literally, nobody cares

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 as he chopped the vegetables. When you’d watch him watch you, talking about your days and nights, the moon and the stars.

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…” 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.

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.

It’s 3:47 a.m. when the lock finally scrapes. The sound cuts through the stillness like a match strike. You don’t move. Your heart does— stupid, traitorous thing— but your body stays rooted, arms wrapped around your shins, eyes fixed on the dark hallway. Footsteps, heavy and familiar. The soft thud of boots being kicked off. A low sigh that tells you he already knows exactly what kind of night this is going to be.

Jungkook appears in the doorway like he owns every shadow in the room. His hoodie is half-zipped, revealing the sharp line of his collarbone and the thin silver chain that always rests against his chest. His hair is a mess of dark waves, tousled as if fingers, maybe his, maybe not— had been running through it all night. There’s a faint flush on his cheeks and a sheen of sweat at his temples. He looks like sin wrapped in expensive fabric, and the worst part is how effortlessly beautiful he still is at nearly four in the morning.

“Baby,” he murmurs, voice gravel-rough from smoke and shouting over music. He doesn’t even pretend to look guilty as he crosses the room, eyes locked on you with that heavy-lidded stare that always makes your stomach twist. “You’re still up.”

You swallow hard, trying to keep your voice steady even though your pulse is hammering in your throat. “You’re four hours late, Jungkook. Four. I waited like an idiot again.”

He exhales through his nose, slow and tired, but there’s no real apology in it. Instead of heading to the shower or offering excuses, he drops to his knees right there in front of the couch, like the floor is exactly where he belongs when he’s trying to fix things. His large hands slide up your bare thighs, pushing the hem of his t-shirt higher with deliberate patience. The heat of his palms burns against your skin, thumbs stroking lazy circles that make your legs tremble despite how furious you are.

“I know,” he says softly, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of your knee, then higher, teeth grazing just enough to send sparks up your spine. “Phone died somewhere around two. Got caught up with the guys at the studio, then the after-party ran late. I’m sorry, baby. I should’ve texted from someone else’s phone.”

The words are smooth, practiced, and they mean almost nothing. You can smell the night on him, whiskey, cigarette smoke, the faint metallic tang of club air, and it only sharpens the ache in your chest. You grab his jaw, fingers digging into the sharp edge of it, forcing those dark eyes up to meet yours. His lips are already parted, glistening slightly, and the sight of him like this, on his knees, looking up at you like you’re the only thing he wants right now, makes something deep inside you clench with both rage and raw need. “You never text back anymore,” you whisper, voice cracking despite your best effort. “You disappear for hours, sometimes days. You forgot the flowers I asked for last week. You forgot my fucking birthday dinner two months ago. And I’m still here, waiting like some pathetic—”

He cuts you off by pushing your thighs apart slowly, reverently, like he’s unwrapping something sacred. The cool air hits your bare core and you realize with a flush of embarrassment and heat that you’re already wet. Of course you are. You always are for him, even when you hate him.

“Shh,” Jungkook breathes against your inner thigh, lips brushing higher, closer. “I’ll buy you flowers tomorrow. A whole fucking garden if you want. Right now…” His tongue drags a slow, wet stripe up your slit, savoring the taste of you like he’s been starving for it all night. “I just wanna eat this pretty pussy until you forget every bad thing I did.”

You try to hold onto the anger, but the first swipe of his tongue— flat, broad, and greedy, rips a broken moan from your throat. He doesn’t tease. He devours. His mouth seals over your clit, sucking hard while two thick fingers push inside you without warning, curling instantly against that spot that makes your vision blur. The wet sounds are obscene in the quiet apartment, slick and filthy as he works you open with practiced hunger.

Your hands fly to his hair, gripping the dark strands tight enough to hurt, but he only groans against you, the vibration shooting straight through your core. He eats you like a man trying to apologize with his tongue, long, slow licks followed by fast, relentless flicks that have your hips jerking against his face. His free hand pins your thigh down, keeping you spread wide so he can bury his face deeper, nose pressed against your mound as he drinks every drop of you.

“Fuck— Jungkook—” The words dissolve into a whimper. Tears of frustration and overwhelming pleasure sting at the corners of your eyes. You hate how good he is at this. Hate how he knows exactly how to twist his fingers, how to hum and suck and lap at you until your legs shake uncontrollably. The coil in your belly winds tighter and tighter, every drag of his tongue pushing you closer to the edge you don’t want to fall over yet. Not when you’re still so mad.

He pulls back just enough to look up at you, lips shiny and swollen, chin glistening with your arousal. His eyes are blown black with lust, but there’s that familiar smug little tilt to his mouth. “Still mad, baby?” he asks, voice husky as he curls his fingers again, slow and deep. He leans in and licks you again, slower this time, torturously gentle, dragging the flat of his tongue from your entrance all the way up to your swollen clit. “Good. Stay mad for me. I fuck you so much better when you’re angry.”

Then his mouth is back on you, sucking hard, fingers pumping faster, and you come undone with a shattered cry, back arching, thighs clamping around his head as waves of blinding pleasure crash through you. He doesn’t stop. He keeps licking you through it, gentler now but no less hungry, drawing out every last tremor until you’re a trembling, breathless mess on the couch.

He doesn’t give you any time to come down. The moment your thighs stop shaking, Jungkook rises from his knees in one fluid motion, towering over you with that dark, predatory glint in his eyes. His lips are still glistening with your release, and he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand like it’s nothing, like he hasn’t just ruined you on the living room couch at four in the morning. Before you can even catch your breath, he drops onto the couch beside you, legs spread wide in those tight black jeans, the obvious bulge straining against the fabric impossible to ignore.

“Fuck, baby,” he groans, voice low and wrecked as he leans back against the cushions, one arm draped along the back of the couch. His free hand palms himself slowly through his pants, squeezing the thick outline of his cock while his hooded eyes stay locked on you. “You taste so fucking good when you’re mad at me. Come here… please.”

The word “please” sounds almost foreign coming from him, Jungkook rarely begs for anything, but right now it drips from his lips like honey, needy and rough. He reaches for your wrist, tugging you gently but insistently until you’re shifted toward him, your body still buzzing from the aftershocks. You can see the way his chest rises and falls faster, the slight sheen of sweat on his neck, the way his tongue darts out to wet his swollen bottom lip. He looks desperate, hips twitching up into his own hand like he can’t help it.

“I’ve been thinking about your mouth all night,” he admits, voice dropping even lower as he pops the button on his jeans and slowly drags the zipper down. The sound is loud in the quiet room. “Every time I was out there, all I could picture was you on your knees, choking on me like you do so well. C’mon, baby… I need it. I need you.”

He frees himself with a relieved hiss, his cock springing up heavy and flushed against his stomach, thick, veined, the tip already leaking and glistening under the low lamplight. Jungkook wraps one large hand around the base and strokes himself once, twice, slow and teasing, his breath hitching as he watches your reaction. You hate how your mouth waters at the sight, how your thighs press together again even though you just came.

“Please,” he repeats, softer this time, almost whimpering as he leans his head back against the couch, exposing the column of his throat. His hand keeps moving lazily, thumb swiping over the head to spread the bead of precum. “I’ve been so fucking hard for hours. Just suck me, baby. I’ll be good after this, I swear. I’ll stay home tomorrow. I’ll get you those flowers… whatever you want. Just put that pretty mouth on me. I’m begging you.”

His words are a dangerous mix of filth and false promises, the kind he always breaks, but the desperation in his voice chips away at your resolve. You can see the way his abs clench under his hoodie, the faint tremble in his thighs as he tries to hold himself back from thrusting into his own fist. Jungkook’s eyes flutter half-closed, dark lashes casting shadows on his cheeks, and he bites his lip hard when he squeezes the head of his cock again.

“Look at me,” he murmurs, reaching out to thread his fingers through your hair, not pushing, just cradling your head with surprising gentleness. "Please, baby. Suck my cock. I’ll lose my mind if you don’t.”

You lean in before your brain can catch up to the anger still simmering in your chest, lips brushing the flushed, leaking tip of his cock. The taste of him, salty, musky, so undeniably Jungkook, floods your mouth as you part your lips and take just the head inside, swirling your tongue slow and deliberate around the sensitive slit. He hisses sharply above you, hips twitching like he’s fighting the urge to buck up already, one hand still tangled gently in your hair while the other grips the edge of the couch cushion hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

“Fuck, yes… just like that, baby,” he groans, voice thick and low, eyes half-lidded as he watches you with that intense, dark stare that always makes your stomach flip. “You look so pretty with my cock in your mouth. Even when you’re mad at me, you still drop to your knees like a good little girlfriend. That’s why I keep coming back to you, you know? No one else sucks me like this. No one else makes me feel this fucking desperate.”

His words are laced with that familiar manipulation, the kind that always creeps in when he’s like this, sweet enough to sound like praise, but sharp enough to remind you exactly where you stand. You hollow your cheeks and sink down further, taking more of his thick length until he bumps the back of your throat, and Jungkook lets out a wrecked moan that vibrates through his chest. His fingers tighten in your hair, not pulling yet, just holding you there as you bob slowly, tongue pressing flat against the thick vein running underneath.

“You’re too good to me,” he murmurs, the lie slipping out so easily between heavy breaths. “I know I don’t deserve this. I know I fucked up again tonight… staying out, not texting, forgetting all that shit you asked for. But you still take care of me, don’t you? You still let me use this pretty mouth because deep down you know I need you. Only you. If you really loved me, you’d take me deeper right now… show me how much you forgive me.”

The words sting even as they make heat pool low in your belly again. You hate how easily he twists things, how he turns your own frustration into something that feels like your fault, but you do exactly what he wants anyway, relaxing your throat and pushing forward until your nose brushes the dark hair at his base, swallowing around him. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes from the stretch, spit already dripping down your chin, but the way Jungkook’s head falls back against the couch with a guttural “Shit— baby, you’re perfect” makes it worth it. His thighs tremble under your hands where you brace yourself on them, muscles rock-hard from the effort of staying still.

He lets you set the pace for a few more long, wet strokes, slow drags of your lips up to the tip where you suck hard on the head, then sinking all the way down again until your throat flutters around him. Every time you pull back for air he’s right there with the praise and the guilt, voice hoarse and manipulative. “See? This is why I can’t stay away. You’re the only one who knows exactly how I like it. Fuck, don’t stop.”

But the longer you work him, the more his control frays. His hips start to cant up into your mouth on every downstroke, chasing the wet heat of your throat. You feel the exact moment he snaps, the gentle hand in your hair suddenly gripping tighter, fingers fisting at the roots as he holds you steady. “Baby… I need more,” he pants, eyes blown wide and glassy when they meet yours again. “Let me fuck your face. Please. I’ve been thinking about this tight little throat all night. You can take it, right? You always take it so well for me.”

You barely have time to nod before he’s shifting forward on the couch, both hands now cradling your head as he starts to thrust, shallow at first, testing, but quickly turning deeper, harder. The wet, obscene sounds of your mouth fill the apartment as he fucks into you with measured rolls of his hips, the head of his cock sliding over your tongue and bumping the back of your throat on every push. Spit runs freely down your chin and onto your chest now, mixing with the tears that slip down your cheeks from the intensity, but Jungkook just groans louder, hips snapping a little faster.

“Fuck, look at you,” he rasps, voice cracking with how good it feels. “Taking my cock like you were made for it.” His thrusts grow rougher, more erratic, the grip on your hair bordering on painful as he holds you in place and drives deeper, the lewd slap of his balls against your chin echoing with every motion. You gag softly around him and he moans like it’s the best sound he’s ever heard, hips stuttering. “That’s it— make those noises for me. Let me ruin this mouth a little. You’re doing so good, baby. So fucking good. Just a little more and I’ll give you everything you want… I swear.”

He’s lost in it now, face flushed, lips parted, dark hair sticking to his forehead as he fucks your mouth with deep, claiming strokes that leave you dizzy and aching between your own legs again. The manipulation keeps spilling out between broken groans—“You forgive me, don’t you? Say it with your throat full of my cock”—but all you can do is moan around him, hands clutching his thighs for balance while he uses you exactly how he needs.

Jungkook’s thrusts into your throat grow sloppier, more desperate, his hips snapping forward with increasing urgency as his cock swells thicker against your tongue. His breathing is ragged, broken moans spilling from his lips while both hands fist tight in your hair, holding you down as he fucks your face like he owns it. You can feel him getting close, the way his thighs tense under your palms, the constant twitch and throb of his cock, the way his abs clench every time you swallow around him.

But right when you think he’s about to spill down your throat, he yanks you off him with a wet pop, strings of spit connecting your swollen lips to the glistening head of his cock. You gasp for air, coughing softly, tears streaking your cheeks and chin shiny with mess. Jungkook stares down at you with wild, blown-out eyes, chest heaving, his hand wrapping around the base of his throbbing length to squeeze hard and stave off his orgasm.

“Not yet,” he growls, voice hoarse and commanding. “I don’t wanna come in your mouth tonight, baby. I need to be inside you. Need to fill this tight little pussy up until you’re dripping with me.” He leans forward, cupping your jaw almost tenderly, thumb brushing your bottom lip even as his words turn filthy and manipulative. “You’re gonna let me, right? After everything I put you through tonight… after making you wait and worry… you’re still gonna let me fuck you raw and come deep inside where I belong. That’s how I know you love me. Only good girls let their boyfriends breed them when they’ve been bad.”

Before you can respond, he’s moving, fast, strong, and relentless. He grabs your waist and flips you over the couch like you weigh nothing, shoving your chest down against the cushions so your ass is raised high for him. The oversized t-shirt rides up your back, exposing you completely. His hands spread your cheeks roughly, and you feel the blunt, wet head of his cock nudge against your soaked entrance, teasing once, twice, before he slams in with one brutal thrust.

You cry out, the stretch intense and perfect as he buries himself to the hilt in a single motion. Jungkook doesn’t give you time to adjust. He pulls back almost all the way and drives in again, harder, setting a punishing rhythm right from the start. The sound of skin slapping skin fills the apartment, loud, wet, obscene, as he fucks you like he’s trying to punish you and worship you at the same time.

“Fuck— so tight,” he groans, one hand gripping your hip hard enough to bruise while the other fists into your hair, yanking your head back so your back arches sharply. “This pussy was made for me. Even when I’m a shitty boyfriend, you still get this wet for me. Still clench around my cock like you’ll die if I stop.” His hips snap forward relentlessly, each thrust deep and brutal, the angle letting him hit that spot inside you that makes stars explode behind your eyes. The couch creaks under the force of it, your knees sliding on the cushions as he rails you harder.

He leans over your back, chest pressed to you, lips brushing your ear as he keeps pounding into you. “That’s it, baby. Take it. Take every fucking inch like the forgiving little slut you are for me.” His free hand comes down in a sharp smack on your ass, then again on the other cheek, the sting blooming hot as he keeps driving into you without mercy. “You forgive me, don’t you? Say it. Tell me you forgive your bad boyfriend while I’m balls-deep inside you.”

The pace is merciless— long, powerful strokes that leave you gasping and moaning into the couch cushion, your hands clutching at the fabric for any kind of anchor. Jungkook straightens up again, both hands on your hips now, pulling you back onto his cock with every forward thrust so the slap of your bodies grows even louder. He’s fucking you so deep you swear you can feel him in your stomach, the wet squelch of your arousal coating his length and dripping down your thighs with every brutal plunge.

“You’re mine,” he pants, voice breaking with how good it feels. “No matter how late I stay out, no matter how many times I fuck up… this pussy is still mine. And I’m gonna fill it up until you’re leaking me for days. Would you like that, baby? Walking around with my cum inside you, knowing exactly what a shitty boyfriend I am while still letting me breed you?”

His rhythm turns even more savage, hips slamming against your ass so hard you’re sure you’ll be sore tomorrow. One hand snakes around to rub tight, fast circles on your clit, and the sudden added stimulation has you shaking, another orgasm building dangerously fast under his relentless assault. Your mind is completely gone.

You’re a moaning, sobbing mess beneath him, face buried in the couch cushion as Jungkook rails you from behind with that brutal, unforgiving rhythm. Every thrust punches a broken cry out of your throat, your voice hoarse and wrecked from how deep he’s hitting. Your pussy clenches around his thick cock like it never wants to let him go, slick sounds echoing obscenely with every slap of his hips against your ass. Tears of overwhelming pleasure leak from the corners of your eyes, mixing with the spit still drying on your chin.

“J-Jungkook— fuck, please—” you sob, the words slurred and desperate. Your whole body trembles, thighs shaking violently as another orgasm threatens to rip through you. He’s so deep like this, stretching you wide, dragging against every sensitive spot inside you until you feel like you’re going to shatter.

But just as your walls start fluttering hard around him, right when you’re about to tip over the edge, Jungkook suddenly pulls out with a wet, filthy sound.

The sudden emptiness is devastating. A broken wail tears from your throat as you cry out, actual tears spilling down your cheeks now. “No— no, please don’t stop,” you sob pathetically, hips pushing back desperately into nothing, searching for his cock. “Jungkook, please— I was so close, I need you inside me, please—”

The loss hits you harder than it should, your pussy clenching around empty air, aching and dripping. You feel pathetic, crying over your shitty boyfriend’s cock like this, but you can’t stop the tears or the desperate little whimpers escaping you. Jungkook lets out a dark, satisfied chuckle behind you, his hands gripping your hips tight. “Look at you… crying because I pulled out for two seconds,” he murmurs, voice dripping with that smug, manipulative edge. “So fucking needy for me even when I treat you like this. That’s my good girl. Only I can make you cry like this, huh?”

Before you can beg again, he flips you over onto your back with ease, manhandling you until you’re sprawled on the couch, legs spread wide for him. Your chest heaves, face flushed and tear-streaked, the oversized t-shirt bunched up around your waist. Jungkook looms over you, cock slick and angry-red, hovering just above your dripping entrance as he drinks in the sight of you— ruined, desperate, and completely his.

“Shh, baby, I’ve got you,” he coos, but there’s nothing soft about the way he grabs your thighs and pushes them back toward your chest, folding you in half. “I’m not done with you yet. I need to see your face when I fill you up.”

He lines himself up and slams back inside you in one brutal thrust, burying every inch to the hilt. You scream— loud and raw— back arching clean off the couch as he immediately sets a merciless pace. The new angle is even deeper, the head of his cock kissing your cervix with every savage snap of his hips. Skin slaps loudly against skin, your wetness coating his pelvis and dripping down your ass as he fucks you like he’s trying to break you.

“Fuck— yes, that’s it,” Jungkook groans, eyes locked on your tear-stained face with dark hunger. “Cry for me, baby. Let me see how much you need this cock.” His hips piston relentlessly, pounding into you so hard the couch shifts beneath you. One hand braces beside your head while the other wraps around your throat, not squeezing hard, just holding you there, possessive and controlling. “You’re such a mess for me. Look at you sobbing and moaning like a little slut while I ruin this pussy. But you love it, don’t you? You love when I fuck you stupid.”

You can barely form words anymore, just high, broken moans and whimpers falling from your lips with every devastating thrust. Your hands clutch at his shoulders, nails digging into his hoodie as he drives into you harder, faster, grinding deep on every stroke so your clit rubs against his pelvis. The pressure builds again, white-hot and overwhelming, your walls fluttering wildly around his thick length.

Jungkook leans down, biting at your bottom lip before kissing you messily, all tongue and teeth. “Tell me you’re mine,” he growls against your mouth, hips never slowing. “Tell me you’ll keep letting me fuck you like this no matter how many times I fuck up. Say it, baby. Say you’ll always be my good little cumdump even when I’m a bad boyfriend.”

His pace turns punishing, hips slamming into you so hard your vision whites out. He angles just right, hitting that spot inside you over and over until you’re screaming his name, body seizing as your orgasm crashes through you violently. Your pussy spasms hard around him, gushing wetly as you shake and cry through the intensity. But Jungkook doesn’t stop. He fucks you straight through it, groaning at how tightly you squeeze him, chasing his own release with deep, brutal strokes. "I'm Yours" You cry out.

“Fuck, baby— you’re squeezing me so tight,” he groans, voice ragged and broken as he stares down at your tear-streaked face. His hand tightens slightly around your throat, thumb pressing just under your jaw so he can feel every desperate moan vibrate against his palm.

His pace turns savage, hips slamming into you with wet, punishing slaps that echo through the quiet apartment. The couch creaks even more dangerously beneath you as he folds you even tighter, knees nearly pressed to your shoulders, cock plunging so deep you swear you can feel him rearranging your insides. Sweat drips from his forehead onto your chest, his dark hair messy and clinging to his skin, lips parted as broken grunts and moans spill out.

“I’m so close,” he pants, eyes wild and possessive. “Gonna fill you up, baby. Gonna pump this tight little cunt full of my cum until it’s leaking out of you for hours. You want that, don’t you? Want your bad boyfriend to breed you raw after treating you like shit all night?” He leans down, biting at your neck, sucking a fresh mark into your skin as his thrusts grow erratic and desperate. “Say it. Tell me you want my load. Tell me you’ll keep taking it no matter what I do.”

You’re barely coherent anymore, just a sobbing, moaning wreck beneath him, nodding frantically as another wave of overwhelming pleasure builds. “Yes— yes, please, Jungkook— I want it,” you cry out, voice hoarse and shattered. “Come inside me— please fill me up—”

That’s all it takes.

Jungkook buries himself to the hilt with a guttural, broken moan, hips stuttering as his cock pulses hard inside you. You feel every thick spurt as he comes, hot, heavy ropes of cum flooding deep into your pussy, painting your walls white. He grinds against you through it, hips rolling in slow, deep circles to push his release even further inside, making sure you take every last drop. The warmth spreads through your belly, so much that you can feel your lower abdomen swell slightly from how full he’s making you.

“Fuck, take it all, baby,” he groans against your neck, voice wrecked with pleasure as he keeps coming, long and intense, his cock twitching with every pulse. “That’s my good girl… milking every drop like you were made for this. My cum belongs right here, deep inside this pretty pussy where no one else gets to touch.”

He stays buried inside you even after the last shudder wracks his body, collapsing on top of you with his full weight, cock still twitching and plugging you full. Thick globs of his cum have already started to leak out around where he’s stretching you open, dripping slowly down your ass and onto the couch. Jungkook presses lazy, open-mouthed kisses along your jaw and throat, murmuring soft, toxic little praises between heavy breaths.

“You’re so perfect for me,” he whispers, nuzzling into your neck, one hand gently stroking your hair now that the frenzy has passed. He rolls his hips once more, pushing his softening cock deeper just to feel the mess he made, a low satisfied hum vibrating in his chest. “Stay like this for a while. I wanna keep my cum inside you as long as possible.”

You lie there beneath him, trembling and utterly spent, tears still drying on your cheeks while his warmth leaks out of you. The anger from earlier feels distant now, drowned out by the heavy, satisfied ache between your legs and the weight of his body pressing you into the cushions.

You hum, twirling a straw in your iced latte, half-listening and half-focused on the couple next to you who seems to be arguing. “So sorry, Jiminie. I don’t know how you do it.”

“Thank you.” He sighs. “It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen when I inevitably walk into it. You know, when I told Tae to pursue art, I didn’t think it meant this.”

Taehyung and Jimin have the kind of love story that makes romantic comedies look documentary-level realistic. By comparison, your love life is a blooper reel that never made it to air. They’ve been disgustingly in love since senior year of university, and you’ve been their trusty little third wheel. While it’s comforting to hang out with a couple that has a dynamic as healthy as theirs, you do have to fight the pang of jealousy that hits you everytime. 

“Last week it was the sculpture made of kitchen utensils. This week, desert plants. Next week? Probably something with a blow torch,” Jimin carries on, poking at his salad mercilessly. 

You snort. “Tae doesn’t know how to work a blow torch.”

“He could, is my point. He’ll try anything once.” Jimin’s eyes light suggestively, and the gag reflex hits fast and mercilessly. “Like that one time he wanted to try out suspension and—”

“Jimin. Please. I am trying to enjoy my coffee,” you plead. 

He rolls his eyes. “Like you don’t love us.”

“I do,” you reply quickly. “But please spare a girl the details of your sex escapades.”

“Maybe you’re bitter because you need some sex escapades of your own.” Jimin shrugs. He’s not saying it to be rude—the man doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, unless someone’s rude to his fiance. 

Poor Park Jimin has been running a one-man campaign to get you laid for months. The last time you remotely showed interest in a man was a year ago, and that catastrophe ended with you sobbing on their couch for 72 hours straight while Taehyung made you soup and Jimin burned sage to ‘cleanse the toxic energy.’

You have no interest in any of it.

Sure, sex is cool and all, but the idea of the emotional turmoil that comes with the territory seems like something you can do without. 

“What did I say about bringing up this topic again?” you groan. 

“C’mon, please tell me you have something new that’ll make me feel better about my cactus situation.”

Your fingers collect the condensation on your plastic cup, pretending to be deeply engrossed by it. “I have nothing.”

“So as exciting as my cactus?” 

Your foot kicks his ankle under the table and the noise he makes in retaliation is enough to get dirty looks from the other patrons. “Jesus Christ. Aren’t you a ball of fucking sunshine?” he moans in agony. “This is why you need to have sex. You get all crabby and violent when you don’t. When’s the last time you had sex again?”

Okay—there was that guy from the marketing conference in March…. No wait. That was last year. February? No, that was the guy who ghosted you after two dates. January? You weren’t even in the country in January. December feels like a decade ago but that was... oh god, was that really eight months ago? Nine? The guy with the man bun who worked at the bookstore and couldn’t find your— 

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Yikes.” He gives you a dramatic side-eye, one that screams you are a pathetic loser, but lovingly. “You need to stop getting coffee with me and go get coffee with a man.”

You frown. “Well, you’re a man?”

He rolls his eyes. “A man who doesn’t enjoy the good ol’ cock up his ass.”

Fair play. Jimin leans back in his chair, studying you intently. Never a good sign. “You know what your problem is?”

You pick up your latte, taking a few sips. “Enlighten me, Park Jimin.”

“You’re too picky.”

Coffee snorts out of your nostrils, landing right onto the table. Jimin flings napkins at the mess, disgusted. “I’m sorry, have you met me? I’ve went out with some weirdos.”

“No, no, not the weirdos.” He waves a hand in the air. He;s about to go on one of his famous monologues, and all you can do is sit back in horror and watch. “I’m talking about the good ones. The ones you actually like. You find one tiny flaw and suddenly it's ‘oh, he chews too loud’ or ‘he uses the wrong there, their, they're.’ Like, relax. Nobody’s perfect.”

“Really? Says the guy currently plotting his fiance’s death over a home decor choice.”

“That’s different.” Jimin’s pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb, something he truly only does when you’ve exhausted his last nerve. “Taehyung and I are past the point of no return. We're in too deep. You, my dear sweet angel, are sabotaging perfectly good opportunities because you're scared.”

Of course, you’ve had this conversation with your therapist numerous times, and you’ll do anything to avoid the topic in your personal life.

But before you can open your mouth to argue, a voice cuts through. It’s low but polite, maybe a little uncertain. 

“Jimin-ssi?”

You don’t bother looking up to see who it is. Jimin knows everyone and their mother, their cousin, probably their dog too. Walking down the street with him is no easy feat, considering half of Seoul stops to talk to him. So, you do what you always do: focus on your phone and ignore the small talk about someone’s new job or whatever mundane life update they’re dying to share.

You scroll through Instagram, half-listening as they exchange pleasantries. Something about the gym, mutual friends, weekend plans. Standard small talk that you've heard a thousand times. 

“Yeah, bro, it’s been forever,” Jimin’s saying. He sounds happier than he normally does when he talks to these people. “I saw your LinkedIn update. How’s the new job treating you? Still insane?” 

“Better now that I’m settled in,” the mysterious voice responds, and there’s something familiar about it that tickles the back of your brain, but you’re too busy watching someone's Instagram story about their breakfast to pay attention. “The team’s chill, and I don’t have to be on call on weekends anymore.”

“You deserve it after all that overtime hell,” Jimin laughs. “Oh, hey, you should totally meet my friend [YN] here. [Y/N], this is Jeon Jungkook.”

Your head snaps up. Your phone falls to your lap. 

What. The. Fuck. 

You haven’t heard that name since high school. 

High school you, to put it mildly, was kind of a bitch.

You were a cheerleader, top of the social food chain. Naturally, you failed a few classes because you were too busy making out with Kim Mingyu behind the bleachers and planning which party to hit up on Friday night to care about things like academic integrity. 

When your GPA started looking tragic enough to threaten your spot as cheer captain, the guidance counselor assigned you a tutor. And since the universe loves to have fun with you, you were paired with Jeon Jungkook. Lanky, awkward Jeon Jungkook, with messy brown hair that looks like he cut it himself with safety scissors, thin silver glasses that slid down his nose every five seconds, and wide, innocent boba eyes. 

All that to say—you did what any mean girl would do and took advantage of him. Batted your eyelashes, laughed at his terrible jokes, and suddenly your chemistry homework was getting done without you having to lift a finger. 

Tests? He'd leave his answer sheet just visible enough for you to copy. 

Lab reports? Practically wrote themselves, if by ‘themselves’ you mean Jungkook wrote them while you filed your nails and complained about how boring science was. 

So, this? This has to be a comedic joke. This is a prank. Jimin is pranking you—it’s an elaborate one, you'll give him that. That's the only logical explanation because there is absolutely no way that the scrawny, stuttering kid who used to turn tomato red everytime you asked him to explain a chemistry problem is now standing here, towering over your table. 

The man who stands before you has a lip piercing, one that hugs the curvature of his pink lips. A sleeve of tattoos that curls down his arm in vivid ink. His hair is perfectly tousled, dark chestnut locks falling into each other. 

And most importantly, those arms. Biceps. He could probably bench press you. Why are you thinking about him bench pressing you? Stop thinking about him bench pressing you. Oh god, you're staring. You're definitely staring. Say something. Anything. Be cool.

He is—there's no other word for it—buff. Like, really buff. 

And he's looking right at you with dark eyes that definitely weren't that intense in high school, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“[Y/N] [Y/L/N]...” His voice has a deeper timber to it, with a confidence that high school Jungkook could never have. His tone alone is enough to send a shiver down your spine. “It’s been a minute.”

“Uh, I—yeah,” you gulp down a quarter-sized lump that magically appears in your throat. “It has.”

Smooth. Incredibly smooth. Someone needs to hand you a medal for conversational excellence. 

His eyes narrow into slits, like he’s analyzing you and your pathetic life. Sizing you up to discover that you’ve lost all importance in the world, and are now just another girl in the world. 

Jimin, completely oblivious to everything, beams at the two of you. “Amazing! You two already know each other.” He claps his hands together. “Jungkook, you should sit. [Y/N] and I were just catching up on her sad little love life.”

Damn you, Park Jimin. 

Maybe ten years ago, you wouldn’t have cared if he knew about your romantic failures, but with the black shirt hugging his biceps so perfectly, you resent Jimin’s openness. 

“I was not—” you protest, but Jungkook’s already got a hand on the empty chair between you two, plopping into it. 

“Was she now?” Jungkook tuts, looking over at you expectantly. “How sad is sad?”

“Okay, not sad.” You roll your eyes. “It’s just… quiet.”

His eyes dance with amusement, and you sink into the chair. “I can’t imagine you having trouble in this department.”

If only he knew the half of it. 

You open your mouth to combat the embarrassment, maybe to come up with some elaborate lie about how you have three dates lined up tomorrow night, but a server interrupts you before you get the chance. She smiles at Jungkook, and you can't help but note how her eyes twinkle when she realizes how utterly attractive he is. You sink one inch lower into the chair. 

Please don’t order, Jungkook. Ordering means staying and your brain (or your ego, for that matter) can’t take a second more. 

She asks what he wants, pearly whites on display, and he replies smoothly, “Just a black coffee is fine. Thanks, sweetheart.” 

He turns back to you and Jimin, smiling lightly. Behind him, the server trips over her own two feet a bit before adjusting her shirt and walking off. You watch the whole exchange with a weird feeling in your chest. It's not jealousy—you have no claim to be jealous. But it's something. Maybe annoyance that she was so obvious about it. Maybe annoyance that he didn't seem to notice. 

“So, how do you two know each other?” Jimin’s smile resembles a mischievous cartoon villain who just tied someone to railroad tracks. Vibrating with joy, eyes gleaming, the whole nine yards. You don’t even need to hear him speak to know what he’s thinking. 

“High school.” 

You and Jungkook both say in unison, surprising even yourself. He glances over at you before elaborating. “I was her Chemistry tutor.”

The memory alone sends shivers of disgust down your spine. You can still picture it so clearly: high school you in your cheer uniform, sitting across from him in the library with phone in hand, texting Mingyu about whose parents were out of town that weekend while Jungkook explained electron configurations. He’d push his glasses up his nose, stumble over his words when you’d sigh and lean forward, watch him turn crimson red and stutter through the rest of the explanation. 

Evil. Pure, unadulterated evil. 

“You needed a tutor in high school?” Jimin snorts, taking a long sip of his drink. 

“Hey, that shit isn’t easy.” You push his shoulder playfully. 

Jungkook cocks an eyebrow, leaning forward in his chair. “Definitely not easy when you’re too busy with cheerleading practice to study.”

“And you were a cheerleader?” Jimin gapes.

“Okay, that’s enough reminiscing for today.”

Jimin raises his hand. “I’m not done reminiscing. I want to hear more about cheerleader [YN].”

Your face falls flat. Luckily, before Jungkook can embarrass you more with tales from a decade ago, the server comes back with his coffee, making sure to toss him the widest smile her pearly whites can muster. 

Jungkook’s lips wrap around the cup. Your eyes just so happen to fall on the movement, on the way they hug the rim. Were they always that kissable or did he get lip filler?

He meets your gaze.

Shit.

You turn back to Jimin, who’s eagerly awaiting more from Jungkook. “What else don’t I know about high school [Y/N]? She’s never told me anything.”

“Well,” Jungkook starts, and by the way his lips curve upwards, you can tell the next anecdote won’t be endearing. “She did ask me once if we could ‘skip the math parts’ of chemistry.”

Jimin bursts out in laughter. “You’re kidding me.”

“In my defense, chemistry is like, ninety percent math,” you retort. “That’s a reasonable request.”

“It really wasn’t,” Jungkook counters, and his grin widens. There’s something almost… predatory about it. Like he’s enjoying watching you squirm. “But then again, you always did think the rules didn’t apply to you.”

For a moment, you can’t do anything but stare at him. This confidence, this self-assured way he’s teasing you without a hint of anxiety that used to color every interaction, is foreign. 

The absolute worst part of it all is that if he wasn’t currently roasting you for being a shallow human being, this might be the sexiest thing you’ve ever witnessed. 

The eye contact, the slight smirk playing at his lips, the veins poking out of his biceps. All of it both excites and confuses you. 

“What do you mean?” You tilt your head, feigning innocence. 

“Nothing.” He shakes his head, laughs to himself. “Just that some things never really change.”

A pregnant pause fills the space. Jimin’s eyes dart between you two like he’s at the US Open and this is the match of the century. 

“You know, she also once asked me if atoms were contagious," Jungkook adds, turning to Jimin like you’re not even there. It’s a fucking power play—one that high school you invented—and you hate how effective it is. 

A long exhale leaves your mouth, and you have to bite back a thousand venomous words in retaliation. Jimin laughs. “Oh, don’t worry. In college, she asked me if square roots were plants.” 

Okay, so math wasn't your strongest suit. Sue a girl. 

Jungkook’s hands wrap around his cup, taking a quick sip. They’re bigger than you remember, rougher, with calluses to match. 

Truthfully, everything about him is just… more. Bigger, broader, bolder.

You shift gears, clearing your throat to interrupt whatever powwow Jungkook and Jimin have going on regarding your academic life. “What do you do now?” 

“Software development.” Jungkook almost seems surprised that you have an interest in his life. “Started at a startup, but I just moved to a bigger company.”

“What kind of software?” you ask mindlessly, happy to have the attention finally off you. 

“Mobile apps. Some web development.” Jungkook shrugs like it’s nothing, but you catch the hint of pride in his tone. “Nothing crazy.”

Jimin chimes in, eyes twinkling with mischief. “You know, [Y/N] works in marketing for a tech company. You guys probably have tons in common now.”

You want to sink through the floor. Actually—scratch that. Sinking through the floor isn’t enough. You need the floor to open up, swallow you whole, digest you, and then launch whatever remains into the sun. 

You can see exactly what's happening here. You can see the gears turning in Jimin’s pretty little head. He’s planning your wedding, probably picking out centerpieces. He thinks this whole encounter is fate, some kind of romantic star-crossed lovers nonsense where the nerd gets the girl who was too stupid to notice him the first time around. 

He’s going to be insufferable about this. Probably loop Taehyung into this delusion as well. There will be betting pools on when you finally hook up with Jungkook. 

Which—okay, fine—you wouldn’t be completely opposed to. Hypothetically. In theory. 

“How’s that going for you?” Jungkook turns to you. 

“Good. I’ve been at my current company for a few years now. I just got promoted last year.” Your chest puffs out a little. There’s nothing you need to prove to him. But it doesn’t hurt, especially as he validates your words with a slight nod in approval. 

“That’s awesome. I’m happy for you.”

Not said with even an inch of malice. 

“Thank you.” You flip your hair over your shoulder. “See, and I didn’t even need math or chemistry to be successful.”

He chuckles. “Fair enough.”

“I know how emotionally tolling it was to tutor me, so at least your efforts didn’t go to waste,” you joke, and he cracks a smile at that, bunny teeth poking out. 

“It wasn’t that emotionally tolling.” He shrugs, lifting his coffee to his lips. “It was fun. Y’know, when you weren’t texting that guy you used to date.”

He maintains eye contact with you as he takes one, two sips, and you have to clench your thighs to ignore the second heartbeat that’s beating in your vagina. 

Jimin opens his mouth—probably to ask approximately eight thousand invasive follow-up questions about your high school love life—but his phone buzzes violently against the table, the vibration loud enough to rattle his fork. 

Glancing down at his phone, his expression shifts from pure glee to actual panic. “Shit, I need to head out. Taehyung’s making dinner and if I’m late, he’s gonna put that weird purple pesto in it again.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Purple pesto?”

“You know how he is, babe.” Jimin frantically flags down the waiter, motioning for the check. 

You and Jimin always split Saturday brunch. It’s a tradition, one that you don’t plan on breaking. You reach for your wallet in your bag, prepared to pull out your trusty debit card.

But before you or Jimin can get too far, Jungkook smacks his AMEX Platinum card down like it’s nothing. 

You blink at the shiny metal. “Jimin and I always—”

“I’ve got it,” he says, all casual, like dropping 100,000 won on lunch for three people is normal for him. 

To your left, Jimin has the biggest shit-eating grin of all time. “Thanks, Jungkook. You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s my treat. It’s nice to run into old friends.” He tosses you a side glance when he says the word friends, because that’s hardly what you two ever were. 

Jimin’s phone buzzes again, and his eyes widen as they scan the new message. “Oh no. No, no, no.” 

“What?!” You lean forward, trying to peek at his phone. 

“Yeontan threw up all over the new rug. Taehyung just sent me a picture, it’s…” He makes a sour face. “I gotta go. Code red dog situation.”

“Is he okay?” you ask, because despite Jimin’s dramatics, that little ball of fur is your ray of sunshine. 

“He’s fine.” He stands, shrugging on his thin sweatshirt. “He probably ate something he should have. This was great though! We should all hang out again soon!”

And then he’s sprinting out of the cafe, leaving you all alone at the table with none other than Jeon Jungkook. 

If you didn’t know better, you’d say Jimin planned this. Although, to be fair, you do know better, and he one hundred percent planned this. You're going to kill him. You're going to actually murder your best friend.

The waiter comes by, charging Jungkook’s card while you sit there awkwardly, twiddling your fingers. You don’t know what to do with yourself, quite frankly. 

“Jimin isn’t very subtle,” Jungkook says, signing the receipt and placing it aside. 

“Jimin doesn’t do subtle.” You fidget with your napkin. “He probably planned this.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “Oh, really? You think so?”

“I know so. He’s been trying to set me up with someone for months.”

Crossing his bulky arms over his chest, he leans back in his chair. “How’s that working out for him?” 

“Well,” you begin, “Considering the last attempt was one of his coworkers who turned out to be married, I would say pretty terrible.”

“Jesus.” 

“I’m not really into the whole polyamory thing,” you joke. 

Jungkook laughs and stands, and you follow suit, realizing how much taller he is than you. Not that he hasn’t always been tall, but now he has the ego to match it. 

“Want me to walk you to your car?” he asks. 

You bashfully look down at your feet. In your years of living in Seoul, you’ve never once been embarrassed about taking the bus before. The Korean bus system is efficient and better for the environment. But Jungkook, with his fancy tech job, probably has some sleek car that makes the bus system look like a clown car. 

“I took the bus, actually.”

Immediately, without so much as a second thought, he goes, “I’ll drive you home.”

“You don’t need to—”

“I know I don’t need to.” He strolls towards the exit, holding the door open for you to glide through first. “I want to.”

Wait. Is he… is he flirting? That was definitely flirting, right?

If he is very specifically flirting with you, that means he either has a terrible memory or some kind of revenge plot in the works. Both options seem likely and panic-inducing. 

When you finally get outside, the crisp afternoon air dances across your skin. The autumn leaves crunch beneath your feet. You keep a few inches for God between you and Jungkook, and he falls into a comfortable pace beside you, matching you. 

His hands are nestled into his pockets, kicking leaves as he walks. Now that you two are alone, he’s returned to some of his old habits, like being quiet around you when there’s nothing to fill the noise with. 

“How do you like your job?” he finally decides upon asking, and your head lifts to peer at him. He’s gazing at you intently, clearly waiting for an answer. 

“I like it. Most days, it’s creative, but we do a good amount of analytical work too.”

“Why did you choose marketing?” He seems genuinely interested in your answer, which sends tingles down your spine. It’s been a while since someone has cared enough to ask about your life beyond the standard two questions. 

“Well, you know I suck at math,” you start, and he laughs at that. A deep sound that reverberates in his chest and makes your insides mushy. “I also hate science, so that wasn’t an option. I like being creative, and I’m a visual person. I took an intro class and it stuck.”

He nods, soaking it in. “Was college you the same as high school you?” 

You know what he’s asking. Was college you also the biggest bitch alive, or did you grow out of that phase?

“Nah.” You shake your head. “I’m not as shallow… or annoying.”

He smiles. “Good to know.”

You reach his car—a black BMW that looks like it was ripped right off the set of Fifty Shades of Grey—and he unlocks it with a soft beep. 

“Your car is nice,” you note, and his cheeks turn a soft pink at the compliment. 

“Thanks. I figured I should probably upgrade from the bus at some point.” He opens the passenger door for you, causing you to almost trip getting in at the sheer thoughtfulness. 

You frown. “Hey! I still take the bus.” 

He raises his hands up in surrender. “Not hating on the bus. I took that bad boy for years.”

Jungkook closes your door, rounding the car to the driver's seat and hopping in. the inside of the vehicle smells like leather, mixed with the faint scent of his cologne. Your brain can’t help but go a little fuzzy—scents are your weakness. Any man who smells good deserves to get their dick sucked, period. 

“Address?” he asks, starting the engine. 

You give it to him, and he inputs it into the GPS. Fifteen minutes, it spits back. Fifteen minutes in a car alone with Jeon Jungkook, the most confusing blast from your past. 

Peeking over at him, you take his appearance in. His jaw is defined and sharp. Could probably cut glass on that thing. His nose juts out, big enough for you to wonder if he’s ever let a girl sit on his face. God, you really need to get laid. You’ve resorted to sexualizing the man you used to tease in high school like some kind of medieval man who just saw an ankle for the first time. 

The guilt of your past sits heavy in your chest, but your body doesn’t seem to care. It wants what it wants, ethics be damned. 

You don’t deserve to be this turned on by someone you treated like human furniture for two years. But here you are, wondering about the logistics of his face between your thighs, and maybe that makes you exactly as terrible as you’ve always suspected.

Your eyes wander down to his biceps, down to his arms that are cluttered with tattoos. Different designs snake down his skin, some with color, and it takes all your might not to reach out and trace them. Fuck, now you’re thinking about his hands gripping the steering wheel. The veins. Those long fingers— 

“You have a lot of tattoos,” you blurt out. 

His eyes remain on the road, but his lips curl upwards. A little bit like a smirk. “I do.”

“When did you start getting them?” you wonder aloud. 

“College. I started with one, but then I got addicted and kept going.” He glances at you for a second before turning his attention back to the road. “You disapprove?” 

“No! No, they’re… they look good. Really good.” You want to die. “But it is different from what I expected from you.”

His gaze hardens. “A lot of things are different from high school.” 

Silence fills the air as you two continue along the highway in the direction of your neighborhood. Your town is quaint, not too far outside of the main downtown area of Seoul. It’s so peaceful that your neighbors are two elderly women who treat you like their daughter. 

You wonder where Jungkook lives. If you had to guess, he probably lives in Gangnam, the upscale area  in Seoul. Fancy tech job, fancy car… he must have a fancy house to match. Or a fancy girlfriend. 

“Do you live near here?” you ask, hoping to sound as casual as possible. Although, realistically speaking, there is nothing casual about interrogating your ex-Chemistry tutor. 

“Not too far. I’m about ten minutes by car.” His grip loosens on the wheel a little. “Near Hannam-dong.”

So, you were kind of right. Hannam-dong, where all the celebrities and rich people live.

Before you can stop yourself, you say, “Do you live alone, or…?”

It’s possibly the least subtle question in the history of subtle questions, but you need to know.

Jungkook’s grip on the wheel tautens, and when you look over at him, there’s a scarlet flash creeping up his neck. “I—yeah. Alone. It’s just me.”

Is he… blushing? 

“Oh, cool.” You try not to sound too pleased by the information. “That’s really cool. I mean, not cool that you’re alone if you don’t want to be alone, but cool that you have your own space and— y’know, everything.” 

Nailed it. 

“It’s—yeah, it’s good.” He clears his throat, and suddenly, you get a glimpse of the man you remember in high school. Less like the confident, macho guy from the cafe, and more like the boy who used to stumble over his words when you asked him questions. “No one to, uh, bother me or anything. Not that having anyone would be bothering, I just meant—I live alone. No girlfriend or—”

He stops himself, like he’s just realized what he’s saying, and the flush spreads to the tip of his ears. Oh my god. He’s flustered. Jeon Jungkook, with his tattoos and lip ring and his whole sexy confident energy, is flustered because you asked if he lives alone.

The ex-mean girl in you rises to the surface, bubbles in your throat. It’s been a while since you’ve activated her. Not since college, that one time when Park Eunji threatened your spot as sorority president. That version of you knew exactly what to do: touch his arm, squeeze once, watch him stutter. Make him want you so badly it hurts, then pull away. It's muscle memory, this kind of manipulation. You hate that it's still there, your instinct to weaponize attraction.

You want him to be nervous around you. It’s a sick, twisted thought you have, and you don’t know where it comes from, but you want it. “No girlfriend,” you repeat, trying to hide your smile. Reaching out, you place a small hand on his bicep, squeeze once. His bicep is firm under your palm, and the second you make contact, you realize what you've done. That was flirting 101. High school you would’ve done that without thinking twice, but current you? Current you doesn’t have that kind of game anymore. Abort mission. Abort. 

You yank your hand back to your lap like he’s made of volcanic ash. 

“I didn’t—that’s not—” He runs a hand through his locks, messing it up even more. “I’m just giving context about my living situation.”

“No, I got it.” You keep your eyes trained on the road, even though your heart is doing somersaults in your chest. “Though, I have to admit, I’m shocked.”

He gulps thickly. He pulls up to a red light, finally looking over at you directly. There’s vulnerability in his expression, polar opposite to his earlier reactions to you. “Are you making fun of me?”

Huh. You don’t know why, but the fact that old, anxious Jungkook still lives somewhere deep within him makes your stomach backflip. “I would never,” you reply dramatically, waving your hand for emphasis. “I’m just speaking aloud.”

Jungkook hums at that, focusing his attention back onto the street. It’s quiet again, if not for the sound of the engine purring and the awkward tension that’s loitered in the car since you stepped inside. 

He doesn’t need to ask you anything else anyway, since Jimin did a good job of outing you as the most single girl in the history of single girls. He might as well have just admitted you’re a born again virgin. 

The familiar road of your neighborhood looms ahead, and a pit of despair swallows your stomach whole. You really don’t want to get out of the car that smells like him. It would be embarrassing how you’ve begun to thirst over him, but after not getting laid in a while, you’re about ready to unzip your pants and jam your fingers in there. 

“Is it the building up ahead?” he questions, pointing to the cream apartment complex that you reside in. You nod sweetly, smiling brightly. You dial up the ol’ high school charm. 

“Thanks, Jungkook. I really appreciate it.” Another quick flutter of your lashes as he puts the car in park, taking a deep breath and angling his body to look at you. 

“Of course. Anytime.” His face remains stoic, probably hoping to not look like you affect him anymore than you already have.

Your fingers land on the handle, pushing it open to let the brisk air in, replacing the suffocating tension in the car. “Well, I wish you the best. It was nice running into you today.” 

Maybe you should invite him to come up. Maybe you should invite him for a nightcap? Granted, it is midday and there’s no actual alcohol in your home, but you can think of something real quick. 

But he doesn’t move toward you, or show any other inclination of interest. In fact, you’re feeling kind of slutty right about now. He probably thinks you’re some kind of embarrassing gold digger—which like, yes, you might be. For him only. 

Quietly, he says, “You too,” and that’s the end of that. 

And just as you’re about to slam the passenger door shut and head upstairs to scream into your pillow, Jungkook abruptly speaks. “[Y/N].”

You whip around as fast as your body will let you. “Yeah?” 

His big eyes twinkle under the sunlight rays reflecting on the car, two bunny teeth poking out as he sheepishly smiles. You’re going to have fantasies about that mouth later. 

“Just so you know, today wasn’t planned. But I’m really, really happy I ran into you.”

Huh Yunjin’s birthday bash has never been an easy feat. Every year, without fail, there’s a table bought at an exclusive club, and your entire friend group blacks out within the hour. You’re not sure how she gets away with it, but your love for her and mild fear of disappointing her clearly gets her very far. 

Hence why you’re standing in a shopping mall at 3 PM, trying to decipher what makeup product she would like best. Her birthday gift needs to be top notch, because you’re up against Kim Taehyung and Park Jimin, and those two have some kind of gaydar for gift-giving. Last year, Taehyung got her a vintage Chanel bag he “just found” at a thrift store. The year before, Jimin surprised her with tickets to see Beyonce. You’re operating at a disadvantage here.

You pick up another lipstick, eyeing the two intensely. A salesperson loiters over your shoulder, waiting to pounce at any given moment. In the end, you opt for a sleek red lip gloss, one that you know will pair well with her peachy skin. The relief that washes over you at finally securing her gift is endless. 

Pushing past the doors of the shop, you blend into the rest of the mall-goers. It’s pretty packed for an afternoon, but you figure it has something to do with the sales going on. 50% off for shoes… hm. Across the way, you see a sign for 25% off scarves, and you squint to try and make out the tiny writing. Buy one, get one free—

“Oof!”

Your body collides into something firm, something warm. It’s fleeting, and you jump back several feet, immediately armoring yourself with numerous apologies. “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going—”

A deep chuckle. “I’m not mad about it.”

You know that voice. That voice has been haunting your wet dreams and your poorly-written mental fanfiction.

When you were ten, you got chosen to attend a unicorn retreat. It was a glorified horse camp, but it was five days of pure magic. Horses walking around with plastic horns on their head, offering unlimited rides to anyone who wanted one. Magical doesn’t even feel like the proper word to describe it. 

You thought that was the most enchanting moment of your life. But this… this rivals any stupid pony. This makes those ponies look like donkeys. In fact, with the luck you’ve been given, you might rent a unicorn and a castle. 

In front of you stands Jeon Jungkook, looking somehow more scrumptious than he did a few days ago. Defying the damn laws of hotness. You’d spent a good few hours tossing and turning in bed, dreaming about his lips, his eyes, his veiny hands. He looks like he stepped straight out of your wet dream, adorned in a zip-up sweatshirt and black t-shirt, fluffy hair askew. 

His eyes still carry that same twinkle from the last time you saw him, and you wonder if they’re like this all the time, or if it's just for you. 

“Hi,” you exhale breathily. 

“Hello.” He smiles at you, and it’s sweet, just a little dopey, and so decidedly adorable that you want to gnaw on his cheeks like a dog with a chew toy. “Must be my lucky day to run into you again.”

“Clearly.” He is flirting. Sure, there were doubts in your mind before this, but anyone who says those kinds of things, is someone who wants to be balls deep inside you. “I don’t normally treat pedestrians like bumper cars, though.”

Jungkook laughs at that, a melodic sound that sends vibrations from your head to your toes. “If I was a better man, I might’ve moved out of the way to make room for you.”

“Well, then I guess it’s my lucky day you’ve decided to not be a better man,” you counter, and he takes a step closer to you, allowing the people behind him to filter around. A mom of three tosses him an evil glare, but you could care less. 

“I was actually hoping to talk to you again so I could ask you a question.” His eyes bore into you, the eye contact making the walls of your vagina contract incessantly. His confidence from the cafe has returned with a vengeance, and you’re not sure what’s gotten into him, but you hope it never leaves. 

“I might have an answer,” you tease. 

His lips quirk upwards into a soft smirk, one that would normally disgust you but doesn’t whatsoever. “I was thinking you and I should get dinner sometime. Maybe catch up one-on-one.”

If this were a game of tennis, you just won match point. He served, you returned, and now the ball’s sitting in his court while he watches it roll away. Checkmate. Victory. Crowd goes berzerk. 

But you know how to play this game. Even though you’re a little out of commission, you still invented half the rules in high school. And rule number one: never let them see you sweat. Rule number two: make them work for it. 

Tilting your head, you pretend to consider it like you haven’t thought about what underwear you would wear to this hypothetical one-on-one time. “Maybe,” you say, drawing out the syllables. “I’ll have to check my calendar.” 

Your calendar is wide open. Your calendar has been wide open for months. Your calendar is begging for plans. Your calendar is weeping with joy at the possibility of having something on it besides ‘therapy 2 PM’ and ‘don’t forget your lexapro.’

But here’s the thing: if you say yes immediately, if you're too eager, too easy, he’ll figure it out. He'll realize you're still that girl who only wants things because they're shiny and new, who gets bored the second the chase is over. Except this time, the thing you want isn’t a spot on the homecoming court or the captain of the basketball team’s attention—it’s him. 

“Maybe?” He’s grinning now, full teeth, like he’s finally been let in on how the game works. “I pour my heart out and I get a maybe?” 

“You didn’t pour your heart out. You asked to get dinner.”

He scoffs, “Same thing.”

“Not even remotely close, lover boy.” You migrate an inch backwards, so miniscule he hardly notices.

Something flickers across his face at the nickname—amusement, or something darker, more interested. His eyes track your movements like a predator watching prey. 

“I feel like you’re just testing fate at this point,” he jokes. You can see the gears turning in his head, shifting and transforming to try and get to his end goal: you. 

“It’s worked once before already.” You shrug, taking a few more steps back. 

“Alright, well, can I at least get your number? Not really feeling like leaving it all up to the universe.” The color drains from his face slowly as he realizes you’re really, truly, going to walk away. His voice raises a little at the end of the sentence. 

“I’ll see you around, Jungkook.”

With that, you turn on your heel, bags in tow, and make your way towards the exit of the mall with what you hope exudes confidence, and not like someone who’s about to sprint outside and scream into the void. His eyes burn into your back the entire way. Don’t turn around. You’re doing so well. You’re a mysterious enigma. You’re unattainable. 

You trip over your own two feet and have to do some weird stumble-hop recovery move just so you don’t eat shit in the middle of the mall.  

Okay, so maybe not entirely mysterious. But you do make it outside with a goofy grin on your face, caught in some kind of daze, all because your ex-Chemistry tutor has made it abundantly clear he wants to see you again. 

The following Saturday, you and Jimin cozy up at a nearby cafe—a different one than last week’s. You suggested it over text a few days ago, after you had run into Jungkook, because there was some perverse thrill to testing fate and the universe’s weird way of working. Jimin, who could care less where he got his cup of coffee, agreed with a shrug of his shoulders. 

“So, tell me again why you didn’t give him your number,” Jimin furrows his brows, picking at his limp salad in disgust. He’s trying this new diet that only allows for 1000 calories a day, and it’s made him even more judgmental than usual. “Walk me through your thought process here.”

You sigh. “Jiminie, I told you already. I’m playing the game.”

“The game… I hate straight people.”

“Hey, you did the same thing with Tae when you guys first started out,” you frown, taking a prolonged sip of your iced latte. Senior year, Jimin refused to see Taehyung more than once a week in fear of seeming too desperate and clingy, even though he texted him every five minutes anyway. 

Jimin lets out a long-suffering sigh, pushing the soggy lettuce into the corner of his plate. “Tae and I are different. We’re homosexuals. There’s no rules when society already hates you anyway. But you are playing a dangerous game with him.”

Rolling your eyes, you scoff. “I’m not. I’m playing hard to get.”

“How do you know he won’t get bored?” It’s an innocent question that, when asked, makes you want to bash your head into a concrete wall. “I mean, you’ve seen the guy. He probably has a roster of girls throwing their phone number at him.”

You pause mid-sip, straw frozen against your lips. You… hadn’t actually thought about it like that. In your mind, this whole thing has been about you trying to regain an inch of the upper hand, about making Mr. Cocky work for it. But Jimin's right—Jungkook isn’t the same nerdy kid who would wait around forever for a crumb of your attention. You’re also not the cheerleader that everybody’s dying to get their hands on. He could have anyone, and yet his sights are set on you (or well, as far as you know).

“Then I guess we’ll just have to see how into me he is.” You shrug, but no ounce of you feels calm. 

Jimin quirks an eyebrow. “Really? Off of one conversation after ten years, he’s supposed to be magically in love with you?” 

“Okay, first of all, it was two conversations, and second of all, do you have no faith in your hot and sexy best friend?” You swish your hair for good measure, but Jimin doesn’t buy it for a second. Your charms have no effect on his gay self. 

“I do have faith in you. However, I can’t recall the last time you’ve successfully kept a guy around after the first kiss…” he trails off, pretending to count on his fingers. You gasp, appalled by the insinuation. 

“Park Jimin,” you scold. He bursts into a fit of laughter, wiping faux tears from his eyes, and you really can’t help but follow suit at the hysterics of it all. “You’re the worst.”

“I’m honest, babe,” he says through another fit of giggles. “You hate to see it.”

“Jimin? [Y/N]?” 

The laughter dies down within a millisecond. Somewhere in the distance, you swear you hear a record scratching. 

Tentatively, you crane your neck upwards. Lo and behold, Jeon Jungkook stands before your table, holding an iced coffee and looking between you and Jimin in bewilderment. He must have a tracker planted inside you, because although you had daydreamed about this scenario approximately ten times in the past few days, never did you actually think it would come to fruition. 

“Why are you here?” you blurt, and Jimin throws you a glare, facepalming. You slap a hand over your mouth. You have the sudden, embarrassing, debilitating urge to vomit. 

Jungkook laughs, and you notice the tip of his ears turning pink. “I could ask you the same thing. This is my regular spot.”

“This is—” You glance around the cafe, like the answer will appear written in invisible ink. “Since when?” 

“Since I moved to the area?” He’s donning a massive grin now, one that lights up his entire face. 

Your face falls flat. In your frantic search for a new cafe, you neglected the fact that the new spot you selected is located in Hannam-dong. Exactly where he told you he lived last week. 

Jimin’s completely forgotten his salad, jumping in to save you from the depths of shame. “Jungkook! Join us.” He’s already pulling out an empty chair before he can protest. 

Jungkook shakes his head, the hoop earrings in his ear moving with him. “I don’t want to interrupt—”

“Don’t be silly,” Jimin retorts quickly, shooting you a look that both screams: you’re an idiot and this is fate knocking at your door. “Come, sit here.”

Jungkook hesitantly sets his drink down, sitting down in the chair. “So, what were you guys laughing at before?” 

You blink a few times, utterly speechless. There’s no universe in which you admit to Jungkook what you two were discussing before his appearance. 

“Nothing crazy,” Jimin starts, and he has this glint in his eyes he only gets when he’s about to do something so diabolically crazy you’ll have to second-guess your friendship. “She was just telling me about this guy she’s playing hard to get with. Real shame, honestly. He sounds great.”

What the fuck is going on? you ask yourself silently. Your mind is shooting blanks. 

Jimin sips his water nonchalantly as if he didn’t just throw you under the bus. 

You finally muster up the courage to speak. “Jimin’s being crazy,” you say, trying to recover some dignity. “There’s no guy.”

“Really?” Jungkook’s smirk is unrattled. “At the mall, you said you had to check your calendar. It sounds like you’re pretty busy.”

Oh, he wants to play this game.  

“I am busy.” You lift your chin in defiance. 

“Doing what?” Jimin chimes in. After this lunch date, he’s lucky if you ever respond to one of his texts ever again. “You texted me yesterday saying you were bored.”

“I hope you die, Park Jimin,” you mutter.

He turns to Jungkook, a conspiratorial grin plastered on his face. “She’s playing hard to get. I told her it's a terrible strategy, but does she listen? No.”

Jungkook’s eyes don’t waver from your face. “Hard to get, huh?” 

“That is not what I’m doing,” you huff, even though that’s exactly what you’re doing, and all parties present at the table know it.

“No, it makes sense.” Jungkook nods, leaning forward in his chair. “After all, you have that busy calendar… you know, the one you need to check.”

“Exactly,” you agree. 

“And have you? Checked it, I mean?”

You stare blankly at him. 

“I’ve been meaning to.”

“Mm,” Jungkook hums, sipping his coffee. The white t-shirt and grey sweatpants combo he’s wearing today makes you feel like a rabid animal who’s been deprived of food for too long. “Who’s the lucky man?” 

“Get this,” Jimin jumps in eagerly. “She met him at the mall.”

“The mall?” Jungkook asks incredulously, dropping his chin into his open palm. 

“And she didn’t even give him her number.” Jimin continues this charade as if you’re not even sitting there. Which, you really wish you weren’t. In fact, you might just bury yourself six feet under this cafe after everything’s said and done. 

“Wow,” Jungkook tuts. “I hope that guy gets her number somehow.”

“Seems like a long shot.” You shrug, fiddling with your straw. 

“Right. I mean, we can’t forget about fate, because fate’s probably working in that guy’s favor.”

It hits you square in the chest, that Jungkook really does know exactly what he’s done, that he is perfectly aware of the effect he has on you. 

​​There's a pause. A long pause. Jimin is grinning like the Cheshire cat, and you're seriously considering faking a medical emergency.

Jungkook’s biceps strain against his shirt, tongue darting out to play with his lip ring. “You know what I think?” His voice drops several octaves, low enough for you and Jimin to hear. “I think this guy should just show up at your door. Skip all the games.”

“That would be weird,” you quip. 

“Would it?” Tilting his head, Jungkook observes you. Feels like he’s seeing right through you with x-ray goggles. “Even if you’ve been thinking about him too?” 

You’re painfully aware of how close he is, how his knee is almost touching yours under the table, how his eyes keep dropping to your lips. Your brain is short-circuiting. You can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t do anything except stare at him and wonder what would happen if you just gave in.

“There’s rules to be followed,” you finally mumble. 

“Rules for what?” Jimin snorts. 

In hindsight, that probably wasn’t the smartest excuse you could’ve conjured up. No one seems to understand the dying art of playing hard to get anymore. 

But, really, it was only a matter of time before you lost your temper and threw in the towel. You were never good at winning anything besides cheerleader championships, anyway. “The game, Jimin. The fucking game I explained to you already. Just so we’re all clear, by the way, I was trying to enjoy my lunch before you two decided to gang up on me, so thank you both very much.”

Jimin and Jungkook deadpan, eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights. 

Embarrassment courses through your veins, choking your throat. It’s not like you meant to have an outburst and openly admit you’re playing the game with Jeon Jungkook, a man who you used to ignore as if he were invisible. Sometimes a girl gets sexually frustrated and it manifests in interesting ways. 

“I’m going to the bathroom,” you grumble. You speed-walk as fast as your legs will take you, all the way to the restroom, locking yourself in one of the stalls and plopping down on the toilet. You can’t pinpoint why you’re suddenly overcome with some silly desire to win this ‘game’ you conjured up in your head, why you won’t just give in to what he so clearly wants to offer you. 

But maybe—and you don’t want to admit it—there’s a residual guilt that lives deep inside you. One that when you really face, reminds you of just how cruel you were to others in high school. There was a time in your teenage life where you thought being the queen bee of high school meant you were at the apex of the universe. Now that the tables have turned, and you’re not as big as you once were, maybe you don’t deserve what the universe is trying to offer you. 

Maybe you don't deserve what Jeon Jungkook is trying to offer you.  

It’s Sunday, but it’s hardly peaceful or restorative. Saturday night was spent partying with Yunjin and Chaewon at some club in Gangnam that served drinks comparable to battery acid, which is why you’re currently battling the worst hangover of your entire life. Your head is pounding so hard you can hear your heartbeat in your eyeballs. And you're pretty sure you're still drunk, which means the real hangover hasn't even hit yet. 

There’s no one to blame but yourself. Your brain was a broken record last night: Jungkook, high school, the game. The only way to stop the endless loop was to wash it down with copious soju shots.

Groggily, you roll over and unplug your phone from the charger. A quick scroll through your missed notifications and it’s the usual suspects: Jimin, Yunjin, Taehyung…

Wait. 

Your eyes squint into slits, trying to make sense of the unknown number that sent you one message at 8 AM. You don’t recognize it. Spam, probably. Or maybe someone from last night asking if you got home okay. You don’t remember giving your number to anyone, but then again, you don't remember much after midnight.

You unlock your phone, rub your eyes, and adjust to the bright white light of your messages. 

+823137565798 waited ten years to run into you again, [Y/N]. im not really interested in waiting another ten to see if fate brings us together a fourth time

It doesn’t take much time for you to put together the puzzle pieces. 

You gasp, nearly flinging yourself off your bed at the realization. You reread the message one, two, three times, just to confirm he really said your name in it. You try to do a little excited kick under your covers, but your legs are tangled in your sheets and you nearly fall off the bed.

After yesterday’s temper tantrum, you had exited the bathroom to see Jeon Jungkook no longer present at the table. Jimin shrugged, said ‘he was tired, so he went home,’ and that was the end of that. You were under the impression that you ruined the entire charade, that you wouldn’t have to worry about the game because you already lost anyway. 

But here he is, in your messages, contradicting your worst fears. 

you who’s this?

Squealing, you throw your phone to the side, but within a few seconds, it lights up again with a new message. 

+823137565798 wild guess?

you my amazon package?

You snort as you watch him read it and begin typing. 

+823137565798 close. even better 

An unwarranted smile sneaks its way onto your face. 

you enlighten me

+823137565798 it’s your ex chemistry tutor from high school. that weird dude 

you weird dude is how you’re choosing to introduce yourself?

+823137565798 trying to be humble 

+823137565798 so about yesterday

Your hangover creeps back into your skull, your head pounding to the beat of a drum.

you we don’t need to talk about yesterday

+823137565798 why not?

you because i embarrassed myself?

+823137565798 you didn’t. thought it was cute

+823137565798 may have also told your best friend i needed your number in the name of saving you from your drought, so you’re not the one who embarrassed themselves 

Staring at the message, your alcohol-riddled brain struggles to make sense of the words in front of you. Heat spreads from your chest to your neck to your cheeks. The guilt tries to claw its way up—you don’t get to feel this giddy, not about him—but your body overrules it with a decisive vote. Your hangover is completely forgotten now, replaced by a warm flutter in your stomach that has nothing to do with last night's tequila.

It’s so unlike him, the polar opposite of what Jeon Jungkook used to evoke in you, but the mere thought of him ending your sex drought sends a tingle down your spine. 

You’re grinning like a foolish schoolgirl now, dignity be damned. You save his number to your contacts, makes it official in your brain. 

you are you offering to get me out of my drought? 

You fling your phone to the opposite side of the bed, and scream into your pillow. 

The buzz causes you to shoot back up, heart thumping in your throat as you read his response. 

jungkook possibly 

Somewhere in the sky, your guardian angel is doing backflips. 

Hands shaking, heart pumping blood erratically, you type back:

you take a girl to dinner first

The three dots pop up almost immediately, and then: 

jungkook tried that already. the girl ran away from me :/ 

Technically, he’s right. You did run away. And now he’s resorted to joking about it, like it doesn’t bother him. But it should bother him. Should annoy him that the girl who didn’t acknowledge his existence in high school is now playing games with him like she has any right to. 

You don’t know how to let him be nice to you, how to let him want you, when all you can remember is a younger you rolling your eyes while he patiently explained molecular bonds. You were cruel. Mostly in small ways that probably hurt more than massive shows of dismissiveness, but harsh nonetheless. 

Guilt sits burdensome in your chest, a thorn in your side. Deep down, you’re terrified that when he finally sees you clearly—really sees you, not the filtered version you're trying to present—he’ll realize what you already know. That you were never worth the wait.

Your fingers loom over the keyboard, twiddling. The guilt is there, always there, always a dark cloud hanging. You were cruel to him. Casual about it, even. Used him like a tool and never once considered that he was a person with feelings that could be hurt.

But maybe—and this is the thought that's been needling at you since the cafe—maybe the worst thing you could do now is waste his second chance on you by playing games. Maybe the cruelest thing would be pretending you don’t want this when you so obviously, desperately do.

On the one hand, honesty is terrifying and vulnerability makes you nauseous. 

But, on the other hand…

you well maybe the girl wants to see if you’re full of shit or not 

Your heart speeds up behind the confines of your ribs. 

jungkook i’m not the same guy from high school. i don’t play about what i want 

With bated breath, you type your response. It’s a question that you know the answer to, and you don’t know why you need him to say it, but he will anyway. 

you and what is it that you want?

jungkook you. 

The night of Huh Yunjin’s birthday creeps up slowly on you, amidst a week busied with work, adult errands, and most stupidly, thoughts of Jungkook. The thoughts of him play, pause, tape spooling, and then rewind on a constant loop, unrelenting in their nature. 

You hadn’t spoken to him much after your last exchange, minus some ‘good morning’ texts from him that you responded to politely. It’s foreplay, if nothing else, because even a few words from him are enough to leave you giddy for days to come. 

You fully intend to take him up on his offer, you just don’t know when. . 

Sinkhole is packed to the brim, sweaty bodies colliding in an attempt to feel human intimacy. A disco ball hangs loosely from the ceiling, transmitting silver light across the dance floor. The DJ is spinning up cringy Top 40 hits you haven’t heard since college, but the amount of soju shots you’ve consumed within the past hour masks the embarrassment you feel. 

“Cheers to my 28th!” Yunjin yells in your ear, raising her shot glass in the air. Jimin abandons making out with Taehyung in favor of lifting his shot glass with hers, and you can’t help but join in on the festivities. 

Yunjin keeps toasting to things that get progressively more unhinged. ‘To being 28! then ‘To my IUD!’ then ‘To tax evasion!’ 

You're not sure she's even joking on that last one. 

You’ve lost count of how many you’ve taken, but the liquor burns less with each passing shot. 

“Happy birthday, baby!” Jimin leans over the table you’re all perched at, pressing a chaste kiss to Yunjin’s cheek. She giggles in delight, smiling brightly in the way only a drunk person could. 

“Oh, why thank you, Jiminie,” she laughs. “And thank you, Tae and [Y/N] for buying the table!”

It was 75% Taehyung and 25% you, but you’ll accept her gratitude. Buying a table at the club with unlimited alcohol was also part of your master plan to get absolutely obliterated and halt all thoughts of Jungkook, at least for the night. 

“[Y/N], we need to find you a hot guy tonight. That dress is doing insane things to your legs,” Yunjin whines, pushing your shoulder. “There’s soooo many boys here.”

Jimin and Taehyung share a meaningful look, one that you don’t miss. Rolling your eyes, you say, “I’m not looking for anyone tonight. I want to spend it with you.”

“Booooring.” She pokes your side, raising her voice to be heard over the sound of Usher. “If you ditch me on my birthday to fuck a hot dude, I won’t be mad.”

“But I don’t want to fuck a hot dude—”

Jimin clears his throat. “Well, actually, you do. He’s just not here right now.”

There goes your vow to ignore all Jungkook thoughts this evening. 

“Jimin.”

“What? It’s true,” he giggles, cozying up into Taehyung’s side. “The guy practically sexted you last weekend.”

Feeling caught, you busy yourself with the hem of your black bodycon dress. “Whether I fuck him or not is nobody’s business but my own,” you mumble. 

“Oh, please,” Taehyung rolls his eyes. “You’ve been needing to get laid for months. We’re your best friends, which makes it our business.”

“She’s just upset that she ignored him in high school and now he’s this big, hunky guy,” Jimin snickers. 

Taehyung frowns. “Bigger than me?” 

“Okay, enough,” you snap, pouring more soju into the empty shot glasses. “I just wanna get drunk and enjoy my night.”

“I’m sure you would enjoy your night more if you had a big, sexy man to take care of you. I know I would,” Jimin chuckles. Not in a mean way, but your heart does sink a little as you watch him give Taehyung an open-mouthed kiss. 

Yunjin turns to you. “Why haven’t you fucked him?” 

You don’t know when this became an intervention, but everyone seems arduously interested on whether or not you fuck Jeon Jungkook. 

You shrug. “I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t want to—trust me, I do—I just… feel a little bad about how I treated him in high school.”

Your friend snorts, rolling her eyes with an affectionate smile playing upon her lips. “If he felt bad about how you treated him, he wouldn’t be pursuing you.”

“She’s right,” Jimin jumps back in, and you fight the urge to slam his head into the table. He picks up a soju shot. “It’s kinda cute how desperate he seems for your attention. That’s a guy who’s gonna eat you out like his life depends on it.”

The mental image of his moist, plump lips wrapping around your clit has your thighs trembling under the table, but you clamp them before anyone can notice. 

“I’m gonna fuck him,” you promise. “I swear.”

Taehyung raises an eyebrow. “I hope you do, before someone else snatches you up.” He tilts his head in the direction of a man eye-fucking you, and your stomach queases. 

“He’s cute,” Jimin takes his shot, and you follow suit. There’s no way you’re getting through this night without getting absolutely obliterated. 

“Oooo, there’s a really cute guy over there. 12:00,” Yunjin leans into the group, whispering as lowly as she can over the sound of Kesha. 

You refuse the desire to look. Taehyung, however, lets his eyes wander to who she’s talking about. Luckily, Jimin is too entranced by pouring himself another soju shot to care. “Oh fuck me. He’s fucking sexy. I would let that man give me a rimjob.” 

You slump into the chair. Somehow you have a feeling you’re about to undergo the world’s least subtle setup. 

Jimin’s eyes nearly roll into the back of his skull. Slowly, he angles his body to see who his boyfriend is talking about. “He can’t possibly be that hot—oh my god. Oh my god.”

“What?” you and Yunjin say in unison. If you had to guess, based on Jimin’s track record and the specific tone of that ‘oh my god,’ he’s either spotted a celebrity, a firefighter in uniform, or someone from his legendary whore phase. And given that you’re at a nightclub, you're betting on option three. Jimin’s whore phase is the stuff of legend—a six-month period during sophomore year where he worked his way through half of Seoul's gay club scene. He doesn't talk about it often, mostly because Taehyung gets a very specific look on his face when it comes up, but every once in a while someone from that era will resurface and Jimin will make that exact noise.

“Who is it?” you press on, heart thumping in excitement. 

Jimin’s blonde hair sways as he turns to look back at you. “Okay, don’t panic.” 

Furrowing your brows, you start, “Don’t—”

“That’s Jungkook, you idiots. The fucking guy from [Y/N]’s high school we’ve been talking about,” he says in a hushed tone, punching Taehyung’s shoulder. 

There’s a warm feeling hugging your chest, your body feeling as though it’s been lit on fire. It might be the alcohol, or the sheer joke of it all. Out of all the scenarios you’ve conjured up in your daydreams, this wasn’t one of them. 

You turn your body to track where your friend’s eyes were just a minute ago. Even though Jimin already confirmed it, there’s a tiny part of you hoping his eyes deceive him. But there he is, Jeon Jungkook, in the flesh, talking to one of his equally attractive friends. He’s wearing all black—black t-shirt that sculpts his biceps, black baggy jeans that sit tightly on his slim waist. His hair is ruffled, hoop earrings dangling from the holes in his ear. And really, the most sickening part of it all: he has two lip rings instead of the usual one. You’re gonna be sick.

“Earth to [Y/N]...” Yunjin waves a shot in front of your face, and without preamble, you take it from her, swallowing it in one easy sip. The alcohol travels down your throat, but you barely feel the burn. 

“You good?” Taehyung raises an eyebrow. 

“Just peachy,” you lie. You smile at your friends, but they don’t seem convinced. 

Jimin guffaws, leaning back in his chair with an evil grin. “Is that why you just downed another shot?”

“I’m thirsty.”

“For alcohol or for Jungkook?” Yunjin bursts into a fit of giggles, high-fiving Jimin across the table. 

Groaning, you let your head fall into your hands. “I hope all of you die a slow and painful death.”

“He’s gotten even hotter since the last time I saw him,” Jimin notes, sipping his untouched margarita. “How is that possible?”

“Can we please talk about anything else?” You reach for the soju bottle, pouring the last of the clear liquid into your glass. Your second in thirty seconds. A new personal record.

“We will do no such thing,” Jimin’s eyes are gleaming with elation. “You need to go talk to him.”

You nearly choke on the liquor. “I’m sorry, what?” 

“Go. Talk. To. Him.” Jimin enunciates each word like you’re a toddler. 

“Are you insane?” you deadpan. “Like, actually stupid? Have you suffered a brain injury I don’t know about?”

Both Jimin and Taehyung share another unspoken look. “I’m trying to help you.” 

“But I don’t want help—”

“[Y/N].” Jimin doesn’t often get very serious, but the expression on his face makes you squirm. “I’m not letting you fuck this up.”

“I;m not fucking anything up by staying exactly where I am.” You cross your arms over your chest. Realistically, you know he’s right. If you were more drunk, maybe you would bite the bullet, march over there, and plant a kiss right on those lips you haven’t stopped thinking about. But you’re not, so at the table you will stay. 

“This is fate. This is the universe putting him a few feet away.” Jimin gestures vaguely at Jungkook. 

“The universe can fuck off, honestly.”

He sighs, “I’m doing this for your own good.”

And before you can process his movements, a lag in your brain, Jimin turns in his seat, arm raising in a wave, mouth opening to call out his name. 

“No!” You lunge across the table, knocking over Taehyung’s drink, causing him to groan. You latch onto Jimin’s arm, yanking it down forcefully. “Don’t you fucking dare, Park Jimin—”

It’s too late. 

Because in your desperate scramble to stop Jimin from committing social suicide on your behalf, you've made a scene. Swiveling your head slowly, you see Jungkook staring directly at you. 

His eyebrows are raised, a hint of a smirk playing upon his lips. His tattooed fingers toy with the straw in his drink. It feels as though time drags on for hours, as if the hands of a clock are being lugged through molasses. 

You slowly extract yourself from on top of the table, slinking into your chair with as much dignity as you can muster. Your hand comes up in the world’s most awkward, tentative wave. The tiniest flutter of your fingers. 

Jungkook’s lips stretch wider, raising his hand in return. It’s a proper wave, filled with that newfound confidence of his. Then he turns back to his friend, resuming their conversation. It’s not like you expected him to drop everything for you—or well, you kind of did.  You exhale a deep breath. “Oh my god.” You slump in your chair. “That was horrible.”

“That was… bad,” Jimin tiptoes around the word, twiddling his thumbs. 

“I’m going to have to fake my death and move to a different country—”

“Stop being a drama queen,” Yunjin cuts in, sliding a shot towards you. You don’t even know or care where it spawned from, but all you know is you need it. “He waved back. He probably thought it was cute.”

Sighing, you shake your head. “There is nothing cute about what just happened.” You down the shot, and you’ve completely lost count at this point of how many you’ve ingested. 

“Okay, new plan,” you announce, slamming the glass down. “None of that happened. We enjoy Yunjin’s birthday. We do not make eye contact with Jungkook, we do not speak about Jungkook.”

“Yeah, about that,” Jimin trails off, eyes glued to somewhere behind your shoulder. “It’s too late.”

“Too late for what?” 

“He’s coming over here.”

Your entire body halts all movement, rigid like a statue. “What?”

“He’s coming here. Right now,” Taehyung repeats, and your heart drops to your feet. A hornet’s nest of anxiety swarms your stomach, filling your body with buzzing fear. 

You shake your head frantically. “Please say you’re messing with me.”

Yunjin turns to see where Jimin and Taehyung are staring, and the moment she touches your arm, you realize you’re trapped. There’s no way out but through. 

“[Y/N]. It’s nice to see you here.” 

His voice is deeper, a low timbre that makes your brain go all fuzzy around the edges. He stands in front of the table, and you peer through your eyelashes to look up at him. 

Fuck. Fuck, he looks even better up close. 

The two lip rings catch the light of the disco ball. A silver chain dangles from around his neck and you briefly wonder what it’ll look like hanging over you while he pounds into…God, get a grip. You can catch a whiff of his cologne, something citrusy and woodsy that causes a pool of arousal in your underwear.

“Hi,” you manage a smile, struggling to hold the intense gaze he’s sporting. 

He breaks it for a moment, turning to your best friend, nodding. “Jimin, good to see you again.”

“You too, Kook. You should join us!” He scooches closer to Taehyung, patting the minimal space beside him. Jungkook stares at it, then looks back at you with a hunger in his eyes that almost has you keeling over. 

“Actually,” Jungkook begins, “I was hoping I could steal [Y/N] for a drink. If that’s okay with you all?”

He wants to... what? Steal you? For a drink? Alone? You turn to Yunjin, eyes pleading. Help me. Save me. Make up an excuse. But she was never going to let you escape where he’s involved. She looks you dead in the eye, smiles sweetly, and says, “No, she’s all yours.”

You’re going to remember this. You’re going to bring this up at every possible opportunity for the rest of her natural life.

Jungkook’s hand extends towards you, palm up, awaiting yours. For a brief second, you stare at it, at his long fingers, at the veins running down his forearm, at the silver rings stacked on his nimble fingers. The hand that's now being offered to you, in public, in front of all your friends.

You can either take his hand and let whatever this is happen, or you can make up some excuse and run away for the fourth time.

Your heart starts cartwheeling in your chest. You can’t look away from his hand, the one you desperately want to take. Jungkook watches patiently, confidently, like he knows just what you’re deciding between. 

Fuck it. 

You place your hand in his, let your fingers intertwine with his warm ones. It’s secure, and his fingers tighten around yours as if to remind you he has you. Jungkook pulls you to your feet gently. He doesn’t let go as he guides you through the crowd toward the bar, and you’re trying very hard not to think about how right it feels, how you never want him to let you go. 

He parks you at the bartop, where a woman who looks like she’d rather be anywhere else is serving alcohol to a group of minors. Jungkook pats the stool beside him, and you’re more than grateful to take the chair. Your heels have been hurting like a bitch all night. When you sink into the chair, his eyes follow the way your dress hugs your thighs, revealing more skin than your old cheer uniforms. You debate tugging it down, but a warm feeling is flooding your insides at the thought of him wanting to see more of you.  He towers above you, his AMEX hanging loosely from his deft fingers. 

“What do you like to drink?” He leans down, whispers it directly in your ear. The heat of his breath makes your entire body feel like molten lava. 

The bartender begins to make her way over, eyes gleaming when she spots Jungkook. If you were less tipsy, you might come up with a witty response, but your current state only allows you to say, “A dirty shirley, please.” 

He doesn’t make a face at the girly drink, nor bats an eyelash when the bartender touches his arm four times while he recites his order. You can only watch in awe as he hands over his card and turns his attention back to you, body angling toward you as if to shield you from every other patron who might be able to see you. The slight possessiveness he’s exhibiting would normally make you hurl, but he’s so unapologetic about it that you could care less. You hope he puts his mark on you so no man will ever speak to you again. 

Jungkook fiddles with his fingers on the counter, unsure where to put them. The only glimpse of high school Jungkook you’ve seen in days. His hand hovers near your thigh, then his jeans pocket, then back to the counter. For all his cockiness over text and possessiveness, still lies a man who’s intimidated by the thought of truly having you. 

The soju in your body hums through your veins, making everything feel hazy and like a really good idea. Liquid courage, Yunjin calls it. Liquid stupidity, sounds more precise. 

But right now… you’re thinking liquid courage might be onto something. 

Because he’s standing so close you can smell his cologne, something that smells like grapefruit and lemon. Because he angled his body to block out the rest of the bar like you’re the only person here. Because his hand is right there, inches from you, and looks like he wants to touch you so badly it’s causing him physical pain. 

And you’re tipsy enough to think: yeah, liquid courage is real. 

Before the sober, anxious part of your brain can intervene with a thousand reasons why this is a horrible idea, you reach out. Your fingers wrap around his wrist, and his eyes snap to yours, surprise written across his features. 

You don’t utter a word, just simply guide his hand until his palm settles at the small of your back. Every place where his skin connects with yours seems to tingle. 

“Is this okay?” he asks, voice low and chest rumbling with the sound. Again, his mouth is right by your ear, and you can’t think, can’t breathe, can't hear anything but him. 

“Would I have moved it there if I wasn’t?” 

His thumb strokes once against your side. “Just making sure.” 

“I’m tipsy, not drunk,” you clarify, only because you need him to know this is a choice. This is something you tried to talk yourself out of over and over again, but you want this. Liquid courage is making you brave enough to admit out loud what you only ever thought to yourself sober. “I know what I’m doing.” 

“And what are you doing?” His breath hits your cheek, the side of your mouth, and it’s laced with peppermint and whiskey, and you’re dizzy with need. 

“Giving you the green light,” you say, tilting your head to meet his gaze. His eyes are hooded, trained on your lips that are coated in shiny gloss. “That okay with you?” 

His hand tightens on your waist, pulling you incrementally closer. He doesn’t need to say anything. 

“Very okay,” he murmurs into your hair. 

The bartender returns with your drinks, but Jungkook doesn’t move his hand. He takes your dirty shirley with his free hand, passing it off to you. His grip becomes more secure, more selfish, like now that you’ve given him permission, he’s never planning on letting go. 

Good, you think. You don’t want him to. 

Jungkook’s hand wraps around the glass of whiskey, taking a slow sip. “Seems like fate was on my side tonight.” 

You take a gulp of your dirty shirley, the sweetness coating your tongue. “I’m starting to think you might be stalking me.” 

His eyebrows raise, a tiny upward twitch in his mouth. “How do I know you’re not stalking me?” 

“Oh, you would know.”

“Really?” He leans in, brown eyes sparking like pools of chocolate. “And how’s that?” 

“Because I’d be better at it,” you proclaim, emboldened by the alcohol. “You wouldn’t catch me three times in two weeks. I’d have a whole system. Disguises, a wig collection..”

He laughs loudly. You notice that his dimples pop when he does so, eyes crinkling. “A wig collection.” 

“At minimum. Maybe some fake glasses and a trench coat.” 

“Clearly, you’ve thought about this,” he hums. 

You raise your hands in defense. “I’m just saying, if I were stalking you, you’d never know it unless I wanted you to know.” 

“Should I be concerned?” he questions, but he’s grinning. 

“Depends,” you tilt your head. “Are you worth stalking?” 

His fingers spread across the expanse of your spine. “I’d like to think so.” 

“Confident.” Another sip of your dirty shirley snakes down your throat, your lips toying with the straw as you peer up at him. 

His gaze never leaves yours. “Besides, you’re the one who guided my hand to your back. If anyone's being forward here…” 

That almost makes you choke on your sugary drink. “I was just—”

“Giving me the green light,” he finishes. “I remember. Trust me, I remember.” 

Your mind stumbles, then short-circuits. 

You resort to drinking more alcohol, needing something to do with your hands that’s not touching him. “This is crazy, right? Us, here?” 

“Crazy how?” 

“You know how. I mean, ten years ago, I was copying your chemistry homework, and now you’re so… you’re…”

There’s not a single English word that properly describes what present day Jeon Jungkook does to you, with his tattoos and lip rings and expensive cologne and platinum credit card and… fuck. 

“I’m what?” He leans closer, waiting, expecting. 

“This.” you say helplessly. “All of this.” 

“Is there something wrong with.” he uses his free hand to motion over his toned body, “this?”

“No. Nothing. That’s the problem.” It slips out before you can stop it. “It would be easier if something was wrong with it.” 

The hand not looped around your waist moves from the bartop to your dress, fingers finding the hem where it’s ridden up on your thigh. He plays with the fabric absentmindedly, rolling it between the pads of his fingers. “If no one’s told you, by the way,” he mutters just loud enough for you to hear him over the music, “this dress looks insane on you.” 

The wind is knocked out of your chest, a jolt of electricity flashing through your core. “No one’s told me yet. You’re the first.” 

His eyes drag up from where his fingers are flirting with your dress, traveling up your body until they meet yours. “You look fucking gorgeous,” he says. “There. Now I'm the second to say it.” 

It’s hard to breathe, hard to swallow. Even harder to find words, or form a coherent sentence. 

“You—I—you can’t—”

“Can’t..?” His hands don’t dare move from your dress, knuckles occasionally brushing against your thigh. “Can’t tell you the truth?”

“You know what you’re doing, Jungkook.” 

“I do,” he agrees. “Is it working?” 

You want to lie. Want to play it cool. Want to maintain some semblance of the upper hand. 

But your downfall was inevitable, right from the moment you saw him standing in the cafe. Like a champagne bottle that someone shook a little too hard, a balloon pressed against a thumbtack. It was always meant to explode. 

“Yes,” you admit. 

“Good.” Both of his hands move to grip the side of your barstool. In one smooth movement, he turns you to face him completely. His legs spread, creating space, and he guides the stool forward with his toe until your thighs slot between his.  He’s caging you in, hands landing atop your thighs, palms warm against your bare skin. 

You’re practically pressed against him, his face level with yours, “Is this okay?” he asks again, fingers digging into the flesh. 

Suddenly, it’s like you’re painfully aware of all the places where he isn’t touching you. Your faces, your chests. You want more, need more. 

“Stop asking me that,” you mumble, looking away, but he guides your gaze back with a finger under your chin. 

“I need to know, princess.” His tone is serious, but you want to smile from the pet name. “Tell me if it’s too much.” 

“It’s not,” you whisper. “It’s not too much.” 

“No?”

“No.” 

His hands slide up your thighs, hiding underneath the fabric, pushing a boundary that hasn't been tested in a long time. “What about now?’ 

You’re going to combust. Right here, in the middle of  Sinkhole, surrounded by people, you're going to burst into flames.

“Still okay,” you exhale. 

For one exhilarating second, his eyes drop to your lips, and you think you’ll get what you’ve been seeing in your dreams the past few nights. You need to get out of here. Away from the crowd, away from the noise, somewhere you can actually hear yourself think—or not think. Preferably not think.

“Do you want to…” you start, then hesitate. The words die on your tongue. 

He cocks his head, hair flopping into his eyes. “Do I want to…” 

Your heartbeat reverberates in your throat. “Talk somewhere more private? It’s loud here.” 

His composure shifts, and you watch the realization hit him. What you're suggesting. What that implies.

“Private,” he repeats. “To talk.” 

“Yes.” 

“About?” 

You deadpan, brain racking for a subject, any subject. “Stuff,” is what you come up with.

A dry laugh escapes him. “And maybe things as well?” 

You pout. “Important stuff.” 

“I’m sure.” His smile is lopsided, goofy and full of light.  He pulls you up from the barstool until your feet touch the ground again. His hand finds your fingers, easily lacing them. “Whatever you want, princess.” 

Where the fuck did that come from? When did he become the type of person to use pet names? And why is it working? Why is that single word making your entire nervous system light up like a Christmas tree?

Tugging you through the crowd, he peers behind him every few seconds to make sure you haven’t floated away. His hand is firm around yours, guiding you through the mass of bodies, and you try and catch a glimpse of any of your friends. 

Unfortunately, you do spot Jimin and Taehyung, pressed against a wall, entranced in a makeout session so intense that they’re definitely not coming up for air soon. At least you won’t have to explain to them where you went. Yunjin is nowhere to be found, probably on the dance floor or already home with one of her many flings. 

Jungkook pulls you through another section of the crowd, leading you down a side hallway that’s mercifully empty. The music is muffled, bass still thumping through the walls but not deafening anymore. You lean back against the cold concrete, the chill a shock against your overheated skin. The wall vibrates with each bass drop, humming in your chest. 

Jungkook stops in front of you, and you have to tilt your head back to see his face. “What did you want to talk about?”  

Your mind shoots blanks. In this dim hallway, you’ve become aware of how completely the tables have turned. Ten years ago, you held all the cards. You were the girl who made him nervous, who had him stumbling over words, who could get him to do anything with a smile and a flutter of your eyelashes. But now you’re the one who’s heart is racing, who feels like you might explode from a single touch. He has the upper hand, utterly, entirely. And you handed it to him willingly. Put his hand on your waist, guided him here, and now you’re putty in his hands and he knows it. 

“You make me nervous,” you blurt out. 

The silence that engulfs you feels like punishment. Your mouth goes dry, palms sweating under the guise of his stare. 

He takes a step closer. There’s little to no space between you. “That’s interesting.” 

“Why is that interesting?” Your back is pressed against the wall. Nowhere to go. 

“You used to make me nervous,” he says, bracing his hand on the wall. His bicep strains and you have to fight the urge to ogle at them. “For years.” 

“That was different, Jungkook.” 

“Was it?” He studies you. “In what way?” 

“Well, because now you’re you, and I’m—“

“I’m me?” His eyebrows raise an inch, lips curling upwards in a smirk. “What does that mean?” 

Why did you drink so much alcohol? Why, why, why? Maybe if you hadn’t, your lips wouldn’t be so goddamn loose. Your filter would still be in tact. You wouldn’t be staring at him like you want to devour him whole. 

You peer up at him, eyelashes fluttering. His cheeks are flushed from the amount of drinks he’s consumed, and he’s close enough that you can see the moles that litter his face. The one under his lip. The one on his nose. You want to kiss each and every single one of them. Map them out with your lips until you have them memorized. 

You give up on any pretense of playing it cool. “You know you’re hot, Jungkook.” 

“Do I know?” The smirk on his face grows tenfold, and god, you want to kiss it off him. “You’ve never told me this before.” 

“High school was different.” 

“You’ve said that a lot, but it’s actually not that different,” he murmurs. 

“Hm?”

His gaze drops to your lips for the hundredth time tonight. “Because I’m still so fucking unbelievably, out of my mind, attracted to you.”

Your brain struggles to process it—that he’s felt this way for years. That it never went away. That all the confidence and cockiness is built on top of the same desire that made teenage Jungkook stutter around you.

“You’re just saying things,” you whisper. But you’ve known. You’ve always known. 

His hand falls from the wall to cup your jaw. “You think I begged Jimin for your number because I was just being polite? You think I showed up at three different cafes hoping fate would bring us together because I’m casual about this?”

“But you said that cafe was your regular spot—”

He fights to hide the smile creeping onto his face. “I’ve wanted you since I was a teenager.” His thumb brushes across your cheekbone. “Somehow, impossibly, I want you even more now.” 

Your heart is trying to break out of the confines of your ribcage. “Jungkook.” 

His forehead is almost touching yours. “What’s different is that now I’m not terrified to tell you.”

You don’t know what else to say to him, so you smile as brightly as you can, letting your happiness live on your face. 

“How many drinks have you had tonight?” he asks. 

You scrunch your brows together. “A lot of soju. That dirty shirley. Why?” 

Bluntly, he says, “Because I want to kiss you. But not if you’re too drunk to remember it tomorrow.” 

You squeak, back slightly arching off the wall. You’ve never wanted anything more, never ached to feel someone the way you do him. Heat travels through your veins, burning you to your core. 

“I told you, I’m tipsy,” you rush to protest. “I’ll remember this tomorrow.” 

It should be embarrassing how quickly you reassure him, how the words tumble out of your mouth. 

His forehead presses against yours, and it’s a miracle you don’t dissolve into a puddle. “Then can I—”

“Yes,” you interrupt. If he doesn’t kiss you in the next five seconds, you might actually die. 

“I didn’t finish the question.” His lips ghost over yours, a gentle taste of what you yearn for. 

“I don’t care what the question is,” you exhale. “The answer is yes.” 

And then his lips are on yours. 

Never in your high school years did you imagine how Jeon Jungkook kissed. Never thought about how his lips would feel against your own. Never cared to think about it. 

This past week, however, you’ve spent more time imagining this exact scenario than you’ve spent breathing. But reality is superior to whatever your brain could conjure up. Your imagination could never describe Jungkook’s demanding kiss, or the way his lips melt into yours with utmost certainty. His hand slides from your jaw to your cheek, cradling it. The other hand finds your waist, pulling you flush against him. 

A mix of a gasp and a moan falls from your lips, and he swallows it wholly. Your fists find his shirt, tugging on the fabric, pulling him closer even though there’s no space between you. His lip rings are cold against your mouth, a contrast to the heat of his lips and the heat between your thighs. Parting your lips, his tongue sweeps in, tastes just like you smelled earlier—whiskey and peppermint. Your lip gloss is definitely everywhere at this point—on him, on you, probably on the wall behind you—but you couldn’t care less.

His strong hand travels from your cheek down, down, fingers wrapping loosely around your throat. Claiming, holding. The possessiveness of the gesture sends heat pooling low into your stomach. Jungkook’s thumb presses into your pulse point, feeling how your heart is racing. 

And when you do finally pull away, your heart is still going berzerk. His lips are shiny with your gloss, pink and swollen and thoroughly kissed. You can't help but giggle at the sight. 

“What?” he asks, breathless. The tips of his ears are tickled pink.

“You’re wearing my lip gloss,” you giggle again, reaching up to wipe it with your thumb. But he doesn’t let you get far, catches your wrist and presses a kiss right where your flowery perfume is sprayed. He takes a deep inhale and smiles back at you like you hung the moon and stars. Your heart is pumping so wildly you’re worried it might actually burst out of your chest.

Then his lips are on your neck, trailing down to your exposed collarbone, finding every sensitive spot with ease like he already knows you, like he holds the map to your body. He holds you tight to him, grounding—and thank god because your legs are shaking so badly that you're not sure you could stand without him holding you up.

“Jungkook,” you gasp, and he hums against your skin. His mouth finds your jaw, pressing open-mouthed kisses, and you’re pretty sure you’re going to pass out. Your fingers thread through his unruly dark brown locks, tugging slightly at the nape. 

And you can’t really help the intrusive thoughts that leap in your mind, the tidal wave of desire that keeps lapping at your core. He’s insatiable, and you feel gluttonous. “Do you wanna—” you start, but his teeth graze your pulse point and your brain turns to mush. “maybe—ahh—go to mine?”

He halts, pulls back enough to look at you. “Is that what you want?” His voice is strained, the thread of self-control growing weaker and weaker. 

Your brain is fuzzy from alcohol and kissing and the feeling of his hands on your waist, but you know what you're saying. You know what you're offering. You’re done fighting whatever decade-old guilt lives inside you, because you deserve him. Maybe you’re finally ready to accept it. To trust that you’ve grown, that you’re growing, that you’re not done growing and thats okay. You deserve all the good that Jeon Jungkook has to offer. “Yes,” you breathe, “I want—I want you.”

His eyes search for hesitation. “You’ve been drinking, and I don't want you to feel like you need to—”

“I’m sure.” Cupping his face in your hands, you cut his sentence in half. Don’t even let it slip between you. “I know what I want.”

Somehow, his eyes have gone darker, fingers tightening for purchase. “Say it again,” he murmurs. 

“I want you, Jungkook.” Your thumb brushes against his bottom lip, catching on his lip rings. “Take me home.”

“Fucking hell,” he practically moans, and then his lips are on you again with an urgency that wasn’t there before. “We should probably tell your friends we’re leaving.”

“Jimin’s busy.” If you had to guess, he’s on his knees at home, getting topped by Kim Taehyung. “And Yunjin will understand. Your friends?”

“They know who you are.”

A swarm of butterflies kick up in your stomach. 

You tug on his shirt. “Now can we please go before I lose my mind?” 

His answer to that is another quick kiss—but still thorough, because who is he if not a man starved—and he pulls you through the hallway, back into the club, into the thick of the chaos still lingering this late in the night. You hardly register any of it. The lights, the bass of the music, the bodies pressing against you as you squeeze by. None of it matters. 

You feel like you’re floating, like your feet are moving but you can’t feel the ground, like you’re walking on clouds. His hand is wrapped around yours, pulling you forward, and you’d follow him anywhere right now. To the ends of the earth. Off a cliff. 

Once the crisp night air hits your skin, Jungkook is already scanning the street, hand raised to hail a taxi. One pulls up within seconds—it’s got to be fate, or the universe supporting your agenda to get laid—and he opens the door, ushering you inside with a hand on the small of your back. 

Jungkook shuts the door forcefully, immediately snuggling into your side, leaving little to no room for you to create space between you two. Not that you wanted to, but you want to giggle at how utterly fearful he seems of distance from you. 

“Where to?” the driver asks, eyeing Jungkook in the rearview. 

You rattle off your address, and the cab pulls off into traffic. Seoul at this hour is never quiet—in fact, it’s usually more lively, since clubs stay open until the wee hours of the morning. But all you can really focus on is Jungkook beside you, his thigh pressed against yours in the cramped backseat. His fingers lace through yours. An innocent, sweet gesture, a complete contrast from what was happening ten minutes ago against that hallway wall.  

You look down at your intertwined hands—his so much larger than yours, rings cool against your skin. A smile bestows upon your lips. When you glance up at him, he’s staring at you with this fond expression that makes your heart stutter.

“What?” you ask, giddy. 

“Nothing,” he replies, but the smile on his face doesn’t disappear. “I just can’t believe this is happening.” 

“Me neither,” you admit sheepishly. 

His hand reaches over, tugging the hem of your dress down where it’s ridden up your thigh. The action would be chivalrous, if not for the way his fingers linger, if not for the way his jaw clenches, if not for the way his fond expression darkens into something sinister. 

“You need to stop moving,” he says, a deep exhale following his words. 

You roll your eyes. “I’m not even moving.”

“Your… dress is moving.” His hand remains on your thigh, holding the fabric down. “I can’t hold it together if this dress rides up any more.” 

“Oh.” 

He shifts in his jeans, clearly uncomfortable. You have to fight not to avert your eyes to his crotch. 

“Do you know how long it’ll take to get to her apartment?” Jungkook asks the driver. You snort loudly. 

He shrugs. Clearly, the man has never shared Jungkook’s predicament, because he looks unbothered by the urgency in his voice. “About twenty minutes.” 

Jungkook groans, leaning back into the seat, closing his eyes for a second. When he opens them again and catches your gaze, he has to close them to calm his friend down there. And it does make you giggle again, but what you want more than anything is to feel him. For him to give you a part of him that you didn’t know you needed until now. 

You whisper in his ear. “I don’t want you to hold it together.”

His eyes fly open, and you watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “Don’t tempt me right now, [Y/N].”

“Why not?” And you pull out your tricks—you bat your eyelashes, tilt your head down, lick your lips to wet them. His face grows pale. 

“Because we’re in a cab,” he murmurs, staring at your lips. “And I’m trying to be respectful.”

“Maybe I want you to disrespect me right now.”

The words are barely out of your mouth before he's kissing you again. His hand leaves your dress to cup your face, angling your head so he can kiss you deeper. 

The cab driver clears his throat. You both ignore him, too hypnotized by the other to think about stopping. He pulls you as close as he can, and a frustrated noise escapes from your lips. There’s too many layers, too much distance, and he smiles knowingly against your lips. 

He seems to know just what you need. 

Jungkook’s large hand lands on your knee, caressing the supple skin. 

“You know how to be quiet, baby?” 

You nod meekly. 

His voice brushes against the shell of your ear, hand traveling up your thigh to mask itself under the fabric of your dress.  “Good girl. Spread your legs for me.”

Eyes widening, you stare up at him blankly. There is no way on this planet, Jeon Jungkook, the man who you were sure—up until now—never had his first kiss, is about to finger you in a taxi. But his hand moving near your lace panties says otherwise. You jolt forward at the feeling of his deft fingers swiping at the fabric as discreetly as possible. You gasp, and he tosses you a look before you slap your hand over your mouth. Luckily, the taxi driver seems more focused on the fastest route to your apartment than whatever debauchery is occurring in his backseat. It’s also dark in the car, impossible for the naked eye to see Jungkook’s movements. 

He presses against the wet spot on your underwear, and heat creeps up your neck at the realization of just how turned on he’s had you since the hallway. Maybe even before then, if you’re being honest. He smiles at the revelation. 

Your nails dig into the leather seat of the cab. Jungkook’s tattooed fingers push aside your underwear, his pointer finger collecting the arousal. A whimper escapes you, and when you look at him, the look on his face sends another round of wetness dripping down his finger. “God, baby, you’re so fucking wet,” he whispers into your ear, letting two fingers ghost over your clit, gently pushing the bundle of nerves. “Didn’t know public sex turned you on so much.” 

You bite back a moan. The teasing pace he’s set over your clit would be fun, if you had a constant stream of sexual endeavors, but unfortunately, you’re as desperate as a raccoon sifting through trash. Gripping onto his wrist, you push him onto you fiercely. “Needy, aren’t we?” he mutters. 

All you can reply with is a quick nod. He chuckles softly, rubbing circles on your clit with the pad of his pointer and middle finger. Your head falls back on the headrest, eyes squeezed tight, tight, tight as you try to calculate how he found your clit so fast. It’s so wet, dripping onto the seat, his hands, that you could cum just from the stimulation of it all. 

“What do you want, princess? Hm?” Somehow, it sounds like he’s far away from you, like you’re caught on your own cloud of bliss. You want to ask for more, need more like it’s oxygen. His rhythm slows just a tad, enough to have your eyes flying open. “I asked you a question.”

Oh. Oh. So he’s that kind of guy. 

“I want—I want your fingers,” you whisper feebly. 

“Yeah? Where, princess? I’ll give you whatever you want.” he kisses your shoulder, your jaw, and it makes your brain fuzzy around the edges. 

The tantalizing pace he’s set on your clit makes it hard to speak. “W-want you to fuck me with them.”

His lips curl upwards, eyes blazing. “You like my fingers?” Another nod. He removes his fingers from your clit, slipping back out underneath your dress. You’re about to protest, maybe even kick him out of the car, until you watch him make direct eye contact with you, and place his fingers in his mouth, letting his tongue swirl around the digits. You blink. What the actual fuck have you gotten yourself into?

“Please, Jungkook,” you beg, your nails scrambling to dig in his clothed thigh. He chastises you, laughs at you, before slithering under your dress again, plunging his fingers directly into your sopping entrance. You gasp, loud enough to make the driver look in the rearview, but you bite your bottom lip before any more can escape. “I know you can take it. If you can take that douchebag Kim Mingyu, you can handle me. Although, after I’m done with you, my name might be the only name you moan for the rest of your life.” 

You should hate that. You really, really should. But clearly, your dignity has taken the night off, and in its place is a woman who is so endeared over being degraded by Jeon Jungkook. 

His fingers pump in and out, achingly slow, making you feel every inch. You’re gripping his thigh so tightly you swear there’ll be claw marks. Your head rests on the back of your seat, chest heaving. If not for the sound of traffic outside, the driver might be able to hear the way your pussy squelches with each movement. 

Jungkook’s lips press against your jaw, litter around your neck. “More,” you mumble, sounding drunker than you did in the club. 

“God, you’re so fucking wet. I can’t wait to be inside you. Gonna fuck you all night.” Lewd words continue to spill from his lips. Sending waves of arousal onto his fingers, more for him to play with as he picks up his pace. He curls his fingers upwards, reaching that sensitive spot that far and few men have ever found. Your body trembles, thighs shaking, and Jungkook’s hand lands on them to try and steady you. 

His thumb finds your clit, rubbing sloppy circles as he brings you to the brink of your orgasm. Your eyes fight to stay open, looking over at Jungkook—and holy hell. His arm veins are popping out, mostly from the amount of effort he’s putting into fucking into you to completion, his dark hair flopping over his face. His silver chain bounces off his chest, reflecting on the city lights outside. 

And you don’t even realize how quickly you’re about to cum, tears brimming your eyes from the way his fingers pump in and out you wildly, thumb matching his pace over your clit. “So tight around my fingers, princess. You gonna cum?” 

There’s no way you can be quiet about this. Not with how fucking good he looks, not with how easily his fingers slip in and out you, hitting your sweet spot. You bury your head in his neck, moaning into his warm skin, trying to muffle the sound as much as possible. “Fuck, Jungkook.” 

“Want you to cum on my fingers, princess. Can you do that for me?” You nod into his neck. 

Your walls clench around his fingers one last time, to the point where he can hardly move them, his thumb working you through the orgasm that ripples through your body. Your fingers claw at his arm, teeth biting at his neck. You can feel yourself lose control, heart beating erratically in your chest. 

Jungkook’s fingers halt inside you, thumb coaxing you through the rest of your orgasm. “It’s okay, princess. I’ve got you.” 

Your body completely slumps into him, still feeling full with his two fingers inside you. 

Finally, after he allows you a moment to catch your breath, he pulls them out of your pussy, soaked with your creamy arousal. “Open,” he says gently, but when you look up at him, his gaze is hardly sympathetic. Your lips part for him, and he places his fingers on your tongue. You swirl it around, tasting yourself, sweet and salty and warm, foreign to you. Jungkook’s eyes never leave yours. 

“Good job, baby,” he says as he removes his fingers, pressing one, two chaste kisses on your lips. 

All things considered, you’re in absolute shock. Somewhere between high school and now, Jeon Jungkook learned how to kiss like he’s trying to ruin you for all other men. Where did he learn all this? Who taught him to do that thing with his fingers? How does he know exactly where to put his hands, exactly how much pressure to use to make you lose your mind?

The thought of him practicing on other people—other girls—makes something ugly twist in your stomach. 

You’re an evil, evil girl. “Where’d you learn all that?” 

He raises an eyebrow, tucking a strand of your loose hair behind your ear. “Are you asking about my sexual history now?” 

“No.”

“You are,” he teases. “You’re not jealous, right?”

If only he knew how ill you felt at the idea of another girl knowing how his fingers can easily find their g-spot. 

“I am not jealous.” You feign indifference, but your voice comes out all defensive and petulant, which kind of ruins it all. “Just asking a question.” 

“You want to know who I've been with?” he asks, clearly trying not to laugh. 

“Never said that.” 

He presses another soft kiss against your lips. “There’s been other people. I’m not going to lie about that. But that’s not a big deal.” 

You furrow your brows. “Why?” 

His thumb traces circles on your thigh. “Because I thought about you during all of it. I wondered what you’d feel like, wondered what sounds you would make. So, yeah,” he continues. “I learned some things. But I only ever wanted to use them on you.” 

You kiss him again because you don’t know what else to do with the feeling expanding in your chest. Because he’s looking at you like that and saying things like that and your heart is fluttering out of your body. God, if that doesn’t make you want to drag him upstairs immediately.

The cab pulls up to your building and Jungkook is already pulling out his wallet, throwing bills at the driver without checking the amount. "Keep the change," he says, and then he's out of the cab, pulling you with him.

Your legs are unsteady when you stand—from the alcohol, from the kissing, from everything—and his arm wraps around your waist, steadying you. “I’m not done with you yet, princess.” 

And, really, he’s not joking because he’s on you the second you step through the door to your apartment. Barely even crosses the threshold before his lips are colliding with yours passionately, slamming your spine into the wall by your entryway. His hands cup your cheeks entirely. He can’t get enough of you, like opposite poles of a magnet attracting. Shortly after his affair with the entryway, Jungkook moves a little more down your hallway, but you’re too focused on kissing him to direct him. Your shoes are discarded, purse on the floor, and then your back finds another cool wall to rest against. 

Jungkook assaults your neck, leaving a trail of bruises that are going to take a hell of a lot of explaining tomorrow. Your apartment probably sounds like the set of some cheap porno, what with Jungkook’s whimpers and your moans, and neither of you are even naked yet. Your hands run over the front of his chest, feeling his sculpted body underneath his shirt. 

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” he murmurs into your collarbone, where he’s leaving hickeys in his wake. His hands wander over your chest, cupping them over your dress. Without another word or warning, he yanks down the top of your dress, your breasts spilling out. You can’t help the gasp that escapes you as he manhandles you, his lips coming to wrap around your hardened nipple. His tongue swipes over the sensitive nub, eyes peering up expectantly, watching every facial expression that contorts on your face. 

Your eyes squeeze tightly, a kaleidoscope of color blooming behind your vision. “Jungkook,” you moan, carding your fingers through his unruly hair. 

Without preamble, Jungkook kisses your nipples one last time before dropping to his knees on your hardwood floor with a resounding thump. 

You open your eyes. The sight in front of you is fucking ungodly. If you look closely, you can see Jungkook from high school, expectantly looking up at you with puppy dog eyes, pushing your dress up to hang around your waist. 

“W-what are you doing?’ you ask. 

He looks drunk. “Need to eat you out. I want to taste you, princess.”

You don’t remember the last time a man has looked so needy to feel you, to taste you. Actually, you can’t remember a time this even occurred. 

You exhale. “Yes. Yes, please.” 

That’s all he really needs. Jungkook doesn’t waste a moment more in burying his face between your folds as though it’s his last meal on earth. His fingers come to spread your lips open for him as he flicks his tongue over your nub, sending you bent over as you scramble for purchase in his hair, his shoulders, anything. “Oh, fuck, Jungkook, right there.” 

He notices your struggle to stand upright, and then he’s guiding your leg over his shoulder, toes dangling. He moans into your pussy, a breathy little exhale that sends fire shooting through your veins. Jungkook’s strong arm holds your leg in place over his shoulder. His tongue fucks inside of you shallowly, your eyes rolling backwards. “Tastes so sweet, so fucking heavenly, baby,” he mutters but it barely makes its way into your ears. You can feel his lip rings swiping over your arousal, the cool metal causing your thighs to quake uncontrollably. 

And then you’re just babbling profanities, a mantra of his name, curse words. A litany of praise. Some other embarrassing things you hope he never remembers. 

“I feel g-guilty. For the way I treated y-you in high school,” you stammer, quivering against his face as he licks another stripe up your slit. 

You don’t know why it’s all coming out now, but it is. God, you were such a bitch in high school. Such an egotistical brat who was too caught in her own ways to ever see that there was more to life than social status and cheerleading. 

His tongue encircles your clit, one of your hands flying to his hair to tug. “Don’t feel guilty,” he murmurs. “That’s not what I want you to feel right now. I want to make you feel good.” 

His tongue travels from your hole to your clit, and normally the rhythm would throw you off, but he’s so skillful about the whole thing that you’re teetering on the brink of an orgasm. And he must know, must be able to read your body like it’s something he spent years studying, because he’s sucking on your clit, letting his tongue flick over it repeatedly, maintaining a rhythm that has you screaming, “Oh fuck, oh shit, I’m gonna—Jungkook, I’m gonna cum.” 

That doesn’t deter him the slightest. Spurs him on like he’s entered in some kind of pussy-eating competition. You’ll spend years talking about this experience, you think. 

Your fingers tighten in his hair, tangling, tugging, and your entire body vibrates as your orgasm crashes over you in waves. He fucks you through it, keeps going until you’re pushing him away with your toe forcefully. When he finally gives up, he says from between your legs, “Better than Kim Mingyu?” 

Maybe you shouldn’t care about high school anymore, but you can’t help but laugh, smile at him. “He never even ate me out, Koo.” 

His face softens— whether that’s because of the nickname you adorned him with or the fact that Mingyu was an asshole, you’ll never know—and he’s standing up, pressing a dirty kiss to your lips. It’s messy, sloppy, tongue over teeth, but so undeniably him that you cling to him like a koala. “He’s the biggest idiot of all time to miss out on that.” 

“Hmm,” you hum against his lips. They taste just like you, and it sends another gush of arousal pouring out of you. His hands slide down your sides, gripping your waist, your hips, pulling you impossibly closer. You’re drowning in him—his taste, his smell, the way he’s kissing you like he’s been starving for it. You can feel his length poking against your thigh, and your heart skips at just how large it al;ready feels through his jeans. 

Your hands roam down his chest, feeling the firm muscle beneath his shirt, tracing lower until your fingers find his belt. You fumble with the buckle, fingers clumsy with desire. Jungkook looks down at your manicured fingers, easily working, speaking to how much experience you have. His cock throbs at the thought. 

You’re about to get on your knees, return the favor, but he stops you as soon as you lower an inch. 

Jungkook simply says, “The next time I want you to cum, is going to be on my cock.” 

Okay, yes sir. He’s all dominating and commanding and it makes your pussy clench around nothing. 

His forehead drops against yours, breath punching out of him. “Fuck, I need to be inside you.” 

The metal clinks as his pants drop to the floor, his Calvin Klein boxers doing little to hide how big he is. Jungkook kicks them off, eager to remove as many layers as possible. Your mouth salivates, and you’re positive a sliver of drool is slithering out of your mouth. His hands tighten on your hips, bruising the skin. 

You kiss him again, but this time, it’s rougher, faster, hand slipping beneath the waistband of his boxers, and he makes a sound between a groan and a whimper that makes you feel powerful.  Your hands roam, searching, until—

Holy shit. You gasp into his mouth, feeling his length. He’s big, no doubt about that. But it’s the fucking girth of it that has your mouth watering. He’s thick, and you can feel the veins that decorate his cock. 

Jesus Christ. This is what your Chemistry tutor was hiding under his pants. A fucking anaconda. 

But you’re not about to admit that. 

No shot in hell. 

“Mhmm, I feel like you’re kinda small,” you tease, battling your eyelashes at him as you stroke his hardened length dangerously slow. 

His nostrils flare. “Yeah? Think I’m small, baby?” 

“Tiny.”

Your thumb drags over his tip, and then you feel it. A piece of metal. Jeon Jungkook has a fucking dick piercing. 

His eyes set ablaze as he realizes that you know. “Fucking hell, you’re still the same brat you’ve always been.”

Jungkook’s lips collide with yours, and he kicks off his boxers urgently. “Fuck,” he breathes against your mouth. Suddenly his hands are gripping the backs of your thighs, lifting you up like you weigh nothing. You gasp, legs wrapping around his waist as your back hits the wall harder. The new position puts you at eye level with him, head spinning. He reaches down between your bodies to let his cock sit in between your wet folds, ever so teasing. 

Your fingernails dig into the nape of his neck, head lolling back against the wall. “Please fuck me, Koo. Wanna feel you inside me.”

“Oh, now you want to beg? After you called me tiny?” He hisses as he swirls the tip over your clit, the cool metal of his piercing sending shockwaves down your spine. 

“Please,” you beg. “Pleasepleaseplease.” It’s slurred when it leaves your mouth, breath catching when you look down and see the way the metal reflects off his soaking tip, encased in your juices. “I need it.” 

With that, he pushes into you, all inches of his length, squirming in his arms. You scramble to hold onto something, opting for his biceps that are straining with the weight of holding you up. A moan leaves both of your mouths. He waits until you’re fully adjusted, taking every inch of him. “Feels so good, princess. So tight and warm, holy shit.” 

“Jungkook,” you pant. You’re so full of him, he’s everywhere. Stopping is the last thing on your mind. You’re a woman made of greed. “You’re so—fuck—big.” 

He smiles triumphantly and takes that as his sign to move. He uses his arms to slide you up and down his cock, slamming you onto him, your clit meeting his pubic bone. The piercing drags against your walls with each thrust, hitting the sweet spot inside you that has you screaming a litany of crude words that’ll have your neighbors knocking your door down tomorrow morning. His head falls to the crook of your shoulder, burying himself in your scent. 

It’s more than you’ve ever taken, beyond any sex you’ve ever had in your life. You’re going to be ruined for all other men and you haven’t even made it to the bedroom yet. Your past lovers are about to become a footnote. A distant memory. Ancient fucking history.

The sound of your pussy squelching with each rough thrust fills the room, Jungkook’s hairline beading with sweat as he furiously pounds into you, tits bouncing in his face. He begins to babble, “Used to cum so hard thinking about you, baby. You in that—fuck—cheer uniform, with your nipples hard. I wanted to push it to the side and fuck you.”

You moan at the thought. “Yeah, why didn’t you? I would’ve rode your face with your glasses on.” 

He presses a sloppy kiss on the side of your mouth. “Bet you would’ve loved that, huh? Deflowering the nerd?”

The mental image flashes through your mind—seventeen-year-old Jungkook, all awkward limbs and nervous stammering, those thick-framed glasses sliding down his nose while you sat on his face in the library after hours. You would’ve been so mean about it too. Would’ve made him beg, would’ve had him so desperate and eager to please that he would’ve done anything you asked. Would’ve probably given him the best night of his teenage life and then ignored him in the hallway the next day because you were dating Mingyu and had a reputation to maintain.

“I would’ve made you cum—ahh, shit—so hard.” You try your hardest to maintain eye contact, but everytime you do, your walls flutter around his cock. “You would’ve been obsessed.”

“I was already obsessed,” he groans, nipping at your jaw. His balls slap against your ass, adding to the horrific amount of sounds eliciting from your apartment. “It couldn’t have gotten much worse.”

He has a very fair point. 

You thread your fingers through his hair, already on the brink of another orgasm. Everything about him—his scent, the way his tattoos glisten with sweat, how his bottom lip is tugged underneath his front teeth—sends your mind into delirium. He’s fucking you with enough force to have your head bouncing off the wall every few thrusts, that you feel it resound along your bones. 

“Fuck, I don’t wanna cum yet,” he whimpers into your skin. “But god, I don’t think I’ll be able to last.”

Neither will you, but an idea sparks in your pretty little head. You crook a finger under his jaw, making him look at you. His expression is completely fucked out, lips swollen, cheeks ruddy. His thrusts slow, enough so that he can pay attention to your words. “I want to get on top. Let me fuck you, Jungkook.” 

He nods, and then he’s readjusting you in his arms, with you clinging to him like a newborn baby. You giggle as he frantically tries to find your bedroom, pausing every few moments to press a few kisses to your cheeks and lips. 

Finally, he locates your room, plopping you down on the bed, and you moan at the sudden emptiness you feel with his cock gone. He tosses his t-shirt over his head. 

Jungkook sits up against the headboard, gently stroking his length as he watches you move to bracket his thighs, settling over his tip. “Ready for me, princess?” 

Eagerly, you shake your head in approval, and you sink down inch by inch onto his length. For some reason, in this position, it feels like he’s stretching you out more, your walls sucking him in greedily. Your hands come to rest on his beefy chest, nails digging into the skin. 

There’s not many things you're good at, but one thing you are insanely talented at? Riding cock like it’s your god given right. Your hips undulate wildly, bouncing up and down to accommodate his full length. Jungkook watches in awe, in a trance, as you cream his cock. His hands come to sit at your hips, guiding you the best he can. His head rests against the headboard, lazily watching as you play with your tits. “Ride my cock,” he groans, “just like that, princess.”  

“You stretch me out so good, Jungkook,” you moan, thighs trembling with each movement. He can feel you getting closer to the edge, already riled up from the previous position. Your walls clench around him, sucking him in. His thumb falls to your clit again, finding it so easily after so many rounds. “Right there, baby,” you chant, eyes closed. “Right fucking there.”

“Jesus, I'm so close,” he grunts, beginning to thrust upwards into you as your own pace slows. The sounds are beyond obscene—his cock plunging into your wetness, headboard slamming against the wall. You don’t care about any of it, not one bit, as long he keeps fucking into you. 

It was always obvious from the moment he kissed you at the club that neither of you were going to last long, anyway. 

“Fuck, I’m cumming,” you practically scream, which would have you embarrassed, but he seems just as ruined as you. 

Your orgasm washes over you, legs shaking as your mouth tears open around a sound that might be his name, might be something else entirely. Your walls flutter around him, and Jungkook can’t help himself anymore. “Fuck, baby, I’m gonna cum too. Can I—fuck—can I cum inside?” 

You nod like a broken bobblehead. Thank god for modern medicine. 

He empties into you, bruising your hips with his hold. He’s so attractive when he finishes that you almost orgasm again from the sight. His bare chest heaves, a slight sheen of sweat layered on the skin. 

For a few moments, you two catch your breath, letting his cock soften entirely inside you. He looks worn, eyes drooping. 

But after an eternity, you finally roll off him. You’re not sure what you were expecting in terms of aftercare, but your heart flutters when he lazily wraps his arms around you, tugging you into his side to rest your cheek on his chest. It’s comforting, with his hands playing with your hair, his own heart thumping along in his chest. Reminding you that you’re here with him, and this is real. 

Silence has never been so peaceful. 

You think you’ll fall asleep like this, but then he says, “I want to see you again.” 

Your heart softens around the edges, at the notion that he believes you’ll never speak to him again after this. You can’t blame him for it. It’s exactly what high school you would’ve done. 

But you’re not 17 anymore, and you deserve all the good he has to offer you. No more silly little games. 

“I would really like that,” you whisper back. 

He presses a kiss to the top of your head. “Mind checking your calendar for me?” 

You grin like a lovesick idiot. “Yup. Checking right now. And it looks like I’m free this whole week.” 

“Thursday, then. Dinner at 7,” he confirms. “You’re not going to, like, make me beg for a real answer this time, are you?”

Giggling, you respond, “Maybe I should check that calendar again…”

He sits up, pouting. “Don’t. Don’t you dare,” he warns, and then his hands are moving to tickle your sides. 

You squeal, squirming away, but he just pulls you back against him. The laughs that escape you are so full of sunshine that you hardly recognize them. You’ve been living under a fog for so long that when it lifted, you forgot how bright life could be. 

“Okay, okay!” you gasp, and his fingers still. “Thursday. 7 o’clock.”

“There we go.” He kisses your forehead. “Was that so hard?”

“Hardest thing I’ve ever done,” you say dramatically, resuming your post, nestled into his side. 

“Liar.” His fingers resume playing with your hair. “You like me.”

You feel like a kid in kindergarten, caught passing a note in class with “do you like me? check yes or no” scrawled in messy handwriting. Like you’re on the playground at recess, heart racing because your crush smiled at you across the monkey bars. But it’s got you just as giddy. “I guess I do.” 

Jungkook reaches over to pull the blanket over you two. “So what happens now?” you wonder aloud. It’s an innocent question, but somehow loaded with more intent than you realize. 

“Now?” he yawns. “Now you let me stay the night. Then tomorrow I’m gonna make you the most fire breakfast of all time. Then Thursday, I’ll take you to the best dinner of your life. And then—”

“There’s more?” Your eyes widen in sarcasm. 

“And then I keep taking you out until you realize you’re in love with me too.”

Your heartbeat is quick but steady in your chest. “Pretty confident about that, hm?”

“Extremely so.” Jungkook yawns again, voice getting drowsy. “I’ve got years of romcom knowledge. I’ve read those Tumblr fanfics. You don’t stand a chance.”

He’s probably right. You don’t stand a chance. In fact, you didn’t from the moment he stood in front of you at that cafe. 

Before you close your eyes and float off into sleep, you mumble out, “God, when did you get so hot?” 

this wasn’t supposed to happen. your friend swore this spot was a neutral playground, a place too crowded, too polished for ghosts to appear. you even laughed about it—what are the odds? and yet here he is, head thrown back under the strobe, veins sharp at his neck, looking a hundred times better than he has any right to. and here you are, stuck in the crossfire between your past and your present. your boyfriend’s hand rests heavy on your hip, possessive without noticing, eyes glued to the endless glow of his phone. his thumb scrolls, taps, dials, chasing deals even on a saturday night. he doesn’t see you break. doesn’t see how your chest caves when jungkook shifts, or how your spine prickles when your ex’s gaze cuts across the room and nearly—almost—meets yours.

you came to forget, to unhinge from the week clawing at your brain, to drink until your blood hummed like static. you told yourself tonight you’d laugh too loud, sweat on the dance floor, prove to your own skin you were free. so you lean down, press your lips near your boyfriend’s ear, murmur something about dancing. he waves you off with two fingers, eyes still shackled to the glow of his screen, already answering some call with that low, brisk tone. business first, always. you burn hotter.

and so you slip. into the press of bodies, into perfume and cologne mixing into a dizzying storm, into the haze where the bass bruises through ribs and people grind as though skin was currency. your friend pulls you deeper, and for a moment, your body obeys the music. but even surrounded by strangers’ hands and the stench of expensive smoke curling through chandeliers, you feel it—his presence, his eyes. you can’t shake the pulse of it.

the club is not ordinary, not some grimy dive—it’s expensive, lush, velvet-lined, a place with polished tables and bouncers that barely blink. your boyfriend wouldn’t step into anything less; he’s a businessman, careful with appearances, unwilling to let you or himself be seen below standard. that means your choices never really matter.

“if you keep fading, i’m gonna start sobering up,” your friend drawls, her voice syrupy with alcohol, body rolling like the music lives in her bones, every flick of her wrist or tilt of her hips too precise to be accidental, too chaotic to be practiced. she moves like the kind of girl who has memorized every pop video but still makes it her own, messy, wild, magnetic, a star who doesn’t know she’s performing.

you try to follow, but your body is stiff, sluggish, like the music has skipped a beat only for you. there’s heat under your skin, a feverish current, not from the alcohol or the crowd but from the gnawing, unbearable awareness that somewhere beyond this blur of limbs and neon light, he is there. your mouth moves before your mind does, almost a scream to cut through the suffocating bass, “i saw jungkook.”

your friend stumbles mid-spin, heels scraping against the sticky floor, and nearly collides into you. “the fuck you just say?” she shouts back, her rings cold where her hands land on your shoulders, the metal catching in your hair as if she’s trying to shake the answer out of you. “you mean your ex?”

“behind us. just—don’t turn around,” you hiss, though even as the words leave your mouth you know her too well—she thrives on the disobedience, on being the spark in gasoline. of course she does the exact opposite, craning her neck with no shame, eyes scanning the shadows.

she cackles, head snapping back over her shoulder like you hadn’t spoken at all. “oh, damn. girl, you weren’t lyin’.”

“what—no, don’t look. oh my god,” you groan, dragging your hands over your face like you can hide yourself in your palms. but it’s too late. that gravitational pull you swore you outgrew latches onto you, and when you peek through your fingers, you meet it—his gaze.

your friend laughs, carelessly, like she’s immune. “and he’s fuckin’ starin’ at you right now. jesus, he’s about to set me on fire with that look.” she tips her glass to her lips, unfazed, taking a long swallow of her drink as though this isn’t the kind of thing that could rip the floor out from under you.

your throat dries, your hands slick with sweat. it’s the same gaze you remember—unyielding, unblinking, molten with something indecent and raw. it doesn’t just meet your eyes, it takes you apart piece by piece, stripping you down in the middle of a crowded room until you’re suddenly sixteen again, or twenty-one again, or whatever version of yourself you were when you first learned what it was to be unraveled under him.

he steps forward. it’s subtle, but you feel it like an earthquake. he moves from the girl on his arm, drifting toward the edge of the staircase, and it hits you like it always did—he doesn’t walk so much as prowl, languid and deliberate, every stride carved out of arrogance and danger. the suit he’s wearing is expensive, sure, but careless in the way only men like him can afford—cufflinks undone, shirt buttons open just enough, fabric pulling against shoulders and thighs too broad for tailoring. the watch gleams on his wrist, heavy and commanding, and his shoes catch the light with a shine brighter than the highlighter you dusted onto your cheeks earlier, futilely. his hair is perfectly imperfect, too intentional to be accidental, still carrying that invitation, that dare.

he doesn’t stop staring. of course he doesn’t. jungkook has never been subtle, never been soft with you. he stares like it’s his right, like no time or distance has earned him less.

“let’s go say hi,” angelina chirps suddenly, her smirk all teeth and malice, and your stomach caves in.

“are you fucking crazy?” you scream back over the music, panic scraping your throat raw. you glance toward where he was standing, but he’s already gone, vanished from his spot like smoke curling out of reach, slipping into the thick crush of the crowd, maybe descending the spiral staircase that glints like something out of a film noir.

your friend just shrugs, smug, almost sharp in her clarity now. “what? your boyfriend’s out there fuckin’ around anyway. this is prime time—show him what the hell he stands to lose.” her steps are sure again, confident, like she’s sobered just enough to enjoy the game she’s playing with your pulse.

you spot him before she does. a flicker in the crowd, the unmistakable shape of him—shoulders like carved stone, hips cut with the kind of arrogance no suit can smooth out. his figure is magnetic, impossible to mistake, every detail familiar and yet impossibly new. your friend spins you halfway, leans close to whisper a final sermon, “behave decently—” she pauses, smirk curling, “—and be provocative. got it?”

you nod, though your tongue is cement, and then you lose the ability to breathe altogether. because he’s coming closer, and every step of his is a declaration. he adjusts his cuff, rolls his watch back on his wrist, smooths the front of his shirt with the kind of composure that feels like a prelude to war. his pace is deliberate, predatory, each step slow enough to drag your nerves tauter. it’s there in his walk, in the tilt of his chin, in the half-smirk tugging at his mouth—you are not going to resist him.

you’re about to turn, already halfway into the motion of escape, when you catch it—the ghost of his smirk curling at the edge of his mouth, sly and sharp like a blade half-hidden. he wipes it away with the back of his hand in one fluid gesture, replacing it with something cooler, deliberate, a seriousness so sudden it makes your stomach pitch. your throat works against the weight of a swallow, muscles stiffening as if you’ve been caught in the act of something unspeakable, and you can’t even straighten your back without feeling like it would expose too much. his voice drops into you like an anchor, low and steady, cutting straight through the noise and bass that thunders across the room.

“didn’t think i’d see you here,” he says, and there’s nothing but precision in the way he lands it, no hesitation, no distraction. his eyes are tracing you like a map he already knows by heart, and out of the corner of your gaze you notice the small, maddening tick of his tongue pushing into his cheek, a subtle flex that makes his jaw look sharper. his hands sink deep into his pockets as though he’s got all the time in the world, but you can’t help noticing the silver glint of his watch catching the low light, smug and unapologetic.

“can’t say the same about you,” you snap back, arms crossing tightly over your chest like a shield, though it only makes you feel more exposed, every nerve raw and naked under his attention. there’s a sensitivity that blooms, prickling across your skin as if you’ve stepped out into winter air without warning. you see his face shift for a fleeting second, something vulnerable, maybe even genuine, but then it’s gone—buried beneath that infuriating mask he wears so well, the one you’ve watched him perfect for years.

“ouch. harsh. that’s a low bar,” he answers, laying one hand flat against his chest in mock injury, his tone feather-light yet intentional. he plays at being wounded, but you know better. you know the difference between his masks and his truths, and this is nothing but performance. his eyes flicker like he’s taking stock of you again, and then the tilt of his head follows—barely angled, deliberate, observant, like he’s peering into a private window you never gave him permission to open. “did you come alone?” the words land softly, deceptively soft, yet they coil around you, and the slight arch of his brow cuts sharper than any blade.

your lips part but nothing comes out at first. the question sits there, smoldering, and you feel its weight pinning you in place. “how does this concern you?” you manage finally, though it doesn’t come out as sharp as you wanted—it trembles at the edges, and you despise yourself for it. because he knows. god, he knows. every twitch of your shoulders, every quickened beat under your skin, every little betray of breath. he reads you without effort, without trying, as though your whole body is written in ink only he can see. and you hate that you can’t decide whether that makes you furious or undone.

“mm. still fuckin’ hard to reach,,” he murmurs, the words sliding out like smoke, curling in the narrow space between you. his body doesn’t move much, but it doesn’t need to; it exudes. he stands with that maddening composure, as though sculpted out of something immovable, shoulders squared, lines and angles crisp as if carved by hand. his chin tilts just slightly, knives of shadow sharpening the edges of his jaw, and his skin carries a faint sheen under the light, the kind of glow that feels both holy and ruinous.

then the head tilt comes again, so slight, so damn practiced, resurrecting every dead butterfly in your stomach until they riot, chaotic and unwelcome, as though he’s tossing a challenge directly into your bloodstream.

“and you’re still the same narcissistic moron,” you shoot back, the words bursting out faster than you can rein them in.

his laugh is low, a spark more than an explosion, and he tastes the sound with a slow drag of his tongue across his lip. “look at you. first five minutes and already tossing compliments,” he muses, the ease in his voice taunting, his stance softening into a relaxation that makes you feel like you’re vibrating at a different frequency altogether.

“wasn’t a compliment.”

he leans into the moment the way you want to lean out of it, utterly unbothered while you feel like the ground is threatening to swallow you whole. “you didn’t answer my question.” his tongue presses into his cheek again, the motion sharp and telling, a little crack in his mask. the words linger, not casual, not careless, but edged with something that betrays him: concern or jealousy, you can’t tell. and maybe you don’t want to.

“you’re staring,” your voice doesn’t tremble, doesn’t even so much as waver, but inside you are unraveling thread by thread, every muscle taut, every breath locked like a secret in your chest. it feels obscene, the way his eyes linger, the way they touch more boldly than hands ever could.

“always did,” he says, and it isn’t tossed out casually—it lands like a stone in water, rippling, deliberate, a confession dressed as a fact. his hand runs lazily through his hair, ink-black strands falling right back into place like they know where they belong. he doesn’t look away, not even for a second, and the weight of it makes your dress, already unforgiving, feel like it’s tightening around your ribs. “does it bother you?”

“no,” you lie, the word catching on your tongue before it spills into the heavy air between you. your fingers lace together so tightly your knuckles pale, like holding yourself together could disguise how undone you really are. you hate how obvious it must be. “you should stop.”

his smirk unfurls, slow and wicked, like he’s been waiting for you to hand him that line. “you lie prettier now,” he murmurs, and the way it sounds—admiring, taunting, sinful—makes your throat tighten. it’s not just a smirk anymore, it’s a weapon, an entire performance sharpened to a point, daring you to break against it.

“and you’re still full of yourself,” you bite back, even though your eyelid twitches, even though the sheer smugness radiating off him makes your skin prickle. it’s the way he breathes, like even the act of existing is done at your expense. you want to slap it off his face, that dangerous curl of his lips, but you know him—he’d laugh, not flinch.

“mm,” he hums, stepping closer, as if proximity is his native language and distance an afterthought. you feel it, the invisible burn of him, the way his aura presses into you like a tide. “maybe. but im not wrong.”

people part around him unconsciously, as though they can smell the danger simmering between you, giving you both space as if they know one spark could set the entire room ablaze.

he dips closer, his expression slipping into a look of indulgent satisfaction. “the same perfume,” he says, inhaling deep like he’s claiming a relic, like you’re still his to catalog. his face is dangerously near yours, the brush of his breath warm against your skin, and you drop your fists to your sides, balling them as if that will tether you to sense. “thought you’d switched it by now.”

“you notice too much,” you manage, though the words come out strangled with the sweetness of memory. because you can smell him, too. darker now, richer. expensive cologne tangled with cigarettes, with something that tastes like bitter chocolate melted into cognac. the scent spins around you dizzyingly, and it feels like you could trip forward into his chest just to drown yourself in it.

“yeah,” his smirk sharpens, hand moving instinctively, thoughtlessly, until it rests on your thigh—just like it always did when you were his. when he couldn’t go five minutes without touching you, as though his body couldn’t stand the separation. your breath stutters, your pulse wild, and you jerk a step back. he only shrugs, clearing his throat like he didn’t mean it, like his fingertips hadn’t already burned into your skin. “always did,” he repeats, softer this time, almost like an oath.

“stop it.” the words come out harsher than you intend, almost a plea. you point a finger at him like it’s a weapon, like it could guard you against the thing his eyes are doing to you.

“can’t.” his answer is quick, steady, without hesitation. he moves closer again, and you instinctively recoil another step, colliding with a stranger behind you, jolted and breathless. before you can apologize, before you can catch your balance, his hand finds yours—firm, unyielding—and pulls you back to him.

you don’t fight. god help you, you don’t even resist.

“don’t want to,” he adds, low, molten, and in the next breath he’s tugging you through the crowd, his stride long, purposeful, yours stumbling to keep up. his hand swallows yours like it was built to. his presence eclipses everything else, blotting out the edges of the world until you can’t remember where you are or who might be watching.

your mind flickers—your boyfriend somewhere in this same room, jungkook's girlfriend possibly just steps away—and yet the thought scatters like dust in the wind. nothing penetrates this pull, this gravity. you should resist, you know you should, but it’s like sinking into a swamp you secretly wanted to find, something sticky and dangerous that sucks you in deeper with every step. you think of the excuses, of the hollow spaces left by unanswered calls and “late nights at the office,” of the business trips and boardrooms that have made your bed cold. and it stings to admit it, even to yourself, but it’s your ex—the boy who broke you and branded you both—that makes you feel seen, wanted, touched.

and the worst part? you don’t want to stop him.

you climb the wide staircase like it’s a stage you never signed up to perform on, but he takes it two steps at a time, moving with that easy, practiced grace of someone who has already memorized every inch of the place. his confidence is so sharp it cuts through your nerves, dulling them for a second, making you feel that familiar, almost shameful safety in his presence—the kind you only ever felt with him. your mind slips, forgetting for a dangerous moment that you’re no longer his, that the rhythm of your steps isn’t supposed to fall into sync with his anymore.

the hallway stretches out ahead of you, muffled and padded with thick carpets that swallow your footsteps, while his gait still echoes with power, every step unapologetic. he pushes open a door marked with a simple, glittering word—vip—and the world tilts slightly in your chest. you swallow, tasting adrenaline, tasting memories. of course it’s dangerous. everything with him always was. he was the boy who could take your pulse and turn it into a drumline, the boy who made even silence ring too loud.

before you realize it, you’re inside, the door shutting with a sound too final to ignore. the music below becomes nothing more than a dull heartbeat, leaving you alone with the thick, unbearable tension vibrating between your bodies. the couches at the end of the room are waiting, shadowed and velvety, and you already know—like some terrible prophecy etched in your ribs—that if you stay too long, there’s only one way this can end: with you under him, gasping for air like you’ve been drowning for years.

“this is the vip room,” you murmur, the words falling flat, half a statement, half a test, waiting for him to fill in the blanks.

he glances back at you, smirking like he already knows what’s running through your head. “no shit,” he mutters, low and rough, and then moves away, like even the air can’t cage him.

he drifts to the other end of the room, where a stand gleams like a personal altar to indulgence. bottles line the counter in perfect symmetry, catching light in their glass bodies, and he pours without hesitation, without question. his hands are steady, his movements confident, like this ritual has belonged to him forever. two glasses, liquid sloshing gold and amber, and then he’s swallowing lemon, chasing it with liquor, the burn hidden in the steadiness of his throat. his body doesn’t falter, doesn’t sway. he’s a man drinking like water what would drop anyone else.

“i didn’t tell you?” his voice is silk dragged over gravel. his mouth curls, arrogant. “i own this place.”

you blink too fast, your eyes widening like you’ve been sucker-punched with a truth you never expected. “you— you're the owner of this club?” the words stumble out, equal parts disbelief and bitter irony. the last time you saw him he couldn’t hold onto anything—jobs slipped through his hands like sand, plans fell apart like paper in the rain. you remember the arguments, the way you craved something steady, something reliable, something he never was. and now this? this empire of noise and light, this room above it all?

he laughs, deep and unapologetic, like you’ve just revealed how little you know him. “why does that surprise you so much?” he lowers into the chair with sprawling authority, spreading his legs, his hands gripping the edges like he’s carving his territory into the furniture itself. he looks devastatingly at ease, while you are stitched together with trembling thread.

“you’ve always been reckless,” you fire back, though you won’t even glance at the glass he set down. you know better. if you drink now, your brain will stop listening to reason and start whispering the things you’ve been fighting to bury.

he tilts toward you, his eyes glinting with something sharp, something smug. “reckless, yeah. but not fucking stupid,” he says smoothly, knocking back another shot. the glass empties, but his body remains carved in precision, his movements calculated, untainted. “apparently it was a mistake,” his head tilts more, eyes narrowing, and when he speaks, his voice is even dirtier, a scrape against your skin.

“what exactly?” your voice pushes through the dense air, but you feel it—his gaze slicing into you, dissecting you, uncoiling things you thought you had locked away.

“underestimate me,” the words drip like honey and venom all at once. his hands run down his thighs slowly, deliberately, veins prominent beneath his skin, rings and bracelets gleaming like trophies. your eyes betray you, dragging over the width of his arms, over the swell of muscle that didn’t exist months ago, over the dark ink etched into his skin like secrets you weren’t invited to hear.

“you’re staring,” he mocks, echoing your earlier words, his smirk cutting, and you should be angry, should rise to the bait. but anger doesn’t come. instead, something else blooms—something scandalous, something hungry.

you imagine it before you can stop yourself: the heat of his legs under your palms, the strength of muscle beneath the fabric, his skin hot and alive under your touch. the jungkook you knew was leaner, softer at the edges, but this jungkook is sculpted, larger, his body an entire map of temptation you want to memorize. you imagine climbing onto his lap, staking claim, daring the world to see you there, unashamed and crowned by his body like it was carved only for you.

“wanna’ sit?” he breaks the fantasy with words that feel like a direct invasion of your thoughts, his big hands patting his thighs with deliberate provocation. and in that second, your head spins, light and dizzy, like you’re the one who drank those shots, not him. your pulse hammers, reckless, traitorous, whispering the answer you don’t want to admit.

“jungkook, i can’t,” the words slip out before you can leash them, half apology, half excuse, though you hate how awkward they sound in your own throat. it’s not that you want to feel clumsy, not that you want to be painted into this corner of hesitation, but the moment stretches hot and fragile, and your body betrays you with the tremor that runs through your chest.

“can’t what? breathe? think? or just admit you wanna climb on?” he presses, that boyish recklessness sharpening into something far more deliberate. his wrist twists with lazy precision, the glass rolling between his fingers, liquor sloshing perilously close to the rim but never spilling, like he’s teasing even gravity itself. his eyes glitter, too intent, too knowing, as if you’re a riddle he’s already solved, a book he’s read cover to cover but pretends to skim for the thrill of it.

“i have a boyfriend,” you mutter, and the words don’t sound like the shield they’re supposed to be — more like a child’s flimsy excuse, something you toss between you as if it could stop the inevitable. the bitterness creeps into your mouth anyway, so you drown it with liquor, amber heat sliding down your throat until it settles like fire in your stomach.

“fuckin’ knew it,” he exclaims, hand slapping against his thigh with a sharp, amused crack. the heavy watch on his wrist catches the low light, a gleam that mocks you — it costs more than every single thing you’re wearing combined, and he knows it.

“what’s wrong with that? i can’t have a boyfriend?” you shoot back, voice dipping into defensive bravado, though the edge dulls when you taste the whiskey again. it burns sweet and acrid, like melted sugar on steel, forcing you to swallow the sting while your lips twist against the rush of heat.

“thought you needed time. always said that,” he murmurs, tipping another shot back like it’s water, like his veins are lined with copper and his blood doesn’t curdle with alcohol the way everyone else’s does. he should be drunk by now — red-cheeked, loose-tongued — but instead he sits straighter, his arrogance calcifying into something even heavier, even harder to peel your eyes away from.

“i needed time to understand how selfish you are,” you retort, but your voice is soft, feathered at the edges by the warm blur that’s creeping through your skull. you can feel the alcohol working, thinning the walls in your head, making the room slant, making your judgment slip one degree at a time.

“selfish? baby, that’s rich. from you,” he chuckles, shaking his head with exaggerated amusement, hand sliding over the solid breadth of his thighs like he’s framing them as the seat they are, as if the whole exchange is nothing more than foreplay to him, dialogue soaked in irony and intent. “keep talkin’ shit though. sounds good on you.”

the room itself feels colder, the air stiff and sharp, but your skin burns in direct defiance, prickling with heat like you’ve been caught in some feverish trance. every second that ticks past, every flicker of his gaze that hooks you in, it feels as if he’s pulling you closer into his orbit, some merciless gravitational field where you have no chance of escape. he hasn’t touched you yet — hasn’t done anything you didn’t allow — but his very presence sprawls across the small room, thighs spread, elbows braced, hands flexing at his hips, a living invitation you’re not ready to admit you want to accept.

you swallow hard, extending your empty glass towards him with a lift of your brow, a flimsy attempt at defiance. “i think you’ve had enough,” he murmurs, voice languid and saturated with that dangerous knowing.

jungkook smirks, lazy and devastating, biting his lip as his fingers tap rhythmically against the bottle like he’s drumming on your nerves. you glare daggers at him, heat rushing to your cheeks, but he only lifts his palm in mock surrender, laugh curling low in his chest, before tipping the bottle anyway, pouring another shot like he knows you won’t resist. and he’s right — you don’t. you tilt it back, throat stretching, fire rushing down, and for a moment you can’t tell if it’s the liquor burning you or the way his gaze clings like a brand.

“he’s fucking it up,” he repeats, and this time it doesn’t just skim past you like some throwaway jab, it sinks and lodges itself inside the quiet, inside that thick silence that had already swallowed the room whole. the air felt so tight you could almost see it bend, like glass under pressure, and still all you could smell was him—his clothes heavy with the ghost of smoke and spice, his cologne curling into your chest until your lungs weren’t your own anymore. it was suffocating and magnetic all at once, like the way fire tilts you closer even while it warns you to back away.

“that’s a lie,” you manage, but the words are weak and stretched thin, sliding out of you while your body sinks back into the couch cushions like they’re quicksand. you feel wrung out, emptied, as though the walls you’ve spent months layering brick by brick around him had quietly dissolved into dust the second he sat too close.

his shoulders roll, dismissive. “say it’s a lie all you want, doesn’t make it true.”

it’s terrifying how stripped bare you feel, and yet it’s exactly what lures you deeper toward him. you know he’s talking about your boyfriend—of course you know, the shape of the accusation is so sharp you almost cut yourself on it—and still you can only push back with a trembling defense. “you just say shit to piss me off.”

“yeah. no fuckin’ doubt,” he shrugs, and the small roll of his shoulder is maddeningly casual compared to the gleam in his eyes. “but that’s the whole fucking point,” his body tips into yours, not all at once but in a dangerous lean, like a shadow creeping across a floor, and it rattles you—your behavior, your sanity, the small fragile scaffolding you’ve kept yourself balanced on. because he’s looking at you with a hunger that isn’t soft or patient or safe; it’s feral, glittering, the kind of hunger that melts you from the inside out while whispering that you should run. “you’re filthy hot when you’re mad,” he purrs, rolling his tongue over the syllables like he wants to taste them, eyes catching the dim light and throwing it back at you like a dare.

“and why is he so bad at it, mm?” your words wobble out, weak mimicry of his mannerisms, the ones you’d once gotten drunk on, memorizing the way he dragged vowels, how he bent consonants until they were his own. it’s ridiculous how easily your body remembers him, like muscle memory doesn’t give a damn about the calendar. you try to dress your answer in anger, but it’s flimsy armor, because the moment the last word leaves you, he moves.

he takes your legs like he’s claiming them, the shift so sudden your breath stutters, your dress shoving up high above your hips in one careless sweep, fabric bunched and useless. his hands are wide and unashamed on your bare thighs, and before your brain can blink, you’re straddled over him, perched on the heat of his lap. your lungs collapse, emptied of all air in one harsh gasp, and the tilt of his head only deepens the suffocation. “so why the fuck are you here with me,” he murmurs, voice low and sharp as a knife, “and not out there with him?” he says it like he wants an answer, but you know it’s just another trap, another hook he digs into your mouth.

his thighs burn against yours, their size obscene, twice the width of your leg, the difference making you shiver with unease and something far darker. they’re hard as stone beneath you, corded muscle pushing up so firm it feels like you’re perched on solid ground instead of a man. the tension in them thrums through you, a pulse you can’t unfeel, his hands skim up your skin, dragging fire lines, leaving you branded and marked with every inch. and the shame rises like a tide, choking you, because you can’t even remember the last time your boyfriend’s touch sparked anything close to this inferno. and here you are, undone, unraveling under the graze of the wrong man’s hands, as if you’d been starving are for this exact sin all along.

‘what are you doing? stop’ the thought flickers inside you, frantic and sharp, but it never makes it past your lips. it stays caged in the hollows of your memory, where all the forgotten reasons you left him have been gathering dust. you don’t remember who was right, who was wrong, or even why it had ended in the first place—every argument, every ultimatum feels like it belongs to someone else’s story.

because all of that dissolves the instant his hands drag down over the curve of your ass, fingers digging deep, clutching skin like he can mold it into his palms, greedy and possessive, like he wants more than what’s even humanly possible to take. his grip brands you with a claim that feels as inevitable as gravity. “tell me to fucking stop,” he hisses, hot breath skating across your neck, thick and dizzying, and your mind reels with the betrayal of your body. it’s wild, feral, the kind of want you’ve starved for, the kind you could never touch with your boyfriend no matter how many times you tried.

you shake your head—weak, trembling—but it’s a hollow protest. his lips hover so close to your skin you can feel the ghost of them, but he doesn’t kiss, and the denial is almost worse than the touch. you moan, a soft wounded sound, at the absence of what used to unravel you in one second flat. he always had that power, the ability to ignite your body with a single brush of his mouth, to mark your skin like a map he’d memorized.

god help you, but you missed it. missed him. not just the weight of him, but the way he made you feel—shameless, alive, seen. you want to deny it, claw the confession back, but it would only be lying to yourself.

“nah, baby, you gotta,” his voice drips into your ear, low and ragged, almost a groan. he buries his face into the crook of your neck and inhales like you’re oxygen he’s been starving for, like he could overdose on the sweetness of you. “fuck—you smell the same. like you knew it drives me crazy.” his teeth snap against your skin and you jolt, a sharp gasp falling apart into a moan as your hips betray you, rolling against the hard length pressing into you. his head tips back into the couch with a groan that rattles the air between you.

you seize it, that fleeting second of weakness. your hips start grinding slow, deliberate, swaying side to side, friction blooming hot and unbearable in the space where your bodies collide. the sound that claws its way out of both your throats is obscene, a harmony of remembered sin. “fuck, i missed this,” he growls, voice stretched thin with hunger, vowels drawn out into a moan that feels like it’s meant to seep straight under your skin.

“what exactly?” you manage, the words brittle, quiet, trembling on your tongue but still defiant.

“feeling you on me. the way you ride my thigh like the dirty fucking good girl you are,” he spits it out like filth that tastes too good to swallow, every syllable slick and deliberate. the vulgarity rolls off him so easily, like it’s his native tongue, and it burns through you like gasoline catching flame. your hips move faster, unthinking, the couch squeaking faintly under the rhythm, your dress shoving up until it’s nothing more than a bunched mess at your waist. his gaze cuts down without apology, locking on the black slip of your underwear, and his teeth sink into his lip in a way that makes your stomach flip inside out.

“yeah? what would your girlfriend say to that?” you throw it out sharp and biting, the words laced with venom and mockery, because who said he got to play the game alone? years with him taught you this—the art of revenge dressed up as flirtation, the satisfaction of striking where it stings.

his laugh is low and dark, a sound that slithers into your bones. “you really wanna talk about other girls when you’re grinding your pretty pussy all over my dick, mm?” his brows lift, his head tilts just enough for you to catch the wicked gleam in his eyes from under his lashes. his hands are back on your hips, firm, commanding, forcing your movements sharper, harder, like he’s choreographing the way you break apart on top of him. a sharp slap lands against your ass, loud and sudden, and you jolt forward, biting back a moan that’s already too loud.

the sting burns into pleasure, and his chuckle rides your reaction like a victory. your thighs clamp tighter around him, wetness spreading faster than your mind can keep track of, and it’s terrifying—how quickly you’re unraveling, how easily you’re remembering every dangerous reason why you should’ve never been here in the first place.

“wanna feel you, baby,” he breathes, the words sliding out like smoke, low and ragged, his hand already prying at the insides of your thighs, spreading you open with a certainty that doesn’t ask permission. “let me?” his voice is sin incarnate—thick, husky, dangerous enough to buckle your knees—and you nod without hesitation, too eager, too reckless, like your body answered for you before your mind even caught up. it’s a surrender, quick and careless, but god, you don’t care. not now. not with him this close.

his palm presses down over the flimsy barrier of your panties, dragging slow, deliberate strokes that feel almost cruel in their patience. he treats the fabric like it matters, like he’s seducing it before he devours you, and the gesture makes your throat tighten around a swallow that burns. instinct kicks in—you try to close your legs, to shrink away from the touch that feels too sharp, too soon—but his voice is there again, sharp velvet, commanding.

“nah, baby, keep ’em open for me. let me see you fall apart.” his mouth grazes your neck with kisses that are maddeningly soft, too gentle compared to the feral hunger beneath his hands, and the contradiction leaves you boneless, collapsing against him. your thighs tremble with the effort to hold steady, but he’s already anchoring you, steady as iron, unshakable as fate. the strength in him is terrifying, magnetic, and when your body keens toward his touch with a helpless whine, you realize you’ve stopped pretending to resist.

when his fingers slip beneath the thin line of your underwear, it’s like ice and fire all at once—rough fingertips dragging over silk flesh, the bite of his cold rings sending electric shivers through you. your brain dissolves into static, thought thinning into nothing but need, and before you even realize it, you’re grinding against his hand, desperate, chasing release like you’ve been starving for it. and maybe you have.

every stroke feels like theft and salvation in one, the kind of touch that breaks you down and rebuilds you in the same heartbeat. you remember every fight you ever had with him, every cutting word, every cruel goodbye—but they pale in comparison to this, to the way his fingers move in slow, devastating circles, dragging slick heat from you until you’re gasping. “fuck, you’re soaked,” he groans, the sound guttural, half moan, half growl, his body wound so tight you can feel his muscles straining against you like he’s holding himself together with sheer will.

“off… off,” you choke out, fumbling with his jacket until it slips away in a messy arc, landing somewhere at the far edge of the couch. he doesn’t even look where it falls, too focused, too intent. his hands go to his cuffs, unbuttoning slowly, deliberately, like he’s putting on a show for you, like he knows you’ll squirm from the loss of his touch and wants to drag it out. you writhe, impatient, restless, every nerve in your body screaming for him to come back, to touch you again, to not leave you hanging in this limbo.

“so needy, baby,” he growls, the words sharp with amusement but softened by the way his eyes darken when you push at his shirt, unfastening buttons with shaky fingers. the fabric parts and your gaze locks onto the ink sprawled across his chest, dark lines on flushed skin, tattoos you don’t remember, tattoos that weren’t there before. your fingers trace over them, tentative at first, then bolder, your touch dragging along the fresh pinkness of his skin. his hiss escapes before he can bite it back, a sharp inhale that confirms what you already know—he’s just as wound up as you, maybe even more.

“these weren’t here,” you whisper, fingertips ghosting across the designs, curiosity sparking hotter than you expect. “when did you get them?” the question slips out unplanned, but it lodges in you like a hook—you need the answer, need to hear him explain, even though you don’t know why.

“reckless, remember?” he mutters, voice rough, almost amused, like he’s shrugging off the weight of his own choices. “didn’t think. just did it.” and while you’re still staring at the ink, still tracing lines like they’re secrets, you don’t see the way he’s watching you—hungry, unblinking, drinking you in like he wants to memorize the shape of you on his lap, clinging to him, trying to grind out your release like you’ve done a hundred times before.

it drives him insane, the way you give in so easily, the way you let him undo you like it’s second nature. insane, intoxicating, and it makes him want more. always more. but he won’t tell you that. no, he’ll bury it deep, where you’ll never reach it. knowing it himself is enough.

he’s sick of the silence, sick of the half-truths you’ve built with someone else, and most of all he’s sick of the way you keep pretending you don’t remember how it used to be. there’s something dangerous winding through jungkook tonight, something snarling beneath the smooth veneer of his voice, and it’s all sharpened into a single intention: to break you apart, piece by piece, only to put you back together again like a toy he’s owned all along. he wants to brand you in ways no ink ever could, to stamp himself into your memory until you can’t breathe without thinking of him.

“nah, baby. your ass on my lap. now,” he murmurs, the words sliding out soft and syrupy, hot and venomous, honey wrapped tight in poison. it’s not a suggestion, not even a command—it’s inevitability dressed up in velvet.

your eyes widen, lips parting, and you don’t even get the chance to answer before he’s rolling his own eyes like he’s already tired of your hesitation, his hands closing around you with practiced ease. he flips you over onto your stomach, the motion so smooth and final it makes your heart jump, and suddenly you’re stretched out across his lap, your face turned away, his expression hidden from you.

somehow that makes it worse—your chest pressing against the couch, his thighs steady beneath you, his face an unreadable shadow behind your back—and the blindness leaves you dripping, wetter than you want to admit. when his hands drag over the curve of your ass, deliberate, possessive, you twitch beneath his touch, your body betraying you before you can school it into stillness.

then the sharp sting of his palm cracks across your skin, and the moan tears out of you raw, instant, shameless. he laughs, the sound loud and sharp, delighted, like this is a show put on for his entertainment, and you hate how much you love being the spectacle.

“he doesn’t treat this pussy good, does he?” his voice is thick velvet, rich with smoke, threaded with that iron weight of dominance he wears like a second skin. masculine and stern, but dripping with temptation, it cuts straight through you.

his fingers are already tugging your dress higher, sliding it up over your stomach until the fabric bunches at your ribs, forgotten. you can’t see it, but jungkook is biting his lip, his gaze devouring every line of you like he’s starving. your body hasn’t changed, not really, but to him you’re something else entirely—softer, tighter, maddeningly familiar yet even better than memory allowed. it’s enough to light a fire in him, a slow-burning heat that coils low and dangerous.

“say it,” he growls, his palm landing another stinging slap before circling the warmth with mock-gentle fingers, the motion like an apology he doesn’t mean, cheap and transparent.

“no,” you moan, your hips snapping back against his hand, trying to rile him, to resist his easy control. the word is defiance, thin as paper, already curling at the edges, but it’s all you’ve got. “don't wanna’”

you know he wants to hear a yes, to wring your confession from you, to make you give him that win—but you can’t, not when pride still claws at your ribs. even though every part of you knows he’s right. your boyfriend doesn’t know how to touch you, hasn’t learned the language your body speaks in moans and shudders. you’re too embarrassed to tell him, too embarrassed to admit you like it rough, that you like the sting and the dominance, when he only knows how to cradle you slow and gentle, as if passion could survive on softness alone. the memory makes you sick, that night when he abandoned you at the edge of pleasure because his phone buzzed with some meaningless call, leaving you unsatisfied, aching, humiliated.

he lets out a sharp little laugh, dark and humorless. “yeah? that why you’re dripping all over my fucking lap, baby?” another slap, harder, blooming heat across your skin. “cute. you think ‘no’ still works on me.”

you grit your teeth, hating the way your thighs tremble, hating that he’s right, hating that your boyfriend’s name feels hollow in your throat compared to the sharp edge of his voice.

“don’t play dumb,” he hisses, leaning down close enough that his breath scalds the shell of your ear. “you want me to remind you, huh? remind you what it feels like when somebody actually knows how to use you?”

your panties are gone before you realize his fingers hooked them away, carelessly shoved down to your knees like they never mattered. he nudges your hips higher, forcing your ass up, forcing your legs apart until you’re open for him, pliant, ready. there’s no ceremony, no wasted pretense, no slow introduction—he’s already catalogued the state of you, remembered the way you’re soaking, remembered the way you unravel when he skips foreplay and drags you straight into his rhythm.

he knows you like the shock of it, the unexpected tilt that makes your breath catch, and he uses it now, letting it cut into you deep. you look like someone starved, someone who’s been touched wrong for months, and the sight makes the smirk on his face curl even lazier, sharper, steeped in insolence. he’s savoring it, savoring you, like victory tastes better when you’ve been denied it for too long.

“look at you. soaked for me already. pathetic little brat, acting like you don’t miss it,” his voice curls out low and deliberate, like smoke rising from the ruin of something half-burned, and his palm comes down again in a sting that makes your skin hum, a sharp bloom of heat spreading across the curve of your ass. you can already imagine the blush of pink staining there, the faint outline of his hand etched like a claim, but still you bite down on your lip with stubborn fire, refusing him that satisfaction. he leans into it, chuckling darkly, the sound thick with arrogance. “say it. tell me who owns it.”

your body betrays you before your mouth ever could, a moan sliding free despite the barricades you try to build behind your teeth, despite all the willpower you gather to keep yourself still. his hand smooths over the same spot he punished, a soothing stroke that feels more mocking than tender, a cruel caress that says he could push harder, deeper, harsher. and you want him to. you crave the way his hand could brand you scarlet, the way pain could melt so quickly into pleasure under his touch. and underneath you, heavy and undeniable, his cock swells against your stomach, straining hard and hot through his jeans, a weapon you can’t stop thinking about, a promise that could ruin you if you let it.

his laughter spills out, rough and unrestrained, when you shake your head instead of answering, when you keep your mouth sealed around your pride. the refusal only seems to thrill him more, his eyes burning darker, his grin edged with cruelty. “that’s fine, baby. i’ll beat the ‘no’ outta you. you’ll be begging before i’m done.” the words drag across your spine like a blade, each syllable steeped in promise, and it doesn’t matter how hard you pretend—you know you’ll fold.

his accent slips thicker now, soft edges blurring into a sharper bite, that familiar lilt that always gave him away when he was turned on beyond reason. it curls into your ears, shakes you from the inside out, because you remember exactly how it used to be: how his voice would cut through you when his body had you unraveling. that memory alone makes you wetter, heat spilling down between your thighs, a slick ache that feels almost humiliating.

then his finger—long, calloused, devastatingly certain—slides inside you with no resistance at all, sinking straight to the hilt. and then his hand is on your cheek, flat and firm, shoving your face down into the couch cushion, pinning you like an animal, like you’re not even worth looking at. your nose smears against the fabric, your lips pressed shut under the weight of him, suffocated by the rough material and his unyielding grip. you try to lift your head, try to twist, but his strength crushes you down, grinding your face harder against the couch until you feel tears prick hot at the corners of your eyes. “stay down,” he snarls, low and commanding, the heel of his palm grinding into your cheekbone. “fucking stay where i put you.”

you whimper against the fabric, muffled, humiliated, your voice nothing but a vibration into the cushion.

“see? only a fucked-up loser wouldn’t give in to a pussy this good,” he mutters, vulgarity sharpened by the rasp of his voice, his words sinking into you deeper than his finger ever could. that finger curls, twists, drags against a spot inside you that you haven’t felt in months, maybe longer, and your body convulses before you can even process it, before you can brace. you try to cry out, the sound strangled and raw, but his palm clamps down over your mouth, sealing it away, swallowing your voice into silence. your eyes slam shut, your lashes wet against your skin, as if shutting him out could make it any less overwhelming.

his hand works mercilessly inside you, wrist twisting with practiced cruelty, and the pleasure burns so sharp you can hardly hold yourself together. your body writhes in instinct, hips shifting, thighs trembling, trying and failing to resist the fullness that feels too much, too invasive, too exactly what you wanted. you moan into his palm, muffled, helpless, the sound vibrating against his skin, and he only rewards you with another sharp slap below your ass, stinging the backs of your thighs this time.

his pace is brutal, two fingers slamming into you now, stretching you, prying you open with no patience, no care. your body clutches around him, helpless, strung tight, your thighs trembling under the weight of sensation. he slaps the back of your thigh sharp enough to sting, the crack echoing, and you jolt forward, face pressing even harder into the couch. your cheeks are hot and damp, smeared against the fabric, the position degrading enough to make you want to sob.

“so fuckin’ tight,” he growls, his voice all praise and mockery in the same breath. “perfect little cunt. mine. and you’re gonna take it however i give it.” his grip on your face doesn’t waver, keeping you smashed down against the cushion, forcing you to breathe shallow through your nose while he works your pussy open like it’s his personal toy. humiliation burns through you, sharp and electric, but underneath it coils that unbearable ache, that hunger that makes your hips push back into him despite yourself, shameless and needy even as he grinds your face down into the couch like you’re nothing.

“gonna talk up, brat? tell me who owns it?” his words slice right into your skin like glass wrapped in velvet, sharp enough to sting but dripping with that lazy silk he always threads through everything, that casual menace that turns your nerves inside out.

his palm drags slow down your spine, heel of his hand grazing each vertebrae, a molten line burning in his wake, until his fingers skate over the small of your back, deliberate, lingering, making every hair on your body rise like static. you arch without even meaning to, back bowing into him like your muscles are his strings to pluck, lungs caught in your throat. your ass is pink and glowing under his touch, each handprint blooming across you like a brand he’ll never let fade, a wicked gallery carved into your skin.

you breathe him in—cologne and smoke and something darker, metallic like coins pressed to your tongue. your body loves every second of it, even the sting, even the shame. words won’t crawl out of your mouth but the truth is screaming under your skin, pumping through your blood like a drug. he doesn’t need your lips to move—he’s mapped you before, he knows the slope of your spine, the quake of your thighs, the exact pitch your moan breaks at when you can’t fake anymore. the intimacy of it prickles like needles under your skin, suffocating in its precision, a closeness that feels more like ownership.

he smirks when you shake your head, lashes wet, when you try to hold onto that threadbare scrap of defiance. he likes it—he always liked it, the chase, the theater of your resistance, the way you look pretty even when you’re stubborn. it makes him hungrier, meaner, like a wolf nosing at a locked cage he already knows he can break. he doesn’t grant victories, he stockpiles them, and your orgasm is just another trophy to be denied until you crumble right where he wants you. his fingers are already coated, dripping down your thighs, and he spreads it across your ass with obscene ease, smearing it like war paint, then delivers another slap—wet, brutal, echoing. the sound bounces off the walls, ricochets back into your ears, a thunderclap paired with your own desperate cry.

you can’t even open your eyes anymore, the pleasure’s too sharp, too violent. it rips through you, folds you in half. your voice cracks out of you, high and broken, “jungkook, f-fuck, jungkook—” his name raw on your bitten lips, already swollen, shining red like fruit abused in someone’s palm.

“atta girl,” he rasps, grin edged and wicked, fingers plunging inside you so deep your body snaps tight around him. “wasn’t so hard, huh?” he pistons into you, dragging slick sounds out of you so filthy it makes your ears burn. obscene, squelching, sticky noises fill the room like a soundtrack, each one reminding you exactly how ruined you are. “hear that?” he growls low, his teeth flashing, “noise only special pussy makes.” his pace spikes sharp, punishing, and his breath is harsh in your ear, every exhale scorched with heat.

“fuck—fuck, ohhh—” it pours out of you, hips rolling, cunt fluttering around his hand. “oh god, jungkook—please..”

“nah, baby. not god. me,” his words tear through you just before the orgasm does, brutal and merciless, detonating inside you. you scream it out, body convulsing, thighs shaking uncontrollably as you gush, a messy, relentless flood soaking his hand. he groans low, satisfied, dragging his soaked fingers across you, rubbing your swollen clit until you’re kicking and squirming, overstimulated and ruined. “that’s it. fuckin’ gush all over me. my good girl.”

you’re collapsing against him, skin burning, chest heaving, hair clinging damp to your face, the whole world reduced to the couch biting at your knees and his hand dragging every ounce of aftershock out of your wrecked body. you can feel tears streaking down your cheeks, salt mixing with your lipstick, but he only smears your messier edges back into place, tugging your panties up, damp cotton sticking cruel against your folds, tugging your dress down as if the neatness could erase the wreckage.

he lifts you slow, settling you beside him like you’re breakable glass, even though you’re already cracked wide open. his tattooed hand cups your cheek, thumb stroking across your damp lashes, almost tender. “nah, baby. dick stays right here. lesson first, reward later.” he murmurs when your hand slips down greedy toward his bulge, stopping you with a smirk that cuts deeper than denial.

the couch is ruined beneath you, wet and sticky, the air still trembling with the echoes of your moans. your phone buzzes across the floor, screen flashing bright like an alarm. you look at it, lip caught between your teeth, stomach plunging when you see the name lighting up the glass. he doesn’t need to check—just points lazily with the neck of the liquor bottle in his hand, that lazy grin carved deep. his cock strains against his pants, obscene and heavy, but he strolls back to the bar like it’s nothing, like he’s untouchable, like he already knows the kind of hell waiting on the other end of that call.

and you sit there, dizzy, face wrecked, body throbbing, knowing you’ll answer anyway. knowing you’ll lie through your swollen lips.

“that didn’t happen,” you murmur, wagging your finger in protest, but it feels flimsy in the air, especially when he doesn’t even bother turning to face you, his broad back stretching beneath that thin shirt, shoulders carved sharp and muscular, a body built to defy you.

you can feel yourself splintering inside your own lie, because your body has already betrayed you. the damp heat in your panties, the way your thighs ache from clenching, the steady pulse between your legs—all of it testifies against the neat fiction you’re trying to spin. you can’t pretend with him, never could, even when you rehearsed it in your head.

“whatever,” he tosses it like a cigarette butt, flicking the word away with a careless wave, his hand slicing through the dim light, but you catch the truth in the way he hovers too long by the bottle on the bar. his fingers linger on the glass neck, restless, betraying him in a way he’d never confess.

“no, jungkook,” you insist, forcing your body upright, closing the space with steps that feel heavier than they should, dragged between want and warning. “i’m serious. this needs to stay between us.”

“yeah, yeah. got it, baby,” he answers, his voice too loose, too easy, as he toys with the empty shot glass like it’s a coin toss, spinning it against the table, catching nothing but his own reflection in the sheen.

“and don’t call me baby,” the words cut out of you harsher than intended, the edge sharper, meaner, but it feels necessary. like armor. like if you don’t wound him first, he’ll crack you wide open with that voice, those eyes, that memory of who he used to be to you.

he doesn’t fight back. doesn’t even meet your gaze. just clicks his tongue and pushes the door open, stepping aside in silence, but his body blocks out everything behind him, the width of his frame filling the doorway like an immovable wall. you hesitate only a moment, the thought of his jacket abandoned on the couch darting through your mind before you remember—this is his place. his walls, his whiskey, his shadows. the reminder makes your pulse thrum harder, because jungkook has always carried this kind of power, the kind that doesn’t need to be spoken, only felt.

when you step past him, the hallway feels too narrow, his presence trailing you like static, and then his phone is in front of your face, held out with deliberate patience. “what is this?” you ask, hating the stupidity of the question the moment it leaves your lips, cursing yourself for the way it trembles, for how obvious it makes you.

he doesn’t bite. doesn’t soothe. just answers flat, “my number,” his voice steady, face unreadable, but something in his expression pulls you back to an older version of him—the man you loved and feared in equal measure.

he’s steadier now, collected, matured in a way that makes him more dangerous. and instead of deterring you, it drags you in like a current, like you’ve always been wired to follow him even when you swore you’d swim the other way.

“don’t need it,” you snap, voice sharpened by too much confidence, a shield that doesn’t last a second.

because you see it—the corner of his mouth twitching, then curving, that lazy smirk you used to unravel under. the kind of smirk that says he’s already won, that says you’ll fold the way you always do. and you do, sighing through your own defeat as your hand betrays you, taking his phone, typing his number into yours, feeling the burn of your own betrayal creeping across your skin like fever.

“i’m goin’ other way,” he says finally, not so much a statement as a warning. your gaze betrays you once more, dragging over the tousle of his black hair, the undone buttons on his chest, the bulge in his pants that he doesn’t bother to hide. it’s a goodbye without softness, without ceremony, just a shadow breaking off into the night, leaving you breathless in his wake.

and still, you can’t shake the need. because even though you didn’t kiss him tonight, didn’t taste him, didn’t mark him with your nails or bruise him with your lips, every nerve in your body screams that you should have. you want to tear him open with your mouth, taste him raw, take him down your throat until your lungs burn. you want to kiss him like you’re rabid, like you’re starving, like the only thing that could keep you alive is him pressed against you, rough and unrelenting. you want to claim him, brand him with your scratches, your teeth, your tongue, because something deep in your mind whispers it’s wrong, while something even deeper purrs it’s the only right thing you’ve ever known.

you saw his lips before he turned away—swollen, reddish, that familiar fullness that carried charisma like perfume, a magnetism that’s always pulled you back no matter how far you’ve run. you ache for your fingers tangled in his raven-black hair, for your gaze drowned in his dark eyes, for the weight of his body caging you in. you want every inch of him, muscle and scar, the way his hands brand your skin, the way his cock always felt like the one thing that could split you open and still put you back together.

you hate yourself for it, but you’ve always compared. always measured your boyfriend against jungkook’s thickness, his skill, his merciless rhythm. and it leaves you mad, seething, hollow, because nothing ever matches. no one else ever knew what to do with you, how to play you like an instrument until you came undone, begging, unraveling under the sheer force of him.

you stumble back onto the dance floor, head light and body too loose, like you’ve been dipped in syrup and spun under the dizzying lights. the bass is heavy now, a brutal thud that pushes through your chest and rattles your bones, every beat making the room bend and sway. you’re looking for the table, hoping for the familiar sight of him, maybe a crooked smile or the comfort of his hand reaching toward yours, but when you get there, the table is stripped bare, abandoned. no jacket slung over the couch, no drink sweating onto the wood, no boyfriend waiting for you.

the air caves in. where did he go? did he actually leave you here alone? the thoughts loop and gnaw, sharp teeth tearing at the edges of your intoxication. even the music doesn’t save you this time, doesn’t drown out the ache. your phone glows in your hand, mocking. you swipe it open with trembling fingers, dread already pooling in your stomach, and there it is: fifteen missed calls from angelina, one missed call from him. you feel sick, livid, like betrayal has its own flavor—metallic, bitter, too close to blood. your chest burns. what does this mean? where the fuck is he? why isn’t he here? the word abandoned drills through your skull, louder than the bass, sharper than the vodka still ghosting your throat.

and then—contact. a hand latching onto you, so familiar your body jerks like it’s muscle memory. you’re ready to claw, ready to spit, but the spin comes too quick and suddenly you’re caught in laughter. “you look like you’ve been fucked sideways,” angelina croons, her voice jagged with amusement, her hair wild, a halo of snarled static that keeps brushing your bare arm. her eyes are glazed, but not gone; she’s been pacing herself, skating beneath the haze, watching you spiral.

“don’t scream in my face,” you hiss, venom flicked off your tongue before you even know who it’s aimed at. him? her? you?

“no one hears shit in here, dummy,” she smirks, leaning in, close enough that her words vibrate against your collarbone.

“where’s sergei?” you grind the name through clenched teeth, your fists balling at your sides. his name feels poisonous on your tongue, acid you want scraped clean.

“oh, right,” she pauses, already wincing, and you know instantly this won’t end well—not for you, but for him. “he said something about an urgent office meeting. like—seriously? midnight spreadsheets?” she adds, face tilted upward as if she’s tasting the thought, trying to decide whether it’s sour or rotten.

your knees give way the velvet cushion swallowing your weight as exhaustion smothers you. you’re still wet—shamefully, hungrily—from before, and the contradiction makes you want to claw your own skin. anger doesn’t even have the strength to stand up inside you. “he left me here,” you whisper, the edges of your voice cracking like glass. tears threaten, too close, but you bite down hard and choke them back, fumbling for your purse, already plotting your escape into a cab, into the night, into anywhere that isn’t this fucking place.

your skull pounds like a war drum, your body aches with every sway of the bass, the music is thunder and iron in your ears. the air is too thick with vodka and burnt cigarettes, making you gag even though you barely drank. it’s disgusting, and you feel disgusting, like the world is tipped sideways.

“babe, i’m with you,” angelina chirps, her tone too light, too fragile, and you glare so sharply she folds instantly, sighing as she drops into the couch beside you, legs crossing with lazy defeat.

“you don’t get it. none of it changes what he did,” your fingers rake through your hair, tugging, your movements disjointed, like you’re puppeteering your own body from a distance. even your own touch feels alien. “he left his girlfriend alone. in a club.” the words come out ragged, panicked, laced with rage, with that swelling black tide that wants to spill over and drown you.

“sucks, babe,” she mutters, her voice softened now, sympathy draped across her features. her body looks worn out too, shoulders sagging, knees angled lazily. but then her eyes spark, and the shift is sudden, slicing through the haze. “but like, tell me what your ex did to you.” her smirk curls up, unbothered, sly, dismissing everything else you just said like it’s irrelevant, like the real story is already tattooed on your face.

“what does that even mean?” you bark, but your voice wavers, the armor cracking.

“did you fuck?” she spits it with no hesitation, no filter, just truth cutting the air.

“what? no,” you snort, turning your head, your eyes darting anywhere but hers. but she pins you, like she always does. angelina’s always been able to read you better than you read yourself—sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse, and tonight it’s the latter, peeling your excuses away before you can even form them.

“don’t buy it,” she shrugs, eyes dragging over you with knowing precision, taking inventory of every flushed inch. “you’re glowing. like.. radioactive.”

her words slice straight into you, leaving your breath unsteady. glowing. fuck. she’s right. butterflies kick in your stomach, your heart still thrashing against your ribs like it’s trying to escape. every flicker of memory burns you alive—his face too close, his body pressed tight, his voice, god his voice, low and guttural, the kind that unravels you at the seams and leaves you wrecked on the floor.

“i did something bad,” you blurt, too fast, hand raised like a shield before she can pounce with her predictable ‘i told you so’s. “something unacceptable.”

she’s on you before the sentence even finishes leaving your mouth, practically collapsing into your lap like gravity itself conspired with her perfume. it’s dizzying—champagne fizz tangled with her skin-warmth and the sweet bite of her cologne, so sharp it cuts right through the bass pounding the walls. her nails scratch lightly at your arm as she leans too close, yelling in your ear like she’s been waiting all night to pounce.

“knew it,” she squeals, voice pitched above the music, slicing through air so thick with heat and laughter it almost hurts to hear. “oh my god, you’re nasty,” her lips split into a grin so wide you can see the flash of her teeth even in strobe light, her hand shooting up like a shield to half-cover her own face—like she’s embarrassed at how much she’s laughing, except she’s not, she’s letting it bubble over, shaking her shoulders with it.

you shove her off a little too roughly, annoyance and shame crackling hot under your skin, but she just swings herself right back in, pressing into your side, those wide wet eyes fixed on you—puppy, pitiful, relentless. and it’s that look, the one that always makes your chest cave, that cracks you open.

“had the best orgasm of my life,” you blurt, muffled into your palms, hands slapped over your face like that’ll hide the memory slamming back into you in jagged reels. “fuck.”

she gasps, too delighted, leaning back just enough to beam at you like she’s announcing your sins to the ceiling. “he looks like walking sex,” she chirps, sing-song, nails tapping against her glass before she tips it back, watching you like she wants to see your reaction splinter you in half.

you don’t give her the satisfaction. your jaw locks tight, your eyes dead on the dance floor, though the words ricochet inside you until your bones rattle. walking sex. she’s right, too right. you’ve always known it—known him like a religion. jungkook isn’t beautiful, not in the flimsy way people throw that word. he’s myth spun into flesh, something stitched too finely for earth. his face, his mouth, that impossible pull of him—it’s all magnetic oil-slick, black tide, quicksand that swallows and swallows. you’d go under every time, no breath, no struggle. you’d beg to drown.

her tone softens suddenly, the fizz of her laughter fading into something steadier, an anchor disguised in sweetness. “you can lean on me, yeah?”

you inhale sharp, guilty, because angelina—angelina has earned this. she stayed when no one else did. picked you up when you weren’t even worth the weight. stitched you back together when you unraveled ugly. and over these long months she’s moved from friend to something deeper, sister-blood, the mirror that still chooses to see you clear.

“i know,” you manage, voice low, your head heavy, dropping like your body doubled in weight. “i feel terrible.”

“don’t,” she cuts, quick, sharp, like snapping a rope before it knots. her finger lifts—pointed, scolding—narrowing her eyes like she’ll pierce the truth straight into you. “you did it all right. he’s a slippery guy. never gonna take that back.”

“why would he—” you start, brows pulled tight, but she just shakes her head, her certainty flattening you before you can finish.

and deep down, under your practiced denial, you know exactly what she means. sergei. his name feels foreign even in your head. you met him on ground that was shaky from the start, that club haze of flashing lights and bitter liquor, the smell of sweat and perfume blurring into chaos. it was the night you broke with jungkook, the night your heart was still raw and bleeding, and the loudest voice inside you demanded something reckless, a distraction, a body that wasn’t his. and sergei was there, convenient, and you let yourself reach. one night, you told yourself. one night to fill the hollow.

but the night spun into another, and another, until you found yourself cornered into something you hadn’t chosen. he asked to see you again, pressed insistently, and before you could even catch your balance you were in the middle of a relationship you never wanted. you warned him, over and over, that you weren’t ready, that your veins still pulsed with the afterburn of jungkook, but he didn’t care. he pushed, he smoothed over your refusals until they frayed, and somewhere in the cracks you gave in without even realizing.

he loves you, in his way—soft hands, gentler words, like a blanket that smothers instead of warms. but it never seeps to the bone. jungkook’s love was fire, confidence, atmosphere itself bending to hold you. sergei is tighter, like ropes, like he’s guarding something fragile or dangerous—like he doesn’t trust the light to touch you. you’ve fought about it, again and again, his insistence that you’re too unpredictable, too dangerous to trust fully, his accusations that you could betray him on a whim. he’s turned it on you more than once, made you feel guilty for what you aren’t, for what you’ve already bled dry.

and that’s why tonight stings strange: sergei, who never leaves you unchained, who hoards you quiet, who hates letting you out of his sight—he left you here. in a club, free, unguarded, no leash around your wrist. and the thought gnaws, because maybe he’s slipping. maybe he knows. maybe deep down he feels it too—that you’re already reaching for the only man who ever made your body hum alive.

—

you slam the door so hard the echo rattles through the hall, the movement of your hips deliberately exaggerated, a sway that’s equal parts defiance and exhaustion, because if someone close to you is going to treat you like shit, then the least you can do is leave like a storm. the apartment is empty, predictably so, a vacuum of silence swallowing you whole. of course he wasn’t waiting—of course sergei called you a cab and checked you off his list as if that was enough, as if that counted for care.

one missed call, one apologetic gesture, as if crumbs could count as a meal. you’ve always believed, with a certainty as sharp as glass, that if a person wants you, truly wants you, they’ll move heaven and earth, they’ll rearrange the world just to get to you. sergei used to be that person, charging forward, unstoppable, but now he hides behind late-night meetings that sprout like weeds, choking everything else.

your heels kick free, your purse and jacket collapse into the couch without ceremony, your body too heavy with the day to care where anything lands. the bathroom light burns bright against your eyes as you strip your clothes away, every button and strap flung like proof of your irritation, and you step into the shower like it’s the only absolution left. the water scalds your skin and you welcome it, scrubbing harder than necessary, not just at the city grime but at the suffocating weight of responsibility, of silence, of being kept small.

you tell yourself not to think about jungkook, not to picture the phone number you still haven’t deleted, not to imagine his knock at your door instead of anyone else’s, but the thought hangs stubborn and electric. you know that if you called, he would come.

when you step out, steam drapes itself across the room like heavy velvet, but you ignore it, pulling yourself straight into the shared bedroom you already resent. your hair damp against your shoulders, your glasses perched back in place, the book in your hands becomes a shield, a performance. you’ve already rehearsed tonight’s script in your head—you’ll be cold, you’ll be composed, you’ll be above everything, even him. you’ve told yourself over and over there is no equality in love, that someone always tips the scale, and tonight you’ve decided it will be you.

the yellow glow of the bedside lamp softens the room, but not you. when you hear the front door creak, when footsteps drag closer, you don’t look up, not even when the knock sounds and the door opens. bags shoved through first, his monotone apology floating after them—“dry sweet red wine ‘n your favorite cake.” it makes you want to laugh, or cry, or roll your eyes so far back you’ll never see him again. he enters in his suit, hair mussed, his face worn raw from rubbing at it too many times, and it’s pathetic, this tableau of weary devotion. “baby, i’m so sorry,” he says, placing the offerings beside you before lowering himself at the edge of the bed, as if his proximity is a privilege.

you don’t spare him a glance. the words scrape past your ears like background noise. “you have to understand me, this is work, i couldn’t do otherwise,” he starts, and that’s what makes your eyes snap up, a sharp twist of anger unraveling through you.

“couldn’t do otherwise? otherwise how? do you even know what conscience means?” the words hiss off your tongue, brittle with disbelief.

“just—don’t make a scene, i’m done, baby, i’m tired,” he sighs, pressing his palms to his face like the gesture alone absolves him.

and maybe you should understand, maybe you should swallow it down the way you have so many times before, because yes, he works hard, yes, he makes sure you never want for the glossy things—clothes, dinners, little luxuries. but the trade-off is always your loneliness. it’s the empty side of the bed, the hollow silence when he vanishes for nights, the way he reduces love to balance sheets. you’ve told yourself every couple has rough seasons, that patience is strength, but patience feels like rot in your chest now, and you’re too aware of time slipping fast, too aware of how much more you want.

“you’re tired..” you repeat back to him, every syllable deliberate, tasting the bitterness before setting the book aside, removing your glasses with unhurried precision. “and i’m tired of your excuses.”

“don’t guilt me. you want the life, the nice things, don’t pretend you don’t,” he shoots back, jacket sliding into his lap, his voice teetering between defense and accusation.

your mouth opens, sharp words already forming, but he cuts you off, a venomous edge in his tone: “cut the crap. all girls are like that. all y’all want money ‘n shiny shit.”

it’s like a crack of thunder in your chest, the sound of blood rushing cold. “so what, i’m a burden to you? extra trouble you don’t need?”

he laughs, lips curling as his hand drags across his mouth, smug and slippery. “you always twisting my words.”

“nah. answer the question,” your eyes lock onto his, demanding, burning, but what stares back is emptiness, distance, a void where love should live.

“i know i fucked up, i admit it,” he says finally, with a smile that feels crooked, practiced, manipulative. “but don't act like i’m a moster,”

“you think one sorry fixes shit?” you shift, rising slightly, inching away from him, because even this closeness feels dangerous, suffocating. “you jealous of every man breathing, but you leave me stranded in a club?”

“fuck, yes, i know, i know, stop throwin it back at me!” he explodes, his voice cracking the fragile calm, his hand rising in a gesture too sharp, too violent. and in that instant, fear slices through you, raw and ugly, your throat tightening around a swallowed gasp as you brace for something you don’t want to believe possible.

he saw your reaction and the shift of your face made him inhale deeper, more serious, like the weight of the air itself pressed too heavily against his ribs. his fingers trembled at the buttons of his shirt, unfastening them one by one with the urgency of a man suffocating, as though the fabric clinging to his chest was cutting off his oxygen supply.

“baby, i’m sorry. shit, i don’t know what else to do,” he muttered, voice dragged low, almost unraveling. his hand slipped through his black hair in that nervous rhythm you’d memorized long ago, strands falling rebelliously across his forehead. his features looked impossibly soft in that dim light, but at the same time sharp, chiseled with a tension that could slice glass, and for one impossible second you remembered how easy it once was to lean into those contradictions.

you tried to keep the anger alive, but your pulse betrayed you, and underneath the heat of it a thin thread of fear wove itself through—fear for his reaction, fear for yourself, fear for the inevitability of falling into the same old orbit. so you swallowed it down, deciding in that fractured moment to let it go, to hell with cold shoulders and promises you made to yourself in nights of loneliness. they never changed his attitude anyway, never bent him into someone easier to love.

“forget it. i guess i’m overreacting. that’s all,” you murmured, your eyes sliding away from him, catching instead on the bent corners of the book on the nightstand, clinging to details that could distract you from the quaking pull of his presence.

he only shook his head and smiled, that tired little curve that felt more like surrender than charm, before sitting closer, his silhouette dipping toward you in a slow lean meant for your lips. but you turned your face just in time, and his mouth landed on your forehead instead, warm but unsatisfying, a gesture that only fed your simmering anger.

“my boss invited me to dinner next week,” he said casually as he stood, his hands already working at the buttons of his shirt, fabric falling loose like the words themselves. “it’s a shared dinner, so you should come with me,” he glanced over his shoulder as he spoke, catching your reflection in the mirror before him, gauging you like he always did when he wasn’t brave enough to look directly.

“should?” the word came out sharp, pressed between your teeth, nerves rising like static. you waited for the answer you already knew.

“please,” he corrected softly, lowering himself back onto the bed, immediately winding his arms around you with the kind of insistence that left you no space to breathe. “it’s just dinner, you won’t even notice how time flies,” he added, coaxing you the way he always did, the tone sliding under your skin until refusal felt heavier than surrender.

you bit down on your lip, a small self-inflicted pain to anchor yourself, but in the end you sighed, that little white flag spilling out of your lungs before you could swallow it back. “fine.”

“perfect,” he said simply, slipping on the glasses that always lived on the shelf above the bed, his laptop following quickly after. his attention shifted instantly, screen glow illuminating the angles of his face, and he mumbled a goodnight like an afterthought. you turned away, the familiar irritation rising as the white-blue light kept you awake, and you knew he would never notice. he never asked why you turned your back, never wondered if it was more than a habit, never cared enough to press past the silence. his ignorance was its own kind of violence, blunt and unyielding.

—

the week blurred in fast-forward, days collapsing too quickly until the dinner circled around on the calendar like an inevitability you’d tried not to dread. your boyfriend was good at his job, maybe too good, efficient and tireless, but still a long climb from anything resembling a director’s chair. excellence without power, diligence without the keys to the kingdom. and yet, in the quiet way he worked, he was always rewarded as the best employee, the dependable one, the man who could be trusted with weight but not given the throne.

the restaurant loomed vast when you arrived, its exterior understated compared to the grandeur inside. stained glass stretched wide across the walls, catching the light of the floor lamps and scattering it like broken jewels. the wallpaper curled in intricate asian patterns, golden cranes soaring against burgundy skies, delicate flowers painted with a patience that felt centuries old. you were led to a private room tucked behind heavy wooden doors, and you knew immediately this was the kind of place people like sergei—people who could afford separation, seclusion, superiority—called their regular haunt.

and then your heart stopped.

because the silhouette standing at the head of the table twisted your stomach inside out, spun your world on its axis until your knees gave way in your imagination, until you swore you might collapse onto the floor in reality. everything in you screamed to crawl backwards, to undo your steps, to flee before the room closed in around you. you cursed yourself silently, cursed your outfit that felt suddenly wrong, too simple and too obvious, not enough for this circle and yet far too much for the ghost sitting at its center.

jungkook.

he was here, of course he was, because fate had the cruelest sense of humor. grey cashmere suit pressed sharp against his frame, a black tie cutting neat down the front of a beige shirt, cufflinks glinting with subtle arrogance at his wrists. the tattoos you knew too well spilled out beneath the sleeves, those same black strokes you once traced in the shadows of a club vip room, that night you swore you would forget but never really did. his hair, his posture, the slight twitch of his jaw—all of it hit you like a memory resurrected in flesh.

and before you could make sense of that, another figure slipped in through the doorway, a girl at his side. the one you’d seen with him before, the one you tried to write off as a one-night mistake, only now it was clear she wasn’t. the way she walked into the room, comfortable, steady, familiar—it told you everything. she was his girlfriend. maybe had been for longer than you wanted to imagine.

your stomach knotted, bile sharp in your throat, because the weight of what you’d allowed, what you’d done, pressed down heavier than the air in that closed room. unjustified. unacceptable. the words screamed in your skull, but they changed nothing. you were already sitting there, and he was already across from you, and every corner of the night was poisoned before it even began.

“is this the girl you’ve been hiding, sergei?” his voice slices through the chatter like velvet sharpened on steel, and his gaze drags over you in one deliberate sweep—from head to toe, skin to bone—devouring, assessing, undressing, making it abundantly clear that there’s no surface of you he hasn’t already claimed in his mind.

you catch the faint flicker of his tongue sweeping across his lower lip, and your stomach twists. once, you would’ve called it a nervous tic, some useless habit, but you know him too well now—you know every feigned gesture he uses as a weapon. he does it for you. he does it to remind you how easily your body used to fold for him. you swallow, eyes wide, throat too tight to mask the shock of realization: your boyfriend’s boss, the untouchable man sitting at the head of the table, has been jungkook this whole time. not just the elusive ceo with his hands in every market, not just the owner of the glitter-drenched nightclub you’ve heard whispered about—he is him. the him you tried to cauterize from your memory. and yet here he is, alive and smirking, another secret tossed into his piggy bank of power.

“what can i say, man,” sergei replies with an overfed confidence that makes your teeth ache. he skips any respectful pronouns, throws the words out too casually, and you brace for retaliation. but jungkook doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even blink. the absence of reaction is somehow worse, like his silence is louder than anything else at the table.

he gestures you toward the long mahogany table, his touch ghosting your lower back like he owns the air around you, and your skin burns where he doesn’t even touch. the table is pristine, staged like a photograph—gleaming cutlery, candles that look sculpted rather than lit, plates waiting to be dirtied. you sit opposite his girlfriend, tiffany, a name that fits too neatly: glossy, sharp, unbothered. she scrolls on her phone without shame, acrylics tapping like percussion. if this dinner is a circus, then she is the disinterested queen in her glass box, while you’re still wide-eyed enough to play audience.

with a snap of invisible fingers, food begins appearing as if conjured—bowls and platters steaming, sauces too artful to be real. everything smells divine, looks poisoned, and tastes too good to trust. you chew mechanically, hyper-aware of the weight of his stare. every time you look up, his eyes are already there, drilling into you, and every time you dart away to another safe object—a wine glass, a flicker of candlelight—you hear it: the quiet exhale of his laughter, the smirk you don’t have to see to feel.

“what about the exhibition i made you the director of?” jungkook finally speaks, leaning into the silence with a confidence so heavy it feels like his words might sink the table. you could drown in that smug cadence alone, and the idea disgusts you almost as much as it excites you.

sergei clears his throat too loudly, fumbling, grabbing water as if it will shield him. “everything went great, there was more press than we thought.”

jungkook hums, low, approving but unconcerned. his girlfriend chooses that moment to enter the performance, her voice airy, unguarded, laced with a softness that makes you instantly suspicious. “jungkook and i were at that exhibit,” she says, almost carelessly, “giant canvases, just enormous. i told him they were too big to even fit in someone’s house.”

he leans back in his chair, the leather sighing under his weight, his presence expanding until it crowds your lungs. “depends where you put ‘em,” he smirks, a smirk so deliberately slow it makes your thighs tighten under the table. “sometimes the biggest things slip in easier than you think.”

heat floods you, the room tilting like you’ve been doused in scalding water. the meat on your tongue turns to ash. sergei notices your silence, slides his arm around your shoulders like a bandage, his hand fumbling for yours, extending water with a clumsy sort of concern. “honey, is everything okay?” he whispers, all worry and no teeth. you nod, grateful for the glass but cursing the tremor in your hands.

you tilt your drink, and in that sliver of warped reflection you see it—jungkook’s stare, unblinking, burning holes through you. how no one else notices it is beyond you. maybe they’ve been conditioned not to look too long, maybe they’ve already surrendered to his gravity. tiffany hasn’t lifted her head from her phone in twenty minutes, and sergei’s already buried in his plate again. you are alone in the war he wages with his eyes.

conversation ricochets around the table, swinging between intimate and careless, the tone so informal you can barely reconcile it with the professional hierarchy you thought existed. but you realize—jungkook doesn’t set limits. not at work, not in life. he drags people into his orbit and demands they treat him as equal while never forgetting he is above them. you used to admire this. you used to crave it. now it terrifies you.

then you feel it—something sliding up your leg, silk disguised as leather. you inhale sharply, a gasp too obvious, so you drown it with a sip of water, coughing it into silence. it’s his foot. his polished black shoes press against your ankle, then glide higher, casual as breathing. he doesn’t look at you, doesn’t falter. he just tips his glass, amber whiskey catching the light, laughing at some mediocre joke.

tiffany breaks again, bright and oblivious. “so we’re at the gym yesterday, right? and his trainer keeps saying, ‘don’t overdo it, you’ll wear yourself out,’ but he never listens. he just keeps going, like, hours.” she giggles, sweet and stupid. “no breaks.”

sergei hums approval, lifting his wine. “discipline. it’s hard to work with.”

jungkook crosses his legs, the motion slow, deliberate, the aura rolling off him almost blinding. “breaks are overrated. if you know how to pace yourself, you can last all night.”

the words slam into you, freeze your hand halfway to your mouth. are you imagining the subtext? are you insane enough to believe it’s meant for you? the thought makes you dizzy, but then his foot plays with your ankle again, teasing, lifting, lowering, slow like a secret rhythm only the two of you hear. you want to groan, to shudder, to betray yourself, but you clear your throat, clutch the glass tighter.

“all night?” you ask, your voice steadier than you feel, your gaze cutting across the table to meet his.

he lifts a brow, his smirk a dagger. “yeah. all night.” his voice is low, rich, deliberate, and you feel it coil through your spine.

you straighten, pretending composure, forcing adulthood onto yourself like a costume you can barely keep buttoned. the table slips quiet again until sergei, oblivious, babbles about deadlines and late nights at the office. “pulled an all-nighter for the team,” he brags, chest puffed.

jungkook cuts him without effort. “all-nighter’s easy if you got the right motivation.”

tiffany isn’t offended. she takes a sip of wine, playing at ignorance with unnerving skill. “motivation… like bonuses?”

“mm,” he rolls his glass in his hand, whiskey catching firelight, smirk curling like smoke. “more like when somethin’ feels too good to stop.”

your lungs feel like they’re singed from the inside out, every inhale raw, every exhale molten, because the pressure of his thigh locked between yours has your body coiled tight and traitorous, your muscles betraying you by clenching around him. you hate that he remembers this is your weakness, hate it more that you can’t disguise the way it unravels you. your hand flies to your mouth like instinct, covering it, trying to trap the moan that trembles up your throat—the moan no one in this room is waiting for, the sound that would snap the whole fragile illusion in half.

but you can already feel the edges fraying when she leans in again, his girlfriend, her voice silk-slick and deliberate, words sharpened like she’s rolling them across her tongue just to watch the way they slice into you. and god, the worst part is you’re waiting for it—you’re waiting for her to do it again, to lick at you with those long, teasing syllables, because every time she speaks you feel the heat crawl higher, a humiliating, dangerous thrum that you can’t silence. and the way jungkook sits there, monotone and detached, answering her in that infuriatingly casual way, only makes it worse—because you know his indifference is a mask, the same mask he wore when he wanted to break you apart with nothing but patience.

“jungkook’s got this thing where he never quits until i’m literally begging him to stop. so stubborn,” she croons, and the smirk that twitches her lips is a tell she probably doesn’t mean to give away, her body angled just so, her eyes flicking not at him, not even at her phone, but at you. again and again. like she’s testing you, like she knows something you don’t, or worse, like she knows everything you’re trying to keep quiet.

the air is stretched taut, seconds dragging slow, until another sound interrupts it—sergei moving in the corner, tugging open the cabinet, clinking bottles as he digs out another one at jungkook’s request. it buys a sliver of distraction, but not enough. you’re still stuck between them, caught in the middle like the hinge of some cruel design—jungkook lounging on one side of you, his girlfriend sprawled on the other, scrolling on her phone now with a deliberate kind of disinterest, like she’s bored of her own performance. her leather chair groans as she leans back, head tilted, pretending not to see the tension crackling like static between you and the man she calls hers.

then jungkook finally decides to speak, voice smooth as whiskey, slow as sin. “nah,” he drawls, tongue dragging along his lip in a way that feels aimed, precise. “i don’t stop till i know it’s all wrung out.”

and he isn’t looking at her. he isn’t looking at anyone but you. his eyes, dark and heavy-lidded, lock onto yours, and the burn in them makes you feel like you’re already naked, like he’s undressing you layer by layer with nothing but that stare and the taste of liquor still wet on his tongue. his hand lifts his glass, amber swirling, and he takes a sip without breaking the hold he has on you, without so much as blinking. you feel the pressure of his thigh shift again, pressing, insisting, and this time you decide you won’t just sit there and let him play his game. if he wants to test you, you’ll test him right back.

your heels click against the floor as you move, the arch of your foot finding his polished shoe, the sharp point of your stiletto pressing down—not enough to hurt, just enough to mark your presence, to leave him with something to remember. your tongue wets your lips unconsciously, the gesture too quick to disguise, and before the moment can expand you’re pushing yourself up from the chair, rising smoothly, your eyes carefully avoiding his face. but not before you catch it—the way his teeth sink into his lip, the flicker of his throat working as he pretends to clear it, disguising the sound like nothing happened. your mouth curves at the edges, sharp with satisfaction, even as you murmur your excuse, polite and shallow.

“bathroom,” you say, the word soft but final, and then you slip out, freeing yourself from the room before the storm in your chest can spill over, before anyone else can notice that you’re already drenched in it.

you don’t even get the chance to slip through the crowd, don’t even have the grace of one more steady breath, when from the dim corner a hand snakes out fast and sure, catching you by the wrist and spinning you with such force that the world tilts. before you can gasp, before you can register who’s caught you, his burning eyes are right there, dragging you into their orbit—dark and dangerous, heavy with hunger and lust so scorching it singes your skin just to be looked at like that.

then his mouth is on yours, crashing, stealing, claiming, and you can’t keep yourself steady under the weight of it. his lips are fever-hot, his kiss raw and wet, and those hands—those big, rough, unrelenting hands—frame your face like he’s holding you in place for the rest of your life. you stumble back instinctively, searching for an anchor, your palms brushing uselessly against the cold wall, but he’s quicker, stronger, greedy. jungkook’s grip cinches around you and reels you back in, chasing your mouth each time you try to break away, persistent like a man obsessed, lips hunting yours like pursuit is all he’s ever known.

“don’t run from me, baby. i’m done with it,” he growls against your lips, his thigh sliding firm between your legs before you realize what’s happening. the pressure makes your chest hitch, a sharp sigh escaping you, and then his other hand is at your waist, fingers digging so deep into your dress you’re sure he’ll leave bruises there, purple-blue signatures stamped into your skin.

you’re breathless, head buzzing with oxygen loss and desire that tangles in your veins like wildfire, cheeks blazing hot. “what the fuck are you doing here?” your words stumble out in fragments, shaky, breaking against the rhythm of his kiss.

he doesn’t answer in any way that soothes you, only presses closer, pinning you into the wall like he’d rather die than give you an inch of space. “boring without you in it.” the words sound like sin coated in velvet, half confession, half accusation.

you roll your eyes because that’s the only defense left in your arsenal, but your teeth sink into your lip, betraying you, betraying the heat that coils low in your stomach. “we shouldn’t. we can't—” you place your hand against his chest, pretending it’s to push him away, though your fingers are already tracing the soft fabric of his shirt, the rise of his breath beneath it.

“don’t care. i want.” his reply lands sharp, insistent, lips swollen, pink and glistening from your kiss. he looks carved out of temptation itself, mouth begging to be kissed again, and every inch of you aches to obey.

“it’s wrong, jungkook,” you whisper his name like a sin, and he groans into the column of your throat, the sound hot and low, vibrating against your skin. his cologne curls around you, sharp spice and lingering musk, the same scent that once made you dizzy on sheets you never wanted to leave.

you try to twist your head away, to pull free from his mouth, but he only smirks, lazy and cocky, his lips ghosting your skin. “yeah. say my name again.”

“you’re insane,” you gasp, trying to twist away, but his hand cups your jaw, thumb pressing beneath your lip, holding you still.

he smirks, slow and lethal. “insane for you. same difference.”

your laugh cracks, jagged, desperate. “god, you talk so much shit.”

the moment unravels you, weakens your knees, and when his tongue parts your lips you lose the battle entirely. he kisses like a man who knows your body’s cheat codes, who knows how to make you pliant, desperate, trembling beneath him with nothing more than his tongue sliding deep, coaxing moans from your chest. you slam your fist against his chest in some futile spark of resistance, but it’s weak, laughably so, and he catches your wrist midair, locking your fingers with his and pressing it hard into the wall beside your head, a reminder of how easily he cages you.

“jungkook. stop—” you manage, gasping around his kiss, your body arching into him even as your words fight against it. every part of you aches to surrender—to give him your body, your heart, your mind, all of it—but your head screams impossibility, screams no.

“nah. other way ‘round, baby.” his lips curl wider, a dark grin between kisses, and when you glance at him you catch the glint of his mole beneath his bottom lip, so close you could trace it with your tongue, the tiny mark you used to kiss like it was yours.

his tongue is merciless, practiced, the wet slide of it making you shudder as he presses closer, hands everywhere all at once. it feels like a reunion dressed in chaos, his grip carving bruises into your waist, his palms groping lower, sliding to your ass, kneading you until the moan rips out of you against your will. the sound slips into his mouth, and you feel him smirk into the kiss, arrogant, savoring.

“tell me and i’ll guit.” his voice is hoarse, his hand bruising your hip like possession, like theft. “just one word.”

“you won’t quit for shit.” your smirk bites back, your eyes daring him, because you know him—you’ve always known. rules were never meant for jungkook, and if there’s a line in the sand, he’ll be the first to ruin it.

“fuck yeah—know me too fuckin' good.” his tone is molten, reverent and filthy at once, his hand sliding back up your body until his fingers hook around your chin, holding it between them. he tilts your face to him like he’s reclaiming something stolen, his thumb brushing your lip as if he’s about to devour it again.

his hips press flush against yours and the world folds inward, shrinks down until it’s nothing but the weight of him covering you, powerful and vast and male in a way that feels ancient. his body is so broad it eclipses yours, eats the space around you until you’re half swallowed by him, and instead of fighting it you let yourself float, drifting in that spell like it’s velvet smoke curling into your lungs.

his lips find you again, dragging you deeper into trance, and you don’t care that the hallway’s open, don’t care if footsteps echo by, don’t care if you’re bare and undone in the center of the party—you’d let the whole world witness if it meant this moment could stretch endless, if it meant you could keep diving into the labyrinth of jungkook’s hunger, knowing he’d never hand you the map out.

but then something shifts. it rushes over you like cold water, sharp and intrusive, and suddenly you remember, too vividly, too sharply. “you hurt me before,” you whisper, your voice a crackling thread in the thick heat between you. your breath is ragged, your chest scraping for air, and his face is too close—his hair mussed from your fingers tangled so desperately in it, his mouth damp from your kiss.

his gaze doesn’t waver. his eyes dig into yours, searching, haunting, like if he stares hard enough the answer will rise up between your lashes. his arms only tighten, biceps flexing as they lock around your lower back, anchoring you to him, your thighs clenching around the solid heat of his cock.

“don’t start with that,” he cuts, low and serrated, like every syllable’s dragging across his teeth. “don’t fuckin’ start. i’d do everything—hear me?—everything—to never let it happen again.” his hand comes up slow, reverent, cupping your cheek like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he’s too rough.

and still—you lean into it. you tilt into that palm, reckless, because somehow his touch is both punishment and salvation, because no one else has ever made you feel this contradictory peace, this oxygen disguised as fire. “we can’t erase the past,” you murmur, the words slipping before you can bite them back, and instantly regret scalds your throat. his face hardens at once, unreadable, anger simmering under the skin.

his brows knit low, his jaw shifting sharp from side to side, nostrils flaring with something volcanic. but you can tell—god, you can tell—that the fury isn’t aimed at you, it’s aimed at himself. because when his fingers claw back to your waist, when his grip bruises into the curve of you, it’s not softness but a harsh kind of reverence. he touches you like you’re both sacred and ruined.

“erase, no. but the future—” he grinds the word like gravel between molars— “the future’s mine to change. ours.”

the kiss is a war. he devours you like proof, like if he presses hard enough you’ll remember what only he can give. your head tips back under the onslaught, his mouth hot and sloppy down your throat, wet trails smeared across your skin like possession. you choke around the words, fighting a lump in your throat, “there’s no future. there’s no us.” you keep your grip in his hair but it’s shaky, traitorous, because you watch how his face twists darker, angrier, his silence thickening the air itself.

“don’t fuckin’—don’ fuckin' talk like that,” he snarls, teeth clashing as he drags them over your neck, biting, pulling muffled moans from you like confessions.

“you’re not my boyfriend. not mine.” you push again, needling, cruel in your denial because you want the breaking point, you want to see how far you can pull him.

he drags a groan through his teeth, raw and guttural. “baby, stop. please. i can’t—i’ll lose my goddamn mind.”

the thought is poison and honey at once—that you want him to snap, to pin you down right here under the flickering hallway light, to ruin you in front of anyone, everyone, to mark again in public what’s already true in secret. the thought burrows in, treacherous, and you can’t shake it because it feels right, more right than anything else has in months. you want his fingers splitting you open, his cock driving you to incoherence, his body hammering the point of ownership into you until you’re wrecked.

“watch your tone,” he growls, hand cracking against your ass with sharp sting. you only grab for him harder, dragging his neck down so his hungry lips smash back into yours, your moan spilling into his mouth like surrender.

“you did hurt me. you might do it again,” you confess, your voice breaking into his kiss, the words a plea and a dare, tangled with the wet suck of his mouth. he’s pulling harsher at your hips now, his grip steel, his body taut like he’s terrified of losing you to your own words. “stop saying that, fuck” he bites out, squeezing your waist so tight you can feel each pulse of his fingers branding the shape of you. “never again. you hear me? never fuckin’ again.”

“then why?” your hands cradle his face, nails digging into his jaw as you try to hold him still, to keep him from swallowing you whole again.

“was mad. fucked up. lost it. that's it.” he spits, a near-growl, his eyes blown so wide it’s dangerous. he’s starved for you, ravenous, and you see it in the dilation of his pupils, in the strain of his lips trembling with everything he hasn’t said.

“what about your girlfriend?” you bite, the word sour as venom, scalding your own tongue.

he flinches—like you do—at the mention, his face curling as if even hearing her existence disgusts him. “much more complicated,” is all he manages, and you know it’s the dead end it sounds like.

you glare, lip trembling. “that’s all you’ve got?”

his stare burns back, black hole wide. “complicated’s already too fuckin’ generous.”

yet his arms reel you in tighter, his mouth plastering desperate, wet kisses until your lips spark with static, until they feel claimed, tingling, numbed by his electricity. the rhythm of it is so reckless you nearly miss the sudden intrusion—footsteps, closer, then closer still. jungkook moves fast, clutching your hips, dragging you down the corridor into shadow. the air tightens. he corners you against the wall, his palm flat above your head, his chest shielding you in the dark. his eyes gleam, wild and bright, though they flicker away to track the sound until the steps fade into distance.

when the silence returns, you collapse into him, your body pressing desperate to his chest, his muscles iron under your palms. he holds you everywhere—one hand tangled in your hair, the other caging your lower back—before pressing a kiss to the crown of your head.

“what have we done?” you whisper, hollow and small, your heart collapsing under the weight of your own desire, the contradiction of being right where you want to be and knowing it’s the wrongest place of all.

You looked to your side, his profile staring up at the ceiling above you. "What the fuck, Jaehyun," you mumbled, your voice low. You looked for a long time. His throat moved, his adam's apple going up and down as he swallowed hard. "And did you consider maybe starting there, before fucking me?"

“I needed to see you. One last time.” His voice was thick, heavy with what sounded like shame.

You stayed where you were, tangled in him, head resting on his outstretched arm, limbs still joined. You squinted at the side of his face, searching for regret in it, some trace of remorse. But all you found was silence. Then, your own voice broke through: dry, almost fragile. “Get out of my house.”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even look your way. Just sat up in your bed, reached for his clothes, and muttered a quiet, “I’m sorry, angel,” on his way out, before closing the door quietly behind him, leaving your house like he had never been there at all.

And you’d be lying if you said it didn’t break you. You’d be lying if you said your pillow wasn’t soaked with tears that night, or that you didn’t spend the next week dissecting every moment with your best friend, wondering where it all went wrong.

You’d be lying if you said it didn’t shatter you all over again — one month later — to see him across the room, sitting across a table from the girl he had chosen instead. The same girl he had left you for. That night, your heart splintered in a thousand new directions.

You met Jaehyun on a train. He was seated across from you, headphones in, sketching something in a small notebook. You hadn’t noticed him at first, too focused on the cracked screen of your phone. But when he got up without a word to let an elderly woman sit, you looked up—and caught his face. Clean lines, tired eyes, quiet.

A week later, same train. This time, he noticed you first. “You again,” he said with a small smile.

You raised a brow. “Am I being followed?”

“Maybe it’s destiny,” he replied, almost joking - but not quite - and flashed a smile that was all charm and warmth. You exchanged numbers before getting off at your stop.

Things unfolded quietly. He texted you for the first time to ask if you’d ever tried Korean cold noodles at midnight in winter. When you said no, he took you to a tiny place with fogged-up windows and metal tables. It was a dark, cold night, in the late hours of the dawn. You ate with gloves on, and he told you about how his grandma used to make him that exact dish when he was a kid. You didn’t say much, but you listened. And he noticed.

Another time, he took you to a bookshop café where he never read the books, just picked titles he thought sounded like you—"The Art of Quiet Chaos," "We Were Never Here," "On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous." He didn’t say why. He just passed them across the table with a smirk, as if they were private jokes only he understood.

One night, after you told him you'd had a particularly hard day in uni, he brought you to an abandoned rooftop. He said he used to sneak there when the world got too loud. You brought coffee in a flask. He brought his silence and listened to you vent. Then, you sat side by side watching the night sky full of stars. And at the end of the night, he gave you a soft goodnight kiss that left you wanting more.

And all this time, you didn’t notice how he looked at you when you weren’t paying attention. You didn’t catch the way his shoulders relaxed when you laughed, or how he memorised the exact way you stirred your drinks.

And when you did notice, you chose not to say anything.

And then, after one particularly still evening—just the two of you wandering a half-empty museum—he parked the car outside your building and didn’t kill the engine. “What are we doing?” he asked, hands loose on the steering wheel, voice light but careful.

You blinked. “You’re giving me a ride home?” you teased.

He chuckled under his breath but didn’t drop it. “No, really. What is this?"

You turned to face him fully, one leg tucked beneath you. “I don’t know. I’m enjoying this, Jaehyun. Do we have to label it?”

A few minutes went by with no answer and then ,you saw jaehyun nodding his head slowly. “So you’re not looking for something serious,” he said—not as a question, but as a confirmation. His tone cooled just enough to make you look at him twice.

“I’m not,” you admitted. “Not because I don’t like you. I do. I just... I’m not ready for something that demands so much. I like my space. I like my freedom. I like not having to explain myself to anyone.”

He nodded again. “Of course.”

And that was that.

Only it wasn’t.

Because after that, something in him dimmed. Jaehyun, who would always stop your makeout sessions when they got a little too heated because he wanted to 'take it slow with you', was quick to fuck you against your mattress the night right after that conversation. He stopped texting you about the weird street musician he saw on his walk home. Stopped sending you photos of sunsets he knew you'd love. Stopped making time for you between the chaos that was the life of a STEM student.

But you didn't question it because, in your eyes, he was doing everything right - not drowning you in attention, not invading your space, and giving you just the right amount of passion. You figured this was just what happened. The natural slowing down. The balancing of desire and distance. Besides, he still made you feel alive whenever he touched you. And that was enough.

Or so you told yourself.

You had always, throughout your whole life, had some problems with committing to relationships. It was hard for you to give up your independence, had always been. So the relationship you established with jaehyun was perfect for you. You got to enjoy your single independent life as well as the joys of having a loving man beside you.

Until he left you naked in your bed, after fucking your brains out, without as much as an explanation.

And it got ten times worse when you sat down in front of your way-too-nice date on a random tuesday, just to look over his shoulder and see jaehyun. His eyes on you. Unmoving.

You froze.

For a moment, you forgot how to smile, how to breathe, how to pretend. The glass in your hand felt suddenly too cold, too heavy. You blinked, once, twice, hoping it was someone else.

But it wasn’t. It was him. His dark hair was longer than you remembered, the ends brushing his cheekbones. Still as handsome as you remembered. His hands rested on the table, fingers tapping a silent rhythm you used to feel against your spine, on nights he would come to make you company.

The restaurant was dimly lit, small, quiet in that urban way: the low hum of conversation, the clinking of cutlery, jazz humming faintly through the ceiling speakers. You had picked it because it wasn’t trendy. Because you didn’t think anyone you knew would be there.

But there he was.

The girl across from him was pretty. Blonde hair, clean laugh, elegant hands with manicured nails around a glass of wine. The complete opposite of you. She reached across the table to wipe something from the corner of his mouth. He didn’t pull away like it was a familiar feeling. Familiar enough to gut you.

And yet his eyes never left you.

You forced your gaze back to your date. To his ocean-blue eyes and curly hair. You tried to focus on his voice — something about his cousin’s dog and a hiking trail with a view of the city you didn't give two shits about when jaehyun's sweet brown eyes were right there.

You nodded to what he said. Laughed when it seemed appropriate. But all you could feel was the heat rising in your chest, your throat tightening around a lump you hadn’t invited.

You found the bathroom after mumbling something about needing to check your lipstick. Your hands shook as you pushed open the door and locked it behind you. Sat on the closed lid of the toilet and stared at the tiled floor, tracing the cracks like they were a map out of this moment. You got up and leaned over the sink, staring at your reflection, makeup still intact but your skin was pale and your eyes distant.

The air in the bathroom smelled like lemon-scented cleaner and anxiety. You gripped the edge of the sink with both hands, grounding yourself with pressure. Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out.

You closed your eyes. But even in the dark behind your eyelids, you saw him.

Jaehyun at the noodle shop, laughing into his palm when you couldn’t use the metal chopsticks properly. Jaehyun tracing the curve of your knee absentmindedly while reading something on his phone. Jaehyun gifting you a book with a pink sticky note inside that just said, “it made me think of you.”

For some reason, you couldn't shake the feeling of heavy guilt from your chest, even knowing he was the one walking out on you.

Your fingers trembled slightly as you opened your phone. No notifications. Not from him. Not from anyone that mattered.

You splashed water on your cheeks, trying to keep your makeup spotless. Patted your face dry, and walked back out. You didn’t look toward Jaehyun’s table. You didn’t have to.

You felt his gaze follow you anyway.

Later that night, after dodging the tentative kiss of your unsuccessful date, you laid in bed, but sleep didn’t come easily.

You reached for your phone, instinctively. Scrolled past the messages you’d archived a month ago just to avoid seeing his name. But tonight, you opened them. Scrolled through them and watched them grow shorter, colder, until the effort started to dissolve into silence.

You closed the messages.

Locked the phone.

Stared at the ceiling until the sun came up.

Four days passed.

You were lying on your couch, curled sideways like a comma, the light from the window pale and watery. One sock on. The other was lost somewhere in the kitchen.

Your phone buzzed once. Then twice. No anticipation. Just muscle memory. You reached for it, already expecting some useless notification—an ad, a group chat, something about the deadlines you’d been ignoring.

But it was him.

Jaehyun: the bookstore café’s shut down thought of you

You stared at the screen, blinking slowly.

It didn’t say much. It never did, with him. But the weight it carried was absurd. Of all the things he could’ve said. Of all the ways to reach out. Your thumb hovered over the reply field. You could pretend not to see it.

But you rolled your jaw slightly and typed back:

Y/n: random didn’t think you still thought about stuff like that

The message was read instantly. A minute passed.

Jaehyun: I don’t. just walked by it not that deep.

You shook your head, your mouth tightening. The way he said - casual, like you were just a passing thought. A book he once read, now covered in dust.

Y/n: then why the fuck text me that in the first place? you lost the right to text me at all the second you walked out I mean, the second you fucked me and then walked out

The typing bubble flickered into view. Then disappeared. Then came back.

Jaehyun: I just didn't know how to bring it up I didn’t lie to you you think I meant for it to go like that?

You felt real anger stir in your chest and scoffed. Actually scoffed. Alone in your apartment, with your phone in your hand and your jaw tight.

Y/n: no, I think you’re a coward you just didn’t want to say anything until after you got what you wanted sex classic so yeah, maybe don’t text me when you pass coffee shops. I’m not a fucking souvenir

That one made him take longer.

Jaehyun: don’t do that I asked to be serious, you said no, I moved on anyway, I didn’t reach out to fight with you

Y/n: I said I wasn’t ready yet. not that I didn’t want to be with you but you didn’t even give it a chance you just backed off

The three dots danced again.

Jaehyun: I left because I knew what I wanted, and you didn’t you said not to label it, so I didn’t don’t rewrite that now just because you’re mad

Y/n: so you think what you did was right? pretending that what we had meant nothing?

Jaehyun: it did mean something that’s why I didn’t want to keep dragging it out things would only get worse for me

You swallowed.

Y/n: oh yeah, poor you. you're an angel

Jaehyun: jesus, Y/N it was one message that's all it was

You stared at the last one for a while. Your phone screen dimmed. Then lit up again when you touched it.

You didn’t want to reply. You wanted to throw your phone against the wall, or maybe press call and scream at him just to hear how calm he’d be on the other end.

But instead, your thumbs moved again.

Y/n: was it all meaningless to you?

A pause. Long enough to feel like maybe he wouldn’t answer. Then he did.

Jaehyun: none of it was meaningless to me I left because it was the opposite of that you're the one who pushed me away in the first place

That one got under your skin. You sat up straighter, chest tight.

Y/n: can you stop blaming me for that? last time I checked you left me for someone else you pulled away first you changed the second I said I wasn’t ready for labels you stopped calling. You stopped showing up didn't even try you were halfway out the door before I even pushed it

Another pause.

Jaehyun: I wanted something solid you wanted space I gave it to you

Y/n: you didn’t give me space you gave up

He didn’t answer right away. You locked your phone. Set it down. Not noticing how your eyes had teared up. Picked it back up. Reopened his chat.

Jaehyun: and you never asked me to stay not once

And there it was - the guilt you had been pushing down in your chest ever since he left you that night. But you ignored it.

Y/n: I didn’t think I had to I thought you’d stay because you wanted to be with me stupid of me, I guess

Read. No reply. You were about to lock your phone again when—

Jaehyun: y/n. you told me how you liked your freedom how you didn’t do labels how you weren’t ready I tried to believe that was enough. that maybe I could live in the in-between with you but I couldn’t so I left what's so wrong about that?

You breathed in slowly. And typed.

Y/n: it's how you did it, jaehyun you never communicated how you felt and when you finally decided you'd had enough of me, you fucked me one last time and left me crying and now you're here texting me about a fucking café

Another pause.

Jaehyun: I thought about you that’s it didn’t expect it to turn into this

You sat there, chewing the inside of your cheek. You didn’t know if you were more hurt by his honesty or by how casual he still sounded.

Y/n: well it did

There was a long pause. You thought maybe that would be the end of it. That he’d finally shut up and disappear like he always did.

But then you saw him writing and deleting multiple times. Before it struck you.

Jaehyun: can we meet? just talk, clear the air

You didn’t want to go.

You told yourself that three times while putting on your coat. Five more on the bus ride there. And again while standing across the street from the park, half-convinced you’d just walk past and go home.

But you didn’t. Because a part of you wanted to see him. Needed to know if the way he’d left you—so quietly, so cruelly—had haunted him even half as much as it had haunted you.

The park was mostly empty. Overgrown grass, cracked pavement, that fountain that hadn’t worked in years. There was a sharp chill in the air, enough to cut through your sweater. You crossed your arms tighter, more for comfort than warmth.

And there he was.

Sitting on the edge of a bench like it was nothing. Like this was any other day. Jaehyun. His elbows rested on his knees, staring at the cracked pavement in front of him. His hair was messier than usual, curls pushed back with one hand like he’d been running his fingers through it over and over. His black hoodie was too thin for the weather.

He looked exactly like you remembered. You hated that you noticed all of it.

He didn't see you at first. You approached slowly, and he looked up as you did. His face stayed neutral — unreadable in the way that used to drive you insane. He stood when you got close, but didn’t move forward. Didn’t smile. Didn’t say your name. Just gave a slow nod, like you were business.

"Hey."

You didn’t say anything at first. You stayed where you were, the cold wind brushing over your skin and dark curly hair, your heartbeat loud in your ears. “I’m here,” you said eventually. “So talk.”

He nodded again, like he didn’t expect anything else. Gestured to the bench. “You can sit. If you want.”

You didn’t. “I’ll stand.”

He sat back down, leaned forward, elbows on his knees again, fingers threading together. His eyes stayed low. “I don’t have a whole speech planned or anything,” he said. “Wasn’t trying to make this into something it’s not.”

You snorted under your breath. “Right. I didn't expect you to.”

His jaw flexed. “I just thought it made sense to talk. In person.”

You didn’t answer. Just looked at him—really looked. The same long lashes. The same damn mouth you’d kissed a hundred times without thinking. And now, the sight of him made your throat ache.

He ran a hand through his hair, kept his eyes forward. “The way things ended… it didn’t feel right.”

You laughed once, short and humourless. “You think that’s what this is? You trying to make things feel right?”

Jaehyun didn’t look at you. “I didn’t plan that night like that.”

You took a sharp breath. “Yeah. Like it wasn’t a choice.”

“It wasn’t meant to go like that.”

“But it did,” you cut in, voice tight. “You knew exactly what you were doing. You fucked me, and then, when you got what you wanted, looked me in the eyes, and told me you were seeing someone. You think that doesn’t sound like it was very well planned?”

His head turned fast. “That’s not fair.”

“Oh, sorry,” you said, teeth clenched. “Am I being unfair now?”

“You said you didn’t want anything serious.”

“I said I wasn’t ready,” you hissed. “Not that I didn’t care. It's not the same thing.”

"It felt the same!" he snapped, finally standing up. His voice was louder now, sharper. "You kept saying you liked your space, your freedom — that you didn’t need anyone. What the hell was I supposed to think, Y/N? You wanted me close but not too close. Wanted my heart but wouldn't give yours back."

Your eyebrows furrowed. "And you never gave me a chance to! You pulled away first. You decided I wasn’t worth waiting for."

“I waited,” he said, stepping closer. “I waited longer than you think. I kept hoping you’d just say something. Anything. That maybe one day you’d look at me and decide you wanted me the same way I wanted you. But you didn’t. You never did.”

“And so what?” you shot back. “You gave up? Just like that? You didn't even try.”

He let out a sharp laugh, bitter. "Try? I was the only one trying. You think getting you books that reminded me of you wasn’t trying? Showing up when you were stressed out, taking you for midnight rides, listening to your rants and to your silences — that wasn’t me trying?"

You stepped forward now too, close enough to see the wetness brimming in his eyes. “Then why’d you leave right after sleeping with me, Jaehyun? Why wait until after sex to tell me you were seeing someone?!”

“Because I didn’t know how to say goodbye to you!” he shouted, and his voice cracked. “Because if I’d told you before, you’d never have let me close. And I was fucking desperate to be close to you one last time. Is that what you want to hear?”

Your heart thundered in your chest. “So I was just a body to you? A goodbye fuck?”

“No!” he barked. “No, you were never just a body. Don’t you dare twist this.”

You shook your head, voice trembling now. “You didn’t just break my heart, Jaehyun. You made me feel disposable. Like all of that — everything — was only real for me.”

He stepped back, breathing hard. His hands were trembling. “It was real. All of it. That’s why it hurt so much to stay. I wanted more. I needed more. And you—” his voice cracked again, “—you didn’t.”

“And you couldn’t wait,” you said, voice low but fierce. “You couldn’t believe I’d eventually come around. You just had to run.”

“I couldn’t keep waiting for someone who never even asked me to!”

Silence fell over the both of you then, heavy and breathless. Neither of you moved.

He blinked, once, twice. Looked away, stepping away and rubbing one hand over his face. His voice, when it came, was quieter. “Shit. I didn’t mean to scream at you.”

You exhaled shakily, nodding. Your eyes were wet.

Another silence. One that said too much.

You sat down finally, feeling your legs shake beneath you. The bench was cold against your skin. A moment later, Jaehyun sat down too, but kept space between you.

“I saw you,” you said. “At the restaurant.”

He didn’t ask where. He didn’t ask when. “I didn’t know you’d be there,” he said softly.

“She touched your face like she knew it. Like it belonged to her.”

He looked at you, and his voice cracked when he said, “It doesn’t.”

You looked away. Your voice was quieter now. “Then why didn’t you come back?”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to.”

“You could’ve asked.”

“I’m asking now,” he said.

And your heart stopped.

Just for a second — but it was enough. Enough to make the cold in your bones feel like fire. Enough to make your ribs ache from how tightly your lungs refused to expand.

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Something behind your ribs was clenching too tight, too painfully. A wall you’d built so carefully trembling at the seams. Commitment had always tasted like surrender to you — and now it loomed in his eyes like a quiet plea.

He saw it. The hesitation. The panic flickering beneath your expression. Your lips parted like you were about to say something — but no words came.

Jaehyun’s eyes dropped. And when he spoke, there was no anger left in him. Only a tired sort of softness, laced with something that felt like resignation.

“Let me take you home,” he said.

You looked at him. At the slope of his shoulders. The way he didn’t reach for your hand this time.

And then you both stood. Side by side. Not quite touching.

And walked. The bus stop wasn't far but you decided to walk your way home, because part of you didn't want your time with him to come to an end. Because there was still so much left to say.

It was quiet at first. The city had started to slow down, the occasional bike passing by, distant chatter from someone’s open window. You watched your own breath cloud in front of you.

He was the one to speak first. “You still pulling all-nighters for anatomy?”

You jokingly rolled your eyes at the topic. "All-nighters? Please, I’ve become nocturnal. I am the night."

He chuckled, then glanced at you — the laughter fading quickly.

You glanced at him. “Still at the lab until midnight?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “Most nights. It’s worse now. Deadlines stacked like hell.”

You nodded again. The silence returned, but it was different this time. Not cold. Just… tentative. He kicked at a loose stone on the sidewalk. “Does your best friend think I’m an asshole?”

You let out a breath — the closest thing to a laugh you could manage. “She has her reasons.”

He looked over at you, something like a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Fair.”

The walk stretched into another few blocks. Comfortable conversation between you, catching up on what you missed in each other's lives in the last month. You didn’t say to turn left where you normally would because he knew his way to your place like it was his own. When you reached your building, he hesitated at the gate.

You opened the gate and turned back to look at his calm face, soft smile, and understanding eyes. And then he mumbled, "I'll see you around."

Three days later.

You didn’t mean to text him. You really didn’t.

You’d gone the whole day pretending you weren’t still thinking about that day. About the way his eyes watered slightly, just enough for you to notice, when he raised his voice at you for the first time. About the way he looked at you like he did when it all began. Just to whisper a low 'let me take you home' with hopeless eyes full of restraint as his hand didn't even come near yours during the walk, just to end up pulling away completely.

You could still feel it — the moment slipping between your fingers. The weight of his presence. The ache of everything unspoken.

And maybe, in the back of your mind, a quiet voice had already started to admit it: That it hadn’t just been him. That your inability to commit, your insistence on space and detachment, had pushed him into the arms of something simpler.

So when you found yourself standing in the kitchen, staring into the open fridge, your thumb moved without permission.

Y/N: do you remember the name of that noodle place you took me to once? the one with no sign and metal tables. near the station, I think.

You hit send. And instantly regretted it.

Not because it was too much — but because it was too obvious. Because you didn’t ask how he was, or say you missed him, or apologise. You asked about noodles. And yet, you knew both of you would read between every line.

He read it almost immediately. No typing bubble. Just silence.

Then finally:

Jaehyun: Seong’s. the place with the tiny stools and the broken heater.

You smiled — small, involuntary — because of course he remembered the heater. You’d both frozen your asses off that night and still stayed until they kicked you out. You were the last two people in the whole restaurant, gloved hands wrapped around tin bowls, breath fogging up the windows.

Y/N: yeah. I walked past the street today and thought of it. thought of you too.

You waited. This time, the typing bubble came almost immediately.

Jaehyun: I think about you more than I should. don't know what to do with it.

Your heart thumped once, then again — slow, painful, deliberate.

You sat down on the cold tile floor, back against the fridge, and typed slowly.

Y/N: I’m not really sure what I’m doing either. I hate how we left things. i feel like there are still a lot of things to say

Another pause. You thought he might back away now. That you’d pushed the door open too far.

But then:

Jaehyun: i still don't know where you stand on this are we gonna repeat the same cycle?

You blinked.

The quiet truth of it hit you somewhere low in the gut.

Y/N: I don’t know. I think maybe I already ruined it.

He took longer this time. But you waited. You waited because for once, this wasn’t about being right. It was about being honest.

Jaehyun: you didn't.

Your eyes burned suddenly. You tilted your head back against the cold door, blinking hard.

And then you typed:

Y/N: do you want to come over?

Another long pause. You imagined him — sitting on the edge of his bed, hand running through his hair, probably staring at your message like he was afraid it was a trick.

But then

Jaehyun: I’ll be there in twenty.

You locked your phone. Got up slowly. The fridge door still hung open, humming quietly behind you.

And for the first time in days, you didn’t feel quite so cold.

When the buzzer rang, your breath caught. You stood frozen for a second, eyes fixed on the door like you weren’t sure you were ready to open it.

But your feet moved anyway. The lock clicked. The door opened.

And there he was.

Jaehyun stood in the doorway, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket, hair a little messy from the wind, eyes darker than usual beneath the yellow hallway light.

You stepped aside to let him in, wordless, and he brushed past you quietly, his shoulder grazing yours.

You didn’t expect the silence to feel this loud.

Jaehyun stood in the middle of your living room like he wasn’t sure if he should take his shoes off or leave altogether. His eyes flicked to the couch, then to the floor, then—finally—to you.

You’d never seen him look like that before. Not angry. Not cold. Just… unsure. The usually so relaxed, nonchalant guy didn't know what to do with himself.

You rubbed your arm absently, suddenly aware of the too-quiet air between you, of the slight tremble in your breath, of how small this space felt with him in it again.

“You can sit,” you said softly, not quite meeting his eyes. “If you want.”

He nodded once, then lowered himself to the edge of the couch like he was afraid of sinking too deep into anything.

You sat beside him.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

It wasn’t uncomfortable, exactly. But it wasn’t easy, either. It was something else — like the space between you was fragile, waiting to be handled gently or shattered.

Your knees were barely brushing, and even that small contact made your skin feel too warm.

You glanced sideways at him. He was looking straight ahead, jaw tight, fingers laced together in his lap like he didn’t trust his hands.

“Can't believe that plant is still here,” he said quietly after a moment, looking at the dry flower you kept in your living room. “That same plant that’s always half dying.”

You let out a breathy laugh. “It’s resilient.”

“Or just neglected.”

That made you smile, a little. He didn’t.

When you turned toward him, your shoulder brushed his, and you could feel him tense beside you.

But you didn’t pull away, and neither did he.

Your eyes met.

And for a second, nothing else existed.

The room fell away. The city. The noise. The weeks. The girl he sat across from. The fear. The hesitation. The version of yourself you’d been clinging to that told you love was something you weren’t meant to hold.

None of that mattered in this breath.

You glanced at him. So many moments between you had burned, fizzled, slipped. And still, he was here. You had told yourself you didn’t need anyone. But right now, in this breathless quiet, you weren’t so sure. “I miss you,” you whispered.

It came out quieter than you meant it to — not dramatic, not even deliberate. Just honest.

He blinked. His jaw shifted, his lips parting slightly like he wasn’t sure if he should admit anything.

Then he said it.

“I never stopped missing you.”

You didn’t think. You just moved.

Your lips met in a crash of silence. There was no hesitance now — no soft lean-ins, no caution. Just heat. Raw, unfiltered heat.

The kiss stole the air from your lungs. It was gasping, hungry, too much and not enough all at once. Your hands gripped his shoulders like you were grounding yourself, his fingers already at your waist, pulling, tugging — desperate to be closer.

His mouth tasted like tension. Like weeks of withheld words and nights spent remembering the taste of you. He groaned into your mouth when your fingers tangled in his hair, tugging just enough to break his breath.

He pushed you back gently, just enough to lay you down against the couch. His body moved with yours like he remembered every angle, every breath, every whimper. You wrapped your legs around his waist and he pressed into you like he couldn’t bear even an inch of space.

Every touch was too much. Every brush of his lips down your neck was a plea. You arched into him when his hand slid under your shirt, fingertips skating up your ribs like he was rediscovering the lines of you. Your breath hitched. He paused.

"You sure?" he whispered, voice low and hoarse.

You nodded. “Yes. Please.”

Clothes came off in pieces, fumbled and frantic. His mouth never strayed far from yours. Every second without your lips felt like something was missing.

When he finally entered you, it was a slow, aching slide. A sound slipped from both of you — somewhere between relief and devastation.

You buried your face in his neck as he moved. Deep, steady, deliberate.

It wasn’t just sex. It was memory. It was longing. It was a silent scream of I’m still here.

His forehead pressed to yours, your lips brushing between every gasp. He whispered your name, almost crying it out, like it anchored him, like he was afraid he might lose you again if he didn’t say it enough.

You clenched around him, moaning brokenly into his mouth. “Jaehyun…”

“I know,” he breathed, his palm petting your messy hair. “I know.”

Your hands roamed every inch of his back, his shoulders, his chest — not like you were touching him for the first time, but like you were trying to memorise what you’d almost lost.

The world narrowed to the sound of your breaths, the slick rhythm of your bodies, the creak of the couch beneath you. The tears that slipped down your cheek weren’t from pain. Or pleasure.

They were from all the things you still couldn’t say.

And when you finally came — shuddering, clinging, whispering his name like a prayer — he followed with a broken groan against your throat.

Neither of you moved for a long time.

You stayed wrapped around each other, his arms around your waist, your fingers in his hair, your chest pressed to his.

There were no promises. No confessions.

Just breath.

Just skin.

Just this.

____

The room was now quiet and dark.

Your bodies had long since cooled from the heat, but neither of you had moved. The only light came from the streetlamp outside, flickering pale and golden through the blinds, casting slow-moving shadows across his bare chest, across your collarbone.

You lay half-draped over him, your arm on his stomach, your face near his neck. You could feel his heartbeat. It hadn’t fully steadied.

“Are we gonna talk about it?” you murmured.

Jaehyun didn’t move. “About the sex?”

You let out a soft laugh, nose brushing his jaw. “No, you idiot.”

“Because if we are,” he added, tilting his head with a playful grin, “ten out of ten. Would do again.”

You swatted his chest, a cheesy grin on your face. “Stop.”

He caught your wrist and pressed a lazy kiss to your knuckles. “Okay. What do you want to talk about?”

You were quiet for a moment.

“This… us,” you said. “It’s not gonna work if wekeep being so stubborn. If we both keep wanting to be right all the time.”

He blinked. “Are you about to admit I was right?”

You groaned. “God, you’re the worst.”

He laughed — that low, quiet laugh he did when he was happy and didn’t want to show it.

But then you both fell silent again.

You shifted slightly, curling into him, your face burying deeper in the curve of his shoulder. “We don’t know how to compromise.”

Jaehyun nodded. “I think we both just want to be understood. And forget to try to understand the other.”

“And we never say sorry.”

“We say sorry with sex.”

“That does not count.”

“Feels like it counts,” he muttered. You elbowed him, and he grunted, grinning despite it.

“I mean it,” you said, softer now. “If we want this… to work… we have to actually want to work for it.” You didn’t say it out loud, but you knew that if this broke again, it would break differently. Deeper.

“I do,” he said, almost immediately. “Even when you drive me insane.”

You grinned, "I do too."

A beat passed. Then his voice, slightly different now:

“You know what also drove me insane?”

You looked up at him, your chin now resting on his chest. “What?”

“That guy you were with at the restaurant.”

You blinked, a teasing grin growing on your lips. “Oh god.”

“He looked like he used the word ‘delightful’ unironically,” Jaehyun rolled his eyes in playful annoyance.

You laughed. Loud and sudden. “He literally did! Like twice!”

Jaehyun made a face of mock agony. “See? I knew it. That guy was a menace.”

“You had no right to be that mad,” you said, smirking. “You were there with your perfect jawline and your cozy sweater and your little blonde wine-sipping mouth-wiper.”

“You’re impossible.”

You shrugged. “You started it.”

He was quiet for a second. Then: “Did you kiss him?”

You tilted your head at him. “Would it ruin your night if I said yes?”

He narrowed his eyes, looking down at you with brows furrowed. “Did you?”

You paused dramatically, just to watch him squirm. Then: “No. I didn’t. I kept comparing him to you.”

“Poor guy,” Jaehyun murmured, laying his head back down, smug now. “He didn’t stand a chance.”

“You’re insufferable.” You tried to glare. It melted halfway into a smile. “What about her? What did you do to the girl,” you asked, afraid of what was to come after the question.

He shook his head. “Didn’t even hold her hand. It felt… off.”

"She seemed familiar, tho. Wiping your mouth and all that."

“Was she? Damn. Guess I was too busy trying not to choke on my wine while you played footsie with Discount Harry Styles,” he deadpanned, and you let out a surprised, loud laugh. And then, when you calmed down, "She could’ve wiped my whole face and I still wouldn’t have looked away from you.”

“First of all, it was one accidental tap. Second of all, he had great curls. You're just jealous of the curls.” You laughed together, both recognizing the teasing tone in your voice.

You both fell quiet again. But this time, it felt safe.

Then he asked — casually, like he was almost afraid of the answer — “So… what was it, really? Why did you push me away?”

Your breath caught a little.

You turned onto your side, facing him, the blanket loosely wrapped around your waist now, your arm across his chest.

“I think…” you started slowly, “I’ve just spent a long time pretending I don’t need anyone. It’s easier that way. Safer.”

He didn’t interrupt. Just watched you, his fingers tracing idle shapes on your hip.

“Every time something starts to feel real, my first instinct is to pull away. Not because I don’t care — but because I care too much. And that terrifies me.”

You swallowed.

“I get scared that if I let someone in, they’ll either want too much or leave. So I keep distance. I make jokes. I change the subject. I convince myself I’m better off alone. And then I hurt people without meaning to.”

Your voice cracked on the last part.

“I thought I was protecting myself. But I think I was just pushing away the one thing I wanted.”

He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear.

“I’ve never wanted to be someone you're scared to love,” he said softly. “I just want to be someone who makes you feel safe. Even when you’re scared.”

Your throat tightened.

“I’m still figuring it out,” you whispered.

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll figure it out together.”

And that was enough.

His lips found yours again — slow this time. No rush. No heat.

Just promise.

It wasn’t perfect. Not even close.

You still avoided your feelings when they got too big, falling into silence or forced jokes — still got scared of closeness, swallowed your feelings until your chest felt too tight, and said you were fine when you weren’t. And he still went quiet when something hurt, retreated behind his walls like silence might keep the peace and give him control of the situation, mistaking quiet for control. Years of emotional armor don’t just fall away because you finally say the things you were too afraid to say before. Not even with love. Especially not with love.

But now, you saw and understood each other.

He noticed when you started folding into yourself, even if you joked through it. He could read the tilt of your shoulder, the edge in your laugh, and knew when you were slipping beneath the surface. And he didn’t pull away anymore — he reached further. Even when you resisted, even when you said “don't insist.”. Now, he did insist.

And you stopped letting him disappear. You called him out when his messages got shorter or his eyes stopped meeting yours. You'd press, even when it turned into raised voices and late-night fights, even when he said “it’s nothing” four times in a row. You didn’t back off. Not anymore.

It was still messy. It still hurt sometimes. But you tried again.

There were two toothbrushes now. Two mugs permanently drying on the rack — yours chipped at the rim, his with fading math jokes printed on the side. A playlist you built together slowly, one song at a time. Your panties that always ended up in his drawers, his hoodie somehow always on yourchair. Texts that said “pick me up?” and replies that always said, “already outside”. Laughter — the kind that echoed off walls during burnt-toast mornings and grocery runs. Tiny arguments over dishes. Soft apologies whispered into skin. There were his arms around her waist while she brushed her teeth. Her fingers in his hair when he fell asleep on the couch mid-paper. Shared inside jokes.

And still, somehow — always — the heat. The fire.

It wasn’t just comfort. It wasn’t just routine. It was hunger, still — the kind that burned hot and fast when their eyes met across a room. The kind that had them tearing at each other’s clothes like they’d been starving. Had them tangled in sheets and gasping against doorframes like they couldn’t get close enough, bodies fitting like they were made for each other. It was his hands on her hips like he remembered every inch. It was her mouth at his neck, like she needed to leave a mark. It was hunger, still, for every version of each other. Familiar and feverish. Known and new.

But more than the heat, it was this: they didn’t leave when it got hard. They didn’t weaponize silence. They sat in the discomfort. Asked the hard questions. Stayed up too late whispering truths that hurt but mattered. They didn’t walk away.

Instead, they learned how to stay.

They weren’t perfect. But they were learning how to be soft with each other. How to fight fair. How to ask the hard questions and stay in the room even when the answers hurt. How to build something that felt like safety — not because it was easy, but because it was chosen.

And somehow — in the mess, in the noise, in the rhythm they rebuilt from the wreckage — they had become each other’s peace. Each other’s storm. Each other’s fire.