jimena ct

explicit warnings: manhandling, public sex, rough sex, hair/head pulling, oral (m rec), choking, cowgirl, spitting, reverse cowgirl, unprotected sex, breast play, fucking an ex lol yes that’s a warning, multiple orgasms, the chains stay on, hella backshots, emotional sex, creampie OOP, club sex reader is bad, yoongi loses his gd mind, couch sex, wall sex, chair sex, umm yeah alexa play like animals thanks

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“What’s taking you so long!” 

Groaning, you concentrate on getting your lashes just right. “Told you it’d be just a minute!” 

“I know.” Hoseok pops into your hotel bathroom, deep neckline and even deeper scent of cologne almost making you jab yourself right in the socket. “But it’s been ten.” 

It’ll end up being a lot longer than that if he keeps cocking that perfect brow. Shouldn’t he know the rule of getting ready already? 

Done with your current task, you blink and inspect yourself in the wide mirror spanning the master bath. “Yeah, a minute means twenty. So I have ten to spare, right?” 

Bright teeth shine as he shakes his head. And you know it’s because you’re both slated to be super early anyway. 

Everything’s going according to schedule. All your old friends flew in yesterday, and the plan for today is to head to dinner to watch the night game with everyone. After that, you’ll walk straight to the club a few blocks down that you’ve heard to be the best in town. 

Well. Best in town for absolute eye candy. Taehyung warned that everyone that’s been to Lo Prohibito knows the dress code is simple but effective: luxurious. Unless your face card is so lethal you get in on that alone, or you happen to have celebrity status. 

And your confidence can only take you so far. You look fucking good, but you aren’t risking being turned away just because you were lax getting ready. 

So ten more minutes it is. Hobi will just have to deal with it. 

Goddamn, he could get in without a single issue, though. Honestly, he could be wearing a linen shirt and shorts with sandals and they’d mistake him for a millionaire. “I’ll be ready before you know it,” you say over your bare, perfumed shoulder. “You’ll be able to see your lover soon enough.” 

Hoseok shoots you a grin before huffing out, “Got me, huh.” 

“You’re the easiest person in the world to read.” Leaning over your makeup bag, you rummage through your brushes. “Whatever you’re thinking is always written all over your face." 

Quick laughter coats the bathroom in more light. “I can’t help it, okay! It’s always been that way.” When you focus in the mirror and pat your face, he suddenly drops two pitches in tone. “Sorry about yours.” 

Here you go again. You know exactly what he’s talking about. 

“Hobi,” you sigh. “I don’t care anymore, okay? It’s been a month.” 

“I know, but…” Expelling a heavy, sympathetic breath of his own, he leans against the double door entryway. That dulcet yet gravelly tone of his rolls across marble floors as he says exactly what you don’t want him to, “You seemed pretty happy with them.” 

You were. In fact, you were more than happy. 

But something just didn’t feel right. Sure, the days you spent with your most recent fling were perfect. You felt comfortable with them, you admired how thoughtful they were and how attentive. 

It was the nights that made you more than hesitant. 

Because no matter how many times you slept together, you never felt truly understood. What you wanted, what you needed? They would get so close to getting it right, only to never reach that level of intensity and passion you were looking for. 

So you broke it off one quiet, cherry-red sunset on the beach weeks ago. 

Only to find out that they were seeing someone else the whole time anyway. 

Fuck love. To hell with happiness. Why do all your relationships end up this way? Why do you always attract the people that seem perfect on the surface but hide so many flaws underneath? It’s starting to fucking annoy you and you may damn well swear to the single life forever. 

Though. There was one relationship that didn’t exactly end this way. 

But you’re never thinking about that one again, so no point in shuffling through those beautiful, tragic, regretful memories now. 

“And now I’m happy without them,” you finally respond to Hoseok, who tears his gaze from the white floors to see you staring in the mirror. “Probably happy without anyone else, actually.” 

What a fucking lie. 

“I mean, there’s time to find someone you...” Your friend pockets a hand while adjusting his loose top, shadows naturally accenting his abdomen. “Never mind. See you out there. Love the red.” 

You swish the silken floor-length material of your gaudy, quite revealing dress. “Thank you. This is my favorite part, look.” 

Hoseok watches as you stomp your leg out of the thigh-high slit so comically it catches him off guard, cackling before a lighthearted, “Careful with that!” 

“Says the man who’s practically naked.” 

All you get is a shameless shrug before your friend spins on this heel to leave, no doubt checking the texts on his phone. 

At least he's excited about seeing his gorgeous pull after so long. And you do not blame him one bit. The way he looks at her? She may as well be a goddess because his gaze turns almost reverent every time. 

A blurry memory consumes your mind like a haze, and you see completely different eyes with just as much fervor. They watch as you mount slow, chests slick with sweat and breathing deep from hours of—

Manicured hands grip the sink as your brush skitters onto granite counters. 

Fuck. Never again. 

Never, ever, ever again.

Pull yourself together. You’re a whole different person with a whole different future. That version of you is one you left far behind, as well as the life that came with it. 

You extend ten minutes into fifteen. 

And Hoseok’s outright whistle at your emergence lets you know the extra time was worth it. 

—

—

Dinner is loud and vibrant, with the whole restaurant locked in on the game and erupting in cheers when the home team scores. Or at least, the team that the majority of fans want to win scores. 

You aren’t completely sure, because there are jerseys of every country everywhere you look. It’s the one time you feel a sense of togetherness, with everyone giving each other friendly jabs and your group doing and saying anything to rile each other up. 

Hoseok is downright lethal with his date, the two of them showing off jawlines that can kill as they watch the nearest screen. But they’re on the other end of the long wooden table, so you have to find other people to converse with. 

Unfortunately, you find that the person sitting in front of you is a stranger, seemingly knowing someone else in the group and just happened to tag along. He quickly offered small talk when you all started ordering, which you already found a little awkward because you were trying to focus on what to get. 

Now, he keeps giving you more and more information about his achievements and endeavors, not once asking for your name. Figures.

Both the friends you’re sitting next to are no help, either. 

To your left, Jeongguk’s checking his phone for the fiftieth time this hour, scrolling through videos to avoid having to speak to anyone. 

And to your right, Taehyung cheers and stands when another goal is scored, locking elbows with the stranger behind him and drinking from his glass mug. Apparently he had been making fast friends while you were entertaining the guy that keeps staring at you. How cool. Happy for him. Can you both switch seats? 

Your wish doesn’t get granted for another hour. So that means you’re still talking to and giving polite encouragement to this gentleman. Though the term gentleman is very, very generous. It became more than obvious he just wants to fuck from the way he's been shamelessly ogling your plunging neckline. 

Mercifully, Jeongguk finally saves you, leaning in and pretending to show you a reel or tiktok or whatever the fuck he’s scrolling through. Instead, a text he typed into your message thread is all you see. 

Wanna go outside?

Going along and laughing at his fake share, you give him a grateful smile and nod. Turning to the man watching you with curiosity—and is that really jealousy?—you excuse yourself, 

“We’re gonna check out the second floor! Be right back.” 

Not even waiting to see nor hear his reaction.  

—

—

Outside the restaurant and not on the second floor, you can finally breathe again, watching the city come alive with its vehicle rush and streetlight hum. 

Next to you, your tattooed savior takes a long hit of his vape, and you run a hand across the thin gold chain around your neck. 

Without your permission, another memory slips through your defenses. And this one proves sharper, astonishingly clearer than the first.

Hands grab a string of gold from a nightstand, and you instantly ache because you remember what comes right after. As soon as it’s clipped onto a slim neck, you watch the necklace lower, and lower, right before you angle your mouth up to take it between your—

“Fuck.” 

Jeongguk whips his head right as your eyes snap open. “You okay? What’s wrong?” 

No. There are a thousand things wrong. You didn’t even fucking realize your vision went dark until light flooded out your unwanted nostalgia. 

Fuck, you hadn’t thought of that summer afternoon in years. Your reaction was visceral enough to spurn an oncoming headache. “Nothing,” you whoosh out. “What time is it?” 

“Almost time to head over to Lo Prohibido.” Gripping his phone, the man asks with concern, “You sure you’re good to go?” 

Head pulsing, you nod. “Yeah, I’m fine, just dehydrated. Can you pick a city that won't try to burn me out next time? I'm down for traveling but it's been hell here.” 

Unconvinced and unfazed, Jeongguk cocks his head to the door. “Let’s go back in. I know your favorite person is waiting, but you gotta drink water.” 

“Don’t,” you groan. “He’s cute, but I got the biggest ick like halfway in.” 

Your amused friend giggles as he holds the door open, “You lasted a lot longer than I thought you would.” 

Laughing when more cheers erupt from inside, you give his jacketed arm a playful shove as you look down the street. “I’m nice, okay? Don’t—”

Your heart. 

It booms. 

In an instant, the whole world blurs, lights and bodies making solid, serpentine lines and even sound itself rolling to a deep, dull hum.

The only one you can see. The only person you can make out with perfect clarity. 

Is the one you’ve been trying your fucking hardest to not remember. 

Staring right at you with eyes you’ll never, ever forget. 

Yoongi. 

He’s just down the way, standing amongst a group with a striped jersey, dark hair swept so perfectly your chest pangs. Even though everyone around him is animated and laughing, the look on his face makes it undeniable he’s not focused on anything else.

And with a stopped heart, neither are you.

Until your lower back is held, tugging you out of the dream as Jeongguk’s question is laden with worry, 

“Seriously, what’s going on? Do you need to go back to the hotel?” 

You jolt away from his touch, but the action isn’t warranted. For fuck’s sake, he’s a friend you’ve known just as long as you've known the spectre down the street. Why did you feel the need to escape his worrisome hand? He isn't like the guy you just met.  

If that dude had been the one to touch you, though, you would’ve fucking decked him. You are not letting him feel an inch of your skin, and that includes the majority of it you’re baring at the back. 

“No, I’m—I’m fine,” you manage to get out. “Just thought I saw.. Never mind. Water.” 

Yoongi would’ve damn near murdered that creep, too. 

Shit. 

Right before stepping back in, you turn to peer back down the sidewalk, brain concluding that what you saw was your imagination and your heart adamantly disagreeing. 

However, there’s no sign of Yoongi anywhere. That same group of people continues to chitter away outside, but he’s nowhere to be seen. 

So your logic is sound. It was just a dream. There’s no way he’d be here, and he looked way too fucking handsome to be real anyway. Maybe your mind is just playing tricks on you as an act of revenge for making it remember him this much today. 

Because you’re remembering everything. The way he knew exactly how to get under your skin. The times he proved so patient. The way he absolutely knew how to act under your sheets. 

And his. And elsewhere. Anywhere the two of you decided to make love. 

And that singular word is exactly why your flame burned its brightest before choking out. 

You were ready. 

He wasn’t. 

And you regret your decision to leave more than anything else in your entire life. 

Because you could’ve fought harder. You could’ve given him more time. But when you confessed under a blanket of stars and didn’t hear those three words reciprocated, every single celestial plummeted from the sky, plunging you headfirst into a deep, dark ocean of insecurity and bubbling self-loathing. 

The night you left, you left everything. You left your room, your apartment, the city you called home your entire life. Like a coward that couldn’t face rejection. 

Because you didn’t even tell Yoongi goodbye. 

And that’s the last damning reminder you hurl at yourself before rejoining your friends inside. 

—

—

You readily down two glasses of water. 

Inwardly laughing at the fact that the same dude straight up left to “meet up with his brochachos.” 

—

—

Lo Prohibito is decibels louder than the restaurant, and that includes the moments everyone cheered to the max.

A dazzling laser show beams from behind the raised DJ booth, and machines shoot out air to provide much needed circulation and boost the spread of confetti. 

To your delight, everyone here is just as pretty as you imagined. You’re thanking all your lucky clovers that you were accepted inside, strutting in on your heels with chin held high. 

Maybe not as high as it could go. 

But you refuse to let anything else bring you down tonight. You’re supposed to be having another great outing, spending it with your friends and enjoying the nightlife while you’re still able. 

Bright colors span across every surface as a thumping bass shakes your toes, and you wait for the rest of your group to trickle in to find a good dancing spot—and a much needed drink because you are desperate for one. 

At this point, you’ll pay any price to forget whatever the fuck you saw earlier. 

Be it a figment of your imagination, or a devilishly attractive ghost, you just need to wipe that achingly handsome face from your mind. 

There’s no way he’s here. And even if who you saw was real? It wasn’t the man you loved. 

Because there’s no way Yoongi would even look your way again. 

Not like you want him to anyway. Forget him. He gave you everything except the one thing you ultimately wanted, and you couldn’t live in his moonlight without your stars slowly burning out.

Breathe. Focus on the present. Stay in the now. 

“Come on,” he instructs, holding your fingers before grabbing your waist. “Stay with me.” 

“Sorry,” you whisper to your stumbling feet. “I just keep messing up that damn step and it’s annoying.” 

“I know.” He grips your hand, turning so that you land against his chest, comforting tone soothing your burning ear, “But you got a lot more chances to get it. We got time. Stay in the now.” 

“Okay.” 

“That’s my girl.” 

“Come on!” 

Your past whisks away with the club fog, and you follow Hoseok and the rest off the crowded floor. “Where are we going!” 

Hand on the nearest winding staircase, he turns with a smile. “Got us VIP! We’re up here.” 

“No fucking way?” How the hell did Hobi manage to do that? Wasn’t this place booked up the last time you both checked yesterday? “How!” 

Cheekily, the man simply plucks at his undone overshirt and wiggles, smirking as his date doubles over in a laugh. 

“Oh, you’re a freak,” you call out behind him with praise. “Thank you for your service.” 

Thank Jung Hoseok and those abs indeed because the VIP booth is a godsend. Sure, it’s still crowded on the second floor, but at least you don’t have to worry about standing shoulder to shoulder the whole night. You have somewhere to retreat to when you need a breather. 

Which Jeongguk is already taking the most advantage of, settling into the middle of the booth and planting elbows on the long table stretching end to end. Music blares while people shout all throughout the club, but he seems quite zeroed in on his phone. 

Maybe you can both use each other as a scapegoat again if you need to leave. He’s been enjoying himself for the most part, but you can tell he’s extremely ready to go home and the night just started. If you weren’t desperate to let loose and forget years of your life tonight, you would’ve offered to get shitty fast food with him and walk around the city instead. 

Mm. That still sounds like a backup option. 

“Who wants drinks!” Taehyung calls out from the far end of the booth, standing to wave someone down and glancing at everyone giving him their orders all at once. “Let’s just get bottles!” 

Perfect. He knows exactly what to do, so you let him drive and settle into the booth to wait for the liquid ailment to your problems. 

This club has it all, you muse as you take everything in. From endless bottles and extravagant cocktails sailing over the crowd, to sparkler shows and pops of streamers raining down from above, it’s a paradise of a getaway. 

But the outfits? To your surprise, you feel slightly out of place, even arguably overdressed wearing the most expensive thing you own. Yes, there are loads of tens walking around, even some elevens and twelves if you’re honest. But you do see quite a few people in outfits as casual as Jeongguk’s leather.

Either way, almost everyone is dripped in the most lavish jewelry and clothing, from designer to exclusive to wait someone got in wearing a jersey? 

How the hell? Despite the outfits you saw there hasn’t been anyone in here with a jersey, is he famous? It's the same one you saw on the sidewalk when you—

Fuck. That’s not him, is it? You can’t quite see his face, but that back is so… 

No. No no no. You’re staying here for awhile so that better have been another mind trick or you're taking that backup plan with Jeongguk immediately—

“Here,” Taehyung catches your attention while hastily holding out a glass. “This is what you wanted, right?” 

You take it with shaky fingers. “Yes, it’s perfect, thank you.” 

When you turn back, the red and white stripes are gone. 

And you release a breath you didn’t even know you were holding. 

“You okay?”

Turning, you notice that Tae’s eyes are extremely focused on yours. You nod as you down your shot in one go. “Yeah, I’m good.”

His honey rasp slows on the way out, “You sure..?”

“Yeah.” When you push more of the stinging, sweet alcohol down, you decide to start telling him what you saw. “I just… I thought I saw…”

Taehyung is one of the only ones that never questioned why you left town. Which you’re grateful for, because you couldn’t handle all your other friends sending you text after text after call. It was fucking overwhelming, but you had one person that just allowed you to make decisions and live with them. 

“Saw who?” He asks, cutting through your vision with long fingers in a wave and calling you back to reality. 

“No one.” You don’t even wanna say his name. It carries the weight of the world. “Forget it! I’ll be good as soon as we start.”

Unconvinced but letting you have space, Tae doesn’t pry. 

“If you say so.”  

—

—

For the next hour, everything is great. You play stupid drinking games with your friends, cheer for the most random shit the house emcee yells, and you start to slowly wash the unwanted memories from your mind. 

At one point, Jeongguk stuns the section by dancing on booth cushions and swinging his jacket, revealing he only had a thin tank underneath. Many people stare slackjawed at his physique and understated choice of outfit, but you can only cackle with your friends because you all know he’s gonna go right back to his phone in seconds. He just really, really likes the song playing. 

And you’re enjoying the DJ set, too. As long as they don’t play specific songs, you can enjoy the rest of the night in absolute peace. 

Especially the one song that haunts your every waking moment. The first time you heard it, in a club somewhere along pink lemonade sand, you trudged knee deep into the crashing tide and didn’t leave until the sun dipped under the horizon. 

Because it hit too close to home. And your deluge of tears gave back infinite saltwater to the sea. 

Relax. Don’t throw any possibilities into the atmosphere, especially when your mind is fucked up tonight. Your friends are heading down to the dance floor, so go with them and forget everyone else. 

Making sure your drink is finished, you feel ice hit your lips before clinking it down, rushing to join your group at the top of the staircase. 

Only to stutter so close to the edge your heart leaps out of your chest.

It keeps falling, and falling. Because there’s no mistaking this time. That man you saw wearing the outfit that’s starting to haunt you? He’s talking animatedly to someone across the second floor, dusty pink elbow perched on the railing with a drink in his still so veiny hand. 

And your mouth turns sour at the way his shoulder is tapped by pretty nails, tongue hot and darkly spiced when Yoongi just laughs into his cup.

God. He’s here. He’s devastating without even trying.

And, as your blasphemous logic reminds you, that beautiful smile will never be yours anymore.

But that doesn’t stop you from staring. Because while on the street, you could’ve argued he was a hallucination birthed from dehydration. Right here, in this moment, you’ve sobered up in a snap and you know for a fact what you’re seeing is real.

Maybe it was better when you assumed he wasn’t. 

At least then, you didn’t have to entertain any worse outcomes than just seeing him. You didn’t have to think about how you’d feel seeing him so close to someone else.

Looks like the universe is giving you the final consequences of your escape. Yoongi has your fate in the warm, rough palm of his hand, and you know he’ll do nothing but let it fall to the rumbling floor below. Just to watch with unblinking eyes.

“Hey, you gonna go down or what?”

Turning, you start to move to the side, embarrassment heating the skin of your back that was just lightly grazed, “Shit, sorry—”

A strong arm pushes you sideways into hard metal as a duo of guys head down the stairs. You figure it’s an accident, but that doesn’t stop your face from contorting in pain and a curse to fling from your mouth. Because damn that fucking hurt. 

“Dude, watch it!” The one behind looks back at you to apologize, “Sorry about my—”

Oh… Really… 

The guy from dinner halts in his apology, and your brow lifts right before he waves you off. 

Waves you off. 

At least your intuition is always spot on. Good riddance, you were completely valid to ditch his brochacho ass earlier. 

Rolling your eyes skyward and even aiming a petulant tongue at his retreating back, you scoff before leaning on chilled metal, letting a moment pass before heading down to Taehyung and the rest of them. 

Where are they anyway? If you don’t spot them from here it’s gonna be hard to find them on the.. ground.. 

Your heart looks up before you do.  

And you catch your ex watching intently from across the way, phone sliding from his ear before he straightens to start walking. 

…Towards you? 

Fuck. 

It’s been bad enough catching glimpses of Yoongi and seeing him entertain someone else. If he gets one foot right in front of you? Everything you’ve worked so hard to build up against him and the haunting memories of your relationship will collapse into dust. You can’t bear him seeing how you haven’t changed your fucking mind. 

To your utmost pain, all roads have always led back to him. No matter how deep you relate to or click with someone, no matter how happy another person makes you, no one has come close to how Yoongi made you feel. 

Because he’s the only one that understood even the darkest parts of you. And he’s the only light in your life you ran away from. 

There’s a reason you watch every sunset. There’s a reason you stand on the beach back home and don’t move your sandswept legs until the last rays give way to the ocean line. 

It’s because of the guilt. The guilt of turning away from the warmth you held in your hands and the warmth you left behind. 

Your eyes stay tethered as your ex makes his way down the long side of the upstairs balcony, partiers smushing together and bottles roving over his head as ladies take them to VIP tables. 

Based on the heat in his eyes? Yoongi’s on the universe’s side. There’s no way he’s seeking anything else other than revenge. 

Shit, shit shit. This isn’t good for you. Literally nothing great nor healthy can come out of this if he ends up in your orbit. One word, two words, and even worse, three words from those unforgettable lips would destroy you and never let you recover. 

But your hands stay tight on the warming railing. And they won’t fucking let go. 

Downstairs. Go down the stairs. Go. 

Yoongi’s almost here. All he has to do is round the corner. He's close enough for you to notice the silver chains adorning his neck.

And the last thing you think with a withering heart is how devastatingly handsome he’s become. 

With a tight breath, you pelt high heels downward one hasty step at a time. Winding, winding, spiraling like the thoughts storming your mind. The further down you go, the farther away he is. 

Your heel catches on your dress before you stumble, but you don’t look back to see if Yoongi’s even still behind you. 

Chill the fuck out and don’t fucking trip. You already had nasty falls before with scars to prove it and a sticky club floor is the worst place to sprawl onto. 

Keep going. Disappear into the crowd. Go find your friends. 

And deal with the unmoving, gaping hole in your chest later. 

—

—

It takes you awhile to find them, but soon enough, you're back to having the time of your life. The lineup of DJs is all stellar, with only a few misses here and there, even getting Jeongguk to stay on the dance floor longer than you expect.

What's even better? There's no sign of Yoongi. Surrounded by sweaty bodies and flashy grins, you don't catch a single glimpse of him in the crowd.

Good. That's good, right? You wanted this. You wanted to avoid him and run, just like you did the last time.

Your group starts to split up in the commotion of lights and confetti and streamers, but you're fine dancing on your own. With each ebb and flow of music, you lose yourself, letting your heart get swept away by stories of love and loss. Every song holds a piece you understand. Every verse carries the same message.

You aren't alone in being alone.

So embrace it. Let the hurt come later. Smiling wide, you await the next song up, arms thrown in the air with everyone in beautiful togetherness around you.

Then it starts.

The one song you knew you'd hear at some point but sure as fuck didn’t want to.

While people around roar at the familiar opening, you feel like disappearing entirely. Where’s the nearest coastline? You need a rising tide. 

As the melancholic notes buzz up your chest, you slowly, quietly, lower both arms to your sides. Around you, the floor moves in sensuous circles and dips, and you envy everyone for not feeling how you feel. This glowing, searing pain setting your chest ablaze until it’s nothing but a pile of cinders, only to be washed away with the waves crashing against your knees.

With each scathing line, your heart cries, remembering exactly why it hit too deep. All those lessons you took that started on a whim. All those sunny afternoons practicing and stumbling about your living room. All those times you were held close and knew there’d be no one else.

Your heart isn't strong enough to stay in the now. It doesn’t want to. It will always remain in the past, on a rooftop gazing into a sea of stars and hoping for a different outcome. 

Night, after night, after night. 

Suddenly, you’re back in the past, too.

Because a hand, so sure and so steady, settles onto your hip from behind, and your eyes burn when another slides along your bare shoulder. Heat from a body you can sense from anywhere in the fucking universe warms the skin at your back, and you shake as lips touch the shell of your ear to whisper three words that shatter what’s left of your soul, 

“One last time.” 

You aren't in the past. You're here. And so is he.

Breath whooshing out in a hitch, your throat is in absolute flames as your eyes slide shut. Then you nod, because you can’t think of doing anything else, and you allow him to lead.

And he feels so perfect against you it hurts. 

You feel how strong he’s gotten, how sturdy and lean. And yet, you also feel the same soft give you used to feel all those years ago. You know how pliant he could become under your mercy, just like all those times he gave you complete control. If you faced him, you could run your hands along that stomach you’ve kissed every inch of a thousand times over. 

But you’re too much of a pathetic coward to turn around. 

When you back into him, his quick hiss into that groan you miss so fucking much flips every warning light in your body. But you can’t help it. You know this dance, this connection, this reunion will be the last you will ever have. 

He never loved you. You never said goodbye. 

Everything that’s left unsaid swirls around you as you move in perfect sync, both your hips moving as one and your hand snaking up and back to grip his neck fuck he feels just like home. 

Yoongi… Still feels like home. 

A single, hot tear leaks from your eye as you sway, burning a path down your cheek as your other hand closes tight around fingers holding your side. When he grips you even tighter, another tear betrays you, and you feel his lips so close to your neck you expect him to kiss there if he wanted to. 

But he doesn’t. 

Of course he doesn’t. 

So you take what you’re given. A dance. Just one. One last unforgettable dance before your life changes all over again. 

Knowing this song by heart, you know it’s approaching the end. The bittersweet last chorus clues you in, and you tense around his neck just a little tighter, hoping Yoongi didn’t catch the need in your fingers for this moment to never end. 

Mother Earth can swallow you whole as soon as the last word is sung. You give her your express permission. 

Because you feel so hopelessly in love all over again, and you can’t bear your affection to be unreciprocated a second time. 

Just like that. Against your deepest, sincerest wishes. 

The song dies. 

And immediately after, as if your world hasn’t just been upheaved and tossed to the wayside, the next number booms. Everyone on the dance floor cheers again when it’s extremely familiar and a faster tempo. Even more people fill the floor because they need to feel this one in their bones. 

And you need nothing else but to leave. 

Get out. Go. Yoongi said so, right? One last time. It’s over. This tension between you needed an outlet and that song was the one out you both could use to set it free. 

And it’s done. So you start your brisk walk away.

Only for your wrist to be held and your heart to fall out of your ribcage. 

Fuck.

When you turn, you forget you’re tear-streaked and full of painful regrets. 

And the look on Yoongi’s face heats your soul all the way through. 

Because his eyes are unwavering, brows cut deep and mouth completely shut. Over his forehead, tendrils of mussed bangs sweep slow, and his chest rises and falls with every hard, wordless breath he takes. 

And you finally get the courage to whisper his name. 

Without a word, he slowly pulls you in, not stopping until your hands softly push into his strong chest and your face is inches from his. All heavy bass and bright beats of music fall away. All lights shift until you can only see him. 

Time. All that time apart vanishes when you finally feel this close again, his steady expression watching you with an emotion you can’t place but feel ripping at your walls to destroy them. 

What is happening? What’s he doing? 

Does he know he has the power to hurt you in ten million different ways?

Fingers rise to wipe the sadness from your face, only inviting more to pour from your eyes. “Yoongi,” you whisper again, breaking the dam you’ve been building block by block this whole time, just like you were afraid of. And you can’t fucking stop. “Yoongi…”

Then, when his eyes slide shut, you think he’ll let you go. Why can you only say his name? Why the fuck are you ruining this singular moment that you’ve only dreamed of having wait wait why is he resting his forehead against yours fuck wait—

“You know how long,” he breathes out, “I’ve been waiting to hear you say that again.” 

Have mercy.

Your soul finally snaps in two. 

You can only say it once more, broken and chipped, before Yoongi grips your jaw and kisses you like it’s his last minute on earth. 

And you push back with a ferocity that’s been dormant for years, a magnificent flame never awakened by anyone else. Nothing else. Just him. Only him. 

Rivers stream from your eyes as his arms circle you, hands gripping the skin of your back as your nails rake down his. Around you, people dance and bump into your bodies, but neither of you seem to fucking care. No one else exists. The only music you hear is every deep breath Yoongi takes and it’s your favorite, favorite, favorite.

You shouldn’t be doing this. There’s no possible way this doesn’t leave you without a broken heart and a shell of whatever intact spirit you have left. 

But goddamn if you don’t stay in the now more than ever. 

“I don’t give a shit,” you tumble into his mouth, waiting until he pulls away enough for you to spill every forbidden thought you’ve harbored in your beating chest. “I don’t care if you never loved me. I don’t care if you moved on. I just—just tonight, Yoongi, I need you—”

Your plea is engulfed by another soulshaking push of his lips, and you think that’s the end of it until he tugs away from you before swerving his head around the floor. 

“Come here,” he orders, gripping your hand and reminding you just how perfect his fingers slot with yours. 

Time. You’re getting more time? Your tears and the burning in your chest don’t quell as you’re led through the crowd. When you get strange or pitied looks, you don’t care. All these perfectly dressed people can fuck off. 

When they stare at the man guiding you, that’s what gets your stomach flaring. They can have him. Just after you get one last time to carry you through the rest of your loveless life. 

Yoongi suddenly turns to look at you trailing behind, and he waits to bring you in front of his side, now leading you both together through the rest of the packed floor. 

Ah. This is the man you remember. 

And that just makes everything hurt even more. 

Soon, you’re led off the dance floor and through a series of turns, Yoongi heading up a long back staircase before rounding into a hallway of doors before he checks each one. 

What are these? Karaoke rooms? Party rooms? You don’t know, but the ache in your body hunches you over, and it takes everything to not crumble before he finally stops and yanks open a door. 

“Yoongi, what are you—?”

A dim, neon-lit room is what you come to, and you hear a faint click while noticing the long window looking out into the club below.  Different lounge chairs and couches fill the space, and you can see just enough out the glass to know you’re even high above the VIP tables. The room feels exclusive but you don’t get to observe anything else as you’re being pushed into the nearest wall to be liplocked again. 

Fuck, he’s gotten even better at this. 

Just like you have. 

As your dress is gripped tight, your thoughts all blur together in a lustful slurry. How many has he taken to bed after you? Do you remember your own count? Has anyone else made him feel like you do? With a searing green flare, you remember that no one has come close to him. How awfully one-sided would that be if he found someone that completed him.

A veiny hand grips the side of your neck before sliding to your head. “Fuck,” Yoongi grits out. “I… I can’t.” 

...What? 

No. No no no. 

Your heart begins its fast descent. Because if Yoongi doesn’t want this, you have to respect that. As much as you will scream into the night, you’re not gonna stop him if he gets up and leaves. 

Because you did. So why shouldn’t he get that same chance to destroy you? 

“I get it,” you hitch out, holding his strong wrist with shaky fingers. It’s only fair. This felt too good to be true anyway. “I know.” 

“It’s not that.” Yoongi slides his free hand on the wall, holding it at your shoulder. “I just… Fuck, if we do this, I can’t promise I’ll hold back.” 

Oh. Fuck that. 

You tug the warm silver around his neck. “Then don’t,” you urge to his grunt. “If this is all we get? I don’t fucking care.” 

“Even if I t—”

“Do it, Yoongi,” you plead with a gritted cry. “You can do anything to me, whatever it is just do it.” 

“Fuck.” 

All doubt flees from his eyes as your back gets smushed into the wall, your lips puffed and parting when he places hot, open mouthed kisses down your column. 

Hands keep their quest in gathering up your dress. And you make quick work of his belt before pulling, tugging, yanking it out of its holster. 

“The fuck,” he shoots out. “Who the fuck taught you that?”

Your eyes flicker to his as you grip the hem of his jeans. “You really wanna know?”

“No.” He switches up on a dime. “Don’t tell me.”

Your lips collide again before he rips his mouth down to attack your chest, nipping at a spot that has you flinching and hand sliding between your legs. When he runs a finger along your underwear, his eyes practically burn out as he growls, “You’re this fucking wet already?”

“I told you,” you gasp out. “I need you.” 

Your hand is yanked to the front of his jeans, and shock and emotion completely cover the expanse of your face feeling how unbelievably hard he is.

Unfazed, Yoongi continues kissing up to your shoulder, leaving hot saliva trails all over your skin and bunching your silk in his hands. “Seeing you in this? Lost my shit.”

“You're lying.”

“All fuckin' night."

“Liar.”

Liar, liar. A bold faced lie. You saw him talking to other people. You saw his anger piercing across the club. But you watch as his look levels, and your cheeks sizzle at the way he shifts his jaw, 

“I’d never lie to you.” 

Shit. Your heart bats eyelashes before you shove it out of frame. 

The organ in your chest is a walking liability, especially when it’s connected to your mouth. So there are many, many things you might reveal tonight in the throes of agony and passion. Things you will regret come morning waking to an empty bed. 

The best way to not say anything that could potentially do more harm than good? Keep your lips occupied. And that’s exactly what you intend to do. 

“We’ll see,” you grit out, unbuttoning his pants and pulling them down. When Yoongi lets you twist to shove him back against the wall, his eyes flare in dark need when he hisses, 

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” 

To show him how you’ve grown in the years you separated, to show him what he could’ve fucking had. 

To show him that you aren’t taking a single bit of this last, serendipitous night for granted. 

Kneeling slow, you slide your hands along his clothed chest, kissing his chains exactly how you used to and smearing lipstick all the way down his jersey.

“Fuck…”

Balancing on your heels, you wince at the tight bend in your knees, but you aren’t going down completely because your kneecaps aren’t what they used to be. Fuck that. You can do plenty in a low squat anyway, and he’s seen you look a hell of a lot more awkward many times. “Shit,” you still whisper. “You’re lucky I can’t wait to swallow you.”

A curse flings out of his mouth. “Get up, babe.”

Heart ringing at the name, you reject his order with a harsh, “Shut up.” 

You want this, and you know for a fact he does, too. When Yoongi tries to bend, you pull down his underwear, springing his cock free and almost salivating at the sight. 

Just like you remember. Everything about him is just how you remember, and yet his body has only gotten stronger and filled out in all the perfect places. Yoongi’s a man now. A real, grown man. 

If you both just met tonight, you know he would’ve asked for your name before anything else.

Cut the shit. You are not getting into that now, not when you have him with hands trembling against a wall before you take him in your palm. As soon as you touch, Yoongi expels a deep groan, kicking his head back and gripping the wall with a large hand.

What’s going on? You haven’t even done anything yet. Why does your chest constrict at how sensitive he is? This isn’t the time to relax, but you really can’t help but soften at his complete and utter unravelling. 

It’s almost as if nothing’s changed. 

Yoongi lowers his gaze, and you lock glistening eyes before you take him in your mouth, slow on the tip and swirling to get it coated and prepped just right. Your hand expertly glides along his solid, slick length, squeezing at the spot you know makes him fold. 

“Holy fuck,” he gasps out, hand hesitating to palm your head before balling in a fist against plaster. “Shit, babe..”

Again? Does he even realize what he’s saying? Is he trying to hurt you because if that’s his goal it’s fucking working. 

Anger, regret, painful nostalgia drives you forward, sinking his velvety ridges inside your throat and proving to him how much better you’ve gotten. With every plunge, you hollow your cheeks, already feeling the telltale searing at your eyes and spiraling up your throat. His endless stream of sounds and praise tumble down your skin, and you keep sucking mercilessly even when his hips buck and his eyes squeeze tight.

Releasing with a loud pop, you feel a huge strain on your soaked legs as you adjust, tilting your drenched chin to bury your face in his sack to lick and take it in.

“Baby..”

At this new, old nickname, you grip his cock tighter, swallowing him whole again just to hide your real tears behind the ones streaming from taking him in so deep. 

More. You give more, and more, and more. Time will take away everything else so what you can give is all you got.

Hands grip your head in desperation, and you let Yoongi push you onto his length until your airway is closed tight, nose and cheeks flush against the skin of his thighs. His scent is heady and just like you remember, if only slightly different due to the new musky cologne he’s probably sticking with nowadays. Not like you can focus on it too long because your airway is screaming to be freed again. 

Tears leak over your lashes as want slicks your cunt, and you hear syllables that could be words before you finally give his legs a telltale tap.

Oxygen floods your lungs as more tears stream from your eyes, lips sopping wet and saliva leaving your chin in strings. Gulping, you go right back to it, taking him in again and pumping his slick ridges quick.

“Get up,” he commands with a rasp so deep it rumbles your chest. “Get the fuck up.” 

You’re pulled upward so fast your legs cry at the bends, and you’re spun so quick the wall hits your shoulderblade and you cry out into a furious mouth. 

Pleasure and pain intertwine as you match his intensity, raking at his shoulders and clawing into his hair. With each kiss, he reaches deeper into your throat, and you know he can taste himself on your tongue with the way he claims it in waves.

For a moment, there’s no one else in the world. You aren’t in a dimly lit lounge in a club away from home. You’re right here in his bedroom, getting slung and dragged along his wall and knocking every one of his plaques and posters off-kilter. 

“Yoongi, I—”

“I know.”

Without further prompt, Yoongi wrenches at your dress to shove it up to your hip, burning a path along your leg with expert fingers. As you hook itover his smooth forearm, your lips part when his other hand slides between your thighs. 

You know your underwear is soaked all the way through. 

And now, so does he. “Goddamn.”

“I can’t take it anymore,” you gasp out. “Just—”

“Are you still on the—”

“Yes.”

Shifting the sodden material to the side, Yoongi wastes no time, angling himself to rub over your folds and moaning in tandem with you because holy fuck this already feels so—

“This fucking pussy,” Yoongi grits out, sliding in perfectly and so smoothly it’s like neither of you ever left each other's sides. Your high moan cuts into the cherry ceiling when he sounds like he’s just struck gold, “Shit, you’re gonna be the death of me.”

“Yoongi, please—”

He’s talking absolute nonsense. Gonna be? How is that possible when you won’t see him again? 

All questions vaporize when Yoongi’s hips snap up, launching you up the wall again, and again, and again. Pops of need and lust zoom straight to your head, sparkling out of your eyes when you feel his lips smothering your neck. 

You’re in heaven. You’re in hell. It feels so good it hurts. Caught in a flurry of need and anguish, your nails rake down his shoulders before scratching at his arms, shivering at his outright growl, 

“Don’t do that.”

“Oh, I—”

“Do that shit again and I’ll come.” 

Shit. You don’t understand how he could be so shameless. You’re trying your hardest to keep it together and here he is saying whatever the fuck he wants? If you let your mouth just as loose as he has there’s no telling what you’d be shouting out. 

But you settle for an apology for now, just in case you actually hurt him, “Sorry.. My nails are super long right now.”

“I noticed.” Another thrust launches you into the sky. “They look good but they hurt like hell.”

“Oh.. Sorry again.” A moan escapes when he shoves into you, mind hazy because he’s still placating you. 

“I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.” Devilish, he breaks into a slow smirk you haven’t seen in ages, and your ribcage folds inward and inward. “I’m just not fucking done with you yet.” 

Oh. He doesn’t want this to end, either. 

Now that changes every fucking cog in your brain. 

You keep yourself upright as long as you can, arms slung around his neck as you both move together, dip and lean together, breathe so hard it scorches your chest together. Every muscle in your planted leg burns, but it’s nothing compared to the stare you have connected to his eyes. With each deep thrust, his brows furrow and his teeth peek from his lips, and every groan you hear goes right into a chest for safe keeping. Right next to all the other memories you want to lock away.

Yoongi’s pace starts to quicken the more your mewls encourage him. What was sensuous is now unbearable and, as your dress threatens to shift, you know your breasts will be on full display soon, and Yoongi bites his lip with a grunt with his next hard thrusts.

Soon enough, you feel a chill on your nipples as they’re freed, moaning to the ceiling when Yoongi immediately heats one whole with his tongue. “Baby!”

Goddamn it. You weren’t supposed to address him like that, too. But maybe it’s better than saying his name because every time you do there’s a charge sparking the air. 

So you decide to switch, moaning the same word over and over as he licks and sucks, dragging his teeth along your exposed chest and littering it with heavy proof of his lips. Just like the lipstick on his jersey, you know he’s claimed his own marks on your skin. 

And neither of you will be able to hide them when you part.

Expelled tension flits about in light streaks as you move with him, slick with exertion and tight with muscles working in double time. You both know this is the last time and you’re acting like it. And you send a prayer to the heavens to let time stop just to keep holding him in your arms. 

Suddenly, your heel slips, and you yelp before strong arms keep you upright. “Shit, sorry.”

“I got you.”

Summer sunsets smother your vision as you let him guide you from the wall, gently placing your leg down and leading you to a sofa. Everything simmers to a lull, and you have a moment to catch your breath and steady your racing, racing heartbeat. 

When Yoongi sits on vibrant cushions, you admire the way his biceps fill those sleeves right as he tugs his jersey clean off. And you have to fight to not teeter over, continuing to stare in awe at him, so perfectly filled in some placed and chiseled in others that you start to wonder how you even left in the first place.

Of course you know why you did. So why bring it up now when you’re right here? Why agonize over the past when you’re standing right between his legs?  

“Baby.” 

You flick your gaze back up to his. 

“Stay with me.”

Tears zing up your eyes as you nod, heart plugging your throat as you mount his toned thighs. When you feebly place hands on his searing shoulders, you hate the way your words shake on the way out, “Stay in the now. I know.”

Yoongi’s eyes shine with a light in them you weren’t sure was there before. But you can’t wait long enough for confirmation because your heart is keeling over with ache. 

He remembers. He remembers. Does that mean he’s thought about you, too? 

Focus on something else. No time to think about the past, nor the future. No time to notice that the way Yoongi looks at you now is so heartbreakingly similar to how he worshipped you before. Back when things were perfectly imperfect. Back when you were sure he loved you before he proved to you that he didn’t. 

“Still so beautiful.”

Liquid fire fills your eyes as your breath hitches, guiding his length to your entrance before sinking onto him with no issue. When you both groan, you let your glittery vision watch the ceiling instead of him when you admit, 

“You look so fucking good in red.”

There’s no response as you breathe, angling yourself to feel him deep and moving in a slow push and pull along his legs. Your thin chain tightens as your neck strains above Yoongi’s head, and you wish you had the guts to look down at the ones around his neck. They’re already deadly resting on his clothes, but rocking against the flush of his skin is how you love them the most.

Still, you can’t bear to look. You know you’ll lose yourself in those eyes if you dare stare long enough. Because what you saw earlier looked too close to longing, which would be impossible because that only exists in yours. 

“And,” you whoosh out in tired breaths, gripping your fingers on him a little tighter, “Looks like you.. finally hit the gym.. like I kept fucking saying.” 

A puff of warm laughter hits your chest before sweaty hands grip your waist. “Always said I would.”

“But you never did,” you huff out, grinding on him harder and melting at his little sounds. One thing you will keep giving this man credit for: he isn’t ashamed to be just as vocal as you are. The more people you ended up meeting? The rarer and rarer you realized that bedroom quality was. 

“I did eventually,” he grits, holding you in place and surging into you so hard you yelp to the stars. “Didn’t I.”

“Fuck you,” you bite, moaning when your argument dies the moment his tongue swirls around a nipple again. What’s left comes out a garbled mess of a groan, and you hate, hate, hate the dark chuckle against your breast. Partly because he’s a constant problem, and partly because you yearn to see his smile again. 

“What else is new about you,” Yoongi suddenly rasps, hands lowering to rest on your hips as you ride him. “Aside from clearly getting better at this.”

Lost in lust and surprised at his question, you finally peer down to see him looking up already. “No thanks to you.”

And your world stills as he doesn’t respond right away, any hint of sunlight fading from his features. “No thanks to me,” he slowly agrees. 

Fuck. You didn’t mean to do that. 

Slowly slipping hands from his body, you rise from his length and mourn the disconnect before standing. When Yoongi only regards you with eyes on fire, you slowly turn and rest on his thighs. 

He’s not gonna like this. But he asked.

You turn your head before slowly sliding one side of your dress completely down, revealing a rough scar on your back a little lower than your shoulder.

And your soul immediately clenches when Yoongi heats your back with his body heat. “The fuck?” His fingers feel so light, so protective as they caress your mark. It’s confusing, and you abhor it as much as you need it. “What happened?”

“I fell,” you whisper. “Pretty hard.” 

Details of how and when it happened don’t matter. But he wanted to know what was new, and the scar on your heart isn’t exactly readily available to show. 

“I did, too.” 

What? At his voice over your shoulder, you strain your neck to see him. “When?”

Why is he kissing your scar? Exes don’t do that. Exes don’t do anything you’re doing right now. 

“Before you left.”

Now you feel worse. When the hell did that happen? Why didn’t you know about it? “Sorry,” you breathe out with sorrow. “I didn’t know.”

Another slow, calm graze of his mouth tightens your throat. Because he’s since moved across your back, lips now touching where your shoulderblade hit the wall. 

“I know,” Yoongi sighs. “I never told you.” 

He never told you many things.

Stepping into dangerous territory is making you regret showing him your worst moment. So you shift your ass to push over his cock, feeling it throb against you when you wisp out the worst reminder, “We don’t have much time.”

“Mm.”

When you feel his hands shift your dress, you lift up and allow you both to effortlessly situate you back where you wanna be. Your back hits his chest as he guides himself up into your folds, and your head kicks back to lie across his shoulder like the red silk flowing over your thigh. 

“Just like you said,” you start to whisper, eyes already welling with oncoming regret, “One last time.” Every syllable just as melancholic as the notes of your favorite song. 

When Yoongi starts, your heart weeps at the pace. Because it reminds you of better times, sensuous and intentional and convincing you to confess all over again. It takes everything not to speak, your moans escaping in weak puffs and your hips swelling in a calm wave. 

This is too much. This is way too fucking much and you finally break when his name leaves you like a prayer. “Harder,” you beg. “Please, please go—”

You’re cut off as soon as his hips jolt up, flinging you to life before going at a menacing pace. Yes yes yes this is the one you need. The one you crave. The one that leaves no room for feelings and decisions. Your dress threatens to slip off your sides with each pound, slowly rolling and accentuating your chest in seconds. “Shit, holy shit!”

“Fuck, you’re so tight—”

“So fucking big—”

As if knowing exactly what you want, your arms are held back, locked into place as you’re under the absolute mercy of his dick slamming up into you over and over, skin slapping obscene and thighs burning from the stretch across his lap. 

Yoongi knows you better than anyone else. A frustrated growl tears from your lips as you arch so far back you connect clouds, and a strong forearm wraps across your stomach to pin you so fucking close you may as well mold right into him. Passion streaks down your limbs as sweat beads along your skin, the heady scent of sex and forbidden fruit swirling into your nose. 

More. More more more he’s giving you everything. As your arms are freed, you can only grip the other forearm slinging over your upper chest, nails digging into creamy skin and leaving angry, cherry red lines.

Words, praise, everything under the sun is being spewed onto your slick shoulders as you mash your teeth and eyes tight. You even hear a word you’ve been wanting to hear for years, but that can’t possibly be true because there’s no way Yoongi would ever—

A hand closes around your throat, and your eyes fly back into your head.

You’re so close. Fucking hell, your thighs are singing and your throat is burning and your abdomen strains from the arch but you need this release. You need this tidal wave to consume you. If only to forget for a split second that Yoongi isn’t—

“—yours.”

What?

Another fierce round of thrusts almost topples the two of you over, and white hot pressure paints the edges of your eyes as you strain for breath. You’re so close. So fucking close it’s right within reach.

But it all vanishes in a snap as Yoongi stops, and you cry with a teary rasp, “No, please, baby—”

“Not yet.” He hauls you up, making you sit straight and facing away yet again. “You know what to do.” 

Fuck. There’s no way he remembers this, too. You flinch at the slap to your breast before shakily getting up, legs wobbly but positioning yourself on his cock perfectly before sliding down. 

Both heels planted on the ground, you brace his strong knees and work his slick length, eyes rolling at his breathy groans and curses leaving his mouth in spurts. 

You know exactly what to do to make him lose his goddamn mind. So you do it all, swirling and swerving your hips while flicking off your silk, showing him the best view of your ass as it bounces. Your legs tire, but you don’t, and you use the music leaking into the room to set your sickening, aggravating pace. 

“Fuck, baby..”

“You asked for it.”

“Don’t regret a goddamn thing.” 

You can tell he’s on the brink of madness, and you can only picture the way his head thumps back on the couch, mouth torn by his teeth and brows furrowed to hell. His muscles are probably contracting in waves, including the ones in his perfect, bulging arms. 

“You shouldn’t,” you hum. “Since this is all you get.” 

Without a word, hands reach out and tug you backward, and you’re up on your feet and tripping before your hands slap the firm cushions of the next chair over. “What the fu—”

To your absolute delight, Yoongi plants a foot on the chair before gripping the pliant dip of your hips, pushing tears from your eyes with each quick, deep thrust he rams forward. Stars dance along your vision as drool leaks endlessly from your mouth. “Baby—! Fuck!”

“This pussy’s so.. Fuck.” You’re shoved so far down that your moist cheek smushes into firm cushion. “Say my name.”

“Babe—”

“As much as I wanna hear that every fucking day”—Yoongi shoves into you again and keeps his cock thrumming inside your cunt—“Right now, I’m gonna hear my name. So say it.”

“Yoongi—”

His deep, gritted command makes you snap, “Louder.”

“Yoongi—!” 

You feel it. You’re at the brink again. With every snap of his skin pounding against yours, you’re inching closer and closer and closer to the edge, waiting for the fall that will end you. “Baby, I’m gonna—”

Firm arms haul you upward and you’re both travelling the room again, legs skittering until you hit back first into the nearest wall fuck that took your breath out.

Yoongi’s breath catches as he slams a hand against the plaster to steady, face burrowed in your neck and hair brushing harsh against your ear as he buries inside of you again. Fire spews from his mouth as you feel his cock squeeze up into your cunt, and his arm tenses tight behind your knee as he commands,

“Come for me, love.”

You don’t know what the fuck you just heard but you know he didn’t just say—

“I said come.”

Instinct. Pure, animalistic instinct surges your orgasm forward in a high crest, breaking onto shore in hot, white waves as you tremble around him. Your cunt squeezes and tugs, your poor leg threatening collapse as Yoongi roughly hums so deep against your chest. Pleasure, starlight, the warmth of an afternoon faraway heats your body just right, and one crash leads into the next so effortlessly that tears zip down your cheeks.

Your name rips from Yoongi’s throat. 

And it’s enough to send you right over the edge again.

How the fuck is this possible how the hell can someone break you with your own name how can Yoongi have this much of a hold on you when it’s been literal years? It doesn’t make any sense and the cries into his neck as he holds you close are akin to sobs. Maybe they are. Maybe they’re your way of mourning everything that could’ve been. Everything that will never be. 

But at least you were able to have him, shaking in your grasp and pulsing in your core. One more night. One last time. 

“Fuck it, come here.” 

Your sobs are yanked from the wall again, and you don’t know up from left as you're thrown onto a sofa, back curling as Yoongi tugs your head upright. Your tears slide down your neck, wetting your necklace as he breathes out, 

“Again.” 

Fuck! Your cunt tightens around him as you gasp out, “I can’t… I can’t—”

“Don’t lie to me,” Yoongi growls, clutching your chin and flinging hot spit onto your face that catapults you into another level of need you’ve never been to holy fuck. Smothering it against your cheeks, he taps you once and it brings destruction. “I said again.” 

All your limbs lock at the bends as you throw your head in a strained cry, a release that overpowers all the others flushing through your veins and igniting beams out of your sweaty chest. Wave upon wave crashes into your soul and your ears ring so loud you can barely hear or see Yoongi watching from above. You can’t. You’re too caught in chaos. You can’t see the way he looks at you. 

“Come for me, Yoongi,” you suddenly plead, “Let go.”

“Let me pull—”

“Do it now,” you hitch out. “Come inside.”

A prolonged moan leaves his mouth as he launches into a pace that has you screaming, teeth gritted to hell and fingers gripping you so hard you know they’re going to bruise. But who cares when your skin will match your heart? Who gives a fuck about anything else anymore?

Beautiful weight crushes your chest as Yoongi’s body turns erratic, jolting and seizing up. And you know he’s racing to his own cliff to dive and you’re gonna be right there to catch him. Slinging your arms around his drenched back and fisting the wet base of his hair, you’re already ready and waiting with harsh harsh breaths, because you're about to break him.

“That’s it, baby,” you whisper to his ear, ravaging his slick neck with your lips and scraping teeth over his ear just how he likes, hearts beating as one when you stop just to connect your forehead to his. With a singular, throaty gasp, you plead,

“One last time.”

Yoongi’s sudden release sends a pulse through the air, and your core beats and beats with each pump of essence he spews inside. Heaven and earth collide with stars as you hold tight, and your thighs shake as he finishes filling you with the longest orgasm you have ever, ever seen him endure. 

The float down doesn’t come quick, both of you softly suspended in time and air. Steam radiates from your skin and flows from your mouths with each breath, and beads of sweat slip down his jewelry as he stares with a deep vastness in his eyes. 

Why is he so quiet? 

Why are you so quiet? 

Why do you feel like crying again? 

With one more shaken breath, Yoongi swallows, chest heaving right after as he struggles to gather himself. His shoulders are so broad when he moves under your hands, closing his eyes as soon as your brows touch,

“I know it’s over.”

Your heart flares.

“But I need you to know.”

Stars light the night sky.

“I love you. And I always will.”

A sob breaks your silence, hand flying to cup your mouth before you hunch forward into his trembling chest. Days and days of pent up anger and sadness spill out all at once, and you weep into his chest because you can’t bear to let go. 

“I know you’ve moved on,” Yoongi continues with a shake to his words, not pausing at the way you choke and weep. “But I’ve regretted never saying it back then. And I’m not gonna get another chance.”

What the fuck is happening. What does he mean? What does he mean? Your body can’t stop as it locks and locks, sobs wracking your chest because this is fucked up and confusing and everything you’ve been wanting for the longest time. This is all you wanted. And you only get it at the very end. 

“I didn’t even say goodbye,” you shake out. When you lift your trembling head, his lips are already so achingly close to yours and his hand moves to steady your neck. “I left and never came back.”

When his eyes are the only ones that speak, you start to spill everything out, words tumbling into one another and pinging to the floors around your tired feet,

“I tried so hard to forget you. Tried so, so hard to stop loving you. Every day, I’d wake up wanting nothing to do with you, only to see you in my dreams and remember how it felt to—to—” 

Bright red flares across Yoongi’s eyes as he keeps listening, jaw pulsing and brows so tense. 

“At first, I was so angry. At you, at myself, at the world for letting me love you when you never loved me back. But now, I know what I did was wrong. And I regret it every day that I live.” 

When your face contorts in sorrow, Yoongi brings a hand up to wipe your cheek, thumb brushing away your tears. “I did, babe.” Your breath stops and your eyes splay wide. “Just never had the guts to say it first.” 

First. 

Yoongi loved you all the way back then? Before that starry night that’s kept your heart captive for so long? It pulses against your chest, ramming and ramming into your ribcage to get to his. 

Only one question barrels through your mind. “…Why?”

Yoongi looks from one eye to the next. “Because I didn’t think I deserved to.”

Everything clicks into place and you suddenly feel so, so upset. You are going to fight this man to the moon and back. Or, better yet, you’re gonna fight him to the moon and leave him there. “You think I thought that way?”

“No.” He sighs, chains shaking over your chest. “And I replay that night over, and over. Knowing that I’d do anything to go back and tell you how I felt.” 

Yoongi never lived in the past. He was always adamant about staying in the present. So knowing he’d been stuck there right next to you makes your chest collapse before slipping down into the deep sea. 

“When I saw you today? Every day I told myself I’d get over you didn’t matter. Every reason I told myself I couldn’t be with you was bullshit.” 

Your throat constricts again.

“But when you kept running.. I knew you were done with me for good.” Yoongi’s hand falls. “And there was nothing I could do to change your mind.”

“Yoongi…”

All this time, you both had your own reasons for avoiding each other. Everything you fed into your logical side was just a ploy to project your feelings, and it turns out Yoongi did the exact same thing. 

He said he wouldn’t be able to hold back if you did this tonight. And now, you’re blessed to know exactly what he meant. 

So you also let everything go. 

“I was never done with you,” you choke out, seeing a swath of emotion brush across his face. “Because I’m still in love with you, and I will be even if you walk out of here without me.”

Musk and heaven consumes you in a hug, and you cry into a bare shoulder as you hear Yoongi vow something so full of longing and conviction you hold him tighter, 

“I’m not going anywhere else without you.” 

Music continues to pulse outside, lasers continue to dance around the room. But you see nothing but the light in your lover's eyes. 

And it’s a beautiful, beautiful sunrise. 

—

—

When you both finally part, it’s only to let him get dressed and for you to use the nearest restroom. In the quiet wake of your emotional storm, Yoongi walks you to the window spanning the far wall of the lounge, and you both watch the club floors move and sway from above. And it’s only now that you feel shy. It’s only now that you feel nervous seeing everyone below. 

But a thought occurs to you that dashes all others away, 

“How did you know to come up here?” 

Yoongi gives you a look that you raise a brow at. “I…” He sighs. “Let’s just say I know my way around this place.”

Ah. Of course. “Come here often?”

“Not for the reasons you think.”

Your brows are fully bent now. “…Huh?”

“I own the building.” Hands busy, he adjusts his jersey as if he didn’t drop the biggest shock of the century on your toes. “And a couple others in the city.”

What. 

Pause pause pause hold the fucking phone. 

Yoongi lives in this city? He owns what? This is a little too much to take in, but you have time. And you’re gonna hound him for every single detail of his life that you’ve missed. 

You have time. Your prayer had been answered tenfold. And you send endless gratitude to the sky. 

But suddenly, a second realization pierces your mind and you lightly shove him. When Yoongi looks at you in shock, you yell out, “You asked what’s new and I showed you a scar! Now you tell me you own a fucking building?” 

Your lover laughs, and the sun rises even higher over your horizon. Ducking your next swipe, he’s already back to irritating you again as he clarifies, “I said more than one—”

“Oh, fuck you!” 

He rushes forward and gathers you in his arms, not caring if anyone sees your embrace in the window. “You wanna go again?” 

Your face heats as your eyes roll heavenward, exactly where you feel like you are in this moment. “I have a pretty big hotel room,” you divulge. “And no one to share that bedroom with unless someone else catches my eye tonight, so…”

Yoongi’s eyes crease as he kisses your forehead. “Fuck that. Take me home.” 

Your giggles into his chin bubble out in pink, poppable spheres. 

As magnificent and dreamlike all of this has been, you're starting to find logic again. Because more than one question badgers into your mind.

How long have you been gone? Have your friends not even checked on you? Did they try? Did they leave do they even still have the... table…

Wait.

Everything else clicks into place. 

The random city everyone flew to that Jeongguk picked. The infamous club and dress code you heard about from Taehyung. The table that Hoseok bragged about getting…

“...You're the one that got us VIP.” 

That stupid, annoying, ridiculous grin. Of course this is how you'd be reminded of how much you love to hate it.

“Now come dance with me,” he says with teeth still flashing wide. “Let’s see if you ever got that step.” 

Eyes sparkling, you let him lead you down and onto the dance floor, moving through until you’re suddenly next to your friends that shout and holler at your arrival together. 

“All of you are crazy!” You yell out, tears in your smile as they burst into laughter. “Why didn’t you just tell me!”

Yoongi grabs hold of you before chuckling into your ear. “I told them not to.” 

“Why?”

“Didn’t know if you were really done.” He grips you tight, face falling into seriousness. “But I heard you broke up with someone a month ago. This was my only chance and I took it.” 

Holy fucking shit.

“Thank you.” You kiss his cheek with purpose. “I love you.”

Yoongi’s cheeks rise high, dimples prominent and eyes carrying the light of the universe. Lips close, he responds how he wanted to the first time.

And you seal your devotion with a kiss full of starlight. 

“Ugh, here we go.”

“Already at it again, huh.”

"Figures. Didn't you see his jersey?"

“Get another room—!”

Suddenly, the same song that used to haunt you comes on once more, but this time, you welcome it with a swell of freedom in your chest. The waves of your mind calm, washing onto an empty beach and fading into a mesmerizing valley of blue.

Yoongi grins as he holds your hand, and you can't help but stretch your mouth wide as you both immerse into the crowd, moving and spinning and stepping perfectly together on every beat. Laughter and joy fills the space between your hearts as you all cheer, sharing this infinite moment together as fate intended.  

In a beautiful, unforgettable dance. 

-

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fin :)

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hi lovelies what did we think !! | main masterlist

a/n: so don't ask how i managed to write all of this in a single day (now two) lol i think this madrid yoongi broke me. anyways, here's the sidequest that became the main quest for a bit! i'm back to writing three tangerines so 3tan13 will be finished here real soon :D thank you all for reading and i hope you enjoyed this irresistible ex turned lover yoongiiiii :DD did i cry? yes. can you prove it? no!!!!

a/n 2: as always, reblogs and comments and asks are always super appreciated! i love sharing things with you guys and a big part of that is getting to hear what you all liked and what you're excited about. happy to chat, and thank you for reading!

++ feedback box: ⇥ of course, any reblogs/comments/messages are appreciated! ⇥ for the ones that are too shy to reblog with a review, comment on this, or send a message, i went ahead and made another anonymous form where you can send in what you think! ⇥ no emails collected, no need to put in a username. it’s literally just a comment dropbox :D feedback can be as short/sweet or as long as you’d like! ⇥ here!

The breeze is almost silent. It doesn’t move the trees; the leaves don’t rustle.

But Jungkook feels its touch along his neck and the emerging goosebumps with it. As the sun descends and the chill returns into the late evening air, the water stops feeling warm, too.

Today’s summer noon and afternoon were perfectly seething, much to the forest’s standard. Jungkook has only ever known mild to humid temperatures. Subzero is a phenomenon he’s ever heard, dreamed of. Ironic for him to be born and remain at a spot that never scratched the itch for him.

But this is the best he can do for himself. He might not be too fond of the heat, but he likes the water. That’s why he hand-built his cottage at the shore of this lake; added a porch and a wooden fence, overlooking the clearing, just far enough to see the other side.

It’s peculiar, the shape of the lake.

Long, but not quite too wide. Too large and deep for a pond, but almost too small to really be a lake. Whenever Jungkook leans on his fence, he can spot deers sometimes, peeking through the forest but never daring to walk out to the water. They seem to fear it, and he understands.

The clearing is foggy, empty; just what Jungkook desires but what everyone and everything remains wary of. But he thinks it’s pretty. And just now, the quietude is all he needs.

He’s stopped dreaming of winters and the snow. He’s gotten used to the waves around him. Because there’s a big enough storm in his mind, too cold and uncomfortable to wish for a white wonderland.

Jungkook sighs. His body has started feeling weird; the summer tinted his skin a darker golden and his shoulders are already a slight, burnt red. The heat spread throughout the past hours, warmed up the nerves in his body.

Despite the tremble, however, that the barely-there wind causes, he refuses to leave the lake just yet. His eyes remain closed for a bit longer, and he leans back, his long, black hair and ears soon submerged.

The world is even quieter down here. The twitter of the birds ceases, their song already faded; the dull, light waves overtake. Such a peaceful sound, yet not tranquil enough to calm the tension in his muscles and his heart. The riot consistently persists.

Did he expect it not to? Truth be told, yes, in fact, he did. Because only a couple moons ago, harmony was a constant. The water would wash away his troubles; as his limbs floated, he’d feel that this was the closest he’d ever come to weightlessness.

But back then, he had you.

Perhaps this is deliberate torture. A search for reprieve and satisfaction in something he should’ve known would only drag his heart further into the pit of his stomach. He should’ve known that there’s no true cure. Your absence will do nothing but pull him farther from redemption.

It’s not just the pain itself slicing up pieces of himself. But the existence of such slices at all; once his organ is left in the fragments he’s counting on remaining, he fears he might lose his way back to himself, too.

But somewhere inside, he reckons he’s doing this on full purpose.

Remembering you, basking in what was. When you’d meet him at the house on the other side of the shore, secluded from the rest of the villages and the town you resided in. Right what he’ll never step foot into again; where your high class family never found him in the past.

The shabby boy who, alone most of his life, assumed he’d done well for himself after all; perhaps not a villa in town, but a cottage at a lake. Must be a good enough life, he thought. Much until he realised he wasn’t nearly as good as he thought he was. Or, at least, as much as he needed to be for the one it mattered to.

Of course he wasn’t. In hindsight…

When he first met you at a farm near the forest, you were still just nineteen, and he was already twenty-two, slaving away, far from the only extended family he could ever call his. He remembers you wandering the hills and fields with friends of yours.

How the two of you noticed each other at that very farm, and would do more often from then on. You would, as you’d disclose one day, flee the small town life to find him there; and when he quit the work, he’d take you to other hidden places.

In that lonely and fleeting reality of his that he’d call life, seeing you standing among smileless faces was a remedy. You had something mystical, something otherworldly about you. Something he couldn’t force himself away from.

Maybe he should’ve told you earlier. Word for word, just that, when he met you in parks far from your home or when you snuck to his cottage quite a walk into the woods. He should’ve told you how quickly he was handing himself to you.

It was a dangerous game; getting to know you came with a loss of his sanity. And the more time passed, the more you consumed him. Bit by bit, gnawing away at his soul.

An amusing picture, you eating away at him, more so each time you’d tell him how unique, beautiful, everglowing you considered this very soul of his. The most gorgeous you’d ever seen.

Told him how anybody with “such a piece veiled in their body should consider themselves lucky.”

Your eyes were gentle, sparkly when you warned him of the darkness in the world, how he’d have to shield himself to protect the heart sent from Heaven, beating in his chest.

People like to tear it out, you said.

Amusing. Quiet foreshadowing, perhaps. With what he knows now, your words feel like mock to him.

He should’ve asked you more questions on what you had on your mind back then. Told you that he’d give you his soul if you just asked, and that he trusted you to not rip it out just like that.

But you were too enchanting to even commit his thoughts to. He wanted you with every piece of his being, but he was scared of losing you, too.

For the longest time, he couldn’t glance into the fortress your mind was. If he’d peered past your ever-so-impenetrable, obscure eyes and seen the colours you later promised he spread through you, he would’ve wrapped himself around you. Hidden you away.

Whenever you decided to walk into the cottage in the mornings, breathing through noon, sometimes failing to remember the time and returning home by sundown – he should’ve kissed you all these moments he bid you goodbye.

And as years passed and your laughs echoed across the lake, or you stirred the pot in the kitchen, singing a gentle, enchanting tune as he chopped the vegetables. When you’d watch him watch you, talking about your days and nights, the moon and the stars.

Staring out at the lake for minutes and hours until you broke the comforting silence with, "I will never unlove this lake of yours. And this cottage. Like a pretty wreck at a shore. Sailor Kook."

He'd chuckle.

But he’d never touch you. Never push his too-transparent emotions onto you.

That is, until you began revealing your parents’ thoughts to him, growing by the day. Barely a year ago – when you were just twenty-four years old, like a tender bird, but already past the age of marriage. It was a desperate attempt to make him understand, as he knows now.

When you’d admit that they were bringing the feared talk to the table, and when his heart sunk to the ground of the lake that his cottage stood above – that’s when he knew he couldn’t veil what was truer than anything he’d ever known.

“They are determined,” you said most of the time, smiling, supposedly joyful. Your gaze drifted down to fix your dress as you basked in the previous summer, facing the sun. “To find me a proper man. One who’ll give me more than I could ever want.”

It was ridiculous to hear, since Jungkook, in his lovesick mind, had long convinced himself, more often than he cared to admit, that he could promise the same.

Sometimes he thought that you had, too. Because your voice quietened, though he couldn’t at all tell what you were thinking. Most of the time you were carefree, confident, almost whimsical. Almost because you concealed your thoughts. Almost because there was a mystery to you, always.

And you were kind. Kind, but so sly, too.

Focused on yourself more than anyone. Eloquent and so, so unbothered – more than he enjoyed, but something that drew him in either way. He saw you with your eyebrows all relaxed, and you, in turn, never saw the absolute terror spreading across Jungkook’s face.

The things you said cut him.

Deep enough for his heart to split open, releasing what he was always, consistently longing to say. The yearning in his voice was so pure and unfiltered that he knew you understood when he blurted—

“I’m in love with you.”

You looked up. “Jungkook.”

“I’m in love with you,” he hastily repeated. “You can’t let this happen.”

Jungkook knew he had to. You weren’t going to marry him — your parents would drag you away, make his life hell. He knew. He knew so well, but he had to try.

You tilted your head; your hair fell to the side, onto your legs as you looked up at him with hooded, hazy eyes. What were you thinking? What did this mean? Did you care at all?

He attempted again, “Do you want that to happen?”

You looked for a little longer. Then uprighted your body, hands in your lap, gaze straightforward to observe the blue, light waves. Then, you said, “No. But that’s how it is.”

“What do you want?”

“You know me too well. You should know this, too.”

The impatience grew. His hands twitched; he was urging to reach out for you, but he kept his hands to himself, getting a grip; but still, a quiet shaky voice pleaded, “But I need you to say it.”

He watched as you licked your lips, the tongue running along the seam. When your eyes met his, he swore he could hear the crack beneath his ribcage. He could already guess what you’d say before you did.

“I’ve always wanted you.” There was no reason to hurt. He should’ve cheered. But the context in which you spoke your confession was jarring; and your gaze told him what he needed to know. “But I can’t fight it. What do you want me to do?”

You wouldn’t allow yourself to break the way he did. He knew your upbringing wasn’t easy, that you had an incredibly hardened shell, and that you had learned to develop your power over others, so your attachment to them wouldn’t overpower you. 

But as love goes, he thought he was special. He always had. So he asked, “Does it not bother you at all?”

“If I…” you started, a hand sliding over to his fingers. You intertwined them with yours. “...Let it bother me, I will never grow out of how it feels.”

Jungkook’s chest tightened. He put a hand to his clavicle, rubbing, fingers slowly drifting to his heart to press against the white fabric. The thumps wouldn’t relax immediately, and he thought he needed much more than a moment to find the steady rhythm from before.

Then again, the consistent pendulum he was used to hearing during lonely nights unexceptionally escalated to much crazier chaos when you were around. So there was no helping him anyway.

But right now… he felt an uncomfortable flood of guilt.

Not because he was trying to drag you out of something you couldn’t escape. But because, in some way, he didn’t want you to grow out of how you felt for him.

He swore that your joy was what kept the time moving, and what, occasionally, froze it, too. But right now, as you sat next to him, pulling your legs to your body, he waited for you to catch the same lovesickness he had been suffering for so long.

Your poker face didn’t do. He needed you to break with him. To stay within this isolated room that inhabited nothing but the two of you, filled with the scent of longing and sorrow.

It was a thoroughly selfish thought; that you weren’t supposed to be happy if that contentment didn’t include him.

So he insisted, “You’ll have to try. To get out of this.” He turned properly to look at you, freeing his fingers from your grip to catch your wrist instead. You breathed in sharply, eyes flashing down to his knuckles. They remained as if locked as he whispered, “I don’t know how to possibly lose you.”

Whatever he was expecting from you, you weren’t going to budge. Not in your decision, at least — he knew that, no matter your feelings for him, you wouldn’t risk any additional drama for him. You weren’t going to fight.

“We’d have to live with it,” you said.

The grip tightened.

“And become all weak without the love we really want,” he argued, “no… love is stronger than grief. I’d rather fight than see you in everything for the rest of my life.”

Love is stronger than grief…

There was no possible description for the way your expression changed, but Jungkook was so convinced, so sure that he saw your eyes widen for the briefest bit. A flash of a flicker, he thought he saw; an epiphany that lasted a heartbeat. It was gone the second he blinked again.

You had to have understood. You played the biggest role in this game; he needed you on his side. If you were going to stick with him, he needed you to understand the depths of his feelings. And he needed that epiphany, so you could help him make this damn love prevail.

“I love you,” he then added, the words barely more than a gentle whisper. You gulped. “If you don’t, then you can do as you please. But if any part of you knows otherwise, then…”

He would’ve surely missed your sigh if the lake and the wind hadn’t been so still, as if holding their breath in his stead. Because his heart beat like an arhythmic drum, its pounding led and manipulated by your pondering eyes and your barely moving chest.

But the quiet release of the quick breath, and the transparency in your gaze when you eventually decided to meet his hankering orbs, were an answer clear enough to him. You could play your part well, veil the hunger in a way he never could; but even you weren’t made of steel.

You were bound to crack one day.

And when you did, a burst of something unnamable, so distinctive, brought Jungkook to his feet. His body jumped up of its own accord, hands moving by a stranger force, though entirely and perfectly synched with his soul nevertheless.

Nothing had ever felt this right.

The doubts dwindled. Even if just for the moments that his lips met yours, he was certain that your movements against his mouth and your fingers gently grazing his waist would suffice.

Out there, he thought, the world was transforming into a better one, a different reality; one where the lake still stood, the house resting atop of it, but the hurdles nonexistent. In this alternative to whatever he might face later, you were to stay.

Of course he hoped. You were kissing him back with unspoken confessions. You let him throw you onto the unmade bed. Let him peck your neck; like soft butterfly wings caressing your skin. Down your clavicles, pausing at your cleavage.

Determined fingers pulled down your sleeves, his tongue lapping and licking and tasting. His fingertips wandered between your legs, testing the waters, meeting a waterfall; his body sought your touch as it moved to the top, floating over yours.

Jungkook remembers the impatience best. Whenever the memories of you flood back, this is one of the statements of love he recalls easiest. The urgency. The flaming heart. How he rocked against you, all dressed still, trying to find relief just like that as his fingers drew out every whine with the fabric never gone.

And he didn’t stop until you mewled into his mouth.

Your heavy breathing prevented the words you attempted to form, but when he started plucking at the hem of your panties to remove them once and for all, your senses came back to life. Your hands rushed to his wrist, holding him back.

He still knows how you looked at him, knitted eyebrows, mouth agape, eyelids fluttering as you delivered a simple headshake and crushed him inside out. “This shouldn’t be,” you said, “if I end up with a child, it’ll ruin both of us. They’ll kill you.”

Jungkook didn’t care. And now, he wished they would. But he listened.

If he’d continued, he’d have ruined his worth entirely. There was no deserving you if he didn’t allow you the freedom. He tried to convince you otherwise.

He tried for so long. For a year, he waited for the drama to blow over. For him and you to ultimately realise that anything else would not make sense, and for you to admit just that.

But you didn’t. All you did was succumb to his kisses again. The fingers stayed diligent, the touches didn’t cease. He’d seek your skin, pull you in. Replaced what you longed for with his mouth instead.

Between laughter and passion, the sun rose and set, and Jungkook was content for now. The jokes you returned to and how you tilted your head when you looked at him; how you warned him of nightly strolls to find you in town or to find relief in the lake under the moonlight.

“There are creatures in the woods and in the water, I’ve heard,” you’d regularly repeat, joking, “If I can’t have you, they shouldn’t either.” He’d laugh.

Nothing you ever said brought him off his path to you. Perhaps, Jungkook reckons, it didn’t help with the amount of hope he harboured that you never much spoke of your parents at all after that one conversation a year before.

And he kept praying. Begging. That, along with you, they’d, too, recognise that their daughter already knew what true love meant. That it overshadowed success and reputation.

But.

Then you distanced yourself. Visited him more sporadically. When he was alone, he’d pace the rooms, fingers in the nape of his neck, eyes wandering out the window and along the shore. And when you did visit, you wouldn’t let him touch you again. Your lips were a line too thin for him to not worry.

“Hi—” he tried, but you only sighed.

You had to have arrived while he was gone in the forest. He hadn’t met you on the way; he was uncertain how he’d missed you, considering that sounds travel far when one’s mostly alone out there. But he couldn’t bother to think about it for too long.

Because as you leaned against the wall of his bedroom, looking up when he walked in, you declared the truth without sugarcoating it. Not even for his sake.

“I’m going to stop meeting you.”

Jungkook blinked; his heart dropped to his stomach. Arms suddenly limp and legs weak, he tried his best to speak, but the thick knot in his throat was a hurdle to the word trying to fall out.

He tried a sound; then a syllable. Eventually, a question, “What?”

You were as placid as he certainly wasn’t, answering, “I’ll be marrying Son Hayoon.”

Jungkook knew this guy, he thought, from his few strolls in town. His name wasn’t unknown — but Jungkook couldn’t quite conjure up a face at the moment. Like a stranger; that’s how it felt to him. What he did know was that the man was nowhere near anybody who could make you happy.

Not your type. Not your age. Not your satisfaction.

You were permitting your family to drown you.

Disbelief spread across his countenance; and your expression was impossible to crack.

He asked again, “What are you saying?”

You pushed yourself off the wall, a hand coming out of your crossed arms to rub your forehead. Then, you shrugged a shoulder, no filter, no comforting, “Jungkook… did you really — I don’t know, did you think we were going to talk each other into existence just by loving each other?”

“I thought we co–could fight—”

“Jungkook,” you reiterated, “this is beyond our control.”

“No.”

No stopping it — this time, he spoke before he could think. You sighed, averting his gaze when he crossed the room in two strides.

He reached for your hand resting on your chin, but you were reluctant. Licking his lips, he inched closer, telling you, “No. We can leave, just go somewhere else. We don’t need them, and you know you never have. We just need—”

You pulled your hand away. Small movement… but effective. Catastrophic, rather.

For another second, he only stared; and then, he tried again—

“Please.”

Your eyes flickered; but they weren’t as uncertain as his. In some sense, the sentiment behind them even looked like… pity. Jungkook hated it. Needed this to be over.

Was there any attempt left? He had to try.

He stepped closer, desperate enough to ignore the warning in your posture. His hand found your cheek, thumb trembling against your skin. Just once, terrified of an actual answer, he said, “Just tell me you don’t love me anymore.”

But the silence stretched — and that made matters worse. It held on for too long, enough for hope to surge through him. So he leaned in.

Maybe, he thought, if he kissed you, you’d remember. Maybe a touch would help you realise that there was no truly comforting future outside these walls.

He closed the distance, eyes falling shut; his lips barely brushed yours. And when you turned your head, he thought you were ready for him — but your intentions didn’t lie in reciprocation.

The movement wasn’t harsh or angry or too sudden. Almost gentle, even. Which somehow worsened the pain.

The kiss landed at the corner of your mouth and died there. Jungkook was frozen, something in him cracking badly — not yet all at once, not like a glass falling to smithereens. But rather quietly, patiently, like a slow death.

“Don’t do this,” he voiced. What else could he do now? Nothing was left.

But… but you had already done it, right? Because you stepped back. Once, twice, further away. When you neared the door, Jungkook didn't think there had ever been such a space between the two of you.

Yet it kept growing. And for the first time since Jungkook had known you, he realised that love wasn’t always a definite, final emotion human beings could grasp. For him, it was something present yet still lost.

You stopped at the door, a hand on the frame. You restated, like a cruel reminder, “It is just. Beyond our control.”

No. It isn’t.

He remembers wanting to say it; remembers this clawing at his throat.

Nothing had ever been out of his or your control ever before — not any storm. Not the winters cooling the lake. Not the endless expectations of a village too small to dream in.

But you were still surrendering so quickly.

Nothing was ever out of his control but you. You slipped through his fingers, moving off the ground and out of the forest without certain and clear heartbreak in your eyes. You didn’t look as torn apart as he felt… but rather, resigned.

You had already chosen your future, and you’d only come to inform him. 

He remembers staring at the empty doorway long after you’d left. Waiting for you to come back, to realise your mistake… but you didn’t.

You didn’t.

The house and the doorway dissolve. A sound cuts through the memory of the past.

The soft sloshing and gurgling sound of the water stirs his chest. It’s not the usual lapping of the waves as they hit the near shore, but an intentional ripple, caused by a close existence rather than the breeze or nature.

It’s sudden. This is Jungkook’s quiet and unmoving oasis. The fish can’t be heard, and even the birds save from some hooting owls deep in the nights are silent. But the moon hasn’t yet fully emerged. And remaining animals do not often end their days here except for thirsty ravens, perhaps.

So when he snaps his head around to the point of near-whiplash, he isn’t hunting for a danger in the wild, but for an intruder. But, as his eyes soon detect, the only other presence lingering turns out to be both.

A breath falls out of Jungkook’s gaping mouth, almost akin to a surprised, accidental sound as he detects a face with the backdrop of nothing but the dark green forest. Your name follows as a whisper.

Your countenance emerges where emptiness greeted him before; he doesn’t understand where the line blurs – where his dreams end and reality begins. Because your features are one with the air around you, blurred by the thin fog.

You appear like a memory to him, a fairy tale nymph silently waiting to be found.

And for a moment, he’s sure he’s just seeing things. You aren’t here, not the way you used to be, the way he wants you to be. You never will be again because you swatted away the chances life threw at you so quickly, so lightly.

Jungkook might never truly learn which part of your cryptic, impenetrable heart he ever inhabited, but the ease with which your eyes and sounds vanished from this very place, and with that from his surroundings, has haunted him ever since.

Not the words you uttered and the steadiness, the certainty in your movements, in your articulations. But how effortless the separation seemed to you.

So of course, there is no way to fathom this very sight.

Your parted, tinted lips. The already soaked hair, brushed back, floating in the water. Your shoulders are bare, much like his, and you’re still, as if standing on an invisible pedestal in the clearly deep water.

The picture is odd, somewhat eerie. You’re not closing in; not swimming off and away either. You are half turned to him, looking at him, and he does not know why.

For a second, he doesn’t utter a word. His body moves of its own accord, small strokes to reach you, hesitant. But when your body breaks the waves his swimming sends towards you, his doubts evaporate, and for now, he trusts his sanity.

Another exhale of your name topples out of him, and finally, you sigh. He can’t see your chest or generally most of your evidently naked body, but you inhale the evening through your nose, eyebrows twitching an inch.

That sigh of yours is ominous, too magnificent to not scare him. Something’s severely unnatural about you. Or about the situation.

He backs away just a little, as if your touch could burn his nervous system and turn his heart into a piece of coal. It’s already damaged goods, barely keeping itself pumping.

Jungkook is about to repeat your name as if to ensure that you’re not a hallucination as feared, but you speak first. Unsure, reluctant for the merest heartbeat, you blink, gaze wandering to the forest and then back to him.

You say, “I was going to leave.”

Jungkook blinks like a lost puppy. 

“…What?”

“I was going to leave before you saw me,” you repeat, like a matter of fact; like a continuation of a past conversation, “I forgot how quiet it gets here.”

Jungkook furrows his eyebrows. His body is ridden with goosebumps, only partly due to the chilly brisk now. It’s still too warm for him to be freezing like this. You are emanating something you shouldn’t—

“What are you doing here?” is the first thing he acquires. Croaks. He hasn’t used his voice in so long.

He wants to ask whether you are really here. But he knows, too. Knows that he couldn’t fabricate such perfection, even though he remembers most of your body. Inches of your skin. You are you in all your glory, only when you are truly here.

No way to make all this up; his mind doesn’t have the capacity anymore to function that way.

You smile. You’re nearing him now, fully turned towards him. As always, he can’t quite detect true pain behind your gape, not the kind he’s become used to feeling. The one he’s sure his treacherous, dark eyes are so obviously revealing right now.

The minute insecurity you moved with just a while earlier, facing away from him, is gone now. You might not have noticed him detecting that minor change, but he knows something isn’t right. Whatever reason almost urged you to silently depart again must have been weak, too easy to diminish.

Odd, to go through such efforts to disregard your clothing and to jump into these cold waters, just to want to back away again. Just to come back now. You seem sure about your approach as the distance closes, and the way you look at him – that barely open mouth of yours – clouds his mind.

“Jungkook,” is all you whisper as the gap disappears.

You’re daring in a nearly callous way, a hand coming up and out of the water slowly; like a haunted ship’s mast slowly materialising above the surface, the sinking sun darkening the sky.

Your fingers move as smoothly as the waves, dancing up to his sun-burnt shoulder. But you don’t touch him with the force he’s wanted you for years. A hint of a space still remains between his skin and yours; he doesn’t dare look down.

Your body doesn’t meet his. Still, the wet, soft tips of your digits drift down his shoulder and to his bicep, and as you lure dangerously close to his hand, his limbs still moving to keep him from drowning, he pulls away again.

His legs push the water off, feet between him and you again, and he inquires, “What do you want?”

His voice is supposed to be stronger now, to let the hurt and fury seep through, but instead, it’s meek. He tries again, “What do you want from me? You can’t leave and return… and leave and return. You’re…”

Saying that he’s never thought about you coming back would be a colossal lie. There were a dozen scenarios he drew and built in his brain, and the vexation mixed with the everlasting ache would always yield these results.

He’d ask what you were doing here. Reprimand you for turning him into your toy. And he’d… he’d stutter less, but he’d remind you just as much as himself—

“You’re married.”

He pushes out an exhale when you try to reach out again but halt mid-attempt. His chest hurts under the water, his neck hot. He can’t help the growing panic, because whichever intention you came to him with, he knows you’ll leave again – the place empty and him in shambles.

“You are married,” he repeats.

Perhaps because he’s hoping for you to deny it. To correct him about the status he saw you accept from afar with his own dim eyes. Maybe you didn’t go through with it after all; maybe you rejected the stranger once he locked the doors of your chambers.

But it’s been long enough, and the ceremony lasted from beginning to end. The marches on the streets were grand and the bond you never wanted was certainly established. The rituals commenced. You left. It looked real.

So of course he should’ve anticipated the sting when you say, “I know… I know.”

“Then why are you here?”

You have made up your mind. Thought it through. Maybe not cleverly, but you have. Your answer is immediate, “I needed to see you. Be with you just once.”

You must be joking. Must have stolen your lines from a book you read. There is no reality in which you yearn enough to fight for him. Even if just for a moment with him.

Beyond our control.

“Be with me just once?” Jungkook shakes his head, feet moving to swim off eventually. His body is going numb; he can’t hold himself afloat anymore. And your eyes are fogging his thoughts. “I asked you to be with me forever,” he says, turning, “If you think you can reject me and come back whenever it suits you…”

“I do not.”

“I’m just a person, too.”

A hand grazes his shoulder from behind; he’s able to pick up on enough pace to dodge it. But… there’s a spark to your touch. However fleeting, the sharp prick feels as though you’re reaching out with claws.

“Jungkook,” you call out once more, your voice deeper, more impatient; he’s never heard you speak like this before. “Jungkook, listen to me at least.”

He doesn’t.

There’s a gravitational pull, your voice leading him to you, but with all it takes, he fights your appeal until he reaches the shore. Up until now, you were trying to catch up, but when his made up mind expands the distance and his wobbly legs carry him to land, you come to a pause.

His body almost gives in. He readies himself for the fall, affected by not only the duration he spent in the water, but by your mere presence watching him strut away. His hands are ready to catch him, but he regains balance just as the water falls out of reach and the balls of his feet dig into the small patch of sand that the clearing offers as a rarity.

Jungkook’s clothes are draped over a low branch of a thick tree, right where the sand ends and sparse grass begins; every piece of it.

In this tumult, he didn’t think of the intimate sight he’s unintentionally offering to you: exposed skin from head to toe. Such an outcome was rooted in other intentions before. Deliberate. 

Only hurts more to think about now.

But he doesn’t care. No, he cannot care. And he genuinely wouldn’t if you weren’t in the exact same state.

His eyes stay glued to the tree trunk, never panning to you. His body, no longer buoyed by the water, suddenly feels unbearably heavy; and by the time his clothes are close enough to grasp, he’s already fallen to his knees. He turns, his back meeting the rough tree.

He’s not concerned with what crawls up his skin or about the splinters the wood might punish him with. He needs to breathe.

The towel underneath offers at least some comfort, and he remembers to drag his shirt over the parts that aren’t yours to look at anymore.

There’s no time or mind for anything else. Your existence at this very clearing makes him want to throw up. He needs to focus on heaving his chest. On pulling in the crisp oxygen that the forest so generously provides.

But you don’t disappear. The illusion stays, still surrounded by a fairy tale mist that dips you in something utterly surreal.

Your form surfaces the way he did, as naked as he is. You’re a blurry figure; his vision quivers like his limbs. The elegance and beauty with which you walk aren't new to him, but they are taunting him in a manner he has never perceived before.

And once you tower above him, looking down soon enough and your chest as calm as his isn’t, he knows he’s doomed.

There’s only so long that he can keep denying you.

You kneel. Pulling your legs in, you wrap your arms around them tightly; concealing the parts of you he always craved. Even now, a carnal desire grows within, but it is so promptly and swiftly overshadowed by the pain you cause him.

The lack of readiness to stay. The urge to bid him goodbye one more time. The entirely missing fabric covering your skin, adding to your mock.

He sees your willingness to love him one last time and cut him into pieces so clearly. You do not understand what you do to him, how this final meeting severs his heart.

Or maybe you do but cannot find it in you to care.

Everything you’re doing might mean something. All of this exists to scramble his mind and hurt him further.

Your intentions have never been simple to decode, so he asks, “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

You’re right. Doing what, anyway? Why is he so dizzy, so… so out of it? And why does the world, turning too fast up until now, suddenly stop spinning when you put a hand to his chin, lifting his head to… to do what?

It’s like you’re examining him.

Then, you whisper, “I… can’t stand him.”

Is that why you’re here? Because he could’ve figured this out himself, effortlessly too. Your face is too close now, nipples barely a hand-width from his chest when he breathes, “I… I know. I always knew.”

“I hate him,” you emphasise, “I hate how he talks to me. How he looks at me. And…” Your eyes wander down, along Jungkook’s body, pupils moving over the shirt and then back to your hand on his chin, “And I despise how he touches me. How he claims me.”

Jungkook will throw up. His chest is on fire.

He can feel the agony growing with every second and every syllable. It’s not like he hasn’t thought about it either. But hearing you say it, confirm it, shatters him.

How he claims me.

“What is he…” Jungkook starts but then stops again. Even if there was something happening behind closed doors that he’d like to resolve, you won’t let him.

That’s always been the entire point. You do not want to fight for this.

“Nothing forceful. But also nothing I didn’t expect,” you say, “I hate how he reminds me what I had.”

Jungkook shakes his head and your finger off in the process. You curl it in, your hand a fist now. He says, “I told you so many times. It’s too late.”

“It’s… it’s not.”

You always say whatever you want so blatantly. No regard for this human heart of his. What are you made of?

Jungkook’s limbs resemble the liquid water when you’re near; he can’t move or avert his gaze, can’t send you off with actual, true conviction in his words. It’s always been like this: him melting into the ground or the sheets or the fabric of his bed; and you stand tall, a brightly lit candle incinerating him.

Yet, he can’t help but let the fury spread in his chest. It’s scorching hot, and your weak, tentative smile fuels it further. Your words and your expressions — none of it help him calm the riot. Instead, his nostrils flare. A scream climbs up his throat.

But he doesn’t yell at you. Not even when you add a whispered, “I’m sorry. But it’s not. I just…”

You don’t finish your sentence and he doesn’t urge you to. No matter what you say, there’ll be nothing but torment ahead. Your Sorries are a habit, but only half-sincere, and after stomping on a fragile heart, you do not get to apologise anymore.

Jungkook shakes his head again, finally able to look away as if your eyes had his gape trapped before. A tongue darts out to lick his lower lip wet, and you, observing his every subtle touch, place a gentle thumb to the corner of his mouth, ghosting over the plushness before he dodges.

You push yourself up a little, some dirt on your legs. The lower parts that your pulled-in limbs hid so far are on full display again, and Jungkook tries, really, truly tries not to stare. But you’re not having any of it.

You’re not standing to leave. You’re still half-crouching, and soon, too sudden, dragging your left leg over to his right hip, straddling him with nothing between him and you but the thin piece of pathetic clothing.

The gasp he breathes is immediate and unintentional. Even if he tried to push you away now, you’d look through him instantly. His mind wants to fight you, but his body can’t. There are multiple ways he’s always belonged to you, and his entire being always revealed as much.

And still…

That smile. The pleading eyes. Your damn touch on his neck.

He gulps hard, hands rushing up to your waist. Softly, he tries to shove you off of him, but not really. It’s too much of an easy play for you, having him like this. And when you grip his face, it costs him an amount of energy that he certainly does not possess. Not anymore.

The escape out of your grip is tough, and the word he utters is feeble, “Don’t.”

But you insist. “Just this once.” Nothing but whispers, even at such an empty place where nobody listens but the water, the birds and the moon. “I need you just once. Properly.”

He’s lightheaded. Again. His words are mumbled; he thinks that if he was you, he wouldn’t quite believe himself either, “I’m not a puppet. I have… I’ve got real feelings. Unlike you.”

A smidge of pride blooms in him. He didn’t think he’d pull off such a confession, but you seem visibly startled. Somewhat irritated. He could never guess as much if he focused on your eyes only, but the slightly clenched jaw is… telling. New.

“You really think that?” you ask, still patient but… something still off. He doesn’t understand the approaching temper in your voice. You left him. “That I have no real feelings? That’s what you think?”

“I tried to love you,” Jungkook attempts, repeatedly swallowing the dry lump. “To help you see how I loved you and how you loved me. What we could’ve been if you’d let us.”

“Back then… Love wasn’t enough, Jungkook.”

Jungkook smirks. A hollow, sarcastic smirk.

His body feels drugged, but he keeps himself upright. Perhaps his emotions have reached a point that exhausts him inside out, and he’s lost the capability to face you by now.

White flag, must be.

He repeats, one eyebrow cocked, “Love wasn’t enough?”

“Mh-mh,” you voice, a slight shake of your head. “I disagree, you know. Love might make people stronger than grief can, but it isn’t truly stronger itself. And love and grief fulfill different purposes.” He looks up at you; your head is tilted, your lips a gorgeous curve. Prettier when you speak. “When we break, we love harder. We can use that love.”

Use that love…

So you had to grieve to understand that you wanted him. Grow weak to want to return to strength.

But he presented the idea of loving enough to fight through obstacles over and over again; it’s too late now.

He clicks his tongue and wonders, “You want to use it now that… that we’ve become impossible? What about him?”

“I will find a way.”

“Empty promises.”

“No,” you vow, harsher this time. “Never empty.”

Your grip on his jaw is strong; he’s not used to you grabbing him like this. Your face draws in, and as your upper body leans forward, your lower half moves, too. Grinds on him. Or at least, touches along just the length that he tried to hide under the shirt.

His fingers dig deeper into your waist. You sigh, and he knows exactly what this means. He can distinguish your breaths, can interpret your sounds. You’re not frustrated anymore, not tired like he is. You are pleased.

Because he’s growing; fuller and harder by the second.

“No,” he tries, “this might end horribly. If you end up… with…” His hands grip your shoulders, but he isn’t really pushing. Not lifting you off of him. “They will kill you and me both.”

Your smile widens, as if you’ve thought it all out; as if you’ve come here with a plan that presumably profits nobody but you. And Jungkook already knows he doesn’t want, doesn’t need to hear it before you say it, “They can’t. Even if… they’ll just think it’s his.”

No. No, no, no.

Have you hiked up all the way to this place to use him as a rebound? All the promises you’re forming right now, are they in vain, to offer some fleeting relief?

I will find a way.

You won’t.

“That’s not enough for me,” Jungkook mouths, his words stuck at the back of his tongue, hushed, “it means… you’re not truly trying to call him off. You’ll go back and find an excuse. Not to leave him, but me.”

“I only gave an answer to your statement, Jungkook,” you defend, coating your words in honey, “truth is: I’m ready to die for this one moment alone. Aren’t you?”

“No… no—”

“Please. Even if you don’t have it in you to fight anymore…” You lean in further, your nipples touching his chest. You keep grinding. “Just this once. Give me one, just one more night.”

His shirt slides off his lap just a little but not enough; not in the way Jungkook inwardly hopes, just so he can blame the lust multiplying on anything but himself. Despite everything — the anger, the disappointment, the approaching, everlasting pain — he wishes he could feel you better.

Just like you are perceiving the constant twitches below. No hiding it.

And then, you take it a step further, sending a shiver down his spine, cold under his burning skin, “You can do whatever you want with me.”

His chest and stomach stir. His body feels heavy, your touch razorsharp. “What?”

“Whatever you want,” you reiterate, “I want you to. I need you to.”

Your breath shakes as you shift back again, all along the line of his stiffening cock, the shirt moving off more. You can already see the V-line when you glance down, and if you weren’t sitting on your throne the way you are, his entire shaft would jump out beneath the clothing.

It doesn’t. Instead, it stays trapped under you, blue and aching and never reversed to its previous state; even less when you repeat yet again—

“Anything… anything you want.”

The control diminishes; and despite all his attempts, Jungkook snaps.

His hisses echo, curses fall. He closes his eyes, his nails bruising your skin; he gives you one last chance to retreat, though he knows he’s long lost.

“Stop it,” he nearly growls through gritted teeth. His chest constricts, not enough air provided in this world, as if the lake water is bending on its own will and filling his lungs. He’s already drowning. “Stop it.”

You evaluate the tone, quietly bearing the sting emerging in your sides where his nails scrape your skin. Jungkook knows you’re waiting for him to change his stance and crawl back to you; head in your neck, lips parted, you’re anticipating him to crumble in your grip.

He’d know even if he wasn’t keeping his focus so intently fixed on your every movement.

You are personified torture, a murder weapon when you verify, “Are you sure?”

If he had an ounce of strength left, he’d attempt a lie. You’d look through it anyway; Jungkook is as transparent as glass. Predictable. So he whispers, “No. But stop.”

And this time, you do. With ease, too.

You do not hesitate on his lap, do not tempt him further. He knows why. He knows that you know, too. Because the moment you upright yourself, muttering an, “Alright,” your voice betrays you — you’re cunning.

And you understand that you have him wrapped around your fingers.

Before he’s capable of reacting to your tactics and retrieving his armour, he’s long succumbed to his own wants. Acting before thinking. You have never allowed anything other than this order.

The mutter dies under his breath, soon a whisper compared to his groan and with a single, quick tug, he’s pulled you back to where you were. The grip around your arm is minimally less harsh than around your waist, but jarring nevertheless.

But you don’t seem to mind a bit. You don’t yell out in pain; but you gasp in surprise. The sight is one to behold, even for Jungkook. The moment plays out in slow motion, split into nanoseconds. 

The way your body twists and starts falling onto his; his immediate intuition bringing his hand to the shirt covering him and removing it before you’re settled back into his lap; and your chest crashing against his when he lets you go, fingers hovering up to your neck to meet your lips.

You let out a tiny mewl; he breathes into your mouth. The effect from the blasphemous skin-to-skin contact unfolds instantly. You’re already gliding along his cock; and he is already at nearly full growth underneath.

Just like before, the jerks of his sensitive muscle are constant; he wonders whether he might burst before he’s felt you all the way through. Stuffed every free inch of yours. The aggression your lips meet him with are certainly relentless, no help in softening the situation in any way.

Because your body stays in motion, a back and forth of your hips numbing his limbs, and you try to grab a piece of him – his long hair, his arms, his back – to hold onto. He has you pressed against him; you won’t escape either way. But you move as if you fear you might.

Your tongue is hot, diligent, skilled as it mingles with his. Jungkook knows these very touches, but his mind is playing tricks on him. Have they changed, even if just a little? Did you have time to aim for higher satisfaction, to find a pace to make him remember your taste better?

The thought squeezes his heart like a heavy hand, but he wipes it off his mind, focusing on what he might only be able to linger in for a couple more moments. Who knows? Who knows when the mist might return…

The passion needs to remain. How you open your mouth and whimper into his. Tongue playing around, pulling at his lips. He backs away, his head sinking to your jaw, then to your hot neck for only a second.

You moan so lasciviously that he nearly skips the stage of teases and games, jumping straight to lifting you off his lap and then slamming you back onto it and his raging, towering cock.

But instead he listens. Hears you whisper his name in fragments.

“Ju—koo–” and “Ngh–kook—”

He runs the wet tip along a vein before his head turns to the other side and kisses you again. A hand slides south to your ass, at first merely a featherlight touch, but soon landing on the flash with a force; and he won’t let your mouth go. You’re fighting for breath, panting, squeaking into the kiss.

Jungkook has woken up from these images. Fairy tales and nightmares. He doesn’t know what this is either; the start of something gorgeous, sinful; the end of something that once was.

He doesn’t know. And this very level of uncertainty makes him want to devour you. To remember this. To move his fingertips with intent.

When your lungs constrict and Jungkook’s face heats up, you back off, your lips and your chin wet. He must be drooling, too, he thinks; a sight like his, you here as the goddess — the beautiful monster — you’ve always been, is bedazzling.

You glide back a couple inches until you can see the length standing against his belly. You grimace, your mouth moving, cheeks hollow until he realises what you’re doing: A blob of spit falls onto his dick, and you reach out quickly to spread it over the head.

Your thumb runs over the slit, collecting the precum, and then you move your fist down the shaft, up again. You’re basking in this, he’s sure; in the way he throws his head against the trunk, eyes closing, a low timbre vibrating in his throat.

The call of your name is so feeble, so enticing that your hand twists more, a little faster, your pinky delivering the lightest touch to his balls.

“Mmmh—god—” Jungkook proclaims, shoving your hand off of him, “I will… lose it before I can even–even start.”

He thinks you’re about to argue with him, but he pushes your body back gently, forcing your palms behind you to press against his shins and keep yourself from falling back.

For a moment, he only takes your beauty in. You straddling him, your legs spread, your pussy lips apart. Wet, so close to the head of his cock — he could just… just glide into you like nothing—

No.

Instead, he brings a hand to your stomach, caressing his way down until the pad of his forefinger carefully dips between your folds and runs along the slit. His breath hitches at the drenched sensation; he can’t help but laugh.

“Yes?” you only whimper.

“Not a single dry spot,” Jungkook lets you know, demonstrating it by pushing in the middle finger as if you didn’t know, “see? So easy.”

You whine, moaning out. Your voice is higher, more desperate when he pumps the digit into you, moving it, curling it, massaging a rough spot until your hips wind atop of him. And then another finger joins in, though he doesn’t think you need the help at all.

But god… fuck, those expressions of yours. The knitted eyebrows, the shivering lower lip, the hands holding onto his legs for dear life.

Fuck. 

Jungkook gulps. Admits, “I’ve been dreaming of this.”

Your eyelids flutter open; you shake your head. “You… never needed to.”

“I did. I absolutely did.” He places a hand under your ear, too gentle for his mad endeavours, pulling you once again flush against him, though the fingers still inside. “Come here.”

The reminder to keep you in his grip tonight only resurfaces when you try to move away, attempting to slither down his body until you reach his chest, and he puts you back in place, face to face. The touch on your cheek suddenly shifts to your neck, your eyes a fraction wider.

He doesn’t push or press, but his pupils darken, telling enough as he matches the shade with his words, “I thought I was doing whatever I wanted to tonight?”

You swallow hard, nodding. But you’re not nervous or taken aback; in fact, you flash a satisfied smile, prepared for what he’s willing to provide. Your eyes roll down, attempting to catch a glance of where you see him waiting under you and you ask, “May I?”

You let go of his legs, urging your way through the tight space between your bodies to skim the skin above the V-line and draw lines on his stomach. He understands that you’re not yet again trying to dive down again — frankly, he’s too impatient for it, no matter how welcoming the thought of your luscious lips around his cock.

And he can’t finish the night already; and the sight of you eating him up would certainly lead to just that.

But no — you’re hinting at something else. You’ve had enough of sitting on a bulge, too. You’re craving nothing different than him. And while his feral desires grow, pictures of you pinned under him flashing and re-flashing, he permits you to handle this once.

He removes his fingers from you, wiping the juices along your thigh.

Then, he says, “Do it.”

His voice is rough, worn out. Aside from the conversation, if he could ever call it that, he’s so far had with you, he probably hasn’t spoken a word in days. Combining the silence with the hot feeling of your skin under his fingers, the strain in his words only grows.

Jungkook waits and watches, further leaning back against the fissured tree. His back will be thoroughly scratched and scarred, but the adrenaline won’t allow him to care just yet.

Heart racing a hundred miles a minute, he lifts his chest, keeping it in place for a second when you align his leaking tip with your pussy. You rub it between your folds, and he can clearly feel your readiness; there really is no need for further preparation. You’re teasing him.

A jerk of his hip signals you to hurry, and you throw a quick glance, a familiar smirk rendering him useless for the merest moments before he starts, “Enou—”

But you’re already a step ahead. With a deep breath in, you sink until more and more of him disappears, and soon, it’s all gone. Your pelvis hits his, your mouth open, jaw sharp as you clench it, much like him.

And then… then you stop moving.

“What?” Jungkook wonders, hands already on your waist to move you up himself.

But you catch his wrist in time, somewhat unstable as you sway, yet tell him, “Wait. Just for a minute.”

“Why?”

“Just to… to really feel each other,” you argue, licking your lips.

As your hazy eyes stare up to find his wanting glance, he swears your pupils emit a very brief and very sudden burst of light. Green. Soon gone. Made up, possibly.

“Why rush?” you wonder, another dangerous tilt of your head. “Just because I surrendered like that,” a sharp fingernail scratches across his sculpted chest, “it doesn’t mean we should just forget to truly take it all in.”

Jungkook draws in some air, urging for more but helpless in the wake of your touches. This isn’t what he intended. You told him to demolish you; yet, he can’t seem to move.

But you do. Even if just a little.

A tiny inch forward, slipping out minimally, and then back where you were; with him deep inside, his balls to your ass, your hands on his cheeks now.

“How do you feel?” you query. The amusement in your voice is unmistakable.

It’s the first thing in a while that has truly felt good, Jungkook thinks. The pain starts with you and it ends with you. You know that as much as him. And your question isn’t just this; you’re not solely interested in how he perceives your body and the sins committed with it.

You’re talking about your presence. About you eliminating a thought after another. The audacity is unmatched; you’re not really here to heal him at all.

“You don’t get to ask me,” Jungkook mutters quietly, his words one with the breeze, “you don’t fucking get to ask me after doing this to me.”

“Doing this to you…”

“Don’t play stupid. Really.”

You quiet down for a moment, tugging at the hair behind his ear. You follow a strand of it down to where it ends at his shoulder. You draw circles there then, so close that he could capture your lips with ease. But he needs you to talk sense into this situation, even if it might go over his head with you wrapped around him like this.

You speak as gently as him when you answer, “It wasn’t my intention. I just knew fighting would do… nothing.”

Jungkook hisses and grunts when you roll your hips. A voice pleads for him to lift you and slam you back onto him, to jackhammer into you until you slur your words. But somehow, he’s still trapped.

He’s your slave entirely.

“Really?” he asks between gritted teeth. “Because you’re here now.”

“Because… I dream of you, too.”

“Did you not before?” The tone starts to slip into fragments of frustration, much to Jungkook’s misery, but he can’t help himself a bit. Instead, he gives into the emotion bubbling in his stomach, a large hand landing on the flesh of your ass again as he urges, “Tell me.”

You mewl at the sharpness, your skin burning. The slap forces your body into motion and Jungkook, using the moment, delivers one reckless thrust up. You whine.

“Tell me,” he forces again, his body coming back to life, “it was hard to care, wasn’t it?”

He holds your ass and you in place as he fucks into you once more. Harder this time, staying fully emerged a little longer and then backing out almost entirely again. Covered in a sheen, his cock remains like this for a moment, and when nothing but panting bursts out of you, he pushes back in, no mercy.

This time, he keeps a pace. Enough of your nonsense.

“I— I did,” you tell him, grabbing his face to seek his lips. You find his tongue soon after, but do not, cannot kiss him properly; nothing but licking and playing, a whisper against his mouth, “You know how I felt for you.”

You plant your feet in the grass as he impels you from below, your watery eyes closing when you moan and whimper against his face. His cheek, his jaw, his temple. Jungkook is out of breath, but not ready to give this discussion up yet.

Anger up there, revenge below.

He says, “I didn’t. I don’t.”

The pace slows. Pressure builds in his balls and cock; Jungkook cannot end it yet.

Slow down… slow down.

You let out huffs as if to thank him and complain at once. This was just what you wanted; and he so readily, so easily gave in. Not that he didn’t crave each part of you, not that it didn’t almost kill him to not touch you.

But… but what will this result in? Are you allowing just a touch, a taste? Or handing out your heart, too?

You hug him close, arms wrapping around him, your chest moving against his. You play with the mane at the back of his neck; when you speak, goosebumps appear on his skin again, “You do, Kook. If you think about it carefully… you’ll know.”

He shakes his head. He has thought about every word a million times. No conclusion. None that didn’t hurt.

“In my eyes,” he explains, an arm slinging around you, “you played with me. You came and left and— and gave me hope, and then you stopped fighting. And…” His mouth sinks to your shoulder, teeth scraping your skin, digging in just lightly. “Now you… you’re back because it suits you. No?”

You lean back. Look at him. Intently, carefully — as if to confirm his theory. But then you move your head to a certain No. Assure that, “I want you. I’ve always wanted you.”

Your hands reach behind you, lower and lower until the tips of your digits brush his balls. A sound falls out of his chest. You upright yourself, shoving your chest in his face, nipples an inch from his mouth.

“I want you,” you repeat.

And though Jungkook understands the meaning behind your statement, he can’t fight but reciprocate your wants. He’s trying his best, but he’s not immune.

So it’s no wonder that the same thought repeats in his mind, blurted as he shifts on the spot, “I want you so bad. So fucking bad—”

The kiss is aggressive when he drives his hand into your hair, keeping your head in place. He lets your up-and-down-movements drive him crazy. For a minute, he lets you do, but soon, this level of control doesn’t suffice anymore.

Holding onto your ass, he leans in to kiss the flesh of your mounds, a light bite to your nipple; he prepares for a change in position, just when you admit, “I want to do this for you. Keep being here for you.”

“You need to,” Jungkook growls, “you owe me that.”

“Sure… sure, right—”

Jungkook doesn’t care how he sounds. What his words might convey. He just needs to—

You keen and shriek when he suddenly throws the two of you to your sides, his arm wrapping around your chest to pull you flush against him. His tongue explores your neck, licking up to your earlobe, a strong hand throwing your right leg back over his.

You’re open and bare for him, but he doesn’t shove himself back into you again just yet. Instead, he pushes two fingers into your mouth; you react right away. Hollowing your cheeks, you lick and suck, and his cock twitches between your ass.

Pulling out the fingers with a plop, he finds the desperate bundle of nerves just over your stretched pussy hole, circling the nub softly at first.

Your mouth falls agape before a sound can escape at all; the pleasure is stuck in your throat, but your body, the restless limbs, held by him over his hip, are revealing enough.

But then you let out sudden bursts of exhales, your hand flashing down to his, not forcing it off but rather moving with it. He kisses and bites your earlobe, and when he speaks again, his breath burns on your skin, spreading across your chest.

“Say something,” he orders, holding you tighter when your body winds and half twists, “anything I can remember later.”

Your eyebrows kiss, your arms, legs and voice restrained. You’re in a human cage made by him. Turning your head, you seek his lips, but he backs away, shakes his head, repeats, “Anything.”

“Nngh, you— won’t have to remember—” 

“Wrong. I will. So give me something, too.”

You laugh under moans, rather at the pained certainty than out of amusement. And then, you say, “Just take it.”

And he obliges. The hand disappears to reach between your legs, but not to fumble further with what pleads for more of him — instead, Jungkook grants you just that wish.

He pumps his veiny cock, moving the skin up and down to provide you with all he has. You feel the tip against your thigh, but it soon leaves your seething skin to push back into your pussy. He doesn’t let go of the shaft until it’s as buried into you as the position allows.

And then, he raises your leg higher, spreading you wider; and once you’re entirely open to him, sideways on the grass and defenseless, he pushes in deeper, rougher.

If he could reach your guts, he would. He wants more than this; he’s pushing you and, frankly, himself to the limit, but the absolute proximity does not seem to suffice. And with each of your whimpers resonating in his chest, echoing in his ears, he finds he won’t be able to let go at all.

“I just…” he starts, fingers pinching your nipples. He speaks close to the burning shell of your ear, your body a mess of sweat and exhilaration and beauty. “I needed you… to say this— so long ago.”

As he rams into you all the way, your body threatens to fall forwards, but you press a flat hand to the ground and he holds you to him; he freezes his hips, circling a little. Stays in place to give you a moment to feel the throb of his cock, and to feel the clenching of your walls himself.

His smile is instant, genuine. Do you feel like this… with that guy of yours? Does he ever make your insides expand and contract like this? Do you ever breathe his name, call for more, beg for eternity and salvation at once?

No. No, he’s certain you don’t.

Be it the ecstasy flooding his veins or the illusion he’s painted for himself — right now, different from mere minutes ago, he cannot be told otherwise: You are here, and no matter who you return to, you will never be theirs.

Lips pressed to your neck, he listens to your nonsensical words, his chest aching, his stomach tickling, his legs tired but his mind wide awake. All past trauma aside, he thinks he’d follow you to the end of the world.

He felt similar before you exited his life; the memory is nostalgic, yet a reminder for what came after.

But right now… he cannot bother to think about it. Cannot shatter just yet.

For now, his eyes and thoughts only fixate on the way your tits overflow between his fingers. The unheld side bounces each time he drives himself back into you, nearly breaking his stamina. So he shifts his focus, finding your clit again, repeating the soft oval shape from before.

You turn to look at him as much as you can, and your open mouth closes only once, for a second, when you trap your lower lip with your teeth and let go again. Plush, sweet, pillowy.

“So pretty,” he mutters. And, “Mine.”

You seem to indulge in this. Because a second later, something happens again.

Your expression changes for the tiniest moments, another such short hint that he thinks his mind is playing tricks on him again. It throws him off guard enough for him to forget his name, to forget the world around him.

His movements slow down, though not without results. Your hips move against him, your ass grinding against his pelvis, and you’re fucked out, moving your hand down to guide his, playing around the nub until you have ridden the waves of your high and calmed down.

Jungkook lets you. You still emanate an unbelievable glow; it makes him dizzy and warps reality somehow. Not a sentiment he’s able to explain; but nothing so out of the ordinary that he might deem it surreal.

He doesn’t know what it is. But he’s insane beyond measure.

Holding you almost leveraged before, you slip in his grip, his arm more loose around you now. And you use the moment to get yourself out of the much wished-for cage, distancing yourself from him.

He props himself up with an arm on the grass, watching you, his cock soaked and glinting, still a pillar.

But he’s not as manic as before. Only sees you crawl away; sees you drop on your bottom, your body slowly moving backwards on the grass and towards the shore. 

But you aren’t done. At all, it seems.

Because, with unadulterated mischief in your voice, you urge him closer, “No need to stop.”

“I…” he only manages for a bit, swallowing, and when you raise an eyebrow in question, almost as if to allow him to speak, he says, “I didn’t intend to stop.”

“But you still did. Come here.”

“Why… don’t you come to me?”

“You want something, don’t you?” you push, chin higher as you start to turn around, almost as if your legs have given out. Creeping towards the water on all fours. “If you want to, you need to get it… Kook.”

And the encouragement seems to work.

Because he soon follows. At the same pace, with a similar hunger in his countenance as in yours. His brain is foggy, as if drunk from an irresponsible, passed night. The surface of the water appears twice.

But it doesn’t matter. His body is lingering for you. He’s not done with you.

And he proves the aggressive craving, the way he’s starving, when he suddenly pulls at your leg just inches from the water.

You shriek, your upper body gently falling, though the sound of surprise is instantly replaced by a satisfied moan when Jungkook holds you by your waist and leans down to attach his mouth to your pussy.

It’s a breathtaking, bewildering taste. Overflowing, your high still pools out of you, multiplying when he collects spit on his tongue and pushes it to your hole. Capturing your arms, he holds your wrists in one hand, pinned at the small of your back.

Ass up, upper body down, cheek against the sand; and his lips all diligent, tongue lapping you up.

It’s all he’s ever wanted. All he could live on.

As he French kisses you, you only repeat, “Yes… please— exactly what I— I meant.”

But he doesn’t continue for long. It’s difficult to when you’re already dripping like this, his cock dying for more.

And when he finally gets on his knees properly again, straightening his back, you find a moment to laugh.

You tease, “Just minutes ago you refused to want me the way you used to—” He straightens your legs until you’re flat on your stomach; straddles you. “And now… Sailor Jungkook...” Resolute fingers push your ass apart; more spit lands on your pussy. “Now you’re following me— like a pupp—”

The taunt is forgotten when he pushes all of himself into you in one fell swoop, leaving not a single inch untouched and pumps into you with persistence.

“Shut up,” he commands, coaxing another throaty laugh out of you. This is exactly what you want. What you have wanted from him. Never more, never less.

He leans into you, kissing your cheek for a second, but when the position proves too hard, he decides to bring you up to him instead. Palming your chin and jaw, he lifts your upper body off the ground, teeth nibbling at your shoulder.

You yell into the clearing, his name somewhere in the mix of jumbled words, and he pushes a finger into your mouth first. Then two. Then covers your lips with a hand, muffling your sounds. 

Not long anymore. Almost done.

It’s clear to the both of you in the way he begins to slow down, his hips unsteady, air leaving his lungs. He’s harder inside you now, about to burst, just a second before—

He pulls out entirely, just to turn you on the spot again. This is ideal for you. Jungkook is a sucker for this — as shy as he used to be, he never feared your eyes. With the cold nonchalance you displayed sometimes, you understand why he didn’t.

He always tried to find an emotion he craved in those gazes of yours.

But…

Well.

It takes less than a minute from him flipping you around to holding your face between his fingers, wrapping your legs around his waist and kissing you like a madman — and to him coming undone.

He prays, “Don’t let this end.”

He promises, “I love you.”

He whispers, “I need to stay with you.”

No more begging for you to stay. Jungkook has switched to voicing his own wishes, no matter how fuzzy-brained, in hopes you might do it for him. But have you ever? Would you ever?

You’re the most important person to him, but you might be the most important person to you, too.

As he trembles and his legs quiver, water flows to the shore where you lay. It wets your hair anew, an art piece in his eyes. He keeps thrusting for a bit, spilling until empty — and not once in this time does his vision clear.

You’re grotesquely gorgeous. Mysterious, surrounded by a glow but also a… a darkness. A combination that does not exist in true reality. You are unreal. 

And he doesn’t care about his failing brain. The moment you are gone, the images in front of him will clear. He will properly feel the moment, the regret, the wounds and bruises on his arm, the same blood on his skin as under your nails.

A burning sensation already spreads through him as he finishes, but he doesn’t know if it’s, in truth, the entirety of his skin or the roughness you held onto him with. He doesn’t know.

All he knows is that bit by bit, without him intending or wanting to, you will tumble out of reach. The adrenaline still courses his body as he calms down on top of you and then rolls off, head cooling from the ever-approaching water.

Fingertips still skim your sides, but he knows you’ll get up very soon and disappear. By then, the rush will be over and the lust will subside. You will leave nothing in your wake but wistful yearning.

The lake is quiet now.

Nothing but breathing, nothing but the light wind.

For a while, neither of you speak. The water keeps lapping softly against the shore, washing over your hair before retreating again. If this was any other day or any other reality, Jungkook would sit up, close his eyes, be content listening to the slow rhythm of the waves with you.

But that’s not what it is.

“I can’t part from this,” he mumbles in the silence.

He doesn’t hear you for a second. His eyes drag open; he looks over. You’re still here — his fingers aren’t grasping a ghost. And you’re staring at him, too. Only that you look more mature now, your face different.

Scarier.

Perhaps it’s the moment tinging the night in something… gloomy.

But you just keep looking. So he tries again, “I just… I cannot part from this.”

Then, you speak, a smile dancing around your mouth. “This?”

“From you.”

“Really, Jungkook?”

“You know. You have always known… please.”

His eyes fall shut again. Not due to comfort or pain or any real emotion at all. But in order to make his head stop spinning. As his other senses come alive, he hears you clearly, though you remind him of a faraway sound; a lullaby howling through the forest.

“If you think you are truly ready,” you say, “you need to tell me. We will not part.”

“I have told you. How many times do I need to—”

He stops. Takes a breath. His skin tingles.

Nobody speaks. You only laugh, only for a second. And there is something strange about the sound. Not strange enough to notice at first perhaps — just impossible to ignore. It blends with the water until he can no longer tell where you end and the lake begins.

He feels you move next to him, a sharp finger touching his neck and trailing down his chest and stomach. Then up again; down again. 

“Come closer,” your sugary sweet, reverberating voice speaks, quiet. “Closer to me.”

He does. And for a moment, it feels like before. Not before he found the sand under him, but — before. 

Before the stranger. Before the issues. Before you left.

It feels no different now. That’s the problem. It is a problem, right? He isn’t sure.

Because each second confuses him. The water slides around his legs. Odd, given the fact that the shore certainly seemed further away before. But he doesn’t find himself as concerned with this as he thinks he should be.

Instead, he remembers the woman he’s loved for so long. The one laughing with him besides campfires. The one he promised forever, too; the one who chose someone else.

Jungkook has tried it all. Attempted to convince himself that he hates you. And then, that he’d never stop loving you. But hate and love are easy — none of these ever bothered him. None of it fractured his soul.

No, what stabbed him over and over again was grief. 

Love is stronger than grief.

Maybe he was wrong. And even if this was true, a lower intensity of the latter somehow still overshadows a high amount of the former. Love makes stronger; but grief is stronger. Ironically, renders you weak. That’s what you meant.

Your shoulder brushes his. He didn’t know when, but at some point, he must have stood up. You’re holding his hand.

They fulfill different purposes.

But to you, it’s not about intensity, but about the goal each emotion has. He never thought about it this way, though. Emotions having certain goals… purposes…

We break first and then love harder.

He’s knee-deep in the water. Soul cleanly splitting in half. No wound will ever scar over.

We can use that love.

How are you using his love?

He can’t say. You’re just leading him into the water. He can’t form a thought. Your lips are moving; you seem to be saying something. Singing? Eyes hooded. Your skin and hair are odd. Different…

Another step.

The water is colder a few steps farther in, colder than in the evening. But it doesn’t hurt. His body doesn’t react. He’s busy with what he’s hearing — he thinks you’re still talking, voice low and melodic, like a song one knows or remembers or soon forgets.

The dizzying feeling from before has fully turned into a paralysis almost — a dream. Nightmare? Something impossible to control. When… 

The lake curls around his calves, then around his waist.

No.

Grief is stronger than love. Grief is stronger than love. Grief is stronger than love.

Not because one cannot love hard. But because the stronger the grief, the weaker one gets. There’s weakness in strength, isn’t there?

It’s where you needed him. He understands now. He surrenders.

“Do you trust me?” you seem to ask now.

Jungkook nods, no time to think about the question at all. Somehow he does. 

The problem is, despite the touches he and you shared, the ache never disappeared, did it? Even at the height of it all, he knew you wouldn’t stay, no matter how intently he begged or how long he waited for you.

This pain was bound to consume him, and you knew. That’s how you’re using this love.

You appeared. Planted the affection in him. Fabricated a life for yourself, that, he now realises, you never truly lived. Made yourself somebody you never were. Who are you then? What are you?

You appeared only to break him over and over again, but never quite managing the final rip that you thirsted for. His adoration for you, and the hope that came with him, backed him up…

But hope is scarce these days. You entered this clearing not with the purpose to return to him. But to deliver that last blow. To finally splinter him enough to claim him. He was too strong before, wasn’t he? Too conscious.

He knew. He has always known: You do not obsess over others.

This is why.

And you never found him by coincidence. The hand-built cottage atop the damn lake signed his death sentence the moment he moved in. There were always creatures in the waters.

Your head turns to him; the glow fades from your eyes. Everything feels distant. Unimportant somehow. You have stopped singing, only muttering words now, and soon, the ground vanishes.

Jungkook floats in the water, his legs remembering to swim until — they don’t.

You deliver a nod, as if to ready him; as if to remind him of every smile, every touch, every broken promise one last time. Granting him mercy. Devilishly thanking him for dropping his guard.

You have always adored his soul. Wanted it.

Love gave him something to live for, to hold onto; he couldn’t resist who you were for him, but he became resistant to your nature. Funny.

One last tilt of your head. And a moment later — he’s drowning.

His lungs don’t burn right away. The feeling creeps up on him. There is no panic, however; he is hollowed out. Filled with empty spaces. And sirens always know to fill empty spaces.

He forces his eyes open underwater. A faint glow of green eyes visible, he follows them. They lure him in, dragging further than he knew the lake could go.

And once the ground comes to sight, they appear. Multiple faces, multiple levels of hunger.

And underneath, somewhere in the dark, just as consciousness starts to fade, the ground reveals skeletons of a near and distant past.

happy festa '26!! lol alright, yes, this is a dream i had and i had to write it out lmao. i promise i do usually stick with happy endings, but men have been outrageous these days, so a piece underlining a woman's power was needed. this one's for the gals. and sometimes it's also just fun to try new genres and stuff.

KEYS ON SEVERITY OF SHAKESPEARE’S STATE:

( ✮ ) — he’s not really thinking about enlisting, is he?

( ♬ ) — what do you mean shakespeare shaved his head?.. oh no.

( ✎ ) — don’t military bases have security? how the hell did that man get inside?

( ♛ ) — he’s proper pulling a cross country right now. the boys look confused. and horrified.

THE SHAKESPEARE SERIES.

WARNING: keep in mind, some of these authors are very strict on the rule that no minors should read their work if they’re underage, and i will honour that. but, at the end of the day, i am not your parent. so, there’s that. but heed my warning wisely. any smut or 18+ content is highlighted in bold.

NOTE: dear readers, did you miss me? it’s been a while since i’ve shared my secret recommendations with you. but, since the two year anniversary of this special series has recently passed, i thought it was about time i spoiled you again. i’ve had quite a while to think about this one. so, i hope you’re ready. let’s give shakespeare something to enlist for.

( ♛ ) AMALTHEA — by @daechwitatamic

!! seokjin x reader | 40k !!

best friend’s older brother!au, smut (18+), fluff, angst.

bfb! bfb! my best friend’s brother, my friend’s brother! bfb! bfb! my best friend’s brother, my best friend’s brother!

this is one of the BEST seokjin fics i’ve ever read. straight to the point but there is no other way to put it. got to the point i would wake up earlier just to read another chapter before work. i was always present, bitch.

alike most of you, as someone who reads A LOT (re: i have no credentials for this, just my mum), i can tell when someone pours their every blood, sweat and tears (ha.) into writing. and for me, this is one of those writers.

this writer really shocked me at how much i connected to this story whilst reading n how attached i felt after finishing. caught me off guard, but so did death to shakespeare… sooo, what can i say.

“it’s been over a decade since that night, and you still don't know if he meant his family, or you.” dude i wish you could’ve seen my face. lmfao.

let’s just say there’s a reason this one’s first. amazed. truly.

( ♛ ) MOON MAGIC — by @jincherie

!! hoseok x reader | 33.8k !!

mermaid!au, pirate!au, fluff (like.. teeth rotting).

“and he calls me mooonlight toooooo,” she sings into the empty crowd with tears in her eyes. she meaning me.

now i know i’m known for having a sweet tooth, but damn! youse are gonna eventually turn me into an elizabethan england commoner. y’know, the crap dental hygiene n all. (re: shakespeare’s teeth.)

but, you know me. i looooove a good ‘ol fantasy inspired fic, so i guess i’m willing to risk a little here. and this one was worth risking for.

slams hand onto the table. the world building! this writer was not playing around when it came to painting us a picture of the world they wanted to create. i wanna live in this fic i’m not joking. get me in touch with namjoon asap for some of that moon magic shit. ok, rolls credits.

perfect in every single way. this is my first run-in with this writer, but am i swimming (sorry.) my way over to their masterlist? yeeees.

“he laughs and tells you that, actually, it's probably the youngest three princes that are most beloved by all.”

yea girl. not on my watch. enjoy!

( ✎ ) ALL GROWN UP — by @btsgotjams27

!! jungkook x reader | 64k !!

friends to lovers, older woman/younger man, smut (18+).

the fact this fic was loosely inspired by one of my all-time comfort kdramas… i didn’t even have to question adding it to my list. it felt like i was watching it for the first time again… deeply sighs. ahhh the nostalgia…

i had this fic bookmarked on my ao3 for the looongest time, but it was only recently that i got round to actually reading it. and i’m so glad i did. bless her, she was waiting for her moment to shine. and it’s now.

youngest kids in the family please raise your hands! all in attendance! you are welcome and appreciated here. the feeling of desperation, trying to get people to see you as your current age rather than the little kid they’ll forever remember. i think that’s why i loved this fic so much: i could relate to it.

alike this story, most fics on here are on the older side of things. but honestly, if it’s good and genuine, it’ll last forever. no matter how much time has gone by. feelings stay - perhaps even grow?

the same for our adorable pair over here. could time play in their favour?

you let me know when you finish it.

( ✮ ) ALIVE AHA FXCK — by @softyoongiionly

!! vampire!yoongi x human!reader | 42k !!

vampire!au, smut (18+), soulmate!au (you know i had to), please read the trigger warnings.

devoured. no pun intended. though other vampire synonyms include but are not limited to: consumed, ate, guzzled, feasted etc… thank you google, after a few questionable internet searches.

i cannot tell you how glad i am that shakespeare never wrote about vampires. cuz he would’ve written my ass into that damn thing and killed me off from the things i’ve said about that guy. and the things i will continue to say…

i love this fic on a personal level. it reminds me of being fourteen again, curled up in my sheets as the sun reaches the tip of my windowsill and the morning chill settles in after a night of fighting sleep to finish a fanfic. it’s safe - i’m safe.

i genuinely had so much fun reading this story. the characterisation of both the reader and yoongi is so unhinged and playful and i’m obsessed. if i could recommend it to anyone, it would be my younger self cuz i know she’d love it :,). n she did!

y’know, sometimes you just gotta read a silly - infused with twilight puns - vampire-themed yoongi fic for the world to feel alright again.

and it did - for me. n now - for you.

( ♛ ) OLDER — by @lovieku

!! dilf!jk x inexperienced!reader | 18.2k !!

smut (18+), dilf!au, best friend’s father, age gap.

pure, undeniable and utter filth. in the best fuckin’ way possible. yea, if you could crawl into my mind, plunge into the inky depths of whatever lurks there.. this is what you’d find lying on the sand floor. unadulterated sin.

i am so disgustingly obsessed with this fic i can’t explain it, hence why it’s ended up on my shelf of recommendations. it scratches and pleases a deep, desperate itch in my brain. maybe it’s the age gap, who knows?

this writer has a talent for making us - or, me. - claw at something forbidden in an almost hungry advance. the sinner doing the sinning. and goddamn, i’m impressed. n i bet shakespeare is too. well, he fuckin’ better be.

the characters are imperfect and selfish and lustful, but oh my god i love them. add on dilf!jk with his slutty, unbuttoned shirts and you have me sold.

@lovieku you are such an amazing writer. you have such a way with how you express. do not underestimate that. i am beyond excited to see your future works :)

masterpiece. but what the fuck was that ending.

( ♛ ) HABITS OF A CLANDESTINE NATURE — by @alphabetboyluvr

!! college!jk x female!oc | 16k !!

rich!jk, waitress!oc, enemies to lovers, smut (18+).

he got, he got away! he got away! he got away! he’s got a way, he’s got a way! awayyyyheyeyyyyheyyy! yea, but didn’t manage to escape a 460-year-old poet, nor me.. so..

clementines, fruit trees, the sound of innocent laughter, wind chimes, a sheer blur of colour, soft hands. things that come to mind whenever i am reminded of this fic. a solid and beautiful depiction of hurt and love and everything in between.

this writer knew straight off the bat how to sell this pair to the audience. how to capture us and string us along for the journey of two hurting, longing and hurting all over again. shakespeare bought the hanging fruit that’s for damn sure… me too then, perhaps.

the vision for this story is perfect to me. i almost want to give the writer a kiss on the forehead.

i did write down one quote; used from the story. a way to sum it all up. “the perfect place to get lost. the perfect place to get found, too.”

if you’re looking for somewhere to get lost, i hope this satisfies that need. i also hope i come back to read this every once in a while. for old times sake. to get found again.

( ♬ ) GUILTY AS SIN — by @gldrushh

!! brother in law!jungkook x widow!reader | 32k !!

forbidden love!au, smut (18+), angst.

“it began to lose its meaning. healing. as if it were something—a destination you could stumble upon.” oh, don’t even talk to me. people died. shakepeare died. april 23rd 1616.

god, this story is just so raw in and of itself - perfectly depicting the human experience of love and loss. inevitable and sometimes unexpected. i was - n still remain - in awe.

i crossed by this fic unexpectedly and i’m so glad that whatever butterfly effect led me to finding this succeeded, but damn that action also had consequences… like real bad… haha….

i want to cry every time this fic crosses my mind. dramatic? lil bit. but when you read it, holy shit - this will make sense to you young’uns. in due time.

well, to be even more dramatic as such… my wounds from reading this are still fresh (i will sob don’t test me), so i hand the torch over to you to make of this story what you will.

please go into this fic with no expectations. go in willingly and just… fall into it. i will be on the other side when you resurface and i will definitely say something ironic.

like i told you so. xx.

( ♛ ) CALLING PRODUCER MIN YOONGI — by @bangtan-dreamland

!! yoongi x reader | 4.6k !!

strangers to lovers, just fluff all around.

now this is the bitch i aspire to be. dials random ass numbers of random ass strangers just to yap. oh yea, that’s my kinda girl. i just hope she knows she’s the coolest person ever to exist to me. i want to buy a star for her. a big, bright one.

i think i have said this before, but never ever underestimate the power of a drabble. a short fic of little can hold the weight of ten times that amount. especially this one (which i read that long ago but has ultimately ended up here - says it all tbh).

this fic is everything and more to me. i miss it when i’m not reading it, and i miss it when it’s right in front of me. it has me wanting to ring up random people in hopes of meeting my true love - which i won’t, but who knows what might happen?

also, to point out - the immense chemistry between these characters is off the charts. felt like i was intruding on my own phone call.

good dialogue? tick. amazing characterisation? tick. interesting plot? tick. has shakespeare wanting to never learn how to use a phone in case he puts this fic to shame? tick.

lol.

( ✎ ) THE LOVE PROGNOSIS — by @awrkive

!! surgeon!jk x surgeon!reader | 90.9k !!

roommates!au, medical!au, smut (18+), fluff.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh. aaaand scene!

can i be honest? y’all stress me the fuck out! and you know who you are! starts with ‘j’ ends with ‘k’. the other one being ‘s’ ends with ‘e’. but one of you i like more and it’s not you, shakespeare.

the time it took me to finish this insanely crafted three-parter was embarrassingly short. (i think i formed a dent in my bed). so when i finished i was - obviously - heartbroken, so i did what every sane person does. i read all the drabbles. aaaand the tlp social media extras. and listened to the playlist. and cried. duh.

whilst all the fics on here deserve their own kdrama, i feel this one would ruin me completely. it’s weightlifting fairy kim bok joo all over again. it’s potential is there. like, c’mon screenwriters. i know you want to. or just pay me to do it.

the characters, the yearning, the friendship - immediately gets flashbacks… - ten’s across the board!

@awrkive is one to look out for. for real. i - along with everyone else here - will be tuning in. full volume.

oh yea, whilst we’re all still here. fuck that other guy. you know who you are! (no spoilers here).

( ♛ ) LET’S GET QUIZZICAL — by @taleasnewastime

!! jimin x f!reader | 28.6k !!

friends to lovers, angst, smut (18+).

sooooo… what i’m hearing is.. we all weren’t aware flo rida’s stage name is just florida with a space..? right? right.? cuz when you say it like that..

having been a victim of multiple pub quizzes in my past (haven’t won - yet!) the dialogue in this story was fucking perfect and scary real, depicting the anxiety, thrill and pure adrenaline running through your body as you rack your brain of every dumb fact you’ve ever read and hope it’s made a home somewhere up there.

not to mention you gotta trust your teammates like your life depends on it - cuz it fuckin’ does. n park jimin being one of them? the rest of the teams… y’all better not even bother showing up atp.

i thought the manor of the story being told through its settings was.. a slice of genius. so so cool and helped set the tone too. every time we transported back to the quiz i clutched my pearls in sheer relief.

also, i wish i could’ve highlighted angst in bold cause damn! you really hit us round the head with that one. and ofc i loved it, but damn. take notes, shakespeare. we don’t have to be killing characters off to ruin mk’s life. hm?

nothing less than spectacular from our @taleasnewastime.

( ♬ ) TRICKS OF THE TRADE — by @stutterfly

!! yoongi x reader | 24.1k !!

body swap!au, soulmates!au (you know me), smut (18+), humour.

peers down through speckled glasses, what’s next..? …oh god. sighs heavily and licks pen.

so i knew from the moment i read ‘body swap’ within the tags that this concept was gonna be so fuckin’ weird but so damn good. and low n behold, it didn’t disappoint. luckily i am a lover of fuckin’ weird.

this concept is so difficult to write. the foreign sensation of a different body and trying to channel each thought n emotions involved is complicated to convey, but this author did it so incredibly well.

also, not to be that person… but that smut… i’m gon’ be sleeping soooo well tonight let’s just say that lmfao. 100/10. might go back n read it when i’m done with this.

blushing… X

shakespeare couldn’t even fathom a story such as this - and we’re talking about the guy who once wrote about an incestuous relationship between a king and his daughter.

crazy work. you are so cool @stutterfly.

( ✎ ) TRIVIA LOVE — by @luxekook

!! namjoon x reader | 5.4k !!

non idol!au, smut (18+).

to quote myself from my reblog on feb 26 2020, “why was i smiling the whole way throughout this??” n you know what? hell yea i still stand by that!

this is the second pub quiz fic i have within this chapter (surprisingly, but not disappointing), but the circumstances cannot be more different.

the first group i would join, perhaps even rally with a little. but if i’m ever attending a pub night and these mother fuckers are in tow, best believe i’m leaving. they’re not ones to fuck with yo. they have $20 to win. they mean war.

since we’re at the end, and i’m 100% convinced nobody is still reading these, soooo… i can speak my truth. someone get me on joon’s lap. you gon’ be calling me cinderella cuz it’s gonna fit perfectly by midnight bro. on the dot.

this is - n will always be - a classic to me. one that i will always return to eventually. i can dress up all i want with these big fics, but these smaller ones are always a guilty pleasure.

like cinderella returning to her mice friends (or whatever), i will always come back to @luxekook and their stories.

forever xoxo.

MARKNEE’S SPECIAL MENTIONS:

caught my attention, and deserve their flowers.

( ♬ ) THE DEVIL SKATES ON THIN ICE — by @vankoya

!! yoongi x reader | 60.5k !!

winter sports!au, fluff, angst, humour.

my love life also skates on thin ice. lmfao. especially after this.

( ✎ ) KNOCKED — by @sailoryooons

!! streamer!seokjin x f!reader | 10.6k !!

roommates to lovers, smut (18+), humour.

more like she’s about to knock him out.

( ♬ ) NEFARIOUS — by @yoonia

!! jimin x f!reader | 39.2k !!

sex club!au, gentlemen club!au, smut (18+).

lets out a long sigh. won’t be in a rush to forget this one.

( ✎ ) THINGS WE DON’T SAY — by @wintaerbaer

!! taehyung x reader | 54.5k !!

best friends to lovers, slow burn, eventual smut.

the found family trope is strooong.

nsfw warnings: yoongi nsfw pov :))), oral (f rec), unprotected, choking, slapping, egging on because it's yoongi, multiple orgasms, ......love making................., protected, multiple rounds bc they're in fuckin' love what can i SAY!, yoongi's mouth is a warning?, reader's reactions are also a warning??, anyway, chains again, and so much care too<33   

-

-

You ignore him and get right to work. And he feels like absolute shit. 

Why are you doing this? Why aren’t you running? Why are you choosing to stay when he’s been nothing but ice cold? 

Garbage bag in hand, you waste no time gathering up his mania. Do you even see the blood? Do you not care about what just happened?

No. It’s not that you don’t care. 

It’s that you care too much. 

Instead of leaving him to drown, you dive in right after him, swimming deeper and deeper and not caring about saving yourself. And as Yoongi can only stand there, he feels unable to move. Unable to breathe. Waiting for you to turn around and go back up for air but you don’t and it’s killing him. 

It’s when you come back with a broom that he finally snaps into action, gripping your hand that holds the handle and exhaling at your hot touch. 

You’re too good to him. “Stop.”

“No.”

Which makes this so fucking hard to watch. “Just go, please.”

“No.”

Fuck. Your stubbornness stabs into his chest. Over, and over, Yoongi can’t bear to have you witness this yet he’s pained just begging you to leave. It’s layers and layers of hurt and frustration but you. Keep. Swimming. 

Don’t drown with him. Don’t follow him into the dark. 

The crinkle of glass surrounds your feet and it’s too much to bear. He can’t even feel his toes he feels so numb, but having you see all of this pains him to no end because he’d been trying so hard to keep this side of himself from your welling eyes. 

How foolish. 

But if you’re gonna stay, at least let him clean his own shit. Aren’t you supposed to be home? At Yuri’s? Your brother is just as cut and banged up as he is, shouldn’t you be there with him instead? “I got it.” 

“Let me do it.” 

“Your brother needs you.”

“Yeah, well, I already tore the fuck into him and I’m gonna do the same to you.” As you yank the broom further from his control, you growl out a command so potent Yoongi can’t even push back, “So sit down.”

Sit down? He’d rather do anything else right now. Kiss you. Make you leave. Grab hold of you and never go anywhere else. 

In the end, he can’t do shit. Because you’re a beautiful tempest and he’s letting your storm run free in his living room. It’s for good, for good, for good. Fuck, everything hurts. This is all for good. 

That is all he can tell himself before dumping his battered body at his dining table. 

With each piece you pick up, one by one, you clean out his wounds, you suck up the pain that’s festered for so long with tear-soaked cheeks and spit it all out with your quiet rage. 

The adrenaline from facing serious injury and possibly something worse still courses through Yoongi’s veins. He can’t even sit still, fidgeting in his chair and raking shaky hands through damp strands. 

With one look at your face scrunched with worry, he can’t take it anymore. You have to leave. You have to, have to, have to. Caging you next to his dining table, he stops your strides with finality. “You’ve done enough.” 

“I still need to—” 

“Just.” He looks away from your tears. “Go home, doll. I can’t do this tonight.” 

“Do what? I’m helping you.” 

If nothing else is working? There is one way to do this. A way that will change how you perceive him and not in a positive light at all. Light would require at least some semblance of warmth or care. This solution is completely void of it. 

It’s only five words. Only six syllables. But all of them sting and poison him on the way out, because this is downright caustic, 

“Who said I needed it?” 

You immediately recoil.

Shit, shit, shit, this isn’t him. This is fucking ludicrous but he can’t stop himself from surging forward with muck on his legs.

“Yoongi, what? Are you serious?” 

“You think I’m joking?” 

“You’re kicking me out? What happened to saying you’d never do that, huh?” 

“I say a lot of things.” 

Fuck. That wasn’t what he…

…Fuck.

Well. That’s it then. You’re smart, way smarter than you give yourself credit for. Which means you’ll pick up on that vibrant red flag he just swung with both arms and abandon him completely tonight. 

Nodding, you look away, shaking your head in a way that tells him he’s two seconds from getting snapped into pieces. And Yoongi knows he damn well deserves it. “You know what? You do say a lot of things.”

Walking away, you start to… organize his things? “Like how perfect I am.” You keep going, shifting things around with a tone so alarming his heart may have beat a little. “And how there’s no one else.” 

After a second, you face him again. And it seems like you are wanting to sling heat around too because you know what you’re saying isn’t true and it’s pissing him off. “Those are just words, too, huh?” 

You are perfect. There is no one else. 

If those were just words he wouldn’t have risked his life to—

What a fucking shit show. He can’t speak of what went down tonight so this is going nowhere. 

With this insane dilemma looming over his head, Yoongi is fully aware his next laugh is anything but nice. “Nah… Not tonight.” 

“Not tonight what.” 

“We aren’t doing this tonight.” 

“The fuck we aren’t. Where are you going?” 

“Nowhere.” Yoongi shifts his head, hiding the very obvious cuts that he’s starting to feel more and more the longer this scathing verbal sparring goes on. “But you’re going home.” 

Laced in this silence, there’s still rage. There’s still passion, and it’s a fine line because he hates himself for getting to this point and he doesn’t understand why you’re still here and won’t leave him. So stubborn, so like him, so unbelievably loyal and good and everything he needs to be. 

But you say something that lights his chest and kicks his brain into gear, because he can’t even believe you continue with complete nonsense, 

“So this is how it happens, huh. Now I’m just like everyone else.” 

Both feet firmly planted and shoulders rising a little higher, Yoongi faces you head on, feeling the most alert he’s been since you rushed in. The fire in his chest licks at his lungs, propelling smoke all the way to his ears. “You’re gonna go there?” 

Your response is immediate. “I am.” 

And it takes everything inside of him to not explode. Treating you like everyone else? You know that’s bullshit. So if you’re just saying all this to fuck with him, it’s fucking working. The only thing he can come back with is a single syllable because if he says anything else, it’s gonna lead to hell fast. “Wow.” 

Suddenly, you dig into the offensive, the chasm between the two of you shaking under the weight of your argument, “You think I wanted to come here? After what all of you did?” 

“Do you even know?” 

“No! But how the fuck would I? You don’t tell me shit!” 

“That’s cus—” 

Fire spews from your lips, scorching everything at his feet and rendering him speechless yet again, “I can take care of myself. But none of you told me about that dude from the court. None of you.” 

Fuck. Yoongi knows this, he’s the one that started this whole conversation in Jimin’s car—

“If I had known? That whole Dalo thing could’ve been avoided and I would’ve ran.” 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. It’s all coming back. Everything he did led to this, including not telling you shit, and you’re more hurt than he even imagined. The self-loathing has reached a new high, and he can feel blood from where his teeth bite into his tongue. 

Didn’t he just kill the shadow in his room? Why is he still struggling to breathe?

“And today? You know how fucking scared I was? If I… I…” 

Yoongi can’t do anything but stare, and stare, and stare some more. 

He’d been so focused on getting you out of there and keeping everyone safe that he didn’t even think about how afraid you were. How terrified you were after you left in screams and tears that he can still hear ringing about his head. 

“You know what?” Your empty laugh sends shivers to his fingertips. “Forget it. You’re not even listening anyway.”

And Yoongi finally snaps with another flitter of sparks. Because he is and he knows but this isn’t how he wants to speak to you. Not with a canyon of hurt and desperation between your hearts. “I swear to—I just said not tonight.” 

“No, I get it. I do! You want me gone. Sure. See you in three more months.” 

…What? 

No. No, no, no, that’s not what he means. You gotta take him at face value. He just means not tonight so you don’t have to see him at his lowest and he doesn’t want to show this monstrous side of him that’s hurting you all over again. “Are you serious?” 

But why would you take him at face value? Why would you give him any slack right now? He sure as fuck doesn’t deserve it with the way he’s treating you. Fuck, he’s even slipping on things he would never do. What the fuck is wrong with him?  

“Yes, I am. Trying to help you but it looks like you don’t even want that. So good fucking bye.” 

This is what he wants, right? This is what he was fighting you for this entire time? He got what he wanted. You’re going back up for air. 

Now he just has to seal your decision the only way he can. Because nothing else has worked so far and he’s been too cowardly—or just fucking sensical—to go here. 

But with a vice clamped around his lungs, he does. Blackout shutters around his soul, Yoongi utters a sentence he would never, in any other circumstance, ever say to you. A question that sends white hot tears to the corners of his tired eyes. 

“Who asked you?” 

Ice fills the chasm between. 

Your eyes penetrate into the deepest parts of him, staring him down like he’s a stranger and rightfully so because this isn’t him. Fuck, this isn’t—this isn’t him and he is crumbling into ashes at your feet but he can’t bear to let you witness him like this another second. 

When your response shakes, Yoongi feels his heart give out. “Who asked me? Who asked me.” 

This is the hardest thing he’s ever done in his life. “That’s what I said.” 

How is he still on both feet when you’re looking at him like that? Your silence carves out his heart, but this is how to finally get you to leave. To run. To rid yourself of this burden sinking him lower, and lower, and lower.

“You know what? Kiss my ass, Yoongi.” 

Rock bottom. It hurts.

None of the hits he took tonight compare to the anguish this is putting him through. Absolutely nothing will. Yoongi is starting to fight out of his own chains because he can’t stand being in them. 

The damage has already been done but he’s drowning now. Get out. Claw a way out!

Dead silence rings in his ears, reaching a stinging buzz and crashing into the sound of rain and thunder. His body is thrashing out of his mind and clawing a way to the surface. 

But you drift further. And further. And further. The waves between you both crest high and fall fast, and Yoongi’s vision swims as he sways. You’re almost gone. Good. Good. You’re almost gone for good. 

…For good? 

No. No no no, that’s the farthest thing from good fuck fuck fuck. 

Yoongi can’t even recall his body tearing through the ocean of his living room so fast but he’s already at the door, slamming it shut and grasping your body for dear life. It all happens so swiftly that his fingers catch between your back and solid wood, his nails stinging from the pain and his ears ringing from your outright shouting—

“God, what the fuck! I told you to—We didn’t hear from you for hours and I—I didn’t know if you were okay—” 

The heart in his chest plummets with each weak thump of your hands. “Whoa, hold u—” 

“I thought the worst and I—didn’t even get a chance to—I finally told you want I wanted and you—Fuck—” 

Yoongi’s finally alert. He’s awake. He’s staying afloat and now he needs to pull you ashore because you are flailing in your own current of emotion. It takes everything for him to think straight and just get you to— “Just listen—” 

“Don’t ever do that again! I don’t wanna lose you and today was so fucking scary and I’m not, fucking, leaving—” 

Thank god. 

Doing the one thing that may shut you up and quell your worries, Yoongi smashes his lips against yours, pushing into you so hard water leaks from his eyes. Because you still have to go at some point, which means this could be his last taste in a long time. “I swear to—” 

You almost lost him. 

Which means he almost left you behind. 

What the fuck is he doing fighting you?

Anger from today and frustration with himself seize the reins, and he yanks you back to have you against another wall. There’s madness skimming along his bones and firing in his bloodstream. And Yoongi welcomes all the energy you’re unleashing in return, raking through his hair and his skin and blowing his eyes all the way out. 

He doesn’t even recognize his voice as he rips out a question, “Can’t fucking listen, can you?” 

“No.”  

When you shove him back, Yoongi can feel his soul go obsidian, welcoming the way you tug him into a ravaging kiss, tearing at your clothes because he can’t stand to be even one layer beyond your skin. 

What the fuck is happening? You have to leave. Didn’t he just fight for you to go? What’s his body doing? Suddenly his hand is around your throat and his heart booms at the spark in your eyes. Fuck, he needs you. Fucking hell, why do you have to be so fucking devoted? “Shouldn’t even fucking be here.” 

“When has that ever stopped us.” 

Don’t say shit like that. 

Yoongi drags you backward and into his dining table, careful to not trip you up on the way. As much as he’s relishing your rebellion, there’s a part of him that’s still terrified. “He’s still home.” 

“So?”

“Shouldn’t you—”

“Then kick me out!” His hand lets off your throat now. And for a second, he can’t speak. “For real. Let me go. Fucking do it then.” 

Gripping a bit tighter again, Yoongi gives out of control at your groan. Fucking shit, this is breaking him down so fast and you didn’t even have to do anything. All you had to do was defy his words and call every single fucking bluff he had. 

Because he wanted nothing more than for you to be right here. Nothing else matters. Not the wounds on his body, not the catastrophe of his place, not the thunder and rain outside.  

Only you. “You aren’t gonna leave me alone.” 

You meet his eyes with fire. 

“Are you.” 

The look on your face tells him everything he needs to know. No words are exchanged as the atmosphere sparks and fizzles, and yet, Yoongi understands every single fucking word. 

The moment you walked in, Yoongi had already lost. “Goddamn it.” 

Giving into the most primal of urges, the most savage of needs, tension snaps with a burst of orange and red. Claws and fangs glint in the night, rage and passion clutching each other before crashing down together. 

Devouring you and letting you have your way with him is ecstatic, a high, all consuming and Yoongi doesn’t know when anger morphs into desperation. But it does, it does, it does, and the outpouring of frustration and relief and realization that you’re here is draining him exactly how he wants. 

Taking while being taken. Worshipping while being worshipped. Everything he’d been feeling over the last three months funnels into this very moment and spills out of his system like an open, gushing wound. Toxins and pain runneth over, releasing and freeing and letting his bones free to stretch and grow again. Though battered and bruised, Yoongi feels whole again. Like he never was, or always was? With you. 

Was this all he had to do? 

All he had to do was let you in? 

You come undone, then you unravel beneath him again. The sight he thought he’d never see again unfolds in front of his very eyes and Yoongi drinks you in like a man starved on the brink of collapse. Maybe he still fucking is, because the burn he feels in his body won’t quell. The pain in his soul won’t ebb. The sobs in his ear won’t stop. 

Wait, fuck fuck, that’s you? “Baby.” 

You don’t quit, so he calls you again. And when nothing else works, Yoongi cracks out your name with a snap and grabs your chin to bring you back. Shit, he should’ve been paying attention. 

Fuck, you look so exhausted. He knows he’s responsible for that pain in your eyes. That anguish in your brows. But Yoongi will deal with that once you’re coherent and present again.

It takes you a bit to come back to him, but you do like the strong, fierce one you are. Fuck, you’re incredible even in your weakest moments. Something he’s come to love and aspire to match. 

When you beg him to not kick you out, Yoongi feels chains tug his heart taut. Pulled in so many directions, he feels the need to take deep breaths himself, and he’s so caught up in your pleas that he births a new nickname that has his brain spiraling,

“Breathe, angel.”

No time to think about that now. The only real explanation for him saying it out loud is the fact he’s thought it so many times his brain decided it needed to be set free. 

You tell him he’s perfect the way he is, and Yoongi falters. Everything you say while in his arms and fighting tears will be burned in his memory forever, and he’ll let those words carry him onto softer shores, sparkling and welcoming just like you. 

He doesn’t even realize he starts to cry until you tell him it’s okay. And he lets himself rest in the solace of your embrace until he remembers that you came in through the pouring rain. 

When you offer to share the blame? That’s when Yoongi can’t fight it anymore. This beautiful, blooming soul in his arms is radiating enough light to wash away his darkness. He has no choice but to surrender to you—his life, his devotion, his everything. 

Of course you would offer to share the blame. It’s so inherently you that Yoongi’s emotions run down with the shower spray, and he clutches onto you like life would stop as soon as he let go. 

Water. Sunlight. Warmth. 

From the mud in his chest, reaching up towards his beloved, Yoongi finally feels new life bloom. 

—

—

Darkness no longer clouds the edges of his eyes, and he can see moonlight crisper and more ethereal than he’d ever seen it before. Washed ashore, lying still, and staring at a sea of stars, Yoongi thinks his view almost looks as pretty as you. But he realizes this is because it is you. He’s there in your eyes, amongst those flecks of light. It’s breathtaking. It’s… 

You give him a tiny smile before turning to leave his bedroom. And Yoongi follows with his vision swimming. 

This feeling… 

You’re both in the kitchen now, his feet planted on warm tile as you grab your phone to do whatever’s in that beautiful brain of yours. God, you’re ethereal just standing there, so gorgeous, so present. His life’s most precious gift. “What shall we eat… Stew? Or, wait—” 

Yoongi watches as you give him a once over. “Actually, let’s figure you out first.” 

As you speak, he can’t offer anything. He can’t even move, because something is growing in his chest and it’s starting to feel like he’ll burst. “Okay, let’s see. You’re breathing fine, so no bruised ribs. Umm…” 

This feeling… It’s an urge. It’s an irrevocable emotion. 

It’s all you. All Yoongi sees is you. Light. Shine. Glow. The rainbow that came after the rain, casting color and new life into his dulled existence and clearing his mind of all sludge. His ribs are battered, but this has been the easiest he can breathe. 

“It looks really bad there, though. You sure you can move right?” 

How does that even make sense? How do you manage to make him second guess his life at every turn? He can be happy, even if it doesn’t make sense now. 

Your radiance is just beyond his cracked, clawed walls, and this need to fight his way out is stronger than it’s ever been. You deserve his best. You want every piece of him. 

Every version of him.

Throat burning and breath short, Yoongi runs across his mind, footsteps unimpeded towards the door he’s been waiting behind, clenching his fist around the knob and yanking it all the way open to pull himself through without resistance and turning towards the shimmering expanse across his eyes. 

“Okay, so no bruised ribs, and according to this you don’t have any broken bones. And nothing fractured, either, thank god—” 

And sunlight conquers the dark. 

“I love you.” 

You stop as soon as his heart thrums, pulsing with purpose, with the intention of keeping him full and alive because that’s exactly how he feels. 

Alive.

You question what he says, but Yoongi doesn’t answer with words. The emotion pooling in his eyes will have to suffice, because if he says what he really wants to say? You’d probably run from how ahead of himself he really is. 

So instead, surrounded by a kitchen that has seen the worst and best of him, Yoongi simply repeats out loud what’s been fact for months now, 

“I love you, doll.”

It’s okay that you don’t move. It’s okay if you don’t say anything back. 

He almost lost you. And you may have almost lost him had it not been for everyone else there. To even be able to confess is a blessing in itself, and even if you don’t reciprocate, Yoongi is more than fine with that. Because he’s still on this earth, in this lifetime, and this version of him was able to find this version of you. 

And he’ll do it again, and again, and again.

“And you don’t have to say anything. I know I don’t deserve to. I can’t be everything you want. Or need. Or whatever the fuck I’m trying to say. But I just needed you to know because I can’t fucking fight this shit anymore—” 

When you rush to embrace him with the utmost care, it proves too much to hide anything else. Yoongi’s walls fully fall with the tears from his eyes as you cry into his skin. Words bump and collide into each other as he fails to express how grateful he is to be alive and to be in your arms. It’s too much to bear. It’s too much to convey. All he can do is fucking sob. “Goddamn it, I love you—”

“Yoongi—”

“—so fucking much.”

You didn’t deny him. You didn’t look repulsed, or disappointed, or angry. All the fears that berated him for days prove useless and wrong and there’s no better feeling that exists in the spectrum of human emotion. 

Orange and blue coalesce and intertwine, and his mind shines with a rainbow of iridescence, scintillating and bounding like the suncatchers in your eyes. 

With his next blinks, something happens that renders his mind speechless. 

He slowly looks beyond your shoulder and sees a figment of himself—a younger version with big dreams and a battered heart—standing at the edge of his kitchen and donning a look of trepidation. 

Before realizing that everything’s going to be alright. 

Yeah, kid. Everything is more than alright.

And this only makes Yoongi cry harder, and he watches himself grin before offering a simple nod, walking out with hands in his pockets and fading footsteps.

Healed. 

“Yoongi.” 

His name leaves your lips so cracked that it hurts him in the best way. It takes all of him to hold you tight, finding shelter from his own shower of tears in the crook of your shoulder. 

This is what he’ll remember forever. Your outpouring of emotion receiving his biggest fear with warmth. He should’ve seen this coming, but darkness and trauma has a damn good way of beating your expectations down into dust. Just like the glass shattered across his living room floor not too long ago. 

You still haven’t said anything. But this is more than enough. This is everything Yoongi could ask for and he’s cherishing every millisecond he gets with you in this newfound life, this life beyond his own, this eternity. 

“Yoongi, I—”

He swoops in to catch your words in his mouth, and it’s in this very moment that he realizes that he’s terrified of anything you have to say back. Is that ridiculous? Is that unreasonable? He doesn’t care. There’s a chance these past three months have changed your mind and he’s not ready to hear it if that’s the case. 

Just stay here with him and let him love you. Just stay here by his side and let him watch you with a vision finally unclouded. 

Yoongi backs you up into the opposite counter, smothering you with everything else he wants to say but can’t. Because anything else he wants to confess still scares the living shit out of him.

Your breathy words already hit harder when you finally speak again, “I… I can’t… Yoongi—”

He can’t either. Whatever you’re about to say, he fucking can’t, either. Holding your head, he plants his forehead on yours. “I’m sorry,” he rasps out, hoping you can tell he means it, for everything. “I won’t ever be able to say that enough.” 

“Baby,” you hiccup, resting a hand over one of his. “It’s okay.” 

“It’s not.”

How can he ever make all of this up to you? The distance, the shutout, the shutdown, the way he tried to get you to leave. All of it weighs his heart down and forces out apologies to his brain. Over, and over, he can only say sorry. And he’s so fucking relieved that he gets to tell you because he made it out and they all survived. 

“It is.” You squeeze his hand, and he immediately calms. Inhaling your natural scent, he lowers his lids as you whisper, “You’re okay, so I’m okay.” 

All you wanted was for him to be okay. And all he needed for that to happen was having you right here. 

This is deeper than love. 

After he plants a warm kiss on your temple, he feels so goddamned overwhelmed he has to ball his fists. “I just—fuck.” 

“Babe,” you say with the softest care, “I’m here.” 

“I know.” He sighs, smushing into your lips and holding you so tenderly, yet so tight. As he laps at your tongue, salt coats his lips and he knows what it means. 

You’re here. He almost got you to leave. And you almost did and he finally, finally, finally fought for you to stay. 

Yoongi plants kisses all over your skin, marvelling at how perfect you are even if you don’t believe it. You’re everything. And he’s so drawn to you that he can feel his body responding without pause. 

But he won’t give into those urges unless you want him to. He can live off your little breaths, your roaming hands, your small hitches as he keeps peppering love along your canvas. This can be enough to keep him going well into the next year or ten. 

His name leaves your mouth in a sigh, your back arching just how he loves. “If you only knew,” he whispers, laughing to himself as he wraps an arm around your side.

“Knew what?”

“Nothing, babe.” He captures your lips again, and he can feel that you want what he wants. And his heart pulses in double time. “You’re so—fuck.”

His hands find yours as he starts to walk to the bedroom, leading you and loving how your fingers slot into his perfectly. When you both reach the bed, you stop him with a little question of concern, “Are you sure?” 

“I’ll be alright, doll.” There’s nothing but care in his movements as he lowers you down, transfixed by how beautiful you are in his sheets. The fact that you’re down to do this again after taking him so well has his mind spinning. “As much as I think you enjoyed the first time, this time will be better.” 

Giggling, you read him like a story you’ve memorized, “You enjoyed it more than I did, I think.” 

“I don’t think so.” A lie. “Lemme get a cond—” 

“It’s okay.”

…What did you just say?

Yoongi needs clarification on what the fuck you just said because he is now convinced this whole night is a dream and he’s hallucinating you in his bed and he’s gonna wake up to none of this happening at all because what the fuck did you just say? “...What?” 

“We don’t…” You swallow, and his heart stops completely at your next sentence. “We don’t have to this time.” 

There’s no fucking way. “You sure?” 

Cradling his face with the softest of touches, you confirm with a smile so shy Yoongi wants to shield you from the rest of the world, “Just for a little bit.” 

And you add something he absolutely needed to hear because his breaths haven’t resumed. “I trust you.” When your eyes slightly waver, Yoongi crumbles at your last words, “And I want to, if you want it, too.” 

Of course he wants this. But hearing the suggestion come from you? That’s new, and he’s not complaining in the least. “I want what you want, doll.” 

“Then it’s okay.”  

His fingers. They’re already fucking shaking. 

But Yoongi’s not going to say anything to change the trajectory of this moment. Something about his bedroom feels different, as if it’s been plucked from this universe and placed in a separate pocket of time where only the two of you exist. 

You aren’t wavering in your gaze. All you do is stare with pools in your eyes as he slowly peels clothes from your legs and his own. Determination is all he can see, and that solidifies his confession that he’ll keep saying again, and again, and again. 

Can you hear how breathless he sounds? Can you feel every shiver running up and down his spine? Do you notice how he could disintegrate at any moment? 

But before you both do this for real, he has to be absolutely sure. One last time. 

And you respond without him having to ask. “Yes, my love.” 

After a kiss he’ll remember forever, Yoongi kisses you back, taking his time and inundating your lips with every bit of him that he deems good. There’s a mix of emotion as he positions himself, and he has to fight the shakes when he feels the velvet touch of your folds. 

Holy fuck, he’s not gonna last. He already knows this won’t take long purely based on the way he’s already fighting hard to keep his fucking composure. 

But you’re so slick that it doesn’t take much for him to slide in, and the feeling of being fully molded into you is so incredible he could pass out. What the fuck. “Holy fucking shit.” 

“Yoongi—” 

“Fuck.” 

You’re already clenching around him. Oxygen can’t even reach his lungs. There’s no greater feeling in the world than what’s vibrating in his bones, getting to feel the person he loves just like this. Whole. Yoongi feels so whole and he knows you’re fighting to prolong this feeling just as hard as he is. 

Which only makes this shit even harder goddamn. 

Your giggle barely reaches his ears, “You good, baby?” 

He turns to watch your eyes, wondering when the fuck he got so close and wondering if he’s still even living. “Yeah, just...” He stares before finally taking a breath, exhaling hard from exertion alone. “Just this is about to make me bust.” 

When you laugh, your admittance coaxes a long, lopsided grin, “I was just thinking the same, holy shit. We’re not good at this.” 

Now that is a fuckin’ lie on your part. “No. You’re too good at this. I can’t even move.” 

“Yes, you can,” you whine. “You wreck my shit all the time.” 

Fucking hell. You have to know how much power you have in that whine. Preventing himself from coming inside you legitimately hurts at this point. Not that he’s complaining but god. “Doll, if you keep talking like that, I’m pulling out.” 

“Okay, okay,” you surrender, giggling again and making him weaker and weaker. 

His voice is so strained it’s embarrassing. “You’re a little too perfect right now.” When you shake your head, he will not have any of that doubt in his face. “You are.”

“Nowhere close.”  

You don’t wanna do that. Facing you nose to nose, Yoongi taunts, welcoming this distraction from busting in your beautiful folds. “Say that again and see what happens.”

“Is that what you tell all the others fuck!”

Fuck, you take his thrusts so well. His cock is outright throbbing now. “What did I fuckin’ say?” 

“What—”

Another launch has your mouth flopping open, and Yoongi can’t think straight anymore. All he can spit out is everything as raw as you’re taking him, “You think there’s someone else? Hmm?” 

He pushes forward again. And your expression makes him moan so guttural it even gets himself going. Grabbing your chin, he feels sweat under his fingers as he vows, “You’re gonna regret saying that.” 

You just laugh, and Yoongi groans at his next thrust and how deep he goes. When you taunt him again, he can only glower with pride, thrusting up again and sending you twisting and thrashing in passionate waves. “Uh huh.” 

“Make me then,” you gasp for air. “Make me really sorry.” 

How could he ever deny you?

His hands find your body before he dives, breaking loose and ramming into you as hard and fast as his hips allow. The pain in his side rises which each swing, but that doesn’t matter. You feel so perfect around him he thinks he can stay here until he’s physically yanked from this plane of existence. 

Heaven. “Taking me so well like this.” 

“I—”

“So fucking tight.”

Animal instincts scratch along Yoongi’s brain, blurring his vision and buzzing his actions into staccato jolts. When your jaw hangs, the first thing he thinks to do is smack your cheek, and he grunts when your eyes darken three shades,

“Do it again.” 

Did you just—

“Do it again,” you growl, moaning to the sky when he obliges a second time oh fuck you’re cutting his airway and it careens him into carnal bliss. 

Fuck, the pain feels good. So good that everything roars in his core and he turns completely primal, forfeiting all sense of decency and ravishing you exactly how he wants and exactly how you need. What the fuck is his shirt still doing on your body? That needs to go. But too much time would be wasted getting it off, but he can settle with shoving it up and devouring your chest just like this oh yes. 

“Oh, fuck, Yoongi!” 

“Uh uh.” 

“Please—please—” 

Lapping at your tits is one of his favorite things at this point. Almost as natural as embracing you and holding down your beautiful wrists just to watch you preen with a smile. Because this is exactly what you do now, teeth shining in the night and eyes creased and slicing through his beating, beating, beating heart. 

Yoongi’s sure he’s stuttering out words that praise you, but there’s nothing truly registering in his head other than your sinful, angelic sounds. Truthfully, these moans you’re puffing out are enough to send him over the edge because you sound so fucking pretty. 

“Baby,” you gasp. “I’m close, I’m—” 

Shit shit shit, he’s gonna— “Shit.” 

The last braincell he has commands his entire body, lunging up and pulling out of his newfound home before spilling mercilessly onto your exposed stomach, shuddering and shivering from lust and passion and something else scarier than the rest. 

Hearing nothing from your lips, Yoongi finally regards you with ragged breaths. 

You look so in shock. And he’s so exposed and snapped lucid that he is now downright shy. “Fuck,” he shakes out with a laugh. “Thought I could hold out.” 

“No, no, it’s fine,” you assure, laughing light and offering a smile. “Oh my god, I promise.” 

Something must now be very wrong with him, or the wiring in his brain has been changed. Because every time he sees your lips? There’s an innate need to kiss them. It’s almost blasphemous if he doesn’t. 

Fuck. He winces on the way down. There’s no doubt you saw that, which sucks. He doesn’t want you to worry about him, those lines on your forehead don’t need to be there. 

“Stay there, beautiful.” Shit, getting out of the bed hurts even worse now. I’m not done with you.” 

“Baby, are you sure?” 

He’s sure. You don’t need to lift a single finger tonight unless it’s for him to kiss. 

Walking to the bathroom and facing away, Yoongi can finally let his strong demeanor drop, wincing fully and squinting his eyes in pain. But it should subside in just a bit. Going too hard was probably the worst decision, but there was no way he was passing that shit up if you wanted it. 

From the time he comes back to sit on the bed, to wiping your face and your stomach, Yoongi doesn’t feel your stare let up even once. Which is fine. This is the most calm he’s ever felt in his life, cleaning the love of his life after a connection he didn’t expect to have until you both had reached another milestone. 

But as soon as he stares back, that’s when you look away. And it’s so adorable his heart beats a shade of lavender. “What, love.” 

“I just… nothing,” you whisper. 

“Tell me.” You’re not hiding anything from him now—fuck, he probably shouldn’t lie on this side. But fuck it. “I wanna know.” 

Well. Not on your watch apparently. You command him to lie on your other side, and he’s not gonna be told twice. Shit is hurting like hell right now.

But he settles at your side, ears perked and awaiting your every syllable. “It’s a secret.” 

Huh. “A secret?” 

“Mmhmm.” 

Well, this is definitely not what he expected. But anything to entertain and amuse you. Anything you want to tell him, he’ll bring to his grave. Lifting your chin, he softly rubs your cheek before whispering, “I can keep those, you know.” 

That smile is why he fell in love. “Okay, I’ll tell.” 

Why do you look so mischievous right now? Who is this cute ball of sudden energy? Are you not as exhausted as he feels? Yoongi is sure he could fall asleep in your arms right now without so much another breath—

“I love you, too.”

…What? 

The stop of a clock.

Absolute silence.

Soon, every star in the sky glows brighter, the moon shining beams into his room and coating your body in heavenly light. It’s so piercing and true that Yoongi feels little pricks at his eyes, desperately hoping he heard you correctly because if he didn’t, his body would crumble and wash away with the tide. 

“And you deserve more than I could ever give.” 

Oh. 

He heard you right. 

And all he can see is you just beyond the sand under his fingertips, eyes reflecting tangerine and summer sparks and everything he wants to be. 

He doesn’t remember rushing forward, he doesn’t remember kissing you. But he’s locked on your quivering mouth, not faring much better and very sure his tears are coating your tongue, too. 

What the fuck does he say? Every word in every language he knows abandons him, too stunned at your confession and reciprocation that he can only show what he feels in his movements. 

Fuck sleep. 

He’s giving you every ounce of his energy tonight. 

This is how he can thank you. For caring about him, for not giving up on him, for not leaving him when he was at his absolute lowest. 

For loving him. 

For loving him. 

The pain ceases to bother him. Because he’s joining you in the sea now, diving deep between your legs and lapping at your every wave of pleasure. All he can think about is how you taste like magic, like devotion, like home. And buried in your core and away from your moans, he can let his tears flow, eyes scrunched and fingers gripping your thighs as if you’d leave as soon as he lets go. 

When you say his name, Yoongi says nothing. Because he still cannot find it within himself to speak. If he does? You’d surely run. Getting ahead of himself is the theme tonight, and there’s no telling what he’d say next if he doesn’t keep his tongue occupied with your ebb and flow. 

He really could go all night just like this. 

And that thought is so natural that it doesn’t even phase him. 

Your hands jut into his hair before you come on his tongue a second time, and the groan he pushes out rumbles his entire being. 

“Holy fuck, baby—!” 

Your waves crash onto the shore yet again, magnificent and beautiful and sparkling. Even though he’s as close as he could possibly be, Yoongi needs to be closer. So he gets up and lets your cunt breathe as he smothers your lips once more, pouring adoration into your lungs and sacrificing air to do so. 

“Fuck.” He needs you. Yoongi can’t control the dragon in his chest that yearns for connection again, even though he knows this one cannot mirror the last. So he gets up to grab a condom, instantly thinking about how shy you were to show him which ones you got when you re-upped. 

Fucking good ones, that’s for damn sure. He can pretty much feel all of you if he thinks hard enough, even with these on. Minx. “Don’t take this the wrong way.”

“Oh, I already know.”

“K. But god, I fuckin’ want to.”

The look in your eye is familiar. And the words you say are even more so. “One day.”

Fuck, he loves you. 

And for the rest of the night, as much as he can muster, Yoongi shows you just how much. At least, he hopes you can tell from the way he makes love to you, each stroke intentional, each touch of your face tender, each look in your eye full of yearning even though you’re right there with him. 

Is it possible to want someone when they’re right there? 

What does that mean? How does he feel so fucking hungry when he’s so full of you? 

It almost—almost—scares him how he can’t get enough of your body. But it’s probably your soul that he’s holding instead, and you have so much that he can’t carry it all. 

Yoongi’s eyes burn, but not in a blaze of fire. They burn like a hearth, like a calm flame in the heart of a house.  

Because he’s finally home. 

—

—

Spent, satiated, and still wanting more but letting rest take over his tired bones, Yoongi finds himself next to your shimmering eyes and roaming fingers. God, he loves when you play with his hair. If there was one thing that could always calm his storm? This would be it.

That, and your hums. He could live indefinitely in your song.

“I’m sorry for yelling,” you finally whisper. When you catch his eyes, you shift from one to the other. “But I really was so mad at you. All of you.” 

He doesn’t blame you one bit for that. “I know.” 

“I don’t wanna lose you.”

Ah. Will he ever tell you how close that was to happening? Why does that one question make him feel so fucking guilty? “It won’t happen again.” 

“That’s what you said last time.” 

As he holds your gaze, Yoongi thinks it’s better to wait. But he can at least explain why things went down the way they did. Why you had to be sent away. “They were gonna follow us home if we didn’t, babe,” he says with certainty. “We all knew that.” 

“Oh, fuck.” Don’t cry. Everything is okay now. Please don’t let this burden you. “I didn’t… I didn’t think about that.” 

His silent pleas don’t work, because of course you would cry for them. That’s just who you are, and there’s zero need to change that. 

But it doesn’t make this situation less painful. Sitting up, Yoongi has to hang his head between his knees to hide his guilt. “You don’t need to think about shit like that,” he murmurs, remembering something else he can tell you that’s okay to divulge. “But we talked after you told us off. We won’t hide that from you anymore.” 

“Thank you…” 

A brief touch on his shoulder turns into a calm yet firm hold of his arm. You’re slowly unraveling him, just like a fruit that reminds him of you, and he’s brought into your loving warmth without a word. 

The two of you don’t need to exchange those so much anymore. Not when he can sense what you need, and when you can read him better than anyone ever has.

Only one person knows him more.

And finally remembering there are other people in the world—including the only one he fears—douses him with a splash of water. 

He’s way too deep now. He really has to do something because if he gets pulled away from you ever again, his heart may as well get ripped from his chest. 

“Thank you for letting me in.”

Yoongi’s eyes still.

“It was raining really hard.” 

Fuck. 

There have been multiple doors opened tonight. Not just the one he finally yanked himself through. And with each swing of solid wood, his heart began to breathe easier and easier, its beating stronger and fuller.

But with this last door? This one you just opened with a whisper and a soft touch? 

His whole body freezes. Because it’s a swift punch to his already pained ribcage and all he can do is leak sentences from his eyes. 

“Babe?”

Only you can affect him this potently. Only you can bring him to his knees. 

“Hey. Look at me.”

He doesn’t want to. Fuck, he’s way too timid and fragile right now to even turn your way. Yoongi feels as if all his layers have been stripped bare, lying in one piece around him and exposing his vulnerable state. 

But he obeys. And he can feel the slip of warmth on his face before you spring into action, 

“Oh, fuck, come here.”

He’s gathered in your arms and it reminds him of many things. Like the tug of warm rushing water, and the first time he realized how he felt about you. 

But above all, it reminds him of the loving embrace of his mother, one that he’s been swooped into every time he needed her most. 

And this singular comparison knocks him off balance entirely. 

“It’s okay, baby,” you whisper, pressing his face into your neck and soothing him when he doesn’t utter a damn word. “I’m not mad anymore, okay? I’m just glad you’re alright.”

How does one respond when an angel speaks to them? Is it possible to form words when your heart lodges itself in your throat? This proves too difficult. And Yoongi is trying so fucking hard to keep himself in one piece.

Too late. He can’t stop his nose from a sniff. But it’s okay, because he knows he can be like this with you. He can let go, because you’ve always allowed him to be wholly himself. 

For the first time, in a very long time, Yoongi feels… 

Protected. 

He doesn’t have to be strong right now. He doesn’t even have to pretend to be more okay than he is. He can just be and that in itself gives him the most comfort he’s had in years and years. 

The answer was always you. How many other times can he materialize this singular solution in his mind? 

Infinite, infinite, infinite times. 

“This isn’t about that, doll,” Yoongi croaks, burying wet eyes further into your shoulder. “It’s just…”

He almost can’t finish what he’s saying. It takes everything to shove it out because he wants to truly say everything he feels. Consequences and potential reactions be damned.

The truth remains. 

“It’s so fucking better when you’re here.” 

When you choke out a sob, his body responds, “I sleep better. Eat better. Fuck, I even feel better even if nothing else changes.”

“Yoongi…”

“It’s true.” Every single bit of it. The truth is so concrete in his chest that he can barely breathe. Sighing, Yoongi sniffs again before letting his weight fall into your loving side. “I mean that.”

You smooth a hand over his hair. Something that he’s missed so fucking much. “Then… Those three months…”

“One day, I’ll tell you everything,” he offers, surprising himself because there’s so many things that will scare you shitless. But what’s done is done. The future is now, and immediate changes are in order. “But from now on, you can be here whenever you want.” 

Skimming along his strands, you cheekily ask, “So I can come to those parties you host, too?” 

Oh? You know about those? It makes sense, since your brother did attend some and stayed for a bit. “Those weren’t my idea, by the way. Jimin made me.” 

You’re silent as he gravitates to your shoulder, inhaling your scent while kissing its curve. “He was worried. And hoping you would show.” Again, you don’t speak, leaving room for Yoongi to keep revealing more and more of his unending string of thoughts, “I knew you wouldn’t. But… I did hope to see you, too.” 

As you resume your gentle touches, your chest rises and falls before you finally talk, “It’s okay. It would’ve been too obvious.”

What, that he missed you? That he wouldn’t have left the same room you were in? That his eyes would’ve drifted to you because the rest of him couldn’t? “What would’ve.”

“That I wanted you all to myself.”

Oh. The two of you are so similar. “You already have that.”

Voice softer and more timid, you respond, “You know what I mean.” 

Of course he does. In fact, he wants to see how you’d act if there was nothing holding you back. Because if it were him? Everyone would know who has him cuffed up and chained down, and just how much he fucking loves it—

“My brother was the one that invited me,” you blurt. “To come to those, I mean.”

Wait.. He what? “Huh.”

“I know.” You absentmindedly take his hand and kiss along his ridges, staring off into space and time. “It makes me wonder if he knows.”

Does he? Yoongi doesn’t think so, considering he himself is still alive and breathing semi-fine. 

Back in the parking lot, though, things could’ve gotten suspicious as hell once that fucker started mentioning you to him. But the guy from Dalo taunted him first on the court way back when. Of course he’d single him out. 

But still… When your brother told him to get out of the car, he probably lost two of his nine lives. “What if he does?”

You turn, eyes wide. “Does he?”

Focusing on your lips hovering over his fingers, Yoongi runs through every scenario in his mind. The most glaring thing he can think of just happened in your front yard, but your brother told him to break up with his ex. So there’s no way he’d think you were even an option.

So the most obvious answer, thankfully, would be, “No.”

Relief lowers your shoulders. “Okay. But you’re sure I can stay?” 

Ah. He forgot about this single scheme he cooked up days ago, as soon as he was told your brother would be heading out for a surprise trip. 

Getting to tell you in person? This makes his heart sing. “Who do you think you bought those groceries for?” 

Jackpot. That expression is fucking priceless. “What?” 

Yoongi cannot believe he almost let you leave. If you had walked back out into the rain, his future would have looked much different. And, frankly, quite fucking bleak. “I get you for a week, right?”

It’s just for a second, but the wheels spinning in your head can plainly be seen. He can’t help but laugh at the way you scrunch that cute ass nose as you burst, 

“You sneaky little—” 

That look. The look you have when you’re nothing but happy? He wants that permanently etched into your features forever. There’s nothing else he wants more than to keep you shining and shining. 

Giving in to your kisses, Yoongi loses himself in the best way, melting against your lips and feeling warmth pool in his chest. 

Is going behind your brother’s back one more time still mutinous? Yes. But this will be the very last time. All the sneaking, all the hidden truths, all the little lies will be over soon enough. 

You need it to be, your brother deserves for it to be, and Yoongi yearns for it to be. 

“One day,” he murmurs, caught in a sudden determination to rewire his whole framework for your sake, “I’ll be better.”

“Don’t make it just one day, silly.” 

Did you just… What did you just say?

Clutching a little bit of his shirt, you whisper with complete devotion, “We’ll make it as many as we can.”

It’s not enough to say he loves you.

What he feels digs seven leagues farther into his soul, carving out a haven shaped like you just so he can permanently keep you there. Safe. Protected. Glowing like the pop of fireworks and the shine of sunlight through summer leaves. 

Yoongi’s not quite sure of a lot of things. Unfortunately, one of those includes knowing when exactly he’d be okay. Be truly, one hundred percent okay. 

But he’s sure of one thing, and that’s your word. If you’re with him, you’re with him. He’s known this for awhile now, but it doesn’t hit him until tonight, right as you fought to stay while staring his monsters in the eye. 

A light laugh lands on his hair, and Yoongi wonders where your mind is. Probably wandering and trying to find his own, since he knows he drifted off just a bit. 

“At least. Until the day I get to meet my cat.”

Yoongi’s brows perk up at your confidence. 

“Then I’m running away with her.”

Is that right? Maybe he believes you, but who is he to surrender so easily? “Oh, yeah?”

Your pout is priceless. “Yeah. But I’m starting to think she ran away already and you won’t fess up.”

A laugh leaps out of his chest, because technically she did but ultimately came back. You really don’t know half of it, but he has time to tell you everything. Even the parts he doesn’t want to. “She’s still here!”

“Lies.”

“How much are you betting, doll.”

“How much are you willing to lose, babe.”

Alright, he’s had enough. The urge to tickle you roars again, and he doesn’t have to keep his hands to himself. “This much,” he says with his attack, loving your bubbling laughter, “Maybe I’ll make you leave after all if you’re gonna be a problem.” 

“You did threaten to kick me out before.” 

Yoongi stops on your soft curves. “Huh? When?”

“That day I showed up.” Your eyes crease as you watch him stare far into your eyes. “Said you were gonna kick me out for hustling you.” 

Oh, fuck, he did! 

The laugh that rumbles from his belly is so fast and loud that his side hurts like hell fuck but he can’t help it because the giddiness gets the best of him. Damn, he really did say that the very first day. From day one, he’s been such a liar. “I should’ve!” 

“You really should’ve.” 

“Played me from the very start. You happy with yourself?” Of course you nod. It’s attractive in the best and worst ways, and soon he’s not gonna know what to do with the confident version of you. “Course you are.” 

“You love it.” 

“I do.” 

The sentence he wants to say next is balancing on the tip of his tongue. But it’s even more fun to dangle in front of your awaiting eyes, knowing you have a feeling of what he’s gonna say. 

So he just bites his own lips before pulling you in for a kiss. “Thought I was gonna say it, huh.” 

“No! …Maybe.” 

Adorable. “Guess what.” 

Yoongi doesn’t even acknowledge your suspicion before seizing your mouth, kissing you deep and feeling the arch of your chest into his. Fuck, he loves when you do that. It’s one of his favorite things, even more so when it happens right here in his bed. 

If it ever happens again in yours… 

After a few passes, he raises himself, planting a hand at your side and slotting a leg in between yours. God, your skin. It’s so smooth against his, and yet, you’re so unbelievably strong. So firm. So loyal. It’s never going to fully click that you’re doing this all for him. 

There are multitudes of what Yoongi wants to say to you. But you two have all the time in the world now. He’s gonna shower you with so much appreciation and adoration that you may not know what to do with him. And that’s perfectly okay. 

When he lets up, you move wet lips to whisper, “What were you gonna say?” 

Drawn to your nose, Yoongi gives in to his urges yet again and kisses you there, letting loose and firing another confession into the dark night sky, “I just fucking love you, doll.” 

Oh. You’re trying to duck him now? That’s not gonna work, but it’s fucking cute as hell. “You can’t hide now, babe.” 

“I can!” 

Nah, you can’t run. He has more to say and he’s gonna say it to your face. Or ear. Whatever is willing to take in his sparkling, booming declarations, “I love fucking you, too.” 

“Yoongi!” 

He can’t help but laugh now, holding you tighter and snuggling his nose into your scent. Inhaling, inhaling, exhaling relief. Relief that you are here and relief that he is, too.

That second of terror, not knowing if he was going to survive? It feels so far away and right on his heels all at once. It’s a strange feeling, wondering if the universe intentionally gave him a second chance and now wondering why. Clearly, he now has some soul searching to do. 

But two things are for sure: music, and you.

And to Yoongi, they are one and the same.  

“I miss you.”

What?

Looking down at your head, Yoongi wonders if he wandered too far, “How? I’m right here.”

You lower into his chest, and he feels his heartbeat quicken. “I still miss you.”

Fuck. He knows how that feels. 

Feeling the rush of melancholy, he embraces your sides, knowing that there’s a goodbye to every hello and he knows your dreading this part just as much as he is. 

A flare of blue streaks across his chest. Something burning so hot and searing a decision on the inside of his lungs. 

And fuck, it’s already making him shake. “I can’t do shit like this anymore.” 

You completely still in his arms, and he knows why. But this is the only way he can get all of this out because it’s frightening and he’s running from the one sentence he has to say out loud.

“I wanna do this the right way.” 

He can’t fucking stop his breaths from studdering, and you push up to check on his current shake,

“What are you saying?” 

Just say it. Just fucking say it. He’s ready to walk into fire, knowing a piece of him might disintegrate into ashes. “I’m saying I’ll tell him, doll. Just me.” 

It takes a second or two for you to realize what he says. And he gets that. This is sudden, and it’s throwing him into a new state of panic that would destroy him if you weren’t there warming his skin.

The gleam of your tears gives him a will to breathe. 

And Yoongi swallows every shadow and doubt before taking the first step towards freedom, famine, or both. 

For you, for you, for you. Always and forever, for you. 

“I’ll tell him everything.” 

More water engulfs your eyes as you fall silent, and Yoongi can’t quell the beating in his chest. Are you shocked? Scared? Just as fucking frightened as he is? 

Because he has a lot coming for him and there’s no way around it. He just has to hope to everything in the universe and beyond that he can withstand whatever hell your brother will unleash. 

And the guilt waiting for him on its haunches. “Babe?” 

“I’m just…” Your brows deepen as your face scrunches, but what you say makes him blink twice. “I can’t…”

Yoongi’s heart is millimeters from the ground. “What?”

When your hand grips your chest, he feels his whole world pulse with the urge to protect you. You look so scared of something, and it’s probably the same as what’s haunting him. He wishes things were different, he wishes he did things better, he hates himself for—

“I love you so much it fucking hurts.”

Oh. 

You… That’s all you’re thinking about? Him? His throat sears through at how wrong he was. How the fuck will he ever deserve you?

“Maybe cus I’m scared as shit,” you confirm one of his worries, clenching another beautiful hand over your chest. “Or maybe one heart isn’t enough to hold it all.” 

If that isn’t the fucking truth. 

Just saying the words will never be enough. Like it’s laughable how much he feels for you, what he would do for you. The way he went from a bruised heart to growing another just for you inflates his battered ribcage and leaves him breathless. “It’s been hurting for me, too,” he croaks, chest constricted by the rivers on your face. “A lot longer than three months.”

When your palm reaches to cup his cheek, Yoongi can’t hold back the tear that falls into its ridges. Because his capacity for emotion seems to be limitless around your tender heart. You’re his safe haven, his hearth, his home where he can be himself and not feel like he has to hide. 

You’re his everything. And he’s simply yours in every sense of the word. 

“I just wish I was here for those,” you whisper with leaking eyes that match his. “I missed you, Yoongi. I didn’t want to say much, but… It affected me a lot more than I thought.”

“I know,” he responds, cracked and broken beyond repair. “There’s nothing I can say that can change what I did.” 

Your sniffles stab like knives. 

“But listen. Hmm?” He shifts to kiss the inside of your palm. “Never again.” 

When you can only nod, his lungs collapse. “Serious. And you’ll know how serious by tomorrow. K?”

“K,” you breathe out, silent as you watch him pepper more and more kisses along your wrist between inhales. His plan will be fully done by the end of the day tomorrow. There’s a bit to do, but he’s got time. Everything will be worth it just to keep you happy and at peace. 

And maybe this will help him get there, too. 

“Come here, doll,” he whispers, shutting both eyes when you rush to his lips before he even finishes the plea. And your mouth pins his in the best way, smothering with salt and a deluge he laps at, sucks in, smushes closer with a hand to your head. 

When you break away, Yoongi gulps in air as you do the same, hearing your soft sniffs and still wishing things had been done differently. 

But he can’t change the past. And the present is more than he could ever ask for. So there’s no point in dwelling on the roads you both took to get here.

“I love when you call me that,” you admit, breaking into his thoughts. 

“Doll?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Kinda picked up on that.” Ah, you’re trying to hide one more time? Do you know that’s never gonna fly with him? “Huh, now we’re shy again?” 

“Always.” 

“We both know that’s not true.” Yoongi laughs until you latch onto his neck, and blood speeds to his groin as he instantly loses himself in a groan. He doesn’t even register his head kicking back until his words come out strained, “Fuckin’ hustler, fuck…” 

When you chuckle, your vibrations send jolts along his limbs, activating every fucking cell and lighting up his brain until it’s completely blank. 

“Gotta live up to my name somehow,” you joke, pulling away and leaving a cold patch in your wake. “But seriously, that’s all you get. We have to sleep.” 

“What, you don’t wanna see the cat anymore?” 

“I never said that!”

You’re way too easy, but he’d be the same exact way. The last time he got you both up to see your little gift, she wasn’t outside. Will she be there now? 

With tired muscles, you both get out of the bed, and he holds out his hand to guide your zigzag waddles through his apartment that he can finally breathe in. 

“Wait,” you halt with your arm. When Yoongi obeys with a look, you turn to him and show off how logical you are, “There’s probably glass still.” 

He nods, resting you against his door before fetching slippers from his closet. And it hurts like a bitch to lean down, but he slips your pair on so you don’t have to move. Rather him than you anyday. 

And that look of pure adoration he gets in return will always be fucking worth it. 

God. Things really are better when you’re here. 

He can’t believe how stupid he’s been. 

With the proper footwear, both of you slowly make your way through his place, and Yoongi shifts his vision around to check for any large shards of glass to navigate you around. Somehow, it looks like you got most of the damage out. But some tiny specks and chips still remain, and he notes to get them soon—

“If she’s not out there again, I’m gonna cry.”

Yoongi laughs before squeezing your fingers. “Me, too.”

Finally, you both get to the door, and his hand stays flat on the wooden striations for a little longer than necessary. 

How wild to think things could have gone to shit entirely. How foolish of him to even fight for you to leave. 

But, after a moment of him looking down at the doorknob and you giving him the space to pause, Yoongi opens the door and gives a small peek outside. 

Bingo. “Stay there,” he commands, and he leads you forward until you forget he’s there.

Because the damn cat now commands all your attention, lapping at a water bowl until she looks at you. There’s a moment when he knows she’s cautious, but it doesn’t last long before she’s curious enough to inch closer to your side of the door. 

Of course it wouldn’t take long. Yoongi knows how magnetic and gentle you’ve always been. Maybe if he didn’t resist it so fucking much before, he wouldn’t have had to separate himself in the first place. 

“You’re so little,” you whisper. “Hi, baby.”

He smiles down at you both as the little one sniffs at your finger, feeling a calmness in his heart that seems secure and permanent. Is he allowed to feel this way all the time? 

Maybe if he had done things right and told your brother everything first. And maybe he should stop digging this hole and stay in the moment, goddamn. 

“Do you have a name yet?” You ask her instead of him, scratching behind an ear and giggling at a purr. “Did your dad give you one?” 

…Dad? 

Yeah, digging that hole is probably smart. He’s gonna need a whole grave for that one. 

But Yoongi swallows before answering for the one that can’t speak, “I’ve just been calling her cat.” 

When you glare over your shoulder, it’s immensely more cute than intimidating, which causes him to laugh and the cat to scurry a bit away. “You named my cat Cat?”

“Nah, just nothing permanent. Figured you’d wanna do that.”

“We can do it together.” Lips pursed, you sit in thought as she comes back, plopping on her side so you can rub her belly. “It would mean more that way.” 

“Cat means cat,” Yoongi shrugs out, before promptly getting swatted at and laughing. “Yeah, yeah, okay. I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” You yawn before saying goodbye for now, and judging from the look of yearning on your face, Yoongi knows you’d rather bring her inside. “See you again soon, cat named Cat.”

Cute.

Maybe something short and sweet? Miss Dion has been calling him something a lot lately... And it could fit with how nice this cat is being around you. 

“Sugar.”

You peer up before blinking. “Wait, that's so cute. Where'd that come from?”

Well. You didn't say no, so he's sticking with it.

Smiling, Yoongi helps you up before you both step back inside. “I’ll explain in a bit.” 

That seems to quell any other conversation about it, so you let him lead you back to bed. 

Only he doesn’t do that. Instead, Yoongi leads you just a few steps forward, letting you both stand in the living room and take in the aftermath of his mania together.

Your hand comes down to grip his in a comforting hold, and his shoulders immediately relax. "I don't know what led to this," you start slow, rolling words around in your mouth and plucking them very carefully. Even though you don't need to. He deserves to hear your every critical thought. "But I wanna know..."

When Yoongi turns to face you, he isn't prepared for your question,

"Did it help at all?"

Mm.

It's not that he can't answer because it's too hard. The reason he can't answer you right away is because he doesn't quite know the real answer. Does he feel better because of what he did? Or because you're here, like he said before? "I'm not sure yet," he decides to respond truthfully.

Eyes slipping down to your fingers looped in his, Yoongi admits with quiet confidence, "But none of it mattered as soon as I saw you."

Once again, with one look, he finds himself swimming in those beautiful eyes. Because you don't see him with pity, or rage, or even disappointment. You just... see him. You accept him as he comes.

And one day, when he gets the courage to look you in the eyes long enough, he'll be able to see himself the way you do, too.

"Let's rest, my love," you whisper soft. "I'll yell at you in the morning, I'm too tired to do it now."

There it is.

Chuckling, Yoongi obliges, shivering at how you address him and following whatever you ask. "Good. You're the only one allowed to kick my ass."

"As it should be."

When he's the one that leads you to the bedroom, his heart beats strong. But when you're the one that tucks him into bed with a kiss to his forehead, Yoongi's pulse becomes so tender it robs him of words.

"Hey... I'll always be here, you know," you murmur, sliding a warm hand over his bangs. "Even if it doesn't feel like it, I'm right here. All you have to do is close your eyes, and just..."

When he does, the press of your lips on his damn near brings him to tears. He commits this feeling to every memory center lodged in his brain, and this moment instantly locks itself as one of his deepest, most cherished ever.

"Remember that."

Eyes flittering open, Yoongi softly brings you in for another kiss. "I will, doll."

Your smile gives him purpose. "Good."

And for the first time in months and despite a hurting side, Yoongi sleeps right til the time he has to wake up, without even a breath or pulse out of alignment.

Because his drift to sleep had been a peaceful one, and the only thing he dreamt, felt, or thought of was you.

And the way you told him you loved him.

-

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fin :')

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fugue thoughts!! we did it!! | join the server!

a/n: we freakin' did it i love them i love them i love them!! yoongi's whole interlude is done and it was a monster in itself. now we're back on to the main storyline and honestly i am both relieved and yet still so tender for this yoongi. of course, there are other big situations we have to get ourselves into, but we are in the home stretch of three tangerines so let's finish this all out with a bang bang bang and lights in the sky :')) ++ feedback box: ⇥ of course, any reblogs/comments/messages are appreciated! ⇥ for the ones that are too shy to reblog with a review, comment on this, or send a message, i went ahead and made another anonymous form where you can send in what you think! ⇥ no emails collected, no need to put in a username. it’s literally just a comment dropbox :D feedback can be as short/sweet or as long as you’d like! ⇥ here! ++ more links: ⇥ masterlist  ⇥ three tangerines masterlist

a/n 2: we did this for 3tanfugue3 and the energy was great! just like last time, some of you guys suggested that we have post goals to encourage interaction. no one voted against it last time (honestly, you guys were super encouraging so thank you!) so let's go again!