from you down to Jungkook, then back to you, scanning your face with a brand-new, hypercritical intensity. The casual friendliness vanishes, replaced by a look of sheer, unadulterated shock.

"Ohhh," the girl says, the syllable stretching out, heavy and loaded. "So, you’re the golden boy's girlfriend?"

The phrase lands like a physical weight in your lap. The golden boy's girlfriend. Not Y/N. Not a person with her own merits, her own thoughts, her own identity. Just an attachment. An anomaly.

"Yeah," you say, your voice dropping a fraction.

"Wow," she says, a forced, tight laugh escaping her lips as she looks back down at the floor. "Everyone on campus talks about him, you know. He’s practically a myth in the law department. Top of his class, literally won the regional theatre showcase last semester... people joke that he’s a synthetic human created in a lab because nobody can actually be that perfect at everything." She pauses, her eyes lingering on Jungkook as he confidently shuffles his note cards. "You must feel... incredibly lucky."

Lucky. The word feels like plastic in your mouth.

"I am," you whisper.

The debate begins, and the hall falls into a dead silence. When it is Jungkook’s turn to speak, he steps forward with an effortless grace that commands the entire room. His voice rings out through the auditorium: clear, articulate, layered with a brilliant, biting sarcasm that makes the professors nod in approval, and the students chuckle. He navigates complex legal precedents as if he’s recounting a simple childhood story. He doesn't look at his notes once. He looks entirely, utterly flawless.

At one point, during a brief pause while his opponent frantically searches through papers, Jungkook’s eyes sweep across the crowded tiered seating. He searches the back rows, scanning the sea of faces until his gaze lands directly on you. The sharp, intimidating glare of the star debater melts away for a split second, replaced by a tiny, private smile meant only for you. He gives a barely perceptible nod, a silent acknowledgement that he knows you’re there, before turning back to crush his opponent's argument.

The girl next to you lets out a soft, defeated breath. "See? Effortless. He’s just... on a completely different level than the rest of us."

You don't reply. You can't. Your throat feels tightly constricted. As the auditorium erupts into thunderous applause at the conclusion of his speech, you feel yourself shrinking smaller and smaller into your seat. You look down at your hands, rough and stained faintly with ink from your afternoon lectures.

In this grand, wood-panelled room full of brilliant minds and high ambitions, you feel like a ghost. A plain, monochromatic background character accidentally spliced into a vibrant, high-definition movie about a boy who can fly. You love him, god, you love him so much it scares you, but looking at him down there, bathed in the adulation of his peers, the insidious whisper in the back of your mind grows into a deafening roar: You don't belong here. You are holding a star, and eventually, he’s going to realise you’re just a rock.

The evening is supposed to be a celebration. The society booked out a student lounge, which is filled with the warm glow of string lights and the low hum of indie music playing from a mini speaker hooked up to someone's phone. A small group of you are gathered around a low coffee table: you, your friend Leah, Jungkook, and a few of his friends. Some of them you've come to know quite well, Jimin, and Taehyung; others you guess are from his lectures and the society. Jungkook has his arm slung casually over the back of your chair, his fingers occasionally playing with the sleeve of your shirt, his presence a constant, anchoring weight.

"I’m telling you, the judge was practically ready to hand Jungkook his degree right there on the spot," Jimin laughs, leaning back against the worn leather sofa, a plastic cup of cheap cider in his hand. "The other guy looked like he wanted to cry by the third rebuttal."

"He was just unprepared," Jungkook says modestly, though a proud, boyish smile breaks across his face. He bumps his shoulder against yours, leaning down to whisper in your ear. "Did I do okay? Truly?"

"Are you kidding me? You were amazing, Kook," you say, and you mean it. You turn your head to smile at him, forcing the shadows from your eyes. "They had no chance."

He beams, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and he presses a quick, sweet kiss to your cheek, utterly shameless about his affection even in front of his closest friends.

Taehyung snorts from across the table, tossing a peanut at Jungkook. "Get a room, you two. Seriously. A year and what later, and you guys are still acting like you’re in a romance drama. It’s sickening. Let us single people breathe."

Jimin chuckles, shaking his head. "Let them be, Tae. Honestly, we should all be grateful to Y/N. Do you remember what Jungkook was like before he met her? A complete menace. Driving his motorcycle at ungodly hours, staying up all night, smoking a pack a day behind the engineering building because he was stressed out of his mind..."

"Oh, god, the smoking," Taehyung groans, laughing. "He smelled like an old pub twenty-four-seven. And then he meets Y/N, and boom, overnight transformation. The bad boy becomes a model citizen. It’s a miracle he hasn't touched a cigarette since their first official date.”

"It wasn't a miracle," Jungkook says softly, his gaze dropping to look at you, his eyes filled with a raw, intense seriousness that makes your breath catch. "I just realised I wanted to be clean for her. I didn't want her to have to taste ash every time I kissed her. She deserves better than that."

The comment is entirely harmless. It’s meant to be a testament to his love, a beautiful, romantic declaration of how much you mean to him. Jimin and Taehyung let out collective coos, teasing him for being the hopeless romantic that he is.

But inside your head, the words twist. They warp and morph into a grotesque, jagged mirror.

She deserves better than that.

Your stomach drops, a cold, heavy lump of guilt settling deep within your ribs. You remember that night, eighteen months ago, sitting on the steps of the humanities building. You had both been stressed and exhausted, huddled together under his jacket. You had both pulled out a cigarette, lit them, and watched the smoke rise into the crisp night air. And then Jungkook had looked at you and said, "Let’s stop. Together. It’s bad for us, and I want to be better. For you. Let’s make a pact."

You had agreed. You had smiled, kissed him, and thrown your lighter into the trash.

Except you didn't stop.

The laughter of the guys fades into a dull, white noise as the phantom taste of tobacco fills your mouth. You think about the crumpled pack hidden at the very bottom of your makeup bag in your dorm room. You think about the secret, shameful moments on your building's fire escape late at night, your hands shaking as you light it, inhaling the toxic, calming smoke just to keep your racing thoughts from tearing you apart.

Jungkook thinks he changed for you. He thinks he became a better, cleaner version of himself to match the pristine, perfect girl he thinks you are. He has stayed entirely clean for over a year, exercising his iron willpower because his love for you is that pure. And you? You’re a liar. A fraud who couldn't even keep a simple promise, who uses a toxic vice as a crutch because you are too weak to handle the pressure of being loved by him.

"Hey," Jungkook’s voice breaks through your spiral. His hand shifts to rest on your thigh, his thumb rubbing soothing circles through your jeans. "You okay? You look a bit pale."

"Yeah," you force a voice out, your throat dry. "Just... a little tired with all the lectures and that seminar."

"Do you wanna leave?" he asks instantly, completely ready to abandon his friends, his celebration, everything, just because you look a little worn down. "We can go back to my place. I'll make you tea."

"No, no," you say quickly. "Don't be silly. Stay and celebrate. I actually have a couple of library books I need to return before the night drop closes anyway. I'll just head back to my dorm early."

Jungkook frowns, his eyes darkening with immediate reluctance. "I'll walk you."

"Jungkook, stay," you say, your voice carrying a rare, firm edge that surprises him. You soften it immediately with a gentle touch to his cheek. "Please. I'll go with Leah. Hang out with the guys. I’m just going to go straight to bed. I'll call you in the morning, okay?"

He stares at you for a long moment, searching your face for whatever secret you’re keeping, but you force your expression into one of serene exhaustion. Finally, he sighs, leaning forward to press a long, heavy, almost desperate kiss to your lips. "Fine. But text me the exact second you get into your room, or I’m getting a search party."

"I will." You chuckle. He would.

Ten minutes later, you aren't in bed. You are standing on the freezing, rusted metal of your dorm's fourth-floor fire escape, the wind biting through your thin tee; you shouldn’t have left your jacket on your chair. Your hands are trembling violently as you flick a silver lighter, the flame illuminating the dark, empty alleyway below. You press the cigarette to your lips and inhale, the harsh, burning smoke flooding your lungs. It stings, it tastes bitter, and it makes your chest ache with profound, suffocating waves of guilt.

You lean your forehead against the cold metal railing, staring out at the distant lights of Jungkook’s building across the quad. Tears prick the corners of your eyes, hot and angry, as you take another long drag. You are lying to him. You are rotting from the inside out with secrets and self-doubt, while he sits over there, completely, purely, and terribly in love with a girl who doesn't exist.

The university library is supposed to be a sanctuary, but today it feels like a cage. You are surrounded by towers of leather-bound volumes, literary journals, and half-empty cups of lukewarm coffee. Your laptop screen glows blankly back at you, a cruel, flashing cursor mocking your complete inability to string together a single coherent sentence.

Your essay on medieval science fiction is due in forty-eight hours. You have written three paragraphs, and every single one of them reads like absolute garbage. You delete the last sentence for the fourth time, letting out a sharp, frustrated breath that cuts through the dead silence of the humanities floor.

“Come on,” you mutter to yourself, tapping your pen aggressively against the desk. “You’re a lit major. This is the one thing you’re supposed to be good at. Just write the damn analysis.”

But your brain feels entirely blocked, clogged by a thick, suffocating fog of inadequacy. You keep thinking about Jungkook’s perfect legal brief from earlier this week. You keep thinking about how he handles his workload with a calm, systemic efficiency, while you are here, unravelling over a mere two-thousand-word analysis.

"Staring at a blank document won't magically make the words appear, you know."

You flinch, your head snapping up. Standing at the end of your study desk is a girl. She is older, probably a fourth- or fifth-year, dressed in a perfectly tailored tweed blazer and carrying a stack of texts. Her hair is sleek, her makeup flawless, and she carries herself with that distinct, high-class confidence that practically screams that she has her life together. The more you look at her, the more familiar her face becomes.

Oh.

She’s in Jungkook’s year. Serena..? She’s the vice president of the Competitive Debate Society.

"I’m aware," you say, your voice carrying a sharp, defensive edge. You are too tired for polite pleasantries, and your naturally snarky instincts tend to flare up when cornered. "Thanks for the profound psychological insight, though."

Serena doesn't look offended by your bite. Instead, she lets out a soft, elegant chuckle, pulls out the chair opposite you, and sits down without being invited. She sets her heavy law books down with a soft thud. "Don't snap. I’m just offering some sympathy. I see you here all the time, huffing and puffing over those literature books. I’m Serena, by the way. I work with Jungkook in the society."

"I know who you are," you say, closing your laptop slightly, an instinctive gesture to shield your failure from her eyes. "Jungkook mentioned you helped organise the regional tournament."

"Oh, did he?" Serena's eyes flash with a strange, fleeting look of satisfaction before she settles into a warm, patronising smile. She tilts her head, looking at your cluttered desk, the crumpled sticky notes, the highlight-stained pages. "You look completely overwhelmed, sweetie. Are the undergraduate lit modules really that brutal? I always assumed arts degrees were a bit more... flexible."

There it is. The first tiny prick. It’s subtle, buried under a sweet tone and an endearing nickname, but the jab lands perfectly. Arts degrees are flexible. Arts degrees are easy.

"They require a different kind of critical thought," you say smoothly, your eyes narrowing just a fraction. You lean back in your chair, crossing your arms. "We actually have to formulate original arguments instead of just memorising legal codes written by dead white men from the nineteenth century. It can be quite taxing."

Serena's smile tightens for a microsecond before smoothing out into a soft, airy laugh. "Oh, absolutely. I didn't mean to minimise it. It’s just... cute to see how hard you try. You’re always buried in these books, sprinting to catch up. It reminds me of myself when I was a first-year. So young, so inexperienced, just desperate to prove that you belong in a university setting."

"I'm a second year, actually."

"Oh." She reaches across the table, gently patting the back of your hand. Her touch is warm, but it feels like ice against your skin. "Don't stress yourself out to the point of a breakdown, Y/N. Jungkook's a very understanding guy. He knows you operate at a different academic level. He doesn't expect you to match his pace, and that’s perfectly okay."

Your heart hitches in your chest. He doesn't expect you to match his pace.

The words are delivered under the guise of elder-student comfort, a senior reassuring a stressed junior, but they carry a terrifyingly potent poison. Serena is stating out loud the exact nightmare that keeps you awake at night. She is confirming your deepest, darkest fear: that everyone looks at you and Jungkook and sees a brilliant, mature man babysitting a struggling, inferior child.

You pull your hand away from her touch, your fingers curling into tight fists under the table. Your defensive snark dries up in your throat, replaced by a sudden, choking wave of panic.

"I have to get back to work," you say, your voice dropping into a flat, cold register.

"Of course," Serena says easily, standing up and gathering her books. She offers you one last, beautiful but destructive smile. "Good luck with your little essay, Y/N. And tell Jungkook I'll see him at the mixer tonight, okay? Don't forget to take a breath."

She walks away, her heels clicking softly on the library's linoleum floor. You sit entirely frozen in your chair, staring at the blank laptop screen. You picked up on the bite in her words; you aren't stupid. You know she was throwing passive-aggressive shade. But instead of dismissing it as the petty jealousy of a rival student, you can't help but let the words sink into your skin. You don't dig into it immediately; you don't want to admit that she got to you. But as you open your laptop again and stare at the blinking cursor, Serena's voice echoes in your head, loud and clear, drowning out every original thought you had left: He doesn't expect you to match his pace.

The university’s Arts and Culture Alliance mixer is held in a historic courtyard on campus, illuminated by heavy iron lanterns and the warm glow of string lights woven through old ivy. It’s a joint gathering between a few departments and societies, an attempt to foster interdisciplinary collaboration. The air is alive with the chatter of students, the clinking of glasses filled with cheap wine, and the soft strains of a student jazz quartet playing in the corner.

For the first hour, everything is wonderful. Jungkook is by your side, his hand firmly locked with yours, completely ignoring the various law professors and senior debaters who keep trying to pull him into serious conversations. He is completely, utterly focused on you.

"Look at this," he whispers, leaning down to show you a small, terribly drawn caricature of his constitutional law professor he had sketched on a napkin while someone was giving an opening toast. "If I fail my finals, I’m joining the fine arts department. What do you think?"

You let out a genuine, bright laugh, the tension in your shoulders melting away. "It’s terrible, Kook. Truly. Please stick to the law. For the sake of visual arts everywhere."

"Harsh," he pouts, wrinkling his nose in that sweet way that completely contradicts his intimidating campus reputation. He wraps his arms around your waist from behind, resting his chin on your shoulder, entirely unbothered by the hundreds of people around them. "But I'll do whatever you say. You’re the boss."

You turn your head to kiss his cheek, a warm, fluttering feeling blooming in your chest. In moments like this, when his warmth is physical, and his laughter is loud in your ear, the doubts feel small. They feel like distant shadows.

"Jeon!"

The loud, commanding voice breaks your bubble. A senior professor from the Faculty of Law, a notoriously stern man who rarely speaks to undergraduates, is standing a few yards away, gesturing sharply for Jungkook to come over. Next to him stands a prominent local judge who had acted as an alumnus guest for the debate tournament.

Jungkook sighs, his grip on your waist loosening with visible reluctance. He looks down at you, his eyes filled with an apologetic, frustrated expression. "I’m sorry, sweetheart. Professor Kang has been trying to corner me all week about an internship placement. I need to quickly greet the judge. Will you be okay for five minutes?"

"Of course," you say, offering a reassuring smile. "Go. It’s important. I'll just grab another cider and wait by the fountain."

"I'll be right back. Five minutes, I promise," he says, pressing a quick, firm kiss to your lips before turning and walking away, his posture instantly shifting into that confident, professional demeanour as he approaches the elders.

You watch him go, your smile slowly fading as the cold night air fills the space he left behind. You walk over to the refreshment table, pouring yourself a plastic cup of cider, feeling suddenly very exposed without his large frame shielding you from the crowd.

"Left all alone so soon?"

You don't even need to turn around to know who it is. The voice is smooth, sweet, and entirely toxic.

Serena steps up beside you, holding a glass of white wine. She is dressed in an elegant silk blouse that perfectly matches the sophisticated atmosphere of the faculty guests. She looks down at your casual denim jacket, her expression one of gentle, masking pity.

"He’s just networking," you say, keeping your voice steady as you take a sip of your drink. "It’s part of his career."

"Oh, I know," Serena says, leaning against the table, her eyes tracking Jungkook across the courtyard. He is currently bowing politely to the judge, speaking with an elegant, mature eloquence that has both older men smiling in deep approval. "Jungkook’s a natural. He fits into that world seamlessly. It’s just a shame he has to constantly worry about leaving you behind in the corners while he does it."

Your grip tightens around the plastic cup, the plastic crinkling slightly under your fingers. "He doesn't worry about that."

"Are you sure?" Serena turns her head to look at you, her eyes sharp and predatory beneath her soft makeup. "Because from where I’m standing, it looks exhausting. He has to balance a high-profile academic career, a massive future in the legal field, and a girlfriend who looks like a lost freshman every time he steps away for five minutes."

She takes a slow sip of her wine, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial, whisper-soft tone that makes it sound like she’s sharing a painful truth for your own good. "Don't get me wrong, Y/N. It’s sweet that he loves you. But look at him over there. He belongs with the best. He needs someone who can stand beside him at these dinners, someone who can converse with judges and partners, someone who understands the weight of his world. Instead, he spends half his time checking his phone to make sure you aren't having an anxiety attack in the library. It’s... a bit of a burden, don't you think? You’re keeping him tethered to the ground when he could be soaring. I’m not saying it’s your fault or anything, but you do want what’s best for him… right?"

The words hit you like a series of physical blows to the chest. A burden. Keeping him tethered to the ground.

Your breath stutters. You want to snap back, you want to use the sharp, biting literature-major wit that usually protects you, but the terrifying truth is that her words align too perfectly with what you've been thinking this whole time. She isn't planting a new seed anymore; she’s watering a plant that has been growing in the dark corners of your mind for eighteen months.

Before you can force a response, a heavy, warm hand settles on the small of your back.

"Sorry I took so long," Jungkook’s voice cuts through the freezing air. He steps into your space, his presence an immediate shield. He nods politely to Serena, his tone completely professional but distinctly cool. "Serena. I didn't know you were over here."

"Just keeping your lovely girlfriend company," she says, her toxic edge vanishing instantly, replaced by a bright, friendly colleague smile. "We were just talking about how wonderful your debate performance was. I mean, it’s you, you’re always amazing.” He shyly chuckles at this, “Anyway, I should go greet Professor Lewis. See you both around."

She glides away, disappearing into the crowd of law students.

Jungkook immediately turns all his attention back to you, his hands coming up to cradle your face, his brows furrowed with deep concern. "Hey. Are you okay? Your hands are freezing, and you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Did something happen? Did she say something to you?"

"No," you lie, your voice sounding small, distant, and hollow even to your own ears. You force a bright, synthetic smile onto your face, looking up at his perfect features. "No, she was just being nice. I’m just... the cold is hitting me, that’s all."

Jungkook doesn't look entirely convinced, his dark eyes searching yours with that desperate, analytical intensity, but he accepts the excuse, pulling you tightly against his chest, wrapping his coat around your shoulders. "Let’s go home. Forget the mixer. I’ve had enough of these people anyway. Let’s just go back to my place and lock the door."

You bury your face in his chest, nodding silently. He holds you so tightly, so sweetly, but as you walk out of the courtyard with his arm securely around your waist, you can't shake the freezing, terrifying chill in your bones. You look at his profile in the moonlight, and all you can think is: She’s right. I’m an anchor dragging him down. I’m the burden.

The rain taps a steady, rhythmic cadence against the glass of Jungkook’s bedroom window, blurring the green leaves of the campus trees into watercolour streaks of grey and emerald. Inside, the room is warm, smelling faintly of the cinnamon pastries he had sprinted out in the drizzle to buy you, and the rich, dark aroma of fresh espresso.

You are sitting at his wide oak desk, surrounded by your library books and your heavily annotated copy of Beowulf. Jungkook is sitting on the floor right beside your chair, his long legs stretched out, his back resting against the table leg. He has one hand resting casually on your thigh, his large thumb moving in slow, absentminded strokes over the denim of your jeans as he reads through a massive casebook on property law.

It’s a perfectly domestic afternoon. The kind of effortlessness that used to make your chest ache with pure happiness.

"Hey," Jungkook murmurs, not lifting his eyes from his text. His thumb continues its soothing, rhythmic sweep. "You haven't touched your pastry. It’s gonna get cold."

"I’m just reading, Kook," you say softly, keeping your eyes glued to a paragraph you've re-read three times but still have no idea what it says. "I'll eat it in a minute."

"Mhmm." He lets out a low, rumbling sound of agreement, but a moment later, he closes his heavy textbook with a soft thud. He shifts his weight, rising to his knees so he is suddenly level with you. Before you can blink, his large hands settle on your waist, and with that effortless, terrifying strength you love so much, he lifts you slightly and pulls you right out of the chair and down into his lap on the floor.

You let out a small, startled gasp, your books tumbling slightly onto the desk. "Jungkook!"

He just laughs, a bright sound that echoes warmly against your neck as he wraps his arms tightly around your waist from behind, locking you against his broad chest. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply, his lips brushing against your skin as he speaks. "You’ve been staring at that monster book for three hours straight. Look at me instead. I’ve been missing you."

"Jungkook, you're literally sitting right next to me," you giggle, though the sound no longer rings entirely true. It feels a bit hollow, a bit forced.

Inside your chest, the ghost of Serena's words from the mixer is clawing at your lungs. “He spends half his time checking his phone to make sure you aren't having an anxiety attack... You’re keeping him tethered to the ground.”

Jungkook leans forward, pressing a warm, lingering kiss right beneath your ear, his hands sliding up to cover yours, intertwining his long fingers with your smaller ones. "Doesn't matter. If you aren't looking at me, you're too far away." He squeezes your hands, his voice dropping into a soft, reflective register. "You know, sometimes I look at you sitting here in my room, and I think about how lucky I got. I wasted a whole year before I finally found my track and came to this university. If I hadn't taken that gap year, I wouldn't be here with you. The universe actually did something right for once."

He means it as a beautiful, romantic sentiment, a declaration that the timeline of his life aligned perfectly just to give him you.

But your brain, poisoned and hyper-vigilant, takes the beautiful sentiment and warps it into an ugly weapon.

Two years, the voice whispers. He’s two years older than you. That’s two extra years of maturity, of life experience, of academic dominance over you. He is a man who knows exactly who he is, and you are a shaking, insecure second year who can't even handle a single mixer without wanting to run away and smoke.

A sudden, suffocating wave of claustrophobia hits you. The warmth of his chest against your back suddenly feels less like a sanctuary and more like a beautifully constructed cage. The weight of his arms around your waist feels heavy, heavy with the burden you are convinced you are forcing him to carry.

Jungkook breathes out a soft sigh, leaning down to capture your lips in a slow, sweet kiss. His lips are warm, soft, and taste faintly of the espresso he drank. It’s a kiss that demands nothing and offers everything.

But for the first time in eighteen months, you don't kiss him back with the same intensity. Your lips remain slightly stiff under his.

And then, you do it. You plant the very first seed of the distance that will eventually tear him apart.

You gently but firmly place your hands against his forearms, breaking the embrace. You slide off his lap, shifting back onto the hard hardwood floor, creating a deliberate foot of empty space between your bodies.

Jungkook blinks, his dark eyes widening in immediate, subtle surprise. His arms hover in the empty air for a split second before dropping to his thighs. "Y/N?"

"Sorry," you force a light, breezy tone out of your throat, avoiding his gaze by reaching up to shuffle the papers on the desk. "My... my leg was falling asleep. And I really need to finish this section before the library closes its digital archives for maintenance at four."

"Oh," Jungkook says softly. The word is tiny, carrying a faint, barely perceptible note of confusion and rejection. He looks at your profile, his sharp, analytical mind trying to calculate the sudden shift in your energy, but you keep your expression entirely neutral, buried in your notes. Finally, he offers a small, understanding smile and gently pats your knee. "Right. Sorry. Go ahead. I'll let you focus."

He pulls his casebook back toward himself, but he doesn't open it immediately. He sits quietly for a long moment, staring at his hands, a tiny, faint crease appearing between his brows.

Later that afternoon, after you have gathered your things and, despite his fierce protests, insist on walking back to your dorm alone because you "need the fresh air to clear your head," your phone buzzes four times in your pocket.

You pull it out as you cross the rainy quad.

Jungkook [15:42]: Text me the second you get to your room, sweetheart. Jungkook [15:42]: Miss you already :( Jungkook [15:43]: Eat the pastry I packed in your bag Jungkook [14:44]: Love you

Usually, you would reply instantly, sending a flurry of hearts and sweet messages back. But today, you stare at the glowing screen, Serena's voice ringing like tinnitus in your ears: “a burden.”

Your thumb hovers over the keyboard. Your chest aches with a dull, throbbing agony. Slowly, deliberately, you press the lock button on the side of your phone, darkening the screen. You slide it deep into your pocket, leaving the notification unanswered, letting the silence begin its quiet, violent work.

The go-to campus fried chicken place is loud, greasy, and packed with students seeking a reprieve from the weekend midterms. You sit at a long wooden table in the corner, surrounded by a large group. It’s a rare, massive gathering, you, your two closest friends from the Literature faculty, Jungkook, Taehyung, Jimin, and, unfortunately, Serena, who had tagged along with Taehyung after a student council meeting.

The atmosphere is boisterous. Plates of spicy chicken and pitchers of draft beer cover the table. Jungkook is sitting next to you, his thigh pressed firmly against yours under the table, his hand occasionally dropping to squeeze your knee. He is currently engaged in a loud, passionate debate with Taehyung about a soccer match, his laughter booming across the table.

You try to participate, but your energy is entirely drained. You sit quietly, picking at a piece of radish, your eyes drifting across the table.

That’s when you notice it.

Serena is sitting diagonally from Jungkook. She isn't eating. She is leaning her chin on her palm, her eyes completely fixed on Jungkook’s face. She tracks every movement of his lips, every toss of his head when he laughs, her gaze filled with a quiet, intense longing that is impossible to mistake. It’s a look of profound, massive infatuation.

You feel a strange, dull ache in your chest. You don't feel immediate anger or jealousy; you just feel a profound sense of exhaustion. You look at her, brilliant, beautiful, sitting comfortably in Jungkook’s social circle, and then you look at yourself, hiding in his shadow.

A few minutes later, Jungkook stands up, excused by Jimin to go line up at the counter for another pitcher of beer. Taehyung accompanies him, leaving the rest of the table chatty. Your two literature friends get pulled into a deep conversation with Jimin about an upcoming campus festival, effectively isolating you and Serena on one side of the table.

Serena shifts, leaning closer to you over the restaurant's noisy chatter. She looks at your quiet demeanour, a small, knowing smile playing on her lips.

"You're very quiet tonight, Y/N," she says softly, her voice carrying that smooth, comforting older-sister cadence she always uses when she’s about to drop poison. "Still stressed about those essays?"

"Just tired," you say flatly, keeping your eyes on your cup.

She sighs, a soft, sympathetic sound. She looks over at the counter where Jungkook is standing, his broad back to the room, laughing as he ribs Taehyung. "It must be hard. Maintaining a relationship with someone like him when you’re dealing with your own insecurities."

You flinch slightly, your eyes snapping up to meet hers. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, don't be defensive," Serena says smoothly, waving her hand dismissively. "I’m actually just feeling a bit sorry for you. I know how it feels. I had a boyfriend exactly like Jungkook during my first year. Brilliant, popular, excelled at everything. He was my first serious boyfriend, too, just like Jungkook is yours, right?"

You don't answer, but the silence confirms it.

"Yeah, I thought so," she murmurs, her eyes darkening with a faux-nostalgic sadness. "Let me tell you a story, Y/N. From someone who has been exactly where you are. I used to think that as long as we loved each other, everything was fine. But the truth is... men are men at the end of the day. Especially guys like Jungkook. They have... needs. Physical needs, emotional needs, a need for a partner who, you know, can match their intensity. And when they’re with someone who’s constantly stressed, inexperienced, and hiding away... those needs get suppressed. They don't go anywhere; they just get bottled up."

She leans closer, her voice dropping into a sharp, venomous whisper that slices through the restaurant's loud music. "My ex used to act perfectly sweet to my face, just like Jungkook does. But behind closed doors? When he was out with his guy friends, drinking and letting off steam? He would complain constantly. He’d vent about how suffocated he felt, how he felt like he was babysitting an insecure little girl instead of having a real girlfriend, how he felt tied down by my guilt. It broke my heart, but it was the truth. High-achieving men will always resent the anchors that keep them from flying."

She tilts her head, her eyes boring into your pale face. "Look at him, Y/N. He’s twenty-three, a law star, a literal god on this campus. Do you honestly think he doesn't vent to Taehyung or Jimin when you shut down and fake being tired? Do you honestly believe he doesn't feel the weight of you? He’s just too polite, too loyal to say it to your face. But it’s rotting him from the inside out."

She doesn't stop there. "And I mean, you also deserve someone on your level. Think about how freeing it will be when you don't have to constantly catch up to someone."

The restaurant around you completely vanishes. The laughter, the clinking glasses, the smell of food, all of it dissolves into a cold, endless void. Serena's words wrap around your throat like a chokehold.

He complains about you to his friends. He feels suffocated. He feels tied down by your guilt.

Your chest heaves, a sudden, violent wave of nausea hitting you. You look over at the counter. Jungkook is walking back, holding a pitcher of beer, a massive, bright smile lighting up his face the moment his eyes find yours. He looks so pure, so incredibly perfect. But as he sits down beside you, his warm hand instantly finding your thigh, Serena's words echo like a death knell in your mind.

He’s just too polite to say it to your face.

You pull away from his touch just an inch, a subtle movement under the table, your entire body trembling with a sudden, catastrophic influx of self-doubt. You cannot help but overthink. Every laugh he shared with Taehyung tonight, every private whisper with Jimin, did it involve your failure? Were they pitying him? You look down at your lap, completely consumed by the quiet, violent rot of your own mind.

The silence of Jungkook’s apartment is thick, heavy, and dark. The only illumination comes from the faint amber glow of the city lights filtering through the large window, casting long, dramatic shadows across the hardwood floor.

You are sitting on the edge of his bed, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. Jungkook is standing directly in front of you. He has already discarded his jacket and blazer; his white button-down shirt is half-unbuttoned, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing the intricate ink sprawling up his right arm.

He steps closer, his large hands coming up to gently cup your cheeks. His gaze is intense, dark, and heavy with a year and a half of unyielding devotion. "You’ve been so quiet all night," he whispers, his thumb tracing the sharp line of your cheekbone. "Talk to me. What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?"

"Nothing," you whisper, the lie tasting like ash on your tongue. "Just... tired."

"Let me fix it," he murmurs, his voice dropping into a low, breathless register. He leans down, his lips capturing yours in a kiss that is completely different from his usual gentle morning greetings. This is the kiss of a man who is deeply, passionately in love, intense, hungry, and heavily possessive.

He slides his hands from your face down to your shoulders, pushing the denim jacket off your arms until it drops to the floor. His lips leave yours, tracing a burning path down the column of your neck, his breath hot against your skin. His large hands slide down to your waist, his grip tightening, pulling your body flush against his until there is absolutely no space left between you.

It’s how you usually make out, intense, passionate, a private language built over several months. His hands slide under the hem of your shirt, his fingers warm against the bare skin of your waist, his kisses becoming deeper, more desperate, as if he is trying to physically pull you into his soul to keep you from drifting away.

He loves you. You know he loves you. You want to match him- god, you want to melt into him and forget the entire world.

But suddenly, Serena's phantom voice explodes in your mind.

“Men have needs. You’re inexperienced. He complains about how suffocated he feels. You’re an anchor.”

The words flash like neon lights behind your closed eyelids. You freeze. Your hands, which had been tangled in the fabric of his shirt, go completely rigid. A sudden, terrifying wave of inadequacy floods your veins. You look at Jungkook, so beautiful, so experienced, so effortlessly perfect, and you look at yourself, a broken, trembling mess of secrets and lies. You feel entirely inadequate, a plain background character trying to play a role she isn't qualified for. If you give in, if you try to meet his needs, you’ll just fail. You’ll be awkward, clumsy, and a disappointment. He deserves a woman, not a struggling, insecure girl.

You panic.

You place your palms flat against his chest and push. It’s a sudden, frantic movement.

Jungkook jolts, his body resisting for a fraction of a second because his grip around your waist is so naturally strong, but the moment he registers your resistance, he instantly pulls back. He steps away, his chest heaving, his lips flushed red, his dark eyes wide with immediate confusion and alarm.

"Y/N?" his voice is breathless, slightly raspy. "What’s wrong? Did I... did I hurt you?"

"No," you choke out, wrapping your arms tightly around your own torso, shielding yourself from his gaze. You can't look him in the eye. The guilt is suffocating. "No, you didn't do anything wrong. I’m just... I’m just really tired, Jungkook. My head hurts. I can't tonight."

It’s a blatant, terrible fake. Your voice is shaking, and your eyes are wild with unshed tears.

Jungkook stares at you for a long, agonising moment. You wait for the flash of hurt, frustration, annoyance, anger, even. But it doesn't come. Instead, you're met with overwhelming sweetness. The alarm in his eyes melts into a look of profound, gentle care. And for some reason you can't put into words, that hurts more.

"Hey," he says softly, stepping back to the edge of the bed and sitting down beside you. He doesn't try to touch your waist again; instead, he gently reaches out and captures your hand, his large fingers intertwining with yours, squeezing softly. "Don't look like that. You don't ever have to apologise. You don't owe me anything, Y/N."

He leans over, pressing a soft, lingering, profoundly sweet kiss to your temple. "Don't worry about it, okay? Come here."

He shifts, pulling the heavy duvet back and guiding your body down until you are lying against his chest. He wraps his strong arms around you, pulling you securely into his warmth, his chin resting on the top of your head. He reaches over to grab the remote, turning on a random movie at a low volume, his hand coming down to stroke your hair in a slow, rhythmic, soothing pattern.

He is being perfect. He is being the most understanding, loving, incredible boyfriend anyone could ask for.

And it makes you feel a hundred times worse.

As you lie there against the steady, calm heartbeat in his chest, staring blankly at the television screen, tears fill your eyes, but you will not let them fall. You can't burden him with this, too.

Every sweet stroke of his hand through your hair feels like a hot iron against your skin. You are a parasite. You are starving him of the intimacy he deserves, forcing him to suppress his needs because you are too broken to handle his love. The overthinking morphs into a monstrous, absolute certainty: He is going to leave you. And he should.

The humanities square is bathed in the harsh, blinding sunlight of a Tuesday afternoon, but your world has gone entirely grey.

You are walking back from a meeting with your academic advisor, a meeting where she gently informed you that your latest essay draft lacked its usual depth, a polite way of saying you were failing to meet your potential. Your fingers are shoved deep into your pockets, your head low, your throat burning with the desperate craving for a cigarette.

You turn the corner by the law faculty building, intending to take the long cut back to your dorm, when your boots freeze against the concrete.

There, on the wide stone steps of the law school, are Jungkook and Serena.

They are standing close together under the shade of a large oak tree. Serena is holding a folder of debate briefs, pointing to something on a page, her face bright and animated. Jungkook is looking down at the paper, a wide, genuine, beautiful laugh breaking across his face. He says something, tossing his head back, and Serena joins in the laughter, her hand lightly, casually touching his forearm for a brief, familiar second.

They look perfect. They look like a matching set. Two star students, two impeccable minds, standing together in the sunlight where they belong.

The sight hits you like a physical car crash. Every single word Serena had ever whispered to you: “He complains about you... he feels suffocated... he belongs with the elite” just solidifies into a concrete, absolute reality. Your brain goes into a catastrophic, violent overdrive of overthinking. You don't see a boyfriend sharing a casual academic laugh with a colleague; you see a man finding the joy, the intellect, and the compatibility that you have been starving him of for months. You see the inevitable future unfolding right in front of your eyes.

A sudden, violent wave of panic claws at your throat. You stumble backwards, turning on your heel, and sprint away before they can look up and see you standing there like a pathetic ghost.

The next five days are an agonising blur of isolation and self-destruction.

The panic inside you grows into a living, breathing monster. You begin to actively, systematically distance yourself from Jungkook. When he texts you in the morning, you wait three hours to reply, claiming you are trapped in a mandatory library workshop. When he shows up outside your lecture hall, you slip out through the back fire exit and hide in the basement bathrooms until his tall frame disappears from the square. You invent a never-ending cycle of group projects, late-night research seminars, and sudden academic emergencies just to avoid being in his presence. You push him away with a frantic, desperate intensity, convinced that if you don't cut the cord yourself, the pain of him doing it will kill you.

And your coping mechanism escalates.

The crumpled packs of cigarettes are no longer enough to numb the roaring, deafening noise of your inferiority complex. The simple tobacco doesn't quiet the thoughts anymore. You slip out to a shady alleyway behind the off-campus convenience store, purchasing a small plastic bag of joints from a computer science senior who smuggles them in.

Every night, when the clock strikes twelve, you lock yourself on the high fire escape of your building. Your hands shake to the point where you can barely spark the lighter. You press the rolled joint to your lips and inhale deeply, the heavy, pungent smoke filling your lungs, dragging the THC into your bloodstream. You smoke until your eyes burn red, until your chest feels like it’s on fire, until your brain finally, mercifully goes completely numb, allowing you to slump against the cold brick wall and forget, for just an hour, that you are the worst thing to ever happen to Jeon Jungkook.

From the moment the clock strikes midnight on the seventh day of the silence, the world shifts into a stark, cold reality. Jungkook stares at his phone screen, the bright light illuminating the deep circles beneath his eyes.

He is sitting on the floor of his living room, his back against the sofa, surrounded by legal briefs he hasn't read in days. His hair is unwashed, messy, falling into his eyes, and his crisp white shirt is wrinkled and unbuttoned. He looks entirely unravelled. The star law student, the golden boy of the university, has completely vanished, replaced by a man who looks as though he is physically starving.

He scrolls through the text thread.

“Still at the library, Kook. Group project is running late. Don't wait up.” “Got a big seminar tomorrow, going to sleep early. See you.” “Too much reading to do today, sorry. Have lunch without me.”

Cold, polite, distant sentences. For a week, you have been a ghost. He has shown up at your faculty building, stood outside your lecture halls, called your phone until his battery died, only to be met with a brick wall of vague excuses.

Jungkook lets out a ragged, shallow breath, his chest tightening until it feels like his ribs are going to crack. A terrifying, clawing panic has been living in his throat for seven days. He doesn't understand. He has spent every second of the last week replaying every moment of the last year and a half in his head, going over what he did wrong. Did he push too hard during that last kiss? Did he make you feel uncomfortable? Did he say something to you that he can't remember? Did someone else say something? Did someone hurt you? Are you bored with him? Do you not love him anymore?

The thoughts are torture. To Jungkook, you aren't just a girlfriend; you're his anchor. The quiet, beautiful sanctuary he runs to when the pressure of being "perfect" for the rest of the world threatens to crush him. You are the only person who looks at him and sees Jungkook, not the golden boy. And now you are drifting away, pulling up the anchor, leaving him to drown in a stormy, empty ocean.

"I can't do this anymore," he whispers to the empty room, his voice cracking, thick with an unshed, agonising grief.

He stands up, his movements sudden, frantic, and entirely desperate. He doesn't grab a coat, he doesn't care that it’s raining outside, he doesn't care that it’s nearly one in the morning. He grabs his keys and storms out of his dorm, his heart hammering a violent, terrifying rhythm against his ribs. He is going to you. He is going to force his way into your space. He doesn't care if you hate him for it. He cannot survive another hour of this silence.

The heavy door of your dorm room doesn't just rattle; it shakes on its hinges under the force of the sudden, aggressive pounding.

You bolt upright on your small bed, your heart leaping into your throat. You are wrapped in a faded blanket, your eyes heavy and dilated from the joint you finished just twenty minutes ago, the room still faintly smelling of a heavy, herbal sweetness you tried to clear by cracking the window.

"Y/N! Open the door!"

The voice through the wood is a raw, ragged shout. It’s Jungkook. But it doesn't sound like him; it sounds like a man who is being torn apart alive.

Before you can even move, the handle rattles violently, and because the cheap dorm lock tends to slip under enough pressure (and you always forget to add that additional lock Jungkook talks about), the door bursts inward with a loud, echoing slam.

Jungkook stumbles into your room.

You gasp, backing up against your headboard, your eyes widening. He looks entirely unravelled. His clothes are damp from the rain; his dark hair plastered to his forehead. His face is pale, his lips are trembling, and his eyes are violently bloodshot, wide with a frantic, wild look that terrifies you. His breath comes in short, shallow, ragged gasps, his broad chest heaving as if he had run a marathon just to reach your door. He looks physically, visibly terrified.

"J-Jungkook?" your voice cracks, small and trembling.

He slams the door shut behind him and closes the distance between you in two massive strides. He drops to his knees right at the edge of your mattress, his large hands reaching out to grab your hands with a grip that is unyielding, desperate, and trembling violently.

"Please, Y/N. Why are you doing this to me?" he cries out, the sound a raw, agonising sob that tears from his throat. Tears are streaming openly down his face, hot and rapid, carving tracks through the dampness of his skin. He drops his head to rest on his hands, which are enveloping yours. "What did I do? Please, Y/N, tell me what I did wrong! Did I hurt you? Am I not enough? D-do you... Do you not love me anymore? Are you breaking up with me?"

His voice cracks on the last few words, a pathetic, broken sound. He is begging. The perfect boy everyone loves is on his knees at your feet, completely shattered, weeping like a child because he thinks he has lost you.

"No, Jungkook, no-" you try to speak, your own tears spilling over instantly, but your voice is choked by the sheer, overwhelming weight of the scene.

Jungkook lifts his head, his wild, frantic eyes scan your face, searching for answers, but as he pulls closer, his head jerks to the side. His gaze lands directly on your small bedside table.

There, sitting out in the open, is a heavy ceramic ashtray. It is packed to the brim with crumpled cigarette butts and the unmistakable, charred remains of two half-smoked joints.

The room is silent save for his shallow, ragged breathing. Jungkook freezes. The world seems to stop spinning. He stares at the ashtray for a long, painful five seconds, his expression shifting from terror into a look of profound, absolute confusion and betrayal.

He slowly lifts his eyes back to yours, his voice dropping into a hollow, trembling whisper. "What... what is that?"

You can't breathe. The guilt collapses on top of you like a fallen building. "Jungkook..."

"You said you quit," he whispers, a fresh wave of tears spilling from his bloodshot eyes. He lets go of your hands, rocking back to rest on his heels, placing a little distance between the two of you. His hands shake as he gestures to the ashtray. "We made a pact that night. I stayed clean because... because I wanted to be better for you. And you’ve been... you’ve been hiding this? You’ve been smoking this entire time? Behind my back? Lying to me?"

"I’m sorry," you sob, going to reach for him, to ground yourself. "I’m sorry, Jungkook, I’m so sorry-"

"Why?!" he suddenly screams. It’s a loud, messy roar that bounces off the small concrete walls of your room. He stands up, pacing back and forth like a caged animal, his hands gripping his hair. "Why would you lie to me about this? Why did you shut me out for a whole week because of this? You think I care about the cigarettes? I don’t.” He pauses. “Do you know what I’ve been thinking for seven days? I thought you hated me! I thought I did something terrible to you! I’ve been losing my fucking mind!"

The dam inside you finally, catastrophically breaks. The months of suppressed agony, the poison whispered by Serena, the choking weight of your own inferiority complex, all of it explodes out of your throat in a raw, defensive scream.

"Because I’m a burden to you, Jungkook!" you shriek, standing up on the bed, looking down at him with a face distorted by tears and raw, ugly agony. "I hide it because I’m drowning! I smoke because it’s the only thing that stops my brain from screaming at me about how much I don't deserve you! Look at you! You’re perfect! You excel at everything: law, sports, music, theatre. Everyone on this campus looks at you like a god! And look at me! I’m a plain, failing literature major who can't even string a coherent essay together without having a panic attack!"

Jungkook stops pacing, his hands dropping to his sides, his eyes wide with utter shock as he stares at you.

"I’m dragging you down!" you scream, the words tearing your throat raw. "You spend half your time babysitting my insecurities, checking your phone to make sure your pathetic girlfriend hasn't collapsed in a corner, when you should be soaring! You have physical needs, emotional needs, a life that belongs at the top, and I’m keeping them suppressed because I’m too inexperienced, too broken, too much of a little girl to match your pace! You’re just too polite and too loyal to admit it to my face, but you must be so suffocated! You probably vent to Taehyung and Jimin about how tied down you feel by my guilt! You should just be with someone on your level! You should just be with Serena! She matches you! She belongs in your world! I don't!"

The room goes dead, terrifyingly silent. Your breathing is a harsh, ragged wheeze, your chest heaving, your face soaked in tears as you stand there, entirely exposed, having finally laid bare the entire ugly, rotting interior of your soul.

Jungkook doesn't speak. For a few seconds, which feels like hours, he just stands there. His face goes completely blank, his eyes darkening into an expression of sheer, unadulterated, dangerous snap.

He snaps.

In a fraction of a second, he closes the distance. He reaches up, his large, incredibly strong hands wrapping around your waist, and physically rips you off the mattress, slamming your back against the hard concrete wall of the dorm room.

You let out a sharp gasp, but before the air can even leave your lungs, Jungkook crashes his mouth down onto yours.

It is not a sweet kiss. It is a violent, breathless, completely desperate collision. He kisses you with an intense, terrifying fury, his lips crushing yours until you can barely breathe. It is a kiss meant to completely obliterate your words, to silence the catastrophic doubts in your head by sheer physical force. You try to push him away, your hands coming up to hit his shoulders, but Jungkook is too strong, his broad chest pressing firmly against yours, pinning you to the wall, his arms locking around you like iron bands. He consumes you, tasting like rain and raw passion, refusing to let you go until your resistance melts away and you are forced to cling to his neck just to stay upright.

He pulls back just a millimetre, his forehead resting against yours, his breath coming in hot, ragged gasps against your lips. His grip on your waist is so tight it almost bruises.

"Don't you dare," he whispers, his voice a low, terrifyingly angry register that vibrates against your teeth. "Don't you ever say that to me again. I am so fucking angry at you right now, Y/N. I’m furious."

Tears are still spilling from his eyes, burning against your skin. "You let some petty bitch like Serena plant those disgusting lies in your head? You listened to her instead of looking at me? You honestly thought I was complaining about you? You thought I wanted perfection?!"

His voice breaks, the anger instantly melting away, replaced by a profound intimacy that rolls between your bodies like a wave. His grip on your waist softens, his large hands shifting to cup your face with a tenderness that makes your heart ache.

"I don't give a shit about the law faculty," he chokes out, his thumbs wiping the fresh tears from your cheeks. "I don't give a shit about the professors, or the judges, or being perfect. Do you want to know why I try so hard at everything, Y/N? Do you want to know why I sprint through my life? Because I am so terrified that I’m not enough for you. Because you are the most brilliant, beautiful soul I have ever met. Every time you talk about literature, every time you look at the world with those kind eyes, I feel like a stupid, clumsy caveman trying to understand a star. I don't want someone on my level. I want you."

He lets out a long, broken sob, and suddenly, his strength leaves him.

Jungkook falls to his knees.

He slides down your body until he is kneeling on the cold floor at your feet. He wraps his long, strong arms tightly around your waist, burying his face completely into the soft fabric of your sweater at your stomach. He clings to you as if he were a shipwrecked sailor holding onto the last piece of timber in a storm. His entire frame shudders with violent, heavy sobs.

"Please," he begs, his voice cracking, entirely muffled against your stomach, sounding small, raw, and utterly desperate. "Please, Y/N... never cut me off like that again. Don't ever hide from me. If you’re drowning, let me drown with you. If you need to smoke, let me hold the lighter for you. Just don't shut the door on me. I can't survive a world where I can't see you."

He holds your waist tighter, his face burying deeper into your skin. "All you have to do is talk to me when times get tough. I don't want perfection. I don't want a trophy girlfriend. I just want my Y/N. I just want you."

You stand there, frozen against the wall, looking down at the back of his dark, damp hair, his broad shoulders shaking with his love for you. The toxic, jagged mirror Serena had built shatters into a million harmless pieces, dissolved by the raw, unyielding reality of his obsession. You slowly slide down the wall so you're directly in front of him. You bring your hands up to cup his face. You wipe a few of the tears from his cheeks and lean into him. He immediately accepts you, wrapping his own arms around you, one holding your head to him, the other around your lower back. He holds you tight. Like he's scared to let go.

"We do this together." He mumbles into your hair. "Okay?" He whispers.

You nod. Lifting your head to meet him with another kiss. One that speaks far more than words ever could.

╰› part 2: 'holding the finish line'

╰› very mini part 3 drabble: <here>

“I wasn’t aware that hypocrisy counted as truth,” she replied without turning.

“Ah, so you were listening.”

She stopped. Slowly turned. He stood a few paces behind, one brow raised, arms folded leisurely across his broad chest. Even lounging, the Duke of Aelridge looked like he was used to being obeyed.

“I wasn’t listening. I was cringing,” Y/N said. “It’s astounding how men can twist self-congratulation into philosophy.”

His smile was all bite. “Would you rather I pretend otherwise? That these parties aren’t a performance? That everyone here doesn’t play their part—yourself included?”

“At least I don’t speak as though I’m above it.”

“But you act like you are.”

Her eyes flashed. “Perhaps I simply hold myself to a standard you clearly lack.”

For a moment, they just stared—neither yielding, both assessing.

Then she swept past him.

Jungkook watched her go, the irritation simmering just beneath his smooth exterior. So she thought herself untouchable? Morally superior?

Interesting.

He had no idea who she was, but later that afternoon, as he observed her walking arm in arm with the ever-charming Lady Amelia Hargrave, the dots began to connect.

Amelia—the darling of the ton. Gentle, sweet, and completely unaware of her friend’s sharp tongue and barbed opinions.

A small, amused smirk played at Jungkook’s lips.

If Lady Y/N thought him so awful, so predictably rakish—well, perhaps he’d give her a reason to think so. After all, what better way to irritate a proud woman than by charming the dearest thing to her?

And Amelia Hargrave looked perfectly delightful.

------------

“I cannot believe it,” Amelia whispered, clutching Y/N’s arm as they strolled through the rose gardens of the Hargrave estate. “The Duke of Aelridge has called on me twice this week. Twice.”

Y/N arched a brow. “And the world still turns?”

“Y/N.” Amelia playfully swatted her arm. “You’re being impossible. You know what it means when a duke calls on a lady twice in the same week. Mother nearly fainted.”

“He’s a rake, Amelia.”

Amelia laughed, waving her hand. “You say that like it’s a confirmed diagnosis.”

“It is,” Y/N said flatly. “I overheard him bragging about his conquests not three days ago. He spoke of women as if they were games to be played, reputations to be wagered.”

“Oh, but you don’t like him, do you?” Amelia grinned. “You’re always so terribly fair, but the moment someone rubs you the wrong way, they might as well be declared villain of the realm.”

Y/N stiffened, then forced a smile. “I just don’t want you hurt.”

Amelia squeezed her hand. “He’s different with me. Gentle. Thoughtful.”

That was precisely the problem.

So Y/N made it her mission to supervise their every interaction, whether invited or not.

She “accidentally” appeared at tea the next morning, sliding into the seat beside Amelia just as the Duke arrived with his signature smirk and a bouquet of pale blue hyacinths.

“Lady Y/N,” he drawled. “How...surprising.”

Y/N offered her most innocent smile. “Isn’t it just?”

He said nothing, though his eyes lingered a fraction too long, jaw tight.

At the opera, when Amelia and Jungkook shared a box, Y/N insisted on accompanying them, claiming Amelia’s mother had asked her to. She spent the entire first act loudly offering commentary on the soprano’s pitch, just to drown out their whispered conversation.

When Jungkook tried to escort Amelia to her carriage, Y/N intercepted them with a feigned concern over a “lost glove.” When he reached for it, she let it fall again.

“Oh dear,” she murmured, eyes wide with mock dismay. “So clumsy of me.”

He bent to retrieve it with a barely contained sigh.

“You do know what you’re doing,” he muttered under his breath as he handed it back.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked sweetly, eyes wide.

He said nothing, only glared, then turned back to Amelia with a forced smile.

But by the third event—a garden luncheon at the Granthams—he broke.

Y/N was leaning against a tree, nibbling on a biscuit, her gaze flickering toward the pair seated across the lawn. Amelia looked radiant in lilac silk, head tilted toward Jungkook, who was clearly trying to focus. But his eyes kept drifting. To the edge of the clearing. To her.

She caught his eye. Raised her biscuit in mock salute. Smiled.

And he rose.

“Excuse me, Lady Amelia. There’s something I must attend to.”

He stalked toward Y/N, who arched a brow without moving.

“Have you nothing better to do, Lady Y/N?” he asked, low and sharp.

“Than what?” she asked. “Enjoy a biscuit? Observe the flora? Ensure the safety of a friend?”

“You’re insufferable.”

“And yet here you are. Again.”

He stepped closer. She didn’t move.

“What do you want from me?” he asked, voice low.

“Nothing,” she replied, too smoothly. “But I do wonder… is it difficult, pretending to court someone just to annoy me?”

His eyes narrowed. “So you admit it’s worked.”

She took a slow bite of her biscuit. “Oh, Your Grace. I never said that.”

And then she walked away, hips swaying ever so slightly, leaving the Duke of Aelridge standing beneath the trees, utterly unamused and—far more troubling—utterly intrigued.

---------

“It’s terribly kind of him, don’t you think?” Amelia beamed, folding the invitation with careful fingers. “He’s invited us both to his country estate. The Duke! I never imagined I’d see Aelridge Manor, let alone bepersonally welcomed there.”

Y/N hummed, her smile pleasant and entirely false. “Yes. How generous of him.”

She didn’t need to read the cream-colored parchment to know exactly what it said. The Duke was being clever—throwing open the gates of his secluded estate, inviting his would-be courtship and her ever-watchful chaperone in one move. A perfect opportunity to display his supposed charm and moral reform.

He wants my approval, she realized. As if that’s something easily earned.

Still, refusing would only make her look more suspicious, and Amelia—sweet, trusting Amelia—was already flushed with hope. So, with a tight smile and a measured nod, Y/N agreed to the trip, tucking the invitation into her reticule like a warning bell.

Aelridge Manor was, of course, beautiful.

Golden light filtered through high windows. Ivy crept across stone walls in elegant twists. The surrounding countryside seemed plucked from an oil painting: fields that rolled into the distance, a lake that glittered like glass, horses that galloped with untamed grace.

And the Duke of Aelridge stood in the doorway, smiling like a man thoroughly pleased with himself.

“Ladies,” he said warmly. “Welcome. I hope the journey wasn’t too difficult?”

“Not at all,” Amelia said with a curtsy. “It’s breathtaking here, Your Grace.”

Y/N curtsied after her, meeting his eyes evenly. “Charming, truly. Like a stage set. I’m curious to see the performance.”

Jungkook’s smile didn’t falter, but something in his jaw ticked.

Over the next few days, he was everything a mother would dream of for her daughter.

He rode beside Amelia during morning gallops, handed her down from carriages with a steady hand, laughed at her cleverest comments and listened with devoted attention to the most mundane observations. He took them on nature walks, invited them to private music recitals, arranged picnics on the lawn where the servants appeared just as the sunlight turned golden.

And Amelia, to Y/N’s increasing unease, was beginning to melt.

“He’s not what I expected,” she confided one evening, cheeks warm. “He’s thoughtful. And quiet when he thinks no one’s listening. There’s more to him, I think.”

Y/N tried not to bristle. “Yes, well. He’s a man accustomed to managing his image.”

Amelia looked at her. “Why do you dislike him so much?”

Y/N faltered. “I don’t dislike him. I simply...don’t trust him.”

“You think he’s pretending?”

Y/N hesitated. “I think men like him only reveal their sincerity when they believe no one’s watching.”

Unfortunately, Jungkook had taken that as a challenge.

She began catching him alone more often—waiting at stairwells, lingering by the garden path.

“Enjoying yourself, Lady Y/N?” he asked one morning as they crossed paths in the orchard. He held a single plum in his hand, turning it slowly between his fingers.

She tilted her head. “Do you ever tire of pretending to be perfect?”

He chuckled, tossing the fruit up and catching it. “I’m not pretending. I’m trying. There’s a difference.”

“Trying to convince me or her?”

His expression sobered slightly. “Both.”

She blinked.

“I meant what I said,” he continued. “About wanting your approval. I realize I may not deserve it—but I’m not playing a game with Amelia. I don’t have a game to win anymore.”

Y/N didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Because for a moment—just a moment—he looked sincere.

And that terrified her more than any rake’s smirk ever could.

-----------

The manor was silent.

Outside, the wind whispered through the hedges, but within Aelridge’s grand halls, not a sound stirred. The moonlight spilled in pale strips through the tall windows as Lady Y/N padded barefoot through the kitchen, her silk nightdress trailing just above the cool tile. She clutched her shawl around her loosely, careful not to wake the maids.

She hadn’t meant to wander, but sleep had evaded her for hours—her mind a whirl of half-formed worries and something else she didn’t care to name. The cool air offered some relief, though she still felt vaguely flushed.

She found a jug of water and began searching the darkened cupboards for a glass.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

She froze.

The voice came from the doorway, deep and smooth and unmistakably male.

The Duke.

He stood in the threshold, backlit by moonlight, the crisp lines of his shirt unbuttoned at the top, revealing a sliver of chest. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, forearms crossed loosely. He looked... softer somehow. Less polished. Less performed.

“Apparently neither could you,” Y/N replied, straightening.

His eyes dragged over her, lingering—just for a second—on the delicate silk of her dress, the way it clung to her curves, her arms bare in the dim light, the hollow of her collarbone catching the moon.

“I didn’t expect company,” he said with a slight smirk, walking toward her.

“I didn’t want to wake the staff,” she murmured, moving aside.

Without speaking, he reached around her, their arms brushing as his chest pressed ever-so-slightly against her back. He pulled down a crystal glass from the shelf with casual ease.

The contact was brief, but it seared.

She could feel the warmth of his body even after he stepped away to fill the glass at the basin. He handed it to her, their fingers not quite touching.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

They stood side by side, the silence stretching. She sipped, not looking at him.

“Are you uncomfortable here?” he asked, voice lower now. “You haven’t looked like yourself.”

She shook her head. “I’m fine. Just thirsty.”

He gave a small nod, but he didn’t move away. Neither did she.

A pause.

Then Y/N turned slightly, her voice quiet but firm. “What are your intentions with Amelia?”

That caught him.

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he turned and leaned back slightly against the edge of the counter, hands braced on either side, exhaling through his nose.

“I’m getting older,” he said finally. “Eventually, even a man like me must think of family. Stability.”

Y/N stared at him. “So you chose Amelia because she’s… convenient?”

“No,” he said, sharply. “Because she’s kind. Loved by society. Graceful. A good match.”

“Do you like her?”

“I respect her,” he said carefully.

Y/N frowned. “That wasn’t the question.”

His eyes met hers then, and the air between them shifted.

“No,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t... feel for her the way she might feel for me. But I could learn to. She deserves someone who can give her peace.”

“And you think that’s you?” she asked, her voice softer now, a tremor of something else beneath it.

“I thought it might be,” he said. “Until you started looking at me like that.”

Her breath caught.

“Like what?”

“Like you already know I’m lying.”

They were far too close now. Her hand still held the half-empty glass, but her gaze was locked on his, the weight of his words crackling between them.

She didn’t deny it.

Because she did know.

And suddenly, the kitchen didn’t feel so cold anymore.

--------------

They didn’t touch.

They didn’t speak further.

After a long, simmering silence, Jungkook finally straightened and nodded once. “Goodnight, Lady Y/N.”

Her name sounded different in the dark. Warmer. Unpolished.

“Goodnight, Your Grace,” she murmured.

And then they went their separate ways—he toward the east wing, she to the west—each haunted by the same question neither dared ask aloud.

Morning came far too brightly.

Y/N sat with Amelia beneath the pergola, sunlight filtering through the climbing vines above. The scent of early summer hung in the air—peonies and warm bread and something almost sickeningly sweet.

Amelia stirred her tea, humming softly. “He’s joining us for a ride this afternoon. He said I could take Bramble—the chestnut mare he brought back from Italy.”

Y/N blinked. “He’s letting you ride Bramble?”

Amelia grinned. “He said I had a good seat.”

Y/N nearly choked on her tea.

“I mean on a horse, obviously,” Amelia said quickly, cheeks flushing.

Y/N set her cup down with care, then folded her hands in her lap.

“Do you… really like him?”

Amelia blinked. “Of course I do.”

“No, I mean… truly. As a person. Not just as the Duke of Aelridge.”

Amelia’s smile faltered.

Y/N kept her voice light but steady. “You’ve known him for two weeks, Amelia. Do you actually know him?”

Amelia sighed. “You think I’m being foolish.”

“I think you’re being charmed. Which isn’t the same.”

“I’m not chasing a title, Y/N,” Amelia said quietly. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“But you said it would be a dream—to be a duchess.”

“It would,” Amelia admitted. “Not for the gowns or the balls, but for the life it offers. Security. Freedom, in a way. Choice.”

Y/N softened, but only slightly.

“And Jungkook? Does he make you feel something real? Something personal?”

Amelia hesitated. “He listens. He’s gentle. Thoughtful.”

Y/N thought of last night—the quiet in the kitchen, his voice when he said, I don’t feel for her the way she might feel for me.

“He respects you,” Y/N said slowly. “But that’s not the same as wanting you.”

Amelia blinked at her. “Are you saying he doesn’t?”

“I’m saying… just be sure. Before you lose your heart to a man who doesn’t know how to give his.”

They sat in silence for a moment, birdsong echoing in the trees.

“I didn’t think you cared for him at all,” Amelia said softly. “But you sound like you understand him better than anyone.”

Y/N looked away, heart beating a little too fast. “Understanding someone doesn’t mean you trust them.”

----------

The morning was soft with warmth, a gentle breeze stirring the leaves as the horses’ hooves crunched down the path toward the pond. Y/N rode with ease, back straight, curls loose beneath her bonnet, the basket of stale bread nestled in her lap. Amelia hummed beside her, cheeks pink with the glow of summer.

Jungkook, riding just behind, was trying very hard not to stare.

But every time Y/N shifted slightly in the saddle, the silk of her riding habit pulling tight across her bodice, the gentle bounce of her body moving with the horse—

He cleared his throat. Hard.

It was shameful, really. He’d invited them here to prove himself a reformed man. To show he was no longer a rake consumed by fleeting pleasures.

And yet the sight of her, graceful and unbothered, hips rocking with every stride—he could barely think straight, just picturing her on his lap doing the same movements. His clothes felt too tight. His jaw clenched.

It’s not just desire, he told himself. It’s her. All of her. That maddening mouth and those eyes that see straight through me.

As they approached the pond, sunlight glittering off the water and ducks quacking greedily along the banks, Amelia suddenly slowed her horse.

“I feel faint,” she said softly. “I think I rode too fast earlier.”

Y/N was instantly concerned. “Do you want to rest? We can turn back.”

“No, no,” Amelia waved a hand. “Truly, it’s nothing. You’ve the bread—go on. Feed the ducks. I’ll wait in the shade just here.”

She guided her horse to a willow tree nearby, already reaching for her water flask.

Y/N hesitated, but Jungkook was already dismounting.

He moved to her horse and looked up, hand outstretched. “May I?”

Y/N paused and then nodded, letting him lift her.

Their hands met, his palm warm and strong around hers, her waist held steady as she slid down. Her body brushed his chest just briefly. Neither spoke. When she landed, neither let go—not immediately.

Then, as if remembering themselves, they both dropped their hands at once.

Wordlessly, they walked to the pond, tearing bits of bread and tossing them into the water. The ducks surged forward with flapping wings and greedy beaks.

Y/N tossed a piece, smiling faintly. “They’re relentless.”

Jungkook chuckled. “Like some people I know.”

She glanced sideways. “I thought you were trying not to be relentless.”

“I am,” he said, tone softer now. “Believe me.”

They stood for a moment in comfortable silence, the kind that felt strange between them. The water rippled gently, the ducks squabbling, but neither spoke—until Jungkook did.

“I’ve spent years chasing… pleasure. Distraction. Anything to keep from feeling too much.”

Y/N turned to him.

He kept his gaze on the water. “But it never lasts. And it never fills the quiet. My parents loved each other so much and even that ended in tragedy. I wanted to avoid love and commitment for as long as I could remember to avoid that potential pain.”

She didn’t interrupt.

“But I want something more now. Something better. I want to set a good example for my sisters. They deserve to see what a real partnership looks like, the same way I did.” He finally looked at her. “Not scandal and bitterness. But respect. Warmth. A home.”

Y/N studied him, her brow furrowed. There was no smirk. No arrogance. Just quiet, steady honesty.

“You lost your parents young,” she said gently.

He nodded. “I was seventeen. They died within a year of each other. It turned everything upside down. My sisters needed comfort and I…” he shook his head. “I didn’t know how to be anyone’s safe place.”

Y/N’s chest tightened.

“And now?” she asked.

He looked at her, eyes searching.

“Now I want to be someone they can trust. Someone she can trust,” he added softly.

She didn’t ask who she was. She wasn’t sure she wanted the answer.

But for the first time since their unfortunate meeting beneath the wisteria, she saw something in him that couldn’t be faked.

A man who wanted to be better.

Not for pride. Not for power. But for the people he loved.

She dropped another piece of bread into the water. “You should tell Amelia that.”

“I will,” he said.

But his eyes stayed on Y/N just a little too long.

-----------

It started innocently—her laugh, somewhere in the back of his mind. The way she’d looked yesterday in the sun, cheeks warm, neck glistening with a single droplet of sweat he’d wanted to trace with his tongue.

Then it shifted.

Y/N was on top of him, riding him slow and deep in the moonlight. Her silk dress was bunched at her waist, breasts bouncing freely in front of him, hair wild around her flushed face as she gasped his name.

His hands gripped her hips, fingertips digging in, his head thrown back as her slick heat squeezed around him. She leaned down, mouth brushing his ear.

“Do I still look like I’m judging you now, Your Grace?”

He groaned in his sleep.

His hips bucked into nothing.

He woke with a jolt, sheets tangled, chest heaving.

Sweat dampened his collarbone, and his cock was painfully hard beneath the thin linen of his sleepwear. He swore, dragging a hand over his face.

This is madness.

He couldn’t keep doing this. Dreaming of her. Of Y/N. Not when Amelia was so close, not when he was so close to doing the right thing.

He needed to move forward. Fast.

So that morning, Jungkook summoned a carriage. He had the perfect plan: introduce Amelia to his younger sisters. The final test. If she was to be his duchess, she would need to love what he loved. And Miri and Yuri were the center of his heart.

The girls arrived by noon—twelve-year-old twins with matching braids, bright grins, and too much energy for any one estate to contain.

He watched with fondness as they tumbled out of the carriage, clutching books, sketch pads, and one lopsided stuffed rabbit that looked like it had survived a war.

“Yuri, Miri,” he greeted, crouching slightly as they ran to him.

“Jungkook!” they shrieked, throwing their arms around his neck.

Y/N and Amelia emerged from the drawing room, and he turned to them, smiling. “Surprise. I thought today might be… instructive.”

Amelia blinked. “They’re your sisters?”

Y/N, beside her, smiled warmly. “Hello, I’m Y/N.”

“Are you the lady Jungkook’s going to marry?” Miri asked instantly.

Y/N laughed. “Goodness, I hope not. We’d drive each other mad.”

Jungkook coughed, not meeting her eyes.

Amelia’s laugh was thin. “Well, I—children can be so... lively.”

“Do you want to read with us?” Yuri asked her, holding up a dog-eared copy of The Secret Garden.

“Oh, I’m not very good with… young books,” Amelia said awkwardly.

Yuri then turned to y/n, "will you read with us?"

Y/N smiled and stepped in smoothly. “I used to read that under my blankets with a candle. Let’s find a shady tree.”

She took the girls by the hand and led them outside, their voices already animated—talking about secret places and garden walls and what sort of flowers a princess would plant.

Jungkook stood beside Amelia, watching them.

Y/N sat cross-legged in the grass, skirt spread beneath her, unbothered by the sun or her posture, listening with genuine interest as Yuri explained the entire plot of a fantasy book she loved.

Miri tugged at her braid absentmindedly and leaned her head against Y/N’s shoulder, and Y/N didn’t flinch. She wrapped an arm around the girl with ease, as if she’d done it a hundred times before.

Amelia, still standing stiffly, shaded herself beneath the veranda.

“Are they always so… loud?” she asked.

“They’re twelve,” Jungkook said, keeping his tone neutral.

“They’re sweet,” she added quickly. “I just never had much experience with children, I don't really know how to talk to them.”

He nodded, but his eyes stayed fixed on the scene beyond the glass.

Y/N was laughing at something Miri said, throwing her head back in a way that made his chest ache. Her hands were expressive, her posture relaxed, her interest sincere.

She wasn’t performing.

She was just being.

And the realization hit him like a punch to the gut.

The woman he thought he should want was standing next to him.

But the woman he couldn’t stop dreaming about—the woman who looked so natural in the role he thought Amelia was perfect for—was playing tag with his sisters in the sun.

And he’d never wanted anything more in his life.

------------

Amelia had always been the picture of calm decorum. She knew how to accept compliments with a blush, how to speak without offense, how to exist within the bounds of what society called admirable.

She knew how to be the kind of woman a Duke could marry.

So she had been patient—watchful, even—since the twins arrived.

At first, she thought she was imagining it: the way Jungkook’s eyes followed Y/N across the lawn as she chased Miri with a bundle of wildflowers in her hands, how his smile pulled wider when Y/N’s voice entered a room, louder and unfiltered. He never smiled like that with her. Not even once.

Then she began to notice subtler things.

How Jungkook’s throat bobbed slightly whenever Y/N got too close, how his fingers flexed at his sides when Y/N tossed a teasing comment his way. How he never interrupted her when they argued—in fact, he seemed to like it. Almost like he craved that friction, needed the bite of her words to stay engaged.

When Amelia spoke, he listened politely, nodded, sometimes even complimented her.

But he never reacted to her.

Not like that.

Not the way he looked at Y/N as if she were something untameable and beautiful, something dangerous and necessary all at once.

And then came the evening.

The sun was setting low, brushing gold across the countryside. They were walking together—Amelia on Jungkook’s left, Y/N on his right. The twins had been sent inside for bath time, the air warm and pleasant, filled with the scent of honeysuckle and fresh grass.

Amelia had just turned to ask a question when she heard it—the thunder of hooves.

A horse. Untethered. Racing toward them down the path, eyes wild, panic in its gait.

There wasn’t time to scream. Barely time to think.

Jungkook moved instantly.

One arm wrapped around Amelia’s waist, yanking her backward. The other slammed into Y/N’s side, dragging her down with him, twisting his body so that he landed hard in the dirt—not her.

Then he rolled them over and shielded her completely. His hand cupped the back of her head, the other braced near her hip, keeping her pinned beneath him but unhurt.

Dust swirled around them, the horse galloping past with a furious cry before disappearing into the trees.

Silence.

Then: heavy breathing.

Y/N’s chest heaved beneath him, her eyes wide, her fingers tangled in the folds of his shirt where she must’ve grabbed him on instinct.

Their faces were close. Too close.

His breath fanned over her lips, his gaze flickering from her mouth to her eyes and back again. She didn’t move.

Neither did he.

The world slowed.

And then—

Jungkook cleared his throat roughly and pushed up off her.

“S-sorry,” he muttered, offering a hand.

She took it, her cheeks flushed.

He helped her up, then turned to Amelia, who was brushing herself off more shakily.

“Are you both alright? We got lucky the wild thing didn't trample us” he asked, voice low and tight.

Amelia nodded, but her heart wasn’t in her chest anymore—it was somewhere far away, aching, already grieving.

The walk back to the manor was quiet.

Y/N glanced at Jungkook once. He didn’t meet her eyes.

Amelia didn’t speak until they reached the terrace steps.

“Your Grace,” she said softly, “May I speak with you?”

He turned to her, brow furrowed. “Of course.”

She gave a small nod, but her eyes were distant, and her smile—so practiced—wobbled for the first time.

Because in that moment, all the little signs weren’t little anymore.

They were loud.

And she finally understood the one thing Jungkook wouldn’t say out loud.

He didn’t want her. He never had.

The sitting room was dim, lit only by the flicker of a low-burning lamp. Amelia stood near the window, arms crossed loosely, her posture calm—but her voice held a quiet intensity.

“You covered her with your body,” she said softly, not looking at Jungkook. “You didn’t even think twice.”

Jungkook froze in the doorway, guilt bleeding through his expression.

“I—I just acted,” he said weakly.

“No,” she said, finally turning to face him. “You instinctively acted. And your instinct was to protect her.” She let out a soft breath. “It just confirmed what I’ve been trying to ignore.”

His silence was louder than anything he could’ve said.

“You’re in love with her.”

Jungkook didn’t respond. He didn’t move. But his face said everything.

And it wasn’t denial.

It was realization.

And regret.

“I never meant—” he began, voice rough.

“To hurt me?” Amelia finished. “I know. You’re not cruel, Jungkook.”

He stepped forward. “I’m sorry.”

But she held up a hand. “Please don’t.”

Her voice wavered, just slightly. “I need you to be honest with me, not sorry for the truth. Was any of it real? Any of this?”

Jungkook lowered his eyes. “In the beginning… yes. I meant to court you. Marry you. I thought you were the right choice. That it would be simple. Good.”

“And now?”

He looked up at her, pain evident. “It didn’t work out that way.”

Amelia gave a sad smile. “No. It didn’t.”

She paused, then turned toward the hallway.

“Y/N?” she called out.

Y/N appeared hesitantly, fingers still slightly dusted with flour from helping the twins bake. Her eyes flicked between them, alarmed.

“Is everything alright?” she asked, stepping inside slowly.

Amelia looked at her—really looked. And for the first time, saw clearly what had been there all along.

Not scandal. Not betrayal.

Just chemistry. Depth. Longing that had been hiding behind every jab and bicker and sideways glance.

Amelia smiled. It didn’t quite reach her eyes, but it was full of warmth nonetheless.

“I’m leaving.”

Y/N blinked. “What? Why?”

“I don’t belong here,” Amelia said gently. “And it’s time I stopped pretending I did.”

Y/N shook her head, rushing forward. “Amelia—no. Please. This isn’t—he and I—we’re not—”

“You are,” Amelia interrupted, her tone soft but unwavering. “You just haven’t admitted it yet.”

Y/N faltered, her eyes wide with guilt and confusion.

“I should’ve seen it sooner,” Amelia continued, brushing a hand gently down her friend’s arm. “But I see it now. And I’m not angry. I’m just… stepping aside.”

Tears threatened behind Y/N’s eyes. “You don’t have to—”

“I do,” Amelia said firmly. “Because I believe in love, Y/N. And you two—whatever this is between you—it’s not ordinary. It’s real.”

She turned toward Jungkook, nodding once.

“Be better than your reputation,” she said. “She deserves that.”

Then she kissed Y/N’s cheek, offered them both a last kind smile, and quietly walked out of the room.

The door shut softly behind her.

Leaving Jungkook and Y/N alone.

In silence.

In tension.

In something far too big to name yet.

Y/N’s eyes snapped open, sharp and furious.

“What did you say to her?” she demanded, voice rising as she rounded on Jungkook.

He met her glare evenly but sighed. “It’s not my fault.”

She scoffed, stepping back, tension crackling in every inch of her frame. “No, it’s not. She saw through everything. She's the first person of the three to be honest.”

Jungkook’s jaw tightened but he said nothing.

Y/N shook her head, the anger boiling just beneath the surface. “I’m leaving.”

She turned on her heel, intent on storming out of the room.

But before she could get far, a strong hand caught her wrist.

He pulled her back until she crashed into him, breath hitching at the closeness, her pulse thunderous.

His voice dropped to something softer, more vulnerable. “Please… just give me a chance.”

--------------

You land on both of your feet on the dried grass of the courtyard of Basgiath and breathe the humid summer air of July. You’ve done it. You’ve crossed the parapet. 

Behind you, boots still scrape against stone as the next cadets attempt the crossing, some cursing, some praying under their breath. Ahead, the vast courtyard sprawls beneath iron-gray skies, crowded with survivors trying—and failing—to look unaffected by the fact that they’re still alive.

Your pulse is still pounding hard enough to rattle your ribs. A laugh threatens to escape you, wild and disbelieving. You made it. No carriage waiting at dawn. No wedding dress on you but black leathers instead.

A familiar voice cuts through the ringing in your ears before you can properly enjoy your victory.

“Well,” it says, equal parts disbelief and accusation, “either I’m concussed from too many sparring matches, or you are the last person I expected to see standing on this side of the parapet.”

You turn sharply. There, weaving through the scattered cluster of first-years and unimpressed officers, is your cousin.

Third-year rider leathers fit her like they were sewn onto her body—dark, weathered, practical. A relic scar nicks across one brow from some incident your aunt had dramatically described in three separate letters.

You hadn’t seen her for a hot minute. Not since she’d left for Basgiath and your family had started speaking about your future in increasingly transactional terms.

Her eyes narrow as she takes you in, from your windswept hair to your death grip on your pack. Then her expression shifts from surprise to outright suspicion.

“…What are you doing here?”

 “Lovely to see you too.” You exhale, still trying to regulate your heartbeat. She ignores that entirely.

“No…” she says, stepping closer, voice dropping. “Seriously. What are you doing here?” There’s a beat. Then realisation dawns across her face with almost comical horror.

“Oh, gods.”

“Yes.” You grimace, trying to downplay this even though you don’t have to. But you cannot let yourself to feel any guilt.

“No!”

“Yes.”

“You ran?” Her mouth actually falls open.

“I prefer strategically redirected my future,” you throw your hands around, nervously laughing. Out loud, it all seems so…weird.

“You fled your marriage by voluntarily attempting the parapet?”

“When you say it like that, it sounds dramatic,” or maybe the word dramatic indeed suits your current predicament better than weird.

“It is dramatic.” She glances over your shoulder as if expecting armed guards to descend at any moment. “You were supposed to be halfway to the capital by now, drowning in ceremonial silk and regrettable life choices.”

“Exactly the issue.” A small smile tugs at your mouth and she drags a hand over her face.

“You cannot possibly understand how insane this is,” she mutters. “Do you have any idea what kind of diplomatic incident you’ve just caused?”

“Hopefully a memorable one,” you say as if turning this into some kind of a joke will save your ass once someone will dig into this.

“This isn’t funny.” Her tone lowers further. “You weren’t being married off to some forgettable noble heir from the infantry.”

You know. Of course, you know. There has not been a single conversation in your family home for the year he was courting you that didn’t somehow circle back to him.

General Jeon Jungkook.

Youngest general in active command. Marked one. Rider. Political liability turned military necessity. A man spoken about in one of two ways: with fear or careful diplomacy. Never casually. Never lightly. Never as though he were a person.

“You were engaged to the general Jeon.” Your cousin folds her arms.

“Betrothed,” you correct automatically.

“As if that distinction matters.”

“It matters to me,” or you thought so the past year.

She studies you for a long moment, like she’s trying to determine whether you’ve lost your mind somewhere between your estate and the parapet.

“When he’ll get to know–” Then, with the kind of timing the gods reserve purely for cruelty, her gaze shifts over your shoulder and all the color drains from her face. Slowly, suspiciously, you turn. The noise of the courtyard seems to dim. A cluster of professors parts near the stone staircase leading toward the academic buildings.

And there he is.

Tall, broad-shouldered, dressed not in ceremonial uniform but dark rider leathers lined with a general’s insignia at the collar. A relic mark disappears beneath the edge of his throat, curling just above the neckline like spilled ink. General Jeon Jungkook looks less like a political arrangement and more like a very well-dressed threat.

He’s speaking to some professor, expression unreadable. Fuck. He got here way too fast? You were counting on having some time before he’d come to confront you. At least until threshing, which would give you three months to think of what you’ll say to him. Well… it seems you have about half an hour before the conscription day ends. 

Then, as if sensing the exact moment your life begins to deteriorate in real time, he lifts his gaze and looks directly at you. Not through the crowd. Not past you.

At you.

Your stomach drops harder than it did on the parapet. Shit.

“Oh, you are so screwed.” Your cousin mutters, being deeply unhelpful.  You tear your gaze away first.

Cowardly? Maybe.

Necessary? Absolutely.

The alternative is standing frozen in the middle of Basgiath’s courtyard while your almost-husband stares you into an early grave.

“No,” you mutter, mostly to yourself. “He can wait.”

 “Can he?” Your cousin lets out a sound suspiciously close to a laugh.

“Yes.”

“No, I mean biologically. I’m not entirely convinced General Jeon has ever waited for anything in his life.”

You shoot her a glare, adjusting the strap of your pack higher on your shoulder.

“He waited for a year; he can wait three more.”  

All remaining chatter dies almost instantly. A commanding officer steps onto the raised platform at the center of the grounds, voice amplified with the kind of authority that suggests insubordination is a hobby punishable by death.

“First-years, line up by section markers! Conscription processing begins now!”

Movement erupts around you. Cadets scramble into formation, some jogging, others practically sprinting as if late arrival might somehow disqualify them after surviving the parapet. You take one last glance toward the staircase.

Jungkook is still there, his eyes still dark, overlooking all the outcasts that made it through the parapet and you…among them. He’d probably never anticipated that you’d go to such measures to avoid marrying him. It’s the codex you did it for. Once you cross the parapet, there is nothing he can do for another three years. There is no way they would grant him any exception just because he is a general. Right? You count on all the codex worshipers that are you won’t have any exception.

Your best wish is that he won’t wait, just like Maelys suggested; he doesn’t have it in him to wait. Not three years at least. If you’re lucky, he’ll let you be useful somewhere other than as his bride. You’ll be a rider…if you’ll be seeing the daylight.

You pivot sharply and join the stream of first-years before your body can betray you by doing something humiliating—like turning around and fleeing back across the parapet.

Later that day, a healer presses a blade to your thumb. You hiss as blood wells across your skin.

“Name.”

“Y/N Y/S,” you state it.

The second year rider glances at the roster. Pauses. Looks up at you. Then looks back down again.

Ah.

Recognition.

Wonderful.

By the time you’re handed your assigned temporary quarters and formation details, at least four people have stared at you with varying degrees of confusion, curiosity, or poorly concealed horror.

Apparently, word travels fast. Or perhaps your spectacularly failed political disappearance plan was never as discreet as you’d hoped.

The sun has dipped lower by the time the final orientation announcements conclude. You’re halfway through considering whether hiding in your newly assigned bunk until winter is a viable life strategy when someone stops directly in front of you.

A red-haired girl in rider leathers—older, scar across her jaw, expression carved from stone—regards you with open disinterest.

Your…. section leader.

Or maybe…..wingleader? Or whatever delightful title belongs to the person most capable of ruining your evening.

“You.” You look behind you. There is no one there even though you hoped. Excellent.

“Yes?”

“You’re wanted.”

Every muscle in your body goes rigid. There are only so many ways that sentence can go wrong here. And none of them is fun.

“Wanted,” you repeat carefully, “by whom?”

“The board.”

Of course.

Naturally.

Why let you survive one life-threatening experience today when administrative terror is still available? You suppress a sigh and stare at her for a moment longer, briefly considering pretending you didn’t hear that. Unfortunately, military environments tend to frown upon selective deafness.

So with all the enthusiasm of someone marching toward their own execution, you nod.

“Lead the way.”

The corridors of Basgiath are colder inside. Stone walls. Torchlight. Echoing boots. Your footsteps sound far too loud as you follow the redhead girl deeper into administrative halls, which you definitely should not already be familiar with.

This is it, then.

Perhaps they’ve decided your enrollment was legally questionable. Perhaps your mother has already sent formal complaints. Perhaps someone finally realized accepting a runaway noble bride into the deadliest quadrant in the kingdom is poor institutional judgment.

Perhaps you’re fucking thinking too much.

You round one final corridor. The redhead girl stops outside a heavy wooden door reinforced with iron. She gestures toward it.

“You’ll go in alone.” You blink. Shouldn’t she come with you as your section slash wingleader or whatever she is? 

“Aren’t you—”

“No.”

That seems unnecessarily ominous. Your pulse quickens. Something about this feels… off. Before you can interrogate her further, she turns on her heel and leaves. Just walks away. Actually walks away. Leaving you alone outside the door like some offering left at a shrine.

You inhale once. Twice. Then shove the door open. The room beyond is dimly lit, lined with shelves and maps pinned across stone walls. A war room, not a board chamber… and very much not occupied by a panel of professors.

Just one person.

General Jeon Jungkook stands near the far table, one hand braced against its edge, head lowered over a spread of maps. He doesn’t look surprised when you enter. Which means he is, of course, the one who summoned you.

Sure thing. As if you expected him to just stare at you. Okay….you can do this.

The door clicks shut behind you with a deeply offensive finality. For one long moment, silence stretches between you. Then Jungkook lifts his head. Dark eyes settle on you with maddening calm.

“Are you alright?” 

“…What?” You blink at him with confusion. 

Jungkook straightens from the table, expression unreadable. Is he…?

“I asked if you’re hurt.” His gaze drags over you with clinical precision, like he’s conducting an inventory. Your shoulders. Your hands. The scrape on your palm from the parapet stone. A loose strand of hair plastered to your temple from dried sweat. As if he is checking for damage.

“I survived.” You recover just enough to lift your chin. 

“That was not my question.” There’s an edge to his voice now. Sharper. More personal than a general should sound.

You stare at him, thrown off balance by the fact that he seems genuinely annoyed by your refusal to elaborate.

“No,” you say at last. “I’m not hurt.”

His shoulders loosen so subtly you almost miss it. Almost. Only then does he exhale. A slow breath through his nose, like he’s been holding onto a very specific kind of rage since the moment someone informed him of your location.

“Good,” he says. And then his expression hardens. There it is. There’s the version you expected.

Because when he speaks again, his voice is calm in the way storms are calm right before flattening entire villages.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!”

“In my defence, your proposal was always deeply inconvenient.” You fold your arms.  A dangerous pause, you’re waiting for him to snap at you, which…he does.

“We were supposed to be married by now!”

“No, right. My apologies.” You gesture vaguely. Something dark flickers behind his eyes. He pushes off the table and begins walking toward you. His boots echo once. Twice. You hate that your body registers each step as he keeps walking.

“You crossed the parapet,” he says, like he still hasn’t fully accepted the reality of it. “Without training.”

“Yes. I made it.”

“Barely.”

“Still counts.”

He stops in front of you now, close enough that you have to tilt your head back slightly to maintain eye contact.

“You disappeared before dawn,” he says, voice lower now. “Left your family in chaos, your escort unconscious and half the capital convinced you’d been abducted.”

You wince. In fairness, the unconscious escort had been a regrettable necessity. Unhinged move that you’ll be apologising for later…in life.

“They’ll recover.”

“That is not the issue,” you swear you can hear his teeth grind against each other.

“No, I gathered–”

A humourless breath escapes him. For a second, he just looks at you. Not with anger, exactly. Something more exhausting. Like you have personally shortened his lifespan by several years.

“This,” he says quietly, gesturing once toward you, toward Basgiath, toward all of your terrible life choices, “was a deeply irritating move.”

“You thought enrolling here would solve your problem?” Jungkook continues in his…lecture? Preaching?

“It actually did,” you retort.

“No–” his voice is maddeningly certain. “It changed the location of your problem.”

“The Codex is clear.” You fold your arms tighter. That earns you the faintest shift in his expression. Almost amusement. Almost.

“Yes,” Jungkook says dryly. “I’ve finished this death college. I lived by the codex…sort of.”

“Then you understand the complication.”

“You seem to be under the impression that a bureaucratic clause is what was keeping this arrangement intact.”

That… is not the answer you wanted. Your stomach tightens.

“You cannot possibly mean—”

“If you wish to be here,” he cuts in, “then be here.” His tone is level. Controlled. Too controlled.

“I will not drag you from the Riders’ Quadrant because you wanted to prove a goddamn point.”

That surprises you. Enough that your guard slips, just slightly. Jungkook notices. Of course, he notices and continues.

“You crossed the parapet. You earned your place.” There’s something almost respectful in the words. Almost.

Then:

“But let’s be very clear.” His gaze sharpens, pinning you in place more effectively than any physical restraint could.

“This changes absolutely nothing.” The words land like stones. Your jaw tightens and you tighten your fists. 

“You don’t get to decide that alone anymore–”

“No,” he agrees, infuriatingly calm. “But you do not get to vanish into a death college and pretend I will simply… what? Move on?”

Well. When he says it like that, it sounds almost ridiculous. Which is inconvenient.

“I entered the Riders’ Quadrant,” you say, forcing steadiness into your voice, “because I–”

“Because you don’t want me? Is that it?” The interruption lands like a blade thrown with terrifying precision. He steps closer, but you don’t move back. Your lips part, but for one humiliating second, absolutely nothing comes out. 

Because of all the responses you’d prepared for this conversation—anger, threats, political manipulation, outrage—that was not one of them. Not even remotely. Jungkook watches you carefully. Not like a general assessing a cadet. Like a man waiting for an answer he actually intends to remember.

“Because Basgiath is the only place in this kingdom where my name belongs to me.” 

For the first time, something in his expression softens. Not much. Just enough to be dangerous.

“You think I don’t understand that?” That throws you. Because no, actually—you hadn’t considered that possibility. Not really when he was eager to give you his name.

Jungkook studies your face for a long moment before speaking again.

“If being a rider is what you want,” he says, quieter now, “then I’ll allow this.”

“How generous of you.” You bristle instantly. His mouth twitches. But his next words erase any satisfaction you might have gotten from that.

“However,” he says, “if this becomes too much for you—if you are overwhelmed, too injured, or one reckless decision away from becoming dragon food—I will remove you myself.”

“You can’t do that.” Your eyes widen at his proclamation.

“Watch me.”

“The Codex—”

“Fuck the Codex.”

The sheer bluntness of it knocks the air from your lungs. Jungkook leans in slightly, voice dropping low enough to feel less like conversation and more like a threat wrapped in velvet.

“If you thrive here, then fine. Stay. Bond a dragon. Graduate. Become the most insufferable rider Basgiath has ever produced but you will be my wife.”

“The Codex says no cadet can marry while enrolled,” you say, clinging perhaps a little too hard to the one technicality currently standing between you and total loss of autonomy.

As if a paragraph in military law is somehow stronger than the man currently looking at you, like bureaucracy is a mild inconvenience.

Jungkook’s expression doesn’t so much as flicker.

“Yes–” he says. “And eventually, you will no longer be a cadet.”

That is… annoyingly logical. You open your mouth, then close it again. He steps just slightly closer—not enough to crowd you, but enough to make the air feel tighter.

“You seem very attached,” he says, voice low and maddeningly calm, “to the idea that this was an escape.”

“It was.”

A pause. Then Jungkook tilts his head, almost considering you.

“No,” he says, almost gently. “This was an inconvenient delay, more for your father than me.”

“You’re awfully confident for a man whose intended bride fled before sunrise.” That actually gets him. A very slight exhale through his nose. Not quite a laugh, but adjacent.

“Mm.” Not enough reaction. Unacceptable.

“I’m serious.” You narrow your eyes.

“So am I, love.”

The ease with which he says it is honestly offensive. Like he’s discussing weather patterns, not the deeply inconvenient trajectory of your future. Jungkook folds his arms.

“I’m gonna trust the Gods and be patient–” he leans back, looking down at you.

“You are welcome to continue staging elaborate acts of rebellion,” he says. “They’ve been entertaining so far.”

Your jaw drops slightly and he puckers his lips, smiling at you. You must have pissed him off less than you intended. Shame.

“Entertaining?” you muse.

“You drugged an escort, escaped a guarded estate, crossed the parapet with no formal training and enrolled in the most lethal quadrant in the kingdom to avoid one conversation.” He studies you, something almost admiring, buried beneath the exasperation.

“It was, indeed, dramatic.” He adds which makes you stare at him, standing strong and proud in front of you.

“You’re impossible.” Then scoff. His gaze doesn’t waver, though.

“And you,” he says, infuriatingly calm, “are still going to be my wife.”

Heat climbs your neck so fast it should qualify as a medical emergency. Absolutely not. You turn sharply toward the door, yanking it open with significantly more force than necessary.

“And Dunne, I want this union to happen even more.” You look over your shoulder when he says that.

“We’ll revisit your delusions after I survive the first year, General.”

Behind you, his voice follows—low, steady, far too confident.

“I look forward to it.” You hate him. You really, really hate him, which is unfortunate because that voice is probably going to live in your head for the foreseeable future.

“I can’t believe you did that.” 

Maelys bites down on the chicken while you sit in the dining hall for lunch, staring at you from across the table as you’ve personally offended her ancestors. The air smells like smoke, sweat, and over-seasoned meat. You stab aggressively at something that might once have been a potato.

“Which part?” you ask. “The parapet, the enrollment, or basically telling General Jeon to his face that he was inconvenient?”

“You said what?” Maelys nearly chokes on her chicken. Her hand shoots to seize her cup of water to save yourself.

“In my defence, he was being irritating.”

She sets her chicken down with exaggerated care, as if sudden movement might worsen your already alarming condition.

“You are clinically incapable of self-preservation.”

“That feels dramatic.”

“You entered the Riders Quadrant to avoid marrying a marked general and then immediately antagonised him in private.” She leans forward. “Do you have some kind of death wish I should know about?”

You glare at your tray.

“No.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“He summoned me under false pretences.” You tear off a piece of bread.

“Please. You’re lucky he didn’t summon you by physically dragging you out of formation.” Maelys scoffs. That….is unfortunately true. But even he knows better. He cannot touch you here, and he couldn’t touch you before, not with all the chaperone prying eyes.

Not during negotiations, not during formal dinners, not across carefully monitored estate visits where every interaction was observed by at least three politically anxious adults pretending not to eavesdrop.

Jungkook has always maintained a maddening level of restraint around you; even when he seemed to break it, he would rather leave you pressed to the wall with the faint memory of his warm breath on your cheek than ruin the prospect of marriage.

“He wants the alliance,” you say, though it sounds less convincing out loud. Maelys gives you a long, knowing stare.

“No,” she says flatly. “He wants you. The alliance is a pleasant administrative bonus.”

“That is an absurd conclusion.” You nearly inhale your own drink.

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“He crossed three provinces to personally attend your family’s negotiations.” Maelys leans back in her chair.

That is true.

“He declined two stronger political offers beforehand.” Also, unfortunately true.

“He somehow knew within what—an hour?—that you’d enrolled here?”

You open your mouth. Close it again. Because yes, that had also felt aggressively efficient.

“I don’t understand him,” you mutter. That, finally, seems to earn something like sympathy from Maelys.

“Well,” she says, “that at least makes two of us.”

The next time you have to see him will be after Threshing, if…you’ll bond a dragon. Because after Threshing, all bonded riders are formally presented. That’s when high-ranking officers and generals attend.

Ceremonial, strategic, deeply inconvenient. But until then? Freedom. Relative freedom, anyway.

You don’t receive any letters until you finish your first year, and for the sake of your sanity, you don’t subject your mind to venturing into the thoughts of how fuming your father must be. Your province needed the alliance with Tyrrendor, military and civilian enforcement. 

Tyrrendor’s military reach, trade access, and civilian enforcement agreements would have strengthened your territory more than any alliance your father could realistically secure elsewhere.

But you technically didn’t break the engagement, you simply stalled the I do part for the foreseeable future of three years. During which you can find out how to get out of it fully.

Without, of course…dying. 

Until then, your father has to settle for whatever Jungkook demands…without you in the picture.

Threshing comes dangerously quickly, and as you expected, General Jeon did not seek you. He couldn’t, not with reasonable cause. Not after that disastrous conversation in the war room. Not in the weeks that followed. Not during training. Not after squad challenges. Not even during the handful of events where high-ranking officers briefly appeared to evaluate first-years like livestock with better weapon access.

As far as what you heard from Maelys or the battle brief, he was busy and kindly said….you were too.   

“You’ll be fine, it’s not as scary as it looks,” one of the second-year cadets of your wing says to you. You spoke to him on occasion during sparring matches or the gauntlet, but beyond that, you never really talked to anybody; people were sort of…avoiding you. Which is not surprising at all, considering who you are beyond the walls of Basgiath. 

You’ve been carrying your reputation like a second set of armour since the moment you crossed the parapet, which is to say: heavier than necessary, and entirely unhelpful in close combat. You shift your weight, rolling your shoulders as if that might settle the tension coiling beneath your skin. 

By the third hour, your muscles are screaming. Not dramatically. Not in a way that would earn sympathy. Just a steady, grinding ache that settles into your bones like it plans to live there permanently.

The valley beyond Threshing is quieter now—most dragons have already chosen or discarded their cadets. What remains is the aftermath: injured pride, broken bones, and the rare cadet still stupid enough to believe there’s something left for them out here.

You adjust your grip on your blade as you move between jagged stone outcroppings. You’re running out of time; it’s almost dark. You need to find her. From one of the professors, you got to know she likes to hide and make the cadet earn her so you knew you wouldn’t find her in the open field. It’s worth a try, even if you’d be leaving unbonded tonight. That would sure suit general Jeon.

One you now only hear in whispers at family gatherings when adults thought children weren’t listening. A dragon your great-grandfather rode. The last bonded rider of your bloodline. A legend your family stopped speaking about properly after the war—like silence could erase history. But you remember. You remember sitting too close to the hearth, listening anyway. You were very little when you saw her with your own eyes.

Red dagger tail. Crimson scale ridge. Old-world intelligence. Ferocious loyalty.

And a name spoken with reverence.

Virelia.

You step carefully over fractured rock, scanning the narrow cleft ahead. Something feels… wrong here. Not danger. Recognition. Your foot slips. The ground gives way beneath you before you can correct.

“Shit—”

Gravity wins.

You fall hard.

Stone scrapes along your side, your shoulder slamming into jagged rock as you tumble into darkness. The world spins—dust, pain, impact—and then stillness. For a moment, there is only your breathing and the distant drip of water somewhere deeper inside the earth.

Fuck. How far down did you fall into the cave? 

“You have got to be joking,” you mutter into the dark. Your voice echoes back at you—thin, swallowed quickly by the stone. The cave doesn’t bother responding beyond that. No comforting signs of life. No convenient lantern-lit exit. Just cold air and the slow, rhythmic drip of water somewhere deeper inside the earth.

Fantastic.

You push yourself up anyway.

Pain flares immediately along your side, sharp enough to steal your breath for a second. Blood runs warm down your temple, sticky against your skin when you swipe at it with the back of your hand.

“That’s just perfect,” you mutter into the dark, wiping it away with the back of your hand. “Really elegant way to die, honestly.” 

You take another careful step forward. Then another. The cave feels wrong in a way you can’t name—too still, too aware, like the air itself is holding its breath.

Blood has dried hot along your temple and every movement sends a dull ache through your side. You ignore it. Pain is irrelevant now when you’re running out of time. The cave widens and the air changes. Not colder. Not warmer. Heavier. Like the space itself has been occupied for longer than anything alive should be able to measure.

Your breath slows without your permission. Something is here. That thought makes your stomach tighten.

You round the fractured edge of stone—

—and stop.

Because she is there. Or at least you hope it’s her. You cannot see her colour, nor tail, but something tells you your search is over, you can feel it deep down. Maybe even your life if she decides that you’re not worth being her rider and eats you–

That’s such a nonsensical thought.

The dragon’s large head lifts and her chest expands. A low sound builds in her throat—not warning, not hesitation.

Decision.

Then—

Fire.

It erupts upward in a violent, controlled column of crimson-gold flame. The ceiling of the cave explodes in light. Heat slams into you so hard you stagger back, throwing an arm up instinctively as molten brightness floods the space. Stone blackens instantly, ancient rock cracking and hissing as centuries of cold are erased in seconds.

The roar is deafening. Not just sound—pressure. A living force that vibrates through your bones. You drop into a crouch on instinct, shielding your face as embers rain down around you like burning snow.

For one terrifying heartbeat, you think—she’s rejecting me.

That this is it. That you’ve misread everything. That you’ve fallen into a cave just to be incinerated by a dragon your family never even deserved to name aloud.

But then—

you feel it.

Not rage or rejection. Control. Absolute, terrifying control. The fire doesn’t spread. It doesn’t consume the cave. It clears it.

Burning away loose stone. Shattering weak rock. Carving open a jagged path upward through the ceiling like the mountain itself is being rewritten.

Light pours in.

Moonlight. Cold air rushes down through the new opening, mixing violently with the heat until the entire space shimmers between fire and night.

We’ll be late, girl.

“…Late?”

A pause. Then, with the patience of something that has watched civilizations make worse decisions:

Yes, I don’t like being late, but someone had to fall down and hit her head.

That lands something into your stomach. Isn’t she funny large–

I can hear you. Let’s go or I’ll let you walk your way back. She huffs a hot air in your direction and looks up.

You whip your head toward the opening she just carved—toward the sky, the valley, the world outside this cave that is still full of cadets, dragons, chaos, and one very specific general you have been doing your best to avoid thinking about.

Virelia exhales once, smoke curling lazily from her nostrils as if time itself is optional, then she steps forward so you can climb her.

“We’re absolutely going to be late–” and your voice catches as you scramble to your feet, adrenaline snapping back into place. 

A faint ripple of amusement answers you.

Then move your ass.

Air slams into you as Virelia tears upward through the opening she made herself, massive wings catching moonlit currents with predatory ease. The valley drops beneath you in a dizzying rush of cliffs, forest, and scattered dragons still circling lower fields.

Gods.

This is flight.

You used to talk more. Virelia remarks dryly in your mind.  The cold air bites through your leathers, sharp enough to sting against the blood drying at your temple.

“YO-HOOOOOOOO!” You scream from the top of your lungs. “BETTER?” 

Virelia releases a powerful huff through her nostrils, warm air curling past your legs. Approval. You decide to count that as affection. And for one reckless, glorious second—

nothing exists except this.

I didn’t think you’d find me, little one.

“Me neither!” You scream back to her. Virelia banks slightly, moonlight washing over the crimson ridges of her scales until she looks less like a creature and more like a moving ember against the darkening sky.

So you…a rider?

The last person reckless enough—or brave enough—to choose dragons over obligation. After him, your house had changed. Or maybe simply corrected itself. No more riders. No more unnecessary risks. Just politics. Land management. Strategic marriages. Children raised to be useful in ways that required less dying. You stare out at the horizon.

“My father would probably rather eat stone than admit I’m here by choice.”

I gathered as much.

You grin faintly. 

“So you do judge people.”

Constantly.

That feels correct. A comfortable silence settles between you. Wind whistles past. The Threshing field is still active, though quieter now. Torches have been lit around the perimeter, their flames flickering gold against deepening twilight.

You are definitely late. Very late. Catastrophically late.

“Wonderful,” you mutter into the wind. You’re about to land. Virelia begins her descent with terrifying calm. Unlike you.

Your stomach flips as the field rises to meet you, details sharpening with every beat of her wings—officers near the command tents, upper years gathered in loose clusters, dragons resting across the valley like living mountains.

And then—

people start noticing. At first, it’s subtle. A few heads tilting upward. A pause in conversation. A second-year student nudges someone beside them. Then the effect spreads outward in visible waves.

You dismount Virelia once she lands; the ground vibrates under her weight. You’re dizzy and light-headed from your fall, but you have to make it to the scroll keeper to sign your names. 

Your eyes scan the gathered officers—

and immediately land on him. Standing near the command line as if personally summoned by narrative cruelty itself.

Jungkook.

His eyes are not on you more than they are on your dragon. You glance towards Virelia one more time, but her focus is also not on you or anybody else in particular, they are looking up beyond on the cliff where the dragons of the board and commanders are alongside Jungkook’s….oh. 

“Lia?” You call her name to get her attention, but she isn’t turning her head.

Hm?

“How’d you know I was looking for you?” You ask and then realize “and how’d you no my father–” you stop yourself mid sentence. Oh no. You feel it—her awareness shifting, a slow amusement brushing against your mind like heat curling from banked coals.

Your great-grandfather was my last rider, we figured–

“Who’s we?” 

You stare at Virelia for one long, terrible second. Then at the cliff. At the black dragon. At the way, his entire focus has narrowed onto Virelia with unnerving intensity. Not casual interest. Not curiosity. Something far more instinctive. Ancient. Possessive.

Oh.

Oh, no.

Your stomach drops so violently, you’re surprised it doesn’t physically hit the ground. The pieces slam together in your mind with horrifying precision. You turn slowly toward Virelia. Disbelief first. Then betrayal. Then the pure, unfiltered horror of comprehension.

“…No…” Virelia remains infuriatingly calm. You lower your voice, as if speaking softer will somehow make this less real.

“No!”

Her silence is a confirmation so loud it may as well be shouted. Your eyes widen.

“You cannot possibly be serious.”

“That dragon?”

A pause.

Then, with all the dignity of a creature ruining your life through logistics:

Yes.

Your jaw drops. No. Absolutely not.

Of all the dragons in all of Navarre—

of all the ancient, powerful, terrifying creatures you could have bonded—

yours had to be mated to his.

This is not luck. This is targeted harassment from the gods.

You look back. Jungkook. He’s no longer standing still. He’s crossing the field now. Fast. Not rushed enough to look undignified. But with enough purpose to make your pulse spike. Your entire body goes on alert on instinct. Not because of him. Not entirely. Because you suddenly become excruciatingly aware of how you must look.

Gods.

Blood. You are still covered in blood, and soot, and cave dust. Your sleeve is partially torn. There is dried crimson all over your temple, your knuckles, your throat. Your hair is somewhere between windblown and post-apocalyptic. You look less like a newly bonded rider and more like something Lia dragged home as a conversation starter.

Wonderful. Just perfect. You straighten instinctively, which is ambitious considering your ribs currently feel like shattered architecture. Jungkook closes the distance. His expression remains controlled. Unreadable. Infuriatingly composed. Until he gets close enough. Then he properly sees you and everything changes.

It’s subtle. So subtle, most people would miss it. But you don’t. His eyes sweep over you once. Quickly. Efficiently.

Temple.

Blood.

Shoulder.

Sleeve.

Hands.

The visible stiffness in your posture. Assessing damage. Calculating.

And then—

his jaw tightens.

“You’re injured.”

“It’s mostly decorative.” You immediately bristle. His gaze lifts slowly to meet yours. Unimpressed.

A truly extraordinary amount of judgment packed into one look. Behind him, his dragon descends from the ridge with powerful, controlled grace, landing several yards away with a heavy impact.

The ground trembles. Virelia shifts beside you immediately. Not away. Toward him. Toward his dragon.

You close your eyes briefly thinking that this might be a dream, but it isn’t.

The black dragon lowers his head slightly, releasing a low sound from deep in his chest. Not threatening. Not territorial. Something intimate enough to make you deeply uncomfortable on principle. Virelia answers with a softer rumble. You physically flinch.

Jungkook glances toward them. Then back at you. His expression shifts by approximately half a degree. Which, on him, is basically emotional upheaval.

“You bonded Virelia.”

It wasn’t a question when he already knew the answer. He fucking knew she was your grandfather’s dragon and that the most logical step for you would be to look for her in the field.

“Yes,” you say dryly. “Though I’m beginning to suspect there were external influences involved.” You cross your arms despite the immediate protest from your ribs.

His gaze flicks, almost imperceptibly, toward the two dragons. Virelia and his black dragon are still entirely too occupied with each other, their attention narrowed into something old and intimate and deeply inconvenient. The black dragon lowers his head further, brushing his snout along the side of Virelia’s neck with slow familiarity. The gesture is unmistakably affectionate.

Jungkook watches you for a beat too long, something dangerously close to amusement threatening the corner of his mouth.

“You seem distressed.”

“Your dragon is emotionally compromising mine.” You stare at him.

“That is not how dragon bonds work–”

“That sounds exactly like something a person benefiting from this arrangement would say.” You look at Jungkook. “This is somehow your fault.”

“Is it?” His brow lifts faintly.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“You knew they are bonded!” You gesture wildly toward the dragons. Virelia, infuriatingly, looks entirely at ease. Like she hasn’t just detonated your life with ancient reptilian matchmaking.

“How would I know you’ll go looking for her out of hundred dragons out there?” Jungkook exhales slowly. Not frustrated. Not surprised. Just… resigned in a way you deeply distrust.

Before either of you can continue this deeply productive conversation, movement stirs around you. The gathered officers are closing in. Board members, commanders, scribes. The whole dreadful administrative ecosystem.

A rider in command leather steps forward, clearing his throat with the solemnity of someone about to ruin your evening.

“Cadet Y/S.” 

“Yes?” You already hate him.

“The Board requests your immediate presence.”

Why would your first successful day as a rider conclude in anything other than bureaucratic suffering? You pinch the bridge of your nose. Behind you, Virelia shifts, wings rustling softly as if none of this concerns her in the slightest.

Traitor.

Virelia and Kaelor are a confirmed mated pair, which you had no idea before you ventured far enough to find her. Only for her to betray you–

I did not betray you.

You nearly laugh, a short offended sound you manage to disguise as a cough. 

Sure, you just let me bond with you when you knew you had a mate whose rider is my betrothed I specifically came here to escape.

You were looking for me. 

Yes.

And you found me. 

That is not the point.

You wished to become a rider.

Well….kinda.

You wished to avoid a life chosen for you by others.

Possibly–

So I gave you what you asked for. 

I wanted to be away from him–

Why?

Mentally scrambling for an answer that feels simple enough to survive being spoken aloud. 

Because he acts like I’m already his.

Well–

Don’t. 

You won’t admit it. You won’t admit defeat when there is still a lot to fight for.

When he looks at me it feels like he already knows what I’ll do before I do it.

And you dislike being known.

That is—

rude but uncomfortably accurate.

I dislike being predictable.

That is not the same thing. 

No, it isn’t and that is somehow worse.

Because suddenly this feels less about escaping a marriage and more about escaping the deeply destabilizing possibility that Jungkook sees through you with alarming consistency.

That he reads you too well. That he understands parts of you you’ve worked very hard to keep inaccessible. He spent the whole year learning everything about you. Courting you, trying to capture your heart, only for you to screw him over by becoming cadet.

And all that—

that is terrifying.

The Board, after what felt like an offensively long amount of discussion over your life as though you were a scheduling inconvenience rather than an actual person, reached what they proudly called a reasonable compromise. 

Due to the confirmed mating bond between Virelia and Kaelor, prolonged separation was deemed operationally unwise—not only for dragon wellbeing, but for rider stability and flight performance. Which, translated from military language into something more honest, meant: your dragon would become increasingly insufferable if kept from her mate, and everyone preferred avoiding that scenario.

As such, a formal exception was entered into Basgiath records granting you temporary leave every third day to fly to Tyrrendor under supervised authorization. The destination? Aretia—but, more specifically, a smaller fortified island territory under General Jeon Jungkook’s jurisdiction.

Officially, these visits were classified as necessary dragon accommodations and advanced rider instruction. Unofficially, the Board had managed to weaponize your betrothal into a logistical arrangement so absurdly intimate it felt like a personal insult.

You were now, by written military decree, required to report to your betrothed every three days so your dragons could spend time together. A line of text in an official record that would haunt you for the foreseeable future. 

So it’s been a few months of you two flying back and forth. They even allowed Jungkook to substitute for some of the classes you’d miss. He always gets what he wants; his high standing allows him to do so.

The morning air is sharp with sea salt and early frost as Virelia cuts through a pale sky, her massive wings beating steadily over the endless stretch of water separating Tyrrendor and Drakskar. 

Drakskar was less an island and more a weaponised hidden outpost carved into rock. Watchtowers lined the perimeter, their silhouettes sharp against the grey horizon, while the estate itself sat at the highest point like something designed by a man who considered comfort suspicious. It was isolated, brutally practical, and impossible to reach without a dragon. Which, you suspected, was exactly how Jungkook liked it. 

Waves crashed violently below, white foam exploding against jagged black shoreline. There was no softness here, no ornamental architecture, no attempt at charm. Just defense. Height. Distance. A place built for command, secrecy, and people who preferred being unreachable.

Only Virelia knows precisely where the place is, and now…you. 

The Board still believes your authorised residence during leave rotations is Aretia proper. Which, to be fair, had been true at first. For approximately four visits. Long enough for your presence there to become an immediate logistical headache.

Too many people. Too many guards. Too many officers with eyes and functioning pattern recognition. And, according to Jungkook, far too many security vulnerabilities.

His exact phrasing had been: If someone wanted to leverage you politically, Aretia is the first place they would look. A sentence that had somehow resulted in you being quietly relocated to Drakskar. 

You were now being housed on Jungkook’s aggressively isolated island stronghold like a very politically inconvenient treasure. You are still undecided on how to feel about this. Actually. No. That is a lie. You know exactly how you feel.

Annoyed.

Vileria lands with practised precision in the centre of the stone courtyard, claws scraping against weathered rock as her wings fold in around you. 

Maybe next time I don’t have to land at all?  

You slide from Lia’s back onto the weathered stone with significantly more grace than you had during your first humiliating weeks as a rider. 

No stumbling.

No nearly-dislocated shoulder.

No accidental public embarrassment.

Months of flying had finally taught your body how to move with Virelia instead of against her. Dismounting now feels almost natural, boots hitting the courtyard with an ease you would have once found deeply suspicious. But not quite ready for flying dismount yet.

Virelia lowers her head slightly. 

If you like me to fall face-first on concrete, be my guest. 

“That would certainly stain your beautiful face with bruises.” A familiar voice echoes from the other side of the courtyard. 

Jungkook stands near the base of the stone staircase leading toward the upper terrace, one hand resting loosely against the hilt of a training blade at his hip.

Dark riding leathers. Hair windswept by the violent coastal air in that annoyingly effortless way that feels strategically designed to worsen your life. He must have land just minutes before you. But you didn’t see Kaelor in the sky; he must be down in the cave. 

He looks entirely too comfortable here. Of course he does. This is his island. His fortress. His aggressively isolated piece of weaponised rock in the middle of nowhere. 

Beside you, Virelia emits what feels suspiciously like amusement through your bond. Traitor. You ignore her. Mostly because Jungkook is already approaching. His gaze shifts from your face to your harness, then your gloves, then briefly to the still-settling position of Virelia behind you.

Assessment mode.

Again.

Honestly, at this point, you’re considering asking if he was born like this or professionally trained to be incapable of greeting someone normally.

“You landed well,” he says. That almost sounded like praise. Almost.

“I know.” You cross your arms.

“Confidence.”

“I’m trying it out.”

“It suits you.”

You stare. Again.

There is a beat of silence in which the sea crashes violently below the cliffs, and your brain very helpfully forgets how language works. He’s being way too nice today. Usually, his teaching style consists of relentless criticism.

Your footing is weak.

Your grip is inefficient.

Again.

Always followed by some variation of: I’m trying to keep you alive long enough to become a competent rider. 

Even Virelia doesn’t let on what is going on in his head and you don’t know how to use the bond you all have to your advantage just yet. Simply because…you have yet to manifest a signet. No manifested power. No sharpened access to the deeper mechanics of your bond.

Something is clearly wrong. You eye him suspiciously as you follow him toward the western terrace, where you usually train. When exactly he changed his mind about you being a rider remains a mystery. In the beginning, he tolerated it at best, but you knew deep down he wanted to pull you out of there numerous time.

He allowed it, technically, because he had promised he would. But there had always been an undercurrent to it—an expectation that perhaps eventually you would realise Basgiath was too brutal, too dangerous, too much. That you would leave yourself if he gave you the chance.

Now?

Now he trains you like he fully expects you to survive. To stay. To thrive, even. Which is significantly more disorienting. You haven’t managed to figure out what shifted.

The worst part of your arrangement here, however, is not the logistics. Not the forced travel. Not even the fact that you are now essentially military paperwork away from being professionally supervised by your own betrothed.

No. The worst part is sparring. Without question. Because sparring with Jungkook is a uniquely miserable experience. Not because he is cruel. Though he can be ruthless.

Not because he is impossible to beat. Though he absolutely is. But because sparring requires proximity. Far too much of it. You get way too close in those sessions, and he enjoys that way too thoroughly.

You spit a strand of hair out of your mouth.

“This island is actively hostile.”

Jungkook glances toward the darkening sky. Heavy clouds have begun gathering over the sea, low and bruised, swallowing what remained of the afternoon light.

Rain.

Imminent.

The coastal kind, which on Drakskar likely translates to biblical punishment. He lowers his blade.

“We’re moving inside.”

You don’t argue. A rare and deeply humbling occurrence. Mostly because your fingers are already beginning to numb despite the suspiciously well-fitted gloves currently betraying your principles. He gifted them to you on your second visit when you complained that your hands are always cold here even when the sun is shining. 

Jungkook leads you through a side corridor branching off the main fortress and down a curved stone staircase you haven’t explored before.

The air shifts gradually as you descend. Less salt. Less cold. Warmer. Humid, almost. Interesting. The corridor opens suddenly into an enormous glass conservatory built into the cliffside. You stop walking. Oh.

Floor-to-ceiling arched windows rise overhead, framed in black iron and fogged faintly at the edges from the warmth trapped inside. Rain begins tapping softly against the glass almost the moment you enter, droplets racing downward in silver lines.

The space is absurdly beautiful.

Wild greenery spills from enormous stone planters—climbing ivy, dark ferns, flowering vines twisting around wrought iron columns. Strange herbs and medicinal plants line raised beds near the centre, their leaves glossy in the filtered evening light.

It is the softest room you have seen on this island. Which feels almost scandalous.

“Did you build this?”

“No.”

“How disappointing.”

A faint brow raise.

“You seem surprised I didn’t personally construct an entire glass botanical structure.”

“I’m still learning where your unnecessary competencies begin and end.” That almost earns another smile. Almost. 

You stop beside a citrus tree growing improbably well near one of the windows. Rainwater streaks down the glass behind it, blurring the violent coastline beyond. The contrast is strange.

Outside: cliffs, storms, cold sea, black stone. Inside: warmth, greenery, quiet.

“This feels suspiciously peaceful for somewhere you spend time voluntarily.” You glance over your shoulder.

Jungkook has removed his outer jacket now, setting it over the back of a chair near the mats. Rolled sleeves. Bad. Deeply unhelpful visual. He catches you looking. You immediately focus very intently on a nearby fern. Botany is suddenly fascinating.

“This space belonged to my mother,” he says.

You freeze.

That—

you did not expect. Slowly, you turn back toward him. His tone is neutral. But quieter somehow.

Less guarded. Something about the admission feels unexpectedly intimate. Not because the information itself is dramatic. But because it sounds unpolished. Unstrategic. Simply offered.

“Oh.” An incredibly eloquent response. Well done. You glance around again, this time differently. Not as an anomaly in this island. But as something preserved.

That changes things. Subtly. Enough.

“She liked plants?” A small pause.

Then:

“She liked things that required patience.”

He must have inherited that part of her, because Jeon Jungkook must be the most patient and thorough man you’ve ever met. 

No other general would ever let you get away with this. Everyone had apparently been deeply convinced Jungkook would drag you out of Basgiath by your elbow within a week and punish you for your misbehaving. 

As far as Maelys has very helpfully informed you, most commanders in Navarre would have treated your enrollment as either an insult or a logistical inconvenience to be corrected immediately.

Not accommodated. Not entertained.

But he didn’t and now you’re almost at the end of your first year, which means one thing: your time is shortening, and you still haven’t thought through how you’ll get out of this, which now seems very impossible with the fact that your dragons are mated.

Several rounds later, you are beginning to suspect Jungkook is enjoying this far more than necessary. Not the sparring itself. Though he is, infuriatingly, still barely winded while you are starting to feel every muscle in your body protest.

No. He is enjoying you being frustrated. A deeply different problem. Wood clashes again, dull and ringing in the warm conservatory air. You drive forward with more force than precision, aiming a strike toward his left shoulder. He blocks immediately. Predictably.

You twist, trying to force an opening. He counters. Your blades lock. Too close. Again. This is becoming an issue.

Your breathing is heavier now, chest rising faster from exertion while warmth has begun gathering annoyingly beneath your leathers. The conservatory is warmer than the terrace.

Humid. Dense with heat trapped beneath glass and rain. And sparring, as it turns out, is significantly less enjoyable when your body has decided to become acutely aware of temperature. 

“This is tactical bullying.” You break apart from the lock with a frustrated sound.

“You’re overcommitting.” Jungkook lowers his blade slightly, dark hair fallen messily across his forehead now from movement.

“You say that like it’s a character flaw.”

“It is.”

Rude. You lunge again. He sidesteps. You miss. Badly. Your momentum carries you farther than intended, and Jungkook catches your wrist before you can fully lose balance. His hand is warm around your wrist. Your body stills instantly, and you swear all you hear is your heartbeat and his ragged breath.

For one deeply unfortunate second, neither of you moves. Rain drums harder overhead. Your pulse immediately begins behaving like it has lost all military discipline. Jungkook releases you first. A tactical retreat you are grateful for.

He steps back, gaze briefly dropping to the collar of his shirt where damp fabric has begun sticking lightly against skin. Then, with infuriating calm, he sets his training blade aside.

What is he—

Absolutely not.

You stare in mounting disbelief as he pulls the shirt loose over his head in one efficient movement and tosses it onto a nearby bench.

And—

well.

This feels like targeted psychological warfare. Your brain stops functioning for approximately three full seconds. Which, in combat terms, is catastrophic.

Jungkook is built exactly like a man who spends his life fighting wars and making deeply controlling logistical decisions.

Broad shoulders. Defined muscle cut sharply beneath warm lanternlight. A scattering of old scars crossing his torso and ribs like quiet evidence of every life he has apparently survived.

There is a relic mark curling darkly over one shoulder and along part of his collarbone, disappearing lower where your eyes absolutely should not be following. This is deeply inappropriate. You look away immediately. Then, accidentally look back. A tactical failure.

Your throat feels dry. Too dry. The conservatory suddenly seems approximately ten degrees warmer. You tighten your grip on your weapon. Trying very hard to recover some degree of composure. Trying harder not to notice absolutely anything. A losing battle. Jungkook settles back into his stance. Completely unbothered.

The audacity. What does he think he’ll achieve?

You’re getting distracted by the handsome general.

Virelia’s voice cuts through your scalp. The sheer betrayal of it nearly has you dropping your blade on principle.

Excuse me? You grip the practice sword harder, glaring at absolutely nothing in particular. Do not start. 

It is an observation. A fairly obvious one. Virelia sounds unbearably amused.

You are supposed to be on my side.

I am. This is very entertaining.

Fantastic. Wonderful. Your own dragon has decided to become a commentator on your rapidly declining emotional stability.

Across from you, Jungkook remains infuriatingly composed, blade angled lazily at his side as though he is not currently responsible for approximately eighty percent of your internal distress.

You narrow your eyes at him. This is somehow his fault too. You haven’t worked out how yet, but spiritually? Certainly.

“What?” he asks. His tone is neutral. Suspiciously neutral. Like he’s aware something has changed and is waiting to identify the threat. 

You blink. Had you been staring? No. Absolutely not… Probably.

“Nothing.” 

A pause.

Then Jungkook glances briefly upward, as though he could somehow locate Virelia through several floors of stone and an aggressively rainy sky and smirks. He is surely talking to Kaelor. You hate when he does that. 

Don’t you dare tell him Lia!

You are flustered. All the fucking time. Virelia remarks helpfully. 

I am not flustered.

Your pulse is elevated.

I’m sparring.

You have sparred before.

Traitor.

Absolute traitor.

You inhale once through your nose, attempting to recover what remains of your dignity.

Jungkook rolls one shoulder, loosening his grip slightly before resetting his stance. Still shirtless. Still unfairly calm about it.

Thunder rolls somewhere over the sea. The lanternlight catches gold against the sharp line of Jungkook’s jaw, across old scars, along the planes of muscle in his shoulders and arms.

You look away so quickly it nearly gives you whiplash. Absolutely not. Not happening. Not acknowledged. You raise your blade again with renewed hostility.

Enough. 

If he insists on being distracting, then you are at least going to make him work for it.

You lunge.

Fast.

Not reckless this time. Focused. Jungkook blocks immediately, but you’re already anticipating it. You pivot left, letting his blade glance off yours before dropping lower and shifting your weight.

He moves to counter—

too late.

You duck beneath his arm, twist sharply, and hook your foot behind his ankle with far more force than elegance. A dirty move but an effective one. His balance falters, just enough for him to fall and before he can fully recover, you use the opening.

One hand catches his forearm that holds his weapon and pins it to the ground. The other drives your practice blade upward—

stopping with the flat edge pressed firmly against his throat.

Silence. You are breathing hard. Chest rising too fast. Hair is partially stuck to your forehead from heat and exertion. Your pulse is so loud it should qualify as a military announcement. But none of that matters right now.

Because for once—

finally—

Jungkook is still. Not because he chose to be. Because you put him there. His back pressed to the cold stone ground while you straddle him, your body far closer to his than is remotely strategic. Victory, glorious and intoxicating.

“There.” Your mouth curves before you can stop it.  

“I win.” Breathless. Triumphant. For one beautiful second, satisfaction floods through you. Pure and untouched. Then you realize exactly how close you are.

Oh.

That is—

less ideal. Your smile falters by approximately half a degree. Jungkook hasn’t moved. Hasn’t even attempted to disarm you. Which feels suspicious. His chest rises once beneath you. Steady. Controlled. Far too calm. Slowly—dangerously—his eyes lift to yours.

Not to the weapon. Not to your hand. Just you and something in his expression changes, subtly, but enough. The playfulness is gone. The instructor’s detachment is gone with it. Replaced by something lower. Darker. Focused in a way that immediately sends heat racing beneath your skin.

Your grip tightens involuntarily. A terrible instinct.

“You should have followed through.”  His gaze flicks once toward the wooden blade at his throat. Your heart stumbles. That is not remotely what this moment needed.

“With a wooden sword?”

“Everything can be made into a weapon.”

There is something deeply unfair about the way he says that. Like it means two things at once. You narrow your eyes. Mostly because you are losing control of this situation at an alarming rate.

“Do not make this weird.”

That—somehow—makes his mouth twitch. Barely, but enough.

“You’re the one straddling me.”

You freeze. Horror. Immediate. You glance downward. And yes. Yes, this is visually catastrophic. Wonderful. You should simply throw yourself into the ocean. The conservatory windows are right there. Easy access.

You let his hand go and move to step back—

but Jungkook’s hand closes lightly around your waist to keep you in place.

Not forceful. Not trapping. Just enough to stop you. Your entire body stills. Oh no. Your pulse is now actively treasonous. Slowly, your gaze lifts back to his. 

“You did well.” His voice is lower now. Almost lost beneath the rain hammering against the glass overhead.

That should not be the thing that undoes you.

And yet.

Something about the quiet sincerity of it—here, now, like this—hits harder than any teasing ever could. Your pulse immediately abandons all remaining loyalty to your dignity. 

Jungkook is looking at you like he has forgotten every single thing outside this room exists.

“What are you doing?” 

Jungkook’s thumb shifts almost imperceptibly against your waist. A tiny movement. Devastating consequences. His gaze flicks once to your mouth. Then back to your eyes. Your stomach drops somewhere into the ocean below Drakskar. His voice is low enough that you barely hear it over the storm.

“Stopping you from running away.”

That—

that is not helpful.

His hand remains steady at your waist.

Grounding.

Possessive in a way that makes your entire nervous system light up like a distress signal. Your voice is barely above a whisper now.

“You are making this very difficult.”

“I’m aware.” His gaze doesn’t leave yours.

At least he has the decency to admit it. That should annoy you. Instead, it makes something warm and traitorous unfurl low in your chest. Terrible, absolutely terrible.

You look down briefly, mostly because maintaining eye contact has become a high-risk activity. A mistake. A fatal one.

Because all that does is make you more aware of proximity, of his sweaty, muscular torso right under you.

You exhale slowly. Trying for composure. Failing. Spectacularly.

When you look back up to his face, Jungkook is already watching you with an intensity that feels almost unfair. He sits, still keeping you in place, straddling his hips. You instinctively put your hands on his chest to push yourself in case he’d let his hands fall from your waist. Which doesn’t happen and now you’re in more trouble.

If that position felt close before, this is even worse. Close enough that one more inch would be a terrible idea and judging by the way Jungkook’s gaze lowers once more, very briefly—

he is thinking the exact same thing.

The firm grip of his hand still settled at your waist, not restraining exactly—but making it very clear you are not being allowed another graceful retreat.

Not this time.

Not when you are already here.

Not when you are practically straddling his hips in the middle of a conservatory during a thunderstorm like the gods themselves have lost all subtlety.

Your entire body feels like a tactical liability. Jungkook’s hand shifts just slightly higher at your waist. 

The fact that for all his possessiveness, for all his maddening certainty and terrifying competence—

he has never once taken what wasn’t willingly offered.

Your breath catches. Something in your chest shifts.Dangerously. Your gaze flickers from his  eyes to his mouth. Back up again. A fatal hesitation.

Jungkook goes still beneath you. Not frozen. Focused. Like he is one breath away from losing whatever carefully maintained control he has been operating under.

“If you keep looking at me like that—” His voice is low. Rougher now. “Fuck that.” 

The words barely leave his mouth before his hand at your waist tightens just enough to pull you the rest of the way in.

And then his lips are on yours.

Gods.

Every coherent thought simply evaporates. Gone. Reduced to static.

Because Jungkook kisses exactly the way he does everything else—like he has spent an unreasonable amount of time thinking about it and is now executing with terrifying precision. 

The kiss is warm and immediate and entirely capable of ruining your week. Possibly your life.

You kiss him back. Which is arguably the most reckless thing you have done since enrolling at Basgiath.

Out of…pure curiosity.

Not because the way Jungkook kisses you feels alarmingly like something you could get addicted to with catastrophic efficiency. Certainly not because his hand is still warm against your waist, thumb brushing absentminded circles there like he has forgotten he is doing it.

No. Scientific inquiry. That is all.

You kiss him back again—more deliberately this time. As if testing a theory. A hypothesis. One requiring immediate and repeated verification. For research purposes.

Jungkook makes a quiet sound against your mouth that completely dismantles whatever remained of your internal logic.

That—

you hate how much you like this kiss. Something is irresponsibly pulling you to continue kissing him back. 

“We shouldn’t—” you manage to mutter through the smooches of your intertwined lips.

“Yes, we should—” he replies, as breathless as you are.

You feel the tip of his tongue demanding an entrance you are hesitating to give, but when his hand slides to grasp your ass, you cannot help but yelp into his mouth. The kiss deepens, growing messier as your tongues tangle together. Jungkook tastes faintly of mint and something uniquely him that makes your head spin. Saliva mixes as the kiss grows increasingly frantic, your breathing coming in ragged pants between moments of feverish connection. Jungkook’s hand tightens on your waist, pulling you flush against him as his other hand moves to cup the back of your neck, fingers tangling in your hair. The slight pressure against your scalp sends another wave of desire through you. 

The kiss becomes a dizzying spiral of sensation—wet heat, probing tongues, and the occasional scrape of teeth against lips that sends jolts of pleasure through you. Jungkook sucks gently on your tongue, drawing it deeper into his mouth before releasing it to resume. You’re completely lost to sensation, your earlier hypothesis forgotten as you abandon yourself to the overwhelming pleasure of his kiss. 

When you briefly break apart to gasp for air, Jungkook’s lips immediately seek yours again, as if unable to bear even a moment of separation and as if the thunder wasn’t loud enough, the epiphany of what you just let happen is louder. 

Mortified. 

Somewhere deep in the bond, Virelia radiates a wave of smug satisfaction so intense it nearly gives you psychic whiplash. 

Were you observing that? 

Yes, we were.

You close your eyes for half a second. Of course they were. Of course the dragons are worse than the humans.

The distance between you is still dangerously small—small enough that your breath keeps catching on the space where his mouth had just been, small enough that your pulse refuses to settle back into anything resembling normalcy.

His forehead brushes yours again, slower this time. Controlled, but not entirely steady. Like he is trying to reassemble something he just deliberately broke and failing. You swallow.

It does not help. You have to get away.

“That cannot happen again.” You stand up from him abruptly, taking advantage of his guard falling. You walk away a few steps, your back turned to him.

Something in Jungkook’s expression changes when you look back at him still sitting on the ground.  

He exhales once, slow, like he is physically containing a reaction before it becomes visible.

When he speaks, his voice is lower than before.

“Why?”

You straighten slightly, forcing your thoughts back into alignment, back into something resembling reason.

“Because it—” you start, then stop, because anything you say next feels dangerously inadequate for what just happened.

Because it was a mistake.

Because it changes things.

Because it cannot be repeated.

All of those feel correct, yet none of them feels strong enough.

“You kissed me back.” 

“That doesn’t change anything,” you say quickly.

“Doesn’t it?” Jungkook’s gaze sharpens slightly.

Your stomach drops. Because there it is again. That unsettling certainty. Like he has already accounted for this outcome in a future you haven’t seen yet. 

“Everything happens for a reason. Dunne be my witness Y/N–” he says instead, voice steady enough to cut through the heat still lingering between you. 

“You don’t get to reduce this to fate,” you say quickly, forcing steel back into your voice. “Not when you’ve been steering every outcome since my father said yes–”

Jungkook doesn’t deny it. That is the worst part.

“I didn’t steer Lia, bonding with you was her own decision Kaelor just told her you entered the quadrant—” he says quietly. So he did tell her afterall.

He’s telling the truth. She says. But you refuse to believe he didn’t persuade her any further.

“That doesn’t make it destiny–” Your throat tightens as you speak to both of them. 

“No,” he agrees, calm as ever. “It makes it confirmation.”

Before you can respond, the corridor outside grows louder. Footsteps. Voices. The approaching certainty of interruption.

Jungkook exhales once, like he is setting something aside—not abandoning it, just postponing it.

“This doesn’t end here,” he says, quieter now.

Not a threat but a structural fact. You feel it in your bones anyway.

The door opens.

Cold air spills into the warm conservatory, breaking the fragile heat between you like a snapped thread.

“General Jeon. The dinner will be ready in half an hour if you wish to dine—” A steward stands in the doorway.

“Prepare the table,” he says evenly still looking at your rose colored cheeks.

“As you command, General.”

The dining hall in Drakskar is nothing like Basgiath. It’s small and private. It is carved into the cliff like everything else—long stone walls, high arched windows facing the restless ocean. Wind rattles faintly against the glass panes. Inside, everything is too controlled. Too quiet. You sit where you are told to sit. A long stone dining table entirely too large for two people, lit by low candlelight that softens absolutely nothing. 

Just you..and him again. 

You got used to being alone with Jungkook. He never took advantage, up until today’s sparring lesson, which after some thought, you admit you didn’t do anything to stop it. 

Sea fish rests on your plate, seasoned with herbs probably from the conservatory, alongside roasted vegetables and fresh bread still warm enough to steam when torn apart.

It should be comforting, but anxiety is beating you to it. You don’t wanna talk about it. But your mind would be at ease if you two established some boundaries. You didn’t need them before but after today…you’re not entirely sure.

He eats with infuriating calm. You, yourself, focus on your food with militant precision.

Knife.

Fork.

Fish.

Chew.

Do not make eye contact. A flawless system. It lasts approximately three minutes.

Then—

“We should talk about it–”

You close your eyes briefly. There it is. Of course. You don’t even bother looking up.

“No.” Across from you, a beat of silence and a deep groan.

“That was not a question, Y/N.”

You set your fork down slowly. Very slowly. As slowly as you look up to him. He’s already watching you. Not with the detached composure he uses in meetings or strategy briefings or while dismantling your sparring technique with surgical precision. This is different. Like this conversation has occupied his thoughts since the second you fled the conservatory. Or perhaps even longer.

You fold your hands neatly in your lap, mostly so he cannot see how restless your fingers suddenly feel.

“There is nothing to discuss.” A lie so transparent it should embarrass you. 

Jungkook leans back slightly in his chair, studying you with that maddening patience that somehow always feels more dangerous than outright confrontation.

“You kissed me back.”

Heat immediately floods your face. A physiological betrayal. Unacceptable.

“I got carried away–will never happen again.” Your jaw tightens while you breathe in as much air as you can muster in your lungs. 

“Will it not?” The calmness of the question is almost worse than if he had argued.

“No.” You say sharply. One dark brow lifts. “It was a lapse in judgment.” 

“A lapse in judgment,” he repeats, nodding his head with a stead rhythm. “You’ll realise that we’ll do much more once you’ll come to your senses?” 

Your grip tightens around your glass. 

“Excuse me?” you stare at him across the candlelit table, genuinely offended by the sheer audacity of his existence. 

“You continue speaking as though our relationship is temporary—Y/N, you’re my—.” 

“Because it is–” Your brows knit with anger as you interrupt him. Jungkook exhales once through his nose, gaze never leaving yours. 

“No.” Just that. Flat and certain. The single syllable lands harder than anything louder might have. 

“I am still a rider at Basgiath and when–” You straighten slightly in your chair.

“And I am still the man you are betrothed to.” He snaps back at you, clearly losing his patience but you simply stare back at him with the same anger that reflects in his eyes. The candlelight catches against the sharp planes of his face, throwing shadows across the relic mark disappearing beneath his collar.

“I have been very patient with you.” That gets your attention. Not because the words are dramatic. Because they are true. Painfully, inconveniently true. It took him years up until now to dare to kiss you. And kiss he did. If you close your eyes long enough, you can still feel him on your tongue.

He could have made your life significantly more difficult. Instead, he gave you distance. Space. Too much time, perhaps. Enough for you to mistake patience for surrender. A tactical error.

“You enrolled in the Riders Quadrant believing it would place enough distance between us to make this avoidable.” When he says it aloud like that, it sounds embarrassingly naive…and perhaps it was….at least partially.

“But–” a faint pause, as if he stopped to answer Kaelor in his mind. Virelia is oddly quiet this evening, usually she jabs at you with snarky remarks about how you should give this a shot. Or that it would make your life entirely easier if you’d just bend and accept this union.  

“Your dragon is mated to mine.”

The unavoidable, catastrophic truth of your existence. You’ll never be away from him. Can’t. As though fate itself saw your carefully constructed escape plan and laughed. 

“You will continue returning to this island–” 

Your pulse does something deeply unhelpful.

Because hearing it laid out like this—

so plainly, so clinically—

makes the situation feel even more absurdly intimate than it already is.

“Until you stay here as my wife—” Jungkook’s gaze holds yours steadily. “Willingly.” 

He stands up, throwing the napkin he had on his lap onto the table and walks right to where you’re sitting. You don’t pivot to see him, instead, you keep your gaze fixed stubbornly on the arched windows ahead, where the black ocean churns violently beneath moonlight. White foam crashes against jagged cliffs below. A fitting visual representation of your internal state.

Behind you, you hear the quiet shift of fabric as Jungkook rests one hand against the back of your chair. An impossible awareness at your shoulder. You can feel him bending down, his nose nudging your hair away before he whispers into your ear.

“The sooner you accept that there is no version of future in which we remain separate,” he says quietly, “the easier this will be for you.” 

And with a warm kiss to your cheek, he leaves the dining room.

Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck him.

Your room at Drakskar is quieter than Basgiath ever was. You sit at the edge of the bed, fingers absently unfastening the leather straps at your wrists one by one. The room is dimly lit by a single candle already burning low, throwing amber light across rough stone walls and the neatly folded blankets at the foot of the bed.

The mattress dips slightly beneath your weight. You let out a slow breath and lean back onto your palms, staring at the wooden beams overhead. This was manageable before—

that is what keeps circling in your head.

Before today, whatever strange arrangement had formed between you and Jungkook was at least functional. Predictable, in its own infuriating way.

You came to Drakskar. You trained. He criticized approximately every aspect of your technique like it was a sacred duty. You returned to Basgiath. Simple. Contained. Annoying, but manageable. Then today happened. 

Because the second darkness settles behind your eyelids, your mind immediately betrays you. His lips.

Warm.

Intentional.

The way everything in your body had gone utterly still for half a heartbeat—not from shock, not entirely, but from the unbearable realization that this was happening. The heat of his skin beneath your palms because apparently at some point you had decided holding onto him was an excellent idea. 

A truly catastrophic lapse in judgment. You groan softly and drag both hands over your face. You should have never kissed him back. You should have slapped him the moment he let you breathe again. 

That is the worst part. Not the kiss itself. Gods, no. If anything, that may somehow be the more alarming issue. No. The problem is that you had wanted to.

Like some traitorous part of you had been waiting far longer than you were prepared to acknowledge. Which is absurd. Completely absurd.

You sit up abruptly. As if changing position will somehow disrupt your own thoughts. It does not. You kick off your boots with more force than necessary and begin removing the rest of your leathers, folding them onto a nearby chair with rigid efficiency.

You should stop thinking. Immediately. A wise decision. One you are unfortunately denied.

Because suddenly—

heat floods through you so sharply you physically jolt. Your breath catches in your lungs. 

What is it?

A pulse. Hot and immediate, racing through every nerve like liquid fire. Your hands grip the edge of the mattress.

“Oh, no–”

Another wave hits. Stronger. Deeper. Is…is Lia channeling her magic? Right now?

A warmth low in your stomach unfurling with alarming speed, curling outward through your limbs until your skin feels entirely too sensitive. You just gotta get to bed and sleep it through. Right?

You make it approximately six minutes.

Six.

A humiliatingly short amount of time before pride, dignity and every sensible instinct you possess lose the ongoing war against whatever this is. You yank your chamber door open and step into the corridor, breathing sharply as cooler air brushes overheated skin. They are mating. She started to channel right when they are fucking mating. You feel almost every single bit of it.

You don’t know where you’re running off barely dressed, but it seems that there is a red thread in front of you that you follow.  

It does not help. Nothing helps. The fortress is mostly quiet at this hour. You walk faster. Then faster still. Not running. Certainly not. Just… urgently relocating.

Another pulse rolls through the bond. You stop so abruptly your palm hits the wall beside you.

“Oh, for the love of all the gods.” Your forehead briefly meets stone. Cold. Marginally useful. Virelia offers nothing except a smug warmth that feels deeply personal at this point.

How do I stop this? You are met with silence. 

You push off the wall and continue. You need distraction. Water. Fresh air. Possibly divine intervention. 

Any of the above.

What you do not need is company.

Which is why naturally, when you round the final corner and push open the heavy doors to what you vaguely hoped was an empty common room—

you freeze.

Because of course.

Of course.

There is one person here.

Seated near the massive hearth, one arm resting lazily along the back of a dark leather sofa, a glass of amber liquid loose in one hand. The entire setting looks offensively intimate. But that is not the worst part.

No.

The worst part is what he is wearing.

Or rather—

what he is not.

AGAIN.

Jungkook is wearing only loose black sleep trousers slung low on his hips. That is it.

Nothing else. Bare chest. Bare shoulders. Bare arms. Fucking again. You physically stop breathing for half a second. Fucking again.

He looks up. Sees you and immediately knows something is wrong.

Or rather—

not wrong.

His gaze sharpens with quiet recognition. A slow, deeply knowing expression settling across his features. Not smug. Worse. Aware.

“No–I–ehm–” You stutter. Defensively. A warning or maybe a plea. Hard to tell.

“Running from something?” he asks, voice low and rough. Jungkook sets his drink down on the low table beside him with measured calm.

“I think Lia started to channel and they are–”

“You lasted longer than I expected.” He interrupts you.

“You expected this?” Your mouth falls open. Pure offense.

“Our dragons are mated.” He arches one brow as if this was indeed inevitable. “It was inevitable.” 

You step backward slightly unfortunately, your body betrays you again with another sharp wave through the bond, warmth curling low and immediate enough to make your knees feel briefly unreliable.

You grip the doorframe. Jungkook watches the motion. Entirely too calmly. The fire crackles behind him. Outside, thunder rolls faintly somewhere over the ocean. There has been a storm the whole day.

“I’m fine. I just needed air,” you lie, taking a step back toward the hall. He turns then and the intensity in his eyes makes you freeze. 

“Don’t lie to me, Y/N. I can feel it too, you know. What they’re doing.”

Another pulse of heat courses through you at his words and you grip the back of a nearby chair to steady yourself. 

“That’s them. Not us.”

“Is it?” He rises slowly, muscles flexing with the movement. “Then why does your heart race when I look at you? Why do your pupils dilate like you want me to devour you?”

He crosses the space between you, stopping just short of touching. The heat radiating from his skin feels like a physical caress.

“You can’t hide from this," he murmurs, fingers tracing the line of your jaw. “From us.”

“We shouldn’t—” Your body betrays you, leaning into his touch despite your mind screaming at you to pull away. 

“Why not?” he challenges, thumb brushing your lower lip. “This is not the last time they are mating, it will help to ease the–”

The mating bond surges again—stronger this time—and you gasp as pleasure coils tight in your belly. Jungkook’s eyes darken with understanding and something else—primal satisfaction.

“Feel that?” His voice drops to a husky whisper.  “Your body wants this. Wants me–” 

His voice drops to a husky whisper as his thumb presses harder against your lip, parting them slightly. “Tell me you don’t feel it. That emptiness inside you that only I can fill.”

You can’t answer. The mating bond of your dragons pulses through you again, a searing wave of desire that makes your knees weak. Your hands, which had been clenched at your sides, now reach instinctively for him, fingers curling around his biceps.

“That’s it,” he murmurs in approval, his other hand sliding around your waist to pull you flush against him. “Stop fighting me.”

His tongue sweeps against yours with practiced dominance, tasting and taking as his hands grip your hips, pulling you flush against him. The thin fabric of your clothes does little to dull the sensation of his hard body against yours.

You moan into his mouth, hands coming up to grip his shoulders as the dragon bond pulses through you again. Every nerve ending feels electrified, hypersensitive to his touch. His fingers work the fastenings of your tunic, deftly loosening them until cool air kisses your heated skin.

“Jungkook,” you gasp as his lips trail down your neck, teeth scraping lightly over your pulse point. “We can’t—” 

You’ve said these words today already, but this time you don’t believe yourself one bit. It’s easing the painful knots in your body. 

“We fucking can,” he corrects, nipping at your collarbone. “We will.” His hands slide beneath your tunic, palms rough with calluses from dragon riding as they map the curve of your waist, the dip of your spine. 

The mating bond intensifies again and you arch against him helplessly as pleasure coils tight in your belly. Jungkook chuckles darkly, the sound vibrating against your throat.

“Our dragons are enjoying themselves,” he murmurs, lifting you effortlessly until your legs wrap around his waist. The position presses you intimately against his hardness and you both groan at the contact. 

“Why shouldn’t we?” He moaned. Jungkook carries you in front of the fire, laying you down gently on the armchair near it despite the urgency in his movements.

Jungkook kneels before the chair, his eyes dark with hunger as they sweep over your body. “I’ve been wondering what you taste like,” he murmurs, fingers tracing the edge of your tunic. “Since that first day I saw you.”

Your breath hitches as he slowly lifts the fabric, exposing your stomach, then higher still until your breasts are bare to the warm air and his heated gaze.

With practiced movements, he strips away the last of your clothing until you’re completely exposed before him. The vulnerability should terrify you, but all you can feel is anticipation as his eyes drink in every inch of you.

“Perfect,” he breathes, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to your inner thigh. “All mine.”

His mouth continues its upward journey, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. When he reaches the apex of your thighs, you’re already trembling with need. His thumbs part your folds gently, exposing your slick center to his gaze. 

“Look at that…your body knows who it belongs to.” He teased, voice thick with satisfaction, smiling into your sore skin.

Before you can respond, his hot mouth kisses your sex making you moan from satisfaction. His tongue flicks against your clit, exploring every inch of you with a thoroughness that makes your head spin, until you’re writhing in the chair. Your legs slide onto his shoulders, covering the dragon tattoo on his back. Your hands fisting in his hair as you hold him to you.

Jungkook groans against you, the vibration sending another wave of pleasure through your body. 

“Jungkook–” you gasp, hips bucking against his mouth.

He responds by sucking gently on your clit, drawing it between his lips as his tongue continues its wicked dance. The dual sensation is overwhelming, pushing you closer to the edge with each passing moment.

“So close,” you manage, breath coming in ragged pants. His tongue delves deeper, thrusting into you in a rhythm that makes your toes curl. One hand slides up to grip your breast, thumb circling your nipple in time with the movements of his mouth. The combination is too much—too intense, too perfect. 

“If you come–” he heaves “you’ll come clenching my cock.” 

He doesn’t wait for your answer. Instead, he doubles his efforts, tongue thrusting deeper as his thumb presses harder against your nipple and when he senses your trembling, he tears himself away from your cunt.

He wipes his chin from your juices and looks into your eyes for any kind of resistance. When he finds none, he grips your hips, pulling you down to the ground with him, only to spin you so your ass is up. 

His large hand presses your naked chest onto the chair. His hand remains firm between your shoulder blades, holding you in place as you hear the rustle of fabric behind you. He hooks one of his fingers into the black sleeping trousers and pushes them down. 

You daren’t look back to see him. Afraid of your own body’s reaction upon doing so.

The head of his cock presses against your entrance, teasing, threatening. You push back instinctively, desperate for the fullness he promised, but his grip on your hip tightens, holding you still.

“Promise.” He demands. 

“Promise what?” you manage, voice ragged with need despite the position of submission.

His free hand traces the curve of your spine, a stark contrast to the firm pressure holding you down. 

“Promise you won’t run again. That this—” he presses forward slightly, enough to make you ache without giving you what you need to release the pain that is holsting through you “—is ours. Not just tonight, but always.”

The mating bond keeps surging through you one with his words, a searing wave of desire that makes your knees weak, that makes you not think clearly. You need this to stop and he…is your only release. You want to resist, to maintain some semblance of control, but your body betrays you, pushing back against him again.

“Say it, Y/N.” His voice drops to a husky whisper. “Swear that you’re mine.”

“I—” you begin, but the words catch in your throat as he circles his hips, the head of his cock teasing your entrance in a way that makes you tremble.

“Say it, love” he commands, thumb pressing into the dimple above your ass. “Or I’ll stop. I’ll leave you here, painfully wanting, while our dragons finish what they started.”

The threat is effective. The thought of being left like this—aching, empty, desperate—is more unbearable than surrendering to his claim.

“I promise,” you whisper, the words tasting like defeat and something else—relief. “I won’t run again. I’m yours.”

“Good girl,” he praises, and then he’s pushing into you—slow, deliberate, stretching you until you’re completely filled. The sensation is overwhelming, a perfect mix of pleasure and possession that makes your head spin.

“Feel that?” he murmurs once he’s seated fully inside you. “This is where you belong. Wrapped around me, taking what I give you.”

His movements start slow—deep, measured thrusts that stoke the fire building in your core again. Each push forward is punctuated by a possessive word or phrase.

“Mine.”

Thrust.

“Made only for me.”

Thrust.

The bond pulses in time with his thrusts, amplifying every sensation until you’re pushing back against him, meeting him thrust for thrust. His pace increases, one hand gripping your hip while the other slides around to find your clit. 

There is something so satisfying about the way his head hits all the right spots inside of your  cunt, your walls clenching around him as a silent thank you for pleasuring them. 

You are lost in him, in between his praising words how good you’re for him and the way his cock stretches the rim of your cunt. The pressure builds like a storm gathering over the Drakskar—inevitable, devastating, absolute. Your cheek presses against the chair, the leather texture sticking to your skin as Jungkook drives into you with a rhythm that has lost its patience. He is no longer teasing. He is claiming. 

“Look at you, love” he pants, the sound of his voice ragged, ruined. “Taking me so well. Made to be fucked by your husband, weren’t you? Even if you won’t say it yet.”

The word husband sends a spike of heat through your belly, dark and forbidden. You want to deny it, to remind him that you ran precisely to avoid that title, but your body arches into him, meeting each thrust with a desperation that makes a liar of you.

“Jungkook—” You gasp as his fingers on your clit press harder, circling in time with the snap of his hips. “I can’t—it’s too much—”

“Not yet.” He pulls out suddenly, leaving you hollow and keening at the loss and before you can draw breath to protest, he’s flipping you onto your back on the furs before the hearth. The firelight paints his skin in gold and shadow, highlighting every lean muscle, the dragon-scale scars that mark him as Kaelor’s rider, the absolute focus in his eyes as he settles between your thighs.

This position is different. Intimate. Inescapable. Woman and man. Wife and husband. Apart…you are yet to be wed and this would be absolutely scandalous if anyone got to know he bed you before you tied the knot. He isn’t…your first. But he sure thinks he’ll be your last.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, the word almost a purr as he settles his weight more fully against you, his cock pressing hard and insistent against your entrance. “I’m the one whose name you’ll scream when you’re desperate, whose seed you’ll carry.”

He enters you slowly, torturously slow, watching your face with an intensity that feels like it could burn through steel. You are stretched around him, filled completely and the intimacy of this position—face to face, heart to heart—makes you want to look away. But his hand catches your chin, holding you captive to his gaze. 

“Look at me,” he demands, his thrusts becoming relentless, punishing, the sound of skin meeting skin filling the chamber like war drums. “Look at me when I claim you. When I fill you. When I breed my future wife for the first time.” 

You feel him swell inside you, feel the tension coil in his spine, feel through the bond his absolute determination to fill your womb, to plant his seed so deep you’ll feel it for days, to ensure that even if you ran again, you would carry him with you. You know it can’t result in  the outcome he’d probably want due to the fertility suppressant you are taking, but you know it’s Kaelor speaking through him and this…is merely a desire for now.

His hips snap against yours with such deliberate precision it makes you catch onto him. You bite down on his shoulder to stop yourself from screaming how good this feels. How good is his cock hitting your cervix, making you gasp loudly each time it does.

“Show me you accept it. Accept me. Show me you want my child growing inside you.”

The orgasm crashes over you with the force of a dragon’s wingbeat, tearing a scream from your throat that echoes off the stone walls. Your body seizes around him, milking him, your walls clamping down in rhythmic pulses that draw out his own release.

Jungkook buries his face in your neck too, his teeth finding the juncture of your shoulder, biting down hard but not enough to break skin as he spills inside you with a groan that sounds like your name and mine and finally all tangled together. 

The bond flares blindingly bright, Virelia and Kaelor’s pleasure cresting and breaking through your consciousness as Jungkook marks you from within, hot and deliberate and endless, his hips jerking in short, possessive thrusts as he empties everything he has into you.

He collapses atop you, his weight a blanket that you should push away but can’t, his cock still twitching inside you, his breath ragged against your sweat-dampened skin. For long moments, there is only the sound of the Drakskar wind and your thundering heartbeats, synchronized through the bond.

“I love you,” he murmurs against your temple, his voice rough, sated, and still terrifyingly possessive. “I’ve been loving you for very long time–”

You go still beneath him, your fingers pausing their tracing of his scars, your breath catching in a way that has nothing to do with the aftershocks of pleasure still rippling through you. He has laid himself bare in a way that frightens you more than his dominance ever could. It is one thing to be claimed by Jungkook the rider, the relentless general. It is another to be loved by him.

“—and I won’t stop until you’ll be truly mine.”

“Truly yours,” you repeat, your voice barely a whisper, testing the weight of the words.

He shifts above you, his hips rolling in a slow, deliberate circle that makes your breath hitch, a reminder of where he’s still seated deep within you.

“Your heart is still running–” He leans down, his teeth grazing your earlobe, his voice dropping to a growl that vibrates through your bones. “And I will chase it. I will chase you. Through every argument, every denial, every time you look at me and see the contract instead of the man.” 

The dragon bond flares, Kaelor’s determination bleeding into Jungkook’s, a mirror to Virelia’s restless stirring in your own mind. You feel his love through it—not soft, not gentle, but fierce and unyielding as stone, as fire, as the dragons themselves. 

“You’re mad,” you breathe. 

“Mad for you,” he agrees. “Mad enough to burn the world down if it tries to take you from me.”

He captures your mouth in a kiss that tastes like desperation and devotion, his tongue sweeping through yours in a rhythm that matches the snap of his hips against yours. 

“So run if you need to,” he murmurs against your lips, his hand sliding across your body, his thrusts intensifies, eager to make you cum again.

“Hate me if you must. But know that I will be here. Every time you fall, I will catch you.” 

The pleasure builds again, relentless and you arch beneath him, meeting his thrusts, your body betraying your fear even as your heart pounds warnings. 

“Every time you hide, I will fucking find you.” 

He drives you to the edge with devastating precision, his cock hitting that spot that makes your vision blur, and when you come—screaming, shattering, breaking apart beneath him, yet again—he follows, spilling inside you with a groan that sounds like a prayer and a battle cry tangled together. 

“Until you look at me and see not your cage, but your sanctuary.” 

I N T E R L O G U E

You exploited her. 

Kaelor is coiled somewhere in the caves below, wings tucked, scales black as obsidian in the dim light, but his rage burns bright enough to sear through the connection.

Jungkook presses your sleeping form against his chest tighter. 

I didn’t.

You let her go through our mating heat when you could teach her how to shield.

I could have, he admits to the darkness, to the dragon, his thumb tracing idle patterns across your stomach—possessive even in his guilt. Jungkook buries his face in your hair, inhaling the scent of sea salt and sex and something uniquely you. 

I felt her burning and I chose to let her burn. 

Why? After all the work you've done to have her.

Because once she learns to shield, she’ll use it against me. Against my love for her.

And that terrifies you? That she could shield herself from you?

I’m afraid of waking up to silence. Of reaching through the bond and finding walls. 

When she wakes—truly wakes, not dazed by heat and hormones—she will know what you denied her. 

Your hand clenches against Jungkook’s forearm, nails digging crescent moons into his skin, and he wonders if you’re fighting him even now, unconscious, building those walls in the dark. 

We’ll see. 

Far beyond the chamber walls, Drakskar breathed beneath the night like something ancient and half-awake, all black stone and sharpened edges, guarding its secrets with the same ruthless devotion as the man beside you.

.

.

.

.

THE END.

©pennyellee. please do not repost

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

the keycard clicked. the lock light flickered green.

you pushed the hotel room door open with your hip, one hand still tangled in jeongguk’s hair. his mouth was on your neck before the door even swung shut behind them. his breath was hot, unsteady, not the calculated rhythm of an agent undercover, but something rawer.

“camera,” you breathed.

he pulled back just enough for his eyes to meet yours. dark. focused. a single bead of sweat traced a path from his temple to his jaw. “sweep’s done. we’re clean.”

your fingers tightened in his hair. “check again.”

a beat of silence. his hands dropped from your waist. the loss of contact was a physical thing, your skin prickled where his palms had been, the silk of your dress suddenly too thin, too warm.

“paranoid,” he muttered, but he was already pulling out his phone, thumb swiping across the screen in quick, practiced motions.

you walked to the window. twenty-three floors below, the city sprawled in grids of amber and white light. somewhere in that neon maze, kang dae-jung was counting his money and sharpening his knives. three months of undercover work. three months of playing the devoted girlfriend to jeongguk’s ambitious security consultant. the persona had a name—yuna, a former flight attendant with expensive taste and a habit of laughing too loud at rich men’s jokes.

you hated yuna.

behind you, jeongguk’s voice was low. “room’s clean. no rf interference. no heat signatures through the walls.” a pause. “aera.”

he said your real name. you turned. he was standing by the bed now, phone discarded on the nightstand. the streetlight through the window caught the sharp angles of his face, the jawline that had gotten them into half the private parties in this city, the mouth that had convinced kang’s lieutenant they were just another couple drowning in luxury.

“we have four hours before the extraction team moves into position,” she said. “we should go over the floor plans again.”

“we’ve gone over them twelve times.”

“then thirteen.”

his jaw tightened. “you’ve been avoiding looking at me directly for the past six hours. what happened at the gala?”

a muscle in your thigh twitched. you locked your knees. “nothing happened.”

“when kang put his hand on your back—"

“i handled it.”

“—you flinched.” jeongguk took a step toward her. “yuna doesn’t flinch. yuna leans into that kind of attention. you almost blew three months of work because you couldn’t—”

“i flinched because you were staring.” the words left your mouth before you could stop them. sharp. accusing. “you were staring at kang’s hand on me like you wanted to break every bone in his fingers. not like a partner watching my back. like something else.”

the room held its breath. jeongguk’s expression flickered, a crack in the careful mask he’d worn since the day they’d been assigned together. “you’re imagining things.”

“i’m a trained observer.” you crossed her arms. “and you’ve been compromised.”

he laughed. a single, humorless sound. “compromised.”

“you’re too close to this. to me.”

“we’re pretending to be a couple. we’re supposed to be close.”

“there’s supposed and there’s whatever this is.”

he moved then, not fast, but deliberate. two steps closed the distance between them. the warmth of his body reached yours before his hands did. you tilted your chin up to hold his gaze.

“you want to know what this is?” his voice had dropped, roughened at the edges. “three months of sharing a bed and pretending to sleep. three months of your perfume on my shirt and your laugh in my ear while i smile at men who deserve a bullet. three months of watching you become someone else every morning and watching her fall away every night the second the door closes.”

her pulse was hammering at the base of her throat.

“we made a deal,” you managed. “keep it professional.”

“you brought up the flinch.”

“because it’s a liability.”

“is that what you think i am?”

his hand lifted. hesitated. then his knuckles grazed your cheekbone, just a whisper of contact, and your breath caught. you could feel the calluses on his fingers from range practice, the slight tremor that had nothing to do with fear.

“you’re the best agent i’ve ever worked with,” he said quietly. “and the worst thing that’s happened to my focus in years. both things are true. both things are going to get us killed if we don’t—”

you kissed him.

the decision bypassed her brain entirely. one moment you was standing there with your arms crossed and your arguments lined up like bullets in a magazine. the next, your mouth was on his and your fingers were gripping the front of his shirt and you were pulling him towards you with a desperation that felt like falling.

he made a sound against your lips—hunger—and then his hands were in your hair and his body was pressing you backward until your shoulders hit the window.

the glass was cold through the thin silk. he was not. “aera.” your name came out ragged, half-buried in the curve of your neck. “tell me to stop.”

you didn’t.

your fingers found the buttons of his shirt. fumbled. the third one down popped loose and your palm slid against the bare skin of his chest. heat. muscle. the frantic rhythm of his heart under your hand.

his mouth traveled down your throat, teeth grazing the sensitive skin above your collarbone. a sound escaped you—small, involuntary, nothing like yuna’s practiced giggles.

“is this still a liability?” he murmured against your skin.

“shut up.”

“yes ma’am.”

his hands found the zipper at the back of your dress. pulled. the silk loosened, slid, and then the dress was pooling at your feet and you were standing in nothing but black lace and the glow of the city skyline.

he stepped back. just an inch. just enough to look at you.

“jesus,” he breathed.

the way he said it—reverent, wrecked—sent heat cascading down your spine. you reached for him, but he caught your wrists.

“wait.” your body protested. every nerve ending was screaming for contact. but you waited.

“we’re doing this,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. “but i need you to know— right now, this room, this isn’t the assignment. this isn’t kang or the mission or any of it. this is you and me. just us. if you can’t give me that, tell me now.”

his grip on your wrists was gentle but unyielding. his eyes were the color of strong coffee, and just as bracing.

you twisted her hands free, not breaking his hold, but reversing it. now you were the one gripping his wrists. now you were the one pulling him closer.

“you’ve had me compromised since week two,” you said. “when you memorised how i take my coffee and started leaving a cup on my nightstand every morning before i woke up.”

something shifted in his expression. softened.

then he was kissing you again, and there was no hesitation this time. his hands mapped the curve of your waist, the flare of your hips, the dip of your lower back. you pulled his shirt off his shoulders, let it fall, traced the lines of ink that curved over his ribs—a design you've seen a hundred times in surveillance stills and never once touched.

touching it now felt like breaking a rule.

she wanted to break more.

he walked you backward. the edge of the bed hit the back of your knees. you sat, pulled him down with you. the weight of him pressing you into the mattress, and you wrapped your legs around his waist like you'd been doing it for years instead of hours of choreographed public displays.

his mouth found the hollow behind your ear. “you make this sound,” he said, voice barely audible, “when something actually feels good. not the yuna sound. the real one. i’ve been trying to hear it for weeks.”

“creep.”

“observant.”

you laughed—a genuine, surprised laugh—and he swallowed it with a kiss.

your hands moved to his belt. the leather was stiff, the buckle complicated. you fumbled. he paused. looked down at you. “you do this a lot undercover?”

“shut up.”

“because your technique—”

you got the buckle open. his smirk vanished. you tugged the belt free, popped the button of his trousers, and slid your hand inside. he inhaled sharply, his hips jerking forward into your touch. the fabric of his boxer briefs was damp.

you looked up at him through her lashes. “you were saying?”

in answer, he reached behind your and unclasped your bra. one hand slid the strap down your shoulder. then the other. then he was lowering his head and his mouth was on your breast and your back arched off the mattress.

there. that sound he’d mentioned. the real one. it escaped her throat before she could stop it. he made a noise of approval against your skin and did it again.

your fingers dug into his shoulders. the world narrowed to the wet heat of his mouth, the scrape of his teeth, the way his hips ground against yours in a rhythm that was far from practiced. there was no choreography here. no marks to hit, no cameras to play to.

just his body and yours and four hours of borrowed time.

he pulled back just long enough to shove his trousers and briefs down, kick them off. you almost let out a gasp, "jesus… you're big."

"you think?" he murmured, voice rough with nerves and pride, half-smiling against her lips before kissing her again. it wasn't like he’d ever measured himself or compared… but hearing it from you? made his chest swell.

your hand hovered for a second, like you wanted to touch but weren't sure if you should yet. jeongukk caught it gently, pressing your palm flat against his stomach instead of where you both really wanted it… giving them you to adjust.

still holding your hand, he guided it lower—slowly… giving you time to pull away if you wanted. you didn’t. instead, your fingers finally curled around him. jeongguk sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth at the contact.

you started with slow strokes, curious more than confident, and each glide sent sparks through his nerves his breathing turned uneven, lips parting as quiet sounds escaped him without meaning to. a small whimper here… a shaky exhale there. it was overwhelming in the best way possible—the intimacy of it all hitting harder than anything physical could have.

jeongguk's hips twitched involuntarily when your thumb brushed over the wetness at his tip—a quiet, precum-coated evidence of how ready he was for you.

he hadn’t even realised it had happened… too focused on your touch. but now that you noticed? his embarrassment flared—face heating up instantly.

you didn’t tease him though. instead, your thumb swiped gently through the moisture, spreading it slightly before continuing to stroke with more deliberate pressure this time.

jeongguk bit his lip—hard—to keep from making another embarrassing noise… but failed miserably when your squeezed just right.

the sound that slipped out of jungkook was embarrassingly high—almost a whine—as your grip tightened just right. his hips jerked forward slightly, chasing your hand without thinking.

he was so sensitive… every stroke, every brush of skin made him twitch and tremble like it was too much—but also not enough.

you noticed, your eyes flickering up to watch his reactions—the way his jaw clenched, how he bit his lip to stay quiet.

you slowed down… teasing now. torturing him with feather-light strokes that drove him crazy but didn’t give relief.

you pull your hand away and hook your thumb on your panties, slowly sliding them down. jeongukk couldn't keep his eyes off of you. he slowly got onto his knees, making eye contact through his lashes, asking you for permission to let him taste you.

once you gave him the look, he kissed your inner thigh first. soft, teasing, then moved inward, his tongue parting you with one slow, deliberate stroke. you cried out, your hips bucking against his face. jeongguk groaned against you, the vibration sending sparks through your clit. he licked again, slower this time, savoring the taste of you. his tongue circled your entrance, dipping inside just enough to make you whimper, then sliding up to focus on the sensitive bundle of nerves at the top.

"fuckk jeongguk—" you moaned, hands gripping his hair. he didn't answer with words. he answered with action, wrapping his lips around your clit and sucking gently while his finger pressed inside you. one finger, then two, curling to find that spot that made your vision blur. his tongue kept working, relentless, alternating between broad flat strokes and quick flicks that had you gripping his hair, pulling him closer.

"don't stop," you cried out. he didn't. he kept his pace slow, torturous, drawing out every moan, every gasp. his tongue circled your clit in lazy loops while his fingers pumped in and out, building you up without letting you fall. he wanted you to remember this. wanted you to feel every second.

he breathing grew ragged, your hips grinding against his face. "i'm close," you gasped. "i'm so close." it was almost embarrassing how fast he made you cum. 

he pulled his mouth away, and you whimpered at the loss. but his fingers kept moving, curling harder, faster.

"not yet," he said, voice hoarse. he kissed his way back up your body, leaving a trail of wet heat across your stomach, your breasts, your throat. "i want to feel you cum around me."

he gave his cock a few strokes, coating it with his precum. the first press of him against your entrance made them you freeze.

condom. you should say something about a condom. the thought floated through your mind, distant and irrelevant. they’d both been tested. they’d both been—

“i’m clean,” he said, reading your mind. “and i’m not going to—”

“i know.” your voice was steadier than you felt. “i trust you.”

the words landed heavier than you'd intended. trust, in their line of work, was a currency more valuable than information. more dangerous than any weapon.

he held your gaze. asked one more time with his eyes: "you sure?" you didn’t answer with words—you just kissed him harder, your legs wrapping around his waist and pulling him down. that was all the confirmation jeongguk needed.

with a slow, careful push, he slid into you—eyes fluttering shut at the overwhelming sensation. warm… tight… perfect. better than anything he’d imagined.

you gasped against his lips—but not from pain. more like surprise at how full you felt… then quiet pleasure as they adjusted together.

"oh fuck," you let out the whiniest moan he'd ever hear. jeongguk echoed you exactly—"oh fuck"—under his breath the second he was fully sheathed inside you. it felt too good… overwhelming in a way that made his vision blur for a second.

he stayed still, forehead pressed to yours as they both breathed through the intensity of it. your fingers dug into his back slightly, your body slowly relaxing around him, getting used to the stretch.

"fuck— you're so big, gguk," you moan. jeongguk's heart squeezed at the nickname—"gguk." it made him melt, and also swell with pride (in more ways than one). "you like that?" he whispered hoarsely, his voice thick as he rocked into you again—deeper this time, still slow but building.

you nodded, your lips parting around a breathy moan. you weren't lying either; his size definitely filled you completely… stretching just right without hurting.

jungkook kissed down your jaw, cheeks flushed from pleasure and affection for you.

he leaned down, his lips brushing your ears as he spoke, "you feel so damn good around me," he growled, "so tight… like you were made for this."

then he nipped her earlobe before adding, "wanna make you scream my name… wanna fucking ruin you." you gasped at his filthy words. "oh shit!"

and then? jeongguk picked up the pace—harder thrusts, chasing that promise in his words. he grinned at your "oh shit." he loved that reaction. loved knowing he was wrecking you with every deep thrust. "that’s it," he murmured against your neck, "let me hear you…"

then his hand slid between you, finding where you were connected and pressing a thumb right over your sensitive clit—rubbing in slow circles while still pounding into you.

you cried out this time—a louder sound than before—as pleasure spiked through every nerve. jungkook watched with hooded eyes… addicted to how you looked like this because of him.

his mouth crashed onto yours again—messy, biting kisses as he pounded into you with zero restraint now. his voice dropped to a filthy whisper right against your ear: "gonna make you cum so hard… wanna feel you squeeze me while i fuck you."

then his free hand gripped your thigh, hiking it higher around his waist to change the angle—going even deeper. you let out a pornographic moan, your nails scraping down jungkook’s back as pleasure spiked through every nerve. you was close… so damn close… and he wasn't stopping until you shattered.

“look at me,” he said. you did. his eyes were wild, pupils blown wide, but focused entirely on your face. watching. cataloging every flicker of pleasure, every gasp, every clench of your jaw.

he wanted to see your fall apart. the realisation sent a shock of heat straight through your core. “jeongguk.” his name cracked on your tongue.

“i know.” his hand slid between your bodies, found the slick heat of your clit, rubbing circles. “i’ve got you. let go.”

you shattered. your back bowed. your thighs clamped around his hips. a cry tore out of you—loud, unguarded, nothing like the controlled sounds you'd trained herself to make.

"uh—shit— i'm gonna.. where do you want it?" he pants. "inside. i'm on birth control." you quickly reply. as soon as you finish your sentence, he cums inside you. his groan muffled against your shoulder as he pulsed inside you. eventually, he slowly pulls out, watching your releases leak from your pussy. "fuck.." he pants heavily.

you lay there, tangled and shaking, as the city hummed twenty-three floors below. his breath was hot on your neck. your fingers traced lazy patterns on his shoulder blade.

“we should—” you started.

“don’t,” he said. “don’t make this into strategy. not yet.”

you closed her mouth. three minutes. then five. then his phone buzzed on the nightstand. instinct snapped you them both upright. he grabbed it, scanned the screen. his expression shifted.

“what?” you were already reaching for your clothes.

“extraction’s been moved up.” he looked at you, and the agent was back in his eyes. but underneath it, something else flickered. “kang’s men just pulled up outside the hotel.”

⚬──────────✧──────────⚬

Desperation has a way of rewriting your morals. It convinces good people to cross lines they once swore they would never touch, somehow making it feel like the only choice left.

"Let's check out the beer house tonight." Hanni said, wiggling her eyebrows as she leaned against the kitchen counter. "I heard it's packed with rich people on Fridays."

Your brows knitted together. "A beer house?"

A knowing smirk tugged at Hanni's lips. She swept her dark hair into a messy bun before pulling out the chair beside the table, giving the seat a light tap as she gestured for you to sit.

The moment you settled across from her, she propped her elbows on the table and leaned in…There was a familiar gleam in her eyes—the kind that only appeared whenever she had a new scheme brewing. 

"It's one of the most popular beer houses in the city," she explained. "The drinks alone cost more than what we spend on groceries in a week. People who go there don't think twice before throwing money around, which means they're exactly the kind of people we're looking for."

You couldn't help but picture it.

Crowded tables, loud music and half-empty bottles scattered across polished wooden counters. Men laughing far too loudly, their faces flushed from alcohol, expensive watches gleaming beneath the dim lights while thick leather wallets bulged inside the pockets of tailored trousers.

You frowned, unease settling in your chest.

"I'm pretty sure it'll be full of drunk old men, Hanni." you rested your chin against your palm. “Doesn't that sound a little... dangerous?”

Hanni dismissed the concern with a careless wave of her hand.

"They'll be too wasted to notice us," she said with a shrug. "Besides, those are the guys with money. A few missing bills won't even cross their minds."

She leaned even closer, lowering her voice as though she were about to reveal the greatest secret in the world.

"Just give them a sweet smile," she said, the corners of her lips curling into something dangerously playful. "Make them think you've taken an interest in them. Laugh at their terrible jokes, let them believe they're charming..." 

She snapped her fingers between the two of you. "And before they even realize what's happening, you've already walked away with their wallet—or better yet, their credit cards."

A life built on stolen fortunes, calculated manipulation, and carefully crafted deception.

The words no longer sting the way they used to. They've become as familiar as your own name, each one another thread woven into the person you've become. What once filled you with guilt now slips through your fingers as though it was never yours to carry.

Perhaps that's what desperation does.

It doesn't ask you to become someone else. It simply teaches you how to live with the stranger you've become.

Earlier that evening, you and Hanni gathered everything you had stolen throughout the month, laying each piece across the small wooden table between you.

"We only gathered six hundred dollars this month, Y/N... This won't be enough."

A phone, a handful of jewelry, two wallets, and a watch clattered against the worn wood before settling into a messy pile.

"This won't cover this month's rent..." she let out a weary sigh, her manicured nails tapping absentmindedly against the tabletop as she stared at the stolen valuables and the few crumpled bills scattered between them. "And we still have enrollment next month."

Your lips fell into a pout. "But the jewelry I stole is real gold."

You reached for the bracelet, turning it beneath the light. The polished links gleamed against your fingers.

Hanni only sighed again, the exhaustion in her expression deepening.

"It's low-karat gold, Y/N. And there's barely enough of it to be worth anything." she rubbed her temple before glancing at the rest of the pile. "If you manage to steal more next time, maybe we'll actually get something decent for it."

You looked back down at the bracelet, the weight of her words settling heavier than the gold resting in your palm.

You weren't born into wealth…from kindergarten until the day you graduated high school, scholarships carried you through your education. Without them, you doubted you would've made it that far. 

College was different.

Moving out had seemed like the responsible decision at the time. Renting a small apartment near the university was cheaper than spending money on transportation every day between your hometown and campus, and you couldn't bring yourself to ask your parents for more than they were already giving. 

So you packed your clothes into two worn-out bags, hugged your mother goodbye, listened to your father's endless reminders to eat properly, and promised them you would be fine.

Your father spent his days baking homemade bread before the sun had fully risen, while your mother worked quietly as a bookkeeper, carefully balancing numbers that never seemed to balance in your own household. Together, they earned just enough to keep food on the table and a roof over your heads.

Needs always came first.

Wants became something you learned to admire from a distance.

Yet, strangely enough, you never felt deprived.

Your home was small, tucked away in a quiet neighborhood where everybody knew everybody, but it was always filled with warmth. 

While your classmates spoke about family vacations abroad, arrived at school carrying luxury handbags, and replaced perfectly good shoes simply because a newer pair had been released, you found comfort in simpler things. 

The smell of freshly baked bread lingering in the kitchen before sunrise. The sound of your father humming while kneading dough. Your mother's gentle voice reminding you not to skip breakfast, even when she knew you were running late.

You loved that life.

More importantly, you loved the people who gave it to you.

Which was why, when college came, you couldn't bear the thought of asking them for more. Every dollar they handed you felt heavier than the last, weighted by sacrifices they never spoke about but could never hide. 

You watched your father work longer hours. You noticed your mother's tired eyes after another day spent staring at ledgers and receipts. They never complained…not once—but love has a way of revealing exhaustion long before words ever do.

So you promised yourself that you would become lighter.

You moved out. You searched for part-time jobs. You told yourself that no matter how difficult life became, you would survive without asking your parents to carry you any farther.

You really believed honest work would be enough.

Finding a cheap apartment hadn't been easy, and if there was one stroke of luck you could still thank the universe for, it was meeting Hanni.

You found her through a post looking for a roommate. She needed someone to split the rent, and you needed somewhere you could actually afford. 

The apartment sat only a few minutes away from the university, saving you the transportation costs you had spent countless nights calculating over and over again.

Hanni turned out to be easier to live with than you expected. She wasn't the type to spend recklessly or chase after things she didn't need. Like you, she stretched every dollar until there was nothing left to stretch. 

For the first few months, you lived off your savings.

Each rent payment made the envelope thinner. Each grocery trip reminded you that numbers disappeared far quicker than they were earned. You searched for work every chance you got, walking into cafés, convenience stores, restaurants—any place with a "Now Hiring" sign taped to the window.

When a fast-food restaurant finally hired you as a server, you thought things were finally looking up.

You couldn't remember the last time you had been so relieved. The excitement, however, didn't last very long.

The paycheck barely reached your hands before it already belonged somewhere else. Half disappeared into rent. Another portion went to groceries, transportation, and the endless expenses college quietly demanded. 

Scholarships covered your tuition, but not everything else. There were laboratory fees, books that professors insisted were mandatory, printed materials, projects, uniforms, and countless little payments that no one ever warned you about.

The money came in. It left even faster.

And no matter how carefully you budgeted every cent, by the end of each month, you always found yourself staring at the same conclusion.

It still wasn't enough.

Hanni, however, never seemed to struggle the way you did.

For reasons she never fully explained, she always had money tucked away somewhere. Not enough to live lavishly, but enough to ease the constant pressure that settled on your shoulders every time rent was due. 

Naturally, you asked where all that money came from. Hanni would only shrug, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips as though the answer amused her.

"I have a lot of sidelines," she'd say, never bothering to explain any further. 

It was vague enough to end the conversation, yet suspicious enough to keep your curiosity alive.

Eventually, you stopped asking…but you never stopped noticing. 

One afternoon she'd come home carrying the newest phone model, casually placing it on the kitchen counter while she searched the refrigerator for something to eat. 

The following day, it would already be gone. 

Sometimes it was a watch. Other times it was a gold necklace or a designer wallet. The items constantly changed, disappearing almost as quickly as they appeared, but you never questioned her. 

It wasn't until the two of you had grown close enough that she finally trusted you with the truth. 

You remembered expecting disgust to settle in your stomach the moment she confessed. Instead, all you felt was curiosity. 

Hanni told her story so casually, as though she were recalling an ordinary childhood memory instead of admitting to a crime.

She learned how to steal when she was still a little girl. Whenever she picked up a toy at a store or tore open a packet of snacks while trailing beside her mother, no one questioned her. People rarely suspected children, and Hanni learned that long before she understood the weight of what she was doing.

What started as childish curiosity slowly became instinct. Instinct became skill, skill became confidence, and confidence eventually became survival. 

By the time she reached adulthood, stealing was no longer something she occasionally did—it was simply how she made a living. 

She wasn't born into comfort either. Her family had struggled just as much as yours, if not more, and perhaps that was why you found it difficult to judge her. 

You knew what it felt like to lie awake at night wondering how another month would pass. 

You knew what desperation looked like because you had seen it reflected in your parents' exhausted smiles, hidden behind reassuring words they never truly meant. Maybe that was why her confession never horrified you.

Desperation has a peculiar way of changing people.

Because somewhere deep inside, in a place you refused to acknowledge, you understood exactly why she had chosen this path.

"You should blend in. Don't wear those ridiculous jackets or black caps." Hanni chuckled, uncapping the marker in her hand before turning to the small whiteboard hanging beside the refrigerator. 

She drew little stick figures and arrows as if she were giving a university lecture instead of teaching you how to commit crimes. There were circles around the words confidence, timing, and exit, each one underlined twice before she tapped the marker against the board. 

It sounded embarrassingly simple…but it wasn’t.

Your first theft had been nothing more than a granola bar from a convenience store, yet your hands had trembled so violently you almost dropped it before reaching the exit. Your heart pounded against your ribs with enough force to convince you everyone around could hear it.

Every customer who glanced in your direction felt like security in disguise, every beep from the cashier sounded like an alarm, and by the time the automatic doors slid open behind you, your palms were slick with sweat around the tiny snack bar you had risked so much to steal.

Hanni, meanwhile…walked out carrying a bottle of wine, two bags of cheetos, and three packs of mini m&m's tucked somewhere beneath her oversized cardigan. She looked utterly unbothered, stopping only to ask whether you wanted to eat at the nearby park before either of you went home. 

You remembered staring at her with your mouth slightly open, unable to understand how someone could steal so much and still have the composure to worry about dinner.

She only laughed. "It gets easier."

You hated how right she was.

Over the following weeks, your trembling hands gradually learned to stay still. You learned that people rarely questioned someone who acted like they belonged. 

Confidence, Hanni often said, was the greatest disguise anyone could wear, and manipulation was nothing more than convincing people to believe the version of you that benefited them most. 

You practiced smiling at strangers. You practiced maintaining eye contact. You practiced walking away without looking back.

Little by little, it became easier to silence the guilt.

Two months later, you could finally say you were improving. Your movements were steadier, your excuses more believable, your lies smoother than they had ever been before. 

Even so, whenever you compared yourself to Hanni, you still felt like an amateur watching a professional at work. She stole with an ease you doubted you would ever possess.

"Hanni, I'm not good at seducing people... you know that." you let out a groan, dropping your forehead onto the table with a dull thud. 

For all the confidence you had slowly learned to fake while stealing, anything involving men was an entirely different story. 

You have no experience.

Your thefts still involved people, but you always kept your distance…especially from men. You waited for moments of carelessness, slipping valuables from unattended bags, distracted shoppers, or pockets left carelessly exposed before disappearing into the crowd.

It was safer that way. The rewards were smaller, perhaps, but it meant you never had to charm, distract, or make someone lower their guard just to steal from them.

After all, you were still an amateur.

Romance had always seemed like a luxury you couldn't afford. 

While your classmates spent their weekends going on dates or gossiping about their newest crushes, you spent yours calculating expenses and wondering whether instant noodles could count as dinner for the fourth night in a row.

Hanni had pointed it out countless times before.

According to her, manipulating people wasn't always about lying. 

With men, it was about making them believe they had a chance with you. 

The problem was…you had no idea how to do that. 

You didn't know how to flirt, how to bat your eyelashes, or how to laugh at someone's terrible jokes without making it painfully obvious you were pretending. The thought alone made your stomach twist into nervous knots.

Hanni rolled her eyes, dismissing every excuse before you even had the chance to finish making one.

"Oh, stop it." she waved a hand dramatically. "You're very pretty, Y/N. Don't give me that bullshit! Just smile at them…one cute little smile and I guarantee they'll be tripping over themselves to impress you."

You buried your face deeper into your arms."But, Hanni—"

"No buts." she sprang to her feet before you could protest again, practically skipping toward her bedroom. A moment later, she returned with two shopping bags swinging from her hands, the grin on her face growing impossibly wider.

"Besides, I already bought us dresses for tonight." she giggled.

Oh, you were doomed.

"This is so short," you complained, tugging at the hem of the black spaghetti-strap dress for what had to be the tenth time. Every time you managed to pull it down another inch, it simply rode back up the moment you took another step, as though the fabric itself was determined to embarrass you.

Hanni had insisted on doing everything herself. Your hair fell in loose, natural waves over your shoulders, soft enough to hide the nervous rise and fall of your breathing. She had done your makeup too, dusting the slightest touch of glitter across your eyelids that shimmered every time the streetlights caught your face. 

Even before you reached your destination, your feet were already protesting against the thin, strappy heels wrapped around your ankles, each step reminding you that beauty demanded sacrifices you had never volunteered to make.

Hanni glanced at you before letting out an amused laugh. "I can't see your panties from here, so you're fine."

You shot her an unamused look, earning another laugh from her.

Unlike you, Hanni looked completely at ease. 

Her dark green off-the-shoulder dress hugged her figure effortlessly, paired with matching heels that clicked confidently against the pavement. Her hair was swept into a messy updo that somehow looked intentionally elegant rather than rushed, and with the confidence she carried herself, no one would ever guess that the two of you struggled to pay rent every month.

Together, you looked exactly like the kind of girls who had never worried about money a day in their lives.

Which was almost funny.

Because hidden beneath expensive-looking dresses and carefully applied makeup were two women desperately hoping to walk away with someone else's wallet, watch, jewelry—or anything valuable enough to buy another month of survival.

"Okay, let's order a drink first and look around," Hanni said, her voice barely audible beneath the chatter spilling out from inside the beer house as she pushed the heavy wooden door open.

You followed closely behind, your heartbeat already beginning to pick up.

You had spent the entire walk convincing yourself that the place would be filled with loud, drunken old men slumped over tables, too intoxicated to notice a missing wallet or an expensive watch. Instead, your expectations dissolved the moment your eyes adjusted to the dim amber lights.

The place was crowded…not just with old men, but with all kinds of people. Groups of friends occupied long wooden tables, raising glasses every time the football match playing on the massive television reached an exciting moment. Couples sat tucked away in quieter corners, talking over bottles of beer, while businessmen who looked as though they had come straight from the office loosened their ties and laughed with colleagues over overflowing pitchers.

Your gaze drifted toward the long wooden bar stretching across one side of the room, shelves behind it neatly lined with bottles you had only ever seen locked behind glass displays. The smell of grilled meat and fried food lingered in the air, mixing with the bitter scent of beer, while a small band adjusted their instruments on the stage, preparing for the night ahead.

You quietly took a deep breath, trying to calm the nervous flutter building inside your chest. 

You had been stealing for two months now, yet every new place made you feel like it was your first all over again. The fear of getting caught never truly disappeared—it only learned how to hide beneath your smile.

Hanni walked through the crowd without a hint of hesitation, weaving between tables before claiming two empty seats near the stage. When the server approached, she greeted him with an easy smile, the kind that belonged to someone who had come for nothing more than a quiet drink after a long week.

"Two draft beers, please."

The server nodded before disappearing toward the counter.

Hanni waited until he was out of earshot before her eyes swept across the room once more, lingering only for a second before the corner of her lips slowly lifted.

"I found your table." Hanni raised a brow, the corner of her lips curling into a knowing smile.

You pouted, instinctively following her gaze as your eyes wandered across the crowded beer house. Round wooden tables filled nearly every corner, occupied by groups of men laughing over clinking bottles, scattered glasses, and the remnants of another round.

Of course she'd choose men. You had long grown used to Hanni's reasoning.

Men were easier to distract…and according to her, far easier to manipulate than women.

"Which one?" you asked, squinting as you searched through the sea of unfamiliar faces.

Hanni let out a quiet laugh before leaning closer, her perfume briefly overpowering the scent of beer lingering in the air. "The third table near the bar," she whispered, careful not to draw attention. "They look a little older than us. Not too old, though." 

She grinned mischievously. "I'd say they're giving daddy vibes."

You frowned at her. “Ugh, Hanni!”

Slowly, your gaze followed the direction she had subtly pointed, finally landing on the group she had been watching.

There were seven of them gathered around one of the larger tables, completely absorbed in their own conversation. They couldn't have been much older than Hanni had guessed, perhaps somewhere in their late twenties or early thirties. 

Dressed in simple shirts, rugged jeans, and jackets carelessly draped over the backs of their chairs, they looked more like friends unwinding after a long week than the wealthy businessmen you had imagined on your walk there.

At first glance, there was nothing remarkable about them. Yet the longer you watched, the easier it became to notice the details.

A watch that caught the light every time one of them lifted his beer. A phone left face-up beside an overflowing ashtray without a second thought. Car keys, wallets, and cigarette packs lay scattered across the wooden table between bottles of beer and half-finished baskets of bar snacks, abandoned in the comfort of good company.

They laughed loudly, occasionally teasing one another, while wisps of cigarette smoke curled lazily into the air above them. They were so engrossed in their own little world that they never once looked your way.

"What do you think?" Hanni asked, her eyes never leaving the group near the bar."I say you target that table while I take the one near the door."

Your gaze lingered on the men for another moment before dropping to the table between you. Almost as if on cue, the server returned with your drinks, carefully placing two glasses of draft beer in front of you. Tiny bubbles rushed to the surface beneath a thick layer of foam, the chilled glass immediately collecting beads of condensation.

Hanni thanked him with a smile before wrapping her fingers around her glass. She looked... excited. There was always a certain spark in her eyes before a job, one you had grown familiar with over the past two months. 

While your stomach twisted itself into knots, hers seemed to settle. The closer she came to danger, the calmer she became.

Your fingers traced the condensation gathering around your own glass as you quietly stared into the golden beer. The thought of walking up to a table full of strangers, pretending to be interested in one of them, was enough to make your stomach tighten. 

You had spent the last two months learning how to steal, how to lie without stumbling over your words, how to smile convincingly enough for people to lower their guard. 

But flirting? That was something entirely different.

Still...

You glanced down at the dress hugging your figure before absentmindedly smoothing the fabric over your thighs. Hanni had spent her own money buying it for you. She had curled your hair, done your makeup, and patiently convinced you that you looked like you belonged in a place like this. She had done everything she could to make tonight successful.

The least you could do was try.

The numbers flashed through your mind before you could stop them, reminding you how little time you had left before another payment was due. 

You drew in a slow breath before finally looking back at Hanni, offering her a small smile that carried far more determination than confidence.

"Alright," you said with determination. "I promise I'll do my best."

Her face immediately brightened. "That's my girl!"

She lifted her glass toward yours with a grin so wide it was almost contagious.

"Cheers to that, baby."

The soft clink echoed between you, disappearing almost instantly beneath the laughter, music, and the constant hum of conversations filling the beer house.

Easy…smile, flirt and steal.

After a couple of minutes spent nursing your drinks and quietly familiarizing yourselves with the beer house, Hanni caught your eye from across the table. She gave the slightest nod—a silent signal the two of you had long grown accustomed to. 

It was time.

You rose from your seat, smoothing the wrinkles from your dress before letting your fingers comb through your hair, tucking a few loose strands behind your ear. Hanni disappeared into the crowd without another word, already making her way toward her own target, while you headed in the opposite direction, forcing yourself to wear the kind of smile she had spent weeks teaching you. Soft enough to seem approachable…confident enough to belong.

The barstool closest to their table sat empty.

You slipped onto it, offering the bartender a polite smile as he passed by before pretending to study the rows of bottles displayed behind the counter. From the corner of your eye, your attention never truly left the table behind you.

Your heartbeat steadied, not because you were any less nervous…but because your mind had finally begun doing what Hanni had trained it to do.

Observe.

A few wallets lay carelessly on the wooden table, abandoned without a second thought by men too engrossed in conversation to notice their surroundings. Your fingers twitched ever so slightly.

Tonight, maybe two wallets would be enough. Any more than that would only invite unnecessary attention.

Your gaze lingered for another second before drifting higher, carefully studying each of the men one by one. 

If you were going to approach someone tonight, it couldn't be just anyone. You needed the one who looked the wealthiest, the one whose watch alone could cover next month's rent, whose jewelry might be worth more than everything you and Hanni had managed to steal over the past few months combined.

You couldn't flirt with all of them. So if you were going to take the risk, you might as well choose the wealthiest one.

Your eyes drifted from one man to another, careful not to linger for too long. 

One wore a pair of silver earrings that matched the chain resting against his chest. Another—the one with dimples that appeared every time he laughed—had an elegant silver watch wrapped around his wrist, the polished metal glimmering beneath the warm lights whenever he reached for his beer. The man beside him looked much simpler, dressed in an ordinary black shirt without a single piece of jewelry to catch your attention, and you dismissed him almost immediately.

You kept looking.

Until your gaze landed on a tattooed hand lazily wrapped around the neck of a beer bottle.

Silver rings adorned nearly every finger, each one different from the next, and just above them rested a watch that looked far too expensive to belong in your world. Your eyes followed the slow movement of his hand as he lifted the bottle to his lips, only to notice the gold chain disappearing beneath the collar of his dark shirt. 

His ear was adorned with several silver earrings, each one catching the amber light whenever he turned toward one of his friends. When he tilted his head back for another sip, the small silver ring through his lower lip glinted just as brightly.

Then your gaze wandered lower…a pair of Porsche keys hung carelessly from the belt loop of his black jeans, swinging gently whenever he shifted in his seat as though they were nothing more than an ordinary keychain.

You quietly looked away before he could catch you staring, your heartbeat quickening as your fingers curled around the wooden counter.

Target locked.

You immediately order a shot of tequila, not to get drunk, but to act drunk.

Hanni had told you that people lowered their guard around someone who seemed tipsy. A little laugh that lingered too long, a gaze that wandered a little too often, movements just clumsy enough to look believable. It made approaching strangers easier.

You thanked the bartender with a polite smile before resting your elbow against the counter. From the corner of your eye, your attention drifted back to the table.

His back was mostly facing you, making it difficult to study him without being obvious. Every now and then he'd turn toward one of his friends, giving you a brief glimpse of his side profile before looking away again, and somehow those fleeting seconds were enough for you to notice far more than you intended.

His jaw was clean and sharply defined, catching the amber glow whenever he tipped his head back to drink. A straight nose balanced his features effortlessly, while soft strands of dark hair fell across his forehead, shifting every time he ran a hand through them. Every so often, you caught sight of his dark round eyes, softened by the alcohol he'd been drinking, their usual alertness replaced by a lazy heaviness that made them unexpectedly... pretty.

Your brows knitted together. 

You were supposed to be memorizing his belongings Y/N! Not his face!

The bartender slid your tequila across the counter. You murmured a quiet thank you before lifting the glass to your lips, taking only a small sip. The burn barely had time to settle in your throat before your eyes sneakily wandered back toward the table.

"Huh?"  

His seat was empty!

Your brows furrowed as your eyes searched the group, confusion replacing the confidence you had spent the last several minutes trying so hard to build.

"Looking for me?” a deep chuckle sounded from behind you.

Your eyes widened, you turned so quickly you nearly knocked your drink over.

Even with you sitting down, he towered over you with ease, one side of his body leaning casually against the polished wooden counter. Up close, the details you had only managed to steal glances of moments ago became impossible to ignore—the silver rings decorating his fingers, the tattoos stretching over his right arm, the small hoop piercing his lower lip, and those heavy-lidded eyes now looking directly into yours.

The corner of his mouth curled upward…amused.

As though he'd caught you doing something you weren't supposed to.

"H-Hi!" you greeted, your voice coming out much smaller than you intended as you struggled to hide how badly he had startled you.

What the fuck.

For a split second, every lesson Hanni had drilled into your head disappeared. Your carefully rehearsed smile, your excuses, the confident persona you had spent two months trying to build—they all vanished the moment he caught you off guard.

He raised a brow, the corner of his mouth lifting ever so slightly.

"May I help you?"

Your own brows drew together before you could stop them, your smile faltering for the briefest moment.

"Hm?"

"You kept looking at me." he chuckled, low and amused.

There wasn't even a hint of uncertainty in his voice, as though he'd caught you staring several times already and had simply decided to humor you instead of calling you out for it. 

Heat rushed to your cheeks almost instantly, your mind scrambling for something—anything…that would keep your act from falling apart before it had even begun.

Trying to save yourself, you immediately gave him a flirty smile.

"Oh..." a soft giggle escaped your lips, "Was I that obvious?"

You tilted your head ever so slightly, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear before looking back up at him through your lashes exactly the way Hanni had told you to. 

When he took a step closer, your breath hitched. 

His thick black boots brushed against the legs of your stool, and with the way he positioned himself, his broad frame nearly shielded you from the rest of the room. It wasn't intentional…or maybe it was—but suddenly the chatter of the beer house seemed much farther away than it had a second ago.

"Uh-huh," he murmured, the single sound barely above a whisper.

The faint scent of mint lingered beneath the beer on his breath, close enough to make your thoughts blur for a moment. Up close, the gold chain resting against his collarbone shimmered softly, layered alongside several silver necklaces that framed the base of his neck. 

Before your courage had the chance to abandon you…you slowly lifted a hand and rested it around the back of his neck, your fingertips grazing the cool metal chains lying against his skin.

"You're cute," you whispered, biting lightly on your lower lip as your fingers idly toyed with one of the necklaces. Every movement had been rehearsed in your head a dozen times before tonight, yet none of them felt natural now that they were happening. You only hoped he couldn't tell.

Fuck, he’s so handsome up close!

His head tilted slightly, curiosity flickering across his face before his gaze slowly drifted downward. It lingered far longer than you were prepared for, tracing the exposed skin above your dress before continuing lower. Instinctively, you fought the urge to tug at the hem that had ridden higher on your thighs.

Don't. Fake it until you make it.

"I am?" he asked, the corner of his mouth lifting into the faintest smirk. His tongue swept across the silver ring piercing his lower lip before he leaned even closer, his lips hovering just beneath your ear.

"Yeah," you breathed, forcing confidence into your voice despite the frantic beating of your heart. "Want you."

The words felt foreign leaving your mouth. Still, they had the desired effect.

As his attention remained fixed on the spot where your pulse fluttered, your fingers subtly found the clasp hidden beneath the chains around his neck. 

One careful movement...that was all it would take.

You had barely begun to unhook it when his hand closed firmly around your wrist.

Your heart stopped. For one horrifying second, you were certain he'd caught you.

"Let's go to my car."

What?

"H-Huh? I..."

He lifted his head just enough for your eyes to meet his. The lazy amusement from earlier had disappeared, replaced by something darker. 

"I can't fuck you here."

Your eyes widen, fucking was your limit!

Your gaze drifted to the thick gold necklace resting against his chest... the leather wallet tucked carelessly into his pocket... and the sleek black car waiting only a few steps away.

Fuck it.

You followed him in silence, the cool night breeze brushing against your exposed skin and reminding you just how short your dress was. 

Your gaze remained fixed on his broad back as he unlocked the car, your throat tightening around a nervous swallow.

Earlier, when you had walked past Hanni, you had nearly burst into tears at the sight of her giving you an approving nod, silently cheering you on while she remained at her table, busy charming the men around her.

You couldn't back out now. Not after she'd placed this much faith in you.

The parking lot was quiet, a little farther from the beer house…the music fading into the distance. When he turned around, you gathered every ounce of courage you had left and greeted him with the sweetest smile you could muster.

Your mind raced, thoughts crashing into one another until only three remained.

First, find a way to slip the gold chain from around his neck. The wallet would come next, once he finally let his guard down.

Second, you were not going to fuck him. 

It didn't matter how broad his shoulders were, how unfairly handsome he looked, or how pretty his eyes became whenever he smiled.

Your hormones could cry about it later.

Third, whatever happened tonight... for the love of God, do not get caught.

He looked down at you, one brow lifting ever so slightly when he noticed the faint tremble in your legs.

"Get in."

He pulled the backseat door open for you, and you offered him a small, flirty smile before carefully slipping inside. 

The leather seat gave beneath your weight with a quiet creak, and for the briefest moment, you convinced yourself you'd have a second to steady your breathing, to gather the scattered pieces of your thoughts before facing him again.

The hope didn't last.

The car shifted as he climbed in after you, the door clicking shut behind him with a soft, final sound that seemed to swallow the last bit of space inside the cabin. 

Your pulse faltered, the hem of your dress had ridden higher than you'd intended, exposing far more of your thighs than you were comfortable with, the fabric inching dangerously close to revealing the lace of your panties. Every instinct urged you to smooth it back into place, but you stopped yourself.

Focus, Y/N! You need to seduce him!

You had barely opened your mouth, ready to deliver one of the corniest pickup lines Hanni had relentlessly drilled into your head, when his hand suddenly pulled your hair. 

Your lips parted in surprise as he tugged you toward him, leaving no room for hesitation before his lips crashed against yours.

A breathless whimper escaped you, your eyes widening for only a second before they fluttered shut. His fingers tightened around the hair above your nape, angling your head exactly how he wanted it, his kisses deep, hungry, and impatient.

The bitter trace of beer lingered on his tongue, flooding your senses until your thoughts blurred at the edges. Your body yielded without resistance, melting effortlessly against his as he drew you closer, the strength behind the movement making you feel almost weightless in his hold.

For a fleeting moment, you forgot your mission.

His tongue slipped against yours with practiced ease, stealing every coherent thought from your mind before instinct finally caught up. 

You slowly lifted your arms around his neck, your fingers threading through the softness of his hair as though simply indulging in the kiss. Then, careful not to rush…they drifted lower, brushing over the warm skin of his nape before gliding toward the necklace resting against his neck.

“Open your mouth wider,” he rasped, pulling away just enough to speak. A string of saliva stretched between your mouths as his other hand slid around your neck…his long, tattooed fingers wrapping firmly around your throat in a possessive grip.

Your eyes widened…one of your hands remained tangled behind his nape, your fingers still toying with the chain around his neck, desperately searching for the tiny clasp hidden beneath his hair. 

Too distracted to obey his request… he suddenly tugged your hair harder.

A startled gasp escaped your lips, and he seized the opportunity—his tongue slipping hot and messy into your parted mouth, kissing you with a hunger that left you no chance to catch your breath.

You barely kissed him back, surrendering to the pace he set as your mind gradually emptied. Somehow, through the dizziness clouding your head, your fingertips continued their quiet search along the cool metal resting against his skin, praying to find the clasp before he noticed.

“Mmph!”

A soft whimper caught in your throat when he bit down harshly on your lower lip. The hand around your neck tightened, his fingers pressing deeper into your throat until your breath hitched, the pressure almost choking you.

“What are you doing?” he groaned, pulling you away from his lips before effortlessly lifting your entire body onto his lap. 

Large hands settled on your hips, guiding your legs to either side of him until you were straddling him completely, your dress riding embarrassingly higher over your thighs in the process.

“Hmm?” you murmured, blinking up at him through hazy eyes, your lips swollen and glistening from his relentless kisses.

He tilted his head, studying you in silence. 

The intensity of his gaze made something tighten inside your chest. Your confidence, already hanging by a thread, began to unravel beneath his eyes alone, and without thinking, your hands abandoned the necklace altogether, drifting back into his hair as though that had been your intention from the very beginning.

“Kiss me back,” he rasped.

A quiet breath of relief nearly escaped your lips. He hadn't noticed.

You offered him the sweetest smile you could manage before leaning in again, your heart pounding so violently you were certain he could feel it through your chest. You kissed him as carefully as you could, trying to mimic the way he'd kissed you only moments ago, parting his lips with hesitant eagerness, hoping it looked natural enough to fool him.

To your surprise, he let you…he didn't take control or deepen the kiss. Instead, he simply let you explore him at your own pace.

Heat crept up your neck and settled across your cheeks, embarrassment blooming beneath your skin as the realization slowly dawned on you. 

He wasn't following your lead. 

“Baby...” he chuckled between kisses, his tattooed hand sliding up to cradle your jaw, holding your face steady with a firm grip. “You're not kissing me properly.”

Embarrassment rushed through your body so quickly it almost made you dizzy, your inexperience laid bare after only a few clumsy kisses. 

Determination quickly swallowed the humiliation. 

Before you could think twice, you leaned in again, kissing him with far more urgency than before, desperate to prove that you knew exactly what you were doing.

The moment he finally kissed you back, a breathless whimper nearly escaped you. 

He kissed you effortlessly, guiding the rhythm while you struggled to keep up, your breaths already turning shallow enough that you were certain you looked seconds away from hyperventilating.

Determined not to lose yourself completely, you bit down on his lower lip, earning a low, gravelly groan that vibrated against your mouth. The sound alone made your stomach flutter. Taking advantage of the distraction, your trembling hands drifted back to the chain around his neck, fingertips carefully searching beneath his hair for the tiny clasp.

Your eyes fluttered shut when he sucked on your tongue, warmth rushing across your ears and down your neck so quickly it almost burned. It was your first time being kissed like this—his kisses were shamelessly lewd, all heat and desperation. Saliva glistened between your mouths whenever he pulled away, only to capture your lower lip again with another lingering suck that stole the air from your lungs. 

Before long, the only sounds filling the car were the quiet, wet presses of your mouths and the uneven rhythm of your breathing.

You couldn't tell whether he was simply that good at kissing or if your lack of experience made every touch feel overwhelming. Either way, the way his hand remained wrapped around your jaw, firmly angling your head exactly where he wanted it, sent a shiver running down your spine.

A soft, helpless moan escaped your lips when you felt him spit into your mouth without breaking the kiss. The sensation sent heat unfurling through every inch of your body, your knees threatening to weaken even from where you sat on his lap. 

Your thoughts dissolved into a haze, and before you realized it, the fingers that had been so carefully searching for the clasp of his necklace had gone slack, your mission slipping further out of reach with every slow, lingering pull of his mouth.

“Grind on me.” he groaned.

Your eyes widened, before you could even process his words, both of his hands settled around the curve of your hips, guiding your body into a slow, deliberate roll against his lap.

“W-Wait—” 

His mouth found your neck, scattering soft, lingering kisses along the sensitive skin. Goosebumps rippled across your body as his lips traveled lower, his grip never once leaving your hips as he slowly rocked them back and forth, drawing helpless whimpers from your lips.

Heat rushed to your cheeks the moment you felt the firm outline of his hard cock pressing against the thin fabric of your panties.

“Roll your hips, baby.” he grunted.

His teeth grazed your neck before his tongue soothed the sting, the cool metal of his lip piercing dragging lightly over your throat.

Your eyes squeezed shut…losing yourself completely as you followed the guidance of his hands, the subtle throbs of his cock impossible to ignore through the layers separating your bodies.

“That’s it,” he praised, looking down at your rolling hips.

“Oh, gosh…” you moaned.

You couldn't comprehend how dirty and lewd this was, grinding against a stranger's cock while convincing yourself that you wouldn't fuck him.

His clothed mushroom tip grazed the apex between your thighs as he guided your hips through another slow rub, drawing a startled gasp from your lips. A wave of warmth unfurled low in your stomach, spreading until it settled heavily between your legs.

Fuck, you were getting so wet.

Your body burned with a growing tension you didn't know how to quiet. The fabric of your panties clung uncomfortably against your cunt. When his hands finally cupped your breasts over the thin fabric of your dress, a shaky breath caught in your throat. 

Your fingers instinctively clutched at his shoulders for balance as he continued to maneuver your body with effortless ease.

“Oh my-”

His lips trailed lower…you sucked in a sharp breath when they reached the swell of your cleavage, your heart stumbling the moment you caught sight of his tongue slipping between the soft curve of your breasts, tasting the narrow valley created by the tight fabric hugging your chest.

“Hmm... so soft,” he murmured.

Before you could even process the praise, he leaned back just enough to gather saliva in his mouth, his cheeks hollowing before he leaned down and let a warm bead of spit fall between your breasts. It slowly trailed down the center of your cleavage, disappearing beneath the neckline of your dress.

A startled gasp escaped you, the shamelessness of it sent another rush of heat coursing through your body.

“Spread my spit, baby.” his voice dropped into a teasing murmur as he brushed a lingering kiss against your cheek. “I want you messy.”

He never stopped guiding your hips, slow, patient rubs against his lap while he watched you expectantly.

You swallowed thickly. It felt as though your body had slipped into a trance, your thoughts muffled beneath the haze he'd wrapped around you. 

Almost absentmindedly, your fingers found the warmth between your breasts, gathering the wetness before slowly spreading his spit across the soft skin of your cleavage, his dark, heavy-lidded eyes following every hesitant movement.

Your gaze drifted downward, landing on the gold chain resting against his collarbone.

The necklace!

For a split second, you wanted to slap yourself. 

You'd become so hopelessly lost in him that you'd nearly forgotten why you were here in the first place.

Trying to keep up the act, you smiled and gathered the warm trace of his spit onto your fingertips before slowly bringing them to your lips. A flicker of nervousness stirred in your chest as you parted your lips, letting your tongue glide languidly over your damp fingers, never once breaking eye contact with him.

His lips parted. “You like it?”

You nodded. “Hmm…”

“Want more?” he cooed, his voice rough with satisfaction. 

Your cheeks heated, a little self-conscious under the way he stared at you before leaning in to kiss you again. You whimpered when he spat into your mouth while kissing you, trying to focus as your hands finally found the chain around his neck. Your fingers worked quickly beneath the curtain of his hair, your heart pounding so violently you feared he would hear it.

Then—the clasp gave. 

Relief crashed over you.

You carefully eased the necklace free, letting the chain slip from your fingers onto the leather seat beside you with a faint clink before your hands returned to brace against his chest. 

Your pulse hammered in your throat, so distracted by stealing the jewelry that you didn't feel his fingers hooking beneath the thin straps of your black dress until they were already sliding down. Cool air kissed your skin a second before you realized the straps had fallen from your shoulders, the dress bunched at your waist, your bra laid bare beneath his dark, hungry stare.

"Ohh—" a moan ripped from your lips when his hands grabbed your tits through the bra, his palms kneading the soft flesh as his fingers pinched and rolled your stiff nipples through the thin lace. 

"So pretty," he praised, his eyes never leaving the swell of your breasts spilling over the cups.

His hand slid behind your back, his fingers flicking the clasp open. Your bra sprang loose, your tits bouncing free, your nipples peaked and aching.

“Keep grinding, baby.” he rasped.

Your hips moved before your brain could catch up, rolling against his lap. His hard cock formed a thick ridge beneath his pants, pressing right against your soaked panties. 

The delicious friction made your cunt leak, slick pooling in the gusset as each slow roll of your hips rubbed your clit across his length until your panties clung to your wet, chubby slit.

“Mhm,” you whined as his mouth locked onto one nipple, his tongue lapping at the bud before sucking hard, his teeth scraping lightly while his other hand squeezed your breast, his fingers twisting the neglected nipple until it throbbed.

Wet sounds filled the car—the slurp of his mouth around your nipple and the squelch of your dripping cunt rubbing against his cock through the fabric. 

You forced yourself to look down, your heavy-lidded eyes searching for anything that might help you finish what you had come here to do. Then your thigh brushed against the square outline beneath the fabric of his pants.

His wallet.

You drew in a shaky breath before rolling your hips against him with a little more desperation. A low groan vibrated against your nipple the moment he felt the change in your rhythm, the sound sending another wave of heat through your body. 

A helpless whine slipped from your lips as your own hands wandered over him, trying to appear just as consumed by the moment. Your palms skimmed over his shoulders, down the firm planes of his chest, and lower still, making you swallow hard at the realization of just how toned he felt beneath your touch.

“Ouch,” you whimpered when his teeth suddenly bit into your nipple.

He only chuckled against your skin.

The sting disappeared beneath a lingering kiss before he lifted his head just enough to murmur.

“Slow down, baby. You're gonna make me cum.” 

The teasing words had barely left his lips before his attention shifted back to your breast, his mouth closing around the swollen nipple with harsh, eager suction that made your thighs instinctively tense around him.

Even through the layers of his pants, you could feel how big and hard he was beneath you, the firm outline of his thick cock pressing insistently against your soaked panties with every shallow movement. 

Fuck, focus Y/N.

His wallet had shifted dangerously close to the edge of his pocket, almost slipping free from the constant movement of your bodies.

You rolled your hips against him again…another soft moan escaping your lips as the friction sent a dizzying pulse of pleasure through you. 

“Oh my…” 

For a fleeting second, you almost forgot the wallet, your body threatening to lose the battle your mind was still desperately trying to win.

“Baby…” he groaned harshly.

His hands tightened around your waist, pinning your hips firmly in place before you could move against him again.

Confused, you instinctively tried to move again, but his hand beat you to it. It slipped between your thighs before firmly cupping your pussy over your soaked panties, his palm pressing against your wet cunt as his fingers slowly dragged against the damp fabric. A soft, unmistakable squelch filled the quiet cabin, and your breath caught in your throat.

“I said stay still, fuck.” he whispered, mercilessly squeezing your pussy through the thin fabric until another helpless moan spilled from your lips. 

Your eyes fluttered shut on instinct, your mouth falling open as his slow, deliberate touch only made you wetter, the soaked fabric sticking embarrassingly to your folds with every movement of his hand.

A startled gasp escaped you when his free hand suddenly rose to your face, firmly squeezing your cheeks together. 

“Keep your eyes open. Look at what I'm doing to you,” he commanded, his thumb finding your clit through the damp fabric and rubbing slow, lazy circles that sent a violent shiver through your body.

“Oh... gosh,” you whimpered, your voice barely above a breath. 

Your thoughts were beginning to dissolve all over again until something caught your eye.

His wallet had finally slipped free from his pocket, landing quietly on the leather seat beside him. Relief surged through you, and you almost smiled in triumph, the sight nearly distracting you from your mission's success.

Before you could dwell on it, he hooked a finger beneath the damp gusset of your panties, flipping the fabric aside just enough to expose your slick pussy. His fingertips returned, meeting your bare cunt directly, and the sudden skin-to-skin contact tore another breathless gasp from your lips.

Your eyes rolled back as his long fingers slowly rubbed against your sensitive cunt. The cool metal of his rings grazed your slit with every stroke, sending a sharp shiver through your body and drawing another helpless whimper from your throat.

A low chuckle rumbled in his chest. "Enjoying yourself?"

You could only nod, slow and breathless, your chest rising and falling beneath uneven breaths. Heat bloomed across your cheeks, your face burning from every filthy thing you had let him do to you.

"Yeah?" he murmured, his voice dropping into a whisper. "You like my fingers, baby?"

Before you could answer, his middle finger slowly pressed into your tight, untouched hole.

A broken whimper escaped you, your teeth sinking into your lower lip as your body instinctively tensed around the unfamiliar stretch. For a fleeting second, your hand nearly came up to push him away, your inexperience heightening every overwhelming sensation. But he caught your face first, his fingers tightening around your cheeks, forcing your gaze back to him.

He inhaled softly before hollowing his cheeks, gathering saliva in his mouth, then leaned closer and messily spat between your parted lips.

"Swallow."

You obeyed without hesitation, your throat bobbing as you swallowed, your walls fluttering tightly around his finger at the command.

His hand slipped lower, lifting the hem of your skirt before his gaze settled between your thighs. He watched with quiet fascination as his finger slowly disappeared inside your virgin hole before drawing back out again, only to repeat the motion at an unhurried pace.

"You're so tight, baby." he tilted his head, his eyes never leaving your pussy. "When was the last time you fucked?"

The question alone nearly brought tears to your eyes, embarrassment burning through you just as intensely as the confusing mixture of pain and pleasure his touch continued to pull from your body.

“L-Long time ago.” 

As if Y/N! 

He licked his lower lip, a quiet whimper slipping past your lips as the pad of his middle finger reached deeper inside your warm tight hole. His movements remained slow until his fingertip brushed against your spongy spot, the sharp ache of the stretch gradually melting into a pleasure so warm it made your body soften around him.

"Aww, is that why you're so tight, baby?” he whispered.

God, this was so wrong.

“Maybe you need me to stretch your hole again, hmm?" he cooed, lowering his head until his lips wrapped around your swollen nipple, sucking gently while his finger continued to work deeper into your tight cunt.

"Y-Yes," you mumbled incoherently, your rational thoughts dissolving as your hips instinctively rolled forward, chasing the slow rhythm of his finger.

The moment he felt you move, his free hand settled firmly around your waist, stilling you with ease. He released your nipple with a soft pop before a quiet chuckle escaped him, his dark eyes lifting to meet yours with unmistakable amusement.

"Patience, baby. I'm still having fun."

A pout tugged at your lips, ready to answer back, but the words never came. His left hand slipped between your thighs instead, slowly parting your folds before drawing back the hood revealing your glistening clit, exposing it completely beneath his dark gaze.

"Wanna suck this clit so bad," he whispered, his gaze fixed between your thighs as your clit pulsed beneath the weight of his stare.

He leaned down and spat over it, a slow trail of saliva slipping down your slit until it met the middle finger buried inside your hole. A helpless whimper caught in your throat, your eyes squeezing shut as he spread the saliva over your exposed clit with slow, pressured strokes, every messy rub sending another wave of pleasure through your body.

Both of his hands were devoted to you now. His tattooed fingers continued to work your tight hole with an unhurried rhythm while his other hand circled your swollen clit, spreading your growing wetness together with his saliva. His eyes never left your cunt, watching every tiny twitch, every shiver that rippled through you as though he wanted to memorize your pulsating pussy.

"You wanna cum?" he asked, lifting a brow as he watched your chest rise and fall with uneven breaths. His middle finger emerged coated in a thick ring of your white milky juices before disappearing back inside you, while your legs trembled uncontrollably beneath every slow sweep of his thumb across your swollen clit.

You nodded desperately, “Y-Yes…”

He pursed his lips, studying you for a long moment.

"You sure?"

"P-Please," you pleaded, your hips instinctively rolling in search of more.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" a small smile tugged at his lips, though there wasn't a trace of humor behind it.

Confusion barely had the chance to settle before he slowly inserted a second finger into your cunt.

A loud moan tore from your throat as the sudden stretch stole the air from your lungs. His fingers paused only briefly, allowing your body to adjust before they began to move together, scissoring you open with slow, rhythmic strokes while his other hand never stopped rubbing your clit.

The lingering ache of the stretch gradually melted beneath the mounting pleasure, your body surrendering to it completely. Your thighs quivered uncontrollably around his hand, your back arching as your orgasm crashed through you. Your eyes rolled back, your walls fluttering helplessly around his fingers while wave after wave of pleasure left your entire body trembling.

“Well done, baby.” he praised.

Even after the intensity began to ebb, your cunt continued to pulse around him, your legs still shaking from the aftershocks.

Only when your breathing had become nothing more than uneven gasps did he slowly withdraw his fingers from your hole, drawing another helpless whimper from your lips as the sudden emptiness met your lingering sensitivity.

Then he leaned in, his teeth grazed the shell of your ear in a soft bite before his lips brushed against it.

"I’m so proud." he whispered.

As your gaze drifted downward, it caught on the slight opening of his wallet, the sight striking you like a quiet reminder of why you had approached him in the first place.

Your fucking mission.

You bit down hard on your lower lip, gathering what little composure remained before forcing the words past your throat.

"C-Can I drink some water? I'm kinda thirsty," you asked softly, your voice barely above a whisper. Your thighs were still trembling from your release, your heart pounding so loudly against your chest that you were certain he could hear it.

You expected him to refuse…Instead, he simply nodded.

"Hmm sure, baby. Let me get it for you."

His tongue swept across his lower lip before he gently tucked a few loose strands of hair away from your flushed cheeks, his touch unexpectedly tender as his eyes lingered on yours.

You swallowed hard, relief flooding through your body so quickly it almost made you dizzy.

"I'll wait for you here," you said with a small smile, leaning forward just enough to steal a quick kiss from his lips before he stood.

His eyes narrowed, smiling a little, but there was something in them that you couldn't quite pinpoint.

The moment he climbed out of the car, shutting the door behind him before disappearing into the noisy beer house in search of a bottle of water, you sprang into action. 

You quickly fixed your dress before reaching for the thick gold necklace that had slipped onto the leather seat during everything that had happened between the two of you. Your fingers wrapped around it before darting toward his wallet, still resting exactly where you had dropped it after deliberately sitting on it when you asked for water. 

Your pulse thundered in your ears as your gaze frantically swept across the interior of the car, searching for anything else of value. It didn't take long before your eyes landed on a small, heavy bag tucked beneath the passenger seat. 

Without wasting another second—or even bothering to look more....you snatched it as well, clutching the necklace, the wallet, and the bag tightly against your chest before quietly pushing the car door open.

With shaky, trembling hands, you slipped out of the vehicle and hurried toward the nearest sprawling tree beside the parking lot, its thick trunk shielding you from anyone who might glance in your direction. Only then did you allow yourself to stop, your chest rising and falling with uneven breaths as you hugged your stolen belongings close, desperately trying to calm the frantic pounding of your heart. 

The necklace alone felt expensive in your hands, its weight unmistakable, and you couldn't help but admire the rich gleam of the gold beneath the parking lot lights. 

This has to be high-karat. 

Your eyes practically sparkled at the thought, relief and triumph swelling inside your chest as you silently congratulated yourself. You had actually managed to steal from him without getting fucked... and without getting caught.

Almost.

A small smile tugged at your lips as you slipped the thick gold necklace into your pocket, the reassuring weight of it pressing against your thigh. 

Your attention soon drifted to the heavy bag you had grabbed from beneath the seat, curiosity getting the better of you. You crouched beneath the tree and slowly pulled the zipper open, your brows knitting together at the sight of something black and metallic nestled inside. 

Frowning, you reached to get a better look, only for your breath to catch in your throat.

It was a gun. 

What the fuck?

Your hands instantly began to shake. The bag slipped from your grasp, hitting the ground with a heavy thud that echoed far louder than it should have in the quiet of the parking lot. 

You stared at it in horror before your gaze darted to the wallet still clutched tightly against your chest, your pulse pounding so violently it made your fingers numb.

"Oh God... this is a bad idea," you whispered to yourself, panic clawing its way up your throat.

For one reckless moment, you considered running back, returning the necklace, the wallet, the bag….everything—and pretending none of this had ever happened. 

Maybe you could leave them inside his car before he noticed. Maybe you could still walk away.

But it was already too late.

If there was one thing Hanni had drilled into your head from the very beginning, it was this: once you stole something, you never gave it back. Going back wasn't bravery—it was stupidity. 

And stupidity was exactly how thieves got caught.

With trembling hands, you slowly opened his wallet, your brows immediately knitting together when an identification card tucked behind a gleaming gold badge came into view. 

Your stomach dropped. This wasn't a wallet at all—it was a badge holder. 

A cold chill crept down your spine as your fingers shakily flipped the leather, your eyes scanning every detail printed across the identification. The words blurred together at first, your racing heart making it impossible to focus, until your gaze landed on the line that mattered most.

CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT

Rank: Captain  | Name: Jeon Jungkook

For a long, terrifying second, your mind went completely blank, your pulse pounding so violently it drowned out every sound around you. 

"F-Fuck! Oh God—fuck!"

The words tumbled out in a frantic whisper as your hands shook so violently you could barely keep hold of the badge holder. 

Your breathing grew shallow, your mind racing through every possible escape, each one ending worse than the last. 

You stared at the polished badge in horror, your heart threatening to beat straight out of your chest, when the sound of approaching footsteps suddenly reached your ears.

Panic surged through your body, and you instinctively turned, ready to run for your life, but a firm hand wrapped around your wrist before you could take a single step.

"Where are you going?" he asked with a quiet chuckle from behind you, amusement lacing his voice.

You froze.

Your gaze remained fixed straight ahead, too terrified to look back at him. Cold sweat trickled down your spine as your heartbeat thundered in your ears. 

The heavy bag still lay on the ground at your feet. The gold necklace weighed against your pocket. And clutched tightly between your trembling fingers was his badge holder, still opened to the identification that had shattered every ounce of confidence you had only moments ago.

You had been fucking caught.

Not just by any random stranger. 

But by a goddamn police captain.

"I got your water, baby," he said, his voice coated in quiet amusement. You flinched the moment the cold bottle brushed against the back of your thighs, the chill a cruel contrast to the heat of your panic.

"O-Officer, I—"

"You forgot something, didn't you?" he whispered against your ear, his grip never loosening around your wrist. 

The bottle of water lazily traced the length of your trembling thigh, as though he had all the time in the world.

Your eyes squeezed shut, your legs threatened to give out beneath you, hot tears gathering until they spilled freely down your cheeks. Every frantic thought crashed into the next, leaving you unable to form a single coherent sentence.

He leaned in even closer, his warm breath ghosting just below your ear.

"You forgot my wallet, baby." his voice dropped into a slow drawl. "That's my badge holder."

A broken sob caught in your throat. Your future flashed before your eyes in vivid, terrifying fragments. 

You could already see the cold metal of handcuffs locking around your wrists, the flashing red and blue lights, the backseat of a patrol car, a holding cell, your family finding out, your future slipping through your fingers before you had even been given the chance to fight for it. Everything you had worked so hard for, every dream you had stubbornly clung to despite your circumstances, all of it seemed to crumble into pieces in the span of a few unbearable seconds.

You had just thrown your entire life away.

“P-Please, I-’’

"Is my poor baby too dumb, or does that pretty little head of yours just want to get fucked?"

You shook your head frantically, tears spilling faster down your cheeks. "N-No, no, Officer, please... I'm sorry. It was a mistake—"

A startled gasp escaped you when he suddenly spun you around, your back pressing against the rough bark of the tree. Your tear-clouded eyes instantly met his dark ones, the amusement lingering in them only making the panic clawing at your chest grow worse.

He raised a brow, studying your face for a long, agonizing moment.

"Aww, look at you…so scared, baby." he cooed.

“I-I’m sorry-”

“Want me to give you a chance?’’ he tilted his head.

Hope bloomed inside your chest so suddenly it almost hurt.

Jungkook took another step forward, his broad frame caging you against the tree until there was nowhere left to run. Your entire body trembled beneath his gaze, your heart pounding so violently you could barely hear yourself think, and you looked up at him with desperate, pleading eyes, clinging to the smallest possibility that he might actually let you go.

"P-Please, Officer… I-I'm sorry..." you stammered, the words tumbling over one another in your haste. "I-I know it was wrong, a-and that—"

‘’Run.” 

Your lips parted in disbelief.

"W-What?"

He slowly licked his lower lip, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth that carried no warmth whatsoever. Stepping closer until there wasn't even a breath of space left between you, he brushed the pad of his thumb across your trembling lips, his eyes never leaving yours.

“Run, baby. Run as fast as you can.” his voice dropped into a low murmur, his tone as though he were talking to a child. "And when I catch you, I'm gonna take you to prison. I'll fuck you every day behind those rusty metal bars. I'll use your tight little pussy until your hole is gaping and leaking. Maybe I'll even let my comrades fuck you too. We'll take turns fucking that slutty, manipulative pussy of yours."

Desperation made people do reckless things. 

It silenced reason, drowned out fear, and left nothing behind but the instinct to survive.

You spun around and bolted before your mind had the chance to catch up, your legs carrying you as fast as they could through the dimly lit streets. Instead of following the brighter roads, you veered into the narrow, shadowed alleyways, your panicked thoughts convincing you that the light was far more dangerous than the dark. 

People could help you—but the moment they learned why you were running, they wouldn't see a terrified woman. 

They would see a thief.

A criminal…and they would hand you right back to him.

Your lungs burned, each desperate breath sharper than the last, your feet throbbing against the unforgiving pavement as you forced yourself to keep going. When a tall chain-link fence came into view, fear surged through your exhausted body. You stumbled toward it, your shaking hands already reaching for the metal, frantically searching for a way to climb over it.

You never got the chance.

A powerful hand suddenly seized both of your wrists from behind, wrenching them backward before you could react. A startled cry tore from your throat as your body was dragged away from the fence, only to be slammed against it a heartbeat later.

 “L-Let me go!” you cried.

The rough metal dug painfully into your cheek, your breath knocked from your lungs as he forced your arms higher behind your back. Then you heard it—

A sharp metallic click…cold steel closed around your wrist.

You were handcuffed.

He secured the other cuff around the metal fence, leaving your wrists restrained above your head. The cold steel bit into your skin as you instinctively struggled against it, your cheek pressed harshly against the chain-link, the rough metal scraping your flushed skin every time you tried to pull away. The handcuffs refused to budge, each desperate tug only making them dig in deeper.

"N-No... no, please," you cried, your voice breaking into helpless sobs.

Instead of hurting you, he reached up and gently combed a few loose strands of hair away from your face, the unexpected tenderness making your entire body flinch. His fingers lingered for a moment, idly twirling a lock of your hair around them before giving it a soft tug.

"Shh, it’s okay…" he said in a mocking tone.

"I-I’m sorry, please…I’ll do anything—"

The plea died on your lips when you felt him lower himself behind you.

“Anything, baby?” he whispered.

He settled onto one knee before slowly gathering the hem of your dress, inch by inch, until your damp panties were fully exposed beneath the cool night air. His large hands slid down to your thighs, spreading your legs apart with an effortless firmness that left your body trembling against the restraint. 

Your eyes widened as you pulled uselessly at the handcuffs, your legs instinctively trying to close, but there was nowhere to go. A warm tongue suddenly pressed against the fabric between your thighs, dragging slowly over your sticky panties.

His nose remained buried in your tight hole, drawing in a slow, deep breath as though savoring every scent of you. His tongue dragged languidly along your slit from behind, the damp fabric of your panties doing little to dull the sensation.

"O-Oh gosh-" you cried, fresh tears spilling down your flushed cheeks as you felt him inhale against your clothed cunt again. His tongue swept over you once more, leaving your panties even wetter than before.

“Let me play with you.” he murmured before diving in.

You bit down hard on your lip, another wave of warmth pooling between your thighs despite yourself. More tears slipped from your eyes, the overwhelming pleasure tangling with the fear coursing through your body.

I am not enjoying this, I am not-

A low groan rumbled behind you as he spread your legs farther apart. His pointed nose brushed against your puckered hole, inhaling deeply. 

You craned your neck to look around, but there was no one in sight. Only the lonely yellow glow of a streetlamp stretched across the empty street, casting long shadows around the two of you.

When he flipped your panties aside, you instinctively tried to close your legs, but a startled gasp escaped your lips as his palm suddenly came down against your inner thigh with a sharp smack, the sting urging your legs back open for him.

“Open up for me, baby. Let me taste your little pussy,” he murmured, giving your thigh another light tap as he silently coaxed you to spread yourself wider.

You were getting wetter, but the thought of someone's tongue directly against your pussy was beyond your virgin imagination.

When you still didn't move, a quiet chuckle rumbled in his chest.

You felt him rise behind you, the warmth of his body disappearing for only a brief moment before the unmistakable click of metal made your breath hitch. Before you even had the chance to turn your head, the cold barrel of the gun was pressed against your temple.

A broken cry caught in your throat, your entire body trembling. 

“W-What-”

"Spread your legs."

His voice was firm, leaving no room for hesitation. The barrel pressed more insistently against your temple, and with another shaky sob, your knees slowly fell farther apart.

A satisfied hum vibrated from his chest. Only then did he pull the gun away, tucking it back into the holster at the back of his belt before lowering himself between your thighs once more. His hands wrapped around them, holding you open exactly how he wanted, and the moment he buried his face between your legs, a deep groan escaped him.

“Oh, gosh!” you moaned.

You were already leaking, his broad tongue dragged slowly up and down your chubby, swollen folds before slipping between them, teasing your slit as it delved deeper, massaging your inner walls with slow, deliberate strokes that only left you wetter.

“Pretty.” he leaned back and spat onto your cunt, watching the thick strand of saliva mingle with your slick wetness. “Do you regret what you did, baby?”

His fingers hooked beneath your outer lips, spreading them apart just enough to watch his saliva disappear deeper into your cunt. He spat again, his gaze fixed on the way it slipped between your folds, leaving your sensitive inner walls glistening.

“Y-Yes,” you moaned shamelessly, the torture only making you wetter.

“Would you let me do anything I want?” he asked, staring at your fluttering cunt.

You bit your lip, feeling your milky juices drip from every degrading thing he'd been saying to you.

“Yes.” you said in a tiny voice.

He chuckled, “You wanted to be used like this, didn't you?” 

He leaned in, his tongue flattening as he licked from your perineum to your clit in one slow, vulgar stroke, spreading his spit until his own drool began to trail down his chin. 

“You wanted this…you sat on my lap, ground your filthy cunt against my cock, acted like a good little decoy so you could rob me. But your hole's been thanking me the whole time, hasn't it?”

You shut your eyes tightly when you felt him continuously spitting on your cunt, your pussy was getting so wet that you felt it dripping on your inner thighs down to your ankles.

He held your folds apart, leaving you completely exposed for his hungry gaze. Leaning back, he watched the way they trembled and pulsed beneath his eyes before leaning down again, his tongue already darting out to lap up every drop of your juices. Each time he swallowed, he would only spit over you again, coating you until you were slick enough for him to start all over.

Your eyes widened as the muzzle of the gun pressed against your inner thigh, cool, unforgiving steel sending a shiver through your body. It slowly slid higher until it settled against your entrance, the tip quickly growing slick with your wetness.

"O-Officer—"

“Shh, you wanted me to catch you, didn’t you? To rape your thief little pussy.” he mocked, his eyes fixed on the way the tip of the gun glistened with your milky juices as he slowly dragged it up and down your chubby slit.

Desperation was a frightening thing. 

It stripped away reason piece by piece until all that remained was the helpless anticipation of whatever came next.

When you didn't answer, too absorbed in the feeling of the foreign gun against your pussy, he pressed it harder against you, drawing a pained whimper from your lips as tears stung your eyes.

"Answer me when I'm talking to you," he said firmly, applying just a little more pressure.

"Y-Yes," you whimpered.

He tilted his head. "Yes, what?"

You bit your lip. "Y-Yes, O-Officer."

He hummed in approval before pulling the gun away. His tongue darted out to taste the tip, sucking your wetness from the cold metal before releasing it with a soft pop.

A low groan rumbled from his chest as he buried himself between your thighs once more, diving back into your exposed pussy with relentless hunger. The obscene sounds of slurping, sucking, and the occasional spit echoed through the place, each one making you feel weaker, more helpless beneath him.

You bit down hard on your lip as you felt your orgasm creeping closer. You tried to hold it back, to keep control, but your body betrayed you. 

Every flick of his tongue, every slow suck, every warm trail of spit sent another wave of pleasure crashing through you, making your pussy convulse beneath his tongue. 

“F-Fuck-” you whimpered.

Your thighs trembled uncontrollably, your arms ached against the restraints, and your eyes rolled back as the pulsing sensation deep within you grew stronger with every passing second. You wanted to pull away from his mouth, to escape the overwhelming pleasure, but his grip remained firm, holding you exactly where he wanted as he sucked out every last tremor, refusing to let you move even as the overstimulation left your body trembling.

“Mhm, you taste so good, baby,” he whispered, leaning back just enough to pinch your folds together, as though squeezing every last drop of your milky white juices from your pussy before leaning in again to catch it on his tongue.

A helpless whimper escaped your lips. Your legs were on the verge of giving out beneath you, your arms still held captive by the restraints while your pussy throbbed with overwhelming sensitivity. As he rose to his feet, his palm landed against your cunt in a careless slap, making you flinch before he lazily wiped the sheen of your juices from the corner of his mouth.

His hand found your hair again, fingers threading through the strands before tightening into a firm fist. He tugged until your head tipped back, exposing the line of your throat, and his lips brushed against your tear-dampened cheek.

“Wanna steal more, baby?”

His grip twisted tighter, pulling your head back until your neck arched painfully. 

He slowly dragged his tongue along the salty trail of your tears, licking your cheek with slow strokes, savoring the taste of your cries as another quiet hum of approval rumbled in his chest.

You whimpered, your body trembling as you felt the hard outline of his clothed bulge press against the plush of your ass. He slowly ground his erection against you, a low grunt vibrating beneath your ear while his hand kept a firm hold on your hair, tugging your head back just enough for him to suck and leave harsh bites along your neck.

“What do you want, baby?” he whispered, grinding his cock more firmly against your bare ass. “My money? My jewelry?”

“O-Officer-”

His fist tightened in your hair, forcing another helpless whimper from your lips as he dragged his tongue along your throat, feeling the way you swallowed hard beneath him. “You wanted all of it, didn't you?”

His teeth sank into your neck once more as his clothed bulge rutted harder against the cleft of your ass, the seam of his pants catching against your skin with every slow roll of his hips. At the same time, his free hand slipped beneath your dress, yanking the fabric higher before grabbing a full handful of your bare ass, his fingers digging into the soft flesh hard enough to leave bruises.

"My pretty, pretty thief," he praised, pressing a kiss to your cheek as his hips rolled against you with even more force.

He wrenched his pants open just enough for his hard cock to spring free, the heated length slapping against one ass cheek before the other. Pre-cum glistened over the swollen tip as he slowly ground the shaft along the plush curve of your ass, coating your skin with every deliberate roll of his hips.

"Feel that? I'm so hard for you, baby."

A helpless mewl slipped past your lips as you weakly shook your head, your entire body trembling while he continued rubbing against your ass.

“Fuck, you make me so fucking horny.” he grunted.

Your cheeks burned crimson, the same flush spreading across your neck, and another whimper escaped you when he suddenly jerked your head back by the hair. 

"Grind back, baby, or I'll fuck this tight little ass of yours."

You cried harder, your body trembling as you reluctantly began to move your ass against his cock. A deep groan escaped him, his right hand settling firmly on your hip as he looked down, watching the way his hard length slid slowly through the cleft of your ass with every hesitant grind.

He spat over the curve of your ass for added lubrication, and a helpless cry caught in your throat when you felt the warm saliva land against your puckered rim. Despite the humiliation, your pussy only grew wetter.

His tattooed hand suddenly snaked around your waist, trailing lower until it reached your cunt. You gasped as his fingers cupped your pussy before hooking between your folds, spreading your lips apart into a lewd V-shape for him to admire.

“Look down and watch your clit, baby.” he rasped, tilting your head down so your gaze fell between your legs.

“P-Please...” you croaked, your body growing weaker by the second, your pussy aching for more even as the rest of you threatened to give out.

“Wanna be fucked so bad, huh?”

You gasped as his middle finger suddenly pushed between the V-shaped hold of his fingers, slipping inside your tight cunt. Your walls fluttered helplessly around the thick digit as he slowly worked it deeper.

“Oh! Mhmp!” you screamed.

His cock left your ass, the slick tip dragging slowly down until it notched against your entrance, smearing pre-cum and his spit over your swollen folds.

“Gonna fuck you good, baby…you’ve been a very bad girl.” he yanked your hair, tilting your head back as his tongue traced a slow path from your neck to the shell of your ear. “Need to fuck some sense into you, hmm?’’

“Mhmp!” you whimpered.

“Shh... moan for me, baby. It'll feel good.” his finger pressed deeper one last time, stretching your walls before he slowly withdrew it. The emptiness lasted only a heartbeat before he replaced it with the thick, leaking head of his cock, nudging its way against your entrance.

“Ahhh!” you screamed at the sudden stretch, his thick cock forcing its way into your tight pussy until you could feel every pulsing vein dragging against your walls as he pushed deeper.

He thrust halfway, then stopped, watching your cunt spasm around him, a thin ribbon of milky white release clinging to his shaft like a ring. 

“Fuck, you’re so tight.” he slowly pulled back before driving into you harder, bottoming out in one deep thrust, his pelvis slamming against your ass hard enough to make the fence rattle.

“Need to use this cunt every day. Maybe I’ll let my comrades fuck this tight little cunt so they can loosen you up for me, yeah?” he grunted, pushing even deeper until his balls rested snug against your cunt, the coarse hair at the base of his cock brushing against the curve of your ass with every shallow grind.

“U-Ugh, p-please...” you screamed, trying to wriggle, but he only answered with a low grunt against your ear. Then, without warning, he withdrew his cock completely.

For one fleeting moment, you thought he was finally going to let you go.

But your eyes widened the instant you heard the unmistakable clink of his leather belt being unclasped.

Your eyes widened as you felt him wrap the leather around your neck, fastening it just snug enough for him to tug whenever your cries grew too loud, cutting off your words with every sharp pull.

“Behave, baby.” he chuckled, easing himself inside you once more while keeping a firm grip on the belt for leverage. Every now and then, he gave it another deliberate tug, silencing your screams as his hips continued to drive into you.

The moment his hips began to roll against yours, your eyes fluttered back, pleasure blooming beneath the sting until you couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. 

“O-Oh, O-Officer!” a shaky sob escaped your lips, born as much from the humiliation as the sensation itself. Your pussy ached for more, clenching helplessly around his thick girth, betraying you with every pulse.

A quiet chuckle rumbled from behind you. His arm slid around your waist, holding you firmly against him as he circled his hips into yours, each relentless thrust threatening to lift your body off your feet.

“Is my baby enjoying this?” he whispered, giving the leather another measured yank, just enough to cut your sob short. The strap bit into the flushed skin of your throat as his hips snapped forward again, his balls slapping wetly against your cunt with every forceful thrust.

“This is turning you on, huh?”

You shook your head, but your pussy only grew wetter, your cries slowly dissolving into helpless moans as he continued to fuck you from behind.

“Want me to stop?” he whispered.

“N-No, Officer.” you whimpered, tears slipping down your cheeks as you gave a slow, trembling shake of your head.

“Yeah? You like getting used?”

He gave the belt another sharp tug, cutting off your whimpers before loosening it just enough to let a broken moan spill from your lips. Then he drove into you even deeper, his mushroom tip grinding against your spongy walls until you could feel your own milky juices coating his shaft.

"Gonna lock you up in a cell, baby… you'll be the precinct's little fucktoy."

The moment his thick head brushed against your g-spot, your entire body spasmed around his cock. A harsh groan tore from his throat as your walls clamped down on him, forcing him to pull out almost immediately. His movements turned urgent, one hand fumbling for the keys clipped to his belt while the other steadied you. Your hazy eyes fluttered shut as you felt the handcuffs finally come undone from your wrists.

You thought he was done.

A weak gasp escaped your lips when he suddenly flipped you over to face him, your exhausted arms falling limply to your sides as he stripped away the rest of your dress. Without a word, he lifted you with effortless strength and pinned you against the cold metal fence before guiding his hard cock back inside you. A broken whimper slipped from your throat at the oversensitivity left behind by your previous orgasm, your body instinctively tensing around him as his mouth found your exposed nipples, sucking them greedily while he chased his own release.

Your body bounced helplessly with every powerful thrust, like a toy being used exactly as he pleased. Your tongue nearly lolled from your parted lips, your mind reduced to nothing but scattered pleasure as his larger frame manhandled yours with ease. Low grunts and strained moans vibrated against your swollen nipples, each sound muffled by the way his mouth refused to leave them.

A rough growl tore from his throat as his climax finally overtook him. You felt the thick warmth of his release spilling deep inside your already used hole, his hips continuing to roll against yours in slow, deep motions, as though determined to push every last drop of his cum even deeper. 

“Fuck, baby,” his teeth sank into the soft flesh of your breast, the sharp sting blending seamlessly with the lingering waves of pleasure coursing through your body.

Some of it trickled down the insides of your thighs, warm against your skin. Your eyes fluttered, barely able to stay open…your body hanging limply in his grasp.

When he finally set you back on your feet, your legs nearly gave out beneath you. Before you could steady yourself, he was already kneeling between your thighs again, firmly spreading them apart as though he hadn't just reduced them to trembling. 

“W-Wait-” you panicked.

A helpless cry escaped your lips when his mouth found your swollen pussy once more, lapping up the mixture of his release and your milky wetness, slurping every drop with relentless hunger. The overstimulation sent your body reeling, your clit already so unbearably sensitive that the moment his tongue slid upward to wrap around it, your pussy pulsed against his mouth, another orgasm crashing through you before you could stop it.

He looked up at you with heavy lidded eyes, watching every twitch and shudder that overtook your body as you came around his mouth. 

You could see the way his cheeks hollowed with every slow suck on your clit, and somehow the sight of his discarded gun and badge lying carelessly on the floor beside him made the moment feel even dirtier—

A police officer on his knees, devotedly eating out the very thief he had caught.

Only when he was satisfied did he rise to his feet. His hand slipped into your hair, gently tugging you toward him until his lips claimed yours, letting you taste yourself on his tongue as he kissed you with greedy desperation. Your eyelids grew heavy, your knees threatening to buckle again, your body barely able to remain upright.

You flinched when you felt his hardened cock brush against your inner thighs even as he continued kissing you, a wave of panic surging through your exhausted body. Your pussy already felt swollen and unbearably sensitive, every nerve still humming from the relentless orgasms he had pulled from you.

As though sensing the fear creeping into your expression, he let out a low chuckle, slowly pulling away from your lips to study your face.

"Aww, is my baby tired?" he cooed, the words dripping with mock honey as he nudged your chin upward. 

You shook your head, your body instinctively yielding to whatever he was going to do next.

The corner of his mouth twitched before he bit down on his lower lip, your quiet submission enough to make his cock throb.

"Kneel for me."

Your knees trembled beneath you as you slowly lowered yourself, a startled gasp escaping your lips the moment the swollen tip dragged a lazy streak of pre-cum across your cheek.

"Open up, baby…daddy's not done." he gathered your hair into one hand with a gentleness that belonged to a lover rather than the man standing before you, tilting your face toward his groin, a smile tugging at his lips that never quite reached the darkness in his eyes.

"Clean up the mess you made, hmm? Open wide for Officer."

The swollen head nudged past your lips, and a mock-pitying sigh slipped from him as your mouth slowly yielded around his cock, your tongue flattening instinctively beneath the weight before a helpless gag caught in your throat.

"There, there," he murmured, his fingers absentmindedly stroking your hair. "Suck nice and slow, pretty girl."

He began to rock his hips into your mouth in slow, shallow thrusts, while his free hand continued to pet your hair with a tenderness so painfully at odds with the degradation spilling from his lips.

"That's it, baby," he praised softly. "Tongue flat, like the dumb, cute slut you are."

He pushed his cock deeper until the swollen mushroom tip nudged the back of your throat, the prominent veins along his shaft dragging against the roof of your mouth with every slow thrust, the upward curve making each movement reach even deeper.

"I can give you everything you want, baby," he whispered, a groan slipping past his lips as his thrusts gradually became sloppier, his grip on your hair tightening with every push. Saliva gathered at the corners of your mouth as you fought the urge to choke, wet, muffled gargles escaping your throat each time he buried himself deeper. Your eyes burned, quickly turning red as tears pooled along your lash line.

He cradled your hair once more, the tenderness of the gesture clashing with the relentless pace of his hips.

"I can provide for you... spoil you with all of my money," he murmured, easing himself forward until your nose brushed against the coarse hair at his pelvis. 

He held your face snugly in place for a brief moment before slowly rolling his hips, then gently pulled you back just enough to let you catch your breath, his saliva-slick cock dragging across your flushed cheeks.

"Do you want that?" he asked, tilting his head as he lazily ground his cock against your swollen cheek.

You nodded eagerly, your tear-filled eyes never leaving his.

He chuckled, giving your cheek a light tap with the head of his cock. "Do you understand me, baby?"

You pouted…your cheeks burning red, your eyes swollen, your lips wet with his precum. 

“Mhm..” 

“Mhm?” he chuckled.

He bit his lower lip as he stared down at you, quietly admiring the mess he'd made. “Cute.” 

Without warning, he yanked your head forward until he was fully seated inside your mouth, your nose pressed into his pubic hair as his balls slapped against your chin with each shallow roll of his hips.

"Gurk—gurk—"

You choked around him, tears immediately spilling down your cheeks, but the only response he gave was a deep groan as he slowly began to fuck your face, each thrust forcing another muffled gargle from your throat.

"Fuck, baby...I'm gonna cum."

He pulled out just enough to lean down and spit onto your tongue before pushing his cock back into your mouth in one smooth thrust, the loose belt still hanging around your neck, its end dragging through the dirt every time your head was forced forward.

You gagged helplessly around him, your cheeks hollowing as your eyes rolled back, your head rocking back and forth with every relentless thrust while he used your mouth however he pleased. And when you felt his rhythm begin to falter, his thrusts growing rougher and increasingly sloppy, he suddenly pulled free with a low groan. Before you could even catch your breath, he hauled you to your feet, one arm wrapped firmly around your body as he guided his cock against your cunt, his other hand positioning himself before pushing his hard cock back into your tight hole.

“I’m gonna cum inside baby, a reward for being a good little toy for daddy.”

A broken cry escaped your lips as he buried himself to the hilt, his body shuddering the moment he came. Thick, warm spurts filled you one after another while your body trembled from the lingering overstimulation, his hips continuing to jerk and roll against yours as he emptied every last drop inside you.

"These are worth thousands, Y/N! Oh my God."

Hanni's eyes widened in utter disbelief, her gaze sweeping across the worn wooden table as though she couldn't decide which stolen treasure to look at first.

A thick leather wallet, its compartments stuffed with crisp bills. Heavy gold necklaces lay tangled together beside matching rings, each piece gleaming with the unmistakable richness of high-karat gold. A limited-edition watch rested nearby, its polished face catching the kitchen light with every slight movement. And a duffel bag overflowed with expensive perfumes, bottle after bottle worth more than most people's monthly salary.

A slow smile tugged at your lips as your gaze wandered over Jungkook's belongings scattered across the table.

You never told Hanni that you'd gotten caught. 

Instead, you let her believe everything had gone according to plan.

Desperation has a way of rewriting your morals. It convinces good people to cross lines they once swore they would never touch, somehow making it feel like the only choice left.

He had given you far more than you had ever planned on stealing.

Tucked beneath your bed, hidden inside an old shoebox, were stacks of cash and signed checks worth enough to keep you comfortable for a long while—buying you the time to find a better path for yourself.

You hadn't even told Hanni about them.

Not because you didn't trust her, but because you knew the moment she saw that kind of money, questions would follow. Questions you couldn't answer without admitting where it had come from. So you kept the cash hidden, the checks tucked safely beneath it, and carried the secret alone.

He still hadn't turned you over to the authorities, even though it was painfully obvious he'd known exactly what kind of person you were from the very beginning.

From the moment he'd let you reach for the clasp of his necklace, he'd already known.

No high-ranking police officer—especially not a captain…would've failed to notice what you were trying to do. He had seen through you from the very beginning, long before you'd ever managed to slip a single thing into your hands.

Why did he let you?

You smiled seductively, slipping the watch and wallet beneath your dress before taking another sip of your now-warm beer, your gaze lingering on your target, who was far too drunk to notice the way your attention had never truly been on him.

Perhaps you hadn't changed.

Because here you were, stealing again…chasing the same thrill, the same rush, while somewhere beneath every excuse you made for yourself, another reason quietly waited.

Maybe you wanted to see him again.

You left the crowded club with the stolen watch and wallet hidden beneath your dress, weaving through the lingering crowd until the music faded behind you. The cool night air greeted your flushed skin as you made your way toward the smoking area, where you and Hanni had agreed to meet.

You had been stealing for six months now. 

You managed to steal from a shopping mall, a restaurant, a boutique, and even a high-end store—your usual targets where men were rarely involved.

Tonight, you decided to try flirting again…attempting to seduce someone despite the fact that your only experience had been with him.

Before you could even pull out your phone to text Hanni, someone pushed you against the cold brick wall.

Familiar dark, round eyes stared back at you, the same pierced lips curled around a cigarette as smoke drifted lazily into the night. Tattooed arms caged you in on either side, leaving nowhere for you to go.

Your eyes widened.

Seeing him dressed in the crisp navy uniform of a police captain stole the air from your lungs. 

Gold captain's bars gleamed from the epaulets on his shoulders, while a polished metal badge rested proudly over his chest. His duty belt sat low around his waist, crowded with the familiar weight of handcuffs, a radio, holster, and the rest of the equipment that came with his authority. The neatly pressed fabric, the black tie tucked beneath the collar, the nameplate pinned above his pocket—it all transformed the man you remembered into someone far more intimidating.

Power looked infuriatingly good on him.

Before you could utter a single word, his left hand slipped under your dress. Your breath caught as his fingers found the watch and wallet strapped against your thigh with effortless precision.

“Looks like my baby didn't learn her lesson, hmm?”

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© 2026 ggukiebar, all rights reserved

Auntie Lin’s only piece of advice after you announced your acceptance of your first corporate job: Small talk is your best friend. The advice hadn’t registered in your mind until you facilitated a meeting with executive management where the first five minutes of silent judgement nearly made you quit the job until you asked, “Any weekend plans?”

You learned the power of small talk and how obsessed executive leaders were when it came to bragging about their personal lives outside the office. The advice worked so well, management gave you an unprompted promotion two weeks later.

Nothing wrong with being the personality hire if it helps you climb the corporate ladder. 

Okay, well, no, you had history with this company.

Your father’s connection with the talent acquisition management landed you an internship at this very company right out of high school, so you didn’t need to reestablish your rapport after graduating from university.

You’re still a hard worker. Yes … objectively speaking, nepotism played a part in your current successes — you don’t shy away from that fact.

Your charming and curious personality only got you so far, but the magic always stopped with one person.

Jeon Jeongguk.

Hard case to crack and even harder to not stare at when he’s within your vicinity.

He’s polished, well-spoken, and … let’s just say there are things you shouldn’t say or think about in a place of work, let alone towards someone in the senior management team. He hardly smiles and if he does, it’s never towards you.

Right now? You think the least Jeongguk could do is crack a smile at your joke to break the tension in the virtual meeting. No one liked hearing bad news and you became the bearer of bad news as you explained to the client why a deliverable will not be made by the proposed timeline.

Delivering bad news was a manager’s job and unfortunately, your manager entrusted you with this responsibility right before she left for maternity leave, raving about how it’ll build your leadership and communication skills … right, right.

Jeongguk was the other leader overseeing the project. His team met all the deliverables, so there was no real need for his attendance other than pure formalities. 

This was your chance to show him what you were capable of. 

“Mr. Choi, we apologize for not making the deadline. With half the team on leave, the estimated completion date will need to be extended as a result.” You explain.

Jeongguk sits and watches you exchange words with the client. The mic button remained on mute during the many moments you would’ve benefited from his direction or support. You didn’t think you’d have to go through a humiliation ritual the day before your big trip for your best friend’s wedding in Italy. It’s your turn to have your mic button on mute as you let the client chew you out in front of your peers.

“Mr. Choi.” Jeongguk interrupts.

Thank god, finally. 

“The deliverables will be completed by the original proposed due date. I will personally see through that.”

You exhale in relief once the client settles back into their chair, demeanor shifting from their outburst moments ago.

You [3:32 p.m.]: Thank you, Jeongguk.

As expected, he doesn’t reply. 

The meeting wraps up on a positive note thanks to Jeongguk’s interception. Everyone bids each other farewell until you hear a call of your name.

“Stay on the call. Need to discuss a few things with you.”

Confused, you aren’t sure why he doesn’t ask you to walk ten steps to his office to chat privately. You swallow and one by one, all of your colleagues leave the meeting until it’s just you and him. 

He sighs, letting his agitation come out freely now. He loosens his tie and fixes his frames on his nose.

“So …” you begin.

“Do you know what your first mistake was on that call?” He sneers, a complete one-eighty from the well-mannered speaker he was during the meeting.

“I’m–uh, not sure.” You reply honestly.

“‘We apologize,’” he repeats your words, “there is no ‘we’ in this — you were the one that didn’t meet the service level agreement. Learn to take accountability for your own shortcomings.”

Ouch.

He continues, “You also failed to offer any alternatives or incentive for the delay. This is about being reputable — customer experience dictates future collaborations with new clients. If this one goes sour, we lose our clientele.”

Each word morphed into daggers piercing and digging into your self-esteem.

The finishing blow?

“That being said, you will finish what we originally promised the client.”

“But,” your heart drops at the mention of working during your time off, “I’m not going to be in the country.”

“I’m sure there’s internet wherever you’re going.”

⋆｡𖦹 ˚ 𓇼 ˚｡⋆

“And then! He said I’m paid salary, not hourly, so it doesn’t matter how long I need to work — I just need to get it done.” You complain to your colleague, Mina, who happened to work under Jeongguk’s section. 

“Oof, sorry girl.” She pours the coffee into her cup, unsurprised by her boss’ expectations. Setting the pot back onto the warmer, she leans against the counter. It’s just the two of you in the breakroom, free from prying eyes and ears. “So what are you gonna do?”

You groan. As much as you’d like to ramble and moan about how unreasonable Jeongguk’s demands were, you knew he was right about needing to take accountability.

“Well, if I push in some work in the early morning and night the first couple of days in Italy, I should be able to get it done.” You sigh. “Just hate it.”

Mina pats your shoulder and gives you a reassuring smile, which soon changes into a bewildered expression as she digs her fingers into your shoulder.

“Oh, hey bossman, here for a coffee refill?” Mina’s voice strains, projected to the space behind you.

You turn and there stands Jeon Jeongguk in all his glory. While you had the privilege to see him earlier today during the virtual meeting, nothing compared to the real deal. Dressed in an all-black suit, Jeongguk looks ever immaculate. His face is free from his metal-framed glasses, but they leave their small indentations on the sides of his nose. The deadliest combo came in the form of his hair pushed back, exposing his wrinkle-free forehead.

If it weren’t for his wired earphones and outdated iPod you caught him with during his walk, you would’ve never guessed his age. Technically, you still don’t know the exact number but Anna in Human Resources hinted he’s in his mid to late thirties.

Whatever. Age is just a number and hasn’t stopped you from trying to befriend the older man. 

“Yes, my third one today.” He muses.

“Anything the team and I can do to help wrap up things for you before your vacation?” Mina probes.

Wait. You never caught wind of that.

“No,” he shakes his head, “thank you, though.”

Your heart stirs at the low timbre of his chuckle, surprised at his abilities in displaying any other emotions outside his stoic expression. You theorize it comes easier with an established rapport. 

Maybe you’ll try your luck today.

“How long are you going to be out for?” You ask, moving to the side so he has better access to the coffee pot. His scent naturally fills your space — a mixture of fresh laundry and cedarwood. 

“Two weeks.”

“Oh, same here!” You beam. 

“Yes, you’ve mentioned that quite a bit this month.”

You warm in embarrassment; though, the feelings get swept underneath the rug at another fact.

He listened — more importantly, he remembered your many musings. 

“I’m going to Italy.” You remark, hoping he’d give a little more detail on his own vacation if you shared a bit about your upcoming adventures.

Jeongguk freezes momentarily and clears his throat before setting down the nearly empty pot.

“That’s nice.”

Seizing the moment to continue the conversation, you throw out details of your trip, namely for the wedding you’ll attend as maid of honor for your best friend.

“And they’re going to have this lovely venue near the beach. It’s going to be great.” You marvel.

“Ugh, I’m jealous,” Mina pouts. “Are you going to be doing something fun during your time off, Jeongguk?” 

You watch him with expectant eyes.

“Tending some family matters.”

That’s corporate lingo for: it’s personal, so none of your business. Everyone knows to back off on the topic at that point.

Taking a sip of his coffee after mixing a pack of Splenda, he offers a tight-lipped smile, “I have to head back to the desk. Enjoy your break.”

Alone with Mina once again, you look at her with defeated eyes.

“He’s just introverted and private, babe. I wouldn’t sweat it.” She waves.

“I’ve been here for over a year and he’s never like this to management or clients.” You sigh. “Maybe I’m the problem.”

It’s hard to not take things to heart being a natural born people pleaser. You want to be liked and if you’re not, at least know why; except, Jeongguk kept things strictly work related with all the little pocket of interactions you’ve had with him. 

If you were brave enough, you’d ask him about it over coffee or lunch — anywhere that might give you a glimpse of who he is outside of work. 

“Don’t mind him. In about twenty-four hours, you’ll be in Italy! Last time you updated, the best man was a little wishy-washy about the wedding? How’s that going?”

“Jihyo said Seojun got it sorted out, so they’re okay.” All you know from the matter is how much of a struggle it was to get a definite answer from his best man. Prick move and unnecessary stress for the wedding party. Had you been in Seojun’s position, you would’ve cut losses and moved forward without the best man early on.

Planning a wedding was difficult enough, let alone dealing with difficult people in the wedding party. You pray he steps into his role as the best man to lessen the to-be-wedded couple’s worries. 

“Good. Wedding drama’s the worst.” Mina nods. “Still haven’t recovered from finding out my cousin’s husband was fucking his cousin.” 

The gossip session goes for another fifteen minutes until you begrudgingly head back to finish up some last minute tasks. You weren’t going to be that coworker who leaves a bunch of unfinished work for your backup. 

Another thing you didn’t want to be was like your father, but you’re no different by the time you finish your pending tasks at 9:52 p.m. You do a quick once-over your automatic out-of-office notice and send out a list of items for your backup to look after before stuffing all your belongings into your workbag.

Going home was always your favorite time of the day, granting you the chance to walk past Jeongguk’s office. Even from where you’re standing, the lights in his office are the only ones still on out of all the managers on the floor.

His door remains slightly ajar throughout the day aside from the times he’s on a call or speaking to one of his employees. An ‘open door policy,’ Mina explained. Wants the folks on his team comfortable coming to him with their needs or questions.

You didn’t need anything, per se. There were plenty of questions floating in your head, but none that would qualify as work-related or professional. Things like … where are you going for vacation? Would you like to grab dinner together? … Are you seeing anyone? 

Your short almond shaped nails tap on his metal name plaque outside his office.

He looks up from his computer, the monitor’s brightness setting doing little to hide his exhausted stare. One brow raised, he cocks his head to the side.

“Come in.”

You take in your surroundings: a shelf containing all his Employee of the Year awards, empty “In” bin as opposed to a stacked “Out” bin, and half-finished cup of coffee. Above all, no pictures of his family or signs of life outside of work.

A stark contrast in comparison to your cubicle full of small trinkets, pictures of your loved ones, and cards you’ve received from both your coworkers and clients.

“Just wanted to say goodnight and thank you again for joining the meeting.” You say. “I followed up with the client with your recommendations and they’re happy with the timeline.”

He nods. “I’m glad it worked out.”

“Well,” You rock on your heels, not wanting to leave just yet, “I’ll see you in two weeks. Hope you have a nice time off, Jeongguk.”

He leans back into his deskchair, glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose as he studies your face. His black dress shirt stretches and expands tightly at a passing thought; at the last second, he makes his resolve in foregoing the notion for simpler words.

“Likewise. Safe travels to Italy.”

⋆｡𖦹 ˚ 𓇼 ˚｡⋆

Despite the two layovers and many near-death turbulences later, you arrive in Venice, Italy in one piece. Your best friend, Jihyo, was the first person you see at the gates, smile lighting up the building when she finally spots you through the crowds. These days, she glows more with her soon-to-be husband, Seojun.

You’ve met him only a handful of times and he’s always been kind. You don’t know him well enough, but as long as your friend was happy, so were you.

Which is why she’s going all out for her wedding — it’s her chance to do what she wants with those who care for her. Jihyo’s parents unfortunately did not extend their support and care. They were so against the idea of her marrying a person of no status, her father threatened to cut off all ties and funds if she were to go through with marrying Seojun. 

“My favorite person is finally here!” She squeezes you in her arms. “How was the flight? Are you hungry? We can go get a quick bite.”

“Jihyo, love, slow down,” Seojun comes from behind and offers you a kind greeting. “You must be exhausted. We can head back to the hotel. Just waiting for my uncle to clear customs.”

“Oh! Do you know when he’ll land?” You ask.

“I think he was on the same flight as you, so he should be out soon.” He pulls out his phone to answer a quick text before scanning the area. 

“Think that’s him.” He squints. “Uncle, over here!” He extends his arm above his head. 

You expected a fifty year old balding man, not senior manager, Jeon Jeongguk. 

Fuck.

⋆｡𖦹 ˚ 𓇼 ˚｡⋆

You didn’t think you’d ever ride in the same car as one of your managers, especially one you had a dire crush on. You definitely didn’t think you’d be seated in the back of a rental car with him in Italy for your best friend’s wedding.

This whole scenario has to be straight out a romcom … or, in your case, a horror film.

You open up the notes app in your phone and type out a quick message: Do we tell them we know each other? 

What you really wanted to ask was: Why the hell didn’t you say anything about this being the “family matter” you had to take care of?

He takes your phone from your hand and begins typing something before handing it back to you. Nothing from your original note was edited, but a second later a notification comes through.

Jeongguk [4:56 p.m.]: No. Too complicated. You [4:56 p.m.]: Okay..

“Uncle.” Seojun looks at the rear mirror. “How’s work been?”

“Busy,” he sighs. “But it’s been getting better.”

“I’m glad. Hope these two weeks will give you the break you need. You didn’t bring your work laptop, right?” He presses.

Kind of cute seeing the younger male lecture his uncle — cuter seeing Jeongguk grumble at his nephew’s nagging.

“No promises.”

“Speaking of work,” Jihyo chimes in, “How you coping with work?” She turns her entire body from the passenger seat to look at you.

The passengers in the car go silent for your reply, feeling Jeongguk’s shift from the work status inquiry.

“Fine.” You answer quickly.

“Really? That one manager didn’t give you more shit right–”

“Jihyo!” You interrupt, quickly covering up with an awkward laugh and stiff smile, “ Ha-ha … no, it’s been great!”

“Wha–? But you were venting about having to work during the trip … Honestly, that manager’s lucky he’s hot.”

“Ji–”

“Hot?” Jeongguk asks with a raised brow. There’s a lift in his voice, forcing you to bury and shrink deeper into your seat.

“Allegedly.” Jihyo replies mindlessly. Oblivious to your discomfort of the topic, Jihyo continues, “You still gotta sneak a picture of him when you can, babe. I need to see if his pretty privileges warrant this sort of power trip.” 

You’ve heard summers in Italy were magical. You wish for some of that magic to touch you right now — the kind good enough to make you disappear all together from this awkward conversation.

“Huh.” Jeongguk props his elbow by the car’s window ledge, palm covering his mouth. “I’m curious too.” 

Jihyo changes the topic to the itinerary she made for the wedding party; however, you couldn’t be bothered to tune into the details. Knowing Jihyo, she’ll eventually send the party a spreadsheet of the schedule.

You [5:02 p.m.]: Please ignore Jihyo 🥹

Your heart accelerates at the appearance of the infamous dots signaling Jeongguk’s reply in the making.

Jeongguk [5:03 p.m.]: I’ll try. Power trips make it insanely hard to.

You chew on your bottom lip out of habit, feeling the sweat gather behind your neck. Hand fanning your face, you glance over and notice a slight shake in Jeongguk’s stature. He’s still facing away from you and towards the window, but from the reflection, you can see the corners of his mouth lift.

Endorphins rush through your bloodstream at the thought of making him happy.

While chasing your happiness has always been your life motto, you wouldn’t mind chasing for Jeongguk’s happiness too.

⋆｡𖦹 ˚ 𓇼 ˚｡⋆

On Jihyo’s itinerary, she deliberately left Venice off from the rest of the wedding party arriving later at the actual wedding site. The next two days were solely meant to spend more time with the maid of honor and best man.

The first day in Venice naturally got cut short with your arrival time; so, the only thing Jihyo planned was a nice dinner after you and Jeongguk settled into your respective rooms. Dinner rolls by with just you, Jihyo, and Seojun perusing the menu for the umpteenth time. The seat, meant for Jeongguk, remains cold and empty. After about thirty minutes and a couple text messages, Seojun confirms with the waiter to remove the utensils and plate — something about his uncle not feeling well.

“Okay, but he’ll be at dinner tomorrow, right?” Jihyo frowns, eyes full of worry.

“Yes, love.” He smiles. “Just old man tendencies and jetlag got the best of him. He’ll be there tomorrow.”

Back at the hotel, you had half a mind to check in on him and just as you built up the courage to knock, the door swings open to reveal a Jeongguk you’ve yet to ever witness: dark grey compression shirt with five-inch inseam shorts. He has his wired earphones in and looks well rested, contrary to what Seojun mentioned at dinner about two hours ago.

“Oh, are you feeling better?” You ask, hand retracted and tucked behind your back.

His brows twitch, fingers removing one of the buds out his ear. “Sorry?”

“Seojun mentioned you weren’t feeling well. Are you better now?”

“Yep.” He answers.

Awkward. 

“Where you headed to? It’s late.” You rock on your heels, afraid you might’ve overstepped with your light interrogation.

“Saw a small running trail nearby, just wanna get some movement in.”

“Would you like—”

“Well, goodnight.” He places the earpiece back in and walks off, the scent of his fresh linen deodorant trails along with him.

“—company?” The end of your sentence comes out in a tiny whisper, the question dying on the tip of your tongue as his figure disappears in the distance.

It was going to be a long two weeks, but you’re optimistic for a chance to change the tides with Jeongguk. Maybe even get to know him a little better or collect more versions of who he may be outside of work before this trip ends.

Arms linked with Jihyo, you walk down the small alleyways of Venice the next day, marveling at the tiny trinkets on display. Seojun and Jeongguk were always a couple steps behind, mainly taking note of the repeating gelato flavors at each stand. Your ears perk when Jeongguk chuckles at Seojun’s excitement of finally finding a stall with a new flavor. His laugh rings deep and rich, something you’re rarely afforded at the workplace.

You hold up two carnival masks to your face. “Which one suits me better?” You preferred the pink one in your left hand, but the green in your right hand spoke to you as well.

“Mm, you know I’ll always favor pink, but is there room in your suitcase?” Jihyo inquires.

Well, no, but you could always buy another suitcase. 

“All going to end up as clutter once you’re home.” Jeongguk mutters to himself, eyeing the other trinkets on the shelf.

Whether or not it was directed at you, you put the mask back with the rest. The shop owner smiles, a little dejected at the missed sale, but with the numerous tourists filtering through the alley, he’s bound to make his daily quota by closing time.

The rest of the day is spent on trying new food — your favorite being the bruschetta flight near the waters. Again, Jeongguk and Seojun were always a couple steps behind, chatting about god knows what while you and Jihyo swap gelatos between every two or so licks. Venice was packed — mainly with tourists, but in a specific alleyway you all decided to turn into held a different kind of danger.

Pigeons. Lots of them. 

One could argue Venice might be the motherland to birds; you’re not in any position to disagree as you cower between the birds staring down at your group from the railings. They swarm around your feet, begging for whatever you’d offer or accidentally drop.

Lucky for you, a shop owner comes and throws out bits of their baguettes. All the pigeons flock over in pursuit of their (probable) tenth snack for the day. You breathe a sigh of relief for the small deterrence, walking quicker to escape from the flock.

“Phew, thought we were goners back there.” Jihyo jokes, looking back at the boys.

At the last second, a seagull swoops in and takes the unfinished gelato right from your hand. You let out a blood curdling scream, hand immediately letting go of the cone. You grab Jihyo by the shoulder and chant for the birds to take her as an offering instead.

Everyone within the vicinity laughed, some tourists offered a sympathetic smile and asked if you were okay. Among the laughter, Jeongguk’s chuckle echoes loudest in your head. It had never been your goal to become the group’s court jester, but you wouldn’t mind making it your life’s sole purpose for this version of him.

Seojun checks his watch. “Jihyo, baby, we still have five more hours to kill before our flight over to Sicily. Should we head back to the hotel? Uncle said he’s tired—”

Smile wiped off his handsome face, Jeongguk nudges the young man in the arm. “Don’t use me as a scapegoat.”

You never realized how much the two men resembled each other, catching you off guard when Jeongguk hooks his arm around Seojun’s neck, and rubs his knuckles over his nephew’s head. Their laughter comes out the same, pairing well with their toothy grins.

“We only have one last item on the itinerary.” Jihyo says, a fond smile at the sight of her happy fiance. “I wanted to do a little gondola ride.”

Most tourists seized the golden hour for their boat ride too, which sent you and your group on a hunt for an unoccupied gondola, eventually finding two docked boats on the opposite entrance of Venice.

“I’ll pass.” Jeongguk says with a hand up.

Jihyo pouts, pointing in your direction. “But she’d be all alone.”

“Oh, um, I don’t mind staying behind.” You smile, doing your best to not sound disappointed at the lost experience. “Can always ride a boat at home.”

“But Miss, when will you ride a gondola in Venice while the sun is setting?” One of the gondoliers pitches.

“He’s right.” Jihyo nods. “Please, Jeongguk?”

He’d rather not waste money on a tourist trap … one look at Jihyo’s pleading eyes in combination with his nephew’s displeased stare has him folding on the spot.

Defeated, he sighs, “Fine.”

Jihyo cheers, skipping over to the first boat lined up where Seojun waits patiently with a hand out for her.

Their boat rows off first and five minutes later, it was yours and Jeongguk’s turn to step into the gondola. He holds out his hand to steady your step, boat wobbling as you plant your first foot down. His hold lingers a little longer even when you’ve successfully made it into the boat. Eyes peering up at Jeongguk’s tall stature, your body heats up under his watchful gaze.

“Steady now?”

“Yes.” You chirp.

“Good.” He lowers you both carefully onto the small seats. Once secured, the gondolier begins his descent through the canals.

Naturally, you strike up a conversation with the gondolier, asking how many rides he averages a day to which he politely answers, ‘too many to count.’ The conversation goes on for another five minutes until Jeongguk sighs, a subtle signal for you to stop and take in your surroundings instead.

Despite the on and off whiffs of the decade old sewage lines rooted in the city, the ride descends to the narrower alleyways one would miss on foot. Water levels rising, the gondolier signals you both to duck at an approaching bridge. You hadn’t realized you didn’t duck low enough until you feel Jeongguk’s warm palm at the base of your head, urging you lower.

His hand rests there until it’s time for you both to lift your heads up again. So warm and thoughtful, unlike how he’s been treating you at work.

You might explode at the silence, finding the need to address the elephant in the room. What were the odds you’d be alone with Jeongguk again? What are the odds you’d be riding on a gondola in Venice, Italy with Jeongguk?

“Do you hate me?” You blurt out, immediately embarrassed at your sudden forwardness. The gondolier peers from the side and looks forward again, slowing his rowing motion with his oar. 

Jeongguk’s brows furrow, lips pressed into a thin line. “I don’t hate you.”

“It seems like you do. You always are just so …”

“So …?” He trails along.

“Mean.” You frown. Feeling more foolish for your lack of proper vocabulary words for such a serious confrontation, you do your best to explain. “You seem to get along with everyone else at work and even here. You’re nice to everyone but me.” 

He stares straight ahead, tongue probing against his cheek. He doesn’t respond right away and you deflate at your wasted effort in an attempt to understand Jeongguk beyond the cubicle. You only hear the waters splashing against the gondola as the oar steers you both to another quieter route. 

If Jeongguk didn’t hate you before, he probably does right now. So evident in his silence and unwillingness to discuss this topic, you wonder to yourself … were older generations this bad with expressing their emotions and thoughts? Your father was a great example, and while you don’t want to generalize an entire generation, Jeongguk drives a hard bargain.

“How’d you get into Cientra Corporations?” The question rolls out of Jeongguk with no hint of curiosity.

What did your place of work have anything to do with his alleged animosity? 

“I applied for an opening.” You answer.

His chuckles, full of mock and taunt. “When?”

You frown, a little taken aback by the conversation now turned into an interrogation.

“I think a month before my graduation?” Your stomach churns from the unpredictability of his next words.

“Right, of course.” Jeongguk looks to the side, eyes tracing the water stains on the old brick buildings.

“I’ve had plenty of internships during undergrad and I graduated early with honors.” His demeanor only makes you overexplain your qualifications. “My recruitment was done through a fair hiring process.”

“The position was not in the budget.” He rolls his eyes, his crossed arms accentuates his muscular build. If you were more shameless, you’d let your eyes linger at his chest for a little longer despite how his next words batters your pride. “Freshly graduated with little to no experience landing a mid-entry position?”

You’re not ashamed to admit you had a foot in thanks to your connections. Of course, you were unaware a position had been created just for you, but to insinuate you didn’t deserve your place … now, that was not something you’d take lightly.

“I’ve worked hard with all the opportunities—”

“As one should.” He interrupts. “But all your ‘opportunities’ only became yours because they were taken away from someone else. There were at least ten other highly qualified applicants in the candidate pool.” 

You open your mouth, but Jeongguk beats you to it, “One summer internship at Cientra wouldn’t have gotten anyone else into the company.”

Now that shatters you. You had really thought you stood out in the pool considering you had previously applied and interned for the same company. Now you’re rethinking whether you’ve also gotten the job purely from connections.

Fighting through your imposter syndrome, you stand your ground. “At the end of the day, I was chosen and I take my job seriously. I can’t change what’s already set in stone.”

“That’s your privilege speaking.” He leans against the backrest. “I’ll only repeat this once: I don’t hate you.” Extremely hard to believe after your self esteem’s been kicked to the curb. 

And despite the sour mood, you still try to salvage what you can. “Okay,” You breathe, “Regardless of how you feel about me, can we get along for the sake of the wedding?”

“Of course.” He rolls his shoulders, discomfort clear from the small chair setup. “Trying to make this wedding as seamless and pain-free as possible.”

You piece his aversion to the wedding now. The last minute confirmation of his attendance and lack of enthusiasm for the trip’s activities … it all checks. The gondolier rounds to the ride’s starting point and docks the boat where you and Jeongguk need to quickly alter your attitude in front of the unsuspecting couple.

Jeongguk stays behind to tip the gondolier, murmuring his apologies for the tense ride. From a distance, you overhear the gondolier snort, saying something on the lines of how he should be tipping Jeongguk for the soap opera level conversation.

Your act works — neither Jihyo nor Seojun suspected any shift in moods because Jihyo was too busy begging for another cannoli and, of course, Seojun being the exceptional fiance he is, advised you guys to return to the hotel first to prepare for the flight while he ran to the specific stall Jihyo requested for.

“Uncle, you go on ahead with the girls.”

Jeongguk shakes his head. “I’ll come with you.”

On the train ride back to the hotel, Jihyo lays her head on your shoulder. “I think Uncle Jeongguk hates me.”

That makes the two of you.

She continues, “I know this wedding was rushed, but I thought he’d warm up to the idea of us by now.”

Very out of character for Jihyo to sulk over the minute things in life. You’re not one to talk, knowing firsthand what it’s like to wish for someone’s approval.

“Hey … it’s been less than two days. And who cares what he thinks? You and Seojun are in this for life.”

“I know, I know. Seojun just adores his uncle, you know? That’s his only family.” Jihyo frowns. Unlike him, she’s grown up in a big and affluent family her entire life — well, now cut in half since her choice to marry Seojun, a man of no title or status. She can bear the disdain from her own family, but she doesn’t want Seojun to lose his one and only family member over their choices.

“I was thinking,” Jihyo begins, suddenly sitting upright with determined eyes. “You know, you’re always so fun and great with people … could you maybe get to know Uncle Jeongguk and put in a good word for me? Just until the time of the wedding at least.”

You’ve never seen her this desperate. You ponder back to the conversation on the gondola and if there were little to no chance of making things right with Jeongguk yourself, how were you going to do it for Jihyo?

You’re no better than Seojun and eventually give into her plea. 

“Okay.” You smile, arms embracing her.

All checked out of the Venice hotel, your party makes it through the airport’s security checkpoint just in time for the flight to the actual wedding destination: Sicily.

Italy is magical and Sicily proved every part of that belief even in the cab ride over to the rental property. Windows down, you let the warm breeze run through your locks, uncaring if the sea salted air clung onto your hair and skin. The tips of your hair unknowingly float over and graze Jeongguk’s arms, marking and reminding him of your presence whether or not he welcomed it. 

Jihyo really went all out and booked the dreamiest villa. The villa had everything: a fifteen minute walk to the wedding venue, close to local shops and restaurants, and here’s your favorite: the beach. It’s perfect … almost as perfect as the living situation Jihyo had planned out. No brainer, she and Seojun would get the main house while you and Jeongguk would occupy the cottage a couple steps away.

“Dinner in fifteen minutes? I have a reservation with the restaurant down the street.” Jihyo shrugs her duffle bag higher on her shoulders to which Seojun immediately takes after he unloaded all the other suitcases from the trunk.

“Isn’t it a little late for dinner?” Jeongguk reads his watch.

“Customary to eat later in Italy.” Jihyo smiles.

Jeongguk checked off all the body cues to decline. His resolve crumbles yet again from another one of Seojun’s stares, ultimately agreeing to dinner after settling in.

The first thing you and Jeongguk noticed upon entering the cottage was the stuffy and warm air from the windows being closed for too long. No matter how hard you push and yank the panes, the windows just wouldn’t budge. With a sigh, a strong source of heat presses against your backside.

The scent of fresh linen only welcomes you after laundry day and whenever you’ve switched out your bedsheets. Your mind wanders around scenarios of being welcomed by this exact scent and warmth in bed, sheets needing to be constantly changed afterwards.

Fuck.

Jeongguk’s fingers pull at the knobs above the window sill. Using way less force and energy, the window cracks open with ease and the crisp crash of waves in the distance meets your ears. Nothing was louder than the beating in your chest — must’ve been your imagination when you thought Jeongguk stayed a beat longer behind, breath sucked in from the proximity.

You replay the scenario in your head even at the dinner table. 

The times you’ve looked up from your plate, you’ve unconsciously caught Jeongguk staring in your direction too. He looks away, suddenly mesmerized by the shoreline. His attention pulls at some clapping in the background, waiters and waitresses nearing your section of the restaurant. Your smile widens as they circle your table, confused but pleased by the grand gesture.

Setting a small cake down on the table and resuming their singing, you peer over at the frosted words: Happy 37th Birthday, Jeongguk!

Jeongguk keeps his smile at a sensible level, not wanting to show too much excitement. 

After the employees leave, Seojun beams, “Jihyo arranged this. Nice, huh?” He has his arm around her shoulder.

“Yes, very. Thank you, Jihyo.” Jeongguk smiles, warm and sincere. 

Bellies full, you all walk back to the property. Everything seems to fall into its natural place. Jeongguk lets you shower first and because you’re self conscious of taking too much time, you cut your usual routine by half. You’re seated at the same window sill again, watching the shoreline. 

The lights in the room turn on and you startle. Looking back, you catch a half naked Jeongguk drying his wet hair with a small towel. Bare torso on full display, you gulp at the sight while unknowingly clenching your thighs together. 

Thirty-seven looked good on Jeongguk.

You hope you looked this good at that age, but you have a long way to go. At twenty-two, you know your two little tattoos, one on your lower back and the other on your forearm, will look completely different in fifteen years. They’re nothing like Jeongguk’s, especially with all the intricate tattoos going up his arm, stopping at his chest — both old and new ones. In the office, you’ve only seen a snippet of his tattoos on his forearm, now you’ve been granted full access. Which you’re reminded that everything that happens in Italy will have to stay here. Water break chatter with Mina will exclude these details, saving these memories just for yourself on lonelier nights.

Jeongguk sucks in a breath, surprised at the sight of you. Should be in bed and knocked out from today’s festivities, but you’re there in your silk pajamas, shorts riding dangerously high in your seated position with your knees hiked up to your chest. His jaw clenches, fixing himself a glass of water at the kitchen sink. Hips pressed against the sink counter, he drinks the water, letting a couple droplets dribble past his chin and sharp jawline.

Summers in Italy were magical, but were they usually this hot?

You edge closer to the window sill, praying for the night breeze to snap you out of whatever spell you caught at this hour.

“Jetlagged?” He asks, rinsing the cup. You blink at his question, a little confused at his initiation. It warms you, but you know better than to latch onto this small exchange. 

“A little.” You let out a disgruntled sound as you get up. You think you must’ve hallucinated Jeongguk’s frustrated exhale at your change of position. “You?”

“Mhm. Not as bad as the first night. The run helped.” He replies.

You have all the reason not to get along with him, let alone strike a normal conversation; though, you bare your warmest and genuine smile, “That’s nice. I’m glad.”

“Yes. Well. Goodnight.” He clears his throat.

The lock on your door clicks first, back pushed against the door for some grounding and support. Your bones click against the hard surface, ears cluing in for any sounds from your temporary roommate on the other threshold. His door shuts too, followed by a deep sigh.

There’s some shuffling followed by a drop of what you assumed were clothing. Hot and consumed by your thoughts, your mind spirals at the image of him in nothing but his briefs.

God, this was going to be a long trip.

⋆｡𖦹 ˚ 𓇼 ˚｡⋆

The internet connection in this villa was probably the worst thing Jeongguk has ever encountered in his life — even worse than the time he went abroad for school during his prime. It was another neighboring country, but still … how hard was it to get an adequate signal? 

He’s tried everything. Sitting in odd places, being closer to the router — nothing’s worked. 

He looks out the same window you were seated at last night, hoping to find an answer before he hurls his laptop out. 

Until he sees you.

You’re seated outside near a lemon tree between the two accommodations, laptop perched on the patio table while you tug at one of the nearby branches for a quick sniff at the fruit. Your eyes shut in bliss, lemon distracting you with its fresh scent.

You’ve done well to distract Jeongguk from his work too. As much as he’d like to hold onto this vendetta, he knows the grudge was misdirected and undeserving. He also knows a part of his hesitancy with you is who you are. Knows the reasons why you were hired aside from the connections you had. And although you had a good personality, he can’t call you a personality hire if you knew how to do your job.

He won’t deny your accomplishments in school, allowing you to graduate with high honors by the time you were twenty. You were an adequate worker, but again, only because you were given unfair advantages — tools and resources that were taken away from someone else more deserving and eligible. 

His grudge stretched beyond that, having been on the other receiving end of losing opportunities because of his upbringings. So yeah … maybe he’s biased.

You, on the other hand, want to hurl your laptop for other reasons. The laptop sits on top of the patio table, waiting for you to begin your long half day of work.

The metal legs of the empty chair across from you scrape against the concrete floor.

“Mind if I join you?”

You straighten from your slouched posture, surprised eyes meeting his neutral expression. Vacations were meant for fun, not the work you were trying to escape from. With Jeongguk here, you really can’t slack off. You quickly clear your items from the small table and gesture for him to sit.

“Terrible connection in the cottage.” You remark. “Gave me problems all morning.”

He hums, typing away on the laptop to make up for the lost time. You fall back into your work too seeing that there was a good motivator.

On your left side, there’s a small bowl of olives paired with the wine Jihyo delivered to your shared cottage. Jeongguk stares at the bowl, following one of the olives held by your fingers and popped in between your plump lips.

A small puff of air escapes through his nose at your winced expression from the initial burst of flavors, washing it down with a swig of wine.

“Would you like to try?” You push the bowl towards him.

“Didn’t look all that good.” He stares up, glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose. Though small, you detect a teasing tone in his comment.

“It was … different. But!” You perk, “When will we be in Italy again, in a beautiful villa eating olives while working?”

Answer? Never.

Such a ridiculous thought that he reaches into the small ceramic bowl to plop an olive into his mouth. The bitter tang of the small fruit amplifies on his tongue from your expectant stare.

Not unpleasant, but there were plenty of other cuisine choices in Italy worth trying. 

Though, when will Jeon Jeongguk be in Italy again, in a beautiful villa eating olives while working with your melodic laughter resonating in his ears as you scoot your wine glass over to him?

Tongue no longer graced with the olive’s bitterness, a new type of bitterness spreads as Seojun and Jihyo announce they’re headed to the beach.

“How much longer do you need to work?” Jihyo pouts, hands on her hips as she peers down at your laptop. She’s not reading anything you have opened, deeming them unimportant especially when you should be spending time with her.

You offer a sheepish smile, afraid to voice your true thoughts in front of management. Jeongguk keeps his face trained to his screen, brows twitching in an attempt to hide his bemusement.

Had it been anyone else in front of you, you’d throw your hands in the air and say ‘Fuck it.’ But it was Jeongguk … one of the higher-ups you’d always admired — whose opinion you immensely cared for. 

“Uncle …” Seojun frowns. “You promised you weren’t going to work.”

“Code red. Need to take care of this.” Jeongguk explains.

Seojun sighs, the expression resounds his frustration to his uncle’s work habits.

In the short span of time working at the company, you’ve never seen Jeongguk falter; yet, the man seated across from you wavers at his nephew’s disappointment.

“It’ll be quick.” He remedies.

You also know Jeongguk took his time. He’s meticulous and wants everything right the first time around. It appears Seojun knows this too, not taking his promises too seriously, and grunting a small ‘okay’ before he takes Jihyo’s hand to lead them both to the beach.

Jeongguk purses his lips, a vexed expression he doesn’t let linger for long. You shouldn’t meddle with family affairs, but you couldn’t help thinking back to the missed dinners, absent parent recitals, and text messages telling you to not wait up late from your father. 

“Work’s never that important.” The words slip past your mouth before realizing it.

Jeongguk isn’t afraid to voice his response too, seemingly prepared for your judgment. 

“Easy for you to say.” His eyes narrow. “Some people aren’t afforded breaks.”

You take another bite of the olives, hoping the flavor would conceal the shame. The invisible wall between you and Jeongguk grows higher and thicker, making it impossible to penetrate. You refocus on the task at hand. 

Three hours pass with the sound of birds and ocean in the background — the sounds would have been enough for anyone to relax into their work, but all it does is make you yearn for fun. Makes you think anything might be better than being with the man seated across from you. Which is so unlike you when just a week ago, you’d do just about anything to be closer to him in the office. 

Every five minutes, you have to look at the shoreline and the people enjoying the summer rays. It was a good distraction until the envy sets in.

Another deep sigh.

“Go.”

“Huh?” You look up from your laptop. 

“I have access to your document in the shared drive. You won’t be leaving any time soon at the rate you’re moving.” He takes off his glasses, index and thumb pinching and rubbing to relieve himself of any tension. “Go spend some time with Jihyo.”

You almost think it’s a test until he looks at you questioningly for not having moved. You scramble to close out everything after a quick thank you before going back into the cottage to change. You shouldn’t feel guilty as you slip into your swimsuit and cover-up … shouldn’t feel guilty exiting the property, sneaking one final look back at the patio.

You shouldn’t ache the way you do for Jeongguk’s content smile when he nears the lemon tree.

Even Jeon Jeongguk needs breaks too.

You blame the aches from having laid down in the sand for an hour and not at the image of him back at the villa taking on your unfinished work. He made his decision, so why are you still feeling this way? 

“Uncle!” Seojun beams. “You made it.”

At the acknowledgment, you lift your head up and it’s none other than the man who’s plagued your mind since you’ve left the villa. He’s changed into lighter clothing, a short-sleeve button up over his white tank top with some beach shorts. The tight tank top hugs around his figure, ab ridges outlined from his small chuckle. The contraction intensifies when he looks down at you and over your stringy two-piece bikini.

He clears his throat. “Was able to wrap up what I needed to get done for the day.”

“Good.” Seojun replies. “Should enjoy our time while we can.”

Jeongguk’s face falls; immediately, the moment’s swept away when Jihyo calls for Seojun to help her take pictures. 

The older male settles next to you, mindful to not kick up any sand in the process. The couple eventually go to get some refreshments, leaving both you and Jeongguk under the rays of the sun.

He doesn’t say much … actually, he doesn’t say anything as he stares out to the bluest waters. 

“Thank you, Jeongguk.” You say. “You didn’t have to.”

You wonder if your father had acted the same at work, taking on additional workload he didn’t necessarily have to at the expense of missing out on moments in your life.

Jeongguk isn’t your father. He didn’t have obligations to you. Didn’t need to sacrifice his own time for your sake.

The center of a candy was usually the sweetest — perhaps if you keep at it, you’ll discover more of Jeongguk’s sweetness too. 

⋆｡𖦹 ˚ 𓇼 ˚｡⋆

Being around Jeongguk has been a tad more tangible now that you’ve spent a few hours together the next couple of days working in the morning, ending the nights over dinner with the couple. 

The next evening, Jihyo has you all crammed in a kitchen for a cooking lesson with a private chef. You’re on garlic peeling duties with Jeongguk, fingers sticky from the essence of the individual cloves, so sure this scent was going to linger on your skin.

Jeongguk remains unaffected, diligently peeling away. At the sight of you rubbing your sticky fingers together, he chuckles.

“Just wash your hands in between.”

The advice works. While you’ve barely peeled half a clove, Jeongguk was already on his second. 

“Did you have ‘pro-garlic peeler’ on your resume?” You try teasing.

He pauses, a small smile on his lips as he continues peeling the cloves.

“My sister had me on garlic peeling duties whenever we cooked.”

As far as you’re aware from Jihyo, the topic of Seojun’s mother was unspoken … only knowing she passed when he was very young. 

You work a little harder peeling the leftover cloves, running your hands under the faucet to rid yourself of the stickiness. The stickiness retained in your chest whenever Jeongguk peers over at your pile of perfectly peeled garlic. It’s retained throughout dinner and the glasses of wine served during and after a meal, following you as the group takes a walk on the beach the night before the rest of the wedding party was scheduled to meet for the rehearsal dinner tomorrow.

Jihyo yawns and announces she’ll head back to the villa to rest. Naturally, Seojun follows along. You expect Jeongguk to do the same, but he sits on the brick wall staring out at the beach.

You tuck your hair behind your ear and a strong, pungent scent greets you. Hand discreetly at the front of your face, you sniff.

“The smell doesn’t leave for a bit.” Jeongguk says. “My sister always recommended lemon juice and a little bit of soap.” 

“Have you tried it?” You ask, tucking your hands underneath you to hide the excitement of Jeongguk initiating a conversation with you. 

He shakes his head, “I like the smell of garlic.”

Be it from the glasses of wine served over dinner, you’re bolder as you ask about his sister. And he’s just as loose-lipped as he recalls memories of her. You learned she was four years older than Jeongguk, her first job was at their aunt and uncle’s convenience store, and they were ultimately left to fend for themselves the moment she had Seojun at eighteen.

Every story, small chuckle, and silence of the memory of his sister only softens the hard, jagged edges around Jeongguk.

“She sounds lovely.”

“She was,” he concedes, “Would’ve loved Italy too.” He speaks into the sea-salted air. He leans back, hands anchoring himself up as he looks up at the clear night sky. “Maybe give her son an earful about marrying too early.” She’d know firsthand how she lost out on her own developmental years as a result of having Seojun early with a man that wanted no part in fatherhood. Though, a small part of Jeongguk knows his sister would’ve adored Jihyo.

Back at the villa’s garden, you make a quick detour to the lemon tree, picking one from the bottom branches.

The lemon doesn’t get used quite yet when you both enter into the stuffy cottage. You and Jeongguk reopen all the windows to let some fresh air in.

You eye the unopened wine bottle — the night’s gone too well to end like this. Lemon placed on the counter, it’s spared and unscathed for the time being as you pop off the cork. 

Wordlessly, you pour and slide the glass over to a receptive Jeongguk.

One glass turns to three over the course of the night. The alcohol loosens the year’s worth of work tension, eyes blinking slowly as he swirls the glass around.

“Do you plan to stay with the company until retirement?” You ask.

“Depends.”

“On?”

“If I have to keep overseeing project leads who can’t make their deadlines.”

Had you both been less drunk and not seated on the high stools of this lovely cottage in Sicily, you’d be more offended. Eyes bemused and lips curved at your exaggerated gasp, Jeongguk brings the glass of wine to his mouth, red staining and deepening the natural shade of pink on his lips.

You’ll take this. It’s a development in comparison to what you’ve experienced in working with the company … not to mention the ride on the gondola. You like this Jeongguk. Where he isn’t going on a tangent about deliverables and Key Performance Indicators.

“What about you?” He asks.

You swallow the last of the wine in your glass. “I’m not sure.”

Honestly, you thought you’d be at another place of employment after your one year anniversary at the company. Yet, you’re still here.

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Answered like a person with one foot out the door.” He shrugs.

“I don’t mind the company.” You pout.

He rolls his eyes. “You’re young. There’s more out there.”

“You’re staying.”

“Never said I was.”

Wait … you hadn’t accounted for the fact of Jeongguk leaving one day. He has so much more years of experience than you, so having a promotion elsewhere would be a cake walk. One of your incentives to stay might disappear one day without warning and it frightens you. 

“The benefits are nice.” You reason. “It’s worth staying for.”

“The benefits are standard. Hm.” He purses his lips. Then, an expression you’ve never once witnessed stretches across his face. “That hot manager Jihyo mentioned can’t be enough incentive to stay.”

“She’s lucky she’s my best friend.” You groan. 

He laughs through his nose, “You’ll know if a company is worth staying for. Don’t be afraid to venture out.”

Friends and family have often told you to look for a higher paying job after every promotion — never concerned whether you’re content with where you’re at.

You find it hard to believe just a couple days ago, Jeongguk was grilling you for being a nepo-baby, and now he’s mentoring you over wine. You take in his words, letting them swirl in your mind before shaking away thoughts of the future. 

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

He nods, taking another small sip, “If only Seojun listened more like that. That brat.” He lowers his head with a fond smile, orbs glimmering like the wine glass caught in the light.

You should hold off from asking any overbearing questions and end tonight on a high note, but that just wasn’t your style.

“Do you not support their marriage?”

“It’s unfavorable.” He sighs. “I’m sure Jihyo’s nice—”

“She is.” You interrupt.

“But she’s reckless and so is my nephew. They didn’t think this through.” A pause. “Doing things out of love only gets you so far.”

If life wasn’t about love, then what could it possibly be about?

He chuckles and mumbles to himself, “She’s too much like her.”

“Huh? Who?” Your brows scrunch from the cryptic words, trying to decipher who he was referring to. Foolish of you to think he’d answer as he gets up and empties his glass of wine into the sink, eyes locked on the counter where the lemon resides.

You were going to ask if he’d like to use the lemon too; though, he beats you to your question when he tucks in the stool.

“Get some rest, we have a long day tomorrow.”

You exert all your energy into the lemon, squeezing and wringing out the halved fruit to distract you of the confusion. Have you pushed for too much? Were you out of line wanting to know more about Jeongguk? You hope the lingering thoughts of your cottage mate disappears with the garlic stench after a thorough soak. 

After your shower, you take one last peek at his door and the light emitting from the small slit persists even through the late hours. Was he still working or also plagued with the thoughts of tonight’s conversation?

It’s a little past midnight when you emerge into the kitchen again to get a glass of water only to notice a slightly ajar front door.

101 Dumb Ways to Die would commend you and your efforts to close the door. Your fingers touch the doorknob, ready to twist and secure the locks. 

You die a little inside when you spot a figure outside near the lemon tree.

Jeongguk. 

He sits there, staring at his hands before he lifts one of them up to his face. A small sniff, then his hand falls onto his lap again.

You lean against a nearby wall, hand clutching the glass of water close to your chest.

He bends down from his seated position and grabs a fallen lemon, uncaring if it came from the top or the bottom branch. Suddenly, he stands up and makes his way back to the cottage again.

“Fuck!” You whisper yell, scrambling to go back to your room but your foot catches onto your other ankle and you’re sent flying to the floor with the glass of water held close to your chest to brace the fall and potential damage.

Aside from a wet shirt and the bruise forming on your knee, the glass was still intact. What wasn’t intact was your pride as Jeongguk opens the door to find you laying on your side.

His eyes widen, immediately crouching down to check your conditions. “Are you okay?” 

You could fake an episode of sleepwalking and walk back to your room, wet shirt and all, but then you’ll be labeled as the colleague who sleepwalks.

“Oof,” You grab his extended hand, the one without the lemon, and pull yourself up to a sitting position. “Y-yeah, um, just wanted some water.” You peer down at the pool of water around you and flush harder.

He grabs a nearby cloth to clean up the mess and when he’s done, he holds his hand out again, “Can you stand?”

You nod, hand engulfed in his warmth as he tugs you up along with him. You walk stiffly next to him and thank him after he hands you a spare towel in the kitchen. 

You should return to your room to nurse your broken pride; yet, your feet stay planted as Jeongguk gets out the cutting board.

“Oh, there’s still half a lemon in the fridge.” 

Nodding, he retrieves the lemon and he squeezes the sliced half with ease. He dips his fingers in first, spreading the juice all over his hands and in between the crevices just as you did. You watch his fingers spread the juices all over the top of his veiny hands, light from the kitchen emulating the glisten on his skin.

A tingly sensation starts at your fingertips and you clench your fists tightly before it travels up your arms, unsure why your body is reacting at the simple act.

God, did you hit your head on something during the fall? 

“You sure you’re okay?” He asks, breaking you out of your daze.

You blink, body automatically moving around to check for any soreness. High knees in place and a twist to your side, you confirm your health condition. You do one last stretch, intertwining your fingers and reaching up to the ceiling.

All’s well, so it seems.

Actually, no.

The action lifts your camisole, exposing the lower half of your stomach. Jeongguk’s gaze dips to your full hips and areas where the sun can’t fully reach. 

“Yeah, all good.” You swallow, arms coming down and holding your hands behind your back.

Lights shut off, you and Jeongguk make your way back to your bedrooms, steps heavier as you near your door. 

Suddenly, your hand reaches out, weak fingers wrapped around his wrist. He looks down at you with a raised brow, unmoving, so you tighten your grip around him. 

“I saw you outside.” You confess, voice small and hesitant. “Are you okay?”

Jeongguk didn’t owe you an answer. But after all the time spent leading up to this moment, you think something should’ve changed by now. 

His jaw clenches, eyes swirling with a mixture of uncertainty and discomfort as he considers the option of being honest.

He purses his lips and shakes his head no. 

Be it your underdeveloped prefrontal lobe or your innate desire to fix a troubled man, your fingers tighten around his wrist.

“Is there something I can do–” The latter part of your question gets cut short at another shake of his head. 

Your default solution is to deflect and lessen the embarrassment with cynicalism and a humorless laugh. “I know you hate me and all–”

He laughs, too — the dullness masking the irritability behind your unfinished statement.

“I don’t hate you.” He pauses and ponders his next words. “Whatever I’m going through right now has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”

Maybe … if you do make it about you, Jeongguk might forget about his bigger worries. The day has gone so well and all your effort’s about to be undone with what you do next. You step closer, gleaning at his reaction and any indication of his repulsion from your proximity.

“If we didn’t work at the same company, how would you feel about me then?” You ask.

His stare darkens. Pattern recognition from all the other fleeting moments in Italy only pushes you to do something you’d never have the courage to in a professional environment where you’d both break all code of conduct. 

What happens in Italy, stays in Italy … right?

“We’d get along.” You answer for him.

“We’d be strangers.” He corrects. “I don’t need twenty year old friends listening to my problems.”

Good thing you’re not twenty and good thing you don’t want to be friends with Jeongguk. In the span of this conversation, you and Jeongguk now share the same air and warmth as you press your front to his hard chest. He doesn’t pull away from your softness whether it be through the silky camisole, your nature, or exposed skin … he lets himself soak in what you offer him.

And when you tip-toe closer to his face, he doesn’t move, allowing you to do as you like despite all signs in his head telling him to turn you away.

“We’d get along.” You repeat, eyes bold and hopeful as you stare into his hooded ones. “You’d let me help you forget about your problems.”

Cause you’d create new ones for Jeon Jeongguk as you press your lips to his. 

The original hold you had on his wrist ceases as your nimble fingers find refuge on the ends of his cotton shirt. Your thighs tense from the vibrations of his small groan, the pleasure pangs intensifying when his hands cup your jaw. Lips soft and so rightfully slotted on yours, your eyes flutter shut and embrace the abundant hues of yellow and green similar to the villa’s lemon tree. 

The crisp citrus scent from his fingers warms and melts you further into his lips. He parts his mouth slightly, and for a moment, just a moment … you hope he’d run his tongue on yours.

Your hope gets wringed out like the used lemons residing in the wastebin the exact moment he says your name and pulls away, chest moving in tandem with his strained breaths. 

“This isn’t right.” He breathes, swallowing as he steps back to create some space between your bodies.

“I–”

“Goodnight.”

His door shuts, no different than how he shuts you out of the life you hoped to get a better glimpse of. Your fingers trace your lips, remembering how he felt against you before he took everything including your pride with him. You also shut your door, only bringing humiliation and rejection back in with you.

⋆｡𖦹 ˚ 𓇼 ˚｡⋆

You barely slept. 

Instead, you chose to put in the extra work you needed to meet your deliverables for your client. You locked yourself in the bedroom — rather brave through the shitty internet connection until it was time to meet up with the rest of the bridal party who arrived last night.  

“So,” Yebin starts, “I hear the best man is a hottie and you’re staying in the same cottage as him?”

You splutter into your drink, quickly grabbing the napkin on your lap to dab away the cascading liquid on your chin.

“Uh, wha–”

“Jihyo mentioned it in the group chat. What? Been too busy with him to catch up in the thread?” She wiggles her brows with a playful grin.

You push your body forward to give Jihyo a tiny glare. She sits prettily at the top of the table, the only person wearing white while the rest of you were in different variations of yellow to match the wedding theme.

“What?” She says with a mouthful. “He is objectively handsome. Not a surprise, I mean, look at my Seojun.”

“Isn’t he in his forties?” Another one of the girls asks.

“Thirty-seven.” Jihyo corrects. “We celebrated his birthday recently.”

“Basically forty.” Yebin retorts and turns back to you. “So what’s he like?”

You’re thankful for the soft breeze in the midst of Italy’s humid summer — helps you cool the sweat sitting uncomfortably on your skin, both from the rising afternoon temperatures and last night’s memories. 

“He’s … fine.” You pause and try to come up with other adjectives to better describe him, ultimately coming short and resorting to a foolproof excuse. “We haven’t really spoken.”

“Oh, please. Aside from his nephew, Jeongguk’s more friendly with you than he has been to me.”

Yeah, ‘cause you also work in the same building as him forty hours a week for the past year, but no one here needs to know that. The conversation eventually shifts over to Jihyo’s wedding itinerary, makeup and hair plans, and what the other girls plan to do after the wedding dinner rehearsal. You enjoyed your time in the smaller group, but you also valued the community the other girls brought in this part of the trip. You visit the nearby boutiques, splurge on things you could most definitely find back at home, because … when were you going to be in Italy with your girls again?

“Remember, be there at 8 p.m. The venue’s gates close five minutes after.” Jihyo reminds.

“Yes, ma’am. Got it marked down in our calendars.” Yebin yawns, still slightly jetlagged and ready for a much needed nap after the day’s festivities. You and Jihyo drop off the girls at the front of their hotel and begin the walk back to the villa. Would’ve been quicker to take a cab, but Jihyo wanted to walk off her second gelato and you didn’t mind not being in the same vicinity as your cottage mate all that soon.

“You nervous for tomorrow?” You ask, steps slowing as you both near the villa.

“No,” she smiles fondly at a passing thought. “But I am anxious for the future. Don’t know how long it’ll be till my parents want to talk to me.”

You’ve thought about the times you’ve fought with your parents — nothing as big as marrying someone they didn’t approve of. Hopefully Jihyo’s parents will come around. Love, from a parent at least, should be unconditional. 

She reads your thoughts with a chuckle and nudge to your shoulder. “Hey, I’m okay. It’s me and Seojun against the world.”

“They’ll come around.” You reassure. “You also have your friends too, so you’re never alone.”

⋆｡𖦹 ˚ 𓇼 ˚｡⋆

“And then, the maid of honor and best man will walk here.” Violetta, the wedding planner, points down the long stretch to the altar. 

She looks over to the group, trying to single out the girl with that title since Jeongguk was the only male aside from the groom. You step out, having avoided Jeongguk all day with the wedding party, there are just some things you can’t avoid.

You avoid looking at the older man, keeping your stares locked on the wedding planner and aisle markings.

“Oh, to be maid of honor.” Yebin mumbles jokingly and the group of girls erupt into a small fit of giggles.

Jeongguk pays no mind and extends his arm for you to hold. Practice. Yes, this was still a rehearsal. You might’ve imagined his tense inhale as you press your body closer, breast pushing against his arm to see if the action could produce a similar sound or reaction.

Nothing.

After the rehearsal, you and Jeongguk still avoid each other like the plague, unwilling to address the elephant in the room. You try to sleep, tossing and turning all night until you made the executive decision for some much needed fresh air.

Part of you worries Jeongguk might also be outside, claiming the lemon tree as his area of respite. Can’t be his if you claimed it first. Unfortunately, the spot was occupied … not by him at least.

Pulling the metal chair, Seojun looks up, startled, but relaxes at the sight of a familiar face.

“Can’t sleep?” He asks.

“Yeah. Too stuffy in the cottage.” You lie, unwilling to admit the actual source of your unrest. “You?”

“Yeah.” He looks into the distance, worries swirling in his orbs. “I think my uncle’s right.”

Your brows pull together, head tilting in confusion.

“We’re too rash. Jihyo’s parents might never speak to her again and it’s all my fault. And I,” Seojun begins to crumble at the weight of his realization. “I don’t know if I’m enough for her to lose everything.”

You know more than anyone that there are some things money and power can’t buy. Jihyo wasn’t risking anything because Seojun was everything. Because if life wasn’t about love, then what was it about?

“You’re enough for Jihyo.”

“Uncle said–”

“Screw what Jeongguk thinks.” You interrupt, gasping at your sudden abrasiveness. “Wait, I don’t mean any offense to your uncle …”

His laugh could’ve woken up the entire villa, but you’re thankful to see this side of him in comparison to how he was a moment ago. 

“No, no,” he chuckles, “I know he’s not the most likeable person.”

“He’s not … awful.”

Seojun nods, tilting his head down to conceal a tender smile you’ve witnessed whenever he was around Jihyo — now you understand those were reserved for his loved ones. “He used to be different … lighter, does that even make sense?”

You agree, waiting for Seojun’s next words.

“Uncle was fun.” You learn how Jeongguk would take little Seojun to the zoo every year because his mother would be too busy with work, along with the late night video game sessions he would partake in despite his busy university schedule.

“He was in his second year of university preparing to study abroad … I don’t know much, but something didn’t work out and another student was chosen instead of him. Mom worked hard so that she could support uncle and his dreams.”

“Worked too hard — damn workaholics.” His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I know he means well not wanting me to rush into things without a proper safety net.”

You think back to a younger Jeongguk navigating life alone with a young child … he couldn’t have been any older than you — a baby raising another baby with no one to turn to.

“Ah, I’m sorry,” Seojun shakes away some thoughts, “I didn’t mean to dump all of this on you. I’m sure you’re tired–”

“No, no,” You wave your hands. “I don’t mind. You’re marrying my best friend and whether her family or Jeongguk approves, it doesn’t matter. I’ve seen how happy you make her — how relaxed she is around you.” You offer a warm and comforting smile to which Seojun returns at the mention of your friend. “We’re both in this for Jihyo’s happiness. You deserve to be happy too.” 

“Yeah, we do.” He replies, shoulders sagging in relief.

You linger outside a little longer after Seojun’s departure, begrudgingly going back into the cottage. Before entering your room, you take one look at Jeongguk’s room, noting the small sliver of light from underneath his door.

You remember all the late nights waiting for your father’s lights to turn off … wondering when you’d be enough for his attention. And as you shut your door to your room, you hope that was enough to garner Jeongguk’s attention too. 

⋆｡𖦹 ˚ 𓇼 ˚｡⋆

Jihyo loved everything about yellow. Loved the song by Coldplay and loved her flowers yellow — thinks she saw yellow when she met Seojun. Her bridesmaid dresses had to be yellow, as with everything in the wedding.

You see yellow everywhere too: the sand in the distance, wedding favors in the form of bagged perle di sole candies, and the boutonniere pinned on the left side of Jeongguk’s vest.

Yellow blurs around you during the ceremony, tearful gazes exchanged with the other bridesmaids. 

Jihyo had always centered her world around her friendships — no man has ever been enough to pull her away from that value. Though, as she stands across from Seojun, her hands in his, it seemed as though nothing could’ve pried them apart from each other’s gravitational pulls. Your eyes peer over the wedding attendees, taking in their expectant stares and proud smiles — even Jeongguk seemed to have softened at the sight. 

When it was time for the vows, you hand them over to Jihyo from behind, who took them without turning around, eyes still locked onto her soon-to-be husband.

She takes a steadying breath before speaking: “Seojun. These past years with you have been the happiest of my life. I could’ve never imagined meeting anyone like you. Now, I won’t call you my best friend, because that spot is taken and I think my lovely maid of honor might have some things to say about that–” The wedding party sounded a collective chuckle. You smile to yourself, eyes instinctively finding Jeongguk’s, who had already been looking your way in confirmation of your title.

“But I’m so happy to have found you, that I’m able to call you my friend, lover, and now, husband. I know a lot of people thought we were rushing into this, and they might be right. It is early, but I’ve never been as certain about anything as I am about wanting to spend the rest of my life with you. Seojun, you are the most wonderful and kindest person — better than I can ever hope to deserve, I love you.” Her voice had become increasingly more unstable as she went and she quickly wiped her eyes, not wanting to ruin her bridal make-up. Seojun wasn’t fairing any better, softly cupping her cheek and kissing her lips, whispering a small gratitude to her.

“Excuse me?” The officiant interrupts. “We’re not quite there yet.” 

Laughing, the pair separates and refocuses their attention back to the ceremony. You turn to your fellow bridesmaids after hearing a quiet sniffle from Yebin. You carefully lean back into her, nudging her shoulder in comfort. 

“Jihyo, you son of a bitch.” The girl mutters, dotting the corner of her eye with a tissue. 

You chuckle, moving back into your position after assessing everyone’s conditions.

When you find the confidence to check on Jeongguk, he’s just as affected and politely turns away from the couple to hide his emotions.

At the wedding reception, you watch Jihyo and her husband dance to every song on their playlist, joined by their guests, eventually being the last ones standing as the night progresses. The ache on the soles of your feet grow by the hour, and you find yourself sitting alone, nursing your drink and watching your best friend soak in happiness.

Yellow persists in the form of strung lights on the small dance floor. Though, a new opponent, green, enters when you catch some wedding guests approaching an unsuspecting Jeongguk.

As the maid of honor, you should stay for the night even if it’s nearing 2 a.m. Selfishly, you can’t bring yourself to. You tell Jihyo you’re not feeling well and that you’re going to walk back to the cottage to rest. She looks at you with concern, but she nods and asks you to text her once you’ve made it back.

Ten steps out the venue, you hear some whistles and chuckles. Shit. You walk quicker and a slimy hand wraps around your wrist.

The men smile at you, saying something you can’t really decipher. If all fails after your persistent ignorance to the Italian language, your heels make an excellent weapon of defense.

“C'è un problema?” A familiar voice says in the distance.

Immediately, the man releases your wrist and holds his hands up. The group of men shuffles away, mumbling to themselves as they look back at your savior.

“You okay?” Jeongguk asks.

“Yep.” You answer quickly, steps resuming in the direction of the villa.

Jeongguk follows closely behind you, silent as he has been all night.

“Aren’t you supposed to stay with the bride? Maid of honor duties.”

“Aren’t you supposed to stay with the groom? Best man duties.” You retort with no malice.

“Touché.” He contemplates his next words. “I’ve got an early flight tomorrow.”

Your brows furrow, and an immature part of you assumes you’re the reason for his early departure. He quickly follows up with, “There’s a fire I have to put out at work.”

The bitter memories of your father leaving for work resurfaces again. Would it be so awful to not think about work and be with his loved ones?

You wave off those feelings and express your gratitude instead. “Thanks for helping me back there. You never mentioned knowing Italian.”

Would’ve come in handy during the ample times you all had to order food, but this was not the right moment to joke. 

“Studied some basic phrases before going abroad. Didn’t end up in Italy though.”

You freeze a little, remembering the small detail Seojun mentioned the night before about Jeongguk’s missed opportunity. 

Silence takes over and continues even as you both face your bedroom doors.

“Jeongguk.” You say, before he enters his room. “I hope what happened between us doesn’t impact our work. Please forget it happened — I’m truly ashamed and sorry.”

He nods, jaw clenched and tense. 

“Have a safe flight home. See you in the office.” No other words are needed in your retreat back into your room.

The knot at the back of your neck strains and you can’t wait to finally shed your makeup, tight bun, and dress.

You [2:18 a.m.]: Made it to the cottage 💛 Bestie Ji [2:19 a.m.]: GOOD Bestie Ji [2:19 a.m.]: JEONGGU SAI HES HEDIN TO COTT TO Bestie Ji [2:19 a.m.]: ILY Bestie Ji [2:19 a.m.]: im drun

You smile at your phone, typing a quick reply and before you hit enter, you hear a knock on your door.

Door swung open, your eyes widen at the sight of Jeongguk, tie loose around his neck and hair tussled as if he ruminated for an eternity before knocking your door.

“It’s been nice with you in Italy.” His arm from behind comes to the front with a small object. You remember it from your last day in Venice: the green masquerade mask. “Safe travels home.”

You take the little green mask in your hands, frown deepening at the sentiment.

“Why would you get this for me?” You ask.

His tongue probes against his cheek, eyes coming down to look at your figure in your yellow halter dress. The same fleeting stares you’ve grown accustomed to in the time spent in Italy, unaware these glances have always existed without your knowledge back at home. He laughs through his nose and shakes his head.

He brings his eyes back to your face. “You’re a smart girl, graduated with honors and all … so think a little harder for me.”

You shake your head, afraid of the aftermath of another wrong move that could jeopardize your heart.

“I don’t know if I can …”

Leaders take initiative — you’re nowhere near that point in your career and life. Jeongguk recognizes this too, which is why he walks you backwards into the room. His fingers trace the intricate beadings on the mask still in your hands.

“Here, we’re just two people who met through the people we love. No roles or responsibilities. I only know you as Jihyo’s friend. You’re just … you, and I’m just Jeongguk.”

“And who are you, Jeongguk?” You place the mask onto a nearby dresser, eyes never leaving the man in front of you.

He looks down at you again, a type of stare only capable of burning and tainting every inch of your being. He’s afraid to admit who he really is — what he actually wants, knowing he can’t fully have even if it was ready for him to take. Though, with only a couple hours to spare in Italy, he wants to use what little time he has on an experience he would never let himself indulge in back at home.

It’s what vacations are meant for, right?

“Someone that wants your help. Someone that wants to finish what you started two nights ago.” He answers.

It doesn’t make sense with you — he doesn’t make sense with you just like when he leans down to press his lips on yours. The kiss is punishing, no colors of yellow like the kiss from two nights ago. Yellow is only meant for lovers and Jeongguk is no lover. Would be the only logical reason you’d now see black and blue  — colors of old bruises and wounds left unattended for too long, and Jeongguk has far too many to count. 

“Fuck,” He says in between kisses, shrugging off his vest, “Tell me to stop.”

You whimper, shaking your head and looping your arms over his neck to bring him closer. He pushes his tongue past your lips, savoring the way you moan around and suck on his wet muscle. 

The only thing that makes sense is how your dress, the only yellow left, needs to come off. Your hands move behind your neck to undo the tight knot, letting the top fall down your front. Taking Jeongguk’s large hands, you take note of their softness, like sand — so malleable and so much harder to hold. You place them on your breasts instead. 

He groans, the sound so painful and full of want to give into his desires.

“This can’t mean anything.” He says through a harsh breath. “You know that, right?”

“It’s okay.” You reply, moaning again as the pressure from his hands increases. “I’m … I’m okay with that.”

You’re not and Jeongguk knows this too. He’s aware of the subtle glances in the time he’s worked with you, your shift in demeanor when he enters a room, and how your eyes search for his approval when none was ever needed. He knows you won’t be okay with this just being a one night stand or quick fuck, but it has to be because you and Jeongguk don’t make sense.

Not under the dull fluorescent lights of the company building, not in Italy.

His teeth grazes your skin, leaving a trail of pain and pleasure behind its wake. You quiver and his body presses harder against yours in panic that if he leaves any space in between, the distance would only grow should he second-guess. 

Dress bunched up at your midsection, he turns you away, eyes immediately landing where your mistake from your teenage years resided right above your pert ass. 

Was this going to be another mistake too?

Your hands brace yourself on the dresser, arching from his hand tracing down your back and down your ass. He pauses and waits for your nod to proceed. Palm up, he runs his hand over the pathetic cloth you’d call your underwear now completely soaked through and scrunched to the side of your pussy.

He sucks in a breath, “Kissing gets you like this, hm?”

You shudder, praying he eventually moves. His middle finger probes gently at your sodden folds, gathering your arousal. He stays doing this for a couple minutes, listening to your soft sighs, wondering when you’d begin to beg for him to continue.

And when you don’t ask for more, it aggravates him realizing he’s the one who needs more out of something that’s supposed to be meaningless. As the older adult, he should be the gentleman with better restraint, but he’s here in your room seeking something he can’t find anywhere else:

A distraction from all the buried guilt and pain — for once, he wants to win.

He somehow gets you perched on the dresser, head between your thighs as he eats you out both as a punishment and reward. The bottom half of your dress hangs over the side of your hips, thighs spread wide open as Jeongguk thrusts his tongue into your cunt.

He knows this is just sex … worse that you’re a younger colleague whom he has vehemently denied his attractions for. But he’s here in Italy where he’s tasted olives, rinsed his memories of past loved ones with citrus … he should enjoy this trip — enjoy you. Because when was Jeongguk going to be in Italy again fucking you in a shared cottage?

“Jeong–fuck, m-yeah, right there.” You cheer, fingers carding through his hair.

Your encouragement only spurs him on to work harder, lapping over your swollen clit until you tense and cease all noise in concentration for the impending orgasm. It’s all over when you fight his hold and win the battle with your legs clamped tightly around his head. You cum with a small sob, thighs shaking around him as he continues to eat you out.

He replaces his tongue with two fingers, lazily pumping his digits in you while he kisses your lips with the taste of you still on his tongue. Meanwhile, you fumble clumsily with his buttons and zipper, jaded by how much you want him.

He’s just as eager, moaning and grinding his cock into your hand when you’ve finally freed him of his confinements. 

Hoisting you in his arms, he brings you to the edge of your bed, groaning at how you automatically spread wider on the softer surface. So ready for him to do more with you until he realizes:

“Shit, I don’t have a condom.”

You hold yourself up with your forearms, legs still spread wide open for him despite his hesitance to move forward. His teeth sink onto his bottom lip, troubled dimples appearing as he stares at your glistening pussy clenching around nothing. 

“I’m on birth control.” You assure and add, “You can pull out if you want.”

What’s another bad idea added into the pile?

He strokes over his length, squeezing harder at the tip and lines himself up. You whine and circle your hips from the hard poke at your entrance, arousal coating his bare cock. He doesn’t push himself in just yet, watching as a bead of precum smears at your opening … a silent territorial marking. 

You’re his for tonight.

His thumb lands on your clit, rubbing it up and down. You keen, eyes shutting to concentrate on the added stimulation around the bundle of nerves.

“You’ve always been too rash on your decisions.” He pushes the tip of his cock into you, teeth biting the inside of his cheek. “Gotta work on that.” As if he’s not about to make an irrevocable mistake himself.

“High risk, high rewards … r-right?” You stammer through a shaky breath as he pushes more of him into you, uncaring that there’d been little to no prep. But that doesn’t matter, all your fantasies were coming true at this very moment and you’ll take whatever he gives you.

He gives you two more orgasms. One with your ankles by his ears. The other one where you lay on your side, memorizing the way his fingers dig into your skin as he pumps his thick shaft into you. You hike your knee closer to your chest to allow him to sink even deeper into you, hitting a specific spot repeatedly to burn figments of stars behind your lids.

The room’s hot and musty — didn’t help that neither of you remembered to air out the cottage upon arrival, but no one cared about that at the moment. Your sweat gathers behind your knees and drips down the slope of your thighs as Jeongguk continues fucking you into the mattress with an intense need.

“Gonna cum.” He announces, jaw going slack as his balls grow heavy with the need to release. “Fuck, I’m gonna cum.”

“Want you to cum for me.” You nod, and the slapping of his skin on yours grows as he moves quicker and harder. 

You moan, brows scrunched in anticipation for Jeongguk to pull out and the feeling of being stuffed full by him will cease all together. And through your past experiences with other men, sex typically ends once they cum, so you ready yourself for the mirage to end — ready yourself to face reality again. Your lower half relaxes, waiting for him to turn your body so that he could unload everything on your stomach.

Two things happen.

He pushes deep inside you, stilling as he fills you with his arousal.

Hands soft as sand, cradle your jaw for a searing kiss to conceal words he shouldn’t utter to a colleague, let alone a direct report.

Minutes pass like this and you come to find out: sex doesn’t stop when Jeongguk finishes inside you.

He lays down next to you and hoists your body on top of his, movements swift in slipping his sensitive cock back into your cum-filled hole. He hisses, fighting through the overstimulation in acceptance of the punishment for all the terrible acts he’s committed with you. Again, both a punishment and a reward as he lets you ride him, watching the way your hips roll smoothly over his. Your mixed juices trail down his length and over his balls the more you move and bounce.

He doesn’t tell you to give him another orgasm, knowing you’re working hard to get there again. 

“Don’t wanna stop. Wanna do this with you all night long.” Your breath hitches as the pleasure shifts into a type of pain no one can see. And no matter how you try to fight the physical effects of the hardest orgasm of your life, your body gives into the exhaustion and slumps over Jeongguk’s sweaty body.

In your slumber, you feel the sand, the breeze, and the absence of another human body. The next morning only proves your reality when you wake up clothed and sore from last night’s affair … with Jeongguk nowhere in sight.

You frown, tucking the sheets closer to your chin and watching the tree branches scrape against your opened window. The air in the room was no longer stuffy, ridding any evidence of what you and Jeongguk did.

Summers in Italy were magical. 

Though, the fact stands: magic was nothing but illusions, deluding you from the truth. And you feigned indifference when Jihyo tells you Jeongguk had gone home for an important project — you ignored the hurt and betrayal. You had never been enough for your father to come home, so it was easy to turn a blind eye at the heaviness in your stomach from the thoughts of hoping you’d be enough to make Jeongguk stay.

Another couple of days in Italy go by with those illusions till the truth sets in the day you return to work.

A couple coworkers stop you on the way to your cubicle, asking you for a trip recap. Your debrief takes longer as intended — half due to wanting to avoid work and the other half as a result of your efforts to leave out key details of a certain someone. 

You could’ve taken another path to your desk — one that kept you from the usual ajar door. Perhaps the magic followed you back home and you’ve alluded to think Jeongguk’s stares trail after your figure when you walked past his office.

The magical illusions continue as you settle into your cube, a bright yellow sticky note on your keyboard with a familiar handwriting reads: Lunch at Romano’s. - J

Even if the center of the candy happened to be sour, you have to see through it — you want to see through it.

fin.

a/n: missed me? cuz i’ve been missenU. ahh, ahh?? 🥹 i’ll see yall in about 1-2 months with something new! in the meantime, go send your well wishes to the bday girlie!! toodles ♡

also s/o to my bestie @takeitawaykenny for beta’ing!! love ya pookie