LITTLEWOLFIE

You had long since lost count of time, with nothing but darkness surrounding you and no hope for any light to work its way into this godforsaken pit, days were passing by without your knowledge. It had been years at this point, how many, you didn’t know but long enough for the world outside to be a distant echo and for your presence to have faded into a pitiful whisper.

Years passed by with only the reminders of your old life to keep you company; you often dreamed of those times your brother carved out time in his day to braid your hair or when you would both jump out of the windows late at night to fly over Velaris together. You’d dream of your mother, how she’d let you sit and ‘help’ her make dresses or that time you were so outraged when you were learning how to fly and she pushed you straight from the balcony of the House of Wind so that you had no choice but to fly.

Your days were filled with flashes of them all; your mother, Rhysand, Mor and Cassian.

You wondered how much of life had moved on without you.

Was Rhysand High Lord yet?

If he was, how had your father died?

Had Rhysand found his mate?

Had he made her High Lady like you both always spoke about?

In those extra difficult times that your control slipped even further, those memories of the Shadowsinger would linger the harshest.

You did not like thinking of how much his life had moved on without you.

Rhysand and Feyre stood together in the kitchen of the townhouse, looking through the window into the garden where Elain was tending to the flower garden and Azriel was sprawled out nearby, sunning his wings.

“Do you think the Cauldron can make mistakes with mates?” Feyre asked him, a look of confused anguish on her face.

Rhysand looked towards his mate, surprise dancing in his eyes at her question. “Nobody truly knows what makes the cauldron put two people together. They’re not always perfectly compatible, my own parents were examples of that, they never truly loved each other. Others, like us, are lucky to find love with their mate.”

Feyre continued looking out into the garden. “Why couldn’t the cauldron have made Azriel, Elain’s mate, instead of Lucien. Lucien is good but they look good together,” Feyre pointed out to where the Shadowsinger was still sprawled on the grass.

A pulse of pain pulled through their bond causing Feyre to snap her eyes back to Rhys. She was surprised to see the pain in his eyes, it wasn’t just any pain. It was the sort of pain that lingered and dwelled, a grief that would forever remain no matter how much time passed but there was also a subtle protectiveness in his eyes that could almost be missed.

Feyre was confused.

Rhysand swallowed a lump in his throat before speaking. “Do not mistake Azriel’s kindness towards your sister as affection. He is spending time with her because I ordered him too, to try and understand her powers. You’re reading into something that isn’t there.” His voice was stern but not unkind.

Feyre’s brows furrowed at his words. “It would be an honour for Azriel to find his mate, with anyone.”

“Azriel does not want a mate, Feyre.” The sheer confidence in Rhysand’s words only confused her even more.

“But why would he not want a mate? I thought everyone dreams of having one.” She questioned, looking out at Azriel’s figure in the garden.

She thought Azriel of all people would want a mate.

“Azriel has already had his great love,” Rhysand said. “No mating bond could ever live up to that for him. There are loves that even the cauldron cannot compete with.”

“What?” Feyre asked, shock taking over her face. “Who?”

That pain appeared in Rhys’ eyes again, a quick flash but it was there. “I meant it when I said I have no secrets to keep from you but not all stories are solely mine to tell. I am not going to tell you Azriel’s secrets.”

Feyre nodded silently. She understood, it didn’t diminish her curiosity but she would not pry for answers that weren’t hers to have.

Azriel’s footsteps were silent as always, shadows licking at his heals and fingertips as he walked towards Rhys’ office.

Not bothering to knock, his gloved hand unlatched the handle as he stepped inside. “You called, brother?”

Rhys was sat back in his chair, unsurprisingly dressed in his formals but the conflicted look on his face ruffled his demeanour. “I’d like to preface by saying you haven’t done anything wrong, my mate simply is too nosey for her own good and sees things she hopes are there rather than reality at times.”

Azriel’s face remained at an impasse other than the slight narrowing of his golden, hazel eyes.

Rhysand sighed. “Feyre is under the impression that you and Elain may make for a better match than her and Lucien.”

The control Azriel had on himself immediately slipped as he stepped back, eyes widening in shock, fists clenching by his sides as his shadows fluttered around him. “No. Rhys, I would never-”

“I know” Rhys interrupted. “I am not accusing you of doing anything, Az. I just thought it best to let you know.”

Azriel shifted uncomfortably at his words. “You know there is no one else, there never has been and there will never be anyone else.” He insisted, wanting his brother to believe him.

Rhysand’s gaze softened. “I know. I have never doubted that even though it would be okay if eventually-”

“No!” Azriel’s cut him off, “There will never be another.”

“Okay,” Rhys conceded. “I just wanted to let you know, Azriel.”

Azriel nodded his head, not hesitating in taking his exit, leaving Rhys there in a suffocating silence of loss.

“You’re distracted,” Cassian dropped his stance, looking towards Feyre intently.

His High Lady sighed in frustration, leaning back against the ropes of the sparring ring.

“What’s on your mind?” He asked.

Feyre pursed her lips in contemplation before relenting. “Did you three actually used do things in the same room as each other?”

Cassian barked out a deep laugh at her question. “That’s what’s on your mind?”

Feyre shrugged sheepishly.

Cassian shook his head, a large smirk tugging at his lips. “Well, Rhys and I did. It would be a bit weird and incredibly uncomfortable for us all if Azriel did.”

Feyre tilted her head curiously, “Why?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be very nice for Rhys to see his best friend having his way with the girl he loves more than anything, would it?” He said, as though it was obvious. “Besides, Azriel has way too much respect for him to do that anyways.”

Feyre’s eyes widened in shock but there was also a sickening feeling of jealously bubbling in her stomach. “So, Azriel and Rhys loved the same girl?”

Cassian, way too focused now on stretching to acknowledge how his words had been interpreted. “We all love her but those two always have and always will love her most. She’s their number one girl.”

Number one girl.

Feyre did not like the sound of that at all. She hated it and she hated herself even more because of the jealously that gnawed at her. “They didn’t hate each other for that?” She questioned.

Cassian shook his head, mid lunge. “Azriel had no reason to hate Rhys. It was difficult for Rhys to accept in the beginning and Azriel understood that but Rhys saw how much love was there, it was impossible to miss so who was he to stand in the way of that?”

Feyre stood in thought for a moment. “So, Rhys loved her first?”

Cassian laughed. “Of course he did. It’s not really a competition though, is it?”

She didn’t answer him, she simply stood there, thoughts swirling.

Feyre hated herself, she hated that she could not stop thinking about this girl who must have been something really special for both Rhys and Azriel to both love.

She’s their number one girl.

No matter how hard she had tried to not think about it, she couldn’t help it.

“What’s on your mind, Feyre darling?” Rhys’ smooth voice slipped through the silence of their bedroom.

She looked up at him from her place at the edge of their bed. “It’s nothing,” she stated simply.

Rhys frowned at her dismissal, placing his watch on his bedside table before walking to stand in front of her. He pressed a palm to the side of her face. “Tell me what’s on your mind?”

She sighed, mostly in frustration at herself, partially in his insistence to talk about it. “Where you in love with Azriel’s mate?”

The utter bewilderment that appeared on Rhys’ face made her immediately regret her words and watch to shrink back in on herself. “What!?”

Feyre shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she tried to pull away but Rhys kept his hand on the side of her face, steadying her.

“Azriel doesn’t have a mate,” he told her, utter confusion lacing his words.

Feyre shrugged, “Were you in love with the same girl then?”

“I’m so confused, no?” Rhys said, having absolutely no idea where she could’ve gotten this from. “Where have you gotten this from?”

Feyre looked at him, frustration beginning to build within her. “I asked Cassian about how you used to do things in the same room, he said you and him did but not Azriel because it wouldn’t be nice for him to be pleasuring a girl that you loved! He said she was yours and Azriel’s number one girl.”

Rhys pulled his hand from her face and placed it over his mouth. The confusion in his eyes had faded into a an amusing sparkle as his shoulders began shaking with suppressed laughter.

“What!?” Feyre huffed. “What are you laughing at!?”

Rhysand released a full deep chuckle at her frustrations. “Cassian is an idiot and you are utterly beautiful when you’re jealous.”

“I am not jealous!” She argued.

Rhys simply raised an eyebrow at her, completely unconvinced. “You’ve completely misinterpreted Cassian’s words, Feyre darling. It is still not my story to tell but I can promise you that Azriel and I have never been in love with the same girl.”

It had been five centuries since the disappearance of you and your mother and Azriel had never been the same.

Long before he met you, Azriel had learned what it meant to live in loneliness with nothing but his shadows for company but loneliness in response to your absence was never quite something anyone could become familiar with.

It was an endless void of nothing. Normally the thread of silence would at least end somewhere; a place where you simply got used to the feeling of someone not being there; but not with you.

It had been five centuries since your last laugh and that entire time Azriel has spent sleeping in your room. The room that sat right next to his own where your beds were pushed against the shared wall so even in your own beds you would be sleeping as close as you could get to each other.

It remained exactly how you left it, the same books sat on the nightstands, the same jewellery littered across a dressing table and a beautiful dress of deep blue with glittering silver stars on the bodice hung from the door of the closet, preparing to be worn for a day that never came.

Each morning that Azriel woke and got ready for the day, his last words to the House of Wind always remained the same. Leave it exactly how she left it, please.

The House always listened.

Whilst Azriel no longer slept in his own room, it had changed. The walls that were once a basic white had been transformed into a purple so unique it could only reflect the colour of your eyes.

In those rare moments that Azriel was able to relax away from the world, he would lay in his bed and stare at the walls of his room and whilst they could never reflect the light in a sparkle the way your own eyes could, the paint would simply have to do.

The winter chill of the Illyrian Steppes bit harshly into your cheeks as you ran through the thick snow into the forests surrounding the Windhaven camp.

The males were awful here, brutal even but even they knew to leave the daughter of the High Lord alone and so you were free to wander without the risk of your wings being torn from your back.

The trees created sanctuary for you here, as you weaved in between them you thought of your brother, Rhys and how quickly he would lose his mind once he found you gone.

A deep rooted feeling of being watched suddenly stirred in your stomach causing you to pause. It was the most subtle weight you had ever felt and yet you could not help but feel it as it settled into your bones.

You cast a quick glance up into the branches of the trees above you, where their leaves and twigs clashed and combined with one another, it took a moment for you to spot them but eventually you did.

Within a particular tall tree that was shaped in all groves and turns towards the top, deep within the shadows is where you saw him.

A male.

Sitting, observing.

“Hello,” you greeted softly.

No answer.

“What are you doing up there?” You asked.

The shadows fluttered and twitched at first before melting away into a black mist behind the males shoulders, revealing his face.

“Oh,” you whispered, taking in the hard expression of his face. He had hair of a dark midnight sky, eyebrows just a shade lighter that were furrowed deeply, shadowing his eyes that, against his dark features, seemed to glow golden when they narrowed towards you. He was all sharp lines and tensed muscles.

He shifted slightly in his place against the branches of the tree before stepping forward and allowing himself to gracefully drop down in front of you, merely inches away as he stared down into your eyes.

“How did you see me?” He asked, his voice was rough and deep for his age, possibly a couple years older than you, but his tone was steady.

“I didn’t,” you admitted. “I felt your eyes on me.”

It was then that you took notice of just how tightly his wings were pulled in at his back, a complete contrast to yours that were much more relaxed; pulled in just enough to protect them but let out enough that you didn’t have to consciously hold them in all the time, “you’ll get back pain holding them in like that,” you told him, pointing briefly at his wings.

They twitched in response, shadows fluttering wildly around the tips of his wings. It wasn’t a purposeful movement, that you could tell.

“I can’t control them,” He admitted to you.

Your brows furrowed, “what do you mean?”

“I cannot fly,” he said. “I never learned how to control them.”

You stepped back at his words. “You can’t fly!?” You spluttered in outrage. “Why can’t you fly? Are you injured?”

He shrugged in a way that showed this wasn’t a big deal to him, as though it was normal. “I wasn’t allowed outside,” he stated simply.

You frowned, the idea of not being allowed outside was unfathomable to you. “You weren’t allowed?”

“My father didn’t let me,” his words remained even, unaware of the turmoil that was stirring in your gut the more he spoke, a turmoil that you couldn’t quite explain.

“Why?” You asked.

“Because I am a bastard,” he said, his tone empty and detached, as though he had long since accepted that was all he was reduced to.

You did not like how he seemed to convinced that that’s all he was worth.

“You’re a Shadowsinger,” you pointed out, remembering old tales of myths and legends you had read before. “Those are very rare.”

The shadows clinging to him fluttered and preened at the tips of his wings and over his shoulders as though they understood your words.

Azriel nodded in response, feet scuffing into the dirt often forest uncomfortably at your words.

“That’s so cool!” You whispered in awe, the admiration you felt was completely authentic but you were also hoping it comforted him a bit.

He looked at you, the only hint of confusion on his face was the soft crease between his browns and the subtlest tilt of his head. “You’re not scared?” He asked.

“Of what?” You laughed, as though the idea was absurd.

“Of me,” he raised one of his gloved hands, tapping his index finger into his chest.

“Have you given me a reason to be scared?”

He paused at your question, internally baffled at this entire interaction. “I suppose not,” he muttered to himself, the idea of you not being scared simply just from his presence was beyond him.

“What’s your name?” You abruptly changed the subject.

He was silent for a moment, contemplating whether he should tell you or not. “Azriel.”

“Azriel,” you repeated softly, testing how it sounded. “That’s a beautiful name,” you told him.

His shadows twitched, his wings almost flinched at your complement, Azriel shifted uncomfortably.

“Do you want to be my friend, Azriel?”

“I’ve never had a friend before,” he admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t think I’d be good at it.”

You pursed your lips in response, looking around the forest floor before speaking. “I’ve never really had a friend either, there’s my brother, Rhys, but he doesn’t count. Do you have any siblings?”

Azriel tensed at your question, his entire body stiffening, hands clenching in his gloves. “No, it’s just me.”

“Well,” you began, “I’d be honoured to be your first friend, if you’ll be mine?”

You were beyond confusing to Azriel, the first person besides his mother to not look at him with fear or disgust, to look at him and just see a person.

Azriel did not reply verbally but he didn’t need to, you didn’t mind and so he simply nodded in response earning a beaming smile from you.

“Spread your wings out wide,” you instructed softly.

“They’re heavy,” Azriel muttered, wings spreading in stuttering movements, face twisting slightly as he concentrated on holding them.

Your eyes ran along his wings now that they weren’t tucked in painfully right, taking in the large span of them, they fluttered under your gaze, completely against Azriel’s control.

“That’s because your back muscles aren’t used to holding their weight, we’ll need to strengthen them,” you explained, eyes snapping away from his wings, towards his own hazel eyes instead.

“How do we strengthen them?” He asked.

“Exercises, most are trained from babies to use their wings so it comes a lot more naturally but we can do it together.” You smiled at him encouragingly.

You knew this was hard for him, you knew he thought he wasn’t worth your help and you knew that this entire situation was uncomfortable for him but you wanted to help him and you liked spending time with him.

“I struggled with flying at first,” you admitted, hoping it would comfort him in some way.

His eyes stopped glancing to the trees around you, now focused. “Really?”

You nodded. “Yeah, Rhys was flying before he could walk but I was too scared to do it. I didn’t trust myself. I kept imagining my wings just not working one day and falling to my death.”

Azriel shifted subtly, shadows restless. “How did you do it?”

“I had no choice,” you said. “One day my mother and I were looking at the stars from the balcony of our home and she just pushed me off, I had no choice but to trust my wings or fall and I flew for the first time that day.”

Azriel’s eyes widened. “She pushed you off the balcony!?”

You smiled widely. “Yeah, I was so angry, I didn’t speak to her for a week but it worked. I won’t be pushing you off ledges until you can hold your wings properly though.”

You could detect the subtle relief that reflected in the golden hazel hue of Azriel’s eyes, as though he expected you to be able to push him off of any ledge and force him to command his wings that didn’t seem willing to answer him yet.

At some point, you will take great joy in pushing him off a cliff.

Not yet though.

Only when he was ready.

“Where does my starlight keep running off to?” Your mother’s gentle voice filtered through your ears as she brushed through your hair carefully.

You were silent for a moment, contemplating whether to reveal your secret. “I made a friend.”

You felt the comb pause briefly against your head before it continued. Your mother hummed absentmindedly. “Did you? Do I get to meet this friend?”

You pursed your lips in contemplation, an unexplainable feeling of protectiveness surging through your body. “He’s shy, he doesn’t like being around people,” you told her.

You missed the amused smile that appeared on your mother’s face, no doubt intrigued at the strange protectiveness that you had for your age. “He?” She asked, almost teasingly.

You huffed in response but a smile grew on your face that you couldn’t stop. “Yes,” you said strongly before your tone shifted to pride. “He’s my friend, I’m teaching him to fly.”

Your mother paused entirely, turning your body to face her own causing your eyes to meet her own that held the same violet hue she passed down to you and your brother. “Teaching him to fly? How old is this friend?”

Your shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe Rhys’ age. His father never let him outside so he can’t fly.”

Worry clouded your mother’s face at your words. “Is he a good boy?”

A bright smile overtook your face at her question. “He’s the best! He’s very quiet but he still speaks to me and he listens to all of my complaining and his shadows play with my hair!”

“Shadows?” Your mother’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“He’s a Shadowsinger,” you whispered. “Those are very rare.”

“They are,” she repeated. “Don’t tell your father about him, starlight.”

“I would never,” you swore, your voice demonstrating the dramatic outrage of a child who couldn’t fathom sharing information like that to your father. “Mama?”

“Yes, starlight?” She asked, turning you back around so she could start braiding your hair.

“Don’t tell Rhys, okay?” You told her, your brother could get way too protective, it was embarrassing.

“I would never tell Rhys, starlight. Or Cassian.” She promised.

“Definitely not Cassian.” You agreed.

“I’m not ready!” Azriel protested, warily looking over the edge of the cliff you had pretty much dragged him too.

“You are ready!” You argued. “You’ve got great control of your wings and your muscles are as strong as can be!”

Azriel shook his head, shadows darting around him, showing his nerves. “What if I fall?”

“Then I’ll catch you!” You replied simply.

“I’m too heavy for you to catch me!” He protested.

“You are not, I’m strong!” You argued, outraged at his accusation. “I’ll hold your hands?” You proposed, already reaching out towards his own gloved hands.

Azriel looked down at your outstretched hands, hesitation clear on his face, he really wasn’t sure about this but he did really want to be able to fly.

He relented, placing his hands in yours, earning himself one of your bright smiles, stars twinkling happily in your eyes.

Your wings fluttered slowly, not enough to lift you off the ground, just enough to encourage Azriel to copy your actions.

You slowly increased the force at which your wings beat, air building with the crevice of each controlled flap of the membrane.

Azriel copied your movements, his own wings much larger in comparison to any you’ve seen on other children your age, your own were quite big for a female Illyrian so young.

Azriel felt the change in gravity, the way his feet were itching to leave the ground on their own accord, as though his body was fully attuned and aware to what was currently happening even if it was unfamiliar.

“You’re doing it,” you whispered proudly, your own feet lifting off the ground before Azriel’s but your hands stayed in his as you remained stationary in the air, feet just slightly off the ground as you waited patiently for his own body to rise into the wind.

“You’re so close, just a bit more.” You encouraged him.

The second the air swept beneath Azriel’s feet for the first time, it felt as though his entire body was about to fall backwards as he had nothing to stand on but your hands tightened on his own, keeping him straight as he unsteadily rose with you, trying to focus on keeping his wings moving.

“It’ll come naturally the more you do it,” you told him. “You won’t even have to think about it.”

Azriel wasn’t so sure about that but as he felt the wind beneath his wings as he became airborne for the first time, with your hands holding his, he chose to believe you anyway.

“You’re flying Azriel!” Sheer joy and pride filled your face as you looked at him, he thought you looked beautiful like this.

The wind causing your hair to flutter around your face, eyes sparkling at the freedom that flying gave you and your smile took up your whole face as it always did.

Distracted by the sight of you in your element, Azriel lost focus of his wings causing him to quickly drop a few feet but your hands tightened on his just as his heart dropped in his chest out of panic.

He concentrated on beating his wings again, fluttering slightly higher than previously.

But even as he concentrated on flying, his mind was also on something else.

You had caught him, just like you said you would.

Wake. Wake. Wake.

Their hissing little whispers nudged you from unconsciousness. The cold concrete of the cave dug uncomfortably into your back. You groaned, shifting as your eyes opened, adjusting to the thick, clouded darkness you had been forced to endure for five centuries.

Another day it remained the same.

A sharp, slithering coldness nudged against your cheek, and again against your fingertips. You looked down in confusion, taking in the grey-black strands of darkness fluttering around your hands.

You raised your hands slightly, it was hard to see clearly but they resembled beings you had not seen in a very long time. The dark strands fluttered around your fingertips as you stared intently at them and in a movement so sharp, one lone sentient being jumped to your shoulder.

Your head snapped to the side as you looked at it, moving around, nestling into your clothes that had long since been reduced to scraps of fabric.

The beating beneath your chest stuttered as you stared at them.

Shadows.

They were shadows.

Master. Master. Master.

She hears us. She hears us.

They fluttered around you in a way that seemed to portray excitement.

Was that them talking?

“Azriel?” You whispered, broken yet that sick part of you still held a bit of hope.

Many years you had locked out memories of the Shadowsinger yet it never worked too well, you could never forget him and you would never forget the sentient beings that obeyed him either.

No.

They almost sounded like hisses.

“Not Azriel then.” You muttered. It did not surprise you, not really.

You didn’t understand.

“Another Shadowsinger?” You asked, it earned that same excited fluttering dance as before. Yes.

But who? You wondered.

It seemed they knew your thoughts too.

You. You.

Your face contorted into confusion. You weren’t a Shadowsinger.

You allowed yourself to think of Azriel again. Not of him exactly or the feeling of his love that had faded long ago but of his story.

Azriel had not been born a Shadowsinger.

How had Azriel become a Shadowsinger?

He had been locked in a dark cell for eleven years and had no choice but to find companionship within the darkness itself.

Oh.

“You’re my shadows.” You did not question this time.

Yes. They hissed again.

“But the faebane chains?” You wondered aloud.

“Shadows are not magic, they’re simply part of me.” Azriel had told you that before.

You studied them again, more intently this time and whilst they resembled the shadows of Azriel’s so very much there was the slightest hint of a difference; they weren’t just a grey-black, they had the slightest underlying tint of purple.

They truly were yours.

Release chains. They muttered, not to you, to themselves, fluttering around frantically.

“I can’t,” you whispered in long accepted defeat. “They won’t come off, someone else needs to do it.”

Your newly acquired shadows ignored you, muttering to themselves.

Shadowsinger will do it. Spymaster will do it.

But your energy was draining again, conscious slipping into darkness, your shadows slipping through the cracks of the cave without you knowing.

Azriel had been born alone and he would die alone.

He had accepted that was all life was made for him, there were those years he had you, moments were he thought he’d have you forever but you were taken, brutally slaughtered along with your mother in the spring court.

He had never and will never forgive himself for not being there to protect you. Truthfully he did not know how Rhysand could go on with life after that, not that his High Lord and brother didn’t deserve to live, he did, but how had grief not taken his sanity Azriel would never know.

He would never know how Rhys could look in the mirror and not see the shadows of his mother and sister, not when some days Azriel could not look into his eyes and see the very reflection of the young woman he lost, his woman.

It would forever just be Azriel and his shadows.

Another night that Azriel slept in your room alone, beneath your sheets, on the pillows you always hid that ridiculous stuffed bat beneath.

When he awoke this time though, it was different.

His shadows, usually fluttering lazily were muttering and batting around recklessly, their unease settling in Azriel’s chest, having the spymaster looking around the room carefully.

The only thing that seemed wrong were his shadows themselves, it was as though they were fighting each other?

Intruder. Intruder. They hissed, flying into each other as though they were in a sort of disorientated state. Azriel had never seen anything like it before.

Deep down, Azriel understood that there was no intruder in the House of Wind but he did not understand what they could be referring to.

The bond between himself and his shadows was strange. They told him things yes, but a lot of their communication came down to feelings, he felt their unease, their frustration, as though they were participating in an internal battle.

But why?

He sat up in your bed and observed them closely. He too, could see that there was something off but couldn’t quite put his mind to it.

Intruder. But where?

The shadows hissed at each other, floating around the room in distress, it was when the golden rays of the morning sunrise shone through the balcony window that he saw it.

His eyes, always so sharp, caught that difference in his shadows. Not his shadows, he concluded. Eyes widening, he reached out to that invisible thread and called his shadows back to him with a snap.

There it was.

A small cluster that did not return to him, a cluster of shadows that looked just the slightest different to his own. That underlying purple tint was not his.

He tried to reach out, tried to find that tether to them.

Nothing.

They did not seem threatening though.

They fluttered and danced around before him, as though they were trying to communicate with him but could not.

Help. His own shadows muttered.

“Help?” He questioned.

They plead help. They hissed into his ears. Another Shadowmaster. Trapped.

Azriel shook his head, he was the only shadowmaster.

No. They hissed, more stern this time, as though telling him he was wrong.

Azriel removed himself from your bed, pulling on his Illyrian leathers as quickly as possible, not even strapping his weapons to himself. Instead he simply grabbed Truthteller alone into its sheath.

He approached the bedroom door, turning to see if those other shadows would follow, they were.

He let himself out of the room, shadows, his and not his following behind closely, he barged into Rhys’ study causing the High Lord to jump, not that he would ever admit.

“Azriel?” Rhys greeted, looking up from his papers in barely concealed surprise. “A knock would be nice.”

“We have a problem.” Azriel simply responded earning Rhys’ full attention.

“What is it?”

Azriel held out a gloved hand and while Azriel had no means to communicate with these shadows, they understood him and gathered into his palm, fluttering into a rounded shape.

Rhys simply looked at them in confusion. “What am I looking at? New party trick?”

Azriel shook his head, face contorting as he studied them. “They’re not mine, I can’t communicate with them.”

“What?” Rhys uttered to himself.

“There’s another Shadowsinger out there,” Azriel responded, mostly to himself. “They communicate with my shadows but I can’t understand them myself.”

“Another Shadowsinger?” His High Lord mumbled, shaking his head. “No, you’re the only Shadowsinger alive.”

“Not anymore,” Azriel argued, his and the guest shadows beginning to flutter wildly in their own disagreement. “Apparently they’re trapped.”

Chained. His shadows corrected. Caved.

“Chained,” he spoke aloud.

“Perhaps for good reason,” Rhys argued, whilst Azriel was his brother and he trusted him beyond measures, he was well aware just how powerful Shadowsingers were, if this other Shadowsinger was locked away then perhaps it was because it was deserved.

Azriel shook his head, a sort of confused anguish taking over his features as he observed the shadows sitting in his palm. “They don’t feel threatening, or evil. They’re scared, pleading for help, for freedom.”

“How do you know they’re not pretending? That this other Shadowsinger hasn’t sent these here to play a ruse just to get their freedom?” Rhys asked.

The guest shadows in his palm shrunk down in defeat whilst his own fluttered in agitation around his shoulders and the tips of his wings.

She doesn’t know they’re here. She can’t control it yet.

Azriel listened to their whispers with widened eyes before looking at Rhys. “She cannot control them, this ability must be newly manifested, they came here on their own. Besides, shadows don’t work like that, they can’t fake feelings or emotions.”

“She?” Rhys sat up straighter in his chair at the newfound information.

“I can’t explain it, Rhys,” Azriel muttered, deep in thought. “I have this feeling that I need to free her, I don’t know why, it just feels right to.”

Those lone little shadows of yours clung to Azriel in the following days, against your knowledge. Azriel spent that time preparing himself for rescuing you, not that he knew it would be you he was rescuing, trying to gain as much information as he could through his own shadows translating messages back and forth with yours.

It was strange for Azriel, not only that there were sentient echoes of darkness that for some reason he could not communicate with but also knowing that somewhere out there, trapped and alone, there was another like him, another who could communicate with the darkness and melt into the shadows, even if it was a new manifestation.

The cave you were imprisoned in, he learned, was located somewhere in The Middle, because of course it was.

What other place would be sick enough to have trapped a person so long that the shadows had sought them out?

Trapped for centuries. The shadows had told him.

Bound by faebane chains, tormented by memories of a time that had long since faded.

Azriel, in all he had been through and in all his grief and terror over the years, could not imagine being trapped within the same four walls for hundreds of years.

He had barely lasted eleven, Rhys had hardly lasted fifty and yet out there, a poor woman had lasted hundreds of years, alone.

A woman of his kind.

The cave, as Azriel stood before it, was hardly a cave. It was more a carved hole in the ground, hidden by overgrown moss and shrubbery that even he, a spymaster, would have overlooked had he passed by without your shadows leading him to it.

He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to squeeze his overgrown body into it.

Your shadows shot forward like whips, diving into the underground cave, no doubt snapping back to you, even though your lack of control, they were drawn to you, desired to be close to your being.

Azriel crouched down, inspecting the gap in the ground, his own shadows fluttering around in agitation, some even darting ahead into the cave. He peeled off his outer layers that he strapped his weapons to, sending them down into the cave before him.

Risky, no doubt, but he felt no threat towards whatever presence was inside this cave, only an innocently, trapped Shadowsinger.

One that meant no harm, only desiring freedom.

He heaved himself through the gap, the concrete lining the underground cave scratching against his arms and shoulders as he dragged himself through, gravity doing most of the work, allowing him to drop down onto solid stone and rock.

It smelled awful; blood, dirt, faebane and a hell of a lot like someone had long since lost the will to live.

He saw the chains, loads of them, hanging from the ceiling, from the walls, even some bound to the ground with bolts.

Even as someone bound by shadows and member of the Night Court, Azriel could not see clearly in the darkness of this pit but his shadows led the way, they led him to your shadows.

Your shadows that covered just about every part of you, hiding you as though attempting to protect your presence from anyone who could possibly mean harm, leaving you just the image of a darkened, fuzzy blur.

“I will not harm her,” Azriel promised. “I only want to free her, take her back to the Night Court, help her heal and gain control.”

He saw the way they hesitated, how they debated whether they had made the right decision in finding him or not.

She trusted you. They whispered, confessed. His own shadows translating. Long time ago.

Azriel did not know what they meant by that. Had he known her once upon a time?

It was when they finally relented and made the decision to fade away from covering your body that Azriel, despite all the gore and torment he had witnessed in his life, felt like he was going to be sick as his eyes fell upon the battered figure of a young, fae woman.

His fae woman.

No. He shook his head, as though it would shake the sick illusion from his mind.

Yet you remained in his sight.

He knew that figure, that hair, those lashes. It has all haunted his every sleep and movement for the last five hundred years. The colour beneath your eyelids that he had drenched his walls in, that he would look upon every morning and every night.

Even unhealthily slimmer than you had been five hundred years ago, there would not be a single moment or a single version of you in which Azriel would not recognise.

The first person who had shown him grace, who had shown him that kindness and love does in fact exist, the person who had given him the family that he still clings to today in hopes of grasping at every last remainder of you that he had believed was long lost.

Your name was a ghost on his lips as he surged forward, shadows following, your own fluttering at his shoulders now as he unsheathed truth-teller and sliced through the chains binding you to this sick prison.

The dagger you had given him.

The first gift he had ever received.

He collapsed to his knees beside your battered, unconscious body.

Your breaths shallow, wrists and ankles raw from centuries of imprisonment, body all but skin and bones.

He smoothed a marred thumb over your cheekbone, hands shaking as he took you in, your body surrendered to his touch as though finally, it had found something safe it could relax itself in.

And though you were unaware, still in the depths of your mind, your eyes had fluttered open, a deep purple hue that he had missed for hundreds of years.

Azriel choked on a sob as he gazed upon you again, his soul shattering open at the sight of the only person he had ever loved in his five hundred years walking the lands of Prythian.

He felt the moment part of his soul tore from his chest and landed straight into yours, a golden thread deep within him keeping it tethered to himself even though it now sat with you.

Her birthday was on a sunny day and she had texted her son that she had decided to have the celebration outside in their pretty and big garden.

You hadn’t bought a present for her but Minho said it was alright and that he had already fixed a present for her and that it could be a gift from both of you.

It was like he just took for granted that the present was from both of you.

And you didn’t even get a chance to say no.

Not that you didn’t want to, it just made your head spin even more than before, around the thoughts about what you and Minho really were.

Maybe you never really were friends to begin with?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You were standing in your bedroom with Kyuri sitting on the bed, her feet dangling from the beg with happiness.

Minho was in the bathroom, taking a shower to wash off yesterday’s stream and feelings. The shower was loud enough to sip through the door, the water drops falling down like pouring rain.

You were going through Kyuri’s wardrobe while she looked at you with big eyes, her fingers playing with her bunny plushie. You had laid out some options for her that she just brushed off, saying it was too plain to have on a birthday. She wanted to look fancy for Minho’s mom’s birthday.

“What about this, sweetie?” You softly asked while holding out a light blue dress with small pink flowers on it.

“No, mommy, it’s too basic.” Her voice was soft, filled with early sleep.

“Mmm, Kyuri baby, you have said that at everything that I have shown you.” You replied, your fingers still gracing the light blue dress.

You turned around and saw how she hoped down from the bed, fingers leaving the bunny plushie behind her on the bed, her small feet landing on the floor, padding towards you.

She walked up to you and her small hands reached out to gently grab at your hands. Her whole hand closed around your pointy and middle finger.

“Mommy, I don’t.. know what to wear.” She whispered, quietly so only you heard her.

You slowly crouched down and rested your interlocked hands carefully against your leg, your thumb drawing small circles on her skin.

“What do you have in mind that you want to wear then sweetheart?” You carefully asked, not wanting to rush her into something that she wouldn’t be comfortable wearing.

“Something light but.. I have to look pretty for Min-min’s parents.” She replied, her voice soft and excited.

You looked at her, really looked at her, her small features, her slightly messy sleepy hair. She still looked sweet, peaceful.

But the way she said that she needed to look pretty for Minho’s parents stuck too deep inside your head. Because she has never been a person that doesn’t care if she makes a good or bad impression on someone else.

You already knew Minho’s parents would love her.

But when she stated the words, you knew it mattered to her more than you could ever imagine.

You leaned in to kiss her temple before you let go of her hand, stood up and walked to her other wardrobe, where she had some more dresses and clothes that was in a lighter shade that she had bought when her mind decided that she should do a small change.

You reached for the knob and opened it, searching between the hangers of clothes before you found the dress that she wore the first time she met Minho.

It was a light beige dress, short armed and with some small frills that were shaped as flowers on the end of the arms. It was a thin fabric so it was not to warm so she would sweat in it and not to cold so she would freeze.

Kyuri was still standing by the first wardrobe but she had turned her body towards you and her eyes lighted up when saw the dress you held out.

“What about this one, you want to try it?” Your voice came out louder than you intended because you realised that the shower wasn’t going anymore.

You looked towards the bathroom door and saw Minho standing in the door opening, a smile playing at his lips, his hair wet and plastered away from his forehead, he had a towel wrapped around his waist. Water-drops skimming down his toned skin, he looked absolutely ravishing.

You looked at him and saw how his eyes wandered over you and Kyuri, soft and sweet. You quickly looked away from him, not wanting him to see the small blush that crept up on your face.

“Yeah, I want that one.” Kyuri said, her voice high and you saw how her eyes drifted to Minho standing in the doorway.

She made out a small smile when she padded over to where you were standing and took the dress from your hands, put it on the bed and held your hand to balance herself when she stepped out from the previous dress she tried.

“Mommy, what are you and Min-min wearing?” She whispered when she had clothed herself.

“I think I’m going to wear something light like you, sweetheart.” You said, your voice low and wobbly.

“Yay! Then we all can match!” She happily replied, skipping her way over to the mirror.

You saw her standing in front of the mirror, looking at her herself, it made your heart melt. Seeing your little girl dressing herself like it was the easiest task on earth.

She looked fancy standing in her light dress with frills, nothing like the crying Kyuri yesterday.

Because the tension from yesterday still lingered.

Nothing that you and Minho couldn’t break through but it was still hard for Kyuri.

You saw it in the way she avoided Minho more than usual when he came home yesterday like she didn’t really know how to say sorry. You knew she never wanted Minho to feel bad but she also didn’t know how to say sorry to make him feel better.

So when she finally made up the courage to say it, settling herself down on the couch beside him, watching the tv play, something in you just went away, the stress, the hurt, the pain.

She needed to say it and he needed to hear it.

She made her way to you and slowly tapped your leg to indicate that she was happy in the choice you made for her.

“Mommy, do my hair later?” She slowly asked, her eyes gracing over your face.

“Of course, baby, why don’t you go out in the living room for a while and wait for me and Minho to get ready, hm?” You replied, slowly reaching out to run your fingers through her hair.

“Okay, mommy!” She happily said, skipping out the door and down the hallway.

You stood there, slowly watching her run out the door and disappearing.

She looked absolutely stunning in her little dress.

You didn’t even dare to look at Minho who was still standing in the doorway, the stupid towel wrapped around his waist and his dark hair pushed back so his delicious forehead was showing.

You heard him let out a small sigh, the sound of him letting go of the door lining was too loud in the thundering apartment.

The hard wood floor creaking under his movements.

You stood frozen on your spot when you felt him coming closer and closer before he stood right behind you.

The warmth of the shower and his warm breath fanning your neck, his arms lifted to slip around your shoulders to rest on your chest, fingers caressing your shoulder. He slowly pushed the side of his face against your head.

You felt yourself letting go and you leaned back against him, slowly tilting your head to rest against his collarbones, feeling the water slowly soaking your hair. Your hands come up to hold his forearms, fingers gracing the warm skin.

You gently turned your head and pushed the side of your face closer to his, pressing your nose to his neck, feeling his pulse point and inhaling his soft, soapy smell.

“She looked as cute as you right now.” He whispered, his voice tingling in your ear.

You slowly traced his arms, the warm skin lovable for your own good.

“Yeah..” you replied, your face still pressed to his neck. “She really had a hard time deciding.”

“You managed to get her something she actually wanted to have on.” He said, his arms tightened around you as the minutes passed.

“You saw the way I fought, right?” You laughed out.

“You were doing good.” He replied, seeing his visible smirk.

You sighed, slowly pushing yourself closer to him, by the time passing, Minho’s body had been drying, his toned warm body soft behind you. His still soft wet hair tickling the side of your face.

You always knew that Minho had been well toned and trained, not hard-work gym trained but still trained enough to take breaths away.

Still toned enough for you.

He had always had that soft muscles, he was not thin or overly muscular. He was slim, neat, perfectly muscular for his own good.

Minho had always been good-looking and over the years you had known each other, he just become more and more confident.

“Should we match?” He softly spoke after a while.

Your breath caught and you stiffened slightly, your body sensed that he also felt it.

“If you want.” You breathed out, still face deep into his warm neck.

You didn’t except him to hear when Kyuri said that she wanted to match clothes with you and when your brain acknowledged it, you became more aware of the fact.

That Kyuri really meant what she said and that it wasn’t something just out of happiness. Nobody other than her would be happier if the all three of you matched with the light theme.

Maybe you should match?

Just for the sake of Kyuris happiness and your aching hearts?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Minho’s arms had let go of you and you were now sitting on the bed, the cushions soft under you. Your eyes drifting over to him time to time when he easily moved around in the room.

You had slipped on your dress, a light white long silky dress with spaghetti straps and an open back. Your legs were bare and the dress was pooled around you when you sat on the bed.

You sat there for a while, letting your thoughts run free before you managed to get up and walk to the bathroom to start on touching up your makeup and fix your hair.

You walked into bathroom, the polished hard marble floor cold under your bare feet. You slipped to the mirror and stood in front of it, looking at yourself, you looked neat, put together.

Not like the single-mom you who spent morning and nights helping and watching over your little daughter who was everything to you.

Taking care of her like it was all you ever had done in your entire life.

Kyuri was an easy baby, sure.

She never cried at night, at least not in the beginning.

She ate whatever you gave her, if it was baby food, she ate it, if it was meatballs and potatoes, she ate it.

She never complained, just only when she felt like she needed it. She was easy to drop off and get her home from daycare.

She was the easy child you never knew you needed.

You did your hair in a bun and added some blush and highlighter before you gently skimmed your hands over your body to smooth over your dress when you saw Minho’s figure stepping inside the bathroom through the mirror. Minho was wearing a light linen shirt, see through enough for you to feel the blood rush to your face. He had opened half of the buttons, so his delicate honey skin was visible, the fine line of his collarbones. He looked mesmerising, he had a pair light beige pants on that matched his whole style.

“You look beautiful.” He whispered, pushing himself from the doorway.

He slowly stepped behind you, his hands reached out to slipped around your waist, resting lightly on your hips. Your eyes found his in the mirror before you slowly pushed yourself back against him, your back against his chest.

You dropped your hands from your dress to carefully hold onto the sink counter when you felt his hands grip the fabric of your dress.

You felt a bit boulder, letting yourself relax in front of him.

Flirting with him as he did with you.

You don’t know if it is the way his clothes hug his body or the way he mindlessly decided to style himself like he was walking sex or something deeper that burned.

In that moment you slowly pushed your lower part back to him, your bum gently graced his core. You felt him stiffened behind you, his fingers gripping your hips tighter when the thin fabric of your clothes graced each other.

You still had your eyes on him and his were fixed on your whole body.

You jumped slightly when you felt his hand drop from your waist, letting go of the fabric to slowly work their way down to your bum, his hand skimming over the silky fabric before he respectfully squeezed your bum.

“Don’t.” His voice was low and dangerous.

His hand remained on your bum, settling over the side of your hip but his thumb still close in contact so he could rub small circles onto the skin over your bum. His other hand remained on your waist.

You already knew what he meant by the words, because someday he would explode too and the words you labelled as friends wouldn’t be “friends” anymore.

Minho is also just a man with normal desires and you are also just a woman with normal desires sharing the same space with a smart 3 year old.

“What, I’m not doing anything.” You whispered, keeping your eyes locked onto his.

“You know exactly what you’re doing to me.” He whispered back, his voice close to your neck.

“Do I?” You gently teased.

His hands tightening on your skin, his hands suddenly leaving your burning bum and waist to quickly spin you around and suddenly you’re pressed up against the sink counter. His arms caging you in his hold, hands finding their way on the counter beside you.

You felt yourself push back so much until your head bumped against the mirror, his body close to yours.

“Don’t you how much I’m resisting these days, jagi?”

“Educate me.” You provoked, still knowing he wouldn’t do anything that you don’t want.

“Every day when I see you with Kyuri, I just wish she was mine.”

“I know, I do too.” You shaky breathed out.

Your fingers gripped the sink tighter at his and your own words.

“I can always step over..our boundaries if you want” He rasped, his voice slightly cracking in the end.

You tilted your head up and his face was close to yours, your noses touching each other, his hot breath fanning over your mouth.

If you just tilted your head slowly to the side, your lips would have collided with each other.

Something in you snapped, so that’s what you did.

You slowly tilted your head and leaned in, letting your lips touch his, his lips were hot and firm against your own. Feeling him sigh against you, he kissed you back with the same carefulness. He slowly pulled back to look at you before his hands left the counter to grip your waist to pull you against his lips one more time.

Your breath hitched as he kissed you again, you worked your lips easily with his, every pull and push was magical.

Your arms slipped up around his shoulder to tangle in his perfectly styled hair.

You pressed your lips to his one last time before slowly pulling back with a shaky, fast breath and you rested your forehead against his. You looked at him and allowed yourself to trace his face, the seriousness and softness in it that he always had.

His styled hair was glorious, he had done it like he always did, putting som gel in but still keeping his middle part with the small bangs hanging soft from his forehead that was now gracing your skin.

You felt his fingers tightening in the fabric of your dress again.

Neither of you moved or said anything for sow minutes, you simply stood there, the warmth enveloping you fast, your face still close to each other, your lips pink and flushed but something stopped.

”Minho..”

He just looked at you before he silenced you by pressing his lips to yours once more. Firm and hot this time, his breath shaky against your own. You didn’t even think, you answered his kiss by pushing yourself closer to him, letting your lips linger on each other.

You know your feelings for each other, you didn’t have to speak it out, it was everything you did for each other, the small glances and touches.

Kyuri wouldn’t be mad if she knew you and Minho got together, she would be over the moon.

So what stops you?

Fear?

Humiliation? Because Minho never once in his life would do anything to humiliate you and you can’t even get that thought inside your head to do that to him.

Nothing stops you, but something is still holding you both back.

But what?

The label Friends?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The drive to Gimpo, to Minho’s parents was fast. You didn’t even mention the kiss between you and Minho in the bathroom. It was like a wall that has been removed, gone. It felt like some of the hard tension, the worry and the ache was gone.

Minho was driving and you were sitting in the passenger seat, his hands displayed on your thigh, bushing up the sliky dress fabric to the side so he had access to lay his hand on your thigh. His thumb rubbing smothering circles onto the skin.

Kyuri was in the backseat, sitting comfortably on the leather seats of Minho’s car. She was chatting with herself, occasionally speaking to you and Minho to ask questions for her cartoon that she was watching when she didn’t understand.

She fit in his car, content and calm.

Minho’s car was an Hyundai Elantra, a black one that was well worked and cleaned. Everything about the car screamed Minho, it matched his whole aura. The drive to Minho’s childhood home was easy, the roads were busy with all kind of cars. Taxis, Ubers, family cars.

The ocean roared with the speed of the car.

The moment you turned in on a narrow street, you knew you were closer to Minhos house than before. You felt yourself sink deeper into the passager seat, slowly reaching down to lay your hand over Minho’s whose hand still resting on warm on your thigh.

“You’re okay.” He resumed you.

You gently gripped his fingers to play with to clam yourself down, glancing back to Kyuri sitting comfortably in the back seat, happily playing with the her iPad and touching the car interior.

“They already love you.” Minhos voice popped up, low and safe.

“You really think that?” You said, shaky with nerves.

“Because we haven’t seen each other in years and now I’m suddenly showing up.” You continued your rambling until you felt his hand slip out from your hold, the warmth leaving your thigh to offer his palm flat up.

You caught a glance of his eyes before you slipped your fingers to his, feeling the warm skin beneath you.

“My mom would the happiest if she saw you again after these years, I promise.”

It was now you realised that you had pulled up on their driveway and was parked in front of their house. It was normal looking house in Gimpo, a slightly bigger house enough to fit a lot of people. The exterior was white and light with traditional design and furniture.

You stepped out from the car and into the fresh air. The sound of the car doors closing was loud enough to rattle your thoughts.

Minho also stepped out, still handsome as ever. He threw a look over the roof of the car and you only gave a nod in response to let him know to take Kyuri out.

He walked to where she was still seating content in the car, completely unaware of the two other people’s actions and feelings were tumbling.

“You alright, princess?”

Kyuri only nodded her head as she stretched her arms out from Minho to pick her up. He unbuckled her seatbelt and hoisted her up into his arms, settling her close on his hip. Kyuri happy to be in the arms of the man she liked so deeply.

You followed his movements when he walked around the car to your side, locking the car and handling his mother’s gift in your hands. His fingers slowly brushing yours. He still looked amazing with his light cream beige linen shirt, pants fitting him too good and sunglasses perched perfectly on his head.

“You ready?” He softly asked, shifting Kyuri in his arms.

“Yeah..” you whispered out, he still heard you.

You stood there looking at him, the bashing on his profile like it never ended. Clothes too sexual and romantic in the same breath for you to function. Kyuri in his arms, like she was made to be there.

Her arms were wrapped around his neck, face flushed flat on his shoulder. Legs dangling from his waist with every step he took. You knew she overly dramatically did the movement look bigger than it was but it still lingered in the back of your head.

━

You walked the steps up to their house and into the garden where all the people were gathered. Minhos parent’s garden was big enough to fit hundreds of people.

The laughter of people and children could be heard throughout the air.

Minhos mother was perched on a small outdoor chair, people swarming her like she was everything and the thing was she was. The people eased out when the saw her son walking towards her with a happy child in his arms. You were walking carefully beside Minho.

Kyuri was still in his arms, she had moved her hands so they were settled on his chest. One of her fingers was fumbling with the buttons on his shirt before she slipped her hand inside his shirt and settled it palm flat against his chest.

You saw the way they both melted. But something in her look and the way her eyes darted around the people felt off.

“Min-min” Kyuri whispered.

“Yeah?” He whispered back. Slowly shifting her so she could see where you were standing.

“Mommy..”

Your head slowly turned and looked at her, her arms stretched out towards you but still sitting comfortably on Minhos hip. It was in that moment you knew being in Minhos arms wasn’t enough to feel extremely comfortable. She needed the number one safe-line to feel safe. You knew she hadn’t completely taken in the surroundings around her and her little brain didn’t allow her to rest.

“Go and say hi to your mom, Minho, I take her.” You softly said.

Your hand comes up to gently touch his shoulder, squeezing, feeling the muscles slowly relaxing under your touch.

Letting him now it was alright and it wasn’t anything that he had done to make Kyuri uncomfortable. Because you knew the second she would be in your arms and the time she needed to take everything in, she would happily run into his arms again.

Because either how much you want to deny that you don’t feel anything towards him or Kyuris too little to know and understand. And you can’t hide from the fact that he may feel the same.

Minho slowly transferred Kyuri into your arms, his fingers gracing her light beige dress. Her hand slowly leaved the warm place on his chest inside his shirt. You saw it in the eyes that he felt the bang of guilt again, that she wasn’t his. Minho sometimes shut you both out, isolated himself on days when he felt off and you saw the sadness he tried to suppress.

You quickly leaned up to kiss his cheek, his skin warm and sun-kissed.

“She’s gonna come to you the second she’s feels safe.” You whispered in his ear.

A kiss to just resume him that everything was still going good between him and her and that you really knew what was going through her head. And you didn’t for one second doubt him about anything that revolved around Kuyri.

Because even if he tries to deny the thought that Kyuri doesn’t like him, he’s lying.

Lying so hard.

You stood there watching him walking over to his mom, hugging her and celebrating her. You felt that maybe this is also just want he needed, something more to call home.

Something to come home to everyday.

And maybe that home had always been you and Kyuri.

Minho looked over in your direction and slowly ushered out a finger to indicate towards you to come closer. You gave a small smile in response, seeing the way his eyes lit up when you moved towards him. You held Kyuri close to you, her body on your hip felt warm and hopeful. Her eyes were still fasten on his siluette even when she was anxious, she still wanted him close.

Like she was something that pulled you and Minho closer than ever before.

And in between that you felt hopeful for what might come.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

He started speaking on things that, in hindsight, should’ve stayed off-camera. The smoking, for one, an open secret at this stage of his career. He’d never glorify it, never encourage anyone to pick it up; he hated the idea of influencing someone like that. Still, the fact that he mentioned it at all felt huge.

He talked about the “friend” living with him. Let that friend wander in the background of his lives, laughter and half-appearing shoulders making cameos, even while the company sent increasingly pointed reminders not to.

He was getting bolder, and it worried you.

When would he decide that he didn’t care about anyone’s opinion on his relationship status? That was the part that made your stomach twist every time he went live with that easy, dangerous smile.

He deserved this freedom. After years in the spotlight, micromanaged down to his hair color and sleeve length, he deserved to feel comfortable in his own skin. To live how he wanted. To share what he wanted.

The problem was Jungkook was both calculated yet impulsive.

Telling fans about quitting smoking had been impulsive in the moment, even if the thought had lived in his head for weeks. He’d told you in private that he wanted to share that victory with them, wanted them to know he’d done something hard and ugly and come out the other side. But when he actually said it? It wasn’t part of any plan. The words just tumbled out, no clearance, no script, just a casual confession that sent chats and timelines spinning.

That was how his brain worked. He would think, and think, and think about something until it carved a groove in his brain… and then one day, without warning, all that consideration condensed into a single “fuck it” and he’d jump.

You adored that about him in some situations. New motorcycle? “Fuck it.” Piercing at 2 a.m. in some random shop because he liked the vibe? “Fuck it.” Last-minute trip when he had one free weekend for the first time in months? Absolutely, “fuck it.”

But when that same impulse applied to the internet, it terrified you. He couldn’t take back what he said online in the same way he could return an impulse purchase.

Because you knew he’d been thinking about the relationship thing. Long before you, he’d turned the question over in his head: If I ever get married, how do I tell them? How much do I owe them, and how much do I owe myself?

Now, you’d been together for years. He was getting older in idol years—still young in real life, but heading into a different phase of his career. He’d told you plainly that he wanted to marry you one day. That he wanted kids with you, a life with you.

And you knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that one day that same “fuck it” instinct could be aimed straight at your privacy.

Your worst-case scenario was never some carefully crafted press release. It was him, a couple drinks in, doing a late-night live, eyes soft and voice low, and casually dropping, “I went to dinner with my girlfriend last night,” like it was no big deal.

No name. No details. Just enough.

Enough for the internet’s FBI-level ARMY detectives to start zooming in and cross-referencing. Enough for someone to pull up schedules and staff lists and blurry reflection shots.

And honestly? It wouldn’t even be that hard.

You worked together. Same company. Same building. Same late nights.

You weren’t invisible. You were just unconfirmed. And with the way Jungkook was getting bolder, you weren’t sure how long that would last.

… “Okay, try it again, but emphasize your words a little more. Add a little more punch to them,” you said into the intercom, thumb resting on the talkback button.

The red light in the vocal booth blinked to life again. Jungkook was on the other side of the glass in his usual big bucket hat, white wife beater, and sweats so oversized they could probably fit two people. The matching hoodie had been discarded over the back of the chair an hour ago, abandoned somewhere between “run it from the top” and “we need to change the pre-chorus again.”

He muttered the line once under his breath, rolling the consonants around like he was tasting them, then stepped into position. You watched his shoulders square, his mouth find the exact distance from the mic he liked, the way his hand lifted to hover near the headphones.

“Gimme that gasoline,

Gimme that, make me fiend,

Gimme that, make me sweat,

Something I can’t forget.”

He pulled back, lips twitching, eyes already flicking up to find yours through the glass. It was instinct at this point—he needed your read on the take almost as much as he needed to breathe.

You hesitated, your producer brain and your very-biased-girlfriend brain briefly wrestling. The words were there. The feel wasn’t.

You pressed the button again. “Not quite. You’re hitting it, but I want it to feel dirtier. Like you’re right on the edge of something.”

Across the glass, his mouth curved. He lifted his hand, thumb and forefinger pinched together, and mouthed, “like this?” with a knowing tilt of his head that earned him exactly zero professionalism from you.

Before you could answer, the booth door swung open and Jimin leaned in, hair a little messy from where he’d been lying on the couch scrolling through his phone.

“Is he flirting with you, or the microphone?” Jimin asked loudly, one eyebrow arched.

You jumped; Jungkook barked out a laugh inside the booth, the sound muted on your side.

“Both,” you said dryly, taking your finger off the talkback button so he wouldn’t hear the smile in your voice.

“Yah,” Jungkook protested faintly from the other side, tapping the glass with his knuckles. “I can still see you.”

“That’s the problem,” Taehyung said as he walked in behind Jimin, hands tucked in the pockets of his sweatpants. He squinted through the glass theatrically. “No wonder he doesn’t want to leave the booth. The view is too good.”

You rolled your eyes and pretended to study the waveform on the monitor. “Do you all need something, or are you just here to make my session notes unusable?”

Namjoon’s voice floated in from outside the door. “We’re here to be supportive and annoying in equal measure,” he said, stepping into the room with a notebook under his arm. “Also, management just called again. They want ‘more English’ on track three and ‘less experimental’ on track six.” He made air quotes as he said it, like the words themselves tasted bad.

You groaned under your breath. Of course they did.

Ever since you’d been flown out to Seoul on what felt like a reckless gamble years ago, a kid fresh out of college with a couple of unexpected hits under her belt, you’d been walking this tightrope. Hybe had hired you as an in-house writer/producer after a couple of your demos for smaller groups quietly blew up. The jump from “unknown freelancer in a tiny studio” to “the person Pdogg calls up to his room because he ‘needs your ears on something’” had been whiplash in the best way.

“Run BTS” had been your accidental introduction to the big leagues. A half-finished pre-chorus mumbled into your laptop at 3 a.m., dragged into a weekly producers’ meeting without much expectation, and suddenly the higher-ups were slicing it apart, trying harmonies, asking you to stay in the room. Months later, Pdogg had played you the near-finished demo with rough guide vocals and your own mumbling still tucked into the pre-chorus. He’d leaned back, looked at you over the rim of his mug, and said, “Welcome to Hybe.”

Now you were here in LA, in a rented house with the biggest group at the label, technically “overseeing” parts of their comeback album. The company trusted your ear enough to put you in the room with them; they trusted your judgment enough to let you push back—up to a point. But they also expected you to make their job easier, to find a way to feed the boys’ authenticity and the label’s bottom line at the same time.

Every day, some variation of the same email landed in your inbox: Not enough English. Too niche. Can we get a stronger hook here? Is there a way to “universalize” this lyric?

Universalize, in this context, meant “appeal more to Western charts.”

“Let me guess,” you said, swiveling your chair toward Namjoon. “They want to change the second verse I just fixed.”

“They want ‘options,’” he said, grimacing. “Which means they want it in English, and I want to not hate myself.”

Jin appeared in the doorway, a protein bar in one hand, the other rubbing sleep from his eyes. “You’re all too loud,” he announced. “Some of us are trying to nap off our existential dread.”

“You were snoring,” Hoseok called from down the hall.

Jin pointed at him without looking. “That was my soul leaving my body after reading the email from Hybe.” He took a bite of the bar and chewed thoughtfully. “So. Are you two done making heart eyes through the glass, or is this part of the recording concept?”

Your head snapped back toward the booth on reflex. Jungkook was leaning against the mic stand, arms folded, a lazy grin pulling at his mouth. He lifted one hand and shaped his fingers into a heart, angling it so just you could see.

You narrowed your eyes and mouthed, “focus.”

He exaggerated a wounded look, pressing a hand over his chest as if you’d physically shot him.

“Don’t worry,” Jimin laughed, propping his chin on the back of your chair. “We’ll tell them you were thinking about the fans the whole time.”

“Please don’t tell anyone anything,” you deadpanned, though heat was crawling up the back of your neck. The company technically knew about your relationship. They’d chosen a strategy of “we’re aware, keep it contained, don’t be stupid,” but that didn’t mean you wanted to feed them ammunition.

Out of everyone, the members had been the first line of defense. They’d rolled their eyes and groaned through the awkwardness, then folded you into the group like it was the most natural thing in the world. But they also enjoyed pushing you exactly as far as they knew they could.

“Okay,” you said, clapping your hands once as you turned back to the console, forcing your brain into producer mode again. “Kook, one more pass from the top of that pre, but lean into desperation. Think…” You searched for a reference. “Think early mixtape energy. Or that one time you begged the manager for extra fried chicken.”

A chorus of laughter erupted behind you.

“Ah, that was a dark day,” Jin said, dabbing an imaginary tear. “He almost cried.”

“I did not cry,” Jungkook protested through the microphone, scandalized.

“He did,” Taehyung confirmed.

“You absolutely did,” Jimin added, patting your shoulder. “He called you after, remember? ‘They won’t let me order more, baby, what do I do?’”

Jungkook’s cheeks flushed even through the glass. He shot Jimin a look that promised revenge and then turned back to the mic, shaking out his shoulders.

“Okay, okay, shut up, let me do this,” he said into the talkback. Then, more softly, looking right at you, “Watch me.”

The room settled. Even with the teasing, even with the company’s emails pinging in the background and the weight of expectations pressing on everyone’s lungs, the second he locked into a take, everything narrowed to that red light, that voice, and the space between your fingertip and the record button.

“Rolling,” you said quietly, and hit it.

…

“Okay, one last  take. With those notes,” you murmured into the intercom.

Jungkook inhaled, shoulders rolling back as he slid in closer to the mic. You watched the tiny adjustments: chin angle, hand hovering near the headphones, the subtle shift in posture that meant he’d dialed in.

“Gimme that gasoline,

Gimme that, make me fiend,

Gimme that, make me sweat,

Somethin’ I can’t forget.”

On “can’t,” he let his voice catch, a tight, needy little whine right at the end of the word. It was the exact thing you’d asked for minutes ago, when you’d told him, “Just give me a bit of a whine there. Like you’re begging for it, not just asking.”

The line hit your headphones and sent a low buzz down your spine.

You let the last reverb tail out, then hit stop.

The room behind you erupted before you could even speak.

“Oh my god,” Jimin groaned, flopping back dramatically on the couch. “No. Absolutely not. You can’t sing that like that. People will die.”

“Respectfully,” Jin added, hand on his heart, “I am not going to prison because Jungkook decided to moan on a pre-chorus.”

“That was not a moan,” Jungkook protested through the mic, though he was already grinning.

Taehyung tilted his head, expression considering. “Mmm. Somewhere between a whine and a whimper,” he decided. “Very on-brand.”

You pressed the talkback. “Pre-chorus is fire,” you said, ignoring the members. “That ‘can’t’ is staying.”

Jungkook beamed, pride punching through the glass.

“I taught him that,” Hoseok bragged from the doorway, having just returned with a bag of chips. “You think he came out of the womb knowing how to whine on command?”

“Hyung, please,” Namjoon muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We’re already skating on thin ice with the lyrics. Don’t make it sound worse.”

You muted the room and ran the take back, just to make sure it sounded as good as you thought. It did. The whine was the perfect crack in the polish: a tiny, hungry sound that made the whole section feel less like a performance and more like a confession. It walked the line between suggestive and explicit beautifully.

Which, of course, meant the company would probably hate it.

You saved and uploaded the comped take ahead of your upcoming meeting and leaned back. “Okay, that’s a wrap on vocals for this one,” you said. “We can tweak ad-libs later, but the main body’s there.”

“Good.” Namjoon checked the time on his phone and let out a short laugh that had no humor in it. “We’ve got that meeting upstairs soon.”

Right. The meeting.

You could practically see the calendar reminder pop up in your brain: In-person check-in: progress, concept, language strategy.

You started closing out the session, labeling tracks, bouncing a rough. The usual shuffle happened behind you—chairs scraping, bottles tossed, the guys stretching out stiff limbs after hours of sitting and listening.

As you stepped out of the control room, Jungkook caught up with you in the narrow hallway, falling into step so close your arms brushed.

“That last take,” he said quietly, voice low just for you. “You really liked it?”

“Yeah,” you said. “That ‘can’t’? Perfect.”

He ducked his head, faux-shy. “I only did it ‘cause you told me to whine.”

“Wow,” Jin said, suddenly materializing on your other side like he’d teleported. “The things you two say out of context.”

Jimin nearly choked on his water. “You told him to whine?” His grin was wicked. “No, say it again slower.”

“Don’t make it weird,” you snorted.

Taehyung, of course, made it weird. “You should’ve heard her,” he said, dropping his voice into an exaggerated imitation. “Jungkookie, whine for me on ‘can’t.’ Like you’re right there. No, more. Really beg.”

You swatted at him, mortified. “That is not what I said.”

“Spiritually,” Hobi said, “that’s what you said.”

Jungkook laughed, that full-bodied, shoulders-shaking laugh that made everyone else smile even if they didn’t know why. “You’re just jealous,” he told them. “She didn’t ask you to whine.”

Yoongi, who’d been walking ahead with Namjoon, glanced back over his shoulder. “You whine plenty on your own,” he said.

Jin put a hand to his chest, mock-wounded. “Our maknae’s all grown up. First he casually drops that he used to smoke, now he’s out here panting on pre-choruses.”

Namjoon groaned. “Please don’t say ‘panting’ in front of the A&R team.”

The mention of A&R sobered you a little.

The buzz of the studio faded as you neared the conference room A glass-walled box a floor up from the main tracking space, currently occupied by a small cluster of people in business-casual who had never spent twelve straight hours in a recording booth in their lives.

On the big screen at the head of the table, a video call window was waiting, filled with black rectangles and names of Hybe staff in Seoul. The little red “Recording” dot at the top of the screen made your stomach knot on instinct.

“Okay,” Namjoon said under his breath as he opened the door. “Everyone behave.”

“Talk to him,” Yoongi murmured, nodding toward Jungkook.

The room smelled like coffee and printer toner, a sharp contrast to the subtle mix of sweat, wood, and electronics downstairs. You grabbed a seat a little off to the side. Close enough to speak if needed, far enough not to be the first person fired upon.

Jungkook sat a chair away from you, between Jimin and Hoseok. Across the table, a few local producers and engineers you’d been collaborating with nodded hello. One of the LA A&Rs, Nicole, gave you a small, sympathetic smile. She knew the game, too.

The screen flickered, and faces appeared—Pdogg, a couple of senior A&Rs, someone from PR, and a deputy manager from the artist division. Little squares of Seoul at some ungodly hour of the morning.

“Hi everyone,” said the lead A&R from HQ, Mr. Kang, adjusting his glasses. “Thanks for making the time. We heard some promising things. We also have… notes.”

Of course they did.

There was a quick round of greetings, polite bows to the camera, the usual “you’re working hard” exchanges.

Namjoon did a succinct recap of where you all were in the process—how many tracks were close to done, how many were still in demo-stage, the rough themes. When he mentioned the track you’d just been working on, Mr. Kang perked up.

“That’s the one with the… hm… ‘gasoline’ hook?” he asked, glancing down at his notes.

“Yes,” Namjoon said. “Fire 2.0. Working title only. It’s still evolving.”

“It’s sexy,” Nicole added lightly, trying to keep the conversation buoyant. “In a good way.”

A few of the faces on the screen smiled. PR did not.

“We listened to the latest rough a couple minutes ago,” Pdogg said then, his voice even. “The energy is strong. Jungkook’s performance is very good.” He looked at Jungkook briefly, a small, remorseful nod. “But Mr. Kang has some notes on the language and tone.”

Here it was.

You kept your face neutral, pen poised above your notebook.

Mr. Kang cleared his throat. “The English sections have improved from the last draft, but the content is stil risky. ‘Gimme that gasoline, gimme that, make me fiend, gimme that, make me sweat…’ and then…” He flipped a page. “‘Something I can’t forget,’ delivered with that–ah, vocal nuance.”

Hoseok snorted, disguising it as a cough. Jin kicked him under the table.

“In the global market, suggestiveness isn’t necessarily a problem,” one of the LA A&Rs said carefully. “But we do need to consider the existing fanbase’s expectations and the brand image.”

“There was also… recent online discourse,” PR chimed in, clicking something on their end. Another window popped up on the screen, screenshots of fan tweets, translations, threads. “Some fans have been surprised by Jungkook-ssi’s more mature comments during lives.”

The screenshot zoomed in on a thread about the smoking thing. Your stomach dipped. The hadn’t failed to mention this in a meeting since it happened–weeks ago.

They’d pulled clips: Jungkook casually mentioning he used to smoke, talking about quitting, the way he’d laughed it off. The responses ranged from worried to proud to, of course, outrage.

“It’s not a scandal, but it did generate conversation,” PR said. “We need to be careful about piling too much of this ‘grown-up’ image at once. It can be polarizing.”

Jungkook’s jaw worked, just a tiny flex.

“It was honest,” he said, voice steady but tight. “I quit. They asked, I told them. I didn’t—” He stopped himself, put a hand over his knee like he needed the physical anchor. “It wasn’t about image.”

“We understand,” Mr. Kand said, eyes on him in that way that meant he really did. “But perception is the point. If we add explicitly suggestive lyrics on top of that, plus certain visuals… it becomes a narrative. We’d like to manage that narrative, not chase after it.”

You inhaled slowly through your nose. This wasn’t new. It had just never been pointed at you this directly.

“Maybe we should hear what the writers think,” Nicole suggested, glancing at you. “Why that line, why that delivery.”

You felt every set of eyes touch your face.

“The hook works because it’s right on the edge,” you said, making sure your voice was calm. “Lyrically, it’s not explicit. There’s double meaning, definitely, but it stays metaphorical. The performance sells the tension without crossing into anything you couldn’t play on a radio edit.”

Mr. Kang gave you a polite smile. “The performance is exactly what concerns us,” he said. “It’s… very intense.”

Jimin tried to help. “Hyung, we’re not teenagers anymore,” he pointed out. “The fans know that. A lot of them are older than us now. They talk like this all the time on Twitter.”

Hoseok nodded. “Honestly, the way they talk about us is worse than anything in that pre-chorus.”

Yoongi, who’d been quiet, spoke up. “We can’t be twenty-three forever. If his real life is more mature now, the music has to grow too. Otherwise it’s fake.”

Mr. Kang’s expression didn’t change, but he didn’t interrupt.

You kept going, aware you were toeing a line. “If we strip out all the tension, the song collapses. The ‘gasoline’ metaphor is about obsession, addiction, that kind of pull. Without that ‘I can’t forget’ moment hitting the way it does, you just have a catchy but empty hook.”

Pdogg’s mouth twitched, like he agreed but couldn’t say it outright on a call with PR listening.

“And you’re confident,” PR said, “that this won’t be interpreted as… overly sexual?”

You hesitated only a fraction of a second. “I’m confident that it’s intentionally ambiguous,” you said. “Which lets people read it how they want.”

Namjoon gave you a small, grateful look across the table.

On the call, PR sighed. “There’s also the cumulative effect,” they said. “The more we lean into these kinds of lyrics, combined with more mature conversations, the more certain segments of the fanbase might feel alienated. Especially younger ones. Parents.”

There it was—that word again. Cumulative. As if the boys being honest and sexy in their own music was an accident that could stack up into a problem instead of… his actual adulthood. 

Jungkook’s fingers were drumming lightly on the underside of the table now, a habit you recognized. He spoke before you could.

“I’m not a kid,” he said. “They know that. I served. I smoke—” He caught himself, corrected, “I smoked. I date. I’m not gonna lie just to keep pretending I’m something I’m not.”

“Jungkook-ah,” one of the managers said gently. “No one’s asking you to lie. We’re asking for… strategy.”

You could feel the weight of what wasn’t being said: strategy about you; strategy about how close the world could get to the truth before stock prices twitched.

“The performance–” Mr. Kang tried again, steering back to safer ground. “Could we maybe adjust the delivery of that line? Less—how did you put it?” He consulted his notes. “‘Like you’re begging for it’?”

Your head snapped up. You hadn’t realized anyone outside the room had heard that.

Namjoon’s eyes went wide. Hoseok pressed his lips together to stop a laugh.

“Who said that?” PR asked, amused.

Jin pointed at you immediately, the traitor. “Our producer-nim.”

Heat flooded your face.

“It was direction for emotional intensity,” you said crisply, ignoring the guys’ smothered snickers. “Not… whatever you’re implying.”

On the screen, Pdogg quietly coughed into his hand.

Jungkook leaned forward, forearms on the table now. “I like it the way it is,” he said. “It feels honest. You brought us to LA to make something real, not to do the same, safe thing again.”

That “you” hung in the air, aimed vaguely at Hybe but landing squarely on the people whose names signed your paychecks.

You could feel the tension shift. The more he dug in, the more it put you between him and them. If you backed him too hard, you’d look reckless. If you didn’t, you’d be another person telling him to swallow parts of himself.

“Maybe we can compromise,” you offered, forcing your brain to move. “Keep the lyric, keep the melodic shape, just… pull back a tiny bit on that last inflection for the main version. Then we can keep the heavier ad-lib for a live or alternate cut.”

Pdogg considered that, nodding slowly. “We can try both,” he supplied. “Give some options, let the performance decide.”

Mr. Kang seemed satisfied with that. “That sounds reasonable,” he said. “We trust your judgment, Producer-nim.” He glanced at Jungkook. “And we trust your instincts, too. We just want to make sure you’re not giving everything away at once.”

Another subtext. Another dig. Another reminder.

There were a few more notes—more English in the bridge of another track, a suggestion to simplify a Korean idiom that “might not land internationally,” a discussion about title track contenders. You spoke when asked, defended what you could, mentally flagged what you’d have to massage later.

Eventually, the call wrapped. Polite bows. Promises to send new drafts. The screen went black.

The moment it did, some of the stiffness seeped out of the room.

Nicole exhaled. “Well,” she said. “That could’ve been worse.”

“Could’ve been better too,” Yoongi muttered, closing his notebook.

You started gathering your own notes, the embossed HYBE logo on the cover suddenly feeling heavier than paper should.

“You okay?” Namjoon asked quietly as he passed behind you.

“Yeah,” you said, and almost meant it. “Just… a balancing act.”

He gave you the kind of look that meant he understood more than he was going to say out loud in front of everyone, then moved on.

As the others filtered out in small clusters, Jungkook hung back. When you finally turned, he was still in his chair, arms crossed, eyes on you instead of his phone.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said softly.

“Do what?” you asked, though you knew.

“Take the heat for the line,” he said. “You could’ve just said, ‘yeah, we’ll change it,’ and moved on.”

You shrugged one shoulder. “They hired me to have a spine,” you said. “If I don’t fight for the song, I’m useless. I like the line the way it is.”

His mouth quirked, not into a real smile, but something close. “I meant—” He glanced toward the door, ensuring it was empty, then dropped his voice. “You always end up in the middle. Between them and us. Between me and… everything.”

That wasn’t an accident. That was the job—and the relationship—you’d chosen.

“It’s fine,” you said. “I can handle it.”

He watched you for another beat, something protective and frustrated flickering in his eyes. “Still,” he said. “Thank you.”

Before you could answer, Hoseok’s voice bellowed from the hall. “Are you two done flirting in the boardroom? The van’s leaving! I’m not losing my seat by the window because of your sexual tension.”

Your head thunked lightly back against the chair.

“Coming!” you yelled back.

Jungkook huffed a laugh, standing. As he passed you, his hand brushed your elbow, a small, grounding touch no one else would notice.

“Next time they complain about the whining, I’ll tell them it was my idea,” he murmured as you walked out together.

You glanced up at him, lips twitching. “Please don’t.”

He smiled, softer now, eyes warm in a way reserved only for you. “What?” he said. “I’m getting bold, remember?”

The words, meant as a joke, landed between you with more weight than either of you acknowledged.

On the walk back down the hallway, the others swallowed you up again—banter, complaints about hunger, arguments over who got the shower first at the rental house. The company’s tension stayed behind in the glass conference room.

But underneath the noise, the question buzzed quiet and relentless in the back of your mind:

If one little whine on a word made them this nervous, what would they do when he finally decided to stop hiding the biggest truth of all?

The van ride back to the house was quiet in that heavy, post-studio way. Everyone was buzzing and drained at the same time, brains still half in Pro Tools, bodies already fantasizing about hot water and soft mattresses.

By the time you pulled up to the LA rental, the sky was deep velvet, the streetlights washing the front yard in a pale orange that made the place look almost cozy instead of like a very expensive Airbnb overrun by seven men and their chaos.

The second the door opened, Jin sighed dramatically.

“I smell nothing,” he announced. “No soup, no meat. This is a disrespect to our hard work.”

“Hyung, it’s a house, not a restaurant,” Jungkook said, stepping past him and immediately kicking off his shoes. He padded toward the kitchen with the single-minded determination of a man who lived 60% of his life hungry.

“I left ramyeon,” Hoseok said as the rest of you trailed behind them, juggling backpacks and laptops and a stray camera bag. “I put a sticky note on it and everything. If anyone ate it, I’m fighting.”

“You mean the one in the top cabinet?” Taehyung asked, frowning thoughtfully. “With the sticky note that said ‘Don’t touch, Hoseok’s’?”

Hoseok froze. “…Yes.”

“Oh,” Taehyung said. “Then I haven’t seen it.”

You snorted as you dropped your bag by the stairs. “Very convincing.”

The kitchen light flicked on, revealing the familiar, endearingly awful state of the place: cereal boxes on the counter, a couple water bottles half-full, an empty coffee pot abandoned like a crime scene. The promise of Hoseok’s ramyeon was nowhere in sight, but there was a faint, smokey smell that did not bode well.

“Something’s burning,” Jin said, nostrils flaring like a bloodhound.

You spotted the culprit first: a pot on the back burner, a whisper of smoke curling from the edge of the lid.

“Oh my god,” you said, rushing over. “Who left this—”

Jungkook lunged past you, turning off the stove and whipping the lid off. A cloud of scorched steam billowed up, making everyone cough.

Inside, the ramyeon was a tragic, swollen mass clinging to the sides of the pot like it was trying to escape.

Hoseok stared. “My ramyeon,” he whispered. “Who killed my ramyeon?”

“You did this,” Yoongi pointed out, leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed. “You left the gas on.”

“I trusted you all,” Hoseok argued, hand over his heart. “In this house, there is no trust.”

Namjoon opened the fridge with the caution of a man who knew nothing good waited for him there. “We have… half a cucumber, three sauces I can’t identify, someone’s leftover fried rice—”

“That’s mine,” Jimin said instantly, stepping in. “Don’t touch it.”

“No one respects labels in this house,” Jin muttered, peering over Namjoon’s shoulder. “And yet they still expect their food to be safe.”

Your stomach rumbled. “We can make something,” you offered. “Eggs? Rice? There’s got to be something we can throw together that doesn’t involve carbonized noodles.”

“We should just order,” Jungkook said, already pulling out his phone.

“Company card?” Taehyung asked, hopeful.

Yoongi shook his head. “No, last time you ordered with the company card, you got six boba drinks ‘just in case.’ You’re cut off.”

“Those were a business expense,” Taehyung argued. “We were networking with… each other.”

In the end, you split the difference. Too hungry to wait for delivery. Jungkook and Hoseok started pulling out whatever was salvageable—eggs, some veggies, leftover rice from earlier in the week—and you joined them at the stove, falling into an easy rhythm. Namjoon and Jin argued over seasoning, Jimin and Taehyung hovered like impatient kids, and Yoongi sat at the table, scrolling on his phone but chiming in whenever someone tried to do something truly disastrous.

“Salt, not sugar,” he said without looking up at one point, just as Hoseok reached for the wrong jar.

“How did you even know?” Hoseok demanded.

“I just know,” Yoongi said. 

You were at the sink rinsing some green onions when Jungkook stepped behind you, reaching around to grab a cutting board. His bare arm brushed against your side, warm and solid, and the contact lingered just a fraction too long to be accidental.

“Excuse me,” he murmured, voice low by your ear.

You didn’t have to look at him to know he was smirking.

“Stop flirting with the help and cut the onions,” Jin said, swatting at him with a dish towel.

Jungkook laughed and moved to your left, setting up beside you. He bumped your shoulder lightly as he lined the onions up and started slicing, his knife swiftly flying across the cutting board.

“Why is Producer-nim always hanging around him station anyway?” Jimin mused sarcastically, leaning back against the opposite counter, arms folded. “Every other night she’s right beside him. Very suspicious behavior for a producer.”

“Because if I don’t watch him, he’ll put gochujang in the scrambled eggs,” you said.

“That was one time,” Jungkook protested. “And it was good.”

“It was chaos,” Namjoon said.

Taehyung shot you a wicked look. “We heard talking last night, you know,” he said. “From your room.”

Your hand stuttered slightly on the faucet. “This is a house full of people. Of course you heard talking.”

“Mm, it didn’t sound like talking,” Jimin added, eyes wide with fake innocence.

Hoseok clutched his chest. “My purity.”

“Your purity left in 2016,” Yoongi said.

“Can all of you shut up and set the table?” you said, trying to keep your voice even as your face heated. “Food in five.”

The teasing went on, but it diffused into other subjects—some meme Taehyung had found, an argument about which LA taco place you needed to try before heading back to Korea.

By the time you all sat down around the long dining table, the kitchen looked marginally less like a war zone, and the late-night fried rice and eggs you’d thrown together actually smelled decent.

Jin said a solemn little “thank you for the food, even if it’s tragic” under his breath. Chopsticks clacked. Conversation folded over itself in multiple directions.

You were halfway through your bowl when Jungkook nudged your knee under the table.

You glanced at him. He mouthed, “water,” then tilted his glass to show it was empty.

You looked at the pitcher at the far end of the table, just out of reach between Taehyung and Jimin. If you asked someone to pass it, it would turn into a whole thing.

“I’ll get it,” you said quietly, rising from your seat.

You slipped around the chairs to the kitchen. The fridge hummed softly as you opened it, grabbing the filtered water jug from the bottom shelf. The cool air kissed your overheated skin—between the stove and the teasing and the meeting, you felt like your nerves had been put through a dryer cycle.

The fridge door was still open when you felt a presence slide in behind it.

A hand touched the small of your back, familiar and sure. You startled, then relaxed just as quickly as Jungkook’s scent, soap and sweat and something uniquely him, washed over you.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said, voice low enough that the hum of the fridge nearly swallowed it.

“Do what?” you whispered, even though you already knew.

“Let them put you in the middle again,” he murmured. “In the meeting.”

You exhaled, shoulders dropping a fraction. “That’s my job,” you said. “I’m supposed to be in the middle.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be tired of it.”

You turned slightly, the edge of the open fridge door shielding the two of you from view. From the dining room, you could still hear the others—Jimin complaining about how much fried rice Taehyung had stolen, Jin dramatically comparing the burnt ramyeon to a Greek tragedy.

In your little pocket of cold air and quiet, it almost felt like you were alone.

His hand on your back slid up, fingers splaying between your shoulder blades before drifting to your waist. It was warm, anchoring. Your breath caught.

“You were so cool today,” he said. “In there. With all of them watching. You always are.”

“You were stubborn,” you countered, but there was warmth in it.

He smirked. “You like that about me.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t.”

For a second, neither of you moved. The water jug grew heavy in your hand.

Then he stepped in that last half-inch and the space between you disappeared. His free hand came up to the fridge door above your head, bracing it so it wouldn’t swing shut and give you both away.

“Come here,” he murmured.

The words shouldn’t have hit as hard as they did. You saw him every day. You were literally sharing a room with him on this trip. But something about the low rasp of his voice, the leftover tension in his shoulders from the meeting, the warm press of his chest against yours in this stolen sliver of privacy—it all snapped together inside you like a rubber band.

You let the water jug rest on the lower shelf, freeing your hand. Then you reached up, curled your fingers into the neckline of his shirt, and pulled.

The first brush of his mouth against yours was soft, testing. He tasted faintly of soy sauce and gochugaru, and underneath that, something that was just him. You made a quiet, involuntary sound against his lips; his response was immediate.

He kissed you harder, tilting his head to deepen it, his hand at your waist tightening. Your back met the cool edge of the fridge; his body crowded in, fitting into you like he’d been carved for this exact space.

It should’ve been quick, a stolen peck. Instead, heat flared, low and urgent.

His lips parted against yours, breath mingling. You let him in, fingers sliding up into his hair beneath the hat, tugging gently. He groaned—an honest, low sound that vibrated through your teeth straight down your spine.

“Fuck,” he whispered into your mouth. “You’re gonna kill me.”

His hand slipped from your waist down to your hip, thumb pressing into the dip there, then further, fingertips gripping around the curve of your ass. The touch was possessive, almost desperate, completely inappropriate for a kitchen seven feet from the rest of the group.

Your pulse spiked. You made a tiny gasp against his lips, and he chased it, deepening the kiss until you were dizzy.

He was hard against you; you felt it, hot and insistent at your hip where your bodies pressed together. The knowledge sparked something wicked in your chest. You rolled your hips, just a little, teasing.

He sucked in a sharp breath, muscles tensing.

“Don’t,” he warned, a laugh buried in the word. “We have, like, two minutes before someone comes looking.”

“Less,” you whispered, but you did it again anyway, just to hear the little ragged noise he made.

His hand slid up, palm flattening against your lower back to pull you tighter into him. His mouth moved from yours to the edge of your jaw, then lower, brushing the corner of your throat. You bit down a sound, your fingers dug into his shoulder.

“Kook,” you breathed, a warning and a plea at once.

“I know,” he said, but he mouthed at the skin just below your ear anyway, teeth scraping lightly. “I know, baby. Just—”

The word “baby” in his raw, whisper-rough voice lit every nerve you had. Your knees felt unsteady.

“—needed you,” he finished, exhale hot against your neck. “Just for a second.”

You untangled one hand from his shirt and slid it down his side, fingers brushing the waistband of his sweats. Even that small, teasing touch made him shiver.

His hips twitched. He exhaled a curse into your hair.

“Okay, no, stop—” he said, laughing quietly as he caught your wrist, pressing your hand flat against his stomach instead. You could feel the tension in him, the way his abs flexed under your palm. “We’re not doing this here. Not when Jin-hyung is twenty seconds away from coming to yell about the water.”

“I’m not doing anything,” you said, breathless.

“Liar,” he murmured, but he kissed you again, quick and sharp, like he couldn’t help himself.

A beat of silence. Two. Three.

Then—

“Hey,” Jimin’s voice called from the dining room. “Did you fall into the fridge? We’re thirsty too, you know.”

You jerked like you’d been shocked. Jungkook muffled a curse against your shoulder, then pulled back, eyes blown and cheeks flushed, lips kiss-reddened in a way that was absolutely not going to go unnoticed if you weren’t careful.

He reached behind you, grabbed the water jug with one hand like nothing had happened, and closed the fridge.

You took a second to smooth your hair and regulate your breathing. Your heartbeat still thudded against your ribs like it was trying to alert the entire house to your sins.

Jungkook dipped his head quickly, pressing one last soft, barely-there kiss to the corner of your mouth—more a promise than anything else—and then stepped away, putting a safe amount of distance between you.

By the time you both rounded the corner back into the dining room, he was wearing his usual innocent, slightly smug expression, and you were hoping no one could see how your legs were a little less steady than they’d been ten minutes ago.

“There they are,” Jimin said, eyeing the jug. “Took you long enough. What, you get lost behind the condiments?”

“Fridge is a mess,” Jungkook said smoothly, setting the water down. “I was cleaning.”

Yoongi snorted. “Sure.”

You retook your seat, avoiding Jimin’s knowing gaze. Jungkook slid back into his place beside you, knee bumping yours under the table in a secret little apology.

Dinner resumed. The conversation flowed on, mercifully moving away from bedroom-adjacent topics and into less dangerous waters—LA weather, the weird neighbor who kept jogging past the house staring at the windows, a movie Yoongi wanted everyone to watch.

Eventually, plates emptied. One by one, everyone drifted away from the table, some to the living room, some upstairs to shower, some lingering to scroll on their phones.

You helped clear, rinsing dishes while Jimin loaded the dishwasher in the unique, chaotic system that made sense only to him.

“Go shower,” he told you, bumping you away from the sink with his hip. “You look like you’re going to fall over.”

“I’m fine,” you protested, though your body disagreed.

“Go,” he repeated, gentler. “We can handle the kitchen.”

You dried your hands on a towel and surrendered. “Okay, okay. Don’t scratch the non-stick.”

“Who do you think I am?” he scoffed. “Namjoon?”

You laughed, heading toward the stairs. As you passed the hallway that led to the front door, you slowed. Voices.

You recognized one of the manager’s low tones, and Jin’s quieter reply. Namjoon was there too; you could hear the shape of his cadence even when you couldn’t make out the words.

You shouldn’t eavesdrop.

You did anyway.

You paused by the base of the stairs, partly shielded by the angle of the wall. The hallway was dim, lit only by the porch light leaking through the frosted glass. The manager stood near the door, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched with the kind of tired that had less to do with sleep and more to do with responsibility.

“—just saying we need no more surprises right now,” he was saying. “They’re already jittery about the smoking thing, some of your other behavior, and the tone of some of these tracks.”

Namjoon’s reply was steady. “We’re not doing anything reckless. We’re just… being honest.”

“There’s a difference between honest and unmanageable,” the manager countered. “You know that.”

Jin’s voice, softer: “What exactly are you worried about?”

The manager hesitated, then sighed. “Everything,” he admitted. “The lyrics. The lives. The fact that they’re older now and want to live like it. We don’t get to just think about the music. We have to think about parents, sponsors, international markets, the board…”

“Fans,” Namjoon supplied.

“Fans,” the manager agreed. “Some of them will be excited to see this side. Some of them will feel… abandoned. We have to roll it out carefully. No sudden shocks.”

Your chest tightened. You knew this conversation, even if you hadn’t heard this exact version before. It was the shadow that trailed every bold choice, every risk.

There was a pause. You could almost feel the air between them shift.

“This isn’t about the music only, is it?” Namjoon asked quietly.

Another beat of silence.

The manager lowered his voice a fraction. “There are… other factors,” he said, picking his words like he was stepping through a minefield. “Relationships. Living arrangements. People talk. One wrong photo, one careless sentence, and we’re not just talking about spicy lyrics anymore.”

Jin exhaled, a soft sound. “They’re not kids,” he said. “He’s not a kid. He’s gonna want a real life. He already… has one.”

“I know,” the manager said. And he sounded like he really did. “I’m not the enemy here. I’m just trying not to get blindsided. Hybe can accept more mature content. They can even accept a relationship if it’s managed right and timed right. But if it blows up in the middle of a comeback campaign, with sponsors and broadcasts and everything else lined up…”

“A mess,” Namjoon finished.

“A very expensive mess,” the manager said. “That lands on him. On all of you. On her, too.”

Your heart thumped once, hard.

You shouldn’t assume “her” meant you. But you knew it did.

“I’m not asking anyone to hide forever,” the manager went on. “I’m asking for no surprises while we’re building this. No Dispatch bait. No drunk slips. No… romantic Easter eggs fans can dissect in lyric credits.”

Namjoon gave a low, humorless chuckle. “You’re asking a lot of very human people.”

“I know,” the manager said again, weary. “That’s the job.”

You pressed your back lightly against the wall, suddenly very aware of every inch of the house—the laughter from the living room, the murmur of a TV, the distant rush of water upstairs where someone had finally claimed the first shower.

You thought of Jungkook’s mouth on yours behind the fridge door. The way his body had felt pressed into you, the way his voice had gone rough when he said he needed you. You thought of his statement earlier: I’m getting bold, remember?

You also thought of the way he’d looked in the meeting, jaw tight as the company seemingly picked at every new piece of himself he tried to offer the world.

“Just… keep an eye on him,” the manager said, dragging you back to the moment. “Both of you.” A pause, then, pointedly, “All of you.”

“We always do,” Jin said simply.

Footsteps shifted. The conversation dissolved into lighter notes—something about call times tomorrow, a reminder about a radio spot.

You slipped up the stairs before they could see you lingering in the shadows like a guilty teenager.

The bedroom you shared with Jungkook was at the end of the hall, the door half-open. You stepped inside and shut it quietly behind you, leaning against it for a second.

The room smelled like laundry detergent, Jungkook’s cologne, and something warm and male and lived-in. Clothes were strewn over a chair, his suitcase half-open at the foot of the bed. Your notebook sat on the nightstand where you’d left it that morning, pen tucked inside.

The bed, unmade and inviting, stared back at you.

You were still thinking about the manager’s last words—no more surprises—when the door clicked open behind you and Jungkook slipped in, closing it again with his heel.

He took one look at your face and frowned, crossing the room in three easy strides.

“Hey,” he said softly, reaching up to brush a strand of hair away from your forehead. “You okay?”

You looked up at him, at the boy who was a man who was an artist who was a brand, and who was also just… yours.

In that moment, with the echo of the manager’s warning still ringing in your chest and the ghost of his mouth still warm on yours, you weren’t sure which terrified you more:

The idea of the world finding out about you.

Or the idea of never letting it.

You didn’t answer his question right away.

Jungkook’s hand was still at your temple, fingers warm against your skin, his brows drawn together in that small, worried pinch he tried to hide on camera and couldn’t hide from you.

“Hey,” he said again, softer. “Talk to me.”

You exhaled, the sound catching halfway out of your chest. “I heard them,” you said. “Downstairs. By the door.”

His jaw tensed almost imperceptibly. “Who?”

“Manager-nim. Namjoon. Jin.” You swallowed. “Talking about… no more surprises. Maturity. Lyrics. Relationships. Me.”

His hand dropped from your face. For a second, something wary flashed in his eyes, like he was bracing for a hit.

“What did they say?” His voice was quiet, but there was a hard edge under it.

You pushed off the door and moved past him, needing the space to pace. “That the company is ‘jittery’ after the smoking thing. That they don’t want anything ‘unmanageable.’ That if something about us comes out in the middle of comeback, it’s an expensive mess.”

He stayed where he was, turning slowly as you moved, tracking you like he always did.

“And?” he prompted when you didn’t go on.

“And that I’m part of the calculation,” you said, turning to face him. “That whatever you do, whatever we do, doesn’t just land on you. It lands on me, too. On my job. On all of you.”

He took a breath like he was about to argue, then let it out through his nose, steadying. “They’re not wrong,” he said. “About it landing on you. On everyone. That’s… true.”

“That’s not the point,” you said, sharper than you intended. “The point is I’m tired of being a variable on some risk reports. I’m tired of overhearing conversations where our relationship is a line item between ‘lyrics too sexy’ and ‘shareholders might get nervous.’”

Something in his expression cracked—not into anger, but into a kind of pained understanding.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Me too.”

You hadn’t expected that answer. It knocked some of your next words loose.

“You keep talking about being honest,” you said, frustration and fear tangled together. “About how you’re not a kid, and you don’t want to lie. But I’m the one standing in meeting rooms making your ‘too intense’ lines sound reasonable.”

He flinched, just a little. “So what are you saying?” he asked. “You want to… stop? Hide more? Hide less?” His throat worked. “Walk away?”

The last option sat between you like an accusation. It shocked you how much it hurt just to hear it voiced.

“No,” you said instantly. “God, no, that’s not—”

“Then what?” His voice climbed a notch, the thin, frayed edge of his patience finally showing. “Because right now it feels like whatever I do, it’s wrong. If I hide, I’m lying. If I’m honest, I’m reckless. If I keep us secret, I’m putting all of this pressure on you. If I tell the truth, I’m risking your job and everyone’s careers and the comeback and—” He broke off, exhaling hard. “You think I don’t know that?”

You stared at him. “You don’t act like you know it when you’re drunk on live,” you shot back. “When you’re one ‘fuck it’ away from telling millions of people something you can’t take back.”

He winced. “That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” The words came out too fast, fuelled by the day, the meeting, the call, the stolen kiss behind the fridge, the overheard talk like your life was just an HR scenario. “You said it yourself. You think and think and think and then you just decide. You decide to mention smoking. You decide to let a ‘friend’ show up on camera. One day you decide to say ‘girlfriend’ and I don’t get a say. I just get… consequences.”

“Like I’m doing all of this for fun,” he snapped, temper flaring finally. “Like I’m not thinking about you every single time I open my mouth.”

He stepped closer, hands flexing at his sides, like he didn’t know what to do with them.

“You think I don’t hear them?” he went on, eyes dark. “The managers. The company. The fans who get mad if I so much as age. You think I don’t know I’m supposed to be whatever they want that day? Cute, pure, sexy-but-not-too-much, honest-but-only-the-nice-parts?”

He laughed once, harsh and humorless.

“And then I come here,” he said, gesturing around the room, “and I still have to pretend. With you. In public. In meetings. On credits. Do you have any idea how fucking insane it is to be sleeping in the same bed as someone, to live with someone, and not be allowed to call them my girlfriend in the daylight?”

Your throat burned.

“Yes,” you said, quieter. “I do, actually.”

His shoulders dropped a fraction as some of his anger leaked out, replaced by something rawer.

“Then why does it feel like you’re angry at me for wanting out of that?” he asked. “For… wanting to say it. Someday. Somehow.”

You swallowed hard. The fight in you deflated, leaving something more fragile.

“I’m not angry at you for wanting it,” you said. “I’m terrified of when you decide you’re done waiting.”

He went very still.

“Because I won’t stop you,” you admitted. “If you decide on some random Tuesday night live that you’re done pretending you’re single… I’m not going to be the one in the chat telling you to shut up. I’m going to sit here in the dark and watch your whole life change in real time. And mine with it.”

Silence stretched, thick.

His face crumpled, just a little. “Baby,” he said softly.

The endearment made your eyes sting.

He moved then, slow and deliberate, closing the last bit of space between you. His hands lifted, one cupping your jaw, the other settling at the nape of your neck, thumb rubbing small, absent circles into your skin like he was trying to ground both of you.

“I don’t want you to be some collateral damage,” he said, voice low and rough. “I don’t want you to be a line in some risk assessment. I hate that you even heard that shit downstairs.”

“I know,” you whispered.

He leaned his forehead against yours, eyes closing. You felt the tremor in his breath.

“I think about it all the time,” he confessed. “How to do this without blowing everything up. How to keep you safe and still not feel like I’m… ashamed of you. Or us.” His fingers tightened slightly at the back of your neck. “I’m not. I’m so fucking proud you’re mine.”

The word landed in your chest like a strike—mine.

Your hands found his waist, fisting lightly in his shirt.

“I just…” you started, then stopped, searching for the right words. “I don’t want to lose you to an impulse moment. Or lose everything else because of one.”

His mouth quirked, pained. “Then maybe the answer isn’t me never having a ‘fuck it’ moment again,” he said. “Maybe it’s… we decide together what that moment looks like. When. How.”

The idea was terrifying. It was also the first thing that didn’t feel like choosing between you and survival.

“We’re not there yet,” you said, voice rough.

“I know.” He opened his eyes, met your gaze. “But I need you to know I’m not just out here drunk and careless. I’m not trying to win some rebellion against the company at your expense. When they look at you like a problem, it… I hate it.”

You blinked. “They didn’t,” you started.

“They will,” he said, not unkindly. “If something leaks. If someone sees something. They’ll turn to you like you’re the one who needs managing. And I—” His jaw flexed. “I can’t fucking stand that.”

You stared at each other, breathing the same small pocket of air, all the noise of the house muffled on the other side of the door.

“Okay,” you said finally, the word shaky but real. “So we… keep talking it out. Before big decisions. Before ‘fuck it’ moments.”

He huffed out a breath that might’ve been a laugh. “Strategic ‘fuck its,’” he said. “Got it.”

A small, exhausted smile tugged at your mouth. “You’re an idiot.”

“Your idiot,” he corrected, and the way he said it—all quiet certainty and frayed tenderness—unraveled something inside you.

Your fingers tightened in his shirt; you tugged him down and kissed him.

This was not the careful, stolen kiss behind the fridge. This was immediate, hot, threaded through with everything you’d just said and everything you hadn’t.

He made a small, surprised sound against your mouth and then melted into it, hands sliding down to your waist, pulling you in until there was no space left. His lips were soft and urgent, moving over yours like he’d been waiting all day to do this properly.

Heat flared under your skin. The argument, the fear, the resentment—they all burned down into something simpler: want, sharp and insistent.

You broke away just enough to breathe. He chased you, mouth brushing yours again, like he couldn’t stand even that tiny distance.

“Come here,” he rasped, voice gone low and shredded. “Please.”

That ‘please’ did something to you. You walked him backwards until the backs of his legs hit the bed, then pushed lightly. He went down with a soft grunt, hands sliding up your sides as you followed, straddling his lap.

His eyes were wide and dark, pupils blown, chest rising and falling fast. He looked wrecked already, just from a few minutes of kissing and honesty.

“Fuck,” he whispered, head tipping back as your hands slipped under the hem of his shirt. “I—” He broke off on a helpless little sound when your palm found bare skin. “God, I love you.”

The words tumbled out raw, unposed. They hung between you for a heartbeat, then settled into something warm and certain.

You bent down, kissed him again, slower this time, letting him feel the answer in the way you mouthed at his lips, the way your body pressed into his.

He made another small, needy noise, his hands gripping your thighs like he wasn’t sure whether to pull you closer or ground himself.

“Tell me what you need,” you murmured against his mouth.

He swallowed, throat working. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, almost shy and completely sincere.

“Be with me,” he said, the words more like a plea than a command. “Just… tonight, don’t think about them. Don’t think about the company, or lives, or anything. Just be here. With me. Be mine.”

The way he said mine—rough, possessive, like a prayer—made you shiver.

“I am,” you said. “You know I’m yours.”

His control snapped like a string.

He surged up to kiss you, mouth hot and desperate against yours. There was no hesitation this time, no testing the waters. He kissed you like a starving man, like you were the only thing that made sense anymore.

A tiny, needy whine slipped out of him when your fingers slid under his shirt, nails scraping lightly over his lower stomach. He broke the kiss for half a second, breathing hard, forehead pressed to yours.

“Don’t—” He swallowed, voice cracking. “Don’t tease. I’m already—” He gave an embarrassed little laugh, lifting his hips helplessly against you. “Fuck, I'm so hard for you. I’m already gone.”

The admission, the way he said it, frustrated and turned on and almost shy, sent heat flooding through you.

You rolled your hips, slowly, deliberately, grinding down against him. He was thick and hard between your legs. His head tipped back, a broken sound tearing out of him.

“Shit—” His fingers dug into your hips, not sure whether to pull you closer or hold you still. “You’re so—” He cut himself off with a bitten-off moan. “You know what you do to me, right? You have to know.”

“Tell me,” you murmured in his ear, letting your lips drag along the soft skin there while your hips continued their slow roll against him.

He shuddered. “You make me crazy,” he said, the words tumbling out between ragged breaths. “Every time you look at me in that booth, every time you tell me to do something with my voice like that—” His thighs tensed under you. “And then I have to pretend I’m not thinking about you when I’m singing about… fucking wanting you so bad it hurts.”

You dragged your mouth along his jaw, nipping lightly. “Who are you singing about?” you asked.

“You,” he said immediately, like it was obvious. “Always you. Who else would it be?” His hands slid up your back, then down again, cupping your ass, pulling you harder against the insistent press of his body. “Every love song, every line that sounds like—like I want to wreck someone, to keep them, to—” He broke off with a gasp as you rocked against him just right. “It’s you. It’s always you in my head.”

Your pulse pounded in your ears. The air between you felt thick, too hot.

You kissed him again, swallowing the next needy sound he made, then leaned back just enough to look at him.

“Lie down,” you said.

His eyes went wide. “Baby—”

“Lie down,” you repeated, firmer.

He obeyed, sinking back onto the pillows, dragging you with him so you were sprawled over his chest. You could feel his heart racing under your palm.

You took your time—touching, kissing, teasing—until he was a mess beneath you, his voice gone high and breathy whenever you did something that hit him just right. Tongue tracing lightly over his sensitive nipples. Soft kisses all the way down his chest. He didn’t even bother trying to hide it; every whine, every broken little plea fell from his mouth like he’d forgotten how to be quiet.

The kisses down his abs and your hand jerking him through his sweats were wrecking him.

“Please,” he said at one point, hands pulling you up, eyes glassy. “Please, I need— just need you. Need to feel you. Want you so bad, it hurts.”

You kissed the corner of his mouth, thumb swiping over the flushed curve of his cheek. “What do you want, baby?” you whispered. “Use your words.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, jaw flexing, like he was almost too embarrassed to say it—and too far gone not to.

“I want to fuck you,” he said, voice rough. “Want you to take me. I want—I want to be so far inside you I can’t think about anything else. I want you yo feel me for days.” His fingers tightened on your hips, pulling you down, like he could will the layers between you into disappearing. “I want… fuck, I want to fill you up, I want to know it’s me you’re carrying, that it’s me you’re thinking about when you—”

His voice broke entirely, the last words dissolving into a choked-off moan.

Heat surged through you at the implication, at the way the thought alone seemed to wreck him.

You kissed him hard, swallowing his next whimper, and then you gave him exactly what he was begging for.

Your hands scrambled to pull your pants off while he lifted his hips to remove his. Then you were back on him and his hands were immediately on you. Grabbing and pulling your ass and then tracing up your sides to your tits. He squeezed them together. Jaw a little slack as his eyes watch them move between his fingers.

While he was distracted, you reached between your bodies, feeling how hard and ready he was for you. Pumping his cock a few times, he let out a low breath. You looked down–he was leaking for you. Tracing your fingers around the head, you brought your thumb up to your lips to taste him, looking him directly in the eyes. His hands had gone still and a guttural groan slipped out of his chest while he watched you taste him. His hips involuntarily thrusting up, seeking any kind of relief from how turned on he was.

When you finally lined him up and sank down onto him, his back arched, abs tensed, a raw, helpless sound punching out of his chest. His hands flew to your ass, fingers tightly gripping into your asscheeks.

“Fuck—” He clung to you like he was afraid you might ghost out of existence. “Oh my god, baby, you feel—” He gasped, cursing again, voice climbing into that high, desperate register that only ever came out here, with you. “So tight, so perfect, I can’t—”

You moved slowly at first, letting both of you adjust, feeling how he stretched you perfectly, savoring the way his lashes fluttered, the way his mouth fell open, the way every small shift of your body made him whine.

“Look at me,” you said.

He forced his eyes open, and the emotion in them nearly knocked you back—love and need and something you couldn’t quite name.

“I’ve got you,” you murmured. “Just me and you. Just us.”

He nodded frantically, throat working. “Just us,” he echoed. “Just you. Please don’t fucking stop, baby.”

You didn’t.

You set a rhythm that had him unraveling under you, every lift of your hips dragging something raw and honest out of him.

“Please,” he kept saying, like a mantra. “Please, please, please—don’t stop, don’t let go, don’t leave me, don’t—”

You leaned down and kissed him, hard, your fingers threading with his and pinning his hands to the mattress on either side of his head. He whimpered into your mouth, feet planting onto the bed and hips thrusting up to meet yours, completely gone.

You could feel him getting close—the way his rhythm stuttered, the way his words tangled.

“Baby, I’m—I’m not gonna last,” he gasped. “You’re—you’re gonna—” He cut himself off with a strangled moan as you clenched around him. “Oh my god—”

You pulled back just enough to see his face, to watch the way it crumpled, the way his eyes shone. “It’s okay,” you whispered. “Me too, I’ve got you. Give it to me.”

He made a helpless, wrecked sound at that, something between a sob and a whine.

“Yeah?” you coaxed. “You wanna give it to me? Wanna fill me up?”

He nodded so hard it almost looked like it hurt. “Yes—yes, I want—want you to take everything.” His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “Want to fill you up so you can’t forget I was here. Want you to remember every time you move tomorrow that it was me, that I—”

You caught his mouth with yours as he broke apart, swallowing the loud, desperate sounds he couldn’t hold back. He clung to you, shaking, riding it out with you wrapped around him.

You followed him over the edge not long after, the rough thrusts up into you while he chased his orgasm, the perfect thing to finish you off. 

You collapsed onto his chest, both of you damp with sweat and breathing like you’d just run for your lives.

For a long time, there was only the sound of your hearts hammering in near-unison and the distant murmur of a TV somewhere in the house.

Eventually, his arms tightened around you, pulling you as close as physically possible. He pressed his mouth to your hair, your temple, your cheek, kissing any patch of skin he could reach.

“Mine,” he murmured, a sleepy, possessive little hum. “My girl. My producer. My everything.”

You smiled into his neck, your own arms looping around him.

“Yours,” you agreed quietly. “Always.”

Outside the room, the world was still complicated—contracts and call sheets and risk matrices and “no more surprises.”

Inside this bed, with Jungkook’s heartbeat finally slowing under your palm and the echo of his whiny little pleas still ringing in your ears, things felt… simple.

Messy. Dangerous. Inevitable.

✶ BLIND DATE oneshots in chronological order / fluff to explicit):

august, 4am the way you love me (tokki's favorite) phone sex under the tree christmas photos warm good morning (tokki's other favorite) untitled

✶ BLIND DATE soft kinks / explicit:

These days, you've been occupied with promoting your new movie release. When you and Mingyu decided to tie the knot, you were at the pinnacle of your career. After a four-year hiatus, you had just made a comeback with an action-packed film, and Mingyu was exceptionally supportive. You had met Mingyu through his fellow member, Wonwoo, who happened to be your co-star in your early movie. At that time, Mingyu had just completed his military service and found you intriguing, so he asked Wonwoo to introduce you two.

Mingyu is still actively involved in his band, even though their last album was released a year and a half ago. Each member is swamped with their individual schedules; some have even started their own families, like Mingyu, making it harder to have consistent comebacks.

Lately, Mingyu has been occupied with his clothing line business and various modeling sessions. He strives to be less tied up so he can take care of the kids while you're at work. Prior to your promotional schedule, you were jet-setting abroad every week for your new movie shoots. Mingyu was elated to have the kids all to himself.

"She said she'll be home at 6," Mingyu grinned as he replied to his daughter.

When he pitched the idea of joining the reality show to you, he mentioned that he missed the spotlight he used to bask in. He still had it, albeit to a much lesser extent. People recognized him everywhere, even the staff at the daycare his kids attended used to be his fans. It was the interaction he missed the most. The feedback, the compliments, the expectations that used to ignite his passions - he longed for them.

"It might be tough for the kids; we've never exposed them to this industry," you remarked when he asked for your opinion.

That was true. Hana and Hoon knew who their parents were and what they did. They enjoyed Mingyu's band's songs and loved watching your old dramas. They understood that their parents worked in the entertainment industry, but they didn't grasp the intricacies of it. Mingyu had pondered this. If he accepted the offer, how would it impact his kids? Privacy would unquestionably be at the forefront of concerns.

"If you truly want to do it, let's do it. We'll work on the rest together," your words reassured him, leading him to accept the offer.

Mingyu let out a sigh at the sight of what his kids had done to the living room. Hoon, the mischief-maker, darted towards his room to fetch more things to scatter. Meanwhile, Hana was engrossed in her Lego, but even her creations couldn't evade finding their way under Mingyu's foot.

In a moment of urgency, Mingyu grabbed his phone and called you for help. He'd never felt this way when you were away for days, but knowing you'd be home in an hour made his patience wear thin.

"Hello..." Your voice filled the room as he put the call on speaker, immediately drawing the attention of your kids, who started shouting "mom."

Without a word, he let out another heavy sigh. You couldn't help but chuckle upon hearing it.

"I'm sorry, I won't be home until 10. We're having a team dinner after this," you explained.

"Really? Hana, mom won't be home until 10," he said, his disappointment evident as he relayed the news to his daughter.

Mingyu's smile returned when he saw Hana pout, her expression mirroring yours when she's upset. "Hana wants to speak," he said, passing the phone to her.

"Mom, fighting!" Mingyu burst into laughter at his daughter's choice of words. "Have fun, I'm going to cook dinner," he said to you before ending the call.

"Mom won't be joining the dinner?" Hoon inquired, and Mingyu nodded.

"Isn't it fun having a meal with dad?" he asked them. Hoon promptly shook his head, declaring, "No! Eating with mom is more fun, right Hana?" while Hana simply ignored them.

Maybe what the editor said about his children was right. Hoon did resemble Hoshi, and Hana bore a striking resemblance to Wonwoo.

*

During the photoshoot for the promotion of your new movie release, they handed you and your fellow actor, Choi Woosung, a script containing questions that would be asked during the recording.

"You've shot a reality show?" Woosung inquired, and you nodded in confirmation. You explained that the reality show focused on Mingyu's life as your husband and parent.

"How's the reaction?" He asked, echoing one of the questions from the list.

You chuckled, slipping into the role as if it were a real interview. "The reaction is very good. The fourth episode has been released. It felt great to share a glimpse of our life with the public."

On your way home, you couldn't shake off the question from earlier.

'How's the reaction to your reality show?'

You hadn't really kept up with it. Mingyu was usually the one to inform you about updates. You'd only appeared for less than 20 minutes in total. While you were excited about the show, your schedule had kept you too occupied to check on it, let alone gauge the reaction.

As you headed towards your home, you opened your phone, typed in the name of your reality show, and checked the comments section. You were delighted by the rush of dopamine every time you came across comments praising the twins for being so cute and clever. There were even some compliments about the parenting you and Mingyu showcased on the show. Reading them made you grasp the feeling your husband had been missing - this surge of happiness.

'It's so weird that the wife is never home.'

'Why is it always Kim Mingyu who does the work at home? Is it because of his busy wife?'

'Mingyu housewife agenda is still going strong kekekeke..'

'Even after marriage, Mingyu still takes care of everyone. Poor Mingyu lol'

You entered your quiet house as the clock struck ten at night. Your day had been packed, starting at ten in the morning with back-to-back shoots. Quickly, you changed into your sleeping clothes, meeting Mingyu as he emerged from your children's room. One of the things people praised was your effort in training the twins to sleep on their own.

"Hana's finally asleep," Mingyu whispered, placing his arm around your shoulder as you both made your way to the kitchen, the farthest point from the twins' room.

"What did she ask this time?" You inquired, already stifling a laugh as Mingyu began with a sigh.

He perched on the counter while you opened the fridge, searching for a beer to accompany tonight's conversation with your husband.

"She asked if she could make green coffee from green beans because coffee is made from coffee beans," he reported, burying his head in his arms, which rested on the counter.

You chuckled. "That's clever," you remarked, handing him a can of beer.

"Hoon wanted to use your glass, but he accidentally dropped it. He's preparing his apology for tomorrow morning," he shared, introducing another amusing incident.

You shook your head. "Did he mention it was an accident?" Mingyu nodded, "He didn't want me to break the news to you because he wanted to tell you himself."

Your heart warmed at hearing this. The glass wasn't a big deal to you—it was just a way to encourage them to drink water by using their favorite glass.

"That's sweet," you said, smiling at him. "Yeah, I thought so. They're growing up a little too quickly," Mingyu mumbled, and you agreed.

"How was your day with them? I saw the video you sent me," you asked, referring to the video he took of Hoon and Hana squabbling over petting a puppy at the park.

Mingyu chuckled. "On our way home, they suddenly wanted to take a walk in the park. I think it must be something they learned or heard at daycare. It was just so random. Some people recognized them, which upset Hana. Hoon loved it," he recounted, and you couldn't help but laugh at the tale.

"They met a little Samoyed, and I think it was their first time seeing one," you agreed. "Hoon suddenly got petty when Hana joined him in petting the puppy. He said Hana kept imitating him, and Hana didn't like dogs."

You were also tickled by the fact that Hana was petting a dog. She was never fond of them, in fact, she preferred stuffed animals over real ones, which was the opposite of Hoon, who wished for a puppy or kitten on every birthday.

"Let's sleep," Mingyu murmured as the beer was finished, and you two couldn't contain your laughter from the twin's escapade. Waking them up was the last thing you both wanted.

"What time is your schedule tomorrow?" Mingyu asked as you both lay down on the bed, his arm pulling you closer.

"I have a salon appointment at 11, and the shoot might end by 2. Why?" you inquired.

"My mom and my sister are in Seoul tomorrow. Mom said she wants to meet you."

You raised an eyebrow. "Should we go out for dinner tomorrow? Your mom liked the Japanese restaurant we visited last month."

Mingyu nodded and closed his eyes. "Okay, I'll book a table for tomorrow." His arm tightened around you, and you mumbled that it was too warm, but he pretended to be asleep.

*

The drive home after dinner was quiet. The kids had fallen asleep, leaving you and Mingyu in a solemn atmosphere. Not a word was exchanged since you bid goodbye to his mom and sister, parting ways as they headed back to Anyang. Mingyu stole glances at you multiple times but hesitated to say a word, treading carefully after what had happened at the restaurant.

Mingyu's mom had always adored you. He'd known that from the moment he introduced you to her. She looked at you with a love he'd never seen in her eyes when she interacted with him or his sister. It was as if you were her own, even his sister acknowledged this. She never spoke ill of you or to you; she held you in the same respect a mother-in-law should have for their child's partner. So, when she said those unexpected words in the restaurant, it took Mingyu aback.

"I noticed you never take care of the house on the show," she had remarked, to which Mingyu immediately interjected, "She was busy."

"Still, a wife should be taking care of her husband and kids."

"Mom..." Mingyu tried to halt the conversation, but his sister promptly changed the subject, showcasing how Hoon was eagerly eating his sushi.

Seeing you silenced by this exchange hurt Mingyu deeply. He despised the discomfort that settled between you both as you moved around the house in silence. You didn't even glance his way.

As you passed him, he gently took your arm, leading you to the couch and squatting in front of you. Your eyes were level, but you avoided meeting his gaze.

"I'm sorry about earlier," Mingyu began. "I know it hurt. I'm not happy with what mom said either."

"It's not your fault," you mumbled, your eyes still averted.

Mingyu bit his lip, his voice thick. "Babe, please look at me," he whispered, cupping your cheeks.

"If I look at you, I'll start to cry," you admitted in a near-whisper.

Mingyu's heart broke, and he immediately pulled you into an embrace. He sat beside you, his fingers gently running through your hair, whispering soothing words as you sobbed against his chest.

When you pulled away, you confessed, "I'm just disappointed. I thought your mom knew me better." Mingyu nodded, indicating that he was all ears.

"I thought she knew me better than what she saw on the show. We've been married for a long time," you began. "She used to see me preparing your meals. She even praised how tidy our home was when she visited while you were on tour. She was so proud when we decided not to have a sitter for the twins. Why... Why did she suddenly say that?"

Mingyu closed his eyes, feeling tears welling up. He held you tighter, as if afraid that if he let go, he might lose you.

"I'm fine when people judge me based on what they see. I'm totally fine with that. But, she's my mother-in-law. She's my mom."

That night, Mingyu realized something he hadn't considered when agreeing to the show. He hadn't thought about you; he'd been thoughtless. He remembered the backlash you both faced when you decided to publicly date. Even years after your marriage, there were mixed reactions, with some saying Mingyu was hindering the group's activities and others believing you were sacrificing your career too soon.

Mingyu had never been one to care about public opinion, but you were different. He believed you were making continuous progress, but he knew it was hard for you to accept comments, especially those that weren't true. You detested people's expectations and how they burdened you. It was something Mingyu couldn't entirely comprehend. He thrived on expectations, needing that pressure to stay motivated. These differences had occasionally caused friction in your relationship.

Your pregnancy with the twins had been unexpected. You were in the midst of shooting an action movie, involving a lot of stunts, when you found out you were two weeks pregnant after collapsing on set. Mingyu was upset that you had to continue shooting after almost losing the baby. He couldn't understand why you kept getting action roles and constantly put yourself in danger with all the stunts.

"Remember my movie with Wonwoo? I don't like how people expect us to fall in love after the project. Action movies give me less pressure compared to romance and melodrama. I hope you understand."

This was followed by your reluctance to attend promotions and your refusal to appear on variety shows because of the burden it placed on you.

Now, Mingyu finally understood why it weighed on you. He could see the pieces falling into place.

He gently kissed your forehead as you fell asleep on his lap after the emotional conversation you'd had earlier. He picked you up effortlessly and carried you to the bedroom, determined that things would change for the better from this point forward.

*

Mingyu's smile stretched wide as he set up blankets for the viewing spot. Today marked the last episode of your reality show, and it was the first time he'd be watching it with you and the kids. You chuckled when you saw Mingyu pat a spot next to him with a beaming smile and a look of adoration – an expression his fellow members often teasingly referred to as a "cheap stare."

"Why are you smiling? It hasn't even started yet," you remarked, picking up Hana and settling her on your lap. She immediately clung to you like a koala on a tree.

"I want a hug too," Hoon chimed in, and you opened your arms for him to join Hana.

Mingyu sighed, resting his head on the couch while gazing at the three of you. "They never treat me like this," he mumbled.

The show began with the familiar scenes of your house and the kids' activities. However, you were taken aback when there were a few scenes of you that hadn't been included in previous episodes. It showed you preparing breakfast, doing a quick load of laundry, tidying the kids' room, and tending to the plants. The scenes were accompanied by the sub-title, 'special for mom.' You glanced at Mingyu, who was fully engrossed in the screen.

"Mom, you're so pretty!" Hoon exclaimed upon seeing a scene from one of your movies. You smiled and planted a kiss on his cheek.

"Do I really look like that in the morning? That's not a good look for broadcast," you muttered, watching yourself on screen without any makeup.

Mingyu scoffed, "Are you underestimating my taste in girls?" His words earned a grateful laugh from you.

'My wife, Y/n, she's such an interesting person. She's the second shyest person in this house after Hana. They're basically like mother and daughter,' you heard Mingyu say on the show.

'She's so talented and amazing. But she's not a very confident person. I don't know why, but that's just how she humbles herself,' he continued, drawing a chuckle from you.

'Mom is a hero. She makes me my favorite food and runs with me at the park,' Hoon's voice filled the room.

'Mom? She's awesome. She reads me a book every day. I love it,' Hana chimed in.

'There's a lot about her that hasn't been shown much. She gave birth to my children. She sacrificed her body, her career, her life to marry me and start a family with me. There were times when she was alone with the kids while I was on tour. I believe it was tough raising the kids – twins at that – alone, especially for a new parent,' Mingyu shared, his voice filled with genuine admiration and respect.

The entire episode was a tribute to you. Tears welled up in your eyes as Mingyu spoke so highly of you, acknowledging the challenges and sacrifices that come with being a wife and mother.

The show concluded with a montage of pictures, capturing precious moments of your family when the twins were born, when you video called Mingyu on tour with the babies just months old, when you cooked while Mingyu looked after the twins, and even when you did home workouts with the twins imitating you.

"Kim Mingyu!" You playfully scolded him as soon as the show ended.

Mingyu laughed at your reaction, your eyes slightly swollen from crying throughout the show. Meanwhile, the twins, showing a clear preference for their mom, eagerly joined you in your playful reprimand.

Mingyu grabbed his phone, capturing a picture of your post-crying face and one of the three of you engrossed in the show from earlier. He planned to post them on his social media later.

After putting the kids to bed, Mingyu pulled you into his arms and whispered, "Love you, always."

You smiled and held him closer. "Thanks for everything. I love you more."

"You deserve it, baby. You deserve it."

*

Mingyu muttered, "I honestly don't think our kid resembles them," as he pettily showed a video of Hoon and Hana alongside Hoshi and Wonwoo.

He paused, then continued, "I mean, they're our child. They're supposed to resemble us, and they do. People just fail to see that." He mumbled, then turned his attention back to you, who were busy chopping chicken breast before putting it into the blender.

with that said… i tend to blame the company (but you’ll understand why i think the problem is way worse than that). why did latam got treated like animals? we waited 7 years to see them and the shows were amazing, but the company clearly handpicked we wouldn't have the opportunity to be closer to them in any way possible. and we’re not a small public. we’re a big part of this fandom.

again, i’m not even fucking talking about them showing their abs. we didn’t get the carts. we didn’t get proper merch. the vip pack was ridiculous compared to other places. they obviously didn’t get off the stage. the way the staff handled the fans at the barricades? the way the staff handled the boys to repress them? saying they couldn’t do certain things in the middle of the show? cutting off some interactions? yeah. that was personal.

“but J it was their first time in latam, they were seeing how you’d react” really? it was their first time in many other places too.

apparently we’re the only ones too uncivilized to see them up close then?

and you know whats funny? in brazil, we got a few pics of them in rio (and the whole fandom made a fucking noise about how they were being followed here????) in são paulo, we only discovered the places they went after they left the country. and still, no pictures. and gets funnier. only yesterday? i saw a few videos of hyunjin and jeongin walking in Amsterdam. have you heard anything about them being followed there? guess not.

listen, i’m not here attacking other people from other countries. not even close to that. i’m here to talk about how different the treatment is when it comes to latam.

because here’s the main thing of it all: when you’re from another country, you already look at latam through someone else’s lens. and that “someone”? has never been a latino. the image the world built of us is rooted in colonialism, in racism, in the idea that we are always “less than.” this isn’t just about one concert. this isn’t about their company. it’s about how we are consistently seen as unworthy, of access, of respect, of presence. all the time, for everything. and apparently we’re the only ones that can really see this shit happening, bc we’re the only ones that feel the impact of it.

unfortunately, that’s the reason. which is much worse than if it were only about their company. this will happen again. it’s rooted. the rest of the world does sees us as uncivilised. it’s the way the history was made and told: we’re not developed countries.

i’m not saying we’re angels on earth. i’m saying the company clearly didn’t give a fuck about us, and we know why. that’s xenophobia at its finest… and unfortunately, that’s something rooted in people’s minds. you can only solve it if you're willing to deconstruct this idea in your head. see? willing to. we can’t really do anything if they don’t want to deconstruct it.

i will NEVER blame the boys. never. i don’t know their personal thoughts about us before and now, but they clearly loved it here. they said it a thousand times on stage. their eyes were sparkling.

so, that’s what i keep in mind now. they loved us, they’ll come back, and hopefully, we’ll get treated like normal human beings that, in fact, play a big role supporting their stuff.

just to clarify, again, i’m not here to attack other countries. i’m just getting this out of my chest.

to my latinas around here, i get you. we’re together in this. pls don’t ever doubt that the boys love us. bc i truly believe they do!

xxx