Smiley

Jungkook has never courted a girl before, but he thinks he’s getting the hang of it. It started small. A car waiting outside the club after your shift, just in case. Then coffee, your order engrained in his brain without being asked, appearing on your vanity before you’d changed out of your work clothes. Then came jewelry, which cost Jungkook about an arm and leg, but he didn’t mind.

You’d say Jungkook, no with your mouth while your eyes said something else, and he had learned very quickly that the eyes were the more honest of the two. That was his favorite discovery.

He didn’t stop at just a pair of earrings. He couldn’t. He moved on to necklaces, diamond rings, tennis bracelets. I don’t want your money, you had said to him, and he had respected that. He respected it still to this day. But noticing what made your eyes do the thing made his heart flutter in a way he wasn’t used to. He was a detail-oriented person by nature. It was only natural for him to continue to catalog every detail about you.

He also paid off your mother’s hospital bills, but he did that quietly through three different channels, and he will take it to his grave if you ever ask him directly.

The thing is—and this is something he has been turning over quietly, privately, in the way he processes most things that matter to him—he would do anything to have you. To have some kind of claim over you. Sort of how he approaches everything worth having, which is with patience and intention and the knowledge that he will figure it out eventually.

He has figured out most things.

There is, however, one thing that remains.

In the past few weeks, the two of you have done quite a lot. Beyond the frivolous dates and gift-giving, his sex education has been thorough and he has proven to be, in his own humble assessment, a committed student.

He’s learned that you love when he pushes your head down deeper onto his cock so it hits your esophagus. You cum harder when you make eye contact with him and he talks you through it. If he fucks you with your legs on his shoulders, there’s a high chance you’ll squirt all over him.

But the one thing he hasn’t done… the fault is his own and he is painfully aware of it.

He thinks about it constantly. Masturbates to the thought of it in the shower, gets hard at work or at company dinners. Wanting something very badly and knowing how to do it well are two different things, and Jeon Jungkook does not do things until he can do them well.

Tonight, however, he is determined. He’s a man on a mission.

Below him, you lie on his king-sized mattress, adorned in a lace pink camisole he had bought you earlier. Your eyes are hazy from the red wine he had been spoon-feeding you upon your arrival to his penthouse. Cheeks ruddy, hair a tangled mess, but he thinks you look gorgeous regardless.

“Kookie, stop it,” you giggle, squirming as his lips find the supple skin below your ear, fingers pushing weakly at his shoulder that he’s learned means the opposite of stop.

“Can’t.” He murmurs against your neck, moving lower. “Too pretty.”

A soft moan falls from your lips when his mouth finds the valley of your chest, lips pressing warm against skin the camisole doesn’t cover. He feels your chest rise sharply under him. Pushing the hem of the silk up slowly, he reveals the plane of your stomach, enough to press his lips there too, kissing your abdomen to your belly button to…

Your fingers entangle in his hair and tug. You pull him right off, and he lets himself be dragged up, peering at you expectantly.

“What are you doing?” you ask, although it’s not really a question.

He holds your gaze. Kisses your stomach again without looking away. “Treating you right. The way you deserve.”

That answer doesn’t seem to satisfy you, and your eyes narrow. “Jungkook—”

God, he’s done it now. Full name. You usually revert to ‘pretty boy’ or ‘Kookie.’

“Let me.” His voice comes out lower than he intends, Your fingers are still in his hair and the nerve endings in his body are very aware of every point of contact. “Please.”

Sighing, you shake your head. “You don’t have to—”

“I know I don’t have to.” He turns his head, presses his lips to the waistband of your panties. “I want to. I’ve wanted to for a very long time.”

“But you’ve never—”

“I know.” His jaw tightens. Do you think he’s not capable of pleasing you the way you do him? Jungkook doesn’t normally care for the male ego, nor does he think it needs to be stroked, but a swell of anxiety pushes to the forefront of his brain. “I’m aware of that. Which is why I need you to let me.”

You stare at him hopelessly. “Kookie.” Your thumb traces his cheekbone. “You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

“I’m not proving anything.” He catches your hand, turns his face into your palm. “I just… I want to know what you taste like.”

Jungkook senses that he’s got you right where he wants you. He watches as you teeter on the breaking point of resolve. Watches your lips part and your eyes go soft at the edges and he feels the fingers in his hair loosen their grip.

“Please,” he says again. He’s also learned you can’t say no to him in certain scenarios, which he is not above using. “Let me. I’ll be good.”

“I’ll be so good,” he murmurs against your stomach, nosing at the hem of the camisole. “I promise. Tell me if I’m doing something wrong, tell me what you want, I’ll do whatever you want, princess.”

You wiggle underneath his grasp. With a quick peek at your panties, he can see the wet spot forming where your pussy is. Fuck, his mouth waters, eyes lighting up. Just one taste of you and he’ll be yours forever.

“Does my pretty boy want to taste me?” You card your fingers through his ruffled hair, and the sensation goes straight to his cock.

Jungkook eagerly nods, shuffling closer so that his lips ghost over your soaked panties. He wants this. A man who identifies what he wants and acquires it, who does not linger in the wanting. In the privacy of his own humiliation, he’s done research. He has asked Namjoon things he will never speak of again. He has lain in the dark of this penthouse thinking about the little moans you make and what it would take to make more of them, better ones, ones that are specifically his to hear.

“Okay, Kookie,” you say, “I’ll teach you, yeah?”

His hands find your hips, fingers curling around the waistband of your panties. “I’ll do good,” he says. “I promise.”

You look down at him, propped on your elbows, oh so pretty in the low light of his penthouse that something in his chest pulls taut. He doesn’t know how he got so lucky. Jungkook wants to make this as enjoyable for you as you always are for him. He tugs down your underwear, inch by inch, before tossing them somewhere he doesn’t care to know.

Under the light, your folds glisten with arousal, and his mouth waters with desire. Something visceral sprouts in his chest and he suddenly feels possessive over you, although he has no right to claim you. You run your manicured fingers through his hair, breaking his trance. “Give it a lick, Kookie. Taste me.”

You really don’t have to tell him twice. Jungkook connects his tongue to your folds, licking up a stripe and tasting your essence on his tongue. It’s sweet, salty, like sugar on his tongue and he’s addicted. He moans into you, and you grin widely, ruffling his hair. “Tastes so fucking good, princess,” he sighs, diving back in for a few more kitten licks.

He spreads your legs wider, wrapping them around his broad shoulders, wearing your thighs like earmuffs. You jolt forward, eyes widening, and Jungkook tries to remember what Namjoon told him. Tries to picture the porn videos he watched. Tentatively, he licks over your folds before coming to flick his tongue over the sensitive nub he thinks is your clit. You squeal, “Fuck, right there, baby.”

“Hm, right here?” he innocently asks, repeating his actions and circling your clit with his tongue. He tries to fall into a pattern, remembering that Namjoon told him when girls like something, it’s smart not to switch it up. Lo and behold, you squirm, and his big hands push down on your hips, pinning you to his plush mattress.

“Oh, fuck,” Your back arches off his bed as he tongues your clit, his hand reaching around to try and spread your folds to gather more and more of your milky arousal. “It feels so good, Kookie, y-you’re such a good boy.”

He moans at the praise, tongue working faster against the nub. Jungkook’s mind is on autopilot, instinctively moving as though it’s done this before. He ignores the ache in his cock, using his long, tattooed fingers to push into your sopping entrance. Your walls feel so tight around him, so wet and warm. He lets his fingers rest there, uses what you taught him on fingering to thrust in and out of you while he stimulates your clit. Your fingers twist in his hair. “Shit, so good, baby. Doing such a good job for me. You’re gonna make me cum.”

“Yeah?” He pops his head off, fully aware your juices are all over his lips. The way you look at him tells him you don’t mind one bit. His fingers continue to pump in and out of you, juices collecting on his wrist. “I want to taste you, princess. Are you gonna cum on my tongue?”

He says the words so innocently that he forgets they’re sinful. Your lashes bat at him as you try to fight back another moan, eyes connected to where his biceps strain with each movement of his fingers. “Y-yes, Kookie, I’m gonna cum—fuck—if you keep going.”

“I’m doing good, right?” He licks a stripe up your folds, maintaining eye contact. He watches as your eyes roll back into your head, walls tightening around him again.

“Doing so good for me, baby,” you whine. “My pretty boy.” His heart flutters in his chest. He dives back in, tongue poking around your entrance, fucking in and out along with his fingers. His nose presses against your clit, and he can’t help but shake his head back and forth to try and stimulate your clit.

“W-where did you learn that?” You moan, and he has to fight to hide the smirk. Kim Namjoon is good for some things, he supposes. Apparently, he has just the right nose to fuck your clit with. You push his head onto your pussy, even though there’s not an inch of space left. He can hardly breathe, but none of it matters, not when he’s so intoxicated off you.

He just wants to be a good boy, wants to prove himself to you. You deserve only the best, and he’s determined to learn and give it to you. Jeon Jungkook doesn’t fail at anything, period. And that includes making you cum.

“Fuck, fuck, Kookie, don’t stop,” you pant, “I’m gonna cum, right there, baby.” Your limbs thrash against his ears, but none of it matters, nothing matters except for how utterly amazing you taste, how ethereal you sound when you’re all his.

He crooks his fingers upwards like Namjoon told him to, feeling your sweet spot and toying with it. Your back arches once more off the mattress, but he uses all his weight to hold you steady. With one final swirl of his tongue against your clit, he can feel your walls clenching around his fingers, milky cum coating his hands and lips. Jungkook laps at your entrance, taking as much of you into his mouth as he possibly can. “Oh—fuck.” You throw your head back onto the pillow. “Fuck, baby. That was so good. You’re so good to me.”

He peers up from between your thighs, smiling widely.

It’s then, and only then, that he realizes he came in his fucking pants.

Again.

God, he’s a loser.

Thankfully, you don’t care much for that, eyes glossy and lips swollen. You’re still under a dreamlike trance after your orgasm.

“C’mere and give me a taste,” You crook your finger towards him and he grins devilishly, unwrapping your legs from around him and climbing over you. His lips find yours as easily as they always do, and a whimper escapes you as you taste your essence on his lips. Jungkook has to hold himself back from cumming in his pants (yet again—and really, twice is far too embarrassing, even for a man with as little experience as him).

“You’re never.” You kiss his cheek. “Ever.” Then kiss his jaw. “Ever.” You kiss his lips chastely. “Doing that to another fucking girl, you hear me?” Your hand finds his jaw, forcing you to stare at him.

You must think he’s insane.

Maybe he is. Maybe thirty years of total indifference followed by one woman has rewired him. Maybe he has completely lost the plot. Maybe his dumbass friend were right about everything and Jungkook will have to live with that.

However, he would, without hesitation, rather be lowered into the ground at his own funeral than spend a single day knowing someone else has what he just had. He would rather explain to his father why the Jeon succession plan fell apart than lose the best thing that has ever happened to him, and that includes the company, the penthouse, and the Ferrari he still hasn’t bought himself.

Suddenly, a thought clicks in his brain. The final puzzle piece of your words slotting into his mind.

“So,” Jungkook begins, lips ghosting over your jaw. “Does that mean you’re keeping me?”

It’s not that Jungkook necessarily despises his birthday—although it is tough to celebrate happily when your family is as strict and prim as his— but more that he doesn’t see the point in it. He would much rather spend money on himself, perhaps buying the new car he had his eye on. Not squeezed in the back of his car with his best friends.

They often lived a different lifestyle than he did. His friends worked hard as most people did in his circle, but they played harder. Weekends were swallowed up by clubs and bottle service and girls whose names they’d forgotten by Monday morning.

Jungkook had never quite understood the appeal. He had a company to inherit, a father who tracked his every move like a hawk and exactly zero interest in giving the man more ammunition. Jeon Wooshik had made it abundantly clear that the CEO seat came with conditions, and Jungkook had spent the better part of his twenties checking every box that his father had almost run out of things to criticize.

So, really, this whole thing is juvenile. Immature and foolish. But considering he’s blindfolded and handcuffed, he doesn’t really have a say in the matter. 

“Kook! We’re hereeee,” He recognizes Kim Seokjin’s voice, his hyung. Jin was four years his senior and had the emotional maturity to show for it exactly none of the time. He was Namjoon’s best friend first, then Jungkook’s by proximity, and somewhere along the way had appointed himself a permanent fixture in Jungkook’s life whether he wanted him there or not.

Kim Namjoon, though, he trusted unconditionally despite his laidback lifestyle. If Namjoon had signed off on this, there was a reason. Jungkook just wished the reason didn’t involve handcuffs.

“Alright, jokes fucking over. Can you take off this shit?” Jungkook asks flatly. 

He hears the car door open, and warm hands are guiding him out of the vehicle, little giggles and snickers filling the cool night air. 

“He speaks!” Taehyung cackles, arguably the most immature of them all. (Well, between him and Park Jimin.)

“What a grump,” Jimin adds, and he sounds closer, so Jungkook assumes it’s his soft hands leading him somewhere. “Look at his cutie little face.” 

“Feels kinda unfair I can’t see any of your faces.”

“Jungkookie,” Someone squeezes his cheek, and he has to fight the urge to punch the air. 

“Ugh, his pout is so cute, Jin-hyung,” Taehyung giggles again, and Jungkook sighs. He can already tell Taehyung is drunk, since he only laughs in such a way when Jimin is shamelessly flirting with him or he’s drunk too much soju. 

“I’m going to kill all of you—“

A hand finally yanks the blindfold off his face, as another undoes the handcuffs digging into his wrists. Jungkook blinks into the dark, vision swimming. When his eyes finally do adjust, six faces grin back at him, varying degrees of giddiness painted across their expressions. 

Jungkook surveys his surroundings as quickly as he can. He’s in a parking lot… it’s packed to the brim with all kinds of cars, none that are as expensive as his. Bass pounds in his eardrum from the nearby entrance, but when he cranes his neck to peer inside, he sees nothingness. A void that leaves everything up to the imagination. 

The front door is musty, worn down and guarded by one man who’s watching something on his phone. “Paradise” in flashing letters hangs off the top, flickering as though someone had forgotten to pay the bill. And underneath it, “Adult Club.”

Fucking hell. 

“What,” he says slowly, “is that.”

“Birthday surprise,” Jin jokes, and the boys giggle like schoolgirls. 

Jungkook looks over at Namjoon. Namjoon, to his credit, has the decency to look sheepish. His friends know him better than anyone. People don’t gain access to Jeon Jungkook easily—and yet they failed him so astonishingly he can’t even believe it. This goes against everything he stands for. Clubs of any kind are forbidden. Especially strip clubs, where any lone person can recognize him and report back to his father. 

As if Namjoon can smell the rebuttal on his lips, he rushes to argue, “It’s fun in there.”

Jungkook snorts, “I doubt that. If my dad finds out, I’m fucking toast.”

“Your dad’s not gonna find out,” Jimin rolls his eyes. “We’ve been here like once a month and you’re not allowed to take pictures. Out of respect for the girls or some shit.”

A shiver rolls down Jungkook’s back at the word girls. The thought of them annoys him already. “This is stupid, you know? I’m not even into this kind of shit.”

“Yeah, we know,” Taehyung slaps his shoulder, trying to steer him toward the entrance, but Jungkook is fortunately bulkier than him. “You’re the king of the land, Jeon Jungkook, refuses to touch a woman because he’s better than all of them.”

“Fuck off, Tae.”

“Dude, come on. Live a little. It’s your birthday and your boys want to treat you to a night of fun. How could you say no to that?” Jin begs, and Jungkook comes up with a plethora of ways he could say no to this.

Jungkook sighs, staring at the door. On the other side of it are things he cannot get involved in. He has a board meeting Monday morning he hasn’t prepped for yet. A pristine reputation that took the better part of a decade to build. He has a father who has Google alerts set for his name. 

He really, really should not be here. 

Jungkook turns to face the six faces staring back at him expectantly. 

“It’s your birthday,” Namjoon tries feebly one more time. 

“That is not the argument you think it is—”

“Jungkook-ah.” Jin steps forward and puts both hands on his shoulders. “We love you. We have always loved you. And it is because we love you that we are telling you, as a united front, that you are going inside that door if we have to carry you.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Jungkook retorts, and all Jin does is raise his brows back at him. Well played. 

The silence that follows is not reassuring.

Jungkook realizes this is one negotiation he is not going to win. Sighing, he shakes his head. “I fucking hate you guys. One hour tops, and I’m out of there.”

“That’s a good boy,” Jin pats his shoulder like he’s a dog and pushes him in the direction of the entrance. “Let’s get on in there.” 

The bouncer at the front seems to finally recognize he has a job when the seven men walk up, beady eyes scanning their faces before they land on Namjoon in the back. “Joon!” he calls out, reaching over to give him a firm handshake, nearly knocking Jungkook flat on the floor. Of course Namjoon knows the fucking bouncer—he’s probably reached some kind of reward status at this club. He doesn’t bother checking anyone’s IDs, just lets all of them sidle in.

Jungkook steps through the door and immediately wishes he hadn’t. Goddamnit.

Red lights flash over the club floor, speakers blasting some RnB song he doesn’t recognize. The place is enormous, larger than he thought, with a main stage dominating the room. Two strippers dance on the two poles adjacent to each other, men perched on chairs with wads of cash stuffed in their hands. Booths line the walls, packed with men in varying states of losing their minds. All decked in suits, loosened collars and flushed faces and eyes tracking the room with an attention they probably never give their actual jobs. Private tables closer to the stage are worse. Bottles everywhere, dollar bills everywhere. 

The worst part of it all, is how many girls there are. Girls in lingerie, silk and lace that barely constitute fabric, moving through the room in what feels like slow motion. Every single one of them moves like she knows exactly where she’s going and exactly what’s going to happen when she gets there.

“Kim Namjoon?” A hostess approaches in normal clothes—thank god—and he steps forward to speak to her, all hushed whispers and suspicious glances back at Jungkook. Enough for him to know that this night will be anything but casual. Jungkook expects he’ll have an ass in his face in twenty minutes tops. 

She smiles at all of them, clapping her hands to get their attention. “Hi boys! Welcome to Paradise. I know some of you have been here before, so I’ll keep it brief. No pictures or videos allowed. If we catch you, you’re banned for life. ATMs are lined up against the wall, so make sure you take out cash beforehand so you don’t have to get up.”

She pauses to ensure everyone understands, eyes lingering on Jungkook, and he fights the urge to roll his eyes. It’s not rocket science. It’s a strip club. “I heard we’re celebrating a birthday tonight, so Joon has booked a private table for you all. Dancers will rotate by your table and you better make them feel like the shit, because they are. Got it?”

All boys nod in unison. Jungkook side-eyes Jimin and Tae, and already, they have heart eyes forming. It’s despicable. The hostess leads them through the room, weaving between tables without looking, heels silent on the floor, not once glancing back to check if they’re following. The private table is tucked a few feet off the main floor, with curved booth seating, a pole attached from the ceiling hanging right in front of them, and a clear sightline to the stage. Bottles are already sweating on ice in the center like they’d been expecting them (which Jungkook is certain is the work of his hyungs).

The boys pile in with zero decorum. Hoseok immediately reaches for a bottle, passing out glasses to pour up shots of soju and whiskey. Jungkook allows him to be overserved, because there’s no other scenario in which he gets through this night without being wasted. He doesn’t know where to look, which means he keeps looking everywhere. He’s not stupid — he knows objectively that women are attractive. He’s always known that. It’s just that knowing it theoretically and sitting in a room saturated with it are two very different things. 

Jeon Jungkook’s disinterest in women never stemmed from anything other than the fear of being mediocre. His high school life, which should’ve been filled with bad decision making and girlfriends, was instead taken over by shadowing his father at the office or learning how to use Microsoft Excel to make financial reports. College was a repeat, and he adapted easily to the hermit lifestyle he had been living. Even once he graduated, he made no attempt to date anyone. His mother, a frivolous woman who lived off the family money with ease, had once asked him if he was gay or asexual. Unfortunately for her, he is neither. 

He is just, quite literally, indifferent to what women can offer. 

That’s not to say Jungkook doesn’t get horny (hence dispelling the asexual rumors). Jungkook masturbates as often as most normal guys do, mostly when he’s frustrated by work. But instead of seeking respite in another woman’s vagina, he uses his own hand, which has worked perfectly well for him. 

And, well, there is this other… thing he’s kept locked with a key within him. Deep in his unconscious, something not even a therapist could uncover. The fear that he might be bad at it.

It sounds ridiculous when it crosses his mind for even a second. He does not do things badly. He does not do things at all until he’s certain he can do them well. That’s just how he's wired, has always been wired, the same compulsion that made him practice his father’s presentations in the mirror at fifteen until they were perfect.

It is exceedingly unfortunate that this is not something one can research into oblivion or competence. You learn by experience. And the idea of being in front of someone, exposed and vulnerable, makes him want to die. 

“Jungkook-ah, look at the girl in the pink,” Namjoon whispers into his ear, fighting to be heard over the bass. “She’s so fucking hot.”

His eyes wander over to where Namjoon is trying to subtly point. A girl in pink lingerie roams the stage, lashes batting flirtatiously as she lets the pole sit between her ass cheeks. Jungkook doesn’t have time to respond to his hyung before he’s being (rudely) interrupted by a girl in light blue lingerie, standing over their table with a smile. “Hi boys, how are we doing tonight?”

The boys, minus Jungkook, whoop and yell, and he wants to crawl into the booth and hide. They’re acting like wild vultures, and his brain is reeling trying to comprehend what’s unfolding in front of him. 

Before his mind can catch up, he feels a wad of cash slithering into his palm. 

“Just go with it,” Namjoon murmurs from beside him, already clapping.

He gulps as he peers down at the bills in his hand. The girl in blue has climbed onto the small raised platform in the center of their table, one hand wrapping around the pole. Up close she’s gorgeous—warm tanned skin, black curly hair spilling over one shoulder, a devious twinkle in her eye. 

Her hips roll in a figure eight, one hand trailing the length of the pole as the other moves down her waist. She turns, spine arching back, and the boys lose their collective minds. Bills flutter onto the platform like confetti, and a small smile contorts onto her plush lips. 

With both hands, she drops into a low squat, thighs spread, and comes back up in a languid motion. Hoseok physically slaps the table, tossing twenties to no avail. 

Okay, calm down, he thinks distantly. His heartbeat is picking up in his chest. 

She spins, one leg extending wide, the momentum carrying her around the pole in a slow arc before she hooks her knee and drops back in a hang that makes the fabric of her lingerie ride up her thighs. The light catches her and Jungkook forgets, very briefly, that he came here against his will.

Taehyung’s on his feet as fast as he can move. Jungkook can only watch in horror as Taehyung peels a bill from his stack and stuffs it right into the waistband of her panties. She giggles and turns toward him. Tae grins up at her and she leans down, curly hair falling forward, and shakes her chest right in his face.

Taehyung tips his head back and says something Jungkook cannot hear over the music, but it evokes another laugh from her. Jungkook’s mind is blank, save for the images of ass and tits flying across his vision. 

Jungkook sits very still and feels something he hasn’t felt in a long, long time shift somewhere low in his stomach.

He is not indifferent, it turns out.

He is just very, very in over his head.

The girl turns back to the rest of them, eyeing them up as though to decide her next victim. Her eyes linger on Jungkook for a few seconds, and his heart thumps out of its cage. 

He’s aware of what he looks like. He’s not a fool, after all. Tattooed arm, a body sculpted by Greek gods, multiple facial and ear piercings. The irony of it is not lost on him—all that packaging, none of the experience to back it up. 

He’s had girls lining up to talk to him, but not a single one that could hold his interest. Jungkook could care less.

But it seems she recognizes he’s not eager to talk to her, and so she focuses her attention on Jimin, who’s practically panting like a puppy left out in the sun for too long. She does a few tricks for him on the pole, all of which are rewarded with bills and yells. 

“Candy, you don’t plan on keeping these boys all to yourself, do you?”

A melodic voice, almost like a siren’s, floats into Jungkook’s ear. His body stiffens, muscles taut as his eyes avert over the table to spot a woman.

Jungkook’s not gay by any means. He’s also not fucking blind. The woman that stands before him is an angel, a goddess, a temptation for him sent from hell. Adorned in red lacy lingerie and white knee socks with red bows on them… utterly fucking delicious. 

He’s drooling. 

“They’re all yours, Angel,” the stripper, apparently named Candy, says with a grin, sliding off the platform, and just like that she relinquishes the pole like a crown being passed. In one smooth motion, you climb up, nimble fingers wrapping around the pole. Immediately, his friends turn into wild animals, even more explicit than before. Taehyung stands from his seat, eyes blanking as he observes how your thong hugs your hips and ass. 

You alternate through a series of movements—slow spin, then fast, one leg extended in a line. You hook your knee around the pole and lean back, hair falling away from your face, and the red lace catches the light. Jungkook’s higher brain functions vacate the premises. Money rains onto the platform, more than he expected. 

He realizes he’s also holding money, and it’s as though a lightbulb flashes above his head. Oh shit, he thinks. He wants to spend his entire wallet on you. 

You climb down and drop straight into Namjoon’s lap like you’ve known him for years. Kim Namjoon, the most composed man Jungkook has ever met, grins like an idiot. You lean in close to say something to him, pink, lush lips brushing his ear, and Namjoon laughs low before responding with a hushed whisper. 

Slowly, you pull away from his ear, eyes twinkling. 

And then you glance over at Jungkook. 

It’s a half-second, a flicker, the most minor redirection of your attention imaginable. A slide of your eyes that lands on him and then lifts away. 

His cock twitches in his pants. It is, quite literally, the sexiest thing he’s ever seen. In that moment, he realizes he wants nothing more than your attention, your time, you. But he just doesn’t know what he has to do to get such a thing. To be able to deserve a woman as delectable as you. 

A flutter of giggles escapes your mouth, cheeks ruddy as you get up from Namjoon’s lap.drifting around the curve of the table, all seven pairs of eyes track you like flowers following light. Taehyung fans himself with a hundred dollar bill, and you immediately gravitate towards him. 

Jungkook watches you kiss his cheek. Watches Taehyung’s hands find your waist. Watches him stuff a fistful of bills into the back of your lingerie, give your ass a playful smack that you welcome with a laugh. He wants to blow his brains out.

He deadpans at the ice bucket instead.

“Fucking hottest girl I’ve ever seen," Namjoon mutters beside him, just loud enough for him to catch, "Don’t you think, Jungkook-ah?”

Jungkook’s tongue is tied into knots. 

“She’s a sin,” Namjoon continues.

Across the table, you laugh at something Taehyung says, head tipping back, throat exposed, and the red lace shifts. Jungkook moves with it, recrossing his legs under the table and tugging his shirt down to hide the growing tent in his pants. 

Namjoon notices the movement, looking down for a millisecond before peering at Jungkook smugly. 

He claps Jungkook on the back, “Welcome,” he says, “to being a fucking man.”

“I hate you so fucking much right now.” 

“Your dick doesn’t hate me.”

He’s not technically wrong, per se. Jungkook just refuses to admit he’s right. 

Taehyung leans up to murmur something in your ear, and you pull back with a slow smile spreading across your face. 

Oh no. Oh no, no, no—your body turns to look directly at Jungkook.

Jungkook has closed deals worth nine figures, has sat across from men who built empires from nothing and held their gaze at the age of 20 without a care in the world. He has endured his father’s silent disappointment across a dinner table for 30 consecutive years.

Like a cartoon character with a fork stuck in his throat, he gulps audibly. 

You start walking toward him, your eyes piercing into it. They don’t leave his face not once, not even to check where you’re stepping or acknowledge the table erupting in cheers around you. 

Namjoon slides over calmly to make room, and Jungkook watches the space beside him open up and thinks what the fuck are you doing and means it directed at every single person in this room, including himself. 

You stop in front of him, and he peers up at you. In those heels, you tower over him, and he notices the smirk that’s curved upon your lips. Evil. You’re fucking evil. 

Trepidly, you sink down onto your knees, maintaining eye contact. 

Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god —

His cock twitches so hard he has to lock every muscle in his body to keep from visibly reacting. 

“Hi,” you smile.

“Hi,” he replies with bated breath. 

You already know. He can tell you already know exactly what you’re doing to him and precisely how badly he’s losing. Somehow that makes it so much worse and so much better. 

Your hand comes to land up on his thigh, snaking up and up until he swears you’re going to stick your hand in his pants. You stop right on his inner thigh, feeling the muscle. He swears he sees a twinkle in your eyes at the realization. He sucks in a deep breath, trying to calm every nerve ending in his body. 

“What’s your name, pretty boy?” you whisper, trying not to be heard by the group of animals that he unfortunately calls his friends. 

“J-Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook.”

“Jungkook.” You repeat the name with so much seduction it almost doesn’t even sound recognizable to him. 

You stand up, and he exhales the deepest breath. God fucking damnit. Of course you’re done with him—he stuttered his own name like he’d never used it before. He watches you straighten up and thinks okay. okay, that’s fine. that was a normal amount of humiliation for one evening.

But instead of leaving, your knee lands on the cushion beside his thigh, followed by the other one, and then you’re in his lap. The air leaves his lungs in one swift, silent evacuation. Your lace panties settle directly over the front of his pants and you shift forward, eyes panning down between you. 

With a lift of your brows, you move again. Shit. He knows what you found. He can feel exactly what you found and there is absolutely nothing he can do about it.

Shit shit shit—

“Look at little Kookie!” Taehyung’s voice echoes across the table, ringing in Jungkook’s ear. “He’s pink!”

Jungkook turns to look at his alleged friends with the dead eyes of a man considering his options.

And then he feels your warm hand, two fingers catching his jaw, turning his face back to yours.

“Don’t look at them, baby.” Your voice is low, meant only for him. “Look at me.”

God help him, he does.

Your eyes hold his for a moment that stretches longer than it should, and then—your hips gyrate forward in a slow circle. The warm drag of your hips moves against his, and nothing, not a single thing, has ever felt like this in his years of living. 

“You’re really pretty,” you giggle, looping your arms around his neck, rolling your hips in a figure eight that makes his vision white out at the edges.

Behind you, the boys are losing their minds. Money’s flying, and Jungkook cannot process any of it because you’re shifting again, turning so that your back is pressing into his broad chest. You lean back into him, head dropping to his shoulder, and the slide of red lace against his cock is making him see actual stars. He can’t hide the groan that escapes him. 

Leaning your head back to face him, you’re close enough that your breath fans across his jaw. “You’re so tense, pretty boy. These hands doing anything useful or just decorating the couch?”

He really can’t argue, because his hands are pressed flat against the cushions on either side of him, white-knuckled and rigid like he’s bracing for a car crash. “I—” he begins. 

“Need help?”

Helplessly, he nods. 

You reach down, take his hands and settle them on your hips. The lace is soft under his palms, plush skin warm to the touch. 

“Hold on right there,” you whisper. “Don’t let go.”

An actual, audible, involuntary whimper crawls up his throat and escapes before he can catch it. With his hands on your hips he can feel every single movement now, every roll and dip and shift of your weight, and it is so much better than anything he has ever done alone in the dark of his penthouse that it almost feels like a personal insult to every year that came before this one.

“F-fuck,” he exhales. "You’re so—you’re so g-good—”

“Yeah?” You straddle him once more, knees digging into the couch, your eyes pausing to glance at his lips before meeting his eyes. Your finger comes up, tracing slowly along his lower lip, catching on the small metal ring of his lip piercing and playing with it before releasing. “What a pretty piercing for a pretty boy.”

“You like it?” Jungkook feebly asks, even though he knows you do. Every girl likes it, but none have caught his eye the way you do. 

Silently, you reach past him then, fingers closing around the forgotten wad of cash still sitting on the cushion where Namjoon pressed it into his palm a lifetime ago. He watches as you lean back in his lap and drag the bills languidly across your chest, the red lace, down over the curve of your waist.

You peer up at him from under your lashes. “You were just going to let all this go to waste?” you ask, clicking your tongue.

“I—” he swallows. "I didn't know—like the protocol—”

The dopey smile that breaks across your face sends vibrations to his cock. “You’re doing so well for me already.”

You lean forward again, closing the distance, your lips brushing the shell of his ear as your hips keep moving. Without a second thought, he grips your hips tighter. 

Somewhere behind you, he distantly registers that the boys are no longer watching. Other girls have materialized at the table, except for Namjoon and Hoseok, who are deep in a drunk conversation. It’s just you and him. 

Your teeth graze his earlobe. “You know, when I saw you, I thought you’d be trouble.” A soft giggle leaves your lips. “Turns out you’re harmless.”

“I—” he starts, some distant fragment of pride assembling itself. “I’m not—”

“Harmless,” you repeat, pulling back to look at him. “The sweetest thing in this whole place.”

For an irrational moment, Jungkook forgets every reason why he can’t be caught here. 

And then it’s his father’s disapproving tone, thinks about the words you represent this family everywhere you go, Jungkook, everywhere, and the Google alerts and the face his father makes when he’s upset  and how Jungkook has spent his entire life trying to prevent that specific expression. 

He could call his driver, go home, pretend this whole evening was a fever dream. After all, this is exactly the kind of situation that becomes a headline. Jeon heir spotted at—

Suddenly, your hands leave his shoulders. The warmth of your weight lifts off his lap all at once and the absence of it is so sudden that his body mourns it, an embarrassing physiological grief response he didn’t know he was capable of. Left behind with a raging boner that is apparent to the naked eye. 

You smooth down your lingerie. Roll your shoulders back. And just like that the curtain comes back up, a polished version of you, like the last twenty minutes happened only to him. “Bye boys," you say to the table and the ones paying attention halfheartedly wave. 

Then you turn to him. “Bye, Jungkook. It was nice to meet you.” With a wink, you disappear off to the next table, and all he can do is stare at the space where you were once sitting, his cock standing tall and proud in his pants. 

He becomes aware, slowly, that Namjoon is looking at him. “Don’t start.”

“Wasn’t going to.” 

“Ah Jungkook-ah, you just need to fuck a girl and get it over with!” 

Kim Seokjin, for all his years of knowledge and wisdom, is a bit of a menace when liquor enters his bloodstream. 

Jungkook has become overtly aware of two things: 1) he’s the drunkest he’s ever been and 2) the boner in his pants has yet to go down. 

He had briefly considered going into the bathroom to jerk off, but that would be too obvious and embarrassing to admit, even to himself. Instead, he would much rather subject himself to the torture of his best friends and let three other women dance on him to erase the taste of you from his mouth. 

Each woman was attractive, but they didn’t entice him the way you had. Even after an hour of sitting at this couch, throwing bills upon bills, nothing felt as ethereal as the feeling of your weight upon him, as though he had claimed you. 

“I’m not just going to fuck any girl,” Jungkook rolls his eyes, tipping his head back to take another shot of whiskey. 

“Why not?!” Jin motions wildly with his glass, sloshing amber liquid alarmingly close to the rim. “You’re 30! You’re rich! You look like… that!” He waves his hand at Jungkook’s being. “What are you saving your best years for? Soon we’ll all be pumping ashes out of our cock—”

“Jin—”

“Dust will leak from our tips!-”

“I’m going to fucking murder you.”

“He’s waiting for love,” Jimin notes, words slurred from the effects of alcohol. A black-haired girl is draped across his lap, lips peppering kisses on his supple skin. “It’s actually very romantic if you think about it.”

“I am not waiting for love.”

“He’s waiting for her,” Taehyung whispers, pointing across the room. Without even turning to look, Jungkook knows they’re talking about you. Mostly because he hasn’t been able to stop looking at you for the past hour, heat rising to his cheeks when he watches you dance on other men. 

“The red lingerie girl has him in a chokehold,” Tae continues to nobody, nodding as though Jungkook is suffering from a grave disease. “I’ve seen this before. This is a chokehold situation.”

“No one except my dad has me in anything, Taehyung,” he argues. 

“Your cock has suggested otherwise,” Yoongi snorts, not even looking up from his drink.

Jungkook tips his head back and stares at the ceiling, thinks about how peaceful his penthouse is right now. How peaceful. How completely devoid of these people.

From his peripheral, he watches as Hoseok leans over and cups his hand around Namjoon’s ear. He has known Kim Namjoon for ten years and he knows exactly what Namjoon’s listening face looks like versus Namjoon's scheming face. This is the second one. Very much the second one.

Namjoon’s eyes light up, and Jungkook’s body has a visceral reaction. Namjoon turns to Jin. Whispers something. Jin’s face splits into a grin so enormous it looks like his lips will crack in two. 

Flatly, Jungkook asks, “What is happening right now?”

Not a single one of his friends answers. They’re doing the hive thing—buzzing between each other, passing from person to person, grins multiplying like a virus. 

Jungkook clears his throat. “Excuse me.”

Namjoon ignores his words and stands up. “Where are you going,” Jungkook blurts, panic bursting in his chest. “Namjoon. Kim Namjoon. Where are you—”

But he’s already gone, sliding through the crowd, and Jungkook watches him disappear toward the back of the club where a woman in all black is standing with a clipboard. The bottom of his stomach drops out completely. He turns to the remaining members of his betrayal circle. “Whatever he’s doing, stop it now—”

“Shh,” Jin serenely says, patting his knee.

“I don’t care that I’m younger, don’t shh me.”

“Shhh.” Jungkook shrugs him off and cranes his neck toward where Namjoon is now deep in conversation with the clipboard woman, nodding, reaching into his jacket pocket. His wallet comes into view. Fuck. 

Jungkook can’t imagine whipping out a wallet at the strip club is anything but bad news.

“I’m leaving,” Jungkook announces, planting both hands on the table. The way he sees it, he has about ten minutes to escape before he either blacks out or embarrasses himself even more. 

Two pairs of hands push him back down immediately. “You’re not going anywhere, big boy,” Hoseok tuts. 

“You’re detaining me.”

“It’s a birthday gift,” Taehyung argues, “You can’t refuse a birthday gift. It’s rude.”

“Watch me.”

Jungkook abruptly feels a slap on his back, and when he looks up, it’s Namjoon reclaiming his seat beside him, a sinister grin plastered on his face. “You’re welcome.”

Sighing, he shakes his head. “For what?”

“Happy birthday, Jungkook-ah.”

“That didn’t answer my fucking question, Namjoon.”

Before Jungkook can pester further, a shadow falls over the table. The woman with the ominous clipboard and headset is standing at the edge of their booth, and she doesn’t particularly look like she’s here to refill their drinks or anything tame. 

“Which one of you is Jeon Jungkook?”

Of fucking course. 

The boys erupt like zoo animals. Clapping, hollering, hands slapping his back from every direction simultaneously. Jungkook wants to cry, maybe throw himself off the balcony of his penthouse. 

The woman smiles at him. “Follow me.”

“What—”

Namjoon’s hand closes around his arm and hauls him bodily upright. “Up you go, buddy.”

“I’m not—this is—you can’t just—”

But none of it matters—his feet are carrying him, brain several steps behind. He’s following the clipboard woman through the club in what feels like cement shoes. As he walks, he peers around the club—other men at tables, women moving through the dim light to reach their poles, money piling on the floor. 

He is the only one who looks like he’s being escorted to his own execution.

The woman stops at a door at the back of the club. It’s unmarked, flush against the wall. She pushes it open, and the first and only thing Jungkook sees is red. Everything inside is red. A plush crimson couch curved against the far wall, red LED light bleeding over every surface. 

Even the color red turns him on now. That must be your doing. 

“Wait right here,” the woman instructs, stepping back toward the door. “Your private dancer will be here to join you shortly. 

“My what?!”

He’s so fucked that he might need to use a new word to describe how utterly fucked he is. 

The door slams shut behind her, a finite ending to his arguing. There’s no going back. 

His cock jumps in his pants, and Jungkook looks down at himself in indignation. Bad, he thinks. Bad. Bad dog. We are leaving.

But he thinks that even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t. He’s thinking of you, towering over him, asserting your dominance over him. He’s spent most of his life being in charge, and for once, someone else is taking the reins and letting him sit back. 

He stands in the middle of the red room until finally, his legs give up the principle of the thing and carry him to the couch. He should have known. From the moment Namjoon’s wallet came out he should have connected the dots because Kim Namjoon does not spend money without intention, has never done anything without intention, and Jungkook has known this for years and still walked directly into it like a fool.

Pressing both palms to his knees, wiping the sweat off them, he stares at the door. It might not be her, he reasons. It’s probably not her. There are lots of girls here. It could be anyone. 

It would be foolish to assume someone like you would not be taken already by another dominant, assertive man. Sure, Jungkook probably has the money that most men in this club dream of, but he doesn’t have an ounce of the confidence that he needs to handle you. 

Jeon Jungkook is currently sweating through an expensive shirt in a red room the size of a closet because a girl in lingerie might walk through that door. 

The door swings open and the first thing Jungkook sees is—red. 

Red flashes across his vision and it’s all he can see or think about. 

You step inside and the LED light catches the lace, makes your curves look like they were designed by a Greek god. For a moment, your eyes adjust to the dim light, averting around the space to try and make sense of your surroundings. 

But when they finally land on him, there’s a dangerous twinkle dancing in your eyes. 

“We meet again.” 

Loudly, he swallows whatever drool has accumulated in his mouth. The door clicks shut behind you and you move toward him, heels marking an agonizing rhythm against the floor.

Clack. Clack. Clack. 

He cranes his neck as you approach, tracking you up until you’re standing directly in front of him and he has to tip his head all the way back to hold your gaze. Your lips are freshly glossed with red lipstick, he notes. 

“You know,” you say, tilting your head, “I was starting to think you were scared of me.”

He opens his mouth (to say what, he’s not sure of.)

“Are you, Jungkook?” You pause, lips curved into a mischievous smirk. “Scared?”

Without a single reservation, yes, he is. But he’s not entirely useless—he’ll never admit that. 

Clearly, you take his non-response as an admittance of defeat. Your hand comes down, cradling the side of his face. Your manicured thumb traces his cheekbone. “Hey. We don’t have to do anything, you know. I know your friends booked this.” Your eyes are steady on his, reading him the way you’ve been reading him all night. “Or…”

He blinks like a teenage boy, saliva pooling in his mouth as you hold your words for a second. 

“Do you want me, Jungkook?”

Embarrassingly, devastatingly fast, his head bobs up and down before his brain has even finished processing the question. He wants to dissolve into the couch cushions and never be found.

Your smile breaks acros your features. Pearly white teeth come into view, the realest expression he’s seen on your face all night. “Good boy. Do you have any song requests?”

You turn toward the TV mounted on the wall, and he watches you move to it, your back to him now, and somehow that’s almost worse because he can just… look. He may be a virgin, but he’s not an idiot. Your perky ass is mere inches away from his face, and his fingers itch to reach out and squeeze the plush skin in his hand. 

With his eyes still trained on your ass, he says, “U-um. Anything. I don’t—I don’t care.”

“Hmm.” You bite your lip, scrolling. Jungkook begins to hope you never turn back around so he can relish in the shape of your ass all night. That would be well worth Namjoon’s money, he thinks.

The opening beat of a song drops from the speakers and Jungkook goes completely still. Of all the songs in the world, it’s his favorite song.

2.0 by BTS.

He’s not ashamed to listen to their music, despite them being a typical k-pop boy group. Their shit is catchy. Sue him.

You swivel back around and your hands come down onto his thighs. You lean down enough that your hair falls forward and he can smell your perfume again. His hands curl into fists at his sides.

Your eyes drag themselves down to his pants, like they’re ogling at the very unfortunate situation he’s unable to handle. Then they drift back up as if you saw nothing at all.

“You know,” you say, your voice dropping to something that would be condescending if it were anyone else. “I’ve had a lot of men in this room.”

He swallows back the bile that threatens to rise up his throat. He’d rather not think about them. .

“But none of them—” your fingers press into his thighs, just slightly, “I’ve wanted to have as bad as I do you.”

He can feel his jaw go slack, eyes widening to the size of flying saucers.

You smile. Lean in until your lips brush the hinge of his jaw, a bare whisper of contact that makes every nerve ending in his body stand at guard. “You have no idea how bad I want you.” 

Great. You must be attracted to tortured virgins who are rich and powerful but don’t know the first thing about pleasing a woman. “Lucky for you,” you pull back to look at him. “I’m going to take very good care of you.”

The weight on the couch shifts before he can really notice it, your knees digging into the sofa, until you’ve infiltrated every cell in his body. Above him, around him, your hands landing on his shoulders and squeezing, fingers pressing into the muscle there with a small sound of approval. 

Your full, warm body settles onto his lap as though you’re at home, and really, he doesn’t think there’s enough oxygen in the room. The thought of how little space there is between you two wrings a sound out of him that he will be taking to his grave. Your panties graze slow over the length of his cock. “Fuck—”

His head drops back against the couch, neck going loose, and he stares at the ceiling like it might offer him salvation. Potentially a trapdoor.

He can feel your eyes lingering on his face, and not a single thing can be done about it because every resource he has is currently being allocated to not cumming in his pants. 

Your clothed pussy drags over him through the thin barrier of your panties. He makes a sound that is not a word.

“There he is,” you murmur. Your hands slide from his shoulders up the sides of his neck, thumbs tracing his jaw, tipping his chin back down so he’s looking at you instead of the ceiling. “Stay with me.”

“I’m—” he tries. “I’m here. I’m very—I’m extremely here—”

The pace you set is torturing enough to make his eyes roll back into his head. Your lips curve. “You feel that?”

“I feel—” he swallows, “—yes. Yeah. I feel that.”

A hum leaves your mouth. Jungkook watches your eyes stay on his face and realizes with dawning, helpless clarity that you are observing every single reaction. Every twitch. None of it really matters, since he has no poker face left, has burned through every last reserve of composure he had somewhere around the moment you sat down.

Manicured hands slide down from his jaw to his chest, pressing flat against him, and you lean back to look at him from a new angle, hair falling over one shoulder, hips never breaking rhythm. 

“Relax,” you softly say, fingers digging into his chest. “I can feel how tense you are.”

“I’m not tense—”

You perk an eyebrow.

“I work an intense job—”

“Jungkook.”

“Fine. I’m tense or whatever," he admits, “and I would appreciate it if you didn’t hold that against me.”

You giggle, and his stomach erupts into a nest of angry hornets, bloodthirsty insects that rival those ‘butterflies’ people get when they fall in love. Jungkook doesn’t do girls. Never has. He feels the need to remind himself once or twice. 

“You’re doing so well,” you murmur, and your hips roll again, and he swears he can feel your folds against him. Or maybe wishful thinking. 

He just can’t fucking think straight anymore. 

“I-I’ve never done this b-before,” he whimpers as your ass rubs over his hardened length agonizingly slow. “I don’t r-really—fuck—talk to g-girls.”

His head falls back onto the couch again, small, erratic puffs of air escaping his lips. 

You lean into his ear, lips coquettishly brushing against the crimson, heated skin. “I know.” 

Kim Namjoon. When he gets his hands on him. It is so fucking over. 

Your hands leave his shoulders.  They move, traveling behind your back to undo the clip of your bra in one fell swoop. The red lace goes slack. You let it hang from two fingers, dangling, looking at his face the whole time. Then you let the red fabric drop to the floor.

Oh fuck. 

Everything he knows about boobs is from porn itself. But up close, he can see your hardened peaks, stimulated and perky, ready for him to suck and play with. They’re just the right size, enough to cup in his hand. You lean forward, bracing your hands on the back of the couch on either side of his head, closing the distance between you inch by inch until your nipples graze his chest through his shirt.

He shivers, cock twitching beneath you. 

“Sensitive,” you note with a whisper. 

“I have—I’m wearing a shirt—”

“I know.” Your lips brush his jaw. “Imagine if you weren’t.”

He grips your hips so hard the lace bunches under his fingers. “You have no idea,” you exhale against the hinge of his jaw, “what I want to do to you.”

“Tell me.” He doesn’t even recognize his own voice when it escapes him.“Please—”

You pull back to look at him, eyes an onyx black shade, lips parted.

“Have you ever touched yourself, Jungkook?” You punctuate your question with another slow grind. He whimpers in response, and the shame of it hardly registers because his cock is twitching and pulsing against his slacks, his boxers already damp with his arousal. He has never been less in control of his own body.

“Answer me.” Your nail drags across his jawline. 

Jungkook can’t breathe. All he can do is grip the couch and try not to fall apart in front of a woman who looks like she has never fallen apart in her life.

“Y-yes.” he croaks, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I do.”

“Hm.” Your hips roll again, the lace of your panties catching against his slacks perfectly, perfectly, and his brain halts all coherent thoughts. “What do you think about when you touch yourself?”

He thinks about women, mostly. They’re usually abstract, faceless, nothing like you. Nothing like the warm weight of you in his lap or the way you smell. Usually the entire ordeal takes him four minutes and he goes to sleep feeling embarrassed about the whole thing.

He does not say this.

“I— I think about girls.”

“Just girls?”

Your eyes peer down at him, sparkling with wonder. Your lips graze his cheek and every single neuron in his body fires at once. He’s going to fucking pass out.

God, he’s an idiot. He should’ve been having sex years ago. What was he so busy doing? Working? He gave up this for spreadsheets and impressing his father?

“Y-yeah,” he exhales. “Just—yeah.”

A small sound escapes you, something like a moan. The thought that you could be finding pleasure from this makes his cock pulse desperately in the confines of his pants. 

“Well.” Your hand finds his, lifts it, and presses his palm to the curve of your hip. Guiding his grip, guiding your own rhythm, you turn him into an active participant in his own undoing. 

“Next time you touch yourself.” You pick up the pace, slowly but steadily. “Think about this. Think about me. And how bad I want to fuck you.”

Fucking hell. 

His eyes squeeze tight, tight, tight. Tries, desperately, heroically, pathetically, not to cum. Jungkook groans, and he feels your fingernails dig into his broad shoulders for stability as your movements become more frantic.  

“F-Fuck,” he chokes out. “That feels so good.”

“I bet it does, baby,” you purr, and your angelic voice quells the fire in his core. “Bet your cock has been hungry for female attention, hasn’t it?” 

“No.” Jungkook hastily replies, “N-No, just for you.” 

He’s so fucking close, precum leaking out of his tip incessantly as each grind gets him closer and closer to his orgasm. Your tits bounce in his face, and he opens his eyes to see the sight that will forever be imprinted in his brain. Probably stored in his spank bank for the rest of time. Your cheeks are ruddy, eyes piercing into his, hair moving wildly, lace panties hugging every curve. 

Fuck. 

He’s going to cum untouched, like the virgin he is. 

Underneath the red lights, your hand finds his, and you guide up, up, up, press his palm flat against your chest. Your eye contact doesn’t waver. “Fuck,” he groans, “fuck, I’m—”

You watch him with a faint smile on your face. Without instruction, his fingers find your nipple, toying with the hardened peak lazily. Rolling them softly, you make a small sound above him and a lightbulb goes off in his brain. 

This is good for you too. You like what he’s doing. Holy. Shit. 

He continues to massage your nipple as you rut against his thighs, and it’s only a matter of time. He is a virgin, after all. 

Jungkook feels his cock twitch in his pants once, twice, before he’s moaning and whimpering as spurts of hot cum fill his boxers. His hand tightens around you on instinct, a sound leaving his throat that he has never made in his life, not once, not like this. He rides out his orgasm, shuddering and cursing under his breath, and your hips slow to ease him through it. 

He’s not sure how long he cums for, if he’s ever even cum this hard before. But when it does finally end, he slumps back against the couch like his skeleton has resigned. Staring at his face, your own movements still. 

Jungkook doesn’t keep track of time, only cares for the loss of the feeling of your body on his. You stand up, using his thighs for leverage to steady yourself. 

Placing a chaste kiss on his cheek, your eyes twinkle as you grin at him. “Come and find me when you’re ready, pretty boy.”

Jungkook sounds like a broken record everytime he reminds himself he doesn’t do girls. He’s already convinced himself that his attraction to you is some sort of rebellion against his virginity. 

That’s the only explanation as to why he’s standing outside Paradise Adult Club at 7 PM on a Monday holding an extravagant bouquet of red roses. 

Definitely has nothing to do with the fact that his Sunday night was spent wallowing in despair, cringing at how fast he came in his pants after you dry humped him for five minutes. No, that piece will live in his brain exclusively. It’s embarrassing to admit how much of an effect you’ve had on him. 

He’s never done anything nice for a girl in his life. Never took someone on a date, bought them flowers or jewelry, never held their hand just because he wanted to. He finds that shit cheesy, especially when his dad is yelling at him about some document from ten years ago. 

But then again, he can’t say a lot of girls have had the effect on him that you do. You had him throwing his truths and ideologies out the window, disappearing under red lights and red lace and just… he really fucking loves the color red now. 

The idea to stop by your place of work was a bold one, he can admit that much. It’s just that your last words to him before you strutted off ‘come and find me when you’re ready, pretty boy’ didn’t leave much room for representation. When he’s ready? Ready for you? Pretty sure he was ready for that the moment you laid eyes on him. 

Or, maybe you were referring to being ready to lose his virginity. He’s certain Namjoon has set him up for failure, probably mentioned numerous times everyone thought he was gay. In that case, Jungkook was also more than ready, but only if it was to you. Only if it was to see your tight little pussy swallowing his cock whole, eliciting those same sounds you did a few nights ago. 

Fuck, he needs to have you. 

“Excuse me? Sir?” 

A brunette hostess with a mousy voice jolts him out of his daydream, his cheeks rosy as if he’s been caught sniffing your panties. Her eyebrow is raised in confusion as she eyes the bouquet of roses. Chances are slim to none she’s ever seen those around a dance club before. 

“Yes. Hi. I’m looking for—” he stops.

Oh. Jungkook comes to the very hapless realization that he, in fact, does not know your real name. He knows your stage name. Candy called you Angel. That’s what he has. Angel. Which is a stage name, obviously, not a real name, and showing up to a woman’s workplace asking for Angel with a bouquet of roses is somehow worse than what he’s already doing.

“She works here,” he starts.

The hostess blinks. “…several women work here, sir.”

“Right. Yes. She was, uh, she was working Saturday night. She had—” he gestures vaguely at his own chest, “—red. She was wearing red.”

“A lot of women wore red on Saturday too.”

Her patience is wearing thin. 

“She had pretty hair.” He’s aware of how this sounds. “And she was—” another vague gesture, this time at his own face, “—she was very. You know.”

The hostess does not know. Her eyebrows are migrating slowly toward her hairline.

“Pretty,” he finishes, lamely. “Very pretty. Like, showstopping pretty.”

“Tall? About this height?” The hostess holds her hand up.

“Yes.”

“Works the private tables?”

“Uh, yeah,” he nods. “And uh, private rooms too.”

Something clicks behind the hostess’s eyes. Her brows lift in a completely different way now, a hint of recognition mixed with amusement.

“[Y/N]?” she asks.

[Y/N.]

He turns the name over in his head. Lets it settle. What a gorgeous name for a gorgeous girl, he thinks. 

(It’s his first crush, so he lets himself be as shameless as he needs to be about it.)

“Sure,” he says. “Yes. That one. [Y/N].” Your name. He knows your name now. He likes it more than he has any reasonable right to. “Is she—can I—”

“She’s off today.” The hostess smiles at him, fake sympathy seeping through the gesture. “Sorry.”

Jungkook grips his bouquet of roses until his knuckles are white. “Oh,” he says.

“Yup.”

He looks down at the bouquet. Red roses, obviously, because he’s been colonized by a color. He’d had his assistant order them this morning and had not explained why and the look on her face had been something he’d also be taking to his grave.

“Is there any chance—” he starts.

“I can’t give out personal information, sir. Our dancers lead private lives outside of their place of work.”

Jungkook sighs, weaving his fingers through his hair with his free hand. He can’t blame the hostess for her unwillingness to help, but he can’t let you get away. “No, I know. I wasn’t going to—Could I leave these for her? Is that… is that something that’s allowed?”

The hostess looks at him for a long moment.

Then she sighs, rolling her eyes and beckoning him further into the club. “Follow me.”

Somewhere, there’s a god he’ll be thanking later. 

The hostess leads him through a narrow hallway, behind the main floor, past a few closed doors, stopping at one left slightly ajar. When she pushes it open, it’s empty, save for the scattered lingerie and perfume bottles on the floor. 

“You can just leave them there,” she says, gesturing at the vanity.

She turns to leave. He hears it distinctly, murmured under her breath as she goes, “Amateur hour.”

Jungkook chooses not to acknowledge that.

He steps inside and sets the roses down on the vanity, straightening them slightly, then immediately feeling insane for straightening them and stopping. Jungkook doesn’t mean to look around, but his ADHD gets the best of him as his eyes wander. 

Your setup feels very you, although he’s only been aware of your existence for two days. The vanity mirror is framed with warm bulb lights, surface below it an organized chaos of things he has no reference for—foundation bottles and setting sprays lined up like little soldiers, a tray of eyeshadow with so many colors he can’t identify half of them. There’s trays of lip glosses, shades of red and pink that sent his brain into a tornado of horny thoughts. 

And, yeah, that’s enough for today. 

He turns to leave, trying to avoid eye contact with any of your other belongings he might find. But on the chair by the door sits a pair of panties.

Black. Lacy. Small enough to fit in one hand.

He stares at them, and they stare back. Every single rational thought he has ever had in thirty years of living lines up in his head and says, collectively and in unison: do not.

His hand moves independently of his brain, reaches out, closes around the fabric, and tucks it into his pocket in one fluid motion. Fuck. He did not plan that. That was not a decision he made, that was a decision his hand made, and he and his hand are going to have a very serious conversation about boundaries later—

He walks quickly, practically jogging. His shoes are loud in the hallway, he just needs to be outside, needs air, needs to be somewhere that isn’t the room where he just stole a woman’s underwear like some kind of pervert. 

“Have a good evening, sir!” the hostess calls from the front.

“Yep,” he quickly retorts, not stopping.

The door swings shut behind him and the cool night air hits his face. Luckily, his car is still waiting at the curb. It’s a miracle his driver hasn’t left him for dirt, despite Jungkook telling him to not wait for him. Maybe he also thinks Jungkook is a big, fat loser and knew he would need a backup plan. 

Jungkook gets in, stares straight ahead.

“Home, sir?”

“Immediately,” he says. “Please.”

With the knowledge of the black panties sitting pretty in his pocket, his cock puffs up in his pants, poking at his boxers, begging for air. Jungkook suddenly feels sweaty, even with the aircon set to 60 degrees. 

By the time Jungkook gets home, he’s a full-on mess. His cock is leaking precum at the tip, dripping into his Calvin Klein boxers. He’s never felt like this before, never been so undeniably hungry for someone that his whole body feels like it’s on the verge of collapse. 

Jungkook stumbles into his bedroom, sitting down on his bed and pulling out the pair of panties with shaky hands. 

He recognizes this is not a defense, merely an observation—he has never stolen anything in his life. He is a man of principle, of discipline, of self-control that has served him exceptionally well for three decades. He has walked away from bad deals, bad investments, bad decisions, more times than he can count.

He cannot seem to walk away from this.

Jungkook brings them up to his face slowly. Presses the fabric against his face and inhales. The fabric is warm, floral detergent filling his nostrils, and he falls back against his mattress as though his spine has stopped working.

“Okay,” he says to the ceiling. “Okay.”

He is so far gone it’s almost funny.

Almost.

His veiny hands find his waistband. The pants go first, then his boxers shoved halfway down his thighs, and when his cock finally springs free it’s so painfully hard he actually hisses, slapping against his abdomen. 

Thirty years old. CEO-in-waiting. Multiple degrees. Fluent in three languages. Lying in his bed with stolen lingerie and the most humbling erection of his life. He rushes to sit up against his headboard, otherwise his skeleton will fail him and he’ll fall straight down on his bed again. His cock is flushed, angry and red, glaring at him. The veins on the side of his length protrude, and he quickly gathers the seed of precum that’s spurted at the top to spread it around his tip. “Fuck,” he groans, head hitting the sturdy wood behind his head. 

Jungkook lets saliva fall from his mouth right onto his cock, too desperate to search for lube or lotion. Another quick glide of his hand up and down his length, and he’s painfully hard. Your black panties are strewn to the side of his mattress haphazardly, and he makes eye contact with them for a split second. 

He grabs them in his right hand. The lace is soft in his fist, softer than he expected, delicate little scalloped edges. He wraps the pair of panties loosely around his cock, and the sensation of it sends his brain into overdrive. Against him, the lace looks improper, something immoral. 

He is a little ashamed of himself.

Unfortunately, he is also completely unable to stop.

He guides his hand up and down his length, at a pace that he normally goes at when he’s just frustrated. His brain supplies images in snapshots—the weight of you in his lap, hips rolling against his crotch. He thinks about your chest, bare in the red light. The small sounds you made when the pace shifted and you stopped being professional about it for a microsecond. He thinks about your hands guiding his, hold on right there, pretty boy. 

Your thighs bracketing his, what it would feel like if there was nothing in between them… if you were actually—if he could actually watch you ride his cock, bouncing up and down on it as your tits moved in his face. He would probably press his face into them, so perfectly plump and ready for him. 

“God, [Y/N],”  he chokes out, to nobody, to the ceiling, to the concept of you existing in the world without his knowledge for however many years before Saturday.

Jungkook jerks himself off faster, twisting his hand at the ase just how he likes it when he wants to cum fast. His hair falls into his eyes as he looks down at the way your black panties are now covered in a mix of his saliva and precum. 

He wants to see you covered in his cum, maybe on your perfect tits or those glossy lips, taking every ounce of him that your body can manage. He bets you would take it like a good girl, would do anything just to please him and suck him dry of his money. 

It doesn’t take long before his mind is spiraling down a drain and he’s on the brink of his orgasm. It was never going to take long. It bubbles in his core, the knot in his stomach unfurling, and then he’s cumming, with a loud whimper and a “Fuck, fuck. [Y/N],” staining your panties with hot, white ropes of cum. Jungkook doesn’t know how long his orgasm lasts, just that he’s never cum that hard in his entire life, not with the essence of you on your panties lingering so nearby. 

For a long time, he sits on his bed, panties still balled in his fist. He sets them down very carefully on his nightstand like they’re evidence. In some sick twisted way, they are. They’re evidence of whatever is happening to him, whatever you cracked open in that private room, whatever he has blindly been waiting thirty years to feel and was not prepared for when it finally arrived.

But Jungkook knows one thing for sure: he can’t go on like this. He has to have you, one way or another. 

Sometimes, you really fucking hate your job. 

Men over the age of 40, married with two kids, will treat you with such disregard, as though you’re a piece of meat lucky enough to be desired by them. Your boss, Natalie, is a fucking cunt who takes half your earnings some nights, just to assert her dominance. Some nights, it’s so slow that you and the other dancers watch paint dry on the wall in your dressing rooms. 

But sometimes, when the stars align and the universe throws you a bone, you really, really love your job. 

Those nights are harder to come by. Usually, they start with a man throwing wads of cash at you, or stuffing them into the hem of your panties. They end with a private lap dance in the red room, where you rake in enough cash to pay off ten months of rent in advance. 

But in the case of Jeon Jungkook, although your night started and ended the same way with him, you were utterly, completely intrigued by the harmless creature you had made cum in his pants last weekend. 

His friends had showered you with cash, but Jungkook sat back in fear, watching you with a hypnotized gaze that never wavered. It was like he was captivated by every movement, hanging on every gyration of your hips. Namjoon didn’t need to tell you he was a virgin. You could smell it on him, something you predicted with just one glance. 

And now, that virgin had infiltrated your every thought.

When you stumbled into the club on Tuesday, you saw the fresh bouquet of red roses lying on your vanity, and immediately knew who they were from. Sure, you had other older suitors at the club, some regulars, but none that would bring you flowers or shower you in anything but money. No, this was the gift of a boy, someone who wasn’t quite yet a man. 

Quite honestly, you wanted to defile Jeon Jungkook. 

So you waited. You waited and you waited, but he didn’t show up all week. By Friday, you were beginning to lose hope of seeing the aforementioned man again. You settled back into your old routine, hoping to get him off your mind with older, more forward men. It’s not like you were having sex with them. It’s a firm line you never wanted to cross, made that clear the first day you started. 

It’s also not every day a hot, buff, tatted guy with bunny teeth and puppy-dog eyes walks into your club.

Saturday begins the same way it always does. Saturday nights at Paradise run like a well-oiled machine, and you are one of its most valuable parts.

The private tables are usually packed by 9PM, main stage rotating girls every twenty minutes. Bartenders furiously make drinks for eager men with open wallets, scanning for a dancer they can claim as their own for the night. You move through it with ease, a calming sensation spreading through your limbs. At least for now, this place has become your sanctuary. Or until the number in your head for your mother’s hospital bills finally hits zero.

Candy (also known as Lisa, but no one calls her that anymore) materializes out of nowhere, falling into step beside you. Since the day you joined Paradise, you two have shared a dressing room, secrets, lip gloss, and even underwear. She’s in gold tonight, hair pinned up, already counting a wad of bills from her regular client. Her hand connects with your bare ass, smacking the firm skin hard enough to leave a mark. “Lover boy show his face yet?”

“Haven’t seen him.” You adjust your bra strap without breaking stride. “Don’t think he can handle me, honestly.”

She snorts, “Yeah, no shit. Baby, he came in his pants from a lap dance.” She tucks the bills into her garter. “He cannot handle you. That’s the whole point.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m going easy on him. Letting him come to me if he wants.”

Candy stops walking entirely to look at you. “You’ve never gone easy on anyone in your life.”

“I’m feeling charitable.” You try to walk around her, but she holds her arms out. 

“We don’t do free shit around here,” she squints her eyes at you, sizing you up. She knows you better than most people do, which is usually a positive, but has now turned into what you hate most about her. 

“Listen, the guy’s obviously a virgin.” You roll your eyes. “Not to mention, he’s fucking stacked. Like, loaded loaded. He’s also hot. Need I go on?”

She stares at you for a long moment as though she’s watching a car accident happen in slow motion. Then she opens her mouth to refute.

“CANDY. [Y/N].”

Natalie’s voice bellows across the floor. Your boss is standing by the bar in all black, clipboard tucked under her arm, wearing the expression she reserves for moments when she feels her 40% cut is not being adequately earned. “Floor. Now. Both of you. Please, for the love of God.”

Candy mouths a not-so-subtle we’ll talk later and runs off toward the main stage. You turn back toward the floor, scanning the private tables, already taking mental note of the bachelor party in the far left corner. There’s eight guys, sashes, someone wearing a veil ironically. They’d keep you busy for an hour tops, and everyone knows bachelor parties are where the money is—

Natalie’s hand lands on your shoulder, redirecting you with zero ceremony. “Not that one.”

You turn. “The bachelor party has—”

“Got it covered. I need you at table five.” She steers you firmly. “He’s alone.”

You raise a brow. “He got money?”

Natalie gives you a side eye that could scare kids on Halloween. “Yes, dumbass.”

“How much money?”

“Just enough.” She releases your shoulder and delivers a brisk slap to your ass that you choose not to comment on. “Make me proud.”

Cursing under your breath, you start toward table five, fluffing your hair as you walk, rolling your shoulders back. Chin up, gaze level, lips pouted. Table five is tucked slightly off the main floor, dim even by Paradise standards. 

As you approach the booth, you excitedly say, “Hi—”

The word dissolves in your mouth.

Because sitting at table five, in a dark t-shirt that hugs his tattooed biceps, turning a glass of whiskey between his hands nervously, is Jeon Jungkook. 

He lifts his eyes to yours. For a second, he has the audacity to look surprised, like he didn’t come here specifically. He blinks at you and his ears go bright pink. 

“Well,” you say, recovering first, “Look who found his nerve.”

His eyes rake over your figure, and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. 

You don’t want to let the poor man suffer for too long. Swinging yourself into his lap, your knees straddle his thighs. A sharp inhale escapes him, hands flying up instinctively before freezing mid-air like he’s forgotten whether touching is allowed, ears going from pink to red in one second flat. “Nothing to be shy about, pretty boy,” you murmur.

He lowly whimpers. A soft and involuntary noise, his jaw snapping shut like he can take it back.

“I got your gift,” you say, wrapping your arms around his neck, tugging him an inch closer to you. His sculpted chest is pressed against your tits, and he doesn’t need to take his shirt off for you to decipher how buff he is. 

His eyes go wide. “Y-yeah? Did you like them?”

You tilt your head, lips brushing against his jawline. “How did you know my favorite color was red?”

(It’s not. Your favorite color is green, has been since you were seven years old. But he doesn’t need to know that, and the way his body tenses when you say it is worth every cent of the lie.)

“L-lucky guess,” he stammers, and looks so pleased with himself.

“You’re a smart boy.” You press a chaste kiss to his jaw, then to his neck, and you feel his cock twitch underneath you. He shifts a little, trying to hide it, but you press down further. 

His hands hover at your hips, still not quite landing, suspended in that same paralyzed uncertainty from the private room last week. 

“You can touch me.”

He doesn’t spare a moment. His hands land directly on your hips, curling into the fabric of your underwear that rides high. 

“Tell me why you came back,” you coyly bat your eyelashes. You know exactly why he’s here and what he wants, but you’ll let him tell you. After all, that’s what you instructed him to do. To come and find you when he was certain he was ready. Even though it was unspoken, he had to have known what you meant. 

“I–I wanted to, uh, see you,” he swallows thickly, struggling to maintain eye contact. 

“Alone?” You tilt your head. 

“My friends don’t know I’m here.”

“Ah, so I’m your secret?” you tease. 

“N-no!” He leans forward, brunette hair falling into his eyes. God, he’s so fucking cute. “No, you’re not. I just—this is new for me.”

“What is?”

Say it, Jungkook. Say it. 

“You… you know what.”

“You know,” you say, leaning in slightly so he can feel your hardened nipples through your bra, “most men who come in here alone aren’t shy about what they want.”

“I’m not shy,” he pouts. 

You roll your hips over his half-hard cock, and he exhales. “You’re right. I’m so sorry, Jungkook. You are a big, strong man.”

He owlishly blinks at you, trying to understand what mind game you’re playing on him. Not that it matters, since he’s putty in your hands. 

“So prove to me that you want me.”

You tip his chin up with two fingers, pulling his gaze back to yours. “Hey,” you say quietly. “Right here.”

Hurriedly, like he’ll lose the words, he says, “I touched myself to you. Like you said.”

“Yeah? Did you cum?”

“I did,” he pauses, mulls over his next words. “I came so hard I almost cried.”

“Wish I could’ve seen that.” You kiss his neck, teeth biting down on his soft skin before soothing it with your tongue. A sweet moan echoes in your ear as you suck on his skin, sure to leave a blooming purple bruise on him. “What did you think about?”

“You… and me.” Your lips travel to a different park of his neck, littering a new section with sloppy hickies. “You…ah, fuck… on top of me, riding me. Making me cum again. I wondered w-what it would feel like if there were no clothes between us.”

Your hands slide from his jaw down his chest, feeling him tense under every inch of movement. “And what did you decide?” you ask. “Would it feel good?”

“I think it would feel like—I think you would ruin me,” he whimpers. 

It’s written all over his face, plain and undefended, the way everything is with him, and you think about all the men who have sat where he’s sitting and uttered the complete opposite. Your hands drift lower, finding him at your hips, and you guide them up over your waist, ribcage, until his palms are cupped over your tits, fingers curling around you through the thin fabric of your bra.

He breaks your gaze. Looks down at his tattooed hands cupping your breasts. 

“Jungkook,” you say.

He looks back up like a puppy following orders from a trainer.

“Still with me?”

“Yeah,” he exhales, massaging your tits with his massive hands. “Yeah,‘m very—I’m extremely with you.”

You roll your hips forward and watch his eyes flutter. “Good,” you murmur, lips brushing the corner of his jaw, cheek, the soft skin below his ear. “Because I’ve been thinking about you all week.”

“You have?”

“Mhm. Kept thinking about how good you’d feel inside me.” Your thumb traces his lower lip, catching the piercing. His cock is hard against you now, has been since you sat down, and you roll over it slightly, enough to feel him inhale sharply through his nose and grip you. “I want you to cum inside me, fill me up the way I know you want to.”

“O-oh,” he breathes, rutting his hips up to feel more. “I want that too.”

“You’d take it like a good boy, wouldn’t you?” You tug at the piercing, running your fingers over his supple pink lips. 

“Y-yes, please. Anything.” 

His eyes are glossed over with lust, so much that you doubt he’s hearing a word you say. “I bet my pussy feels so good wrapped around your cock. Bet you’re—”

“How much?”

Huh?

Your brows furrow, and his hands halt all movements on your tits. “What do you mean?”

“H-how much for a private room?”

He eyes you expectantly, chest heaving. 

Of all the things you expected him to say in this moment, it was not that. You’re half naked in his lap, you just told him you’d been thinking about him all week, and he’s asking for a price point.

The old version of this interaction writes itself easily. You name the number, take him to the back, take his money, take what you want, and send him home by midnight. Clean cut. 

You’ve done it a hundred times. 

But then he’s looking at you with those eyes, looking like a kicked puppy. An obscenely wealthy, tattooed, jawline-having kicked puppy who brought you roses on a Tuesday and almost cried when he came. 

You genuinely, physically cannot take his money right now.

“I don’t want your money, Jungkook,” you say.

He stares at you like you’ve grown an extra head. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“I—” he frowns, “—that’s not—you should take it, it’s fine, I have it—”

You shift in his lap, rolling your eyes. “I know you have it.”

“So just let me—”

“I want you,” you shrug. “Not your money. You.”

He goes still underneath you, like he’s running it back trying to find the catch. His brows pull together. “That doesn’t make any sense—”

And before he can question you any further, you kiss him. 

You don’t plan it. One second he’s trying to logic his way out of being wanted and the next your hand is at his jaw and your mouth is on his and he makes a strangled sound against your lips. A muffled noise falls from his lips, and you swallow it down. For half a second, he’s frozen, your lips guiding themselves. He clearly has no idea what to do. 

And then something gives way in him all at once and he kisses you back clumsily. His lips try to match your speed, and you cup his jaw in your hand to guide him as best you can. 

Jungkook lets out a soft moan, fingers digging into your waist so he can tug you closer to him. It feels like your body is melding into his, becoming one. The sound of misogynistic men waving cash around fades into the background, and you forget where you are. Only a mere moment, until you snap back into it. You wrap your arms around his neck, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck as he licks into your mouth desperately. You open your mouth a bit to let him explore, and his tongue is so soft and warm that butterflies erupt in your stomach unexpectedly. 

When he pulls away, his cheeks are red, breath escaping him in puffs. Those doe eyes of his are twinkling under the light, bunny teeth poking out underneath his top lip. 

“I—was that, um, okay?” 

Oh god. You’re going to ruin this man’s life. 

You bashfully giggle. “It was perfect, pretty boy. Are you sure this is your first time?” 

Jungkook nods a few times like a broken bobblehead. You chuckle, shaking your head. Your voice lowers an octave. “I want more of you.” 

“R-really?” He squeaks. 

Rather than answer him with words (which he seems to understand so little of), you peel yourself off his lap, taking his hand in yours and tugging him off the couch. Jungkook stands, brows stitched together in confusion. You’d forgotten how tall he was, how much of him there is. 

The floor parts around you as you move through it, the Saturday night chaos swallowing the two of you whole. You catch Natalie’s eye near the bar. She locks eyes with Jungkook and gives you an enthusiastic double thumbs up from behind her clipboard.

She’d lose her mind if she knew you were walking her highest-paying client of the night to the back for free. That’s a problem for later. 

You push open the door to the red room. The LED light bleeds warm over everything. 

Turning, you push him onto the couch with one hand flat against his chest and he plops into it with a soft exhale, hair falling across his forehead, looking up at you with those eyes. Puppy dog eyes, you think. 

“You know what I’ve been thinking about all week?” you say, reaching up to slide one strap off your shoulder. Then the other.

He frantically shakes his head.

“Taking you apart,” you murmur. “Until you don’t remember your own name.”

“That’s—” he swallows thickly, “—that’s fine. Y-yes.”

You reach behind you and unclasp your bra.

For some reason unknown to you, it’s at this moment that you remember what you’re actually doing. 

You’re standing in the red room on a Saturday night about to take the virginity of a man, a man who looked at you in a room full of women and somehow only saw you.

His eyes drop to your bare chest, perked nipples on display

The moment of clarity evaporates completely. You don’t feel bad at all.

Sinking to your knees, you crawl over to where he sits. The carpet is soft beneath your knees. You place your hands flat on his thighs and look up at him, plump, pink lips parting, hands gripping the couch cushions on either side of him. You run your hands slowly up his thighs, feeling the muscle jump under your palms, and tilt your head. “Is this okay, pretty boy?” 

“Y-yes. It’s okay,” he hurries to respond like you might rid him of this moment. 

“Have you ever been titty-fucked before?” you blink up at him, already knowing the answer. 

His cheeks turn the color of the lights. His hand comes up to cover his face and he makes a sound into his palm that is equal parts mortified and desperate. “I-no. I never-I don’t even know, like, what that—I don’t—“

“Hands down,” You tug his hands away from his face. “Use your words, pretty boy. It’s just me.” 

“No.” He finds his voice, his big brown eyes burning into yours. “I have not.” 

You hold his gaze and run your palms up the inside of his thighs. Every coherent thought he has exits his body through his eyes.

“Well,” you say. “Pay attention.”

Your hands find his zipper. The sound it makes in the quiet room ricochets off the walls. His breath goes ragged, stomach caving on an inhale, watching your manicured hands fiddle with his pants. You take your time dragging the denim down his legs until he kicks them off desperately, left in his boxers. 

Even through the fabric, you can see the outline of his erect cock. You wonder how long he’s been hard for, if it’s been before you saw him. You press your palm flat against the fabric, rubbing his bulge, and his head drops back with a groan. 

“You’re so responsive,” you murmur, more to yourself than him, pressing slightly and watching his hips shift toward the pressure. “You feel everything, don’t you?”

“Y-yeah, I really—” he stops, swallows, “—I really do.”

“That’s so good,” you tell him. “That’s exactly right.”

His fingers find the edge of the couch cushion and grip. You take the waistband of his boxers between your fingers and look up at him one more time, giving him every opportunity to change his mind.

Jungkook’s eyes say please before his mouth does.

“Please,” he whispers anyway, because he has no defenses left. You trace the outline of his cock—and holy fuck, you can’t believe your luck. You’re the first girl to bear witness to his cock, and its massive, hidden underneath a man who’s never felt the warmth of a woman, never wanted to. Through his boxers, you can feel his girth, how thick he is. 

Saliva builds up in your mouth. Slowly, you peel down his boxers, dragging them down his legs to the floor. 

His cock stands up proud, slapping against his abdomen. For a moment, your heart thumps in your chest at the size of it, how thick and veiny he is. Fucking hell. You haven’t taken a cock this big in years, but damn straight you’re willing to try. 

“I-is everything okay?” he asks, eyeing your expression. 

You wrap a firm hand around his cock and he jolts forward. Stroking upwards, you feel every ridge, every vein that outlines his length. “It’s perfect, Jungkook. I can’t wait to taste you, for you to be inside me.” 

Precum seeps from his glossy, red tip. You jerk him off a few times until he’s thrusting his hips into your hand. He’s beyond eager for anything you’ll give him, you note. Your eyes meet his, and slowly, you let spit dribble onto his cock, giving you enough slick to jerk him off properly. “Agh-fuck,” he moans, biting his bottom lip hard enough to produce blood. 

“Feels good?” you ask, smiling. 

“Y-yes, don’t stop,” he begs. Flicking your hair behind your shoulder, you hold your tits together, slipping his cock in between your cleavage. He chokes on a breath. “O-okay—okay—” he stammers, hands hovering uselessly on the couch. 

The image of his pretty pink tip sitting between your tits sends waves of arousal to your core, flooding your panties. Adrenaline pumps through you, at the thought of taking this man’s virginity. Slowly, tentatively, enough for him to feel it, to understand it, you observe his face the entire time. His head falls back against the couch.

“You’re—fuck—” he cuts himself off, fingers digging into the cushion. You tilt your head, adjusting the pressure, testing what makes him react harder. Gradually, you move your tits up and down, down to his base and back up to his tip. The slick sounds of skin-on-skin echo across the room, mixed with his soft whimpers. His body tightens under your hands, thick thighs flexing, hips starting to thrust into you without thinking. He’s losing control faster than he can handle, faster than he can pause it. “S-shit, [Y/N], I don’t wanna—I don’t wanna cum—“

But you want him to cum. Want him to cum all over your tits, paint your body with it and let himself claim you. “It’s okay, Kookie,” you let the nickname roll off your tongue. “I want you to cum. It’s okay, I won’t be mad.” 

“Y-You won’t?” His eyes bug out of his head like you’ve just spoken another language. 

You giggle. “No, of course not.” 

He shakes his head like he wants to deny it, but it’s useless. “I– I don’t know, I just— it feels—”

The words fall apart in his mouth. You slow down for a moment before leaning in and adding more slick, dragging your breasts over him again. Jungkook's head snaps back, a broken sound ripping out of him as his hands grip the couch harder. “Oh—fuck— I think I—“

Beneath your grasp, his thighs quiver, eyes rolling into the back of his head as he spurts all over your tits, white, hot liquid painting your skin. Some of it lands on your face, which you lick off happily. “O-oh, [Y/N], fuck fuck, I can’t stop—cumming,” he cries as you slow your pace down, laughing to yourself. 

You ease back onto your knees, hands resting loosely around him. Jungkook is entirely too beautiful for his own good with his chest heaving, long lashes fluttering. 

You’ve had men leave this room strutting. Buttoning their shirts before they’re off the couch, already reassembled, gone. It’s a specific kind of departure that reminds you what this is and what it isn’t.

He takes two shaky pulls of air, then a third. His eyes find yours and stay there. “I—I think you’re amazing.”

Maybe you shouldn’t have volunteered to defile the virgin, because now he’s saying things like this. 

You laugh softly,. “Yeah?”

“No, like—” he pushes himself up further on the couch, words tripping over themselves, “you’re so beautiful and you knew exactly—and I didn’t even—I couldn’t—”

He stops himself. Cheeks flooding red, and all you can do is 

look at him. “God, you’re cute,” you say.

Obviously, you’ve said the wrong thing because his ears go scarlet and his shoulders cave inwards. “Oh. Thank you”. 

Another giggle escapes you, and you hardly recognize yourself. You’re not the girl who giggles during sex with a client, let alone any man. But then again, Jungkook isn’t really your client. 

Your fingers wrap around his softened cock, and without doing much, he begins to harden in your hand, puffing up to his full potential again. He owlishly blinks, gulping. “Sorry, I’m just—“

“Don’t apologize,” you interrupt. “How do you want me?” His throat bobs when he swallows, eyes flicking down to where your hand rests on his length, then back up to your face. “I—”

He exhales shakily. “I don’t know.”

You hum, not letting him off that easy. Your thumb brushes over his tip, gathering the precum that’s begun to form and his hips twitch up. 

Your mouth curves into a sinister smirk.“That’s not true.”

Jungkook lets a small, frustrated sound slip from his lips.“I just—” He breaks off again, dragging a hand over his face. “I don’t know how to say it.”

Leaning in a little closer, he has no choice but to feel how little space you’re giving him to hide in. “Use your words, pretty boy,” you murmur, “You’ve been doing so good.”

He sucks in a breath, “I want… I want your mouth on my cock. I want you to suck me off.” 

Immediately, he turns bright red and you can’t help the delighted laugh that wracks through you. “Kookie,” you say, shaking your head a little, “I didn’t know you had such a dirty mouth.”

He chuckles at that, reaching down to place his hand over yours, guiding your slow strokes. Your heart leaps into your throat at the innocent touch, betraying you entirely. 

With your eyes locked on his, you lean down and kitten lick his tip, and then drag it down his shaft. His mouth drops open on a silent moan, chest heaving. When you reach the bottom, you lick back up, following the path of a vein, before engulfing him fully in your mouth. He’s bigger than you expected, and your jaw aches at how much you have to open up to fit him in. Your tongue swirls around his tip, and he jolts forward, instinctively pulling your hair and entangling his tattooed fingers in it. 

“K-keep going.” He bucks his hips up, the tip of your nose hitting his pubic bone. You can hardly hold back your gags, choking sounds escaping from your mouth, tears seeping through your lashes as you take him to the hilt. “Feels s-so good, angel. You’re so p-pretty.” 

Your lips pop off his cock as you gasp for air, jerking him off in the meantime. “Yeah? You like how I look with your cock in my mouth, baby?” 

He nods eagerly. “Yes, please.” Jungkook pushes your head down, and then blushes as though he just caught himself sticking his hand in a candy jar. It’s not as if you mind—his cock is addicting, his precum so sweet and warm. You lower your head, swirling your tongue around his tip just so you can hear his pretty little moans again. 

You move at a steady pace, your hand working anything your mouth can’t take. His fingers dig into your scalp, almost guiding you. You don’t want to stop, never do, not until you ruin him. Not until you’ve had every ounce of him. His cock twitches in your mouth, and his thighs shake. It’s hard to hide the smile that’s curving upon your lips. After suctioning your lips around his tip a few more times, he drags your head up, practically ripping you off his body. 

Your stomach leaps into your throat, and the unfamiliar swell of anxiety bubbles inside you. Men don’t ever push you off, and you’d be lying if you said your ego isn’t taking a hit. 

“What do you want, pretty boy?” you ask sweetly. 

“I liked it when you c-choked on it.” His cheeks turn a scarlet glow, brunette hair sticking to his golden skin. “You look pretty.” 

“Want me to deepthroat your cock?” You grin, kitten licking his tip. Jungkook whimpers, and you take that as your answer. With no further instruction, you deeply inhale through your nose and take him to the hilt again, your throat full of him. Your air flow is entirely restricted, and Jungkook—the innocent virgin—pushes your head down, as if there were anywhere further to go. The feeling of being lightheaded doesn’t even scare you, just turns you on from how utterly desperate he is for you. “Shit, you’re so good at this,” he whines. “Don’t wanna cum yet. I wanna cum inside you, baby.”

You hum around him, and your mouth pops off  his cock, saliva connecting his tip to your lips. “Are you sure, Kookie?” 

You’re certain the poor boy has never been more ready for anything in his entire life. “Yes, please, please fuck me.” He begs between breathless groans, and you have to hide your own whimper from how fucked out he sounds. 

Now, you’ve done a lot of things in the red room. Bondage, roleplay, orgasm denial… but taking someone’s virginity? And that of a man who actually might be worth your time? Can’t say you’ve done that before. It excites you, and for a moment, you have to wonder if it’s because of the situation, or because of the man sitting in front of you. 

Standing up, you steady yourself despite the ache in your knees. You unhurriedly peel off your underwear, your arousal sticking to your thighs as you kick them off. Jungkook’s eyes follow your legs up, up, until he stares at your pussy with a tiny gasp. You straddle his thighs, using his shoulders as leverage. Your soaking core hovers above his erect cock, and he looks down to see just how close you actually are. “Are you sure, pretty boy?” you ask again, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. 

“Please.” His eyes snap to yours, and the sincerity behind it sends electricity through your veins. You take his fingers, placing them in your mouth before sucking on them and bringing them to your clit so he can feel how aroused you are for him. So ready and pliant above him. “O-oh, you’re really wet.”

“I am, Kookie,” you giggle. “You made me like this.” You guide his movements, little circles on your clit. Foreplay isn’t even necessary—you’re not sure you’ve ever been wetter. 

You align his length to your hole, and sinking down on him, inch by inch, you can feel every ridge and vein decorating his cock. You're deliciously full, until you’re filled to the brim, stuffed with his cock. You’d had a rough idea of what to expect. You’d done this a hundred times in this room. You thought you knew how this part went. But you were not prepared for Jungkook.

The stretch of him is slow and overwhelming and your walls have to work to accommodate his size. You hear yourself exhale, an involuntary release of air. His face finds your neck immediately and he groans. “O-oh my god,” he croons in your neck, muffled against your sweaty skin. “Is this what pussy f-feels like?”

You can hardly think long enough to form a response, and then he starts to move. Careful rolls of his hips, driving his cock up into you, checking every flicker of your expression for anything that looks like discomfort. It’s so like him. Completely, specifically him, that something in your throat tightens. 

What he finds instead is your eyes, telling him everything. He continues fucking upwards, and a borderline scream escapes you from how quickly he finds that sweet spot inside you. His fingers flex at your hips. He gasps and then he’s babbling, words tumbling out unfiltered the way everything does with him. “Your pussy feels so good. So tight and warm,” he speaks into your neck, inhaling your scent like he’s a wolf. “It’s so wet, [Y/N], so fucking wet.”

You need to get it together. You need to find the part of yourself that knows what she’s doing in this room, that has always known, that has never once lost the upper hand. Your hands come to rest on his thighs behind you, and you lift yourself up his cock, only to slam yourself back down. Each time you take him fully, your breath punches out in a grunt you can’t swallow back, your knees working against the cushions as you ride him. Your nails dig into his thighs, red, crescent moons forming. The sound of skin slapping and your wet cunt swallowing his cock fills the room. “Fuck, you feel so good, Jungkook. You’re so big, so deep inside me.”

“Yeah? You like how I feel inside you?’ His hands cup your ass, helping your movements. Despite it being his first time, Jungkook moves like he knows you.

Muscle memory takes over, and you grab a fistful of his hair and drag him towards you. You kiss him. 

Sloppy and breathless and without technique, lips catching and sliding, both of you too far gone to be graceful about it. He makes a broken sound into your mouth, hips stuttering.

“Want to make you my fucktoy. Would you like that, pretty boy?” 

He nods excitedly, eyes squeezed tight as you milk his cock with every bounce. Although you should be focused on making him cum, all of that flies out the window as the familiar coil in your stomach begs to come undone. Your walls flutter around his cock and his eyes open, looking to where your bodies join to try and decipher the sensation. “Fuck, I’m gonna cum,” you moan. 

“Really?” he asks, wide-eyed with wonder. “Shit–keep going, baby. You’re gonna make me cum too, I won’t be able to last l-long.”

You switch to a back-and-forth motion, your clit hitting his pelvic bone, enough to make your legs shake as your orgasm washes over you. Jungkook grips your hips tight as you whimper, falling forward and wrapping your arms around his neck for stability. He takes the opportunity to thrust up into you again desperately, chasing his own release. “Fuck, you feel so good,” he whines. “So fucking addicting. I want to be inside you forever.” The sound of those words tumbling from his lips, tone so easy, has something inside of you clenching.

“Shit, I’m gonna cum again,” he hisses, hips faltering as he coats your walls with his cum, and the warmth of him fills you up. Wrapping his arms around you entirely, you feel Jungkook press chaste kisses to your neck, jaw, and cheek, bringing you back down to earth. 

When you two finally catch your breath, you rest there, with his cock softening inside you and your nails tracing patterns down his back. Your legs remain glued to his thighs, like the rest of the club doesn’t exist, like Natalie and her clipboard and the Saturday night chaos on the other side of the door are happening on a different planet. It feels like just you two in the whole building.

14 months ago, your last relationship ended abruptly. In the parking lot of a grocery store, which is such an unglamorous setting for the end of two years that you’ve never quite been able to shake it. He was handsome, aware of it, rationing it, using it for his benefit. He never brought you flowers. Not once, not for birthdays or apologies or just because. Flowers were a waste of money in his opinion, and not to be spent on ‘cheap girls’ like you. 

You look at Jungkook’s profile. The soft line of his jaw in the red light, the flutter of his long lashes. 

There are red roses on your vanity that he left without being asked.

“Did I… did I do okay?”

You pull back to peer at him, and his eyes are sparkling, an earnest expression taut on his face. You recognize what he needs to hear. “Yes, Jungkook,” you say, combing your fingers through his hair. “You did very good.”

The relief that moves across his face is immediate. “Okay,” he nods. “That’s good.”

He ducks his head. “How do I—how do I pay you?”

The ripple of his question moves through you. You need the money more than anyone in this room. You have a number in your head that lives there rent free, that wakes you up at 3 AM sometimes, that is the entire reason you’re here in the first place.

You open your mouth to name a figure, but instead, “It’s fine,” you hear yourself say. “You don’t have to.”

He pouts. “But I want to. You should let me.”

“It’s fine,” you repeat.  

“Not even a tip?” he tries again, and you have to commend his effort. 

“No.”

And  with a calm confidence that was not there an hour ago, “My number then,” he says. “Can I have yours? Would that work?”

You laugh, dropping your face into the curve of his neck, and feel him go warm underneath you. “You have some nerve, Jungkook.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Huh?” Maybe he wasn’t expecting your compliance, but you give it anyway. You’ll give yourself this one. 

“Yeah, Jungkook.” It’s probably a bad idea. Or maybe it’s the best one you’ll ever have. “You can have my number.”

The next night, when you open your phone, you read a text from Jeon Jungkook that says: i know you said no tips, but think of this as a gift. open your door. 

Outside your door sits a bouquet of red roses, with piles and piles of cash sitting beside it. He’s persistent, you’ll give him that. 

On the flowers is a note, something even cuter than his text, that reads: give me one more night? - your pretty boy 

notes: All works on this blog are purely fictional. I do not imagine or portray idols as they are in real life — everything here is based on fictional scenarios and alternate universes only. Plagiarism is not allowed. Do not copy, reblog, translate, or rework my content anywhere. If you see my work elsewhere, it wasn’t shared with permission.

content themes:

Fluff

Smut

Romance

That’s it. Nothing outside of those four.

reader discretion: If any of this makes you uncomfortable, please scroll past instead of reporting.

(i): I only write about Jungkook

This is my little creative space — read responsibly 💌

It's been a while

One More Kiss

The Main Event

Back of his Mercedes

Shut up and Kiss Me

Shower talks

More series & one-shots to come ! 💌

Twelve Years Ago

Overly romantic and prone to flights of fancy – words written by your fourth-grade teacher on your report card, and words that come to mind now, seated with your nose pressed against the second-floor window. Delicately, you lean back and wipe the pane with your sweater.

Long ago, you decided to embrace your (unfortunately immutable) overzealous nature. It’s your superpower; the ability to make the best of a situation and always figure out a path forward. Even your high school drama teacher agrees – last spring, she declared your performance of Fantine in Les Mis to be the most spirited rendition she had ever seen.

Which, come to think of it, may not have been a compliment.

Regardless, it is not in your nature to do things half-measure. And honestly, you would dare even the most cynical high schooler to feel anything less than ecstasy when faced with a date with Yoongi Min. Impossible.

Bright lights swing onto your drive, and you snap the blinds shut, nearly toppling over in your haste to stand. The window seat on the second floor remains your favorite place to spy on the neighborhood. Never mind that things have been cramped since last summer’s growth spurt when you sprang upward four inches.

Below, your dad’s voice drifts up the stairs. “Y/N!” he yells. “Your gentleman caller has arrived!”

Coming to a stop at the landing, you smooth down your sweater and grimace at your hair in the mirror. No matter what you do, it refuses to behave the same way your mom’s does, which always looks perfect. When your dad calls your name again, you give up and head down the stairs.

One thing you never question is where in the family your dramatics came from. While you were upstairs snooping, your dad was in the living room, doing the exact same. He would never miss an opportunity to reenact the scene from Twilight with Charlie Swann and his shotgun. Never mind that your dad has never so much as held a gun, let alone threatened with one. Instead of a rifle, he makes do with the wooden cane your grandma left in your garage last Christmas.

Grabbing your coat, you shove one arm through the sleeve. “Don’t wait up,” you call as you pass by the kitchen.

Your mom barely looks up from where she’s dicing tomatoes. “Be safe, honey. Don’t forget your curfew is 10:00, and there are to be no drugs, no alcohol, and no destruction of public property!”

“Cool, cool – private property is fine, though. Right?”

She laughs, never ceasing with the knife. “Have fun, honey,” she adds as you continue down the hall.

Rushing to the front door, you meet your dad halfway, who emerges from the living room with the cane in one hand.

“Dad, no!” you blurt, nearly tripping on your coat in your haste to reach him. “Please,” you beg, skidding to a stop between him and the door. “You are not allowed to embarrass me tonight.”

Adjusting the cane, he places one hand on his heart. “Who, me?”

Not breaking eye contact, you lower yourself and shove your feet into boots. “Yes, you,” you huff, not trusting him out of your sight. “Or are you not the same dad who humiliated me last year before the homecoming dance?”

Your dad taps his chin. “That doesn’t sound like me.”

“Oh, no? So, when my date showed up with his pants too high, you did not say, ‘One time I thought the dryer shrunk my clothes, but it turns out it was just –”

“The refrigerator!” Your dad guffaws, remembering the punchline. “And your date didn’t think that was funny?” he asks, sobering at the idea of you dating someone with no sense of humor.

Dad humor, that is.

“Honey,” your mom calls from the kitchen. “Why don’t you come help set the table? We can spy on Y/N from the window when she leaves, like normal parents.”

“Why isn’t Bea helping?” you ask, zipping your coat. “Where is she?”

Bea is your younger sister, and most school nights are spent studying at the library, although she’s usually home by now on Fridays.

“Model UN,” comes your mom’s voice.

Before your dad can form a new argument – his expression looks dangerously close – you dart around him and wrench open the door.

“Thanks!” you yell, stepping outside and slamming it shut. “See you!”

Perhaps you slam the door a tad harder than necessary, since when you turn, you find yourself nose-to-nose with your date.

Yoongi blinks at you, his right hand outstretched as though he were about to knock. Slowly, he lowers his arm. “Uh…” He looks over your shoulder. “Shouldn’t I meet your parents?”

Images of Yoongi facing down the barrel of a wooden cane fill your mind, and you visibly wince.

“Nope,” you blurt, grabbing him by the elbow to steer him towards his car. His car, because – swoon – Yoongi is sixteen and already has his license. “We’re fine, let’s go.”

Yoongi looks once more over his shoulder but eventually follows. Shutting yourself in the passenger seat, you balance your purse on your lap. A purse borrowed from your mom, since no fifteen-year-old needs a purse for everyday life.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, Yoongi methodically checks his mirrors. When he looks over and meets your gaze, butterflies erupt in your stomach.

“Hey.” He smiles. “You look nice tonight.”

Thrilled, you glance down, as though you didn’t spend hours with your best friend Jasmine picking out this very outfit.

“Oh, this?” you say, casually. “Thanks. You don’t look so bad yourself.”

Yoongi chuckles and faces forward.

Not bad is an understatement – Yoongi looks devastating. His straight, black hair falls across his forehead and those rips in his skinny jeans must be strategic. Also impractical, since it’s winter in Merriman. Hell, you’re cold, even wearing your peacoat, and Yoongi has on only a dark leather jacket.

Placing one hand on the back of your headrest, Yoongi looks behind you while backing out of your driveway. It takes everything in you not to swoon. As a result, your face scrunches in an approximation of pain, which Yoongi notices when he faces forward.

“Cold?” he asks, reaching to turn up the heat.

“No,” you say, only to realize this is the lesser of evils. It would be weird to admit you were pained by his dating moves. “I mean, uh, yeah. A bit.”

He simply nods, returning his errant hand to the wheel. The two of you drive in silence for a few minutes, until you clear your throat.

“Thanks for driving tonight,” you tell him.

Yoongi’s lips twitch. “I didn’t think you had a license.”

Blinking over the console, it takes you a moment to digest. When you rehearsed this in your mind earlier, you pictured him saying something different. The Yoongi in your imagination accepted your thanks with ease, then commented how he’d been watching you from afar.

In a non-creepy way.

But that’s fine. You can be flexible with the best of them.

You manage to smile. “I don’t,” you say. As though you needed another reminder Yoongi is older than you and, frankly, out of your league.

He glances at you. “Then, I’m not sure I had a choice – did I?”

Before you can stop yourself, you roll your eyes. “Just take the compliment, Min.”

Yoongi stares at you for a long moment, then starts to laugh, his shoulders shaking. Some of the tension you felt releases, and you can’t help but smile as you look towards the window. Although it’s December, a layer of snow already blankets the ground, sparkling violet-white under the moon.

A faint buzzing interrupts your reverie. Retrieving your phone from your purse, you glance at the screen and see Jasmine’s name.

Jazzy-Jaz: HOW IS THE DATE GOING [7:06 PM]

Jazzy-Jaz: Wait, don’t answer that [7:06 PM]

Jazzy-Jaz: In fact!! Why are you even looking at your phone?? [7:07 PM]

Jazzy-Jaz: PS I ate all the brownies you made and need more. I am a fiend. You created a monster. Stop being so good at baking [7:07 PM]

You stifle a laugh, beginning to type out a response when the car stops, and you realize you’ve reached your destination. Looking up, you spot the neon sign for Brewsters, the dive-bar-slash-restaurant.

“Oh!” you blurt, lamely. “We’re here.”

Yoongi unbuckles his seatbelt, turning away so you can’t see his face. “Yeah, we are.”

Heat rises when you realize he may have seen you texting. Again, in your daydreams, you never made your date feel like they were unwanted. You’re beginning to realize this whole dating thing might be trickier than you realized.

Hastily, you climb out of the car. “Sorry,” you say, when Yoongi appears from the other side. “That was my best friend. Jaz – uh, Jasmine. Pillai. Do you know her?”

Yoongi shrugs. “Not really.”

“Oh. Well, she was just texting me about this date.”

He nods, the gesture tight.

Shit. That could mean anything. Get it together, Y/N, you sternly internalize. “Because I’ve been so nervous,” you explain.

Yoongi’s expression softens and he pauses at the restaurant, one hand on the door. “You were nervous?” he asks. “About tonight?”

“Of course, I was. You’re, well” – seeing how interested Yoongi gets, you fumble a little – “you.”

He lifts a brow. “And that’s… bad.”

“No! It’s good.”

“Good?”

“Very good,” you clarify.

“Very good. Hm.” Nodding, Yoongi pulls open the door. When you pass him, he leans forward to murmur, “For what it’s worth, I was nervous about tonight, too.”

Your brain fills with static, barely able to think as he leads you inside. Five minutes later, you find yourself seated with Yoongi in a booth near the back. To your dismay, what seems like half your high school is already here.

Admittedly, you could have predicted this. There are exactly three places in town to go to on weekends, and two are in hotels owned by your family and Yoongi’s.

That was how you met Yoongi years ago. Your family owns the Rosy Finch, a cozy inn situated in the center of town, while Mr. Min owns the Lodge at Blue Glenn, a four-star luxury resort nested in the Blue Mountains. Despite their differences, your lodgings are considered the best within a one-hundred-mile radius.

You grew up attending conferences with your family and would inevitably run into Yoongi, dragged along by his parents. Mostly, you two ignored each other. Or – well, he ignored you and you pretended to do the same. Lately though, you found yourself watching him, wondering when the Min kid got so damn hot. You were as shocked as anyone when he appeared at your locker last week and asked you out.

It still doesn’t seem real to you as you open your menu – and open, and open, until the entire table is covered.

“What the…” Yoongi trails off. “How many pages is this thing?”

“Have you never been here before?”

His cheeks turn slightly pink. “No. My dad is kind of picky about where we eat.”

Sensing this to be a sensitive topic, you quickly move on. “Here,” you say, reaching for his menu. “The trick is only to order from page three. Pub food is the safe zone – anything else is a risk.”

“Oh?” Painstakingly, Yoongi flips the giant page. “So, you’re saying I shouldn’t get the quesadilla with… holy shit, is that mayonnaise?”

“Oh, wait, no – I actually hear that’s delicious. If you lack tastebuds.”

Yoongi solemnly nods. “Before that though, we should get this onion stick platter. Not sure if that’s a typo, but–”

“Y/N!”

You barely have time to react before fuzzy arms in a cardigan are flung about you. Face squished against Lucy Walsh’s chest, you struggle to free yourself.

“Y/N,” she repeats, yanking you back to hold you by the shoulders. “I thought I saw you back here! Did you get the group text?”

“The… group text?”

It’s hard to focus on what she’s saying with Yoongi across from you. Idly, he flips a page in the menu, as though its contents may have changed.

“The group chat!” Lucy laughs, curls bouncing. “A bunch of us decided to go to Brewsters at the last minute. I assumed you saw the text and – oh!” she says, finally noticing Yoongi. “I didn’t see you there. You’re in my brother’s grade, right?”

Before Yoongi can respond, Lucy adds, “Yes, that’s right.” She snaps her fingers. “You’re friends with Seokjin Kim, right? The mayor’s kid.”

Yoongi frowns. “Seokjin isn’t the mayor’s kid.”

“No, but doesn’t his family like, own half the town? He’s basically royalty if Merriman had royalty, which we don’t but–”

“Luce,” you interrupt, smiling brightly. “We’re kind of in the middle of something.”

Her gaze bounces between you and Yoongi, and then her eyes widen. “Oh,” Lucy says. “This is a date, isn’t it? Okay, I am so dumb. I just assumed you were here because Jaz is on her way. I’ll make myself scarce. Nice to meet you,” she calls to Yoongi as she retreats.

Yoongi stares at the back of her fuzzy, pink cardigan. Awkwardly, you fiddle with the spoon on the table.

“Um, sorry about that,” you say, forcing a laugh. “Lucy is nice, but kind of oblivious.”

Yoongi returns to you. “It’s no problem,” he says mildly. “Did you want to go and say hi to your friends? It sounded like they were–”

“Hi, there!”

Twisting in your seat, you curse internally when you see your waitress is Annie Summers. Annie is seventeen and gorgeous, which wouldn’t be a problem if she didn’t have the nasty habit of hitting on all her friends’ boyfriends.

Flipping open her notepad, Annie props one hand on her hip. Her smile is directed at Yoongi. “See anything you like?”

Yoongi glances at his menu. “I’ll have the burger.”

“Same,” you say, syrupy sweet as you close your menu.

Annie nods, collecting the menus without looking at you. “Of course. And if you need anything else” – she drops a wink at Yoongi – “you know where to find me.”

Sauntering away from your table, she tucks both the menus beneath her free arm. You glower at her backside until Yoongi clears his throat.

“Oh.” Blinking, you face forward. “Sorry. What did you say?”

Yoongi opens his mouth, then hesitates. He sits back. “Nothing. So – the burger, huh? Should we be worried that technically, it was on page four?”

You laugh and before you know it, a bus boy is dropping two burgers off at your table. For a moment, you think Brewsters has set a new service record, but then you look at your watch and realize you’ve been talking for nearly an hour.

Blinking at your meal, you take this fact in. Ever since Yoongi asked you out, you’ve built this up in your mind. Not only is this your first date with Yoongi, but your first date ever and you admit you may have come in with high expectations. The direct result of your obsession with movies like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and When Harry Met Sally.

Somehow, though, tonight has exceeded them all. Sure, there were a few hiccups at the start – and do you love the fact that Annie keeps hitting on Yoongi? No. But there’s still something about tonight that leaves your stomach giddy, high with anticipation that this might be the real thing.

Yoongi fiddles with the wrapper of his straw, his hand inches away. You watch his gaze dart to your fingers, lingering before he exhales and withdraws.

“Can I get you anything else?”

Annie appears like a bad habit, and you try not to wince. Forcing a smile, you shake your head, no, then look at Yoongi.

His gaze is on Annie. “I’m good, thanks.”

Her smile widens. “Okay, cool.” Before she leaves, she drags her finger along the table. “You’re Yoongi, right? I think I’ve seen you around.”

“Yeah,” he says, then falls silent.

Your fingers begin tapping a rhythm on the booth. You wait, expecting for Yoongi to shut things down, but nothing happens.

Uncomfortable, you sit there as your skin starts to itch. Something about the moment feels… wrong, but you can’t put a name to it. Maybe it’s more noticeable because only five minutes ago, you felt on top of the world.

Right as you think this, the door to Brewsters opens. Your jaw drops when you see two familiar faces, and you jump out of your seat.

Both Yoongi and Annie swivel to face you. “Sorry!” you blurt, grabbing your purse. “I, um, need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

Annie’s face shifts to something like pity, but Yoongi looks concerned.

“Okay.” He half-rises. “Are you okay, Y/N?”

“Yeah,” you add, panicked that he’ll turn around and see the new entrants. “I just, um, need to pee. Be right back.”

Before he can respond, you dart away. Powerwalking to the front of Brewsters, you have a clear view of Jasmine and Namjoon seated at a table. Jasmine withdraws a beanie from her backpack to squash over her hair. Namjoon wears no disguise, although he has on his glasses instead of the usual contacts.

“What are you doing here,” you hiss, dropping both hands on their table. Namjoon, at least, has the decency to look embarrassed. “I am on a date.”

“Exactly!” Jasmine squints from under her beanie. “We’re here as your back-up. You never texted me back.”

“You were the one who told me not to respond!”

Her lips purse. “Okay, that was dumb of me. What if Yoongi kidnapped you? From now on, ignore what I say and send me hourly updates.”

Slowly, your eyes close.

Namjoon chooses this moment to chime in with, “You look nice tonight, Y/N.”

“I know,” you snap, your eyes flying open. “I look nice for Yoongi, not you two clowns, who are ruining my date with your presence!”

“Uh…” Jasmine points over your shoulder. “Actually, I think Annie Summers might be the one ruining your date. Not us.”

Following her hand, your entire body goes still. Annie has taken your seat at the booth, and while you watch, she laughs at something Yoongi just said. A second later, she slides her hand forward to brush against his.

Heat – and embarrassment – claws up your throat.

You knew this whole thing was too good to be true. Yoongi is older, more attractive than you, and he has the whole mysterious, cool guy vibe women go nuts for. It never made sense for him to ask you out, and now you have proof. You’re a nerdy, theatre-loving loudmouth with no significant plans to go to college.

Tears prick the back of your eyes, and you do your best to quell them. Jasmine and Namjoon continue speaking, but you barely hear. All you can do is concentrate on recovering enough to march over and end this. Ideally, without crying.

Squaring your shoulders, you gather yourself. “Okay,” you say. “I’m heading in. Jaz – you have my location on Find My Friends. That should be enough; there’s no need for hourly texts. And Namjoon…” Disappointed, you shake your head. “I expected better from you. You’re supposed to be the reasonable one of this group.”

Visibly, he deflates. “Sorry. Jaz promised me ice cream.”

“In December?” you ask. “Do better. Okay, I’ll text you both later – way later,” you clarify before turning around.

Wiping your palms on your pants, you head towards your table. Annie remains seated and Yoongi’s back is to you, so you don’t see his expression, but clearly, he hasn’t said to get lost before now.

Closing the distance, your heart starts to thud.

Noticing your approach, Annie slides from the booth, but not before sliding Yoongi a pink scrap of paper. “Call me,” she says, not bothering to be quiet.

She moves towards the kitchen, swaying her hips, and you watch Yoongi slip the paper into his pocket.

Your heart plummets. Although your feet are frozen, it feels like the world tilts beneath you. Dizzily, you try to hold on to what you felt before – the way Yoongi made you laugh, the way he confessed his nerves, and the easy way you conversed.

All of it is marred by the image of him accepting that phone number. Mindless, your hands curl into fists at your sides. Somewhere amidst the devastation, a sliver of anger worms its way into your thoughts.

Annie isn’t the problem. Yes, it was shitty of her to hit on your date, but Yoongi is the one who accepted her advance. He could have shut it all down. He could have told her to leave, but he didn’t. Instead, he sat across from her in the booth and he talked. He accepted her phone number.

The fact hurts worse than you thought it would. Granted, you don’t have much to compare things to, but you didn’t think rejection would feel so wholly tangible. Once, when you were younger, you dared Bea to punch you in the stomach as hard as she could. You nearly threw up, and your mom barred you from fighting, but you can’t help but think of that in this moment.

The idea of staying any longer is sickening, so all you can hope for is to escape with your dignity.

Marching up to the table, you grab your purse. “I’m not feeling well,” you say, also collecting your jacket.

Yoongi half-stands. “Y/N,” he says, then frowns when he registers what you just said. “You aren’t feeling well?” His gaze scans your empty plate. “Was it the burger?”

“Maybe,” you say, buttoning your coat. “I think it would be best if I leave.”

“Okay.” Yoongi scoots to the edge of the booth. “I can drive you.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Yoongi freezes, one foot on the floor.

“I mean” – you glance over your shoulder – “my friends can drive me home. There’s no need for you to go out of your way.”

More importantly, the last thing you want is to sit in a car with Yoongi for another twenty minutes knowing Annie’s phone number burns a hole in his pocket. Meeting his gaze, you watch his confusion morph to something close to suspicion. His gaze travels to fix on a point over your shoulder.

Slowly, his brows lower. “Isn’t that the friend you were texting?” he asks. “Did… you know they were coming?”

“No?” you ask, uncertain where this is heading.

His gaze flickers. “Okay.”

Yoongi’s tone has cooled, and you try not to flinch. It’s at that point you register what this must look like. It must look like you texted Jasmine in the car to come save you. As soon as you realize this though, you bristle, because you’re supposed to be the one with the moral high ground.

Yoongi was flirting with a waitress in front of you.

“Right,” you announce, pulling on your gloves. “I’m going to head out. I’ll send you money for the food, okay?”

Yoongi tenses. “Don’t bother,” he says. “I’m the one who asked you out. I’ll pay.”

“I insist,” you respond, well-aware you’re just being petty, but beyond the point of caring.

Yoongi slowly stands, taking a step forward until you’re inches apart. His chest rises and falls, hands clenched at his sides – fuck, his forearms are vascular. The visual sends heat flushing through you, since all of it is (unfortunately) extremely attractive.

When you move backwards, Yoongi follows. He looks at you down his nose, his gaze almost calculating.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

You can’t help but feel this is about more than the drive home, and for a moment, you falter. Yoongi’s gaze is so open that you wonder briefly if this is all some misunderstanding. But then your gaze falls on the now-empty table, and you remember the phone number Yoongi just pocketed.

You lift your chin. “I’m good.”

Yoongi nods. “Okay. Sure.”

“Sure.”

“Good.”

“Great.”

The heat of his chest is practically tangible. Standing this close, you’re aware Yoongi smells of citrus and amber, an intoxicating combo you wish you had never known. His pupils are blown out, leaving mostly black.

Each second that passes brings you closer together – and then your name is called from somewhere behind you. Snapping free of the trance, you turn around.

“Bye,” you choke before leaving.

Jasmine and Namjoon stand beside Lucy, laughing at something her table just said. Appearing next to Namjoon, you tug on his sleeve. Looking down at you, his eyes widen and he swiftly sequesters you to stand beside Jasmine.

“Shit,” she mutters, placing her arm around you. “Do you want to leave?”

Silent, you nod as tears prick your eyes.

“I’ll call my dad,” Namjoon says, grabbing his phone from his pocket. “He should be able to turn around and come back.”

You nod again, wobbling, and Jasmine leads you away to a plate of trash fries. Trash fries are exactly what they sound like – heaped with anything and everything that is bad for your body. When Remmy Quarrels, a senior that every girl hates, hoots and asks where your date went, Jasmine flips him off until he turns around.

Collapsing into a booth by the window, you watch Yoongi’s tail lights leave the parking lot. The slightest hint of indignation stirs in your belly. He didn’t even wait to see if you were okay before leaving.

Anger is a more useful emotion than hurt, so you do your best to hold onto it. By the time Namjoon’s dad parks, your group has landed head-first in We Hate Yoongi mode. Jasmine declares herself captain, insisting skinny jeans will be a thing of the past in less than ten years.

Taking a deep breath, you do your best to convince yourself that tonight meant nothing. No one ends up with their first date from high school. No one ends up with their first date, period. This was merely a moment in your dating timeline, and if you’re lucky, you’ll never have to see Yoongi again.

And from now on, you’re determined to guard your heart better. Never again will you be so easily sucked in. You may be overzealous, but you are no longer naïve.

At least you have Yoongi Min to thank for that.

Present Day

“Oh my god,” Jasmine whispers, way too loud in your ear. “Yoongi looks fucking hot. Doesn’t he?”

It takes everything in you not to punch her in the arm. Instead, you grip your notebook and force a tight nod. “He looks… fine. I guess.”

Jasmine makes a loud snort of objection. Settling in her uncomfortable folding chair, she shakes her head. “I’m so sorry, Y/N,” she says. “I know you two had that weird falling out in high school–”

“You were there, Jaz. He hit on someone else. On our date.”

 “–but like, damn. Look at that outfit. An open blazer and scarf? Only a hot person can pull that off. I should know – I do it often.”

Your lips twitch, unable to come up with a suitable response. The worst part is Jasmine is not wrong. Yoongi is every bit as handsome as he was twelve years ago – more so, now that he’s twenty-eight and no longer sixteen.

His outfit is, unfortunately, as heart-melting as Jasmine implies. Yoongi has grown out his hair long enough for the ends to curl against his throat. Everything about his look screams expensive – the exact opposite of your outfit, thrifted from local craft stores.

Shifting away from him, you pointedly turn your face towards the stage. Well, stage is a loose term. Your high school musicals were set in a better venue. Every month for town meetings, Larry the janitor sets up a small platform in your town hall. The stage can only hold one person at a time and right now, that person is Judy Relis, town mayor. Judy has been the mayor since you were a small child, although admittedly, her campaigns in your youth had more vigor.

Tapping the microphone, Judy leans in and asks, “Is this thing on?”

Feedback echoes around the room, and you clap both hands over your ears. In the front row, Yoongi and Seokjin do the same. The two have been best friends for what seems like forever; even when Yoongi moved away from Merriman, the entire town knew of his doings through Seokjin.

“Sorry!” Judy beams at the crowd – well, at the approximately thirty people present. “Thank you for coming out on short notice. We have a packed agenda tonight, so I won’t take up too much of your time. I just wanted to thank you all for coming and let you know that tonight’s snacks were supplied by the Van Buren family. Thank you, Melissa and Jeff!”

Jasmine elbows your side. “That could be you,” she hisses. “The Van Burens brought store-bought goods. Your pastries are way better. And more impressive.”

Shaking your head, you give her a look. No matter how many times you tell Jasmine that you have a job, she pretends not to hear. Granted, you have invested a lot of time in baking as of late, and the town’s patisserie recently moved away, but that’s beside the point.

“First on the agenda,” Judy says, “I want to invite to the stage your new town treasurer, Remmy Quarrels.”

A light smattering of applause fills the room. You and Jasmine pointedly remain silent – as do Yoongi and Seokjin, seated at the front. Twisting, you spot Namjoon next to Jimin at the back of the room. The two launched their travel agency while they were roommates in college and decided to move to Merriman and establish their headquarters. Lately, their main effort has been increasing the town’s exposure.

Flipping open your notebook, you scribble the date at the top. Earlier this week, an email went out to every town businessperson, requesting their presence. Granted, you usually attend the town meetings, but the email explains Yoongi Min’s attendance. He rarely goes anywhere unless requested.

Lifting your gaze, you watch him lean over and whisper something to Seokjin. The two of them smirk when Remmy takes the stage.

You wish you could say they were in the wrong, but honestly, Remmy Quarrels is the worst. It was to your horror that he won the election last summer. Since then, he’s made it his mission to make the town money – often in unusual and unsavory ways. At one point, he approached your dad about a per head tax for children at the Rosy Finch. Your dad pretended not to hear until Remmy left.

“Good evening,” says Remmy, smiling at the room from the stage. “We have a full house tonight. I see those personalized emails did the trick.”

A few attendees laugh politely, but mostly they stay silent. Removing the microphone from the stand, Remmy smooths a hand over his hair. Blonde and thinning, the strands are plastered to his scalp by some kind of gel. Few things about him have changed since high school, including Remmy’s tendency to overuse hair products.

His smile widens. “I have an important proposition to share with you all tonight. I’m not exaggerating when I say this idea could be life changing.”

In the front row, Yoongi loudly coughs. Remmy glances down, slightly thrown, and you unfortunately find yourself rooting for Yoongi. The enemy of your enemy is your friend, as the saying goes.

Although more than a decade has passed, things remain frosty between you and Yoongi. After your disastrous date back in high school, he adopted radio silence, avoiding you at school until he graduated. He went to some rich, fancy college where he majored in hospitality, and secured a job afterwards at a luxury resort far from town.

He only returned to Merriman three years back when his dad died and Yoongi inherited the Lodge at Blue Glenn. The two of you have run into each other a few times since – hard not to, since your family still runs the Rosy Finch – but he retains an air of frigid professionalism.

It drives you insane.

“When you all voted for me as town treasurer,” Remmy continues, breaking into your thoughts.

Jasmine leans over. “I didn’t vote for him.”

“Me, either,” you whisper from the side of your mouth.

“Our town was struggling,” Remmy continues, adopting a serious face. “It was, but we’ve grown since then.”

“He was voted in four months ago,” Jasmine mutters. “Why is he acting like years have gone by?”

A snort escapes you, and you duck your head when Remmy glances your way.

“I promised,” he continues, voice raised, “that as your town treasurer, I would bring us success. New businesses! New partnerships! And in my role as town treasurer, I will –”

“We should have brought vodka,” Jasmine groans, slumping further. “And done a shot every time Remmy says the word treasurer.”

“We would have been drunk.”

“We would not have been bored.”

A true laugh escapes and now, Remmy is flat-out glaring in your direction. Desperate, you slide down in your chair to escape him.

“How many of you have heard of Emerald Corporation?”

Emerald Corporation? Oh, no.

You shoot upward so fast, the chair legs rattle ominously. The Emerald Corporation is a hospitality group headquartered in some giant city. Last year, you heard they bought a bunch of boutique hotels and renovated them extensively. They also fired the original management teams to do so, which escaped the press notices.

Other people in the room nod though, and your stomach churns as you see several grins. Not Yoongi, though. He remains seated in the front row with arms crossed and feet planted.

Remmy allows the excitement to build. “Well,” he says, pausing dramatically, “I recently had a meeting with their head of development, Phil Jones. Emerald Corporation is interested in purchasing the old Tully estate on Mount Bowler and turning it into a luxury ski resort.”

Mount Bowler, named for the ridge around its summit which gives it the shape of said hat, is next to Mauve Peak, on which sits the Lodge at Blue Glenn. The Tully estate is nothing but an empty piece of land. The family bought it decades ago, intending to build a chalet, but lost interest before they broke ground. It’s been for sale ever since.

If only they weren’t planning to sell it to Emerald Corp. Merriman barely has the tourism to keep you and Yoongi in business. A third hotel – let alone a giant resort – would be devastating to bookings. Glowering, you bend over your notebook and scribble Mount Bowler.

When you look up, Yoongi speaks quietly to Seokjin. His face has turned in your direction, allowing you to see his utterly tranquil expression. Annoyingly so.

Remmy continues, “This would be a major investment in Merriman. The Emerald Corporation would position their resort as a top offering, and they plan to spend big on marketing and publicity. All of our businesses would benefit from the boom.”

Your hand shoots up.

Remmy closes his eyes, as though anticipating what you have to say. Eventually, he exhales and points in your direction. “Do you have a question, Y/N?”

“No.” Primly, you fold your hands over your notebook. “But I do have a correction – your proposal would not benefit all town businesses.”

If his lips thinned any further, they might become invisible. “Fine, Miss Y/L/N,” Remmy acquiesces. “You’re right. Most of the town’s businesses – by which I mean the vast majority – would benefit.”

“Except for the two already existing hotels.”

“Yes,” Remmy snaps. “Two businesses, while the hundreds that remain would greatly – ah, yes. Mr. Min, what is it?”

Yoongi has raised his hand in the front row. When Remmy points, he lowers his arm and leans forward. “Two hotels that currently employ over a hundred members of the community, not to mention support many local businesses.”

Remmy’s expression sours. Clearly, he thought, due to Yoongi’s clothing and stature, he would be on his side. Instead, his comment sends a discontented murmur throughout the room.

Glancing around, Remmy adjusts his mic. “I am sure Emerald Corporation would plan to staff their resort with members of the community.”

Your eyebrows shoot upward. That’s a bold promise to make. Based on what you’ve heard, Emerald Corp tends to clean house before they take over.

If Remmy’s promise is real, though, it would make the task ahead of you more arduous. It would be hard to argue against the idea if you and Yoongi are the only two individuals who might suffer.

Luckily, Yoongi seems to be thinking the same. “Have you gotten that promise in writing?” he asks. “My friend owned the Knotted Pine until Emerald Corp took over, and he was pushed out. He said Emerald Corp preferred to bring in their own employees rather than staff from the town.”

Another wave of whispers follows.

Remmy has clearly had enough of this conversation. “Yes, well, there’s plenty of time to work out the details,” he snaps. “The point is this will be good for the town.”

“Debatable,” you mutter to Jasmine, who nods.

“People are noticing us!” Remmy adds, throwing his arms out wide. This brings the microphone away from his mouth, and he hurriedly pulls it back. “People are noticing you, and with more attention like this, we can bring more jobs to Merriman. Speaking of which, we’ve had incredibly successful fall events this year. Tourism is at an all-time high, which…”

Tuning him out, you lean over to Jasmine. “How bad do you think this is, on a scale of wet to dry mac and cheese?”

Jasmine blinks. “Wait, which is the worse end of the scale?”

“Dry, obviously.”

“But… what if it’s wet in a weird way? Like… slimy.”

“Ew,” you groan. “Jaz, why would you put that in my mind?”

“You put it in my mind! And I don’t know,” she admits, biting her lip. “It doesn’t sound good, but maybe it’s worse for Yoongi than you?”

You pause. “Oh. Maybe you’re right? I mean, it’s not like the Rosy Finch’s clientele can afford Emerald Corp’s prices.”

“Exactly.” She nods. “But Yoongi’s resort? Direct competition.”

The Rosy Finch markets itself as a family inn, with prices that fit the agendas of budget-conscious travelers. Yoongi’s lodge caters to an exclusive, luxury crowd who want a well-guarded retreat.

Settling back, you should feel some relief, but instead, your thoughts continue to drift towards Yoongi. After taking over the Lodge at Blue Glenn, he raised its status from four to five stars and utilized his industry connections to cater to the rich and famous. Merriman is far enough off the map that they’re willing to pay top prices to escape.

A gigantic resort on the next mountain would likely put a stop to all that. And although your inn may not be in direct competition, Emerald Corp is not known for being merciful in their strategy. They’re known to undercut pricing to kill all competition, which you can’t afford to match.

Fidgeting with your pen, you do your best to stem the rising tide of anxiety. You’ve never been good at the financial side of the business. The prospect of cutting prices makes your insides wither, since you already operate on extremely slim margins. Unfortunately, that was the part of the business your mom was good at.

Your fingers freeze when the dull pain washes through you. Last September marked ten years since she passed away, but there are still moments when you think of her and it catches you off-guard. The pain is no longer as sharp as it was – more of an ache than a stab – but you aren’t sure it will ever fully fade.

Lowering your head, you distract yourself by taking copious notes the rest of the meeting. Sadly, your penmanship leaves something to be desired and at the end, you find yourself squinting at the third line you wrote. Standing from the hard plastic chair, you show your notebook to Jasmine, the only one capable of deciphering your writing.

“What do you think I meant here?” you muse. “Lax efficiency. Lax – like lacrosse?”

“Tax deficiency, I think,” says a familiar voice right behind you.

Snapping your notebook shut, you whirl around. Yoongi Min stands in the aisle, watching you with amusement. Always amusement – and always directed at you.

He glances at your closed notebook. “If you can’t read your own notes, Y/N, I don’t think you need to worry about me reading them.”

Scowling, you recover and take a step closer. “Nice try, Yoongi, but I’m not falling for that one. You’re probably just trying to steal my Christmas decorations – again.”

Yoongi blinks at you down his nose. “Y/N, there are precisely three holiday decorators in town.”

“Which, frankly, seems like a lot.” Seokjin Kim appears by his side. Adjusting his coat, he smiles at Jasmine. “Is there really enough work for three holiday decorators?”

Yoongi ignores this. “Odds are, our holiday décor will overlap, Y/N. There’s only so much a person can do with red and green.”

“Sure,” you say loftily. “If you’re burdened by the smallest thimble of creativity.”

His lips twitch. “Thimble?”

“Thimbles are small, Yoongi. Didn’t you ever watch Thumbelina? Where she floats down the river and –”

“Anyways,” Jasmine loudly interrupts. “What did you think of Remmy’s presentation, Yoongi?”

His expression flattens. “I think Remmy is full of crap,” Yoongi says, still looking at you.

Most of the room has now emptied, leaving the four of you standing alone in your row. Remmy has also disappeared from the premises – likely in a cloud of sulfur and bullshit.

Surprised, you manage a nod. “For once, we agree on something.”

“Do we disagree on so much, Y/N?”

You wish Yoongi would stop saying your name like that. Purposefully – savoringly – as though the word were melting. It must be distracting to people other than you.

Jasmine has certainly noticed. She keeps glancing between you with an expression you once described as her Emma Woodhouse look. Inevitably, a matchmaking scheme will follow, and you still haven’t recovered from the time she tried to set Jimin up with the woman from the candle shop.

“Do you think the offer is legit?” Jasmine muses, turning to Seokjin. If anyone in town would know, it would be him. “Have you heard anything?”

“No.” Seokjin shrugs. “But that doesn’t mean much, since the sale would be private. I’ll ask my cousin – she works in the mayor’s office. She’ll know of any large property being bought or sold.”

“Okay, cool.”

Returning your gaze to Yoongi, your eyes narrow. “What if the offer is real?” you demand. “What if Emerald Corp does plan to buy land on Mount Bowler? What will you do about it?”

Yoongi seems taken aback. “Doabout it?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would I be responsible in that scenario? And what do you expect me to do, egg someone’s house?”

“Please be serious, Yoongi.”

“I–”

“This is a corporation we’re talking about. You would need to egg several houses.”

Jasmine and Seokjin burst out laughing, and you hide a smile, pleased. You don’t know Seokjin very well, since he was two grades older than you were in school. It would seem your humor matches, though, which is nice. Anything which frustrates Yoongi Min is music to your ears.

Unfortunately though, Yoongi doesn’t seem frustrated. If anything, it looks like he’s suppressing his laughter.

“This is typical Remmy,” you mutter, cracking open your notebook to search for something – anything – useful. “You know he tried selling parking permits on Main Street this winter?”

A crease mars Yoongi’s forehead. “Don’t the snowplows go through there?”

“Yep.”

Seokjin seems appalled. “Dastardly. Who would pay for a parking permit they have to shovel themselves out of?”

You snap your notebook shut again. “Hence why the motion never passed. Yoongi, come on,” you groan, stepping closer and poking him – hard – in the bicep. “We have to do something.”

Staring at your hand, he swiftly shakes his head. “There is no we, Y/N.”

Stiffening, you withdraw. Of course, there’s no we. Yoongi made that crystal clear to you in high school, but there’s no need for him to be so emphatic. You get it. Yoongi does not – and will not – ever like you like that.

Jasmine is scowling, likely thinking along the same lines, and you hasten to interject before she can say something embarrassing.

“Do you or do you not,” you ask, “own the Lodge at Blue Glenn.”

“I do,” he says slowly.

“And as the town’s only lodgings, don’t you think we should stick together?”

“Not true,” Jasmine pipes in cheerfully. “Mr. Moldove is renting the room above his barn. I saw an ad.”

Twisting around, you glare daggers at her. “Whose side are you on?”

Holding up both hands, Jasmine takes a step backwards to stand beside Seokjin.

Returning to Yoongi, you cross your arms. “Well?”

His gaze moves between you and Seokjin, who seems to echo Jasmine’s philosophy of not getting involved.

Eventually, Yoongi sighs. “Fine. Why don’t I reach out to Emerald Corporation and ask them for a meeting? We can explain to them our situation and try to convince them to build elsewhere.”

You pause. It’s not a bad idea, although privately, you feel nothing will come from it. At the very least, you’ll be able to say that you tried.

“Okay,” you say, turning to Jasmine. “Ready to go?”

Nodding, she zips her coat up to her chin. “It was nice meeting you,” she says to Seokjin. Her expression turns stony when she beholds Yoongi. “Always a pleasure.”

“I’ll send an email once I arrange the meeting,” says Yoongi, seemingly oblivious to Jasmine’s death stare. “Is your work email okay?”

Stomach plummeting, you realize what this means. Yoongi deleted your number.

Attempting to rally, you convince yourself it doesn’t matter. Not everyone is a hoarder whose contacts section of their phone reads like a who’s who of late-night occupants of Brewsters’ bar bathroom. Yoongi is probably the type of person who reviews their contacts periodically and deletes names he doesn’t talk to.

Well, that’s fine. If Yoongi wants to keep this professional, you can do that. You can be corporate as hell.

Lifting your chin, you scan the recesses of your brain for something relevant. “Perfect,” you say grandly. “Let’s circle back on this.”

Yoongi frowns. “You want to… circle back before we’ve had the meeting?”

Shit. You took a shot in the dark. “Um, no,” you cough. “I just meant, let’s put a pin in this. Find time on my calendar.”

Even Jasmine is looking at you as though you’ve grown a second head. Swiftly, you turn around and head for the exit. “See you!” you squeak, striding towards the doors.

Luckily, Jasmine chooses to follow, and when you burst outside, you find Namjoon and Jimin waiting beside the main door. They stand beneath the streetlight, Jimin loudly complaining about his hair and the static. Despite this being his fifth winter in the mountains, he still complains about the climate.

Without breaking stride, you link your arm in his and begin dragging him down the road.

“Hey, Y/N!” Jimin says brightly, rolling with your antics. “Where are we going?”

“Bar,” you grunt. “Need shots. Now.”

Jasmine laughs from behind, where she walks with Namjoon.

“Uh-oh,” says Namjoon. “Does this have something to do with Emerald Corporation?”

“And Yoongi Min,” Jasmine singsongs.

Beside you, Jimin’s eyes alight with an unholy glee. Shit. You forgot that when it comes to matchmaking, he ranks second only to Jasmine.

“Tell me everything,” he gushes, grip like iron while steering you through the snow.

You make it to Brewsters in record time. Several shots in, things don’t seem quite so bleak. Namjoon points out that no one in town likes Remmy or corporations, so it’s unlikely this whole thing will even come to pass. Jasmine whips out an impression of Yoongi that sounds more like Mr. Darcy, and Jimin falls off his stool from laughing too hard.

All in all, when you collapse into your bed that night, much of the day has been pleasantly dulled. Except for one thing, cutting through the haze like a knife.

The sound of Yoongi Min saying your name.

Early the next week, Yoongi reaches out – via email – to say Emerald Corporation has responded. They’ll be in town Thursday and are open to meeting and discussing their proposed expansion.

Yoongi offered no personal commentary along with the email. He simply forwarded a thread begun by his general manager, Taehyung Kim. Vaguely, you remember Taehyung from high school. He was a grade below and, while also musical, was more into band than theatre.

Trying to make a good impression, you arrive at the Lodge at Blue Glenn more than an hour early. Politely, a woman named Cheryl shows you a cushy seating area before a roaring fire and informs you Yoongi is still in another meeting.

Seated before the fire, you cross your legs and scowl into the flames. Unfortunately for you, the chair is extremely comfortable, and the décor is hospitable. Unwittingly, you feel much calmer.

Eyes wandering the lobby, you must admit Yoongi has done a good job. The few times you visited Blue Glenn as a child you remember the vibe being stuffy and old. Since Yoongi took over, he retained the air of old-world sophistication but renovated the lodge in a way that feels fresh.

Floor-to-ceiling windows look onto the mountain, watching the ski lift bring people up and down the white slopes. The interior looks as though it’s been spit from a Ralph Lauren catalogue – in a good way.

In fact, you’re so busy perusing your surroundings, you do not see Yoongi standing before you for several moments.

“Ah!” you yelp, jerking backwards.

Yoongi lifts a brow, both hands in his pockets. “That’s good. Get it all out before the meeting.”

Scowling, you try to get up from the chair – and sink further down. You attempt this twice more before Yoongi sighs, holding his hand out to help you up. His palm is calloused and warm, sending a brief flutter through you when your eyes lock.

Abruptly, Yoongi releases you and takes a step backwards.

Feeling oddly bereft at the loss, you glance over his shoulder. “Should we get going?” you ask.

He pauses, then nods and gestures for you to follow. “The conference room is this way,” he says, leading you down a long hall.

You fall into step alongside him, keeping your gaze straight ahead. In the email Yoongi forwarded, he volunteered Blue Glenn as a meeting place, and you swiftly agreed. The Rosy Finch is cozy and charming, which in real estate terms means small.

Most of your work is conducted from the tiny back office or your apartment on Bell Street, several blocks over. There is absolutely no space for conferences or meetings, so when you walk into the room, you’re momentarily speechless.

“Whoa,” you breathe, turning around.

The wall opposite you is entirely made of glass, showcasing a different view of the ski runs outside. In the middle rests a long, oval table stocked with pen and paper. The entire back is taken up by a drink console offering water, coffee, and tea.

Making a beeline for this, you pour yourself a large mug of coffee – and add several sugars. Taking a sip, you sigh before turning around.

Yoongi has seated himself at the head of the table, which does not surprise you. What does surprise you is how natural he looks, as though he were born to wear bespoke suits and speak business-ese. In high school, Yoongi was more likely to be dressed in converse and ripped jeans than a Bijan jacket.

Not that anyone in your small town has the money or know-how to buy Bijan couture. As though he can read your mind, Yoongi tilts his head.

“You look nice,” he says bluntly.

You wore what you’ve deemed your work power outfit, which is a pencil skirt and heels. It is also the only work power outfit you own, but he doesn’t need to know that.

Deliberate, you march to the opposite end of the table. “Is that your strategy?” you ask as you sit. “Catch me off guard with a compliment?”

Yoongi blinks. “What would I gain from that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe make a bid for Emerald Corp by yourself. It would make sense,” you add, fingers tapping the table. “Your lodge fits neatly within their portfolio. You could sell to the group and stay on to run things. Why not?”

When this thought occurred to you earlier this week, it kept you awake for several nights. You don’t want to assume the worst about Yoongi, but the fact remains that you’re business rivals, and you had to convince him to help in the first place.

His jaw tenses. “Didn’t you hear me at town hall? Emerald Corp has a tradition of ousting management teams once they take over. Consider me crazy, Y/N, but I plan to stay employed.”

“There are ways around that.”

A dangerous gleam enters his eyes. “I said you look nice because you look nice, Y/N. When I think you look differently, I’ll tell you that, too.”

You stare him down from across the table. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

Anger simmers between you, but beneath it, you think you catch a rare glimpse of hurt. It’s hard to tell, since he shifted to anger so quickly, but it’s possible Yoongi took offense to your assumption that he would sell out.

You open your mouth to apologize when the door to the room opens.

Taehyung Kim pokes his head inside. “Emerald Corporation is here, Mr. Min. Are you ready for them?”

While Yoongi’s attire is appropriate for a board meeting, Taehyung is dressed as though Christmas threw up on him. His holiday sweater has a bright Rudolph nose, and he wears green plaid pants and a red Santa hat. Honestly, unsurprising from what you remember of him in high school.

When Yoongi nods, Taehyung throws open the door. “Come in,” he tells the row of bland suits behind him.

Each of them files in and you stiffen, counting no less than five men. Wonderful. Always a treat to be the only woman in a business meeting.

Yoongi does not stand when they enter, so you do the same.

“Gentlemen,” he says, inclining his head. “Welcome to Merriman. Which one of you is Mr. Jones? We spoke over email.”

The last man through the door lifts a hand in greeting. He deposits his briefcase on top of the table, choosing a seat in the middle. Taehyung winces at the dirty briefcase before he withdraws, shutting the door behind him.

“Glad we could make this happen,” says Mr. Jones. He clicks his briefcase open. “You can call me Phil.”

You choose this moment to jump in. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Phil. My name is Y/N Y/L/N. My family owns the Rosy Finch here in town.”

Slowly, his gaze swings your way. He surveys you once, head-to-toe, then returns to Yoongi. “Then, you must be Mr. Min. My secretary said there would be coffee.”

He speaks without question marks, as though each word of his is a statement to be taken seriously.

Yoongi leans back. “Help yourselves,” he says, gesturing to the back wall.

A man immediately jumps up and pours the rest of them coffee, so you assume he must be an intern or associate. Your younger sister, Bea, interned at a law firm last summer, and you remember her complaining about the menial tasks.

Sitting pin-straight, you wait until they’re settled before speaking again. “Thank you for joining us this morning,” you say. “It was good of you to make time in your busy schedule.”

You may be laying it on a bit thick. Yoongi seems to think so, based on the way his eyebrows raise. Choosing to ignore this, you smile at Mr. Jones. One thing you’ve learned over the years is that women in business need to use every tool in their arsenal. You may lack your mom’s financial prowess, but you’re well-adept at killing people with kindness.

“It was no problem.” Phil takes a sip of his coffee. “We were coming up here already to check the land on Mount Bowler.”

“A good segue,” says Yoongi. “The land purchase is exactly what we want to talk about.”

Slowly, Phil sits back in his chair. “Oh?” He swivels. “I expect you to tell us that the land is bad, Mr. Min? Or maybe that the sun doesn’t hit the mountain quite right? Is that it?”

Yoongi’s jaw clenches. “Not at all,” he says smoothly. “The spot is beautiful. But you see, both Y/N and I run successful hotels with loyal customers. The market is tapped out. I would hate to see the Emerald Corporation waste investor dollars on a purchase.”

The youngest suit seems thrown by this remark, but Mr. Jones never wavers. Holding out his hand, he waits until an associate hands over a binder. Flipping this open, he scans the first page.

“The Rosy Finch,” he reads aloud. “Fifteen bedrooms. Maximum capacity of fifty guests. Average 5% vacancy rate. Not bad,” he adds, sparing you a glance. Mr. Jones flips the page. “The Lodge at Blue Glenn. Seventy-five rooms. Maximum guest capacity of three hundred. Average 7% vacancy rate. Conference room capacity up to seventy people.”

“Your point, Mr. Jones?” asks Yoongi.

“Well.” Closing the binder, Mr. Jones leans back. “You both operate with low vacancy rates, which seems to imply a greater demand than what you can keep up with. The resort we plan on opening will have one hundred and fifty guest rooms for a maximum capacity of six hundred, so we should easily accommodate your current customers plus any surplus.”

You nearly spit out your coffee. “Excuse me?”

Mr. Jones smiles, and the result is not pleasant. “I will be frank, Mr. Min and Miss Y/L/N. Your businesses may be doing well, but I doubt that will be the case once we build our property. And, well – brand loyalty only goes so far. We can afford to undercut your current prices for a few years. Long enough to ensure loyalty from your current guests and close the doors of your businesses. After that, well.” Aimless, he waves a hand. “Who knows what the future will bring? We may need to raise rates to accommodate future costs.”

At the other end of the table, Yoongi has gone eerily still. “So, you acknowledge that demand for a third property is nonexistent,” he says softly. “And instead, you plan to steal our guests and drive us both out of business.”

Mr. Jones chuckles lightly. “I would not put things so crudely, Mr. Min. After all” – he waves in your direction – “we have a lady present.”

It takes everything in you not to give him the middle finger.

“No,” he sighs. “That’s not at all how I would put things. I would say we plan to offer a new service to travelers who already love the area. We will bring our trademark Emerald service at competitive rates. Any impact that occurs to your businesses would be unintentional – and, of course, regrettable.”

“Except you just told us your plan,” you point out. “Which makes it seem intentional.”

Unruffled, he shrugs. “I can’t predict the future, Miss Y/L/N. Who knows what might happen? There could be enough guests out there for everyone to survive, even thrive.”

Yoongi grips his pen tightly. “What you’re doing is unethical.”

“What we’re doing is capitalism,” Mr. Jones corrects. “If you cannot compete, you do not deserve to be in the market. Now,” he says, draining the rest of his coffee. “If you’ll excuse us, we have a meeting to get to with a potential builder.”

Pushing his chair back, he stands and – as though on cue – the other four stand, as well.

“Feel free to send any follow-up questions via email,” Mr. Jones says on his way out the door. “I don’t think another meeting between us will be necessary.”

One of his associates collects the binder and deposits the mugs on the back counter. Once they have gone, you and Yoongi remain seated, neither one of you speaking.

Abruptly, Yoongi swears and pushes his chair back. Running a hand through his hair, he stalks towards the window to glare at the slopes.

Your eyes widen. This is the first time you have seen Yoongi anything less than calm, and oddly, it provokes in you the opposite reaction. You have always been better at navigating times of crisis. The ability to look on the bright side, to see a path through the darkness, has always served you well.

Getting up from your chair, you cross the room and gently touch his elbow. “Hey,” you murmur. “It’s going to be okay.”

He roughly exhales. “Will it?” Yoongi demands. “Because it sounds like you were right from the start, and their goal is to put us both out of business.”

“Oh!”

Startled, he looks sideways. “What, Y/N? What’s wrong? Did you hurt yourself?” he asks, poised to move closer.

 “No.” You shake your head. “I’m just stunned that you – fancy hospitality school graduate and town success story – are telling me that I’m right.”

You expect Yoongi to roll his eyes, or maybe even laugh but instead, he slowly frowns. “What are you talking about, Y/N?” he asks. “You’re insanely smart.”

Oh, no. Discomfort wraps around you as you realize you may have been too self-deprecating. Usually, people respond well when you say things like that. It lessens the seriousness of the situation, which is often your main goal.

Forcing a smile, you shrug. “I don’t know. I just… you know, I didn’t go to college like you did.”

If anything, his frown deepens. “But you started running the Rosy Finch when your mom died,” Yoongi points out. “You were barely eighteen. If anything, you have nearly ten years of industry experience, and I’m entry-level.”

You laugh, a strangled sound. “You run this resort, Yoongi.”

“Through nepotism. Exactly.”

This time, the laugh that escapes you is genuine. Somehow, Yoongi has managed to turn this conversation around and make you feel better. Odd. That’s usually your job.

“Well,” you say, struggling to regain your footing. “Regardless, we’re both in the same boat now. Seems like Emerald Corp is full of shitty people.”

“If they’re even people,” Yoongi mutters. “Maybe the lizard-people conspiracy theories are right.”

“You think so?” Visibly, you perk up. “Personally, I think that would be kind of cool. Although, if they are lizard people, opening a ski resort seems like a bad idea. Reptiles can’t regulate their own temperature,” you explain. “They’d freeze.”

Yoongi’s mouth twitches. “Your mind is a fascinating place, Y/N.”

When he turns, you follow him back to the conference table. “Fascinating as in, belongs in a museum? Or a hospital?”

“Why limit yourself?”

You laugh again and when Yoongi hears this, he smiles. Retreating to your side, you grab your notebook to examine your notes from earlier. Something-something-Mr. Jones sucks-something-TAX deficiency-what suit is Yoongi wearing-his eyes are distracting-

You shut your notebook. That’s enough for now, you think.

Draining the rest of your coffee, you set the mug on the back wall with the rest. Turning around, you gaze at the slopes.

“I guess that’s that,” you sigh. “At least we did everything we could.”

Yoongi doesn’t respond right away, staring down at his notes. Eventually, he lifts his head and says, “Well. Not everything.”

You blink back at him. “What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you say earlier that we need to do something?” He lifts his eyebrows, waiting for you to catch on. When you do, Yoongi smiles. “What was it, exactly, that you had in mind?”

“No.” Yoongi stares, appalled, over his iced americano. “That’s a terrible idea, Y/N.”

Dejected, you slump in your seat. “Well, you think of something better, then!”

Yoongi’s lips twitch as he settles back to fiddle with the wrapper of his straw.

Merriman caught up with the times seven years ago, turning a vacant building into its first coffeehouse. The Bean Exchange is cute, with comfortable seating and delicious food, and at night it doubles as a wine bar and community space. Jasmine started working here after college and slowly worked her way up to the day manager. Ever since, it’s become your go-to spot.

When Yoongi reached out – via email again – and suggested you meet, it was the first place you thought of. Home turf advantage, and all that.

Not that you need it anymore. You have been thinking a lot since the meeting with Emerald Corp. Not just about Emerald Corporation and their villainous intentions, but about Yoongi – and more specifically, you and Yoongi, together.

It’s been a long time since the disastrous date back in high school. The two of you are older now, more mature and full-grown adults. Neither one of you live with your parents anymore, for example. In fact, last you heard, Yoongi’s mom moved back east to be closer to her sister.  

Sure, Yoongi did something lousy to you in high school, but it was high school. You are no longer the same girl who daydreamed about Yoongi in gym class and at your parents’ conferences. Maybe he wasn’t in the right place to date back then. Maybe he was just sixteen and immature.

Either way, it’s pointless to continue treating him like the boy who broke your heart then. You need Yoongi’s help, and it would behoove you to be effective work partners.

If only he wasn’t so damn infuriating.

Yoongi stares while you sip your Frappuccino. “Is whipped cream the flavor of the Frappuccino,” he asks slowly, “or a nod to the metric ton of whipped cream Jasmine added on top?”

Ignoring this, you swipe your finger through the whipped cream to slide this into your mouth. “Does it matter?” you ask, pulling your finger out with a pop.

“No,” Yoongi says, slightly strangled.

“Anyways.” You continue swirling your drink. “As I was saying – do you have any better ideas?”

The two of you have been at the coffee shop for the better part of an hour, and Yoongi has shot down every one of your suggestions. Granted, not all have been winners, but you really thought you had something with the idea to release a herd of elk onto their property.

“How would we ensure the elk stayed on their property, though?” Yoongi wondered. “And how would we get them there? And then,” he added, “what would they do besides eat some bark?”

“Terrorize landscapers?” you offered, but he had a point.

Now, Yoongi leans back. “We could reach out to Phil Jones’ boss.”

You make a buzzer sound with your mouth. “Terrible idea. Why do you think higher up the corporate ladder will be less corrupt than Phil?”

Yoongi grunts but concedes. He sips his drink again, and you take the opportunity to examine his outfit. This is the most casual look you have seen Yoongi wear to date. It would appear on weekends he allows himself the luxury of wearing jeans. Admittedly, these are paired with a button-down that looks softer than anything you have in your closet.

“Fine,” Yoongi exhales. “What are your other plans?”

Beaming, you tout out your notebook. “So glad you asked. Okay, so you ruled out the herd of deer – right?” you add, glancing at him to check. Yoongi nods and looks pained. “Okay, fine. Your loss. Let’s see… we could pretend to be ghosts and haunt the property?”

“How?”

“What do you mean, how?”

“I’m at a loss for how my question can possibly be misinterpreted.”

“We powder our faces and say ooooo a lot.”

Yoongi shakes his head. “No.”

“So narrow-minded. Okay, what about sabotage? We could block the main road that leads up to Mount Bowler.”

“Again – how?”

You stifle a grin, because you honestly thought his objection would be the legality of the plan, not its logistics.

“Um, let’s see,” you say, flipping a page. “We could cut down a tree. Trees fall down all the time! We just do it on the road and make it look like an accident.”

Yoongi considers. “Admittedly, that’s the best plan so far.”

“Why, thank you–”

“Which doesn’t say much.”

Scowling, you flip the page. “And again, I don’t hear you contributing anything useful.”

“I know, I know,” Yoongi groans, massaging his temples. “I’m terrible at this part of the business. The creative, imaginative side. That’s why I have Taehyung.”

Your stomach twists in a way that has nothing to do with whipped cream. Ducking your head, you stare at your drink as though you find the contents fascinating.

“Hey.”

Glancing up, you find Yoongi has shifted closer. His gaze is curious. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” you say on instinct, then pause.

Most men would rather chew off their own arm than admit to wrongdoing, yet Yoongi just offered it freely. An odd sensation rises within you – a desire to tell the truth. Usually, this is deeply repressed by the need not to be burdensome.

“It’s just…” You trail off. “I wish I had a Taehyung sometimes. Not like, in a weird way,” you hasten. “But it must be nice not having to do everything yourself. There are parts of the business I’m not good at, either.”

Yoongi contemplates. “Does your dad help, or…?”

You nod, then shrug. “Well, yeah. My dad helps a lot. We usually divide all the work, but through the curse of genetics, we both end up being good at the same things.” Rueful, you laugh. “I usually end up managing our finances and booking system, both of which I’m awful at.”

“Have you talked to your dad about it?”

“Kind of.”

The answer to his question is a big, fat no, but that’s not something you’re comfortable sharing just yet. Yoongi seems to understand, nodding as he sits back to sip his iced drink.

“You know,” he says. “I’ve always hated the idea that one person needs to be good at everything.”

“What?”

“You know. The idea that one person should be innovative and a hard worker and good with numbers plus a great communicator. It’s an impossible standard,” he says, “designed to make you feel bad, and ultimately, to ensure you go nowhere. It keeps the status quo.”

“That’s… intense.”

“That’s capitalism,” Yoongi responds, managing to keep a straight face.

Your lips twitch. “I didn’t expect to receive a socialist rant today.”

“You should expect that anytime you’re with me, to be honest.”

Unable to help yourself, you laugh. “Yoongi, you run a business.”

“Yeah,” he says, but he smiles, “one in which I pay people a livable wage.”

“Ooh,” you say, mock-shivering. “Keep talking, that’s sexy.”

“Want to hear more about our community garden project?”

“Stop, stop,” you joke, pressing a hand to your forehead. “I might swoon. Where was all this back in high school?”

The moment feels like a record-scratch.

You both freeze, staring at one another while facing the reality of what you’ve left unsaid. Immediately, you wish you could take it back. You had not recognized how fragile this newfound truce of yours was.

The messiness of your past lingers between you, until eventually, Yoongi clears his throat. “I don’t know that much has changed,” he says. “For me, anyways.”

Face hot, you look down, since you know what that means. Yoongi did not like you in high school, and that has not changed. It would be good for you to remember this as you work together. It would be all too easy to fall into the same trap again.

“Right. Okay,” you respond. Taking a deep breath, you force yourself to rally. “What should we do, then?”

When you look upward, Yoongi seems about to say something, but the look on your face makes him change his mind. He frowns, then carefully says, “I don’t know. Didn’t something similar happen in Garland a few years ago?”

Jumping on the change in subject, you reach for your phone. “I think so. A warehouse wanted to build within their town lines, right?”

“Yeah.” Yoongi nods. “Wait – hang on, no. That land was owned by the town, and they just refused to sell. It wasn’t the same.”

Frowning, you open a search engine. “What about in New York? Wasn’t there a big company that wanted to build their headquarters in Queens but ended up withdrawing? Whatever happened there?”

Yoongi grabs his own phone. “You’re right. Okay – hm,” he says as he scrolls. “In that case, a bunch of state and local politicians opposed the company’s presence. They refused to cooperate.”

“Well, that’s out,” you say glumly. “Remmy has practically made t-shirts with Emerald Corp’s logo on them.”

“I shudder to think of the graphic design elements.”

“Emerald Corp is Coming to Town?” you suggest.

Yoongi can’t help but laugh. “Terrible,” he agrees.

“Wait!” you blurt, stopping mid-page. “This says that the reason politicians objected was due to community backlash. People led protests, made petitions, even camped outside their offices.”

“Are you suggesting we camp in Remmy’s front yard?”

“What you do in your free time is up to you,” you sniff. “I was more thinking along the lines of petitions and protests.”

“That’s a good idea,” he admits. “We can reach out to other small businesses. Go door to door. I bet a lot of townspeople would stand with us.”

“Yeah,” you add, your excitement growing. “Remmy will have no choice but to listen if everyone bands together. He wants to run again for office, right?”

“Well, well, well.” Yoongi tsks, sitting back. “Look at you, being devious.”

“Is it devious?” you ask. “Or simply forcing politicians to represent the will of the people who voted for them?”

Yoongi whistles. “Got me there, Y/N.”

“And what I need to get is more whipped cream,” you say, standing from your chair. “Want anything?”

“No, I’m good,” says Yoongi, opening a spreadsheet on his phone.

Heading towards the front counter serves several purposes. On one hand, you really do need more whipped cream; on the other, it gives you a second to distance yourself.

Yoongi’s words from earlier play in your mind: not much has changed.

He’s wrong, though. A lot of things between you have changed. Yoongi left town, then came back, and now he runs his family lodge. Your mom passed away and since then, your outlook on life has been different. The two of you are no longer the same people you were then, even if you wanted to be.

Uncomfortably, you think about your interactions and realize that, for the past three years, you were the one avoiding him. Yoongi returned with his fancy degree and five-star work experience, and you assumed he would think less of you. Maybe though, that was all self-projection. After all, the two of you never really talked after the disaster date.

If nothing has changed, then Yoongi would not be here now, offering to help. He would not be seated here in this coffee shop, doing his best to brainstorm despite your past differences, and so, things are different.

Which means maybe it’s time you started acting like it. It might be time for you to consider who Yoongi is now, rather than who he was back in high school.

One positive about small-town living is that the total number of businesses in Merriman are less than one hundred. Which makes your task much easier on Friday when you set out to collect signatures. Most of the businesses are located on Main Street, so you start your trek early in the center of town.

Coffee in hand, you march up to the first business and loudly knock. Yoongi squints at the wreath, making a face.

“See, people have gone too far,” he murmurs, careful to keep his voice low. “A blue and orange wreath? That’s not Christmas-y. In fact, that’s –”

“Happy holidays!” you blurt as the door swings open. “Hello!”

Mrs. Larson, the owner of Larson’s Candy and Sweets, beams at you. “Oh my goodness,” she laughs, adjusting her glasses. “Y/N, is that you? For a second, I thought you were your mother. You look so much like her. Come in, come in,” she gushes, stepping backwards. “Come in from the cold.”

For a moment, you freeze, the way you always do when someone compares you to her.

Yoongi steps closer and lightly touches your back. “Hey,” he murmurs, his lips close to your ear. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

He examines you seriously. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” This time, you manage to smile. “Thanks. Let’s go get that signature.”

Yoongi hovers another moment, then nods and gestures for you to go first. The moment you enter, you find yourself ensconced in sugar and chocolate. Mrs. Larson steps before her main counter, where she readies the daily display of chocolate and candy.

Peering at the tray, you spot a few macarons near the back. “Oh!” you gasp, bending closer. “These are so difficult to make, Mrs. Larson. How did you make sure the top didn’t crack?”

Chuckling, she pushes the tray closer. “I’ll confess, I didn’t make these myself. Macarons are beyond me, I’m afraid. I asked Sara from Garland to make me a few batches to sell.”

You nod, examining them from one side. “I have trouble with the consistency. I think it’s because my oven is…” Trailing off, you realize Mrs. Larson and Yoongi are both watching you. “Sorry,” you say as you straighten. “That’s not what we came to discuss.”

“Oh, it’s not a problem, Y/N!” Mrs. Larson smiles. “If you ever decide to start selling your macarons, just let me know. Now” – she clasps both hands together – “how can I help you dears?”

Yoongi takes the first part of your rehearsed speech. “Were you at the last town hall, Mrs. Larson?”

“No, no. Couldn’t get away. Why? Anything fun happen? Did that Remmy Quarrels throw another tantrum when the projector died?”

Hiding a smile, you shake your head. It bodes well for you that Remmy’s ridiculousness is well-known around Merriman. You plan to use this to your full advantage.

“Not this time,” says Yoongi. “But Remmy did share a new proposal for the town. The hotel chain, Emerald Corporation, plans to buy land on Mount Bowler and open a new resort.”

Mrs. Larson seems stricken. “But that’s so close to Blue Glenn!”

“Exactly,” you say, jumping in. “Yoongi and I met with Emerald Corporation to see if we could find a solution, but it didn’t go well.”

Yoongi snorts. “Y/N is being polite. They said they intend to put us out of business and then hike up their resort prices.”

Mrs. Larson’s eyes flash. “Is that so, now?”

“It is.”

“Well!” She sniffs, wiping both hands on her apron. “We can’t have that type of attitude muddying the neighborhood, can we? What do you need me to do?”

Exchanging a swift glance with Yoongi, you contain your enthusiasm (a monumental task). Possibly this will be easier than you anticipated.

“We’re forming a petition,” you say. Handing over your iPad, you give Mrs. Larson the stylus. “We plan to submit this to Remmy before the next town hall. If we gather enough signatures from other businesses, maybe he’ll think twice.”

“Exactly right,” she says, signing with a flourish. “You kids let me know if you need anything else. Nothing fuels a righteous cause like chocolate!”

“Absolutely.” Yoongi nods, helping himself when she holds out a tray. “I’ve always said that.”

Mrs. Larson encourages him to take more, until eventually, you grab Yoongi by the elbow to drag him away. Steering him towards the door, you wave goodbye.

“Thanks, Mrs. Larson!” you call as you leave. “We appreciate your support!”

She waves you off, the bells tinkling overhead when you step outside. It’s still early, so most of the shops are not yet open. Heading in the direction of the next building, you look sternly at Yoongi, unwrapping his chocolate.

Blithely, he pops this in his mouth. “’aht?”

“You know what,” you say, the point somewhat lessened when you start to smile.

Yoongi blinks at you innocently. “I just didn’t want to offend her. That’s all.”

Rolling your eyes, you walk up the next drive and Yoongi follows. 14 Main Street is a cozy bungalow with a low, sloping red roof. Ringing the doorbell, you step back and wait.

Footsteps precede the door pulling open. Mr. Halloway looks between the two of you, spectacles balanced on the end of his nose. “Hello,” he says politely. “How can I help you today?”

You don’t blame his confusion; Mr. Halloway owns a small law firm specializing in insurance law. He likely does not receive a lot of drop-in calls, especially not before visiting hours.

Smiling brightly, you take a step forward. “Hello, Mr. Halloway,” you say. “We are hoping for a minute of your time this morning.”

Mr. Halloway nods and then, seeing Yoongi, his expression brightens. “Of course! Mr. Min, it is good to see you looking healthy. Hope everything is going well with that new car service?”

Yoongi nods. “Good, sir. Thank you for the recommendation last spring. Our guests have been raving about them all summer.”

Waving a hand, Mr. Halloway steps aside and ushers you in. “It was nothing. Are you here on an insurance matter? Or is there something else I can do for you?” he asks, holding out a hand for your coat.

“Y/N,” you supply. “And actually, yes, there is.”

“Oh?”

Yoongi shuts the door. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard of the Emerald Corporation?”

Mr. Halloway frowns, his spectacles slipping. “I have, but I’m afraid I don’t do any business with them. Not many do in my line of work,” he adds with a chuckle. “They have quite the reputation.”

You and Yoongi exchange another glance. This information could prove useful later.

“Then, you may have heard Emerald Corp plans to buy land on Mount Bowler,” you explain. “We met with their acquisition team last week, and it seems clear they do not have the best interests of Merriman at heart.”

“No, I would imagine not!” Mr. Halloway shakes his head. “That would be reserved for their shareholders.”

“Exactly,” says Yoongi. “Which is why we’re going door-to-door, gathering signatures from other small businesses. We want to show Remmy that–”

“Remmy Quarrels is behind this?” Mr. Halloway interrupts sharply. “Well, then, give me a pen and tell me where to sign. That man couldn’t tell a pebble from a diamond,” he complains, scribbling his name.

And so it goes, the rest of the morning.

By the time you reach the town square, you’re feeling optimistic. Yoongi has collected nearly forty signatures – as the shops began opening, several customers even asked to sign, which was encouraging.

Passing a snow-covered bench, Yoongi exhales and collapses upon it. He groans, stretching his arms and legs. “Let’s sit for a second. It’s nice outside.”

“You’re sounding like a true northerner,” you joke as you sit beside him. “Calling it warm when the temperature is below freezing.”

“Yeah, but after last week’s cold snap, this is nothing.”

“True,” you sigh.

The two of you stare at the snow-dusted gazebo, strung with Christmas lights. Garland has been wound around the spare railings, and even in daytime, the place is a winter paradise. After a full morning of speaking, it’s nice to rest and simply relax.

Eventually though, Yoongi exhales. “Does that ever get weird for you?”

You don’t need to ask to know what he means. Several other people compared you to your mom this morning, commenting about how you looked like her or had her smile. It was enough that, by the end, said smile was plastered unnaturally on your face.

“Kind of,” you admit. “But it’s also kind of… nice? It feels like she’s still here, in some way.”

Yoongi nods. He examines the row of icicles hanging from the gazebo.

Curiously, you look at him and find none of what you’ve come to expect in his gaze. Typically, when people ask about your mom, they expect you to be sad or respond with a platitude that won’t derail the conversation. Rarely do they ask and truly want to know.

If anyone can understand, you suppose it would be Yoongi. His interest seems genuine and what’s more, he seems to be interested in you, not just your mom. It makes you want to keep talking.

“But then again,” you add. “It can also be weird.”

“Why?”

“My mom and I… we couldn’t have been more different.” Roughly, you exhale. “So sometimes, when people compare us, all I can think about are the ways in which we weren’t the same.”

Yoongi waits for a beat. “How so?”

“She was always so put-together. So logical. She could calm things down in an instant, fix anything. And well, running the Rosy Finch was always her dream.”

Breaking off, you stare at your hands in your lap. A lump has lodged in your throat; one you can’t talk around.

Shifting closer, Yoongi’s right thigh presses against yours on the bench. The warmth of him is comforting, letting you know that he’s there.

“And it’s not yours?” he asks, carefully.

On instinct, a door in your mind slams itself shut. One that opens to what you really want to do, who you really want to be.

“I’ve always wanted to continue her dream,” you respond.

Yoongi looks at you like he sees through this, but won’t push you further. Nodding, he sits back and stares at the snow.  

“You’re good at this, you know,” you murmur. “Convincing people to sign our petition. Getting them to believe in our cause.”

The corner of his lips lift. “That sounds like you thought I wouldn’t be.”

“Well…”

Yoongi looks over at you, a subtle gleam in his eye. “You did think I would be bad at it.”

Embarrassed, you shrug. Again, you hesitate, unsure how much to say. “You were always so quiet in high school,” you confess. “It was hard for me to tell what you were really thinking. I just assumed…”

“That it would be the same way with work,” Yoongi finishes for you.

You nod.

He thinks for a moment, then his expression changes. “You thought this about me back in high school?”

“Yeah.”

“So… on our date?”

Your words die again.

Yoongi seems to consider this, turning it over in his mind. “That makes sense. I used to struggle with speaking my mind back then. You were always better at that than me.”

“Sometimes,” you admit. “I’ve always been good at talking, but not so good at speaking my mind.”

Silence falls between you, though not as sharp as before.

“What would you do if you weren’t running the inn?”

Although your lips part, nothing comes out.

The question is a good one. One you’ve thought about often. And then swiftly, you un-think it, not wanting to tempt fate. Your mom died your senior year of high school when you were newly eighteen.

A few weeks after the funeral, you trudged downstairs in the middle of the night – sleeping was hard back then – for a glass of water and stumbled upon your dad. He was speaking on the phone with his brother, and you caught the tail end of their conversation.

“It’s too much,” your dad said lowly, rubbing his forehead at the kitchen table. “Running the Rosy Finch is impossible without her. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to do it alone.”

Stomach sinking, you immediately turned around, not wanting to intrude. You lay awake that night for hours, staring at the ceiling. The month prior had been devastating, but something about the conversation hit you in the gut.

The Rosy Finch had been your mom’s dream. She was not born in Merriman, but it always felt like she had been. When your dad brought her home over Christmas their first year of dating, she fell in love – both with him and the town, your mom liked to joke. She wanted to extend that feeling of warmth to others, and her joy could be felt all over the inn.

Selling the place felt like a betrayal. It felt like removing the last piece of her from your lives.

The next morning, you marched down at breakfast and informed your dad of your intention to stay. He was stunned at first, then in denial, but you eventually wore him down. College had never been your dream. You planned on going, but that was mostly to satisfy your parents’ expectations.

There was no career path that called to you, no job you found enticing, and at the time, the idea of carrying on your mom’s legacy was most important.

Now though, you find yourself wondering if this is still so. Or more importantly, you wonder if by choosing your mom’s dream, you passed over the prospect of having your own.

Shifting on the bench, you glance sideways at Yoongi. “I don’t know. I mean” – a self-deprecating laugh – “what would I even do?”

The way Yoongi looks at you says he, again, sees right through you but understands why you might not be ready to say it aloud. After a moment, you exhale, your breath frosting before you.

Glancing at your watch, you wince at the time. “We should get going,” you say, standing up from the bench. “Let’s continue on this street?”

Yoongi nods, ambling along you with both hands in his pockets. In the sunlight, his black hair has an almost-blue tint. You wonder why you didn’t notice that earlier.

Catching you staring, Yoongi lifts a brow. “What?”

“Nothing.” Cheeks hot, you face forward. Helpless, you search for the easy banter of earlier. “I’m just surprised you stayed out for so long, that’s all.”

His lips twitch. “Oh? Because it’s so cold?”

“Or because you can’t stand me,” you laugh and continue.

It takes you several steps to realize Yoongi has not followed. When you turn, you find him in the same spot, a weird look on his face.

“Y/N,” he says slowly. “What are you talking about?”

You backtrack to where he stands. Brow furrowed, you look up at him. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

Hearing Yoongi use italics is enough to make you giddy, but you refrain from teasing him. “I really don’t.”

“You think… I can’t stand you, Y/N.”

You frown. “That’s not a question.”

“Okay, fine. Do you think I can’t stand you, Y/N?”

“Well…” Brows furrowed, you shake your head. “I mean, I don’t know? That seems kind of extreme, considering we’ve been hanging out all day.”

His gaze does not waver. “But you think I dislike you.”

“Um. Yeah?”

“Why?”

Your eyes bug out. “Why?”

Yoongi nods, somber and a laugh escapes you.

“Yoongi, come on,” you say.

“What? Tell me?”

Your teeth grit. “Don’t make me say it.”

He continues to look baffled, and you try – but fail – to suppress your annoyance. You aren’t sure how Yoongi can act like you’re the crazy one, when he’s barely talked to you in more than a decade.

“Say what?” he demands.

“Say – okay, fine,” you snap, taking a step closer. Yoongi looks down at you, his gaze dark and challenging. “Yoongi,” you say, speaking slowly. “I think you dislike me because during our date twelve years ago, you hit on another woman in front of me. If that doesn’t scream disinterest, I don’t know what does. Oh, and then you ignored me the rest of our time in high school. And also, when you returned to Merriman. That’s it. The end,” you declare, moving to stomp past him.

Yoongi’s hand closes around your upper arm. Gently, he pulls you about to face him. “That’s pretty damning,” he remarks.

“I agree.”

His brows arch. “Or it would be, if it were true.”

Your jaw drops. “Everything I just said is true!”

“No, it’s not,” Yoongi says, and then frowns. “Who did I hit on in front of you?”

“Uh, does the name Annie Summers ring a bell?”

“No. Should it?”

“Our waitress that night?”

Understanding dawns. “Oh.” His eyes widen. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” you huff. “Now, if you’ll excuse me –”

When you try to leave again, Yoongi pulls you right back to face him. Admittedly, you don’t try very hard, but still – damn. Yoongi may be lean, but he’s strong.

“You didn’t see what you think you saw,” he insists.

“I didn’t get contacts until I was twenty-two, Yoongi. I saw plenty.”

His lips tilt. “No. I mean – yes, Annie was flirting with me. When you left to hang out with your friends, she sat down in your spot. I was… young and stupid. I didn’t want to be rude, so I let her talk. When I finally asked her to leave, she slid me her number. I didn’t want you to misunderstand, so I put it in my pocket –”

“Ha!”

“– and threw it away on my way out,” Yoongi finishes.

“Huh.”

He steps closer. “I wasn’t interested in anyone but you that night, Y/N.”

“But…” You stare at him, trailing off. “You were so quiet with me. You barely spoke our entire date! You let me leave.”

His cheeks flush. “I was nervous.”

“Oh,” you say, starting to feel very silly. After a moment though, something important registers. “Hang on. You said that I left to hang out with my friends.”

Yoongi looks away. “Yeah.”

“When?”

“Which time?”

Your eyes widen. “What do you mean, which time?”

“Well, there was the thing in the car,” Yoongi says in a way that makes you think he’s thought about it often. “And then, when we got there and your friend stopped by. And again, at the end,” Yoongi continues, matter-of-fact, “when you texted your friends to come get you. You left to talk to them, then returned and said they were taking you home. I got the hint, Y/N. Believe me.”

In an unfortunate turn of events, you cannot seem to scrape your jaw from the floor. It takes several attempts before you recover.

“That’s not what happened,” you manage to croak.

“No?” Yoongi demands. “Then what happened?”

“Jaz texted me in the car, but mostly to gush about how hot you were and how lucky I was.”

Yoongi pauses. “Oh.”

This seems to be your shared word of the moment. “Our date was at one of the three most popular hangouts in town, Yoongi, so, yeah – I knew someone there. It was a coincidence. I didn’t plan that.”

His eyes narrow. “And the rest?”

“The rest!” you sputter, barely catching your breath. “Namjoon and Jaz are busybodies, that’s all. They came to Brewsters to spy on our date. I left our table to tell them off, and then I saw Annie giving you her phone number on my way back. That’s why I left.”

Yoongi visibly flinches. You watch his thoughts churn, unusually visible through his calm exterior.

“Yeah,” you huff, crossing your arms. “I bet you feel silly now, huh? All this time you spent hating me, when you really –”

“I never hated you.”

His words stop you in your tracks, and you watch Yoongi, expectant.

He steps closer, his eyes never leaving your face. “I never hated you,” Yoongi repeats. “Even when I thought you hated me, and even when I thought you called your friends to end the date, I never hated you.”

“Oh,” you say, staring back at him.

He fights a smile. “We’ve been saying that a lot.”

“Yeah, well. It seems appropriate when you’re unwinding a pivotal event from your childhood.”

“Our date was a pivotal event for you?”

“It” – flummoxed, you stumble – “well, if you must know –”

“Because it was for me,” he adds, so soft you nearly miss it.

For a long moment, you stand there and simply take Yoongi in. Layering in the new context, you can see how, from his perspective, the events of the night would look different. In an odd way, it feels like the first time you’re truly seeing him.

“So,” you say slowly. “You thought that I wasn’t interested in you. That I called my friends to come get me.”

His cheeks redden. “Like I said, I wasn’t very confident back then. You were so… funny. And fun. And friends with everyone. I assumed you were bored of me, and that was that.”

“And meanwhile,” you say, a slight hitch to your voice, “I spent most of our date wondering how someone as cool and interesting as you would bother asking me out.”

His gaze sharpens. “Well, shit,” he says after a moment.

You laugh. “Yeah.”

Shaking his head, Yoongi glances around the town square. “What was it you said earlier, about me feeling silly?”

“Truthfully, I’m the one who feels silly right now.”

Yoongi turns around. “You? What for?”

“I should have asked you,” you say. “I mean, I saw Annie give you her number, but you’re right – I should have just asked you what happened instead of blowing you off.”

“Would it have helped?” Yoongi frowns. “I could have told Annie to leave earlier. I didn’t want to cause a scene. I was trying… I don’t know what I was trying to do,” he admits. “Let’s call it a draw. We both could have done things differently.”

“Deal,” you allow.

As though this has settled more than just that, the two of you begin walking, resuming your task. Snow crunches beneath your feet, and you wonder how you didn’t recognize how beautiful the town looks this way. Sometimes things sneak up on you, even though they’ve been there all along.

You glance over at Yoongi, wondering if this changes anything for him now.

There is nothing you can do to undo the past, but you meant what you felt earlier at the coffee shop. Things are so different for you now. Neither of you are the people you once were. With the misconception out of the way, you’re forced to admit to yourself what you’ve known for some time now: what you feel for Yoongi isn’t irritation, or annoyance, or even a rivalry.

You like him. You like Yoongi Min, and the more time you spend with him, your feelings only get stronger. Which means if you don’t want to suffer the same mistakes, you need to make sure Yoongi knows it. Or risk missing yet another opportunity at something that could be real.

By the time you finish canvassing, the sun has sunk nearly beyond the horizon. Your dad texted you to stop by for dinner, so you head there immediately and park on the street. Slipping in through the garage, you remove your coat and snow boots, hanging everything up in the mud room and entering through the kitchen – where you’re immediately accosted by your sister, Bea.

“Well, well, well,” she drawls, wine glass in hand. “Look who it is.”

Wincing, you come to a stop. Bea sits at the kitchen table while your dad chops onions at the counter behind her. He looks up, amused by your entrance and Bea’s uncordial welcome.

Unfolding an arm, she points at the clock. “Well?” she demands. “What time is it?”

Knowing you have no excuse, you cross the room to kiss your dad on the cheek. “Sorry I’m a little late. I got tied up. Wait,” you blurt, glancing between them. “If all three of us are here, who’s at the inn?”

Circling the kitchen, your dad drops onions into a pan. “Janine is holding things down at reception, and Drew is on housekeeping.”

“Okay,” you sigh, sinking into a chair. Reaching over, you grab Bea’s wine glass and take a large sip. “Thanks.”

“Hey!” she complains, yanking her wine back. “This wine is for members of our family who actually tell the truth.”

Brows raised, you look at your dad. “And this implies I… do not tell the truth? What’s Bea on about this time?”

Your dad sadly shakes his head. “I’m on Bea’s side, actually. When were you going to tell us about Emerald Corporation?”

You immediately freeze. Shit.

Snapping her fingers, Bea points at your expression. “See!” she declares. “I told you! She did know!”

“Know what?” you protest, voice weak.

Sighing emphatically, your dad returns to the stove. “I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, Y/N, but it seems your sister was right.”

“I always am,” Bea crows. “Okay, so now that all the lies are revealed, you might as well catch us up. What’s going on, Y/N?”

For a moment, you waver and contemplate playing dumb but decide there’s no point. If they don’t know already, they likely will soon.

“Fine,” you sigh. “What have you heard?”

“One of my law school friends used to consult for Emerald Corp,” Bea informs you. “They reached out and asked if I heard Emerald Corp was purchasing land in Merriman. No thanks to you,” she throws at you.

You slump in your seat, staring at the ceiling. “When did you get so annoying? And when did you stop listening to your elders?”

“Law school, bitch.”

“Language,” says your dad, not turning around.

Your heart twinges, since that used to be something your mother would say. After she passed, your dad seemed to feel the urge to take on both roles. You aren’t sure whether you or Bea ever told him he didn’t have to.

Bea is younger by only two years, but to you, it always seemed like more. She was fifteen when your mom died, but it was her dream to go to law school, so you and your dad worked to make it a reality. When she offered to stay home, you always refused.

Maybe there’s a part of you that resents her for this; you were able to convince your dad to let you stay, but Bea never succeeded. When Bea graduated in the spring and passed the bar exam, you wanted her to stay in the city and score a fancy job. Instead, she insists on living in Merriman, and maybe you resent her for that, as well.

You made the choice that made sense at the time, but Bea isn’t like you. She has big dreams, and the limit in Merriman is Mr. Halloway’s law practice. Which is great, but Bea is smart. Driven, like your mom. She deserves the most her field has to offer, and you and your dad are doing just fine.

Mostly. Current situation aside.

“Fine,” you gripe. “At the last town hall–”

“I have got to start going to those things,” mutters Bea.

“At the last town hall,” you repeat, “Remmy announced Emerald Corporation is looking to buy land on Mount Bowler. The Tully property.”

Your dad’s spoon clatters to the counter. “Near the Min family lodge?”

Bea blinks. “That’s an odd choice,” she says. “Why would Emerald Corp want to build a hotel where there already is one? The market is tapped out.”

“That’s what I said!” you blurt, then remember the situation. “Well, yeah. Since then, things have become more complicated.”

“More complicated… how?”

“Yoongi and I met with Emerald Corporation last week.”

“You met with them?” asks your dad, his shock clear.

When you turn, you see the hurt clear in his face before he can disguise it. Swiftly, he begins stirring the onions.

You fumble momentarily, guilt churning inside you. You avoided telling your dad because you didn’t want him to worry, but maybe that was the wrong call. You thought you could control this, fix things before they became real, but now things have snowballed and you’ve hurt them, too.

Bea may not be involved in the day-to-day running of the Rosy Finch, but your dad is co-owner. Admittedly, he hasn’t had the head for issues like this in the past. Your mom always took care of them and then, more recently, you have. Still, you should have told him – he deserves to be in the know.

“I’m sorry,” you say, helpless. “It just sort of… happened.”

An awkward silence falls before your dad nods and returns to his cooking. When you look at Bea, you expect to see disappointment, and you do – only hers is directed at your dad, not at you.

Her frown deepens, and then she turns to face you. “Wait,” Bea says. “Did you say you and Yoongi met with them?”

Heat climbs your throat. “Um… yes.”

Her jaw drops, and you sense more questions coming, but your dad jumps in to save you.

“What did Emerald Corp say?”

Grateful, you turn. “Basically, that they’re buying land on the mountain because of our proven profit. They plan to undercut us and the Lodge, take our guests, and then hike the prices.”

“What the fuck.”

“Bea!” both you and your dad chime in.

Rolling her eyes, Bea pulls out her phone. “I will not apologize for swearing when it’s appropriate. Emerald Corp is the true villain here.”

“Relativism is a dangerous philosophy,” your dad warns, returning to the stove.

Bea and you exchange a look that nearly dissolves into laughter. Your dad loves to do that – say something vague and retreat from an argument. You learned from the best. It used to drive your mom crazy, but you and Bea have grown fond of it. You love to see how far you can push things.

“Anyways,” you sigh. “It doesn’t seem like Emerald Corp can be reasoned with. Yoongi and I have been brainstorming other options.”

“Yoongi and I,” Bea muses, her smile growing. “Is that a thing now?”

“Can we please be mature about this?”

“We can,” she agrees, “once you address the elephant in the room. When did you start colluding with your ex-boyfriend?”

Your dad again drops the spoon. “Ex-boyfriend?” he gasps, and you remember where you got your dramatics. “Y/N, why don’t I remember this? Did Yoongi break your heart? Did you and your mother hide this from me?” he demands, brandishing the wooden spoon.

“Dad, no,” you groan. “Bea is overreacting. Yoongi and I went on one date in high school, and it ended badly. That’s all.”

He squints. “Define badly.”

“This is your fault,” you huff, glaring at Bea.

She places one hand on her throat. “Mine!” she says. “You’re the one who’s igniting old flames, then lying about them to the family.”

“We went on one date.”

“What happened on the date!” insists your dad, brandishing the spoon for emphasis.

“Nothing! It was all a misunderstanding. We’ve cleared it up. An-y-ways” – you speak loudly to drown out their protests – “what’s important is that Yoongi is now on our side, and we’re doing everything we can to take down Emerald Corp.”

Your dad pauses mid-brandish. “You know, the Lodge does have more resources than we do.”

“Exactly,” you soothe. “Honestly, I have this all under control. Yoongi and I went around Main Street this morning and collected signatures against the proposition. People don’t want Emerald Corporation in Merriman.”

Pulling the signatures up on your phone, you show this to Bea, who takes the device and reluctantly nods. “This is a good start,” she admits.

“Atta girl,” says your dad, crossing to the fridge. “So, is there anything your sister or I can do to help?”

“No!”

Bea peers over your phone. “Are you sure, Y/N? I mean, this is good, but…”

“But?”

She glances at your dad’s back, then seems to think better of what she was about to say. “Nothing.” Her lips tighten, and she sets down your phone. “I trust you, Y/N.”

Your dad moves to rummaging in the cabinets. “Y/N, do you know where the olive oil is?”

Standing from the table, you help your dad with dinner, and conversation turns into more mundane topics. Bea appears to forgive and forget, although you know better than to assume she’s fully given up.

In truth, everything your sister said has been quietly simmering under the surface for years. When you began working at the inn, it took several years to work out a rhythm with your dad. He’s good at customer interactions, at schmoozing with vendors and ensuring people return. Usually, your dad works at the front desk or manages business relationships.

Everything else falls to you. A patchwork job of event management (fun!) to building maintenance (less fun!) and financial analysis (an evil you would not wish upon your worst enemy!) has become your job. At the start, it was enjoyable. Each new task was a challenge; a puzzle you had to solve. There was joy you found in being good at something and in being needed.

Slowly though, the joy dwindled. Now, even your current challenge feels like a chore; something to figure out before the next one arrives. You aren’t sure when the change happened but can’t ignore its presence.

“Are you alright?” Bea asks as you wash up after dinner.

“Fine,” you reply, forcing a smile. “Good, even.”

She gives you a look, but before she can respond, your dad is bustling into the kitchen with leftovers. You hand over the dark chocolate pistachio cookies you baked in preparation, and it distracts them enough that you vacate the premises.

Still, you feel Bea’s eyes on you as you pull away. You may have everyone else in the town fooled, but if there is anyone who can see through your bullshit, it’s Jaz and Bea. Which means if you want to figure Emerald Corp out by yourself, then you need to do so – and fast.

The next morning, you meet Jasmine at Brewsters for brunch, a monthly ritual that began in your early twenties. At night, Brewsters may be a dive, but in the morning, they have a surprisingly edible and extensive brunch menu.

A menu you have been staring at for the past five minutes, prompting Jasmine to wave her napkin in your face.

“Y/N,” she calls. “Earth to Y/N – hello?”

Jerking to life, you swat the fabric away. “I’m fine. Just… a headache. I’ll be fine soon.”

“Good.” Settling, Jasmine drops her napkin into her lap. “Namjoon should be here soon. He was running late this morning.”

Nodding, you glance out the window at the parking lot. Mostly empty today, thanks to the snow last night. Only a few cars are clustered, including your own, and several maintain a light layer of snow.

A few minutes later, Namjoon bursts into Brewsters, glancing around and removing his hat. Spotting you at the back, he heads in your direction.

“Hey, guys,” he says, collapsing on the bench beside you. “Anything new on the menu?”

“Unfortunately.” Jasmine pulls a face. “Raf has been experimenting in the kitchen. His latest creation is creamed mushrooms and eggs.”

Namjoon frowns, then pauses and tilts his head. “You know what, that might not be terrible.”

Primly, you open your gigantic menu. “I’ll stick to my usual. The sausage breakfast sandwich with hot sauce.”

“A classic,” agrees Jasmine. “The same?” she asks Namjoon, who nods.

Jasmine leaves to go find your waiter. Her cousin works here on weekends and chooses to ignore your table until you’re ready to order.

When she disappears, Namjoon turns to face you.

“What?” you ask, sipping your water.

“Nothing.” He pauses. “Which is the problem. How did signature collecting go? We’ve gotten no updates.”

“I know,” you groan. “It felt like too much to update you over text.”

You launch into a description of yesterday’s canvassing, repeating the entire story when Jasmine rejoins you. You avoid replaying the talk with your family, which feels more private than the rest. Never mind that you confessed more intimate things to Yoongi yesterday.

“Besides all of that…” You shrug. “I have a shift at the inn this afternoon. Suzy is sick, so I’m working the front desk, which is always a nightmare. Yoongi and I need to grab some remaining signatures tomorrow, and then… we’ll see.”

Namjoon nods, and Jasmine asks a question, but you barely hear her, too distracted by the commotion at the front of the restaurant.

Remmy Quarrels has entered, speaking to none other than Bob Schwartz, owner of the Holly Jolly Toy Shop. You and Yoongi missed Bob yesterday, which was a disappointment. The Holly Jolly Toy Shop has a sizable online presence, and they ship all over the country.

They end up being seated at the next table, though neither one notices you. As a result, you hear Remmy’s pitch, crystal-clear.

“All I’m saying is that you should keep your options open,” says Remmy, pulling out a chair. “There’s no need to petition Emerald Corporation until you hear their full pitch. They’ve promised me they’ll keep local businesses in mind – and just think of the tourism boom, and what that would mean for your shop!”

Bob slowly nods, as though all this makes sense.

In the booth, your hands white-knuckle your silverware, and you can practically feel the steam coming from your ears. Namjoon and Jasmine are listening, too, rapt and incensed.

“I knew it,” Namjoon mutters. “Jimin said he saw Remmy parked on Main Street last night, but we didn’t know what he was doing. I just knew he was up to something shady.”

 “Remmy was parked on Main Street?” you ask, dazed. “So… he was just walking behind us the entire time, countering our ask?”

Jasmine makes a noise close to a growl.

“Seems like it,” says Namjoon.

“That little snake,” you hiss.

Abruptly, you stand.

Namjoon looks up in alarm. “Y/N,” he says, trying and failing to catch your forearm. “Maybe this isn’t the best time to –”

“Oh, I think this is the perfect time,” you declare, marching away.

Remmy sees you coming first, his eyes widening comically over Bob’s head. When you stop beside them, smiling politely, you can see him sweating.

“Hi, Bob,” you greet. “Hi, Remmy. Hope your day is going well.”

“It is,” says Bob. He glances behind you. “Are you here for breakfast?”

“Mhm,” you say, your gaze sliding to Remmy. “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation about Emerald Corp. Did Remmy share with you the conversation Yoongi and I had with their head of development?”

Bob blinks, then looks at Remmy. “You didn’t tell me Y/N and Yoongi had already met with Emerald Corp.”

Remmy, who has been glaring daggers, quickly stops to nod. “Oh, yes,” he says. “I mean – yes, it would seem they did. I didn’t know. How did things go?” he asks, turning to you.

“Extremely well,” you say sweetly. “That’s why Yoongi and I are gathering signatures to stop Emerald Corp from building here in Merriman.”

Bob guffaws, slapping his knee. “The same humor as your mother,” he chuckles. “She would have cut down a tree on the mountain road, or something by now.”

“That’s what I said!” you blurt, beaming at him.

Bob smiles back.

Jasmine appears at your side with your breakfast sandwich. “Sustenance, milady,” she says, then scowls at Remmy. “Oh, you’re here.”

Remmy’s expression looks as though he has swallowed something sour. This worsens when Bob turns to him, a frown on his face.

“What was that you said about Emerald Corp supporting local businesses?” he asks. “It doesn’t sound like that’s the case if they’re blatantly ignoring the concerns of our town hotels.”

You can practically see the wheels turning in Remmy’s mind. “Look,” he sighs. “I will admit, this deal has pros and cons. The con is what Y/N just said – most likely, Emerald Corp will end up as the town’s main accommodation. On the plus side though, their lodge will be able to host more than double the occupancy of Y/N and Yoongi’s buildings.”

Bob considers this. “Is that so?”

“Yes.” The look Remmy gives you is triumphant. “They also have substantial connections in the tourism industry and have promised me 100% capacity during the holiday season. Think of what that would mean for your sales, Bob! To the toy shop. Or the coffee shop,” he adds, pointing outside.

Jasmine crosses her arms. “I think I can speak for the Bean Exchange when I say we’re doing just fine.”

Namjoon stops beside her. “My company also has significant connections in the tourism industry,” he points out to Remmy. “I don’t see how that’s a large selling point for working with Emerald Corp.”

Remmy chooses to ignore him. “This is what I promised to do when I became town treasurer,” he says, practically a growl. “Find new opportunities for growth! Find the net positive, even when there are some negatives!”

Slowly, your anger begins to build. Thus far, you have been able to suppress it and keep your speech civil, but Remmy seems hell-bent on riling you up. Still, you do your best to stay calm.

“And what about when Emerald Corporation forces Yoongi and I out of business, Remmy?” you ask him. “Then what? What will your next idea be? A Barnes and Noble to replace Brooke’s Nook? A Target,” you add, throwing in the kicker, “to replace the Holly Jolly Toy Shop?”

Bob blinks, as though the thought had never occurred to him, and Remmy turns vaguely purple.

“I have had enough,” he huffs, pushing himself to stand, “of you running around, sticking your nose in where –”

A familiar silhouette steps between you. “Is there a problem?” Yoongi asks, sounding bored while holding his coffee.

Although he seems calm, you notice the stiff set to his shoulders. It seems that Yoongi has tells, and you now know him well enough to decipher his feelings.

Whatever Remmy sees on Yoongi’s face confirms this fact, and he swiftly sits down. “No,” he says. “Of course, not.”

Bob picks up his menu, although his expression is troubled, so you count this as a win. Nodding in his direction, you turn around.

“Well,” Jasmine says, grabbing Namjoon by the arm. “Our food is getting cold. Joon, let’s go wait at the table.”

Although Namjoon protests, he is swiftly dragged off. You try to follow but are stopped when someone lays a hand on your arm. Expecting Yoongi, you turn and find Bob.

He glances between you and Yoongi, who still stands beside you. “Well,” he says slowly. “Y/N, it was a real pleasure to see you. I’m thankful you stopped me and said what I needed to hear.”

“Oh,” you falter. “You’re welcome.”

Bob looks over his shoulder. Remmy has vacated their table, and when you look out the window, you see his car’s taillights.

“If I might return the favor,” Bob says, stepping closer. “You should know that Remmy and his team have been meeting with many of the town business owners. I think he’s convinced a large group of them – not me, anymore – to back his idea, and offput your signatures. They feel the increase in sales may be worth it.”

Slowly, the anger in your chest begins to deflate.

It was one thing to hear Remmy – slick-talking, unlikable Remmy – not care about you or your business. It is another thing entirely to hear the same being said from your neighbors and colleagues.

“Oh,” you murmur. “Thanks.”

Bob looks like he wants to say more, but Yoongi steps forward. “Thanks, Bob,” he says. “Can we reach out to you if we have any questions?”

“Yes, of course.” Bob fishes around for a business card. He hands this to Yoongi and walks away, patting you on the shoulder once as he leaves. “For what it’s worth, you two have my vote,” he says. “Happy holidays!

“Happy holidays,” you mumble.

Staring at your breakfast sandwich in hand, you begin to unravel. Remmy has been going around to undo all the hard work you accomplished. If Namjoon’s intel is correct, he was steps behind you all day, swaying opinions you thought you had won.

Worst of all, you are starting to wonder if maybe Remmy is right. Maybe you are being selfish in your plan for the inn. Maybe it would be better for the town to increase their tourist capacity through the Emerald Corp.

“Okay,” says Yoongi, breaking through your train of thought. “Let’s get out of here.”

Startled, you look upward.

Yoongi is standing before you, brows furrowed. His nose is red from the cold, matching the stripe down his puffy jacket. He must have come here for food and now, because you look rattled, he’s immediately suggesting you leave.

Warmth suffuses your body. “Get out of here and go where?”

Yoongi shrugs. “How do you feel about surprises?”

“Badly.”

“I know a spot,” he responds, failing to elaborate further. “You look like you could use a distraction.”

The warmth spreads even further, tingling your toes and your fingertips. “Alright,” you say, only to wince. “Wait – no. Your coffee! You must have come in here for coffee or food, right?”

He gives you a half-smile. “I can take it to go, Y/N.”

“Oh. Right.”

As though on cue, Jasmine’s cousin jogs up with a white paper bag. “Here you go,” he says, thrusting this at Yoongi. “Y/N, Jaz said you forgot your coffee on the table. She said you should uh, text her every hour so she knows you haven’t died.”

Starting to laugh, you give Jasmine the middle finger and turn to face Yoongi. “Well?” you say, grasping your coffee. “Let’s get out of here. Distract me.”

His smile takes your breath away. When Yoongi opens the front door and gestures to his waiting truck, the sense of déjà vu feels somehow freeing. “After you,” Yoongi says, and you follow him out.