mae

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

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“What’s taking you so long!” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was the nights that made you more than hesitant. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What a fucking lie. 

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

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

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

“Says the man who’s practically naked.” 

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

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

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

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

Fuck. Never again. 

Never, ever, ever again.

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

You extend ten minutes into fifteen. 

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

—

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wanna go outside?

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

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

Not even waiting to see nor hear his reaction.  

—

—

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

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

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

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

“Fuck.” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your heart. 

It booms. 

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

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

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

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

Yoongi. 

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

And with a stopped heart, neither are you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shit. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

You were ready. 

He wasn’t. 

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

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

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

Because you didn’t even tell Yoongi goodbye. 

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

—

—

You readily down two glasses of water. 

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

—

—

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

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

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

Maybe not as high as it could go. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Okay.” 

“That’s my girl.” 

“Come on!” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mm. That still sounds like a backup option. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You okay?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“If you say so.”  

—

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey, you gonna go down or what?”

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

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

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

Oh… Really… 

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

Waves you off. 

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

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

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

Your heart looks up before you do.  

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

…Towards you? 

Fuck. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Downstairs. Go down the stairs. Go. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

—

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

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

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

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

You aren't alone in being alone.

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

Then it starts.

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

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

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

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

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

Night, after night, after night. 

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

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

“One last time.” 

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

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

And he feels so perfect against you it hurts. 

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

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

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

He never loved you. You never said goodbye. 

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

Yoongi… Still feels like home. 

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

But he doesn’t. 

Of course he doesn’t. 

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

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

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

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

Just like that. Against your deepest, sincerest wishes. 

The song dies. 

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

And you need nothing else but to leave. 

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

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

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

Fuck.

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

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

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

And you finally get the courage to whisper his name. 

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

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

What is happening? What’s he doing? 

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

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

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

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

Have mercy.

Your soul finally snaps in two. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ah. This is the man you remember. 

And that just makes everything hurt even more. 

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

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

“Yoongi, what are you—?”

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

Fuck, he’s gotten even better at this. 

Just like you have. 

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

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

...What? 

No. No no no. 

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

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

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

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

Oh. Fuck that. 

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

“Even if I t—”

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

“Fuck.” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You're lying.”

“All fuckin' night."

“Liar.”

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

“I’d never lie to you.” 

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

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

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

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

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” 

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

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

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

“Fuck…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s almost as if nothing’s changed. 

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

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

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

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

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

“Baby..”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yoongi, I—”

“I know.”

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

You know your underwear is soaked all the way through. 

And now, so does he. “Goddamn.”

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

“Are you still on the—”

“Yes.”

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

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

“Yoongi, please—”

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

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

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

“Don’t do that.”

“Oh, I—”

“Do that shit again and I’ll come.” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now that changes every fucking cog in your brain. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I got you.”

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

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

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

“Baby.” 

You flick your gaze back up to his. 

“Stay with me.”

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

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

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

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

“Still so beautiful.”

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

“You look so fucking good in red.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fuck. You didn’t mean to do that. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I did, too.” 

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

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

“Before you left.”

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

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

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

He never told you many things.

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

“Mm.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Fuck, you’re so tight—”

“So fucking big—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“—yours.”

What?

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Fuck, baby..”

“You asked for it.”

“Don’t regret a goddamn thing.” 

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

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

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

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

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

“Babe—”

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

“Yoongi—”

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

“Yoongi—!” 

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

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

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

“Come for me, love.”

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

“I said come.”

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

Your name rips from Yoongi’s throat. 

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

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

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

“Fuck it, come here.” 

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

“Again.” 

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

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

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

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

“Let me pull—”

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

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

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

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

“One last time.”

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

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

Why is he so quiet? 

Why are you so quiet? 

Why do you feel like crying again? 

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

“I know it’s over.”

Your heart flares.

“But I need you to know.”

Stars light the night sky.

“I love you. And I always will.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your throat constricts again.

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

“Yoongi…”

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

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

So you also let everything go. 

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

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

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

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

And it’s a beautiful, beautiful sunrise. 

—

—

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

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

“How did you know to come up here?” 

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

Ah. Of course. “Come here often?”

“Not for the reasons you think.”

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

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

What. 

Pause pause pause hold the fucking phone. 

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

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

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

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

“Oh, fuck you!” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wait.

Everything else clicks into place. 

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

“...You're the one that got us VIP.” 

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

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

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

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

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

“Why?”

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

Holy fucking shit.

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

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

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

“Ugh, here we go.”

“Already at it again, huh.”

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

“Get another room—!”

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

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

In a beautiful, unforgettable dance. 

-

-

fin :)

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hi lovelies what did we think !! | main masterlist

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

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

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

Everything in italic is Yoongi’s POV!

You both once talked about the goddess of timing, wondering if she was real, if she has a hand in the way your paths crossed with each other.

Yoongi said she must be, “She has bent time so well,” he murmured, “she made sure we met each other in this lifetime.”

You smiled faintly, tracing circles on his arm, “That only applies if we end up together,” you said.

He winced at that, just slightly, but his voice stayed steady, “We will,” he said, “us ending up together is an absolute.”

You looked at him, at the certainty in his eyes, and thought to yourself that the goddess must be lying.

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

You left him in late spring, when the air smells like rain, sunlight, and flowers altogether. 

He never realized how quiet the world could be after you left.

It was silent. 

Yoongi thought he understood silence. But this one was different. This silence was heavy. It filled his lungs and pressed itself against his ribs.

Yoongi stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking at you the way he always had, like he was trying to memorize you all over again.

The history between you go way back, older than either of you liked to admit. You were each other’s first love, each other’s first in everything. 

But you’ve broken up years ago, not because you both stopped loving each other, but because the circumstances refused to make room for the love you were growing together.

Life has a way to pull you both in directions that do not align with each other, and neither of you are strong enough to fight against the current.

But distance or labels never became abscence . You still found your way back to each other, in late-night calls, and his bedroom, or sometimes yours. You kept trying to make each other happy in whatever ways you could.

His hoodie was half zipped, hanging loosely off his shoulders, Yoongi stood there in the doorway, eyes flickering between your face and the door behind you, like he couldn’t decide whether to hold you or let you go. 

You’ve seen that look before, somewhere between guilt and longing, love and indecision. It was the same look he gives you every time he leaves.

“You’ll wait for me, right?” he asked quietly, “I promise I’ll come back.”

You almost smiled. Because he always said that, it almost felt like deja vu. Every single time Yoongi would need space, or time, or a moment to be with some other girl. And every time, you waited for him. It wasn't cheating, really, you were seeing other men as well. But the both of you just kept coming back to each other.

But this time, something inside you refused to move the same way.

You wanted a love that stays.

Love that doesn’t come with other people and half replies. You wanted a relationship, and someone whose idea of adventure wasn’t leaving, but choosing you every day.

Yoongi, though, still wants to play with fire. He still wants to feel and enjoy being the wild and young idol he is. He loves you, but he loves the world too, and right now, the world is winning.

So you shook your head softly, “I don’t want to wait anymore,” you said. Your voice was steady, it didn’t tremble because you wanted this. 

He blinked, caught off guard, “What do you mean?”

“I mean I want something you don’t,” you continued, “I want to settle, but you want to keep flying or floating around. It’s time for me to move on, we don’t want the same thing.”

He opened his mouth to argue, then stopped, his shoulders sank a little. You stepped closer, close enough to smell the cologne on his hoodie. You touched his arm gently, and this time, you were the one who pulled away first, “I’ll always care about you,” you whispered, “but I can’t keep doing this.”

He looked at you like he was trying to memorize every part of you into his memory.

For a second, you thought he might ask you to stay. For a second, you almost wished he said he would change.

The truth was uglier: he wanted to be selfish. He wanted you to stay, but he didn’t want to give you enough to stay for. He wanted you to wait, but he didn’t want to change fast enough to deserve it. But he didn’t say his truth, he just nodded, a small and helpless gesture, and whispered, “I get it.”

You gave him one last look, then turned towards the door.

The sound of it closing behind you felt like an entire chapter ending.

You left him because you finally knew what you wanted, and because he wasn’t ready to want it with you.

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

You and Yoongi were like Peterpan and Wendy. Peterpan never grows up, and Wendy eventually stops believing in magic.

He didn’t beg. That wasn’t the Yoongi way. But months passed and Yoongi still kept on flying through stages, cities, and hearts that never quite matched yours.

For a while, he tried to outrun it. He filled his calendar, nights, and his bed. There was always something to keep him, a show, a city, a woman beside him whom he would never learn the name of.

He thought being in constant movement would save him, that if he just kept flying, he would never have to hear the echo of your voice saying, “I don’t want to wait anymore.”

You saw him sometimes, not physically, but through screens or headlines, his name glowing in big bold letters that never reached you. 

Yoongi always sees you. You lingered in the air seconds before the crowd screamed his name.

And some nights, when the adrenaline wore off, he would catch himself looking at the empty space beside him, expecting you to be there, laughing at something he said.

He could almost smell your perfume.

You, on the other hand, learned to love smaller things, the morning coffee that has gone cold because you were too lost in your thoughts to drink it, the sounds of rain dripping against your window, and the tiny jungle of plants that you keep in the living room.

You built a life on your own too.

There were kind men in and out of your life. Men who didn’t make you feel small, who made you laugh, and held you the way they were supposed to. But none of them has that quiet storm that Yoongi carries everywhere he goes.

But you eventually stopped comparing. 

Because you realized love isn’t supposed to make you constantly sit in the waiting room.

Still, on certain nights, you would hear his voice in your head saying, “When I’m ready, I’ll come find you.”

You would always give him a small smile in response, because you knew he never would.

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

Years passed like that.

You moved apartments, changed jobs, and got two cats that like to follow you around everywhere. 

On the way to work, you would hear his songs on radios or his face on billboards.

People said BTS made it, they paved the way, and they went from being unknown to being untouchable. 

But you could hear the loneliness in their songs, you could hear how Yoongi was still trying to find his way back home, wherever that would be. 

You were still his home. But Yoongi is lost, flying around with no direction home.

Once, you saw BTS in a magazine with the caption something about “Men with Ambition,” it made you wonder if he ever really understood the cost of it.

Losing you costed Yoongi everything.

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

By 26, your world and circle has shrunk by 30%.

You love visiting Sunday markets, you laugh every time the group chats try to decipher new memes, and you love going on late night walks when the city is quiet. 

You no longer crave chaos anymore, you made peace with calmness that used to bore you.

Maybe the goddess of timing wasn’t cruel after all, maybe she was just realistic.

She gave you and Yoongi the same sun and moon, but you were just orbiting at different paces. 

Sometimes, you look out your window, whispering, “I hope you learned how to land, Yoongi.”

You wonder if he ever does the same thing. If he’s ever somewhere in another city, another skyline, looking up at the same moon and thinking of you, his first girl. His first love.

You were his first love. 

The girl who once believed he would come back and set him free.

Yoongi sees his first love all the time. Yoongi sees you all the time, not in person, but in everything else.  

You could picture him in airports, looking at faces around him that he would never remember and wondering for a split second if you’re there. 

Maybe, in his mind, you still are. 

But at least now he knows that you will never be the person standing at the edge of the runway, watching him take off, and hoping he remembers how to come back down.

You’ve learned not to live in maybes. You’ve learned that some people aren’t meant to return and they were only in your life to remind you that you once believed in something.

Despite everything, you understand that he wasn’t wrong. Yoongi was always meant to go. He was meant to chase the horizon and to be bigger than the kind of love you offered and the kind of love you wanted.

And you were meant to stay. You didn’t lose each other, you just belonged to different worlds.

Maybe that’s all love ever is, two people meeting in the middle of a race, holding on just long enough before running to your own destination.

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

One evening, long after you stopped keeping track of his tours and schedules, you dreamed of him.

Yoongi was standing at your old apartment door, wearing the same hoodie, he looked tired.

“Did you finally grow up?” you asked.

Yoongi smiled in response, and for a second, it felt like he did grow up. He reached out, not to hold you, but to tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear. 

The gesture was so gentle it broke your heart.

Then you heard Yoongi said, with tears in his eyes, “You stopped waiting.”

And you woke up.

You realized then, you were never meant to be the girl he comes back to.

You were meant to be the girl he remembers his whole life, but would be too afraid to touch. The one who reminds him what he lost.

And maybe, he has learned how to land. But deep down you know, some boys never stop flying, and some women stop waiting, and that’s okay.

And maybe the goddess of timing didn’t fail you.

Maybe she just knew that loving someone like Yoongi was never about forever.

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

His world was too big to fit you inside it, and yours was too small to hold the version of him you kept waiting for.

At first, you told yourself it wouldn't be that way forever, that Yoongi would change, that he just needed to grow up, and that someday, he would come back with his feet on the ground, ready to love you properly.

But weeks turned into months, and months into years, and there was only uncertainty between you.

You dated other people in-between, men who didn’t disappear for weeks and come back smelling like another girl. But none of them could touch you without your mind flickering to Yoongi. 

You started measuring other people by the way they weren’t him, and realized that was a different form of waiting.

So you stopped pretending you were healed. You learned to live with the ache instead. 

Yoongi sat in the studio all night, headphones on, and his eyes burning. Every lyric he wrote was a bruise reopening. Every word is a way of saying sorry without saying your name.

He never sent you the demo, even though your number was still saved in his phone. He stared at it for hours that night, but Yoongi didn’t deserve to reach you, not anymore. But he prayed you would hear this song, somewhere somehow. 

You were standing in line at the grocery store, when his voice came on over the speakers. It was Yoongi, older now, just like you are. The lyrics were:

“I think I finally grew up, but when I came back, you weren’t there. Maybe that’s my punishment. Maybe the goddess knew I wasn’t meant to find you again. But if she’s still listening, tell her I’m sorry.” 

You froze.

And before the song even ended, you left your groceries behind, and walked home. You didn’t cry, you weren’t angry. You just felt empty like someone pressed rewind on all the past versions of yourself that you thought you buried.

Maybe the goddess of timing wasn’t cruel. Maybe she just stopped believing in you two as well.

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

You saw him by accident once, years after you left.

You walked past his brother’s restaurant, and he was there with his hoodie pulled up and his face half hidden by a mask, but you would notice the way Yoongi walks anywhere. He looked up at you and your eyes met. 

It was as if the goddess of timing wanted this to happen. 

For a moment, everything stopped, literally, all the noise, the cars, and the years gone between you. 

And in that minute, it was like the world split open.

You saw it all, the boy Yoongi was, the man he became, and the ghost he left in you. You saw the apology he never said sitting right there in his throat. You saw the love that didn’t die, just aged into something quieter.

He wanted to run to you. To say everything he never got to say to his first love. To tell you he has learned the hard way, that he has changed, that he finally understood what it meant to land. 

But your expression stopped him.

Neither of you moved.

You didn’t look angry, or sad, you just looked at peace.

And that hurt more than anything because it meant you were free from him, from waiting.

So, he turned away first. 

And of course, Yoongi was the first one to leave. You watched him go until he disappeared into the crowd, and for once, your eyes didn’t try to follow where he was going. You didn’t call out his name, you just stood there until your hands stopped shaking.

The goddess of timing, the one you used to joke about, has even stopped bending for him. 

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

By now you’re 28, people still mentioned him, of course, he’s a star. He became something like a legend, Yoongi has everything he ever wanted.

Yoongi doesn't have you, all he wanted.

There’s a photo of you in his wallet, your head resting on his shoulder, both of you smiling with your eyes half closed. Yoongi keeps it because it reminds him what love looked like before he ruined it.

Yoongi doesn’t touch it often, but every time he does, he feels that ache again, the one that says he was truly loved once, and he was the one that lets it go.

And you? You have peace.

You worked and learned how to fully live and be in the moment again. 

But sometimes, when you could start smelling the scent of rain, sunlight, and flowers, it takes you back to late spring. To the boy who asked you to wait.

He remembers that night in late spring like a fever dream. Your steady voice, saying, “I want something you don’t.”

You still remember the way he said, “You’ll wait for me, right? I promise I’ll come back.”

And maybe he meant it, in the way that boys do. Maybe Yoongi thought he would come back. Maybe, he really believed he could grow up, try to stay with his feet on the ground, and find you.

But the thing about Peterpan is, he always forgets the way home.

And Wendy? She eventually learns to stop leaving the window open.

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

Years later, when people asked about your first love, you would smile fondly, as you reply, “He was a boy who couldn’t land and I was a girl who stopped waiting.”

And when they laughed softly, not understanding, you would just nod and let them, because no one really understands.

No one understands what it’s like to love someone who always belongs to the sky.

No one understands what it means to spend years looking up and finally realizing that the stars you were wishing for never belonged to you.

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

WendyYou stopped leaving the window open. WendyYou stopped waiting for footsteps in the hallway. WendyYou stopped lighting the lamp.

PeterpanYoongi hopes you’re happy. PeterpanYoongi hopes you’ve stopped waiting and let him be the one who waits now. PeterpanYoongi hopes you’re truly happy so he can forgive himself for never learning how to land.

Some nights, when you just couldn't sleep, you would still pray to the Gods above, “I hope you've learned how to land, Yoongi.”

Yoongi knows he will never see you again. 

And you knew one thing for sure:

The goddess of timing didn’t lie, she kept you together for as long as she could.

Waking from a dreamless sleep, Yoongi stares at the empty half of his bed, fingers gliding across untouched sheets to seek warmth he knows isn’t there. 

But it will be. Yours will be. Because he’s fucking done with his own bullshit and will now trek the depths of his soul with a purpose redefined. The demons awaiting him have no chance, they have no say. 

Softly grabbing chilled cotton, Yoongi breathes in, the subtle heat of his own rest permeating his cheek for a few moments more. It isn’t until a few slow blinks and a million thoughts of you that he turns over, patting for his phone on the nightstand and immediately clicking the one notification that’s yours. 

Hustler [05:45]: 1 Attachment 

Mm. You sent him the dawn.

He’s gonna give you the world. 

For a long stretch of time, Yoongi doesn’t know what to say. All he can do is stare at the way the sky blooms in pastel hues, admiring the framing you captured so perfectly from your front porch. 

Is there anything you aren’t good at? He can’t keep losing to you. 

Flopping back onto his pillow, Yoongi aims his phone upward, eyes still caked with sleep and drowsiness. 

Yoongi [06:13]: 1 Attachment 

Yoongi [06:13]: Mine’s better

The photo’s so dark you might not be able to tell what it is. But you’re smart, so you probably will. 

Fuck, he needs to get up.

Squeezing his eyes once before rubbing out the crust, Yoongi slowly vacates his warmth, grabbing a chain from the nightstand to clip it on.

Everything reminds him of you, even in the quietest and most mundane parts of his day. But the links around his neck are extra special. Because your blatant fascination with his jewelry will never, ever get old.  

If you only knew what else he wants to do with you involving the weight around his neck.

Yoongi’s mouth cracks into a sleepy grin as he heads to his bathroom. That particular fantasy will have to wait until much, much later. 

And unlucky for you, he is more than willing to wait.

He wonders if you know he notices. How he drinks in that sparkle in your eyes, shivers at those fingers you slide along his silver. Even if you never will, it’s fucking adorable either way.

Yoongi goes through his morning routine, and it isn’t until he takes vitamins in the kitchen—a part reinstated into his ritual ever since the mental turnaround—that he hears his phone buzz.

Hustler [06:34]: is that your ceiling?? lmao

Of course. He never doubted you for a second.

A small smile curves before Yoongi drinks another swig of water, holding the glass to his mouth while another message slides though. 

Hustler [06:34]: i wish i was there :((

Fuck.

You will be. You’ll be there much sooner than he originally planned, and the thought makes him anxious and restless in the best ways. 

Yoongi [06:35]: Same

Mm. He can do better than that. 

Yoongi [06:35]: I’d say meet me for lunch but then you’d be gone the rest of the day🤷‍♂️

Pocketing his phone, Yoongi grabs what he needs before heading to the studio. Because there are still projects to work on and things to plan, with a high possibility he won’t even get a lunch to begin with. 

Good problems. Lucky problems. He cannot take any of this for granted. 

Hustler [06:38]: worth it😩whisk me away 

And there’s no way he can take you for granted anymore, either. 

Yoongi [06:39]: Careful what you wish for 

If he got to see you, he’d be gone the rest of the day, too. Until you scolded him to get back to work, at least. 

The thought pulls out a tiny huff. 

After grabbing his wallet and keys, Yoongi plods to his shoes before the door is cracked open, crisp morning air wrapping around his features. 

He’s not alone. 

To his side, Miss Dion stops watering her plants, donned in a fluffy robe and a shit grin that Yoongi has to look away from out of pure… Is he being shy right now? “Morning.”

“Good morning to you, too, sugar,” she says through satisfied teeth. “I told you. What did I say?”

Yoongi can’t help but shine his own set to the sky before looking her way. “Mm. Depression and isolation can mess with memory, so.. Can’t recall. Looks like you’ll have to tell me again.” 

With creased eyes, he braces as his neighbor lightly threatens with an air swipe of her arm. 

“A smart one, huh? Figures. Glad to have you back, son.” Miss Dion shakes her head, one hand propped on a hip and staring low. “Looks like your little rascal is back, too.”

“My what?” Yoongi looks down before seeing a cat emerge from the nearby bushes, opting to walk on the sidewalk at the sight of people. Silent, he watches his neighbor tsk at the retreating culprit,

“She keeps messing with my plants and making my poor Zeke antsy. Get her some better food, okay? Go with your girlfriend before I charge you for garden damages.” 

A full laugh bursts out of his chest, realizing he’s got a little in common with the feisty, older woman. Is Zeke the name of a dog or something? “Yes, ma’am.” 

“Good.” Settling into a warm smile, she radiates serenity with sparkles in her eyes. It’s a look that reminds Yoongi of his own mother, and his heart suddenly yearns to go back home. “Now shoo and get on with your day. Don’t let me keep you.”

Turns out, there are plenty of good people in this world. 

And maybe—just maybe—he’s starting to feel like one of them, too. 

“Yes, ma’am.”

—

—

On his drive to work, with morning air breezing through open windows and bottom lip between his teeth, Yoongi decides that you’re gonna hear everything from him from now on. Every single day, he’ll reach out every moment he can. 

He knows it won’t ever, ever make up for the months he fell off the planet, but he’ll abruptly switch up his behavior because you deserve his full extent of communication and he has been severely lacking. 

And the first thing he will hound you about is getting in a good meal today. 

—

—

Work flies by, which is another sign things are looking up. 

During a break, Yoongi fishes out his phone to continue a search he started earlier. And seeing your nickname on his screen sends wings beating around his chest like a fucking lovesick fool. Will he ever get over this feeling? Fuck no. 

You [13:25]: Which one were you looking at? I wanna see!

Cute. It’s one of the keyboards he’s been looking for, but definitely out of his price range—for now. But it’s whatever. He knows what he can do with bare bones and minimal tools, so anything a step above worn-down pads and keys is just a plus. 

Yoongi [14:30]: This is the one I really want but not right now

Yoongi [14:31]: 1 Attachment 

Honestly? Just the fact that you’re interested in what he’s talking about is enough for him. This is leagues better than anything he could’ve imagined, and now he doesn’t know why he didn’t start doing this sooner. 

Well. He does know why. 

Hustler [14:33]: Responded ❤️ to an Attachment

Hustler [14:33]: HOTTT GET IT NOW!!!

Yoongi [14:34]: It’s expensive!! Gonna save up.

Shit, his cheeks can’t hide. Grinning like an idiot and you’re gonna get him caught in this fucking studio. 

But your next text? Your question? Wipes his whole expression and squeezes his lungs shut. 

Hustler [14:35]: how much? i might be getting a raise already so i can spot you🤪

Yoongi damn near drops his phone. 

Are you serious? You’d be willing to do that? For him? You see the price on that. You know how much it is. 

A shimmering feeling spreads throughout his chest, and he’s fighting everything to keep his vision from blurring. You have no idea how much this one text means to him. After all that fear and trauma that shattered his soul, you’re slowly stitching him back piece by piece. Even if his chest is constricting so hard he has to clutch it to keep it from breaking for an entirely different reason. 

Fuck, you’re everything. His beginning, his end, his every sleeping and waking moment. 

And you don’t even know how many of his lives you’ve saved. 

Hustler [14:38]: hey i’m sorry if that was overstepping. 

Hustler [14:39]: obv i know you can get it on your own, but i just got way too excited and wanted you to get it asap haha.. but yeah it’s a great investment either way so i say go for it!

Oh, fuck. Screw it. 

Rushing out of his swivel chair, Yoongi walks out of the studio, past a curious Jungkook and Namjoon with a finger already on the call button. 

Walk, walk, walk, get as far out as he can. The rings are blaring in his ears and his chest is on fire but this couldn’t wait. It’s the twentieth step that falters as you timidly answer with,

“Hello? Wait, are you okay?”

Instead of saying the first thing that comes to his mind, or even the second, Yoongi goes with the third. Which is fucking nothing because his mind is where his heart is and his voice is nowhere to be found.

“...Hello?” From the ruffles on the line, he can tell you’re getting up and going wherever the fuck you need to go. Because Yoongi knows he’d be doing the exact same thing. “Where are you.” 

He can only manage a slight chuckle before asking, “What are you doing to me…”

Your sigh of relief turns into a soft laugh. “I really am sorry. If you felt some type of way, I wanted to say that. Shit, I thought you were… I don’t know.”

“Just had to get some air cus of you,” he admits with a huff and shake of his shoulders. “Gonna ban you from my phone.” 

“There’s a word for that, you know.”

There you go again. Boldly teasing him while he’s on the clock? How you hit all of his hidden buttons so effortlessly, he really needs to know. Cheeks tight in a grin, Yoongi fires back, “You wanna try that again?”

“Oh, you don’t know? It starts with a B, too, you were so close!”

You are so fucking lucky you aren’t here with him. The urge to grab and attack your sides until you can’t stop laughing hits Yoongi like a wave, and he scrunches his nose until he counters with feigned nonchalance, “Okay, I see how it is. That’s fine..”

“No, wait, I—”

“I’ll remember that.”

“No!” That laugh is always contagious as hell. “Ah, whatever, you won’t do anything anyway.”

Nah. Even during his goodbye, Yoongi is already plotting. Because while you call his bluff on many things—a surprising amount of them—about this, you couldn’t be more wrong. 

“Guess you’re right, baby girl,” Yoongi says, using a low tone that always makes you shiver just right, “I sure won’t.”

He doesn’t have to tell you it’ll take four days to make that a blatant lie.

—

—

During the next studio session a few days later, everyone starts hanging out and messing around since things got wrapped up fairly quickly. Something about being organized and intentional can free up time or whatever. Yoongi just laughs at how simple yet how rare that really is in the industry he chose. 

As they jam with Woosung and the guys, he lets himself truly let go, feeling the flow of music and rhythm and playing away on one of the lingering guitars. It’s his first time touching one in so long without it cutting deep into his skin. 

It feels good. He’s not even that rusty. This is the best development in a long time. 

Even the band has compliments running all throughout the session, and it takes everything for Yoongi to not grin too wide or strain his cheeks in shyness. He knows he’s good, but hearing it from them is a little too much to handle. 

It also doesn’t help to feel a pair of eyes look his way a little too strangely. 

But soon after it ends, Yoongi finds himself out back again with Woosung, leaning against bricks as smoke fills the alleyway. 

“You seem okay today,” the singer notes through a small smile. “You gonna be alright?” 

“I am.” Yoongi watches the afternoon skies. “And I think so.” 

A small hum. “You have to say it like you mean it. Even if you don’t believe it, you have to try.” 

Shit, that’s a lot easier said than done. But Yoongi keeps his mouth shut and his eyes blinking, looking down and smelling wisps of tobacco. “What do you do when you..” Fuck, how should he say it? “What do you do when you keep falling back down?” 

Woosung takes a drag, and he seems to know what that means. “First I’d tell you the obvious. Keep picking yourself back up.” Coughing, he continues in a much more relaxed manner. “But honestly, you gotta figure out why it’s happening in the first place.” 

Yoongi looks his way.

“Once you deal with the reason for the fall, you know how to fight the push. The slip. Whatever you wanna call it.” 

With a deep inhale, Yoongi slowly focuses back on the sky, wanting to lose himself in the clouds drifting pass. 

Without a doubt, he knows what his push is. He’s just been too weak to fight it. Now that he has people helping—and you—it shouldn’t be as hard. “Thanks.” 

“You learn a lot on the road. And I can tell you wanna be on stage, you know. You’d kill it.” 

“You think so?” 

“I think you think so.” 

Yoongi laughs with him. Because the guy's not wrong. “I’ll get there. There’s not really any other options for me.” 

Woosung appraises him with pride. “There’s a few camps that are opening up spots. You guys should go to one. It’s good networking, if anything.” After flicking his cig, the singer then turns to fully face him. “Who knows? We might end up opening for you someday.” 

Huh? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Brows furrowed, Yoongi blinks before getting confused at the guy’s laugh.

“I’m not kidding. There’s something special about you, I can tell. You just need more time and space to let it grow.”

Mulling it over, Yoongi knows where the conflict is coming from. Yes, he does need to learn more and pretty soon, they could all outgrow that studio and move into another. But they have to push forward and try, even if they’ll be out of their element at these networking opportunities. “I’ll let them know,” he finally says.

“Good.” Woosung pushes off the wall with a shoulder. “I know you’re doing this for you, but… Is there someone else you’re doing all this for, too?” 

Yoongi nods without hesitation. 

“Then don’t leave them in the dark for much longer.” 

What the fuck? How did he know?

“If they catch you in a bad moment… You might lose them before you can even say sorry.” 

—

—

Yoongi strolls across another aisle before halting mid-stride, tugging himself into the seasoning and oil section to grab more of what he needs.

After work, he chose to stop by the nearest supermarket to grab things. And the more he walks through the different areas, the more he realizes just how much he’d been needing. Fuck, the damn bill is gonna be huge. 

But it’s all worth it. Surprising you with a hearty meal? Yoongi thinks he could do that every day for the rest of his life.

If only there was a nice spot in town you could also go. The ache he has to take you out and show you off has been reaching record highs, but he knows it’s not possible right now. 

Yoongi just wants to show you he’s cool with bringing you outside of his place. Never mind that it feels less like home, he’s more concerned about you thinking the worst. Thinking that things are over or limited when he has plans that extend beyond— 

Jimin: Incoming Call

A brow is raised before Yoongi answers, “Hey.”

“When’s the release party again?”

That was definitely not what he expected to be asked. Especially when Jimin has been texting him about movies and reminders about practice all day. “Uhh. In a couple weeks. Why?”

“Okay. I.. I dunno.”

Yoongi checks the expiration date on a carton before flat out blurting, “Just date him.”

A groan sounds on the line. “I just.. What if he doesn’t want to? Then I’ll look like an idiot.”

Putting back the first, Yoongi pulls out a second, approving the better date and lowering it into his cart. “Then he’s the idiot.”

“Well. He is.” A rueful laugh crunches through as the smell of cheeses and bread fill the air. “But only because of the way he looks at me.” 

Yoongi’s heart clenches. He feels the same about you, wondering how you could still regard him with those beautiful eyes and make him feel more than wanted. “If it helps, you look happy with him.”

“Ah, throwing my own words back at me now?”

“Guess so.” Yoongi flexes his jaw. “I just know how this feels.”

“When are you gonna tell him.”

His whole body locks. “I don’t know.”

“Dude.”

And his eyes slowly shut.

“It’s been long enough, you know that, right?”

Stopping off to the side, he leans onto his cart swallowed in his hood, ignoring a few passing looks and gnawing into his lip. “Course.”

“So do it. I get that you don’t want to, but you have to.”  

A hand angrily rakes through his hair, and he lowers his head to speak to the ground. Of course he would get this lecture in the middle of a fucking store. “He’s gonna fucking kill me and who knows what he’ll say to—”

“And I’ll be sending flowers and Tae will write you a song.”

A pause. Then a huff. Yoongi almost feels like it could be that simple.  

“She deserves this. You deserve to finally make this.. I dunno, real. Official, if you wanna call it that. Blessed? Wait, is that only for weddings—”

“Chim.”

“You get what I mean. And the most important—and I’m sure you know this because you’re not an idiot—he sure as fuck deserves to know.” 

“I know. We both do.” Yoongi sighs, hearing wheels squeak around him and various chatter. He knows he should move before weirding people out, but his feet feel glued to tile. “It’s just.. gonna be shit for all of us.”

“…At least it’ll be less shit if you tell him before he finds out on his own.”

Jimin is always right. 

“Also, I might need that keyring back soon if you aren’t even gonna put it to use. I wanna practice after work for the last game.”

“I am using it.” 

“Not how I planned.”

“How you planned?” What the hell does that mean? It’s just a set of keys that unlock the gym a ways away, and Yoongi uses it to play by himself after it closes so he’s alone. 

When he’s alone. Wait. 

“I’ll give it back,” Yoongi finally speaks. “After the game.”

There’s an audible groan on the other line. “Can’t believe I have to spell everything out around here.” 

Mustering enough strength to prop his head up, Yoongi finally rolls from his spot and heads to the front to pay. “Thanks, Chim.”

“Use it well. Make her happy, make you happy, make babies, make me a fun uncle, I don’t care.”

Yoongi outright laughs, heart beating a little faster. And he thought just shopping for groceries with you would be enough for him. Gotta hand it to Jimin for getting miles ahead of everyone else. Although… 

“But you have to tell him.” 

Dreams dashed through, he murmurs a quiet, “I know.”

“Yoongi… I’m glad you’re back.”

“Me, too.” Yoongi slips into line, waiting behind a young man giving his girl a cheek kiss and laughing at her dramatically wiping it away. “Thanks for everything.” 

“You can thank me by telling someone you need help next time. Even if it’s not me.”

As the girl goes to lift food to be scanned, she gets stopped by her boyfriend, watching with a small smile before helping him anyway. “I will.”

“Good. Love you.”

Yoongi swallows, eyes a little prickly for more than one reason. “Love you, too.” 

—

—

Even though Yoongi has been getting small evidence of your eating habits—as instated by him this past week—he’s still determined to get you more nourishment. 

He’s pretty sure you like the restaurant next door, so despite knowing this could get him in a world of trouble, he uses his lunch time to bring you food. 

Writing a note and some groceries he forgot to get last time, Yoongi sets it in the paper bag and walks to your building, still in disbelief that you’ve been this close this whole time. The pain of remembering how much of your life he missed while he was unreachable pangs his chest. But he deserves it, and you deserve a lot better. 

Finally on your floor, he walks up to the receptionist before immediately ignoring their wide eyes. 

“Who are you looking for?”

“My girlfriend. Just dropping this off.” 

“Oh.. This is so sweet of you.”

Yoongi doesn’t even give that declaration a second thought. It came out so naturally.

Maybe he really is ready to move on.

You aren’t there at your desk. Which is probably best because he’d just steal you away. So Yoongi quietly sets it on your empty space, looking at all the trinkets and pictures you have in your little world. Some are just adorable, but he spots a polaroid of your brother that clenches his chest. 

He was there for that. You both had matching cameras and took an impromptu picture of each other at the same time. He’s pretty sure your brother has yours very visible somewhere, too. 

But there’s no time to think because he’s gotta bounce. 

Walking fast past reception, he hears a quick, “Wait, are you not gonna wait for her?”

Pausing, Yoongi turns. “I….” 

On second thought? Yeah. Because fuck this sudden shyness, he's gonna take any chance to see you.

Be it from being impatient, or just really nervous, Yoongi waits around a nearby corner until you find your food. He needs to see your reaction to the note, because if you throw it out or ignore it? He’ll take that as the most glaring sign to give you space.

But when your hand slowly covers your mouth and your body quietly buckles, his heart beats so loud he thinks you can hear it, and his soul pulses so fucking hard his vision glosses over. 

You will never know what you truly do to him.

Back at the studio, Yoongi is locked in the rest of his shift. Because he isn’t just doing this for him now. There’s another reason he’ll be making it big. 

You’re still believing in him after all this time. You still stayed. 

And Yoongi will take over the whole world just to kneel at your feet to give it to you. 

—

—

The entire night is perfect. 

In fact, Yoongi’s entire life feels like it’s where it should be. Hanging out with you in a gym, starting another water fight because he still dreams about the one you sprung on him that day? This is what life is about. There are no shadows with him now that he’s fully in your light. 

And that carries him through the night and up until the game the next day. His sleep was restful, his spirits are high, and his mind is completely spotless. 

But with one glance at the man from Dalo, all the darkness comes rushing back in. 

—

—

Did you just tell them all to play? 

Even though the guy that assaulted you is on the other team, you want everyone to stay? To play out the game? 

Seeing you look so folded in on yourself, Yoongi’s chest feels twisted with immediate rage. How the fuck are these guys allowed to even be here? How did they make it this far? That fucker is staring him in the face and he’s trying unbelievably hard to not go over there and commit felonies. 

Honestly? If you’re really about this and want them to go ahead and play, Yoongi knows exactly how it’s gonna play out. All the scenarios are manifesting in his head and he can’t help but feel a sadistic elation knowing how fucked this other team is gonna be. 

But he looks at his best friend with heated eyes. “What do you wanna do?” 

It takes him awhile, but your brother responds exactly how he thought he would, “Fuck this shit up.” 

“Exactly.” 

At your addition, Yoongi looks your way, liking your spark but hoping you’re not overcompensating for anything. If you’re uncomfortable, they should just forfeit the game and bounce. 

You aren’t budging. You’re clearly shaking and yet, you are immovable in your decision. And it’s so like you and fuck he wants to kiss your fears away in front of the whole gym just so everyone including that dipshit knows you’re forever untouchable. “The fuckin’ nerve.” 

“Bold,” Jimin adds from where he stands, turning to you and dropping into oblivion to say what they’re all already thinking. “Don’t worry, love.” 

Yoongi turns to the other bench.

“This will be over soon.” 

—

—

Everything starts off exactly how they want it to. 

Turns out, Jimin’s regimen and practice schedule worked out in everyone’s favor. Now that they’ve played multiple games with each other, Yoongi and the other guys can communicate with just looks and moves alone. Which proves a huge advantage because they’re making the other team look completely unorganized. 

All those nights alone in that gym have also contributed to Yoongi’s form. This is the quickest it’s taken him to be in the zone and he’s even impressing himself with how sharp he is. 

No one can guard him. No one can stop him. It’s painfully obvious to them and he can’t help but laugh at their shock every time, shrug at their little team squabbles, smirk at the way this idiot can’t even keep up with him. Tragic? Worse. 

But things get dicey when Rohan fouls a little too hard, everyone nearly converging on him and the guy selling his pain as if it wasn’t just a normal swing. On cue, shoving and pushing happens, Yoongi being on the outskirts since he’s the last to get there. 

It’s over when the coaches come separate, but amongst all the racing heartbeats, your brother looks really focused coming out of the fray. Really calm. Which means something went down and he is fighting to keep his attitude in check. 

As they both head to the bench, Yoongi immediately gets the rundown. And his whole attitude ices over with a snap. 

“They know which car is mine.”

Fuck. 

That means one of two things. One, these guys just happen to really like knowing who drives what. Or two, this isn’t a game anymore. This isn’t the matchup—the real one is not going down on rec center floors. 

Yoongi is already repeating his apologies to you. 

Well, shit. May as well have some real fun with it now. If they can get the other team to call it quits here, they may have a shot at an easier standoff later. 

Right. 

—

—

Yoongi doesn’t like this one bit. The other team was too quiet to just have left without a word. 

They really will be meeting them in the parking lot. And suddenly, things get a little too real. 

This walk could be the last, depending on what they may have on them. The only shit those guys have against them is that this is a public center, and there could still be a lot of witnesses walking by— 

Thunder rumbles as they reach the end of the long awning jutting out from the rec center entrance, and Yoongi looks at the dark sky with lidded eyes.

Fuck. So much for people passing by. They may be left out there on their own for real.

“Still?”

At Jimin’s question, Yoongi nods. Because they still have to confront this group of cowards one last time, pouring rain or not. Revenge is never one to raincheck. 

Maybe they bluffed. Maybe the storm settled in some seconds thoughts. The lot still looks fine, with cars emptying out one by one as they walk and the space getting more scarce. Your brother’s car and Jimin’s exist in the same spot a ways down near the end. 

With more than an alarming number of guys surrounding them. 

Is that a whole fucking crew? Fuck, this was not the plan you need to get out of here and anywhere else but your place. 

Before Yoongi can say anything, your brother beats him to it. “Taehyung. Get her out of here. Now.” 

And your scream of resistance tears through every cell in his body. 

Yoongi can’t even fucking look at you, even if to burn the image of your face in his mind to get through this bullshit. Because if he does? He’ll be the one hauling you away and bringing you both to the safest place he can think of without a second or third thought. 

But he will not inconvenience his loving mother with a sudden visit just yet. When he finally brings you home, it will be for a different reason entirely. 

“No! What the fuck—” 

“We’re leaving.”

“Please—! No, let me go!” 

This is the thought that will keep him grounded. It has to. He has to face this situation because from the way things are looking, if they don’t settle this now, it will only get worse. For them, for you, for everyone. 

Fuck, your voice. It’s taking everything for Yoongi to keep his anger in check because, despite his malice, he’s the one that ultimately started this. He thought he was in the clear. What a fucking joke fuck you’re clawing at his ducts and he doesn’t need to look at your brother to know what he’s thinking. 

The man is fucking silent. 

And this is the one Yoongi remembers with full body shivers. The protector. The one that will do whatever’s necessary to save the ones he loves. This is the guy Yoongi has to eventually confront, if they—when they—get out of this situation in decent pieces. If your brother did what he did for him? What the fuck is he gonna do for you? 

But in all fairness. For the first time, Yoongi understands this side of his best friend. Because for you? There’s no limit to what he would do to keep you safe. What a fucking shame he’d left you in the dark for that long. If you hate him after this, he’ll deal with it. At least that means you were safe enough to say it. 

Woosung warned him. And Yoongi still didn’t heed the signs. 

But no use dwelling in it now. Your screams have morphed into sobs as Taehyung hauls you away. And with quick observation, Yoongi notices that even some of the faces he’s watching falter. 

You’re his everything. Your brother’s everything. And he fucking hates himself for all those opportunities he had to be by your side, all those times he could’ve just confessed but couldn’t because of his own damn faults. 

Rolling his shoulder, Yoongi braces for the storm, your brother finally speaking with a clutched phone behind his back as soon as you’re out of earshot, 

“Last chance.” 

The man from Dalo shoots out a huff of disbelief. “For what, motherfucker.” 

“To back off my fucking car.” 

Thunder rattles some of the guys into a step back, but your brother doesn’t move. Resolute, he brims with sinister energy, its bristles curling around Yoongi’s legs and hardening Jimin’s shoulders. Even some of the guys from the team have stayed behind, which doesn’t come as a shock seeing as how close they are with your older sibling. 

“That’s your play?” Dalo guy drawls before looking around. “Outnumbered and you’re worried about a little paint scratch?” 

Your brother only smirks like he has a secret. And Yoongi knows full well that it’s a bluff that always works like a charm. “I mean, I’d be worried if I were you, but. If you can skip a few months’ rent to pay off the damages, go ahead.”

More of the guys shuffle in nervousness, which is the sign they all need. If they actually leave, things should end quicker. All they have to do is hold it out long enough for them to talk. 

“How about this,” the man suggests, poison trickling down his curve before he swings his bat right into the side mirror of your brother’s car fuck. “Let’s see how many swings it takes for you to stop me.” 

“I’m gonna guess a few,” your sibling drawls under the blare of his car alarm, expertly hiding the fact that he’s pissed as another swing hits the passenger door. “Give or take.” 

“You shut the fuck up,” the leader growls, smashing the nearest window right out and grinning into the vehicle. “Oh, what’s this? I’ll take that, thank you.” 

“Don’t.”

Yoongi’s blood freezes as he sees exactly what the guy takes, noticing the matching polaroid that your brother has of you that’s always on the dash. 

Oh, fuck this noise and fuck this guy. Now he’s waving it like a little trophy? All bets are fucking off. No amount of morals will help him now and your brother turns downright murderous. 

“Think I’ll get a lot of good use out of this,” the assaulter boasts with a sinister grin, shoving the picture in his pocket that Yoongi can only assume reeks of sweat and cowardice. Thunder booms once more, and droplets start pinging off shoulders and sweaty heads. 

He wants to hurl thinking of what the guy means, and he doesn’t even realize he’s one step further than before until an arm stops him at his chest. Turning, Yoongi sees his best friends’ eyes ablaze but still facing forward, and he stops his strides—mind racing with rage. 

“Your girl looked good today, by the way!” The Dalo guy appraises with a lift of his chin, rain running down his angular cheekbones and staining his dark mesh. Yoongi snaps his gaze forward again because shit this is being addressed to him. “We got a nice view from our bench.” 

Fuck this dude. What the fuck is happening to his spiking heart rate? Is it anger? The rain? A thunderous mixture of both? 

On heavenly cue, thunder tears through the sky again, raindrops starting to pick up just to drown this guy’s talking, 

“Think it’s time for me to see her again? Her skin’s so soft, bet it feels like heaven when y’all fuck, huh?”

Don’t fucking break, don’t fucking break, stop clenching both fucking hands. 

“Not gonna share?” The man turns to your brother with the evilest glint in his eye. “Guess I can always stop by and ask her myself.” 

When the sky rains down in sheets, everything erupts at once. 

—

—

Gritty, darker days of the past melt into Yoongi’s vision as the night blurs and roars around him. 

For a brief moment in time, he doesn’t think they’ll make it. Youth has slipped its protection from their bones, taking the recklessness of their souls with it. They haven’t done this in ages. And it fucking shows.

Because Yoongi’s side hurts like a motherfucker and his palms sting with white hot singe. Rain and bodies slow in their motion as he takes it all in, and his eyes droop as he shifts closer to his friends—mind swirling like the lights pulsing down the street.

Your brother smacks into wet ground before wrenching himself back up, and a Jimin sporting a botched eye yanks him backward before distancing them all from another hit. The other guys from the team shield their blind spots, everyone now mangled and boxed in tighter and tighter.

This is because of him. He did this. He did all of this.

Mind and skin slick from the rain, his guards crumble. Dark thoughts flood back in and inundate his every crevasse. You deserve to hate him and you should you should you should. 

A prideful laugh erupts before yelling out, “Let’s get this over with, yeah?” 

“You aren’t gonna do shit,” your brother taunts.

“Think so?” As the man reaches behind his back, Jimin’s voice pierces like an arrow, 

“Watch it!”

Acting without thought, Yoongi bolts to his friend, knowing what to do but not having a plan for what’s next oh fuck what’s this guy pulling out—

“Yoongi!”

If anything, he can at least go out with the knowledge that he kept your brother safe. You’ll be safe with him. Yoongi will find a way back to you even if it takes another lifetime or two. 

Rain roars down as something dark is pulled from the man’s pants. But Yoongi can barely make out what it is as he shoves your brother out of the way.

"No!"

He's frozen. He can't fucking move. Your bright light is the only thing that flashes into his mind as he stares into glinting, vengeful eyes.

But everyone else will be safe. That is the most important. The only thing that matters. 

Suddenly, sirens sound from a ways down, everyone flinching in the downpour. Lights swirl and swirl, and it’s your brother’s exhausted admission that shocks everyone, 

“Those are for you, by the way.”

“The fuck?” The man backs up immediately, shocked when half the guys are already scrambling off. “You fuckin’ snitched?”

“What can.. I say,” your sibling huffs through heavy breaths. “Don’t mess.. with my fuckin’ car.”

“Bullshit.” 

“Stay if you want.” Straightening with a repressed wince, your brother sets a hand on Yoongi’s good shoulder before walking right up to the man that assaulted you, weapon in hand be damned. “It’ll make it easier for them to spot you. You know, with all the cameras and shit.” 

“…Huh?”

“We’re in a public lot, genius.” He wipes blood from the side of his face, looking up behind him at the very obvious camera positioned on the nearest floodlight. “And if we run the tape back, y’all smashed my property.” 

The man slowly smiles. “And you’re on the same footage instigating a fight. What if I just…” Something happens between their bodies, but Yoongi can’t see what. “Do it right here? Defend myself?”

Your brother raises his shoulders before exaggerating a sigh. “See, the thing is…” Hands on his hips, he reminds Yoongi of you, flinging him back to a very similar rainy afternoon with much less harrowing stress. How he’s remaining so calm is unfathomable. “You broke into my car and stole from me. Anyone seeing that footage—you know, before the rain—is just gonna see… Well, us trying to stop you.”

The sirens get louder and louder, and more of the guys have long gone by now. But your assaulter stays in disbelief, eyelids blinking away rain and arms shaking. “They can’t catch me from those cams.”

“Probably. But they can pick up your voice from my recordings.” Looking down, your brother finishes with bored finality, expertly ignoring the fact that he's millimeters from death. “And you have my picture in your pants, dumbass.”

Yoongi’s never seen someone slam a hand into their pockets so fast. As the polaroid falls into puddles, a voice quivers while something is tucked back in wet pants, “Fuck you.” 

Before he can run, the man gets snagged by his jersey, sirens blaring closer and closer as your brother unleashes his final threats, “Since you did the smart thing and spared me, I'll be nice. But I don’t wanna see you, I don’t wanna see any of them. Come around again, and I’ll make sure you never see daylight, you understand?” 

Fully rattled, the man throws his hands up with a growl, “Fine, I got it! Fuck!” 

With the last dashes of a coward, the team is left alone in the lot. 

Turning their drenched heads and shoulders just in time to see the cops fly by.

—

—

After a quick check to make sure no one’s sporting a major injury, all the team members that stayed are told to go home before any other cops come to ask what’s up. Your brother finishes calling a tow truck for his battered pride and joy, and Yoongi rejoins him with a very silent Jimin. 

Even though the rain never stops, the three of them wait until everyone else is driving off. Until everyone else is safely on the way back to some place dry. 

When alone, the three of them turn to each other without a single word. 

It’s done. It’s really done.

—

—

Just sliding into the passenger seat of Jimin’s car makes Yoongi hiss in pain. 

Groans from the others fill the humid space, and Jimin makes sure the lot is completely cleared again before watching his rearview mirror. “How the fuck did you know the cops would come?” 

“I didn’t.” 

Jimin’s good eye widens. “That was just coincidence?” 

“So was the rain being this bad.” 

Fucking hell, they lucked out on every single thing they could’ve lucked out on. If it went down any other way? At least one of them would’ve been lying face down on pavement. 

Swallowing, Jimin clutches his wheel with one hand before asking next, “Well.. What are you gonna do? You leave tomorrow, right?”

They’re about to talk about the towed, smashed car he called in. So Yoongi’s just gonna lean into his seat and try to fucking breathe. 

“Yeah,” your brother huffs out. “Umm. I’m not sure. There’s no getting out of this trip, and I can’t exactly tell my boss what happened.” 

“Need us to bring it into the shop tomorrow?”

“Really? Damn, that’d be perfect, thanks. I’ll just get a ride to the airport in the morning then.” 

Yoongi winces to himself as he adjusts, hearing a groaning curse from the backseat at the same time. “You sure you’re good to leave tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’ll be alright.” The man sighs. “Couple hours of ice and some bandages should do it. And the suits will cover most of me up.” 

“K.”

Jimin starts the car, hand gripping the center console so hard his veins pop. “I gotta say… That was the first time I’ve been that scared. In a long time.”

The whole space falls silent in agreement.

It’s your brother that croaks out next. “The last time we were in shit that deep.. Yoong got his back thrown into that barbed fence.”

At that, Yoongi looks out the window.

“But the important part is that we made it. And they won’t be coming around now that we have shit on them. Fuck, the way I wanted to just—”

Yoongi cuts his sentence off immediately, “Luckily you chose logic.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“We just all have someone to live for now,” Jimin grits out with frustration. “So can we just.. Not do this anymore?”

Another hush of understanding falls over the group, and everyone quietly agrees. 

“Good.” Jimin rolls his car forward and starts calling someone, setting his phone down while Taehyung’s name shows on his car screen. 

“Hey.”

He answered. Which means you’re right at his side. Fuck, Yoongi’s heart is pounding so hard it’s drowning out the rainfall. Your voice. He needs it. He’ll take anything you have to say. 

“Hey.” 

“You okay?”

Jimin’s tongue prods his cheek. “Yeah, we’re all alright, but…”

“Say it.”

As Jimin relays the damage, Yoongi starts picking at his fingernails in nervousness, something he hasn’t done in so long but still feels like second nature. “My eye is pretty fucked. Yoongi’s face is cut up and he’s got some nasty bruises on his—” 

“Where is he.”

Oh. That’s really you. 

Shit.

Jimin audibly pauses on the line before having the audacity to chuckle. What the fuck is he laughing for? What about any of this could possibly be funny? 

“This isn’t funny, Park. Where the fuck is he?” 

“With us,” Jimin slowly answers, as if this suspense is good for anyone. “In the car.” 

At least he has enough mercy to start out with including your brother. Hopefully that first response was enough to clue you in before saying anything more damning. Not that something damning wasn’t already said. Fuck, this wasn’t exactly what Yoongi meant when he said he wanted to hear you. But goddamn if his soul isn’t already pulsing at the thought of you asking about him. 

After another beat, Jimin decides to spell it out for you. And Yoongi feels like he’s about to dangle from a precipice. “Your brother’s here, too.” 

“Ah… Am I on speaker.” 

Both Yoongi and Jimin look at the center screen, already knowing your brother is looking, too. “Umm.. Yeah.” 

Whatever Yoongi thinks you’re gonna do or say? Is nothing compared to what you actually do. He hasn’t been this chewed out in ages and the pit in his stomach morphs into a void.

“Actually, you know what? Good. Now I can say you’re all idiots and immature as fuck.” 

The man in the back tries to cut you off to no avail. “Hey, wait a damn minute—” 

“I waited long enough!” 

Yoongi physically feels his whole soul sag with guilt, guilt, guilt. 

“I know this shit isn’t new to y’all, but really? You didn’t need to do this.” 

“He was gonna—”

“All you had to do was play the game! Why’d you have to make them mad? Do you even know what could’ve happened back there?” 

Yes, they all know. In fact, Yoongi is still mentally running from that one split second of terror. If the dude from Dalo was reaching, that could only mean a couple things and he doesn’t wanna think of either one. How the fuck is he supposed to face you now? When he almost got—

“Just tell me one thing… Is this gonna happen again?” 

That one your brother answers with finality. “They won’t be coming around anymore.” 

Yoongi hopes to everything in the universe that it’s true. Judging by the fear in those eyes? The way they all ran? There’s no way they’re coming back. But the adrenaline pulsing through his cuts and bruises gives some room for doubts. 

“Okay… Are you okay?” 

Your sibling answers yet again, making things seem much less concerning than they really are. As usual. “Me? Yeah, the hits I took were weak as fuck. I’ll get home soon so if you wanna order in tonight we can.” 

“Fuck that.” 

“Huh?” 

“Bro, you don’t even know how fucking mad I am. I’m going to Yuri’s.” 

That shake in your voice will stay for a very, very long time. Even as his best friend dares to question you, Yoongi’s throat remains shut. “What? Nah, come home tonight and we’ll talk.” 

“I just—No.” Fuck. Your pause is the loudest thing. It’s long enough to make them all think you’ve hung up, but he has a feeling the next thing you say will crush him. 

And he’s right. 

“I’m not talking to any of you for awhile.” 

You mean that. There’s no doubt in Yoongi’s mind that you’re dead set on cutting them all off with no hesitation. And they all deserve it, especially him. What they did tonight was idiotic and could’ve been avoided in a thousand ways. You have every fucking right to be furious. Truthfully, you’re kinda letting them all off easy.  

Once again, your brother is the spokesperson for the car. Because why would anyone else be, right? “…Fine. But go asap then. I don’t want you out late on your own.” 

“…Of course you don’t.”

And you hang up so fast it cuts Yoongi’s breath in two. 

Silence follows. Followed by a multitude more. Unspoken thoughts are forming dark clouds in the car, stuffing the space and jamming cotton in everyone’s ears. 

In the rear view mirror, Yoongi watches his friend rub both hands over his face before a fist bangs against leather upholstery, Jimin reacting immediately with a quick,

“Behave.”

“Sorry.” A rustle of clothes and guilt follows. “I just… My sister’s right. What the fuck are we doing anymore? This one was stupid.”

“All the fights we’ve been a part of have been stupid,” Jimin tuts, looking over his shoulder and wincing before turning a corner. “Fuck, my eye.”

Yoongi offers with a hand still slung over his waist, voice hoarse, “Need me to drive?” 

“No one with a death wish gets to drive my car.” Jimin hisses out another whoosh of pain. “But no, I can make it to his place.”

“K.”

“And she’s right.” Jimin rolls to a stop at the next light. “Even if tonight was coming, this could’ve been prevented. Or done another way. Honestly, I’m surprised we made it out.”

“Same,” Yoongi agrees. 

“Glad I got his shit recorded,” your brother sighs, wincing while adjusting his seat. “They shouldn’t be able to refute the recordings in court—fuck—if it gets to that point.”

“What happens if they—”

“Forget about them,” Yoongi interjects, earning two looks of shock and feeling a little surprised himself. When the car starts moving again, he works his hurt jaw, trying to figure out how to word his ever twisting thoughts. “We didn’t tell her anything and that’s where we fucked up.”

Did that come out too upsetting? Can he blame it on his aching side? Does it even matter anymore? Does anything?

“How do you know that.”

Stiffening ever so slightly, Yoongi uses his battered side as an excuse to shift. Wincing, he looks at the center console, choosing not to peer out the window on purpose. Face this shit now. Tell the truth in parts to control it,

“She told me.” 

Jimin doesn’t acknowledge that answer, instead turning at the next corner and checking his mirrors. 

“When.” 

Motherfucker. Yoongi’s mouth is drying out so fast he doesn’t taste the blood anymore. Everything feels like sandpaper, scratching his tongue, tearing his esophagus to shreds. The rasp that results rips his throat red,

“After—”

“After I told her everything,” Jimin jumps in, throwing a blanket over his fire. As Yoongi gives him a look, he continues with eyes on the road, “At that party you hosted a few days after you came back.”

Thank god the blond knows to step up when he’s needed. Yoongi still can’t think straight and was about to admit he called you during that party. Full on busted. And how would that have gone? 

“The party I…? Oh, the one that Sunday? Fuck.” Your brother wipes his lower face before shutting tired eyes. “I remember now. Cus I was gonna tell her back then, but everyone started coming over.” 

“We should’ve told her before Dalo even happened,” Yoongi says with a sag to his voice. 

Thankfully, all suspicion and tightness is gone from your sibling’s voice. Only agreement resonates. “Yeah.. Yeah.” 

More silence washes over the car, sweat and rainwater caked on skin while blood hardens in layers. Though Jimin makes no comment, Yoongi knows he’s gonna pay for any damages just sitting in here will accrue. 

Rolling up to your house, Jimin parks in the driveway, all of them still wordlessly suffering because of all the shit he started. 

Yoongi can’t see it any other way. This all happened because of him, whether his best friend says so or not. Yeah, he threw that punch on the court back then, but Yoongi’s the one that fell for the taunts. How fucking stupid. And to think he thought all of this would just, what, go away with time? 

You reached for him on the court this last game. You were begging for him to tone it the fuck down. Once again, he didn’t listen, blinded by the anger boiling over—at that coward, and at himself. 

But you’re safe, your brother is safe, and everyone that fought today is fine. Yoongi’s gonna count every blessing that he can before the darkness wins again. 

“Thanks for driving, Chim,” your brother grunts as he opens the door. “And Yoongi?” 

He turns to look his way. Staring right into those eyes laser focused and exhausted to hell all at once. Not even the pouring rain can divert either of them from breaking contact. 

“Get out of the fucking car.”

Fuck.

Yoongi works his cheek before grunting out of the doorway, winding the car and knowing Jimin is on high alert inside. If this is about you? If this is the battle he was supposed to fight for months? 

Maybe he’s not making it out tonight after all. 

As soon as Yoongi gets close, he’s yanked forward by the collar, eyes unmoving as he knows not to flinch. He’s gonna own his shit, as much as he’s scared out of his fucking mind right now. 

Words rip low from your sibling’s lips, “Whatever the fuck you did? Don’t even think about doing it again.” 

And there it is. 

The door he’d been so desperate to open has been sealed completely shut, caught in this torrential downpour and retreating so far back he can’t see it any longer. “I’m sorry,” he rasps out. “I was gonna—”

“Jimin’s right. You got a fucking death wish? What the fuck is wrong with you? How would you think I wouldn’t figure it out?” 

Ice blocks all his veins, freezing his chest over and chilling him below his bones. Everything from the moment you knocked on his door to now comes rushing past his vision and breaking in lightning quick snaps. 

All Yoongi wanted to do was protect you. And now he’s gonna lose both of you. 

Shoving him backwards, your brother growls out. “I just… Are you fucking serious?” He sighs to the ground, rain drenching his already slicked head and steaming shoulders. “You got one life, and a future bright as fuck. Stop throwing it away so easily, or we’re done.” 

What?

Now Yoongi’s eyes jolt for another reason. Shock thrums and resets his body, forcing it to grapple with the real conflict between them. “This is about me saving your life?” 

“What the fuck else would it be!” Your sibling rushes forward and shoves him again, and Jimin is fully springing out of his car now. “The fuck were you thinking?”

“What the hell are you two doing?” 

“You’re fucking kidding me. Are you serious? He was about to—”

“I can handle my own shit!”

Jimin keeps a bull from charging again, full on forcing him back. “What the fuck!”

“I can save you from an idiot with a gun,” your sibling grits out like it’s hurting him from the inside, “But not her, dude.” 

Her? What the fuck?  

“Yeah, don’t think I believed you for a fucking second. She’s still there, huh? I can see it all over your face!”

As Jimin stills in his pushing, Yoongi’s feet start to get tugged into the earth. 

“Look at you. Gone for days at a time, starting shit on the court, and just—throwing yourself out with no plan? Do you even care about your life anymore?”

Thunder cracks the sky once more, punctuating his words on impact.

And it's Jimin’s turn to shove his friend back, voice tightened in ice, “I suggest you choose your next words very carefully.”

“Do you?”

Life slows around Yoongi, magnifying the pain he feels in his side and the blow he took straight to the lip. Everything hurts. Everything’s numb. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, this isn’t what he bargained for at all. And even though it’s been forever since he’s seen his ex, he can feel her ghost howling and grinning like a victor, tearing his heartbeats to shreds. 

Your brother’s right about her still being burrowed in his place. That has been the case for months and he needs to fix that. But caring about his life? Of course he does. Did it look like he was just throwing himself out? Truthfully he doesn’t remember everything he did he just acted on pure instinct. “That’s not.. It’s not like that—”

Shucking off a persistent Jimin, your brother straightens and backs up a step. “Someone to live for, huh? Yeah, count me the fuck out. Her? What the fuck, Yoong?” 

No. Not this again. Say something. Say fucking anything to fix this shit. The dread that settles into his stomach is finding permanent residence because he’s about to lose his best friend for the wrong reason, “Listen, I—”

“Save it. As long as you’re still with her I am done.”

The panic in Jimin’s eyes matches his own, his hands trembling as he keeps them separated, “It’s not like that, okay? Both of you need to—”

“Get out.”

Yoongi and Jimin still, with the latter asking a shocked, slow, “What?”

“You heard me.” Your brother backs up towards the house, rain falling in rivers across his skin and failing to hide the streams from his eyes. “Get his ass home. I’m not saying shit until she’s gone.” 

“But she’s—she’s not even—”

“I’m out.” 

—

—

Rain stains the windows of Jimin’s car in splotches. 

After the entire drive goes by in silence, Yoongi slides tired eyes up to see his place coming into view. 

“Yoongi.” 

He doesn’t respond. 

“I’m staying with you tonight.” 

Shutting down, he gives his friend a shoulder so cold even he regrets it. “No.” He knows Jimin’s already red-rimmed and teary. So he keeps his head down and arm slung over his waist. “Taehyung needs you.” 

“Please,” Jimin begs, voice wavering and full of fear. Which is justified. He knows what will happen if he’s left alone. “I’m staying. I can get him and we can both stay, just—”

“Not tonight.” 

A sniffle is the only response. “I fucked up. I’m so sorry I messed it all up, but please don’t do anything when I’m not there to—”

“I’ll be fine.” Yoongi clicks the door open, greeted by the boom of thunder and endless rain. He can hear the desperation in his best friend’s pleas, but this is something he can’t let anyone witness. Not feeling in control of his body is frightening, and he needs to be isolated. Again.

Before shutting the door, he turns. “This is something I have to do alone.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“I’ll… I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.” 

More sobs wrack Jimin’s body as he wipes his bruised eye with shaky fingers. “Promise me there’s a tomorrow.” 

Oh. Jimin thinks the worst. Fuck, Yoongi is hurting all of his friends in every fucking way possible. “Chim,” he sighs, rain lowering his temperature so much he shakes. “It’s not like that at all. K?” 

“Okay.” 

“I just… Yeah. We’ll talk about it when I’m ready.” 

“Yoongi,” Jimin halts him right as he’s closing the door. “I really am sorry.” 

And he looks down at the seat he just occupied, rainwater and sweat and regret and relief all sunk into leather upholstery,

“Me, too.” 

—

—

As Yoongi stumbles into his apartment, he doesn’t bother to turn the lights on. Why would it matter if all they’ll do is highlight the repercussions of his decisions? The stupid fucking decisions ever since the day he damned you all. 

A shadow snickers, wrapping around his brain and forcing him to recite them all once again. Just like he had been over the last three months. 

Yoongi’s shoes trip over nothing as he stumbles, careening to the floor and smacking a bruised shoulder on impact. White hot pain zings up his limb, shoving out a curse and a wheeze as he lies still because he can’t. Fucking. Move. 

All he wanted to do was protect you. Those guys were loaded with dark intentions and he lost it defending your honor. But that doesn’t negate the fact that he put you and your brother in danger. He’s the one that started the fight on the court that day, he’s the one that messed up by making you feel unwanted. Danger? He put you in that. The club? He put you in there, too, and almost tore his mind apart when he saw what happened to you there. What did you say to him afterward? When you both were in the safety of your own bed? 

“I was so scared.” 

Yoongi punches the floor, gritting his teeth before willing himself to get. Up. Limb by limb, muscle by muscle, he slowly rises to his feet, kicking off his shoes and stripping off his damp, bloody clothes. Because it’s done. The danger won’t reach anyone he cares for any longer, and yet… 

He can barely change into new garments as his mind flashes with more reminders, like how he messed up rushing to defend you at the party, making his best friend silently size him up and wrenching daggers in his side. Even leaving you to deal with his shadow fucked you up, because he couldn’t bring himself to tell you why he even left in the first place. 

But there’s a lot of that hesitation going around. After all, he hasn’t even confessed to you brother yet. Just the thought makes him want to hurl, and he almost does. 

But Yoongi quickly shakes his head, as if doing so flings the memories away. He stalks through his living room, his path illuminated by the flashes of lightning and shaken by the booms of angry thunder. 

You may as well command the very skies. Because your rage seems to mirror them tonight, and he cannot blame you one bit for tearing them all apart. God, he can’t get that tremble in your voice out of his fucking head. You sounded so hoarse, so broken, so defeated and yet so strong. 

In a screwed up way, Yoongi is proud of you for telling them off, setting off a new conversation that ended in them making amends to how they settle things from now on. They all deserved that as much as they needed it. 

You’re too good for him. Yoongi has thought this once before, but it’s more than true now as he stops at the corner of his living room. The darkest one. The one that's been driving him to the brink of insanity and back again.

It’s so loud right here. 

Darkness winds around him in waves, only fleeing when lighting floods the room. His face pulses in pain just as much as his side, and he hunches forward, almost touching the neck of his black guitar case. 

Yoongi can only stare. 

He messed up a lot of things. He knows that. And yet, you haven’t run from him once. Even when he fucked up again, and again, and again, you never ran. That day you almost walked out the door? Yoongi’s heart crumpled and squeezed when he saw you turn right back, eliminating that stabbing fear in his chest and replacing it with a heal of hope. 

But you finally cut him off tonight. 

And honestly, that was the best decision you could’ve made. 

Gripping the firm cloth of the case, he unzips from the top, moving in slow, calculated motions. Thunder rumbles overhead, and he almost flings back to the first time this instrument of disaster was gifted to him. But he fights the memory, quietly choking the guitar by the neck and lifting it from its confines. 

He hears it gasping. Fuck, he hears the screaming. 

And therein lies the root of his manic war. 

This isn’t just an instrument. This isn’t just an object. 

It’s a life. 

If he does anything to it, the guilt will forever mar his conscience. He’ll carry this violence wherever he goes. 

But what else can he do? If he throws it out and someone finds it, the shadow can come back to haunt him. Or inflict its power over someone else. Is that too much of a stretch? Is he truly going insane now? 

A fuck up. A screw up. For as long as he can remember, Yoongi believed those were all used to describe him. However, if you have taught him one thing in the time he’s orbited your presence, it’s a simple fact. He may be a fuck up, and he may be a screw up… 

But he was still a good person. 

Those labels plagued him for years, had him questioning his very existence and rocked him off balance every time he stepped out of line. 

All this time, those words were a projection, flung at him with the intention of making them stick until he couldn’t rub them off. Mud, mud, so much mud had been flung onto his brain and buried his very essence so far deep that he couldn’t even find it anymore. Even his vision dulled, colors looked less vivid, life didn’t feel worth living. 

But Yoongi has fucking had it with the sludge. He already faced your nightmare head on just to keep you safe. If he had to trudge through a thousand miles of sludge next just to get to you? He’s doing it. Because you’re so fucking worth it and he’s not wasting anymore fucking time on these lies, these half-truths, this bullshit. 

Tightening fingers around polished wood so hard that strings bite into his skin, Yoongi turns, lightning flashing and casting his own shadow into his room. 

His shadow. No one else’s. He’s not letting there be two of them in here any longer. 

The screaming reaches a shrill cry.

A dizzying thought roars in his brain once more, crumpling him at the waist and making his ribs sting. Breaths ragged, he squeezes both eyes tight and heaves at the painful pulse of his head. 

That whole time away didn’t even matter, did it? All it took was one phone call to have your brother on his ass yet again. 

Fuck. Is he gonna have to keep his distance again? Shit. He didn’t think about that under all the pain he’s sporting right now, all the mental assault he’s enduring because it is relentless tonight. 

Goddamn it. He can’t deal with another three months away from you. Even three days without you sounds like agony and death right now, because he has to spend his days and nights with the monster in his hand. The dark will await him once more, but he doesn’t want it anymore. It’s not part of him. It’s not it’s not it’s not. 

Eyes slowly opening, Yoongi slowly straightens as much as his ribs allow, shifting his lidded eyes to the weight he carries. 

Get rid of it. 

Throw it out, all of it, all of it. 

But how? He can’t move to throw it away. His feet stay glued to the floor as he struggles to even carry it another second. His chokehold slips, staccato notes giving way to a cacophonic hum as the bottom of the instrument hits the floor. 

Get rid of it. 

It’s like you’re speaking to him. But how is that possible? Is this what happens when one descends into madness? Because that’s what Yoongi feels in the marrow of his bones. Burdened by the fact that no matter what he does, he’s gonna mess it all up. No matter what he tries, it will be in vain. He’ll never be happy. He’ll never get the future he wants. The future with you. With you, with you, with you, wasn’t he just fighting for you? What the fuck is happening to his brain? 

Get rid of it. 

He can’t. 

Get rid of it. 

He can’t. 

Throw it out. All of it, all of it. 

…Can he? 

Yoongi struggles to breathe, heaving out dry, bitter struggle once again. His limbs almost give under the weight of the mud, the pile of sludge. The door seems so far away and he can’t crawl to it any more. There’s too much trash. There’s too much pain. 

Your voice rings across his mind one more, desperate time. 

Get rid of it. 

And someone’s wise words from awhile ago echo right behind like a ripple. A mantra. A reminder.

“If there’s something you need to get through...” 

Manic resolve seizes the reins. 

“Hit it until it breaks.”

Lightning flashes in slow motion as Yoongi doesn’t even feel himself. He hears the bangs, the crashes, the splinting of wood and shrieking of glass as something enormous tramples through his living room. But nothing feels real, his vision isn’t his, those lifts of his arms aren’t his doing as swing, after swing, after heavy final swing hits in front of him. 

This is everything he wanted to unleash in that parking lot. Every movement swathed in rage.

Strings snap, whipping out in all directions as glittery rain falls onto his rug and his floors, skittering in all directions and glinting off the storm light outside. 

His throat is hoarse. His ribs are worse. 

And his brain goes completely dark. 

—

—

When Yoongi blinks, his living room looks unfamiliar. 

Until he wakes amongst millions of shattered pieces, surrounding his bloody limbs in a descent suspended in time. 

Somewhere, what was once a guitar is split in pieces, slain in cold blood to be rid of the shadow inside. A death necessary for life. Yoongi vows to never break an instrument like that again. 

He did it. It finally happened. The only shadow he can see is his. 

…Right? 

Yes. Yes. It’s over.

—

—

Floating. 

Endless, endless floating. The ocean of his mind is calmer without the scepter in the room, but he’s so exhausted he can only move his eyes.

There’s a voice in the dark box he puts himself in. But that doesn’t make sense, does it? When he’s supposed to always end up alone. 

Jimin did his best. So did everyone else. But it’s a simple fact that, in the end, it’s only gonna be him here, listening to you call out to let you in.

Wait. That’s really you. You’re calling him? Has he been responding? When the fuck did he even answer his phone? 

No. You shouldn’t be here tonight. Not tonight. Not like this. 

Regret and anger fill him to the brim as he screams at himself to not push you away. But he will, breaking his own heart to save you from seeing him in his aftermath. You don’t need to see this. You should be miles from where he lies. 

“Not tonight.”

But on the other side of his door, you are fighting like you never have before. 

“Yoongi, I swear to god—” 

“Not tonight—”

“—you don’t let me in I’m—”

“Go home—”

“I’m fucking staying out here until you open the goddamn door!”

Why? Why are you still there? Why are you trying so hard and why does your effort hit him square in the chest? In his mind, he’s reaching for the door but he can’t get there. Still so far away. But you’re screaming for him to try. Begging. 

“I’m serious.”

“No.”

“Go home.” 

“No!” 

It takes everything for him to utter your name, because he feels like even that he doesn’t deserve to say. 

He could hang up. He could just shut you out. So why isn’t he? Is he turning away, or clinging on to your outstretched hand? 

Yoongi knows why he’s still on the line. It’s because he needs you. Fuck, he needs you and yet he wants you the furthest distance possible. You can’t see this. Any of this. You’d cast him away and never look back.

Which is why he finally reaches the point of begging, “Please.”

Your silence drags on. Only the shaky, quick breaths you exhale fill the deadened air and squeeze his lungs. 

Go. Don’t go. Stay. Run. 

No matter what Yoongi begs you to do, he’s already screaming at himself to do something. Because even if he doesn’t let you in, you’re just gonna keep standing there. Three months you kept your distance, and you’ll wait another ten until he lets you in. That’s just who you are.

And that’s the you he fell in love with. 

But Yoongi feels the most broken he could ever feel. The most damaged, though the worst is over now. What are you going to say? How are you going to react? Will you run? 

Will you leave? 

Don’t leave. 

Don’t leave him alone. 

Heart on its last desperate breaths, Yoongi lies still, hoping you say something yet begging for you to take one last chance. 

He thought it was best to be left alone. And now he’s silently calling out for you to open the door. 

“…No.” 

His heart pulses waves throughout the living room, beating stronger and stronger and yanking his limbs into action. 

Breathe. Focus. Get the fuck up and walk, crawl, do anything but just get to the fucking door. 

So crawl he does. Across shards, across rainwater, across the damage he dealt to the last piece of him that needed breaking. Your effort cannot be left alone and he’s going to meet you halfway. 

Fuck, he’s still cold. Still wet. But he will keep crawling on forearms until he can muster the courage to stand up and let you in—no matter how long it fucking takes. The ground feels like sludge and dirt and blood and it’s so dark. He may drown here. But that won’t stop him because he will trudge through hell to reach your voice and this is one and the same. 

Almost there. 

Stand the fuck up. 

Unlock the door. 

As soon as your face comes into view, Yoongi doesn’t quite register what you say but he’s already preparing to—

With a sudden fit of strength, he grips your waist and tugs you back into him, both to keep your feet from danger and to selfishly feel the warmth of his only source of sunlight. 

You’re silent. You’re still. 

“I told you, doll.”

Your sob is all he needs to know. Instead of the pain of you choosing to leave, Yoongi gives you the out one more time. 

Despite desperately wanting you to stay right by his side. 

“Go home.”

-

-

tbc in fugue, pt. iv

-

so... thoughts before the last fugue? | join the server! | fugue pt. iv

a/n: we have one more part to fugue left, and if you guys remember everything that happens after reader sees the wreckage.. let's just say the rest is gonna be the most important, most heartfelt parts from yoongi's pov. i seriously cannot wait to share this last fugue chapter with you all, and i wanna do it the most justice i can offer. a/n 2: i love you all so much, and i've missed being here. thank you all again for being so patient with me as i work through an entire inner working of 3tan yoongi. i knew i wanted to take this on, but i did not account for how much it would affect me mentally. it's been a rough but necessary journey for the both of us. all we know for sure is that we needed to brave the sludge to end in full bloom. and that's where we are finally heading next. ++ feedback box: ⇥ of course, any reblogs/comments/messages are appreciated! ⇥ for the ones that are too shy to reblog with a review, comment on this, or send a message, i went ahead and made another anonymous form where you can send in what you think! ⇥ no emails collected, no need to put in a username. it’s literally just a comment dropbox :D feedback can be as short/sweet or as long as you’d like! ⇥ here! ++ more links: ⇥ masterlist  ⇥ three tangerines masterlist

a/n 3: we have a slight goal to hit before 3tanfugue4 is posted! i want to make sure we have activity here before posting the next part, and some of you guys suggested that we have post goals to encourage interaction. so we're gonna try it and see how it goes! if we don't dig this idea, we can go back to normalcy after fugue4.

You learned to read the room before anyone said anything. The careful tone. The way doctors stood farther from the bed. The pause before answers. You understood that your days weren’t numbered in certainty, only in probability, and that made it worse somehow. Unfinished. Unpredictable.

The hospital room was crowded with proof that your body no longer functioned on its own. An IV line stayed anchored in your arm, delivering chemotherapy and steroids in controlled doses that left your mouth metallic and your muscles trembling hours later. A second line fed fluids to keep your blood pressure from dipping too low. The heart monitor beside you blinked steadily, tracking every beat like a quiet witness. There was a blood pressure cuff that tightened without warning, a thermometer that beeped too often, and a portable infusion pump humming at your side even when the room was dark.

You were grateful for the absence of an oxygen mask. Your lungs were still doing their job, even if everything else felt borrowed.

Pain came in waves, sometimes sharp, sometimes dull and exhausting. Nausea lingered no matter how many antiemetics they gave you. Sleep came in fragments, broken by vitals checks and alarms that went off for reasons no one ever seemed concerned about except you.

And still, someone believed this would all mean something.

Moon Junhui arrived every day like he was part of your treatment plan. Same time, same quiet knock, coffee in one hand and snacks in the other even though you weren’t supposed to have it but you did cause he wanted to well to be precious he was your childhood best friend, officially. The person who knew how you took your sugar, who remembered your favorite foods, who sat too close and stayed too long.

He believed in the medications. In the physical therapy that left you shaking. In the minor surgical procedure that they framed as “preventative,” even when it took weeks to recover from. He talked about when, never if. When you were discharged. When you feel better. When this would be a story you told instead of a reality you lived in.

He promised you that once you got out, he’d take you somewhere real. A proper restaurant. No bland trays, no portion control. Anything you wanted, as much as you wanted. He’d pay. He even laughed and called it an impromptu date, like the word itself wasn’t something you carried quietly in your chest.

You laughed with him, because it was easier than explaining.

You had loved Junhui for most of your life—slowly, deeply, without urgency. And now, when time felt thinner than ever, you wanted to confess more than anything. But you didn’t. Because loving someone who was already losing you felt selfish. Because you didn’t want to become a wound he had to live with. Because you couldn’t predict the future, and hope felt dangerous in a body that was already failing.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

You’re staring at the ceiling when Junhui knocks.

Not the doorframe that he never does that but the wall beside it, two soft taps that sound more like a habit than a request. You don’t turn your head. The ceiling tiles blur together, cracked lines forming shapes you’ve memorized over the last few weeks.

“Guess who,” he says, voice light, deliberately casual.

Your throat feels dry, but you answer anyway, quiet and familiar. “If you say it’s anyone else, I’m calling security.”

He laughs before he even opens the door. “Wow. That’s how you treat your favorite person?”

The door swings open and he steps inside like he belongs there. Coffee cup in one hand, a plastic bag in the other which was crinkling loudly despite his effort to be quiet. You finally turn your head, and when you do, his smile softens like it always does when he sees you awake.

“Morning,” he says. “I brought contraband.”

“Again?” you murmur. “You’re going to get banned.”

“Worth it,” he replies easily. He sets the coffee on your side table with practiced care, nudging it just far enough from the edge. The bag follows, and you watch him pull out snacks one by one like a magician revealing tricks: the soft bread, packaged fruit, things he’s checked twice to make sure you’re allowed.

He drags the stool closer and sits, knees angled toward you. “How are we feeling today?”

You shrug. “Alive.”

“I’ll take it.” he nods.

He says it like a joke, but his eyes linger on your face longer than necessary, searching for signs you’ve gotten better or worse. You smile at him too easily, and that seems to satisfy him, because his shoulders relax like he’s been holding something in.

“I saw the nurse give you that look earlier,” he says. “The don’t-you-dare look.”

You snort. “You mean please stop encouraging her look?”

“Yeah, that one.” He grins. “I’m charming. It scares them.”

He stands and reaches for the controls on your bed. “Okay. Sit-up time. I’ll help.”

You shift slightly, but he’s already there, one hand hovering near your shoulder, the other braced at your back. He hesitates. “I promise I’ll be careful this time.”

You glance at him. “You barely hit my head last time, Jun.”

“I still hit your head,” he insists, offended. “I can’t believe you trust me after that.”

“It was a small hit, Jun.” You reassured him.

“That’s not the point.” He helps you sit up slowly, movements cautious, deliberate. “I’m not allowed to hurt you. Ever. That’s a rule.”

You don’t argue. You just smile, because the way he says it makes something tight loosen in your chest.

Once you’re settled, he grabs the tray and opens one of the containers. “Alright. Today’s menu: something vaguely edible and something that tastes like regret.”

“Wow. Five stars.” You say.

He picks up the spoon. “Open.”

You do, obediently, and he feeds you like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Like this hasn’t become routine. Like your body hasn’t learned to lean into his presence because it feels safer that way.

“You’re going too fast,” you say softly after a few bites.

He slows immediately. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you add quickly. “I’m not mad.”

“I know,” he says, but his voice is gentler now. He wipes the corner of your mouth with a napkin, careful, his fingers barely brushing your skin. “Still.”

He keeps feeding you, talking about nothing in particular. It was random but something funny happened at work, a dumb video he watched on the bus, a story you’ve heard before but don’t mind hearing again. His thumb taps absently against the edge of the tray, close enough that you could touch it if you wanted.

You don’t.

When you finish, he sets everything aside and stays where he is, elbow resting on the bed. “See? You’re doing better already.”

You meet his eyes. “You say that every time.”

“And one day I’ll be right.” You grins with a smile

There it is again that certainty that hope he carries for both of you but more for you hoping everything will be alright.

He reaches out, adjusts your blanket, fingers warm against your wrist for half a second longer than necessary. You let them stay. He doesn’t pull away.

“Rest,” he says softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

The ward is quieter at night.

The lights are dimmed, machines speaking in softer beeps, footsteps careful and distant. You’re halfway through an argument when Junhui hears you.

“At least let it have some flavor,” you insist, voice low but stubborn. “I’m not asking for spice. I’m asking for seasoning.”

The nurse sighs, already tired. “It’s prepared that way for your health.”

“My health is offended.” You sulked.

Junhui doesn’t even think before speaking. “For the record,” he says lightly from the doorway, “I’d also be offended.”

Both of you turn. Your eyes find him instantly, and the irritation on your face dissolves into surprise then relief. The nurse looks between the two of you.

“I’ll feed her as usual,” Junhui adds, stepping closer. “I’ll make sure there’s no problem.”

The nurse hesitates, then hands him the tray with a warning look. “Slowly.”

“Always,” Junhui promises.

She leaves, and the room feels warmer somehow.

“You’re late,” you say, watching him set the tray down.

He shrugs out of his jacket, draping it over the chair. He looks tired because his hair was slightly messy, sleeves rolled up, the kind of tiredness that settles into the shoulders. “Work ran long.”

“You okay?” You asked softly.

“Define okay.” He pulls the stool closer and sits. “Open.”

You obey, even though you don’t want to. The food tastes exactly like you expected. Junhui watches your expression carefully.

“I know,” he says apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

“You owe me real food for this.” You said.

He exhales a laugh. “Again?”

You swallow and glare at him weakly. “You’re hurting my feelings.”

He raises his hands in surrender. “Okay, talk, ma’am.”

You smile, triumphant, and shift against the pillows. “First, coffee. A small café. The kind that smells like baked bread.”

“Mm-hm,” he murmurs, feeding you another bite.

“And croissants. Real ones. Flaky. None of that diet stuff.” You added to your words.

He nods, like he’s committing it to memory.

“Then we walk to the park,” you continue, warming up. “There’s a cart near the entrance that sells hot dogs. We share one.”

“Share?” he repeats.

“Don’t get greedy.” You weakly nudge him.

He chuckles softly. “Alright.”

“And on the way back,” you say, eyes bright, “we get street food. Tacos. Or sweet potatoes. Whatever smells best.”

Junhui’s hand pauses mid-air, spoon hovering. His gaze is fixed on you, not the food. In his mind, you’re already there just walking beside him, laughing, alive and whole. He’s certain of it. So certain it almost hurts.

“Sounds perfect,” he says quietly.

You glance at him, noticing the way he’s gone still. “Jun?”

“Hm?” He blinks, snapping out of it. “Sorry. Zoned out.”

“You always do that,” you tease. “Thinking about food?”

“Obviously,” he says, too quickly.

He feeds you the last bite, sets the spoon down, and leans back in the chair. “Work was boring,” he adds, like he promised. “Same meetings. Same complaints. Exhausting.”

“You should quit.” You suggested him jokingly.

“And do what?” You shot back.

“Come eat real food with me.” You said playfully.

He smiles at that very softly in a way fond of you but also filled with care. He doesn’t say what he wants to. Not here. Not now. He won’t let you think his feelings are born from pity or sympathy. So he just sits there, listening to you talk, watching your lips move, not realizing he’s been staring far too long.You’re still talking when the nurse appears at the door.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, already glancing at the clock. “Visiting hours are over. It’s quite late.”

Junhui straightens immediately. “Oh—yeah. Of course.” He stands, already reaching for his bag, movements practiced like he’s done this too many times before.

You watch him pull on his coat, the room suddenly feeling too big again. He slings the strap of his bag over his shoulder, then pauses, hesitating like there’s something unfinished in the air.

“Get some rest, okay?” he says gently.

Before he can turn away, you reach out.

Your hand barely makes it, fingers catching weakly at the sleeve of his coat. The fabric bunches under your grip, and it takes more effort than you want him to see.

“Jun,” you whisper.

He’s already moving. He drops his bag back onto the chair and lowers himself beside the bed, crouching until his face is level with yours. His expression softens immediately, concern replacing everything else.

“What is it?” You turns at you.

You swallow. Your throat feels tight. “You’ll really take me,” you ask, voice small but steady. “To all those places. If… if things go back to normal.”

He doesn’t hesitate.

A smile curves across his face but not playful this time, but warm and filled with certainty. He lifts his hand between you and extends his pinky.

“Promise,” he says softly.

You look at it for a second, then hook your finger around his. Your hand trembles slightly, but he steadies it with his thumb, gentle pressure grounding you.

“I promise,” you whisper back.

He squeezes once, firm but careful, like sealing something sacred. “We’ll eat everything you want,” he adds. “Coffee, croissants, street food. All of it.”

“And you’ll pay,” you say, trying to lighten the moment.

He chuckles quietly. “Always.”

Your fingers stay linked longer than necessary. His other hand comes up instinctively, brushing your knuckles, then settling there as if he belongs. Your foreheads nearly touch when he leans in, close enough that you can feel his breath.

“Get better,” he murmurs. “Come back to me.”

You nod, even though the words sting. “I will.”

He helps tuck the blanket around you once more, fingers lingering at your wrist before slowly pulling away. He stands this time, reluctance in every movement, and grabs his bag again.

“I’ll be here tomorrow,” he says.

“I know.” You said, as if it was a ritual.

He hesitates at the door, glancing back one last time before leaving. You watch him go, your pinky still curled slightly, as if holding onto the promise a little longer. And when the door finally closes, you close your eyes, holding that warmth in your chest like it might be enough to last the night.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

The days begin to blur together after that.

Junhui still comes every day. Sometimes twice, if work lets him. Always with the same coffee, even though you only ever take a sip now. Always with a plastic bag of snacks he insists on checking with the nurse first, like he hasn’t memorized the rules by heart already. He sits in the same chair, pulls it close to your bed, leans in like the distance matters.

At first, you keep pretending.

You talk about recovery like it’s inevitable. About how you’ll complain less once you’re better, how you’ll stop making him sneak food into a hospital room like a criminal. You tell him which café you want to go to first, even though you’ve described it to him so many times that he could find it blindfolded. He listens like it’s new every time, nodding, smiling, asking questions.

“Window seat or outside?” he asks one afternoon, stirring his coffee slowly.

“Outside,” you reply. “If it’s not too cold.”

He hums thoughtfully. “I’ll bring my jacket.”

“You always do.” You said.

He grins. “Exactly.”

You knew that clinically and realistically there is no recovery waiting for you. You feel it in the way your body resists even the smallest movements now, in how eating exhausts you, in how the pain returns faster and sharper no matter how they adjust the medication. You overhear enough whispered conversations to understand what the doctors aren’t saying out loud anymore. And yet. When Junhui is there, something inside you loosens. You let yourself imagine it. A miracle. A sudden turnaround. A life that doesn’t end in this room. With him beside you, hope doesn’t feel foolish, it feels almost reasonable.

Your health declines in ways too subtle to dramatize at first.

Your hands shake more. Your voice gets quieter. You start sleeping through his stories, waking up to his presence like it’s a constant you can rely on. The nurses raise the head of your bed higher now, bring medications more frequently, check your vitals more often.

Junhui notices everything.

He stops teasing you about how little you eat and starts celebrating every bite. He adjusts your pillows without being asked. He lowers his voice automatically, as if loudness alone might harm you. When he helps you sit up now, his hands are steady, reverent, like he’s handling something fragile and irreplaceable.

“Too fast?” he asks, even when you haven’t complained.

You shake your head. “You’re fine.”

He doesn’t believe you. He slows anyway.

Sometimes he talks. Sometimes he just sits there, holding your hand, tracing small circles with his thumb like he’s grounding himself as much as you. He never says he’s scared, but you can hear it in the pauses between his words.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

One evening, you ask him what he wants to do once you’re better.

He looks startled. “Me?”

“Yes. You always ask about me.” You question him.

He thinks for a moment. “I don’t know. I guess… take a break. Travel a little.”

“Where?” You added.

He smiles softly. “Wherever you want.”

You laugh, weak and breathless. “You’re bad at answering questions.”

“I just know what I want,” he says.

You don’t ask him to say it out loud.

The machines become louder as your body grows quieter. There are days when the pain medication makes everything hazy, and Junhui fills in the gaps by telling you what day it is, what you talked about last time, reminding you gently to drink water.

He never complains. Not once.

One afternoon, he brushes your hair back from your face and freezes like he’s crossed an invisible line. “Sorry,” he says quickly.

“It’s okay,” you whisper. “I like it.”

So he does it again. Slower this time.

There are moments when you almost tell him the truth. That you’re tired. That you’re running out of time. That you love him and always have. The words sit heavy on your tongue, waiting.

But then he smiles at you like the future is a given, and you swallow them down. Because Junhui believes so fiercely that it makes you want to believe too. Because in his presence, dying feels like a distant possibility instead of an approaching certainty. Because if this is how it ends, you want it to be gentle.

At night, after he leaves, the room feels emptier than before. The hope he brings lingers like warmth long after he’s gone, and you hold onto it, knowing it won’t last forever.

But for now, he comes back. Every day. With coffee, with stories, with hands that never let go.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

Junhui realizes it in the quietest way possible.

Not through alarms or urgent voices, but through absence how you stop asking for help before he offers it, how your laughter fades faster, how your hand feels smaller every time it curls into his. One afternoon, he reaches for you automatically, fingers closing around yours, and freezes.

You’re cold.

“Are you cold?” he asks, already rubbing your knuckles between his palms.

“A little,” you admit.

He pulls the blanket higher, tucking it around you with care that borders on reverence. His hands linger, thumbs brushing over your skin like he’s memorizing the shape of you. He doesn’t let go right away.

“You’re getting tired faster,” he says quietly.

You don’t deny it.

He swallows. “Does it hurt more?”

You look at him then, really look, and for a moment you almost tell him everything. Instead, you say, “It’s manageable.”

His jaw tightens. He shifts closer, sitting on the edge of the bed now, knees touching the frame. His shoulder brushes yours, and neither of you move away.

“You don’t have to manage it alone,” he murmurs.

Your heart aches. “I know.”

The machines hum steadily, filling the silence neither of you can. Junhui lifts his hand again, this time not hesitating. He cups your cheek gently, thumb warm against your skin. You lean into it without thinking, eyes closing.

The room feels too small for everything you’re not saying.

“I’ve been thinking,” he starts, voice unsteady. “About… later.”

You open your eyes. “Later?”

“After,” he corrects. “When this is over.”

Your fingers tighten around his wrist, grounding him there. “Yeah?”

“I just—” He laughs softly, breathless. “I don’t know how to imagine it without you.”

The words settle between you, fragile and exposed. Your breath catches. This is it, you think. This is where everything changes.

You reach up, your hand sliding over his, holding it against your cheek. “Jun,” you whisper.

He leans closer, forehead nearly touching yours. You can feel his breath, the tremor in it. His thumb strokes your cheek once, twice, slow and tender.

“I care about you,” he says, barely above a whisper.

Your heart pounds. “I know.”

“I’ve always—” He stops himself sharply, eyes closing for a second like he’s bracing against something. When he opens them again, there’s fear there. Not of you but of what saying more might do to you.

His hand drops away.

“I shouldn’t,” he says quietly. “You need rest.”

You understand immediately. He’s afraid you’ll think it’s pity. Afraid you’ll think he loves you because you’re dying, not because he always has.

So you let him pull back.

“It’s okay,” you say softly, even though it hurts. “I get it.”

He nods, jaw clenched, standing too quickly. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“I’ll be here.” You said.

After Junhui leaves, the room feels too empty to ignore.

You press the call button and ask the nurse for a bag. She returns with a small one—canvas, plain, nothing special. It feels strange how little space your life seems to need now.

You pack slowly.

Your phone goes in first, screen smudged from too many anxious swipes. The charger follows, cord neatly wrapped the way Junhui taught you to do years ago so it wouldn’t fray. You hesitate before adding the folded notes half-written reminders, lists that never got finished, names scribbled in the margins. You tuck them into the side pocket, where they won’t wrinkle.

Then the clothes.

The ones you wore before all of this. Soft fabric, familiar weight. You smooth them carefully, as if they can still remember you healthy. At the bottom, you place your pendant, the one you stopped wearing after the IV lines made it inconvenient. You let it rest in your palm for a moment before setting it down.

When the bag is full, you zip it closed.

Later, the doctor comes.

They speak gently, carefully. “We need to operate tomorrow. The condition is worsening rapidly.”

You nod.

“The chances are very low.”

A clipboard is placed in front of you. A pen. You sign with steady hands, even as your chest tightens.

Before they leave, you ask quietly, “Tomorrow… before the surgery. Could I spend a little more time with someone?”

The doctor smiles sadly. “Of course.”

When you’re alone again, you stare at the ceiling, Junhui’s almost-words echoing in your mind. You don’t know if you’ll survive.

But tomorrow, you decide, you’ll hold his hand a little longer.

Just in case you don’t make it.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

Morning comes too quietly.

Junhui steps into the room already mid-sentence, coffee balanced carefully in one hand, snacks tucked under his arm. “You would not believe how long the line was—”

He stops.

The bed is empty.

His breath catches sharply. The cup tilts just a little, coffee sloshing dangerously close to the edge. His eyes dart around the room, heart racing.

“Hey—?” His voice rises. “Where is she?”

He turns toward the nurse’s station, panic bleeding into every step. “Did something happen?” he asks, words tumbling out too fast. “Is she okay? Where did they take her?”

Before anyone can answer, you speak.

“Jun.”

He freezes. Slowly, he turns.

You’re seated a little to the side, in a wheelchair. IV drip attached, monitors clipped carefully against your body, wires neat and deliberate. A nurse adjusts something behind you, a doctor checking notes nearby. You lift your hand weakly and wave.

For a second, Junhui just stares.

Then he rushes to you, dropping everything onto the nearest table without care. He crouches immediately, hands hovering like he’s afraid to touch you too hard.

“You—” He exhales shakily. “You scared me. I thought— I thought something happened.”

You glance quickly at the nurse and doctor, giving the smallest shake of your head. They understand.

You smile at him, light and gentle. “Nothing happened. I just wanted some fresh air.”

“Fresh air,” he repeats, letting out a broken laugh. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“You’re exaggerating,” you say softly.

“You weren’t in bed,” he replies. “That’s not exaggerating.”

You nod toward the coffee. “Thought we could have it somewhere nicer. The garden. You can be my volunteer today.”

He looks at you for a long moment, worry still tight in his eyes, then sighs. “You’re impossible.”

“You love me.” You teased him.

He snorts weakly. “You’re lucky you’re sick. Otherwise I’d seriously consider punching you.”

You smile. “Scaredy cat.”

He groans. “Say that again.”

“Scaredy cat,” you repeat, quieter, affectionate.

He shakes his head, but his hands are already settling on the wheelchair handles. The nurse gives instructions and then at slow pace, careful turns and steps back.

The garden greets you with cool air and quiet space.

Junhui pushes the wheelchair slowly, carefully, like every crack in the path might hurt you. When you reach the open area, you inhale deeply. The trees are almost bare now, leaves scattered across the ground. The air smells faintly of cinnamon and baked sweets, like the world is preparing for something warm.

“Smells like Christmas,” you murmur.

Junhui hums softly. “Yeah. It does.”

You shiver, barely noticeable, but he notices immediately. Without asking, he shrugs off his jacket and wraps it around your shoulders, tugging it close.

“You don’t have to,” you protest gently. “You’ll get cold.”

“I’ll survive,” he says firmly. “You won’t.”

You don’t argue. Instead, you lean into the warmth, letting yourself rest. Your head tilts naturally, coming to rest against his side. He stiffens for half a second, then relaxes, arm coming around you instinctively.

He brushes your hair back from your face, thumb tracing your cheek softly. “Better?”

You close your eyes. “Much.”

He opens the snacks and coffee, sitting beside you. He feeds you slowly, carefully, wiping your lips when needed, his touch tender and unhurried. Every movement feels intentional, like he’s afraid of wasting even a second.

“You know,” you say quietly, “this feels like a date.”

He pauses, spoon hovering. “Does it?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Just without the awkward part.”

He smiles softly. “Guess we skipped ahead.”

You look at him. “If I get better,” you say lightly, “you still owe me everything.”

“I know,” he replies immediately. “All of it.”

Your fingers slide into his hand. He squeezes gently, thumb brushing your knuckles. You rest your head fully against his shoulder now, eyes closed, listening to his heartbeat.

He stays still, letting you take what you need.

“You’re quiet,” he says softly.

“I’m listening,” you reply. “To everything.”

He swallows. “I wish I could fix this.”

“You already did,” you say. “You stayed.”

He leans his head lightly against yours, foreheads touching for just a second. Neither of you speaks.

Footsteps approach.

The nurse stops a few feet away. You feel it before you see her. Time tightening again.

You straighten slowly, forcing a small smile. “Alright,” you say briskly. “That’s enough romance for today.”

Junhui frowns. “Hey—”

“You should go,” you say teasingly. “Be productive.”

He hesitates. “I’ll come back later.”

“You better,” you say. “And bring the same food.”

“The same?” he asks, confused.

“Yes,” you insist. “Don’t change anything.”

He nods. “Okay.”

He stands slowly, then pauses. He gently lifts the jacket from your shoulders, folding it over his arm before slipping it back on. The distance between you suddenly feels too big.

He stands a few steps away now, hands shoved into his pockets, watching you like he’s memorizing the sight.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he says.

You smile. “Tonight.”

Junhui nods, but he doesn’t move right away. He shifts his weight, hands still buried in his jacket pockets, eyes fixed on you like he’s afraid to blink.

“You know,” you add casually, tilting your head, “if you’re late again, I’m telling everyone you ditched me.”

He lets out a weak laugh. “You always threaten me with public humiliation.”

“It’s effective.” You said.

You pause, then say the thing you’ve said since you were kids—the words that used to mean see you after school, see you tomorrow, don’t disappear.

“Don’t forget to come back you knucklehead

Something flickers across his face. He swallows, forcing a grin. “I never do you gremlin.”

His eyes glisten despite himself. He looks away quickly, scrubbing at his cheek with the back of his hand like it’s nothing.

You notice.

“If you keep crying like that,” you say lightly, lifting your hand, “don’t bother coming tonight. I won’t let you see me.”

He snaps his head back toward you. “Hey.”

You make a small throwing motion with your hand, like you’re about to toss something at him. “I’m serious. I’ll throw my pillow.”

He steps back dramatically, raising his hands. “Okay, okay. No violence.”

“Then behave,” you say, smiling.

His laughter cracks this time, but he nods anyway. “Fine. I’ll come tonight,” he promises. “And I’ll give you a proper scolding for scaring me this morning.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

He hesitates once more, then gives you a small, familiar salute the same one he used to do before running off as a kid.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he says.

You smile again. “I won’t.”

He turns and walks away, shoulders squared, pretending he’s not afraid.

You watch him until he’s out of sight, the nurse’s hands steadying the wheelchair behind you.

And only then do you let yourself breathe.

Like you’re holding onto the last moment that still feels normal.

The hallway back to the prep room is cold. The wheels of the stretcher hum softly beneath you, IV pole rolling alongside like a shadow. The nurse walks beside you, hands steady as she checks the monitors clipped to your body. For a while, neither of you speaks. Then she does.

“You talked to him like you were certain,” she says gently. “Like you’ll be back.”

You turn your head slightly, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Did I?”

She hesitates. “I just meant—” She stops, then exhales. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I didn’t mean… you know.”

“That I might die?” you finish calmly.

She flinches. “The chances are fifty–fifty,” she says quickly. “You still have a chance.”

You nod slowly. “I know.”

There’s another pause before she asks, quieter now, “Why didn’t you tell him? About the surgery. About how serious this is.”

You think of Junhui’s smile. His hands. The way he tried so hard not to cry.

“Would you?” you ask softly.

She blinks. “What?”

“Would you tell the person you love,” you continue, voice steady, “that today might be the last day they see you?”

She doesn’t answer.

“I wouldn’t,” you say. “I’d want them to leave smiling. I’d want their last memory of me to be warm. Normal.” You swallow. “I don’t want him carrying the sound of goodbye for the rest of his life.”

The nurse’s eyes shine. “He means a lot to you. Don’t he?.”

“He’s everything,” you say quietly. “Friend. Family. Home.” A breath. “Maybe something more that I was never brave enough to say.”

She nods, understanding now.

“There’s something else,” you add. “If I don’t make it… there’s a small canvas bag. I packed it last night.”

“Yes,” she says softly. “I saw it.”

“If he comes tonight,” you continue, “and I’m not here then, please give it to him. Don’t tell him right away. Just… give it to him.”

She places a hand gently over yours. “I promise.”

The doors to the prep room open.

They move you carefully, efficiently. The lights are brighter here. Colder. Someone asks you your name, your date of birth, what procedure you’re here for. You answer automatically, like reciting facts about someone else.

As they prepare you, the noise fades into a dull background hum.

You close your eyes.You whisper, barely moving your lips.

“Please come back tonight.”

You pause.

“Even if I can’t.”

The anesthesiologist speaks softly. “We’re starting now.”

The operating room is too bright.

Cold lights glare down as your body is transferred onto the table, sheets adjusted, arms extended gently outward. Electrodes are pressed against your chest. The heart monitor begins its steady rhythm, sharp and precise. A blood pressure cuff tightens around your arm. Someone counts quietly as an IV line is flushed, medication entering your veins with a faint sting.

“Deep breath,” the anesthesiologist says.

The mask lowers. The world narrows.

When the surgery begins, everything is methodical. Incisions are made carefully, layers of skin and tissue separated with practiced precision. Suction hums softly, clearing the field. Gloved hands move in coordinated silence, instruments passed without words. At first, your vitals hold—heart rate stable, oxygen saturation acceptable.

Then they don’t.

Your blood pressure drops without warning. Alarms cut through the room, sharp and insistent. Someone calls out numbers. Medication is pushed quickly through the line. A surgeon adjusts, working faster now, movements urgent but controlled. There is bleeding they didn’t anticipate. More suction. More gauze.

“Pressure’s not responding,” a voice says.

Your heart struggles, rhythm faltering. The monitor stutters, jagged lines replacing the steady beat. Chest compressions begin, firm and relentless. Time stretches, seconds folding into minutes. They work without stopping, cycling medications, restarting compressions, trying again.

“Come on,” someone mutters under their breath.

But your body doesn’t respond.

Eventually, the efforts slow. The room stills. The monitor settles into a flat, unbroken line.

The time of death is called at 11:49 am.

The lights remain bright, unforgiving, as the team steps back with hands heavy and voices quiet in regret. Your body is cleaned carefully, respectfully. Tubes are removed. Sheets are drawn up and then take me to the cold room.

The fight ends not loudly, but completely. And outside the operating room, the world continues completely unaware that something precious has just slipped away specially for Junhui.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

The night felt unusually cold today.

Junhui walks down the hallway, still thinking about that morning about the way you teased him, the way you made him promise to behave. He smiles faintly to himself, muttering under his breath about how he’ll get his revenge, imagining scolding you just like he planned.

He reaches your room and pushes the door open, coffee and snacks in hand. “Alright, you little—”

The room is empty.

A jolt of panic hits him, sharp and immediate. He drops the bag to the floor. “Wait—what? Where—where are you ?” His voice shakes.

The nurse steps forward gently. “Junhui… I need you to come with me.”

He stumbles backward. “What do you mean? She’s—where is she? Did something happen?” His heart races.

She exhales, soft but firm. “You can see her, but… only for a little while. And please, just let me guide you.”

Junhui barely registers her words. He follows numbly as she leads him down another hallway, past sterile lights and echoing footsteps, to a colder room at the back of the hospital. He still doesn’t understand, still imagining she’s asleep in a different room, waiting to scold him for being late.

The nurse opens the door slightly and steps aside. “I’ll wait outside,” she whispers. “Just for a few minutes. Then you have to come out.”

Junhui’s steps are slow, hesitant, as if each one brings him closer to something he doesn’t want to accept. And then he sees you.

You’re lying there, still. Too still. Your lips parted faintly, skin pale, eyelashes resting softly against your cheeks.

He freezes. Then he’s moving, faster than he thought he could, across the cold floor. He bends over, wraps his arms around you gently at first, almost afraid, like he’s holding something fragile that could disappear with the slightest pressure.

“No,” he whispers, voice breaking. “No… no, don’t do this to me.”

His forehead presses against yours, tears spilling down without restraint. One hand cups the back of your head, the other holds your shoulders. He rocks slightly, as if rocking could wake you, as if the motion could bring you back.

“I—I didn’t tell you. I wanted to,” he sobs. “I wanted to tell you everything, but I was scared. I thought… I thought you’d think I only love you because of this… because of this sickness.”

He shakes, broken, hugging you tighter. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. From the beginning… from the first day we met. And I didn’t say it. I didn’t say it because I didn’t want you to think it’s pity. I just… I just wanted you to know… I love you.”

Tears fall freely, soaking your shoulder. His lips press lightly to your hair, whispering through the sobs. “I love you. Please… just let me… let me stay with you for a little while. Just a little while.”

The nurse knocks softly on the doorframe. “Junhui…” she whispers. “Please… just a few minutes. Then we need to go.”

He doesn’t respond immediately, holding you as if letting go could break him. His body shudders, his chest heaving, hands trembling as he strokes your hair, wipes his own tears against your cheek. “I promised,” he whispers, voice cracking. “I promised you… I’ll always keep the promise. Even if… even if you’re gone.”

He leans back slightly, still holding you, and lets the weight of grief wash over him. “I should have told you sooner. I should have… I should have kissed you, held you… said the things I always wanted to say. And now… now it’s too late. But I love you. Always. I always will.”

The nurse gently touches his shoulder. “Junhui…”

He doesn’t let go, not yet. He sobs quietly, whispering confessions over and over, broken words strung together with gasps and tears. His forehead remains pressed to yours, hands clutching your body like he’s trying to memorize every detail, every curve, every inch he’ll never see again.

Finally, trembling, he nods slightly, reluctantly loosening his grip, just enough for the nurse to guide him to the door. He carries your presence in every shuddering step, tears still streaking his face.

The nurse hands him the small canvas bag you prepared last night. His fingers close around it, gripping tightly, as if it could somehow bring you back. He doesn’t speak. He can’t.

Outside the cold hallway, he takes a shuddering breath, pressing the bag to his chest. Every muscle in his body aches. He whispers your name over and over very soft, broken, barely audible as though speaking it keeps you with him for a fraction longer.

the dorm is a trap.

that’s the first thing you realize when you step through the front door and spot the first sprig of mistletoe dangling innocently above the entryway.

the further you wander into the dorm the more you find. there’s another over the kitchen doorway. and another in the hallway. and—fucks sake, there's one over the bathroom door too.

"jisung," you say flatly, dropping your bag by the door.

he looks up from the couch and his expression gives him away immediately. he’s far to pleased with himself, lips pressed into a smug smile. "yes?"

"why."

"holiday spirit?" he offers, but the grin splitting his face tells you everything you need to know.

hyunjin pokes his head out from the kitchen, also grinning. you feel a part of you shrivels and die because of course hyun is in on it, too. "we thought it would be fun."

"fun for who, exactly?"

"for us, obviously." hyunjin says cheerfully. "now every doorway is a potential romance zone."

you're about to respond when you hear footsteps behind you, and your entire body goes rigid. you don't need to turn around to know who it is—you can feel minho's presence like a gravitational pull.

"romance zone?" minho's voice is low, amused. he's close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating off him. "interesting."

“you guys,” you start, taking a very deliberate step to the side. you’re careful to avoid the mistletoe overhead as you make a beeline for the living room. “have so much fun. i am not participating in whatever this is."

the evening proceeds exactly as you'd feared. you map out the mistletoe locations in your head like some covert tactical operation, calculating safe routes through the dorm like your life depends on it.

kitchen? go around through the living room. bathroom? hold it. bedroom? you'll just... stay in the living room forever, actually.

the problem is that minho notices.

of course he notices. minho notices everything.

you’ve learned over the time you’ve known him that he has this uncanny ability to pick up on the smallest details, the slightest shifts in behavior. and you've been painfully obvious in your efforts of avoiding doorways for the past hour.

you catch him watching you when you take the long way around to reach the couch. his eyes track your movement with an intensity that makes your skin prickle. when you awkwardly squeeze past felix to avoid the kitchen doorway, minho's lips quirk up at the corner.

he's onto you.

worse, he seems to find it entertaining. that’s what the little sparkle in his gaze says, anyways.

"you okay?" changbin asks at one point, when you've been sitting in the same spot for forty-five minutes. "you need something from the kitchen? water?"

"nope," you say too quickly. "i'm fine. very comfortable. not moving."

across the room, minho smirks.

you last another twenty minutes before your bladder betrays you. you eye the bathroom door from your position on the couch, weighing your options. the mistletoe hangs there like a threat. maybe you can just... duck under it really fast?

you make your move during a commercial break, when everyone's distracted. you're fast, efficient, ducking your head as you approach the doorway and—

walk directly into a solid chest.

"going somewhere?" minho asks.

how the hell did you not notice he’d also gotten up??

you look up to see him (and you) standing directly under the mistletoe. you don’t even have to question the fact that he's absolutely done it on purpose. his eyes are bright with mischief, his smile lazy and confident.

"move." you say.

"can't," he gives a small gesture to the door frame above you. "mistletoe rules."

"that's not- those aren't real rules."

"ji and hyunjin seem to think they are." he glances over his shoulder, where the two culprits are watching with unconcealed glee. "and it would be rude to waste their hard work."

"minho, when have you ever cared about what they’ve said?"

"just one kiss," he presses. "that's the rule, right? then i'll let you pass."

you could push past him. you could duck under his arm. you could do a lot of things that aren't meeting his gaze and muttering, "fine. one kiss."

minho clicks his tongue in a way that screams satisfaction. he leans down to kiss you, and it's supposed to be quick, just a peck, just enough to satisfy the stupid mistletoe rule.

except minho's hand comes up to cup your jaw, tilting your face just so, and his lips are softer than you expected, warm and sure against yours. and instead of pulling away after a brief press of lips, he lingers.

you linger.

his thumb strokes along your cheekbone, and you make a small sound in the back of your throat that you'll definitely be embarrassed about later.

later. because right now, minho is kissing you deeper, his other hand sliding to your waist to pull you closer. when you grab onto his shoulders for balance and feel him smile against your mouth.

"that's not a quick peck," you manage to say once you break apart for air.

"no," he agrees, and then he's kissing you again.

someone in the living room wolf-whistles. someone else—probably jisung—says something that sounds like "i knew it," but it's hard to focus on anything except the way minho kisses like he's been thinking about it for a while, like he's got all the time in the world to explore the curve of your lips and the angle of your jaw.

you end up pressed against the doorframe with both of minho's hands framing your face. you're pretty sure you're supposed to be doing something—going somewhere—but you can't remember what. can't remember anything except the weight of his attention focused entirely on you, the way he hums low in his throat when you kiss him back with equal fervor.

"okay, okay, that's enough," hyunjin's voice breaks through the haze. then a little quieter he grumbles "we created a monster. we created two monsters."

minho pulls back just enough to speak, his forehead resting against yours. "you're the ones who hung mistletoe everywhere."

"we didn't think it would work this well," jisung mutters.

you're breathless, flushed, incredibly aware that you have an audience. minho doesn't seem to care, not with the way he's still holding your face like something precious, his eyes searching yours.

"you've been avoiding me," he says quietly, just for you.

"i was avoiding the mistletoe."

"why?"

because you knew damn well if you kised him once you wouldn't want to stop. because you’ve been trying very hard not to think about kissing minho for months now. because he’s minho and you’re you and it all seemed so complicated.

"seemed safer." you say with a shrug.

his smile is soft, almost fond in a way you’ve only seen when he’s playing with his cats. "and how's that working out for you?"

"terribly."

minho laughs and then he kisses you again, gentle and quick this time. "good," he whispers against your lips. "because i've been trying to get you under the mistletoe all night."

"you have?"

"mm. you're very good at evasion. made me work for it."

and suddenly your face feels like it's on fire. "i really do need to use the bathroom."

"okay." but he doesn't move, just looks at you with those a knowing look.

"minho."

"one more?"

you should say no. you should definitely say no, except you're already leaning in, already meeting him halfway for another kiss that's supposed to be quick but somehow isn't.

from the living room, someone groans. "they're going to do this at every doorway now, aren't they?"

"definitely," felix snorts, sounding delighted.

you break away with a breathless laugh, pushing lightly at minho's chest. "bathroom. now."

"don't take too long," he says. "there's mistletoe over the bedroom doorway too."

your heart does something incredibly complicated in your chest at the same moment your stomach swirls with an unlabeled heat. "is that right..?"

"mm." he hums, smirk far too dangerous for just a random tuesday.

you flee to the bathroom before you can do something stupid like kiss him again in front of everyone.