(ă„àčâąáŽâąàč)ă„⥠(â04) MDNI!! (Ë¶Ë á” Ë˶) (click here for my masterlist!) ~i used to be a cringe 2016 fanfic writer and now iâm a cringe 2026 fanfic writer~
There are two members of the WPPS (Western Pennsylvania Paranormal Society): Kim Namjoon, and yourself. After saving a bit of money, the two of you decide to take your paranormal equipment deep into the Appalachian forest to see if the local folklore there is true.
There are two members of the WPPS (Western Pennsylvania Paranormal Society): Kim Namjoon, and yourself. After saving a bit of money, the two of you decide to take your paranormal equipment deep into the Appalachian forest to see if the local folklore there is true.
{nothing yet.. come back soon !!} (âąË âąă.á
It's been six years since bts debuted, and you've had enough. Six years of cameras in your face, media bullying you, reporters asking you the same questions. "Are you dating any of the boys?" So for Christmas in 2019, you decide to go home. The states home. You just didn't realize the effect it would have on them.
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‷sypnosis: He swore he would let you rot in his shadow. But when the ice between you violently fractures, the master of the estate is forced to face the one thing more terrifying than his own ruin: you.
‷ strangers / enemies to lovers;
‷pairing: yoongi x f!reader
‷genre: gothic romance
‷warnings: dark gothic themes & heavy imagery of decay, severe emotional angst & intense self-loathing, toxic emotional alienation,emotionally volatile confrontation & desperate, rough intimacy
‷word count: 10.6 k
a/n: i've been sitting on this because wow. in case you didn't see from my tumblr theme, iâm deeply into gothic stuff. this piece is one of my favourite things i've written. itâs filled to the brim with symbolism and imagery that really speaks to me. i hope i did it justice.
it has no smut on this. (sorry horny people!) itâs really just something that i enjoyed writing. an ode to victorian era if you will. this is for you matthew lewis, ann radcliffe and mary shelley.
â
ONE SHOT
STARRING YOONGI
The ink on the letter of advertisement had been a pale, fading black, but the words had gripped you completely. Wanted: A tutor of languages and natural philosophy for a young gentleman.
You had said yes to the position because, truthfully, you saw a profound, irreplaceable beauty in the act of knowing. While others in your social circle viewed education as a mere decorative asset to secure a marriage, you carried a quiet, passionate flame in your chest for the light it brought to the mind. To hand a child the keys to history, to watch a young consciousness unfurlâthat was a calling you could not refuse, even when the letter directed you to an estate so isolated it wasn't even marked on the local carriage maps.
Your family had called it foolish. A young woman of good breeding traveling alone to a house with no matriarch, simply to teach the younger son of a reclusive, fading lineage at. But you had packed your trunks anyway.
The journey had taken three grueling weeks, culminating in a final leg where the carriage wheels caught repeatedly in ruts of frozen, dark mud. When the driver finally dropped you at the iron gates, refusing to drive any closer to the towering, gray stone manor, you had walked the remaining mile on foot. The house did not welcome you; it loomed out of a perpetual, heavy mist that tasted faintly of iron and damp earth, a sprawling monument of rotting lace and bleeding floorboards.
Yet, you walked through the massive oak doors with an open heart. You had been hired by the estate's steward via post, and your first three hours were spent quietly setting up the dusty schoolroom, arranging fresh inkwells, and meeting your new chargeâa sweet, brilliant boy who clung to his Latin primers with a desperate hunger for connection.
It was only when you left the boy to his writing and stepped into the grand, shadow-drenched library to find a lexicon that you met the true master of the house.
The room smelled intensely of old paper and the bitter, sharp scent of dried tea leaves. You were tracing your fingers along the leather spines of the lower shelves when a floorboard groaned at the far end of the room.
A man stepped out from behind a heavy velvet curtain, and the air in the room instantly dropped.
Min Yoongi did not look like a master welcoming a new member of his household. He looked like a monument carved from pale, unyielding stone. His dark, aristocratic coat was buttoned tightly to his throat, completely shielding him from the world, and his hands were clasped rigidly behind his back. He didn't smile. He didn't offer a polite bow. He merely looked down at you from his height with an intensity so sharp, so heavy, that it felt like a physical weight pressing against your ribs.
"The tutor," he stated. His voice was a low, gravelly rasp that seemed to vibrate directly out of the cold stones of the wall.
"Yes, Master Min," you replied, offering a warm, graceful curtsy, your nature instinctively trying to soften the stark chill of his presence. "I arrived this morning. I am deeply honored to begin. Your brother shows an immense, beautiful capacity forâ"
"He lacks discipline," Yoongi interrupted, his tone flat, monosyllabic, and entirely devoid of warmth. "Keep strictly to the texts. Do not indulge him with praise."
You blinked, the words catching in your throat. It was incredibly, shockingly rude. There was no welcome, no acknowledgment of your long journey, and no pride in his siblingâonly a cold, dismissive boundary drawn violently between you.
"I believe encouragement is a vital part of learning, sir," you pressed on gently, though a small spark of passionate indignation flickered in your chest. "Knowledge should be a joy, not a punishment."
Yoongiâs eyes darkened, a fleeting, agonizing shadow crossing his features before his face locked back into an unreadable mask. He gave you a single, abrupt nod that cut the conversation through the middle. "Unnecessary."
Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked toward the door, his heavy boots clicking with a terrifying finality against the wood. You watched his retreating back, thoroughly baffled and deeply offended. You could not fathom how someone could look upon their own home, their own family, and carry themselves with such bitter, self-deprecating disdain.
The heavy click of the latch brought the silence rushing back into the library, thicker now, as if Yoongiâs departure had pulled whatever little warmth remained right out of the room.
You let out a slow, steadying breath, your fingers tightening against the leather spine of the book you had been holding. "Incredibly rude," you whispered to the empty space, the words dying instantly against the suffocating weight of the velvet curtains.
Determined not to let his inexplicable coldness tarnish the genuine joy of your first day, you forced yourself to shake off the sting of the encounter. You found the lexicon you needed and returned to the schoolroom, completely immersing yourself in the sweet, eager mind of his younger brother. The boy was a delightful oasis in this bleak houseâquick to learn, earnest, and profoundly grateful for the gentle encouragement you offered.
Days bled into weeks, and the initial chill of the estate grew into a chronic, heavy winter. You quickly learned that Min Yoongi was a ghost in his own home. You never saw him at lunch, nor did he ever appear for dinner. The cavernous dining hall, under a ceiling that groaned with every shift of the wind, was entirely yours and young Jihoâs.
Jiho, his seven-year-old brother, was a gentle soul who possessed a bright, insatiable hunger for the fables and languages you taught him. But even the boyâs sweet laughter couldn't entirely dispel the suffocating atmosphere of the manor.
The estate itself seemed to be actively decaying. Outside the arched windows, the vegetation didnât bloom so much as it rotted into the earth. The gardens were a twisted labyrinth of choked ivy and black brier roses, their petals bruised and bleeding a dark, mineral-rich fluid into the frozen mud. Green-tinted clay seeped up through the roots of the weeping willows, staining the snow-dusted grounds a sickening greenâa visceral reminder of the estate you've came upon.
Inside, the house was no kinder. The dampness clung to everything, including your wardrobe. Every morning, you bound yourself into the rigid, suffocating constraints of the mandatory fashion: stiff whalebone stays that caught your breath, heavy layers of wool petticoats that dragged across the bleeding floorboards, and high, tight velvet collars that felt less like high society and more like a gilded cage.
On the rare occasions you did encounter Master Min, he made sure to reinforce the strict boundary between employer and tutor with absolute, crushing finality.
You met him one morning on the grand, sweeping staircase. You were carrying a stack of Greek lexicons for Jiho, the fabric of your heavy skirts rustling loudly in the quiet hall. Yoongi descended from the upper levels, and you immediately stepped aside, pressing your back against the damp stone wall.
The way he held himself while walking was terrifyingly deliberate. He moved with a rigid, military precision, his broad shoulders squared and entirely unyielding, his hands clasped tightly behind his back beneath the long tails of his dark frock coat. There was no casual grace in his stride, he cut through the freezing fog of the corridors like a dark specter, his heavy leather boots striking the wood with a rhythmic, intimidating finality.
"Master Min," you spoke up, your passionate nature refusing to let the silence win. You offered a polite, restricted curtsy. "Jiho has mastered his conjugations ahead of schedule. I was hoping we might expand his library allowance to includeâ"
Yoongi didn't even slow his pace. He didn't turn his head to look at you, his sharp profile remaining carved from pale stone.
"No," he interrupted, his tone flat, brutally blunt, and entirely dismissive. "Stick to the syllabus provided. Do not overstep."
"But sir, his mind is far too advanced to be held back byâ"
He stopped on the landing below you, the sudden halt of his heavy boots echoing through the cavernous space. He still didn't look back, but the rigid tension in his spine spoke volumes. "You are here to instruct, young lady, not to govern my household or my brother's future. Teach what is required. Nothing more."
The cold, calculated harshness of his words struck you like a physical blow. It was incredibly, deeply rude. He treated your genuine passion for learning as an inconvenience, a threat to the sterile, dead order he maintained in this tomb of a house.
You tightened your grip on the books, your chest heaving against the tight stays of your dress as you watched him stride away, his dark form swallowing the light of the corridor. You could not fathom how someone could live with such deep, self-deprecating disdain for everything beautiful, but as the weeks wore on, you became entirely determined to find the crack in his leaden armor.
The relentless winter rain battered the high, arched windows of the schoolroom, blurring the dark, twisted silhouette of the weeping willows outside. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of damp wool and burning tallow. You sat beside young Jiho, the heavy layers of your dark plum petticoats rustling softly as you leaned over his shoulder, pointing a finger at his Greek ledger.
"Very good, Jiho," you murmured, your voice a gentle, encouraging warmth against the chill of the room. "Now, try translating the next line. Remember the inflection."
Jiho dipped his steel-nibbed pen into the inkwell, his small face contorted in deep concentration. But before the metal could touch the parchment, a sound drifted through the heavy oak door.
It was a chord. Low, resonant, and entirely unexpected.
The note vibrated through the floorboards, followed immediately by a cascading melody that filled the metallic quiet of the manor. It was a weeping, devastatingly beautiful piece of musicânot the sterile, practiced scales of an aristocrat passing the time, but a torrent of raw, unshielded emotion. It carried a silent, heavy passion so profound that it seemed to physically ache, cutting through the sterile, dead order of the house like a sudden, fierce storm.
Jihoâs hand froze. The ink dripped from his pen, leaving a dark, bleeding stain on the edge of his paper, but the boy didn't seem to notice. He kept his head tilted toward the corridor, his eyes wide and suddenly guarded.
You stared at him, your curiosity instantly piqued. You had lived in this mausoleum for days, navigating Master Min's icy silences and blunt, dismissive rejections, yet you had never heard a single mention of music.
"Jiho," you spoke up softly, breaking the spell of the music. "What is that? Who is playing?"
The boy swallowed hard, his small shoulders tensing beneath his stiff wool collar. He looked down at the ruined parchment, deliberately avoiding your gaze. "It is nothing, Miss."
"It doesn't sound like nothing," you pressed gently, your sweet nature refusing to let the boy retreat into the shadows that seemed to claim everyone in this family. "It is beautiful. Is there a musician visiting the estate?"
Jiho hesitated, his fingers gripping the edge of the desk so tightly his knuckles turned a pale white. He cast a fearful glance toward the heavy schoolroom door, as if terrified that simply speaking of it would summon a ghost. When he finally answered, his voice was a reluctant, hushed whisper that barely carried over the piano's distant lament.
"No one is visiting. It... it is my brother. He plays."
You blinked, the revelation striking you with a strange, heavy force. Min Yoongi. The man who had cut you down with single, brutal words; the man who walked the halls with a rigid, military precision as if his very spine were carved from stone. You had only ever known his harshness, his cold, self-deprecating disdain for your presence.
"Master Min?" you whispered, looking toward the door as the melody rose to a staggering, mournful crescendo. "I did not know he possessed such a gift."
"He doesn't like people to listen," Jiho murmured, his tone laced with a profound, heavy sadness that felt entirely too old for a seven-year-old child. "He only plays when the house is dark, or when the rain is loud enough to drown it out. He says the music belongs to the dead. He says it's a waste of time."
The boy's words made your chest tighten uncomfortably against the rigid constraints of your whalebone stays. To hold a passion so fierce and beautiful inside oneself, yet view it only as a rotting, useless burdenâit was a depth of self-loathing you could not fathom.
As the music continued to weep down the long, drafty corridor, your initial indignation toward Yoongi's rudeness began to fracture. You found yourself entirely unable to look away from the doorway, a quiet, irresistible curiosity wafting through your mind. You wanted to see those pale hands on the keys. You wanted to understand how a man who lived like a corpse in a leaden vault could create something so vibrantly, devastatingly alive.
But you couldn't catch him. Every single time you gathered the courage to steal down the long, drafty corridorâhoping to glimpse those hands on the keysâthe music would vanish. The moment your foot stepped onto the threshold of the parlor, the final note would die in the air, leaving nothing but the heavy, leaden silence of the manor rushing back to swallow you whole.
This maddening sequence repeated numerous times over the passing weeks. Each time you heard the piano, the melody seemed even sadder, more desolate than the one before it. It was a slow, weeping torment that seemed to seep directly into the foundations of the estate. In your heart, you became absolutely certain that the trees outside had once been perfectly normal, healthy trees; it was his depressive, weeping melodies that had forced the willows to bow their branches, heavy and broken, weeping until they touched the frozen, bleeding mud.
Your encounters in the hallways remained an exercise in agonizing restraint. Sometimes you would pass him in the suffocatingly narrow stone corridors, the fabric of your heavy wool skirts brushing against the wool of his trousers, and he would offer nothing but a brief, rigid nod. Sometimes, not even that. He would walk past you with that terrifyingly deliberate, military precision, eyes fixed entirely ahead as if you were nothing more than a specter in his path.
Yet, there were erratic, confusing cracks in his armor. Sometimes, his low, gravelly voice would cut through the damp chill, commenting sharply on the clothes you wore. "That blue is far too bright for this house," he would murmur bluntly, or, "A foolish color to wear in the rain," when you chose a soft, passionate lavender.
And then, for days afterward, there would be nothing. Not even a glance.
Driven by the suffocating weight of his silence, you found yourself one bitter afternoon perusing the dead garden, desperate for a moment of air. The landscape was a direct extension of the  dread that anchored the estate. The vegetation did not grow; it decayed in place, choked by a dense, suffocating labyrinth of black brier roses and strangled ivy. The petals of the few surviving flowers were bruised and bloated, bleeding a dark, mineral-rich fluid that dripped like slow poison onto the frozen earth. Beneath your boots, the soil was a sickening, pale greenâclogged with a heavy, rusted clay that oozed through the roots of the weeping willows like old blood seeping through bandages. The air tasted of iron, wet stone, and a profound, ancient rot.
You were tracing the edge of a frozen, ruined stone sundial when a shadow fell across the pale clay.
You turned sharply, the high velvet collar of your dress scraping against your jaw. Master Min stood only a few paces away. He was dressed in his long, dark frock coat, his hands clasped rigidly behind his back, looking for all the world like a monument carved from stone.
He didn't speak. He didn't offer an explanation for his presence in the dead garden, nor did he bid you good afternoon. He simply stared at you, his dark eyes wide with that heavy, fracturing vulnerability you had only ever caught in brief flashes.
The silence between you was immense, thick and metallic, but you refused to let the bleakness win. You drew yourself up against the biting wind, forcing a soft, tentative smile to your lips, determined to fill the empty air with your usual demeanor.
"The frost has a peculiar way of preserving things, don't you think, Master Min?" you said, your voice a gentle rain cutting through the stagnant quiet of the courtyard. You reached out, your gloved fingers lightly hovering over a choked, frozen brier rose. "Even in the rot, there is a strange, haunting sort of beauty. The earth is merely resting, preparing to bring forth something new when the winter finally breaks."
Yoongi didn't move. He stood utterly paralyzed, his chest rising and falling in a sharp, shallow inhale beneath his heavy coat.
"There is no spring for this house, Miss," he said finally, his voice a rough, monosyllabic rasp that cut through your optimism like a blade. "Some things are meant to stay dead."
Without waiting for your response, he turned on his heel, his heavy leather boots crunching violently against the frozen green clay as he marched back toward the looming, gray shadows of the manor.
You stood frozen in the bleeding clay, staring at his retreating, rigid back, and a sharp, near-unbelievable impulse to scoff bubbled up in your throat.
Could a man truly be so dedicated to his own misery? Could he really be so entirely cold, so thoroughly convinced of his own decay that he would cast away a genuine human gesture like a piece of refuse?
More days blurred into weeks, the winter tightening its iron grip on the estate until the frost on the windows resembled patterns of delicate, skeletal lace. You quickly realized that your gentle curiosity and polite boundaries were getting you nowhere. They only allowed him to slip further into the leaden shadows of the manor. If he wanted to live like a phantom, you decided you were going to become a much louder one. You were going to change your tactics entirely.
You were going to chase him. You were going to become completely, inescapably suffocating.
If Min Yoongi insisted on treating you like an unwanted affliction, you would ensure you were an affliction he could not ignore. You would force your warmth into his frozen world until his monosyllabic walls crumbled.
Your campaign began in the damp, cavernous kitchens of the manor. Disappointed by the lukewarm, bitter dregs the servants occasionally left outside his study, you took matters into your own hands. You brewed the tea yourselfâa rich, aromatic blend of black tea, dried orange peel, and heavy cloves. The sharp, vibrant steam rose into the cold air of the kitchen, a violent, beautiful contrast to the pervasive smell of rust and wet stone.
You arranged it on a heavy silver tray, the porcelain cups clinking with a rhythmic, defiant ring.
Smoothing down the front of your dark velvet gown, you carried the tray up the grand stone staircase. You didn't walk quietly. You allowed the stiff whalebone stays of your corset to creak and the heavy layers of your wool petticoats to rustle loudly against the floorboards, announcing your approach like a storm marching down the long, suffocating corridor.
You didn't wait for an invitation. Reaching the heavy oak door of his private studyâa room you had been strictly forbidden to enterâyou knocked once, firmly, and pushed it open.
Yoongi was seated at his walnut desk, buried beneath a mountain of fading ledgers and legal correspondence. The air in the room was so cold your breath plumed before you. At the sound of your intrusion, he froze, his quill hovering a fraction of an inch above the parchment. When he raised his head, his dark eyes wide with a mixture of sheer disbelief and aristocratic offense, you simply offered him a bright, uncompromising smile.
"Good afternoon, Master Min," you said, your voice a torrent of gentle rain cutting through the stagnant quiet.
Before he could utter a single, brutal word, you strode across the room with a deliberate, swishing flare of your skirts and set the silver tray directly over his open ledgers. The rich scent of cloves and citrus instantly swallowed the smell of old paper.
Yoongi stared at the steaming teacup, then up at you, his sharp profile hardening into a defensive glare. "I did not requestâ"
"I know you didn't," you interrupted smoothly, leaning slightly over the desk, refusing to back away from his intimidating posture. "But it is freezing in this room, sir, and you look as though you are trying to turn into a statue. Drink it. It is entirely too hot to be ignored."
He sat utterly paralyzed, his chest rising and falling in a sharp, shallow rhythm beneath his dark coat. He looked at the vibrant, suffocating warmth of your presence, then down at his own trembling hands, his fingers flexing tightly against his quill as he tried to find the cold, dismissive words to banish you from his sight.
"You are incredibly insolent," Yoongi said, his voice a low, dangerous growl that cut through the steam rising from the porcelain cup.
He didn't touch the silver handles of the tray. He simply stared at the orange peel floating near the rim with a look of profound disgust. "I do not like orange peels. Had you bothered to ask any of the staff in this house before forcing your way into my quarters, they would have told you as much."
The brutal finality of his words hung in the freezing air, heavy as lead. You swallowed hard, trying desperately to find your footing under his piercing glare. Your heart hammered against the tight whalebone stays of your bodice, your spirit rising to defend itself.
"I only thoughtâgiven the frost in this room, sirâthat a bit of warmth might be welcome," you retorted, your voice trembling slightly but held steady by sheer indignation. "A simple 'no, thank you' would suffice. There is no need to treat kindness as a crime."
Yoongiâs sharp profile didn't soften by a single fraction. He picked up his quill, his fingers gripping the feather so tightly the wood creaked, and lowered his eyes back to his ledgers, completely shutting you out.
"Take it and leave," he muttered, his tone flat, monosyllabic, and entirely cold. "Do not waste your time, or mine, again."
Biting your lip to keep from uttering a thoroughly unladylike retort, you snatched the heavy silver tray from his desk, the porcelain clinking violently in protest. With a sharp, furious rustle of your heavy wool petticoats, you turned on your heel and marched out of the study, slamming the heavy oak door behind you to fracture the suffocating quiet he so dearly cherished.
Yet, you refused to let his coldness break you. If anything, his bitter rejection only stoked the fire in your chest.
Over the weeks that followed, this disastrous encounter became the blueprint for a relentless, suffocating campaign. You tried every avenue to penetrate his leaden armor, determined to force a sliver of life into the living corpse of Min Yoongi.
You spent an entire morning in the damp, iron-scented kitchens, rolling out delicate lavender and honey biscuits. You brought them to his library door, the sweet, buttery scent cutting through the pervasive smell of rot. He didn't even look up from his papers. "Remove them," he had stated bluntly. "The smell is distracting."
When a particularly vicious bout of freezing rain left him coughing in his study, you prepared a thick, savory barley soup, carrying it up the grand staircase while your corset creaked with every step. He had left the bowl completely untouched on his desk until the fat congealed into a cold, white film, returning it via a servant without a single word of thanks.
You tried again with a plain, unblemished black tea, stripped of any citrus or spice that might offend his rigid preferences. You set it down beside his ledger in absolute silence, offering nothing but a defiant, lingering look. Yoongi had merely waited until you reached the door before deliberately pouring the steaming liquid into the dying embers of his hearth, extinguishing the tiny flame with a hiss of gray smoke.
Nothing could penetrate him. No matter how much sweetness, passion, or gentle rain you poured into the dry, parched monument of his life, Min Yoongi remained entirely frozenâa man standing resolutely by his own corpse, utterly refusing to be pulled into the light.
The unrelenting cold finally started to break, but it brought nothing new. It only turned the grounds into a vast, weeping sea of dark mud and bloated, bleeding brier roses. Inside the manor, the air felt thicker than ever, heavy with a leaden, metallic chill that seemed to seep directly into your bones.
You were in the schoolroom, packing away young Jihoâs inkwells after a quiet afternoon of geography, when the first note struck.
It was a low, fractured sound that vibrated straight through the floorboards, making the steel nibs of your pens rattle against the wood. You froze, your breath catching against the stiff, suffocating whalebone stays of your bodice. Then came another note. And another.
It was the piano. But it was not like the times before.
This melody was a devastating, monumental torrent of grief. It was an absolute, suffocating desolation caught between the ivory keysâa pitch-black melancholy so profound, so unmitigated, that you could not fathom the sheer depth of the ruin it took to create it. It did not just weep, it bled. The music tore through the sterile, dead order of the drafty house like a desperate, dying breath, filling the corridors with an ache so visceral it made your own chest thump painfully.
Your spirit could not endure the sheer weight of it from a distance. Driven by an irresistible, fierce curiosity, you left the schoolroom. You didn't care that your heavy wool petticoats rustled loudly against the stone walls, or that you were overstepping every boundary you had left. You wafted down the long, shadowed corridor, following the weeping sound until you reached the threshold of the closed parlor.
The heavy oak door was standing slightly ajar, a sliver of pale, watery twilight cutting through the darkness.
You held your breath, pressing your hand against the damp wood, and peered inside.
Finally. Finally.
Min Yoongi sat at the grand piano, entirely consumed by the shadows. His dark frock coat was unbuttoned at the throat for once, his white linen shirt exposed, and his broad shoulders were hunched forward in a posture of complete, devastating surrender. His eyes were closed, his pale face carved from stone, but his handsâthose hands that had so rigidly stayed clasped behind his back for monthsâwere moving across the keys with a frantic, terrifying reverence.
He was pouring his entire, suffocating soul into the wood. He looked like a man standing entirely alone beside a corpse, his invisible, heavy wings of lead drooping completely at his sides, utterly paralyzed by the tragedy of his own existence.
You couldn't stay hidden. Your heart broke for him, fracturing the distance he had fought so hard to maintain. You gently pushed the door open, the hinges giving a low, soft groan, and stepped into the parlor.
The moment your shadow crossed the floorboards, Yoongiâs hands slammed to a violent halt. The final, agonizing chord shattered into the silence, vibrating through the cold air like a scream.
He didn't move. He didn't turn to glare at you with his usual aristocratic disdain. He simply sat there, his head bowed, his pale fingers resting lightly on the ivory keys, his chest heaving in sharp, shallow breaths beneath his shirt.
"Do you never let people hear you play?" you asked softly, your voice a gentle, tentative rain cutting through his leaden quiet.
The silence stretched between you, thick and metallic, before his low, gravelly rasp finally broke it. "No."
"Why?" you pressed, stepping closer, the fabric of your velvet gown swishing against the floorboards as you refused to let him retreat into the dark.
Yoongiâs knuckles turned white against the keys, his fingers flexing slightly as if he wanted to reach out, to grab the empty air toward you, but he forced himself to remain frozen. "Why would they listen? Nothing good comes out of this house. Nothing good comes from my hands."
The blunt, self-deprecating finality of his words struck you like a physical blow. To hold a gift so magnificent, a passion so deep, yet view it only as a rotting, useless burdenâit was a tragedy you could not comprehend.
"That is a rather sad way to live, Master Min," you murmured, your voice trembling with a mixture of sweetness and indignation.
"It is not sad," Yoongi replied, his tone dropping into that flat, monosyllabic chill that had kept you at bay for months. He finally raised his head, his dark eyes wide with a fracturing, terrifying vulnerability as he looked at you through the gloom. "It is simply what is required."
You frowned, your brows drawing together as a sharp wave of disbelief and frustration tightened your chest. He was utterly, maddeningly impossible.
How could a man be so violently committed to his own isolation? How could he look at the vibrant, breathing worldâat your endless attempts to bring even a sliver of warmth into his frozen lifeâand choose to remain buried under his own leaden misery? He didn't want to be saved. He didn't even want to be comforted. He simply wanted to sit in the dark and watch his own soul rot away.
The sweet, passionate fire that had driven you to chase him for weeks suddenly cooled, leaving behind a bitter, aching exhaustion. You couldn't force a man who preferred the suffocation of his tomb to breathe.
"As you wish, Master Min," you said, your voice dropping its usual gentle warmth, replaced by a stiff, quiet dignity that felt as cold as the room itself.
You didn't wait for his reply. You didn't give him the chance to cut you down with another flat, monosyllabic dismissal. Turning on your heel, you gathered the heavy, rustling layers of your skirts, the tight whalebone stays of your bodice creaking in the silence as you marched toward the door. Your heavy boots clicked with a sharp, defiant finality against the bleeding floorboards, a jarring contrast to the weeping melody that had filled the parlor only moments before.
You took your leave, stepping out into the drafty corridor and letting the heavy oak door click shut behind you, completely sealing him back into the shadows.
But inside the suffocating quiet of the parlor, Yoongi didn't move.
The moment the latch caught, the rigid tension in his broad shoulders completely collapsed. He let his head drop, his forehead resting against the cool, dark wood of the piano as a sharp, fractured exhale left his lungs. The air in the room felt instantly metallic again, stripped of the vibrant, clove-scented rain you had brought with you.
I stood alone by the corpse... and it was cold...
The cool ivory keys felt like teeth beneath Yoongi's hands as the last echo of your footsteps died out. The finality of that latch closing felt like a casket sealing him back into the dark.
To survive the sudden, freezing drop in temperature, his mind did what it always did when the rot became too heavyâit retreated. It slipped backward, claws digging into the memory of the very first day you dared to cross his threshold.
Yoongi remembered the exact sound of your arrival. This house had been a mausoleum for a decade, moving only to the rhythm of decaying wood and bleeding clay, but you walked through the oak doors as if you were stepping into a summer garden.
It had terrified him. You spoke to the stern old butler with a bright, unbothered ease that didn't belong in a tomb. You asked questions, your voice carrying an innate musicality that immediately clashed with the dead silence of the corridors.
When he first stepped out from behind those velvet curtains in the library, he intended to frighten you away. He put on his armorâhis rigid stance, his military stride, his sharpest aristocratic mask. But when you offered that warm, graceful curtsy, your eyes wide with an indestructible optimism, the words caught in his throat.
You were entirely too radiant. Looking at you was like staring directly into a noon sun after a lifetime spent in a subterranean vault.
From that very first hour, the poison in Yoongi's mind began its frantic, defensive work. He knew what he was. He was a man standing over a corpse, his wings made of heavy, toxic lead, anchored to the decay of this estate.
Every time you tried to share your light with him, his immediate instinct was to strike it down. When you spoke of your passion for knowledge, he gave you brutal, monosyllabic rejections. Not out of maliceânever out of maliceâbut because he truly believed that if he let you close, the mold on his walls would find its way onto your skin. The rot in his chest would tarnish your beautiful, passionate spirit.
And then, there was the way you loved Jiho.
He would watch from the shadows of the schoolroom corridor as you bent over his little brother's desk, your dark plum velvet skirts brushing the floorboards. You cared for him with the fierce, protective tenderness of an older sister, treating the lonely boy like your own blood. You brought him laughter. You gave him a sanctuary.
Every time Yoongi saw you encourage him, a violent, aching jealousy would flare in his chestânot of his brother, but of your capacity to love. He wanted to step into that room. He wanted to sit at your feet and beg for a drop of that gentle rain. But a knight does not drag the princess down into the frozen mud. So, he stayed in the dark, his fingers flexing uselessly against the fabric of his coat, grasping at the phantom warmth you left in the air.
When you changed your tactics, it almost broke him.
When you began to chase him through the manor, forcing your way into his study with those loud, rustling petticoats and trays of steaming tea, it was a beautiful, agonizing torture. The scent of your cloves and orange peels felt like a violent invasion of his vault. He called you insolent. He poured your black tea into the embers. He let his barley soup turn to ice.
He did it because he was starving, and your presence was too much for a man to bear.
The reality of his isolation always returned with the same sickening familiarityâhe was a dying man, and your radiant presence was simply too monumental a mercy for his broken spirit to endure.
Instead, Yoongi settled for the ghosts of your presence.
Every evening, long after the heavy oak doors of the schoolroom had closed and you had retired to your quarters, he would emerge from the shadows of the library. His heavy leather boots would step deliberately over the bleeding floorboards, tracing the path you had taken hours before. He would find the volumes of poetry or history text you had left on the long walnut tables. With an agonizing, slow reverence, he would press his bare palm flat against the leather covers, closing his eyes just to catch the faint, evaporating ghost of your warmth. He would open the pages, his pale fingers softly tracing the margins where your ink-stained fingertips had rested.
It was a pathetic, desperate ritual, but it was the only way he could possess a sliver of you without actually touching youâwithout allowing the dark, creeping mold of his own existence to ruin your light.
In the dead, quiet hours of the night, when the manor groaned against the freezing wind, he would lie awake and allow himself the cruelest torture of all: wishing he were different.
He wished he were a man who could walk out into the sunshine without feeling the immediate, suffocating urge to retreat into the dark. He wished he were a gentleman who could offer you a proper, unblemished courtship, a man who could look into your sweet, passionate eyes and promise you a life built on something other than decay. But the illusion never lasted. The leaden reality of his mind always crushed the fantasy before it could take root. He wasn't that man. He was ruined. The tragic, bitter lineage of his family had calcified in his veins, leaving him as nothing more than a hollow caretaker to a tomb.
That was why he had been so unyielding during the confrontation in the dead garden.
He still remembered the way you looked standing by that frozen stone sundial, your vibrant crimson cloak a striking, defiant wound against the pale, oozing clay. You had looked at the choked, black brier rosesâflowers that were actively rotting into the iceâand you had tried to find beauty in them. You had spoken with such indestructible, sweet optimism about the earth merely resting, about spring eventually breaking through the frost.
And it had terrified him.
Yoongi couldn't have it. He couldn't let you romanticize the decay that was slowly poisoning him. Your gentle, passionate nature belonged to the sun; you were supposed to stay wrapped in warmth, shielded in the bright, comfortable world of living things. You were never meant to descend into the damp, metallic cold of his vault, nor were you meant to waste your sweet rain on a parched, ruined man who had already surrendered to the dark.
When he told you that some things were meant to stay dead, it was the ultimate act of his twisted, knightly devotion. He had deliberately fractured your hope, ensuring you would despise his coldness, because keeping you angry was the only way he knew how to keep you safe from his rot.
But you were relentless.
Yoongi had truly believed the bitter frost of the garden would be the end of itâthat his cruel, unyielding words would finally send you fleeing back to the warmth where you belonged. He had expected you to look at him with nothing but cold disdain from that moment on. Instead, your sweet, stubborn passion only seemed to harden into a fierce, quiet defiance. You did not stop. You did not yield to the heavy, suffocating silence of his house.
And at last, on that dark afternoon, your persistence brought you to the one place he had guarded with his very life. You found yourself standing at the threshold of the parlor, listening to the doomed melodies his fingers produced.
From his position at the keys, completely cloaked in the gray twilight of the room, Yoongi had thought he was entirely alone. The winter rain was battering the glass so violently that he believed the sound would drown out the absolute, suffocating desolation leaking from his soul. He had allowed his rigid, knightly armor to crack, unbuttoning his coat and letting his broad shoulders slouch in a posture of complete, devastating defeat.
He had poured his entire ruin into the instrument. Every note was a leaden weight; every chord was a funeral march for the man he wished he could be for you. It was a pitch-black, weeping melancholy, a musical manifestation of the corpse he stood beside every day. He was playing his own doom, his invisible wings of lead drooping heavily to the floorboards as the keys wept beneath his pale hands.
He had been so entirely consumed by the tragedy of his own music that he hadn't heard the soft rustle of your skirts or the creak of your whalebone stays as you drew near.
But then, the air in the room shifted.
Even without looking, Yoongi felt the exact moment your gentle, radiant presence wafted through the sliver of the open door. It was a visceral shock to his sensesâlike a drop of sweet, clean rain falling into a stagnant, iron-tasted vault. His fingers slammed to a violent, trembling halt, killing the melody instantly and leaving the final, agonizing chord to shatter into a suffocating quiet.
His heart hammered frantically against his ribs. He sat frozen, staring at the ivory keys, utterly paralyzed by the terrifying realization that you had finally caught him. You had heard the raw, bleeding truth of his soul. You had witnessed the passionate, weeping monster beneath the cold, monosyllabic master.
When your soft voice finally cut through the metallic silence, asking why he never let anyone hear him play, it took every ounce of his remaining strength to lock his expression back into stone. He had given you his flat, brutal truthsâtelling you that nothing good could ever come from his hands, that this house was a tomb meant to stay dead. He had watched the deep, aching frown mar your beautiful features, had watched your passionate light finally dim into a quiet, exhausted disappointment before you turned on your heel and took your leave.
He had driven you away. It was exactly what he had engineered from the very first day you arrived. But as Yoongi sat alone in the echoing silence of the parlor, his pale fingers flexing helplessly over the keys you had just vanished from, the leaden weight in his chest became entirely unbearable. He had saved you from his rot, but in doing so, he had completely condemned himself to the dark.
The memory of that final, devastating melody in the parlor hung over the subsequent weeks like a thick, unmoving pall.
You had officially retreated behind a wall of quiet, professional iron. You had not seen Min Yoongi since that rainy twilight, and truthfully, you had no desire to. The sweet, naive urge to heal his bitterness had completely burned itself out, leaving behind only a cold, focused determination. You were going to continue tutoring young Jiho. You would pour every ounce of your passion for knowledge into his eager mind, arming him with languages, history, and natural philosophy until he was strong enough to flee this tomb of an estate and make a life for himself out in the wide, breathing world. And the very moment his education was complete, you would pack your trunks and take your leave without a single backward glance.
This house was meant to stay dead, just as its master had said, and you were no longer going to waste your light on it.
The weather remained relentless, the air outside carrying that familiar, oppressive taste of iron and ancient wet stone. One bleak afternoon, while Jiho was quietly copying a passage of French prose at his desk, you walked over to the high, arched window of the schoolroom to stare out at the desolate grounds.
You expected the usual gothic, decay-colored sceneryâthe choked, tangled labyrinth of black brier roses, the heavy, weeping willows bowing their branches into the dark mud, and the sickening patches of pale green clay oozing up through the soil. Even the snow that occasionally fell on the Min estate was never pure, it was always instantly stained by the rusted earth, turning a dull, ugly gray the moment it touched the ground.
But as your eyes swept across the frozen courtyard, you froze, your breath fogging the glass.
There, right in the center of the dead garden, near the ruined stone sundial where Yoongi had once violently rejected your optimism, the bleeding scenery was painted with an entirely new color.
It was a blotch of stark, brilliant white.
You blinked, leaning closer to the pane, your heart giving a strange, sudden thump against the rigid constraints of your whalebone stays. It wasn't snow. You knew what the snow looked like hereâit was foul, slushy, and marred by the rot of the land. This blotch was different. It was an unblemished, luminous white that seemed to practically glow against the suffocating grays and stained reds of the courtyard, completely defying the dead, icy landscape around it.
Your brow furrowed in deep, reluctant curiosity. Nothing grew in this soil. Nothing beautiful survived the iron-laced frost of this house. Yet there it sat, a solitary, pristine anomaly blooming directly out of the ruin.
"Jiho, please continue with your translations," you said, your voice barely above a whisper as you struggled to keep your tone even. "I shall return momentarily."
The boy didn't even look up from his ledger, merely nodding as his pen scratched rhythmically against the paper.
You practically flew. Turning on your heel, the heavy wool layers of your petticoats rustled violently against the stone walls as you hurried down the grand staircase. The tight whalebone stays of your bodice creaked with every frantic breath you took, your heart hammering a wild, chaotic rhythm against your ribs. You threw open the heavy oak side door, stepping directly out into the biting, metallic chill of the winter air.
Your heavy boots crunched into the frozen, bleeding mud as you rushed toward the center of the courtyard. The wind whipped at your hair, catching the high velvet collar of your gown, but your eyes remained locked on the ruined stone sundial.
You stopped dead in your tracks, the breath catching completely in your throat.
Your eyes had to be deceiving you. It was impossible. It defied every law of nature, every cruel rule that Min Yoongiâs suffocating household lived by.
There, bursting directly through the pale, rusted clay and wrapping itself tightly around the decaying stone of the sundial, was a cluster of flowers. They were white roses.
But they were not just white, they were a stark, pristine, and blindingly luminous ivory. The petals were thick, velvety, and completely unblemished, utterly refusing to be stained by the dark fluid of the black briers or the gray, ugly slush of the estate. They bloomed with a fierce, silent passion, their clean, sweet scent slicing right through the pervasive smell of rot and wet iron that had plagued you for months.
You stepped closer, your gloved hand trembling as you reached out toward the glowing petals. In a garden where everything was meant to decay, where the master himself had declared that some things were meant to stay dead, a vibrant, beautiful miracle had just forced its way into the light.
A sharp, sudden warmth swelled in your chest, so intense that a hot sting pricked the backs of your eyes. You stared at the luminous petals, your breath trembling against the biting air, and you almost cried.
In this tomb of a house, surrounded by a winter that refused to end and a master who preferred the company of corpses, it felt as though something beautiful and divine was finally smiling down on you. It felt like a sign that your relentless spirit hadn't been entirely in vainâthat the light could still fight its way through the rot.
You reached out, your fingertips hovering just millimeters away from the velvety ivory bloom, entirely transfixed.
Crunch.
The sharp, heavy snap of a boot against the frozen green clay shattered the silence behind you.
Your breath hitched, your posture instantly freezing against the tight constraints of your whalebone stays. You didn't even need to turn around to know who it was. The rhythmic, terrifyingly deliberate precision of that stride was unmistakable. It cut through the garden's quiet like a sudden frost.
He had approached without his usual warning creak of a door, his shadow stretching long and dark across the bleeding mud until it touched the edge of the pristine white petals.
"Do you like them?"
Yoongiâs voice broke through the metallic chill. It wasn't the flat, brutally blunt roar he had used to cast you out of his study, nor was it the monosyllabic ice from your encounter by the piano. It was a low, rough rasp, carrying a strange, fracturing vulnerability that seemed to hang precariously in the freezing air between you.
"Do you like roses, Miss?"
You slowly turned around, the stiff velvet of your high collar brushing against your jaw as you faced him. Yoongi stood a few paces away, his hands clasped rigidly behind his back.
"Yes," you breathed, your voice a gentle, tentative warmth in the freezing air. You looked back down at the luminous ivory petals, your love for flowers completely overtaking your recent anger. "I adore them. I am simply... in absolute awe that they managed to grow in such treacherous weather. In this soil."
If Yoongi found your sweet, naive wonder amusing, he didn't show it. For a mere millisecond, there was a faint, nearly imperceptible shift in the rigid lines of his faceâa brief softening around his eyes that vanished before you could fully grasp itâand then his aristocratic mask was firmly back in place.
He took one slow, deliberate step forward, his heavy leather boot striking the frozen clay.
"They don't grow here," he said, his voice dropping into a rough, low rasp that carried none of his usual dismissive venom. "And they have never grown here. The iron in this clay kills everything before it can sprout."
You blinked, your brow furrowing as you looked from the stark white blooms back to his pale face. "Oh? But then... how are they here?"
Yoongi didn't look at the flowers. His gaze remained entirely fixed on you, a terrifyingly deep, raw vulnerability breaking through the leaden armor he had worn for months. His fingers flexed invisibly inside his coat, his chest rising and falling in a sharp, shallow rhythm.
"I went into the city," he murmured, the bluntness of his tone replaced by a quiet, staggering honesty. "I rode through the freezing rain last night and bought a couple from the winter glasshouses. I brought them back and planted them in the mud before dawn...so you could see them."
The man who had treated your kindness as an inconvenience, the man who had brutally poured your tea into the embers and told you that some things were meant to stay deadâhad ridden for hours in the dark, freezing cold. He had dug his bare hands into the sickening, rusted clay of his own ruined garden, all to place a solitary blotch of pure, unblemished warmth where he knew your eyes would find it.
A sharp, sudden spark of indignation flared in your chest. You were almost entirely furious with him. The sheer audacity of this manâto systematically dismantle every gentle gesture you had offered, to make you feel like an unwanted blight upon his holy misery, only to ride out into the freezing night and plant a miracle in the mud just to manipulate your smile.
It was maddening. It was hypocritical.
But as you looked at his pale, unyielding face and the raw, fracturing vulnerability hidden beneath his dark brow, the anger dissolved into a breathless, quiet awe.
You let it go.
You drew a sharp, freezing breath into your lungs and simply accepted the silent, staggering peace offering blooming at your feet.
Over the next few days, the suffocating atmosphere of the manor underwent a bizarre, silent shift. Min Yoongi did not suddenly become a man of bright, cheerful proseâhis nature remained a heavy, unbending thingâbut he began doing things entirely out of his way so that you would find anything resembling warmth directly in your path.
He no longer waited in the shadows, he left tokens of his silent undoing everywhere you stepped.
When you walked into the drafty room for Jihoâs morning lessons, you didn't find the lukewarm, bitter dregs of the house staff. Instead, steaming gently on the side table was a porcelain pot of rich black tea, heavily fragrant and distinctly laced with dried orange peels.
Upon returning to your private quarters in the evenings, the suffocating chill of the room was broken by the sight of your desk. Resting there were pristine, heavy leather-bound volumes of romantic poetry and foreign historyâtheir covers unblemished, yet carrying the distinct, faint scent of the libraryâs deep cedar vaults.
He was letting you touch his world without his coldness staining yours. He was answering your past kindnesses with a quiet, desperate reverence.
But it was the final token that caused you to completely crack.
On a particularly bitter Tuesday, you entered your bedchamber to find a large, shallow box resting upon the velvet settee. Inside, wrapped in crisp tissue paper, lay a magnificent winter gown. It was carved from the heaviest, most luxurious silk velvet, dyed an incredibly deep, passionate burgundyâa color so vibrant it felt like a deliberate fire meant to consume the gray, leaden shadows of your room.
The sheer weight of his silent, overwhelming pursuit crashed over you, and your patience snapped.
You didn't want his silent offerings. You didn't want a man who hid behind expensive silks and orange peels because he deemed himself too ruined to speak to you. Gathering the heavy skirts of your current dress, your whalebone stays creaking violently with every furious, shallow breath, you marched out of your chamber.
You angrily looked for him through the entire manor. You checked the library, your boots clicking like gunfire against the stone floorboards. You threw open the door to his private study, finding nothing but cold ledgers and a dying hearth. Your frustration mounted, a torrent of hot, indignant passion building in your chest until you felt entirely suffocated by the heavy oak walls.
Driven by a sudden instinct, you tore through the side corridors and flung open the heavy oak door leading to the courtyard.
The winter air bit at your flushed cheeks as you stepped into the gray twilight. There, standing right in the center of the dead garden, was the broad, rigid silhouette of Master Min.
He was dressed in his long, dark frock coat, his hands clasped tightly behind his back as usual. He wasn't moving. He stood completely paralyzed, his dark eyes wide and fixed entirely downward, gazing intently at the stark white roses he had bought for you.
In the dim, metallic light, he looked so profoundly alone, so utterly crushed by the weight of his own internal doom, that the angry reprimand almost died on your lips before you could even cross the bleeding green mud.
The crunch of your boots against the frozen clay finally broke his trance. Yoongi didn't turn around immediately, but his shoulders went rigid beneath his dark coat, his knuckles turning white where his hands remained clasped behind his back.
You stopped just a few paces from him, your breathing shallow and ragged, the wind whipping the dark fabric of your skirts against his trousers. The anger that had propelled you through the drafty corridors of the manor was a hot, living fire in your chest, completely fracturing the suffocating quiet of the dead garden.
"You called me insolent," you spat out, the words cutting through the metallic chill like a blade.
Yoongi slowly turned his head, his sharp profile carved from stone. His dark eyes met yours, wide with that familiar, terrifying vulnerability, but his voice remained a low, flat rasp. "I did."
"You ruined everything I have tried to offer you," you continued, stepping closer, refusing to let him hide behind his aristocratic mask. Your whalebone stays creaked violently with the force of your indignation. "You cast away my biscuits, you let my soup turn to ice, and you poured my tea directly into the dying embers of your hearth."
"I did," he murmured, his chest rising and falling in a sharp, shallow rhythm. He didn't deny it. He didn't even offer an excuse.
"And yet," you gestured wildly toward the center of the courtyard, your voice trembling with a mixture of sweetness and raw fury, "you rode through a freezing storm to plant white roses in the mud. I find tea with orange peels in the schoolroom. I find expensive, leather-bound books in my chambers. And today, a burgundy silk dress rests upon my settee." You took a harsh, shuddering breath, your eyes locking onto his. "You bought them. You brought them to me."
"I did," Yoongi said again, the monosyllabic response dropping between you like a leaden weight.
"Why?" you demanded, the word a desperate, passionate cry against his maddening contradictions. "Why treat me like a blight upon your house, only to secretly pave my path with everything that resembles warmth? What game is this, Master Min?"
"It is no game," he rasped, his voice suddenly fracturing, losing its cold, rigid control. He finally unclasped his hands, his fingers flexing violently at his sides as if he wanted to reach out and grasp the empty air toward you, but the invisible weight of his wings held him back.
"Then explain it to me!" you cried. "Because I am entirely suffocated by your silence!"
"Because I am a ruined man!" Yoongi suddenly roared, the sheer volume of his voice shattering the stagnant quiet of the estate, making the weeping willows above you seem to tremble.
He took a wild, predatory step toward you, his chest heaving, his face pale and distorted by an agonizing, internal torment. The armor had completely shattered, exposing the raw, bleeding pulp of his soul.
"You want an explanation?" he breathed, his voice dropping into a fierce, desperate whisper that cut deeper than any shout. "Look at you. You are a gentle, radiant rain in a house that has known nothing but drought and decay. From the very first hour you arrived, with your chatty attitude and your sweet demeanor, you became a fire in my mind. And it is poisoning me. It is tormenting me from the inside out."
He pressed a pale hand flat against his chest, right over his heart, his fingers clutching the dark wool of his coat as if he were trying to tear the agony out of his own flesh.
"Every time you smiled at my brother, every time you brought your warmth into my frozen study, my mind became a battleground of rot," he confessed, his eyes wide and wild with a fractured affection. "I have spent weeks standing over the corpse of my own spirit, entirely paralyzed by the knowledge of what I am. I am a monster anchored to this bleeding clay, and you... you are everything pure left in this world."
A bitter, self-deprecating laugh escaped his lips, sounding like a sob.
"I called you insolent because I was starving for you, and I knew that if I let myself taste your kindness, I would never let you go. I ruined your gifts because I truly believed that the mold on my walls would find its way onto your skinâthat my wretched, ruined nature would tarnish your beautiful, passionate spirit. I wanted to keep you angry. I wanted you to despise me, because if you hated me, you would stay safe in the warmth. You would leave this tomb before it swallowed you whole."
Yoongi stepped closer still, until the scent of his coatâwet wool, cedar, and old inkâswallowed the sweet aroma of the white roses. His right hand trembled in the air between you, his knuckles hovering just inches from your flushed cheek, utterly terrified to make contact.
"But I am a weak man," he whispered, his gaze dropping to your lips before rising back to your eyes with a devastating, absolute surrender. "I rode into the city because I couldn't bear the thought of your light completely dying in this dark. I bought the books, the tea, the dress... because I am mad with longing for you. I wanted to give you a world that wasn't ruined, even if I have to destroy myself from the inside out to build it for you."
The agonizing distance between his trembling hand and your flushed skin was a vacuum of absolute, suffocating tension. Yoongi stood suspended in his own ruin, his pale fingers hovering in the freezing air, terrified that the mere touch of his skin would leave a permanent, blackened stain upon your light.
You didn't wait for him to pull away. You didn't let him retreat into the safety of his tragic, self-imposed isolation.
With a sharp, decisive movement that fractured the final boundary between you, you tilted your head forward and pushed your cheek directly into the palm of his hand.
Contact.
A collective, shuddering gasp left Yoongiâs lips, the sound tearing from his throat like a physical wound. The moment your warm, soft skin pressed against his cold, ink-stained palm, a violent tremor rippled through his entire, rigid frame. His eyes widened in absolute, staggering shock, the pupils dilating until they practically swallowed the brown of his irises.
For a split second, he looked like a dying man who had just been violently forced to breathe again, his chest rising and falling in deep, frantic, and ragged lungfuls of air.
He didn't pull away. The instinct to flee from his own tarnish was entirely obliterated by the overwhelming, electrical reality of your warmth.
Slowly, hesitatingly, his long, pale fingers began to curl against your jawline. His thumb, rough from coarse parchment and the cold of the piano keys, brushed against your cheekbone with a reverence so profound it felt like a prayer.
He cradled your face as if you were a fragile, miraculous thing made of spun glassâa man who had spent a lifetime destroying everything he touched, suddenly granted custody of a saint.
"You are madness," he whispered, his rough voice cracking completely as he leaned down, his forehead coming to rest against yours. The scent of himâbitter cloves, wet wool, and the distinct, metallic scent of the freezing rainâenveloped you entirely, shutting out the rest of the bleak, bleeding courtyard. "You are an absolute, terrifying madness, and I am entirely undone by you."
"Then let yourself be undone," you breathed against his lips, your voice a torrent of sweet, passionate rain that washed away the heavy, suffocating prose of his mind.
You reached up, your gloved hands digging firmly into the thick, dark wool of his lapels, pulling his hunched shoulders down toward you. The stiff whalebone stays of your bodice creaked loudly against his chest, the violent contrast of your warm-hued passion crushing directly into his dark, leaden armor.
Yoongi let out a low, desperate groan, his left hand flying to the small of your back, his long fingers gripping the heavy velvet of your skirts to pull you so close there was no longer any air left between you. He was no longer a knight standing guard over a corpse, he was a starving man surrendering entirely to the feast.
When his lips finally crashed down onto yours, it was not a gentle thing. It was a desperate, chaotic storm of months of repressed longing, bitter isolation, and silent, agonizing affection. The kiss was thick with the taste of winter and old secrets, a beautiful, devastating collision of your radiant warmth and his frozen ruin.
He kissed you as if he were trying to pour the entirety of his tortured, bleeding soul into your mouth, molding his lips against yours with a frantic, unyielding hunger that proved, once and for all, that Min Yoongi was finally, beautifully alive.
"Namjoon lingers. Because of course he does. You can practically feel his every exhale on your nose.
His voice is so gentle you almost miss it, 'Do you feel better?' "
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đž wc: 3.1k
đž content warning: you guys know very well by now that the reader has anxiety. so yeah. she almost pukes in this chapter tho just as an additional warning.
đž a/n: Hi friends! It has been awhile!!
Breif life update since my last chapter: I finished my spring semester at uni with a 4.0 GPA (got all high marks), I started and completed my summer semester (got highest grade for all 3 of those courses as well), and I traveled through Japan and am now spending the summer in South Korea (I would be more than happy to elaborate to anyone who wants to hear about my trip). [So yes, at the same time I was traveling the world, I was taking summer courses ugh]
Okay so more importantly, what you're here for: the book!! Not only has my life been really crazy (in a good way I promise), but this chapter was super hard for me to write. So this is like... from over the course of a few months.
I have proofread this for grammar and spelling. However, due to the fact that I wrote this chapter over the course of almost 2 months... there could still be errors. I am once again begging for a beta reader!!
Recently, it has been brough to my attention form mutuals of mine that there is a literacy cricis going on... and it's not my fault I'm dumb!! I only teach preschool we barely learn the letters!! Additionally, apparently some readers can't finish fics when there are plotholes or questions left unanswered... and I have the brand of brain-broken where I forget EVERYTHING so... my bad. But yeah. I've been getting in over my head overthinking this.
But hey that loops me back to my original mentality of 'this book is for me and me only' which is partially true because it is on my bingo board this year to finish and post one of my books (hashtag not happening).
Plus... if I leave in my dumb writing quirks... then at least you're certain it's not AI bc it is such bad writing!!
Okay anyways chapter content. Uhhh you might be thinking 'Tasha, the reader gets scared at everything and anything' yes actually! Thats how I am irl. Anxiety does not look the same person to person, I am aware of this. However, as for right now in my writing stage, I can only write what I know. And this is what I know.
Also it is NOT my fault that Yoongi ended up being a cryer. Two members of kikination got it in my head (you two know who you are...) and so it just kinda happened.
Okay wow I yapped a lot. Nobody reads author's notes anyways. Thats just a me thing bc I am nosey and love reading what the author has to say. Now go, enjoy the chapter!!
upon editing this i realized that when i type on obsidian (the software) on my ipad versus my computer there must be a difference in the quotation marks. ââ vs "" im legit so frustrated oh my goodness.
A few dreary days have gone by since the night at the graveyard. Since then, there has been little to no paranormal activity for you and Namjoon to document. You're starting to get fed up from the lack of excitement.
At the end of each long night out in the woods, you're too exhausted to even think, let alone stay up and chat with Yoongi. So you haven't even seen him since the weekend either.
To top it all off, it's raining today. The tap, tap, tap of the rain combined with your morning tea is a very peaceful scene. Except wet outside means you're stuck inside all day.
Namjoon is up in his loft bedroom working on who knows what. Every once and awhile you hear his laptop keyboard click for a bit then fade away again. You assume he's trying to get work done for one of his online courses.
This is stupid and you do not want to be stuck cooped up inside all day long. You take one last big sip of your tea and put the mug in the sink. Then you grab the bag hanging by the door and sling it over your shoulders.
"Joon, I'm bored so I'm running to town real quick!" You shout up to him as you put your shoes on.
"Have fun!" He shouts back, clearly too busy to come with.
The quick walk from the cabin to the car is too wet for your liking. Its been a running joke in your family that you are a witch who melts in the rain. You take quick, long strides to limit the time spent outside.
Once you hop in the car, you start the engine and drive down to the town. Its a bit of a struggle to parallel park in front of the coffee shop. You vow silently to yourself to never admit that to Namjoon.
Upon entering the building, the smell of fresh ground coffee and homemade pastries hits hard. It sends you into a temporary stun of bliss before you recollect yourself. The strict agenda has a mission that needs completed, and a sweet treat won't stand in your way.
You walk up to the counter. A boy with a questionable mustache is working the register.
He perks up and greets you with a trained customer service voice, "Hi, what can I get for you today?"
"Um..." you hesitate but push through the social anxiety, "Is Eva here?"
The boy tilts his head in confusion, but turns around to go find Eva for you. Soon, Eva walks towards you with such a pep in her step that she practically skips. You can't help but let an amused breath.
"Howdy, how can I help you?" Eva beams, grabbing two muffins and setting them on plates as she walks past the counter. Okay, maybe a sweet treat wouldn't hurt.
"Up for some ghost talk?" You offer with a friendly smile.
Somehow, Eva's grin spreads wider, "Always!"
She leads the two of you to a cute corner of the coffee shop where two sofa chairs wait for you. The two of you sit down, and you sink further into the chair than you were expecting.
Eva sets the muffins on table before turning her head up to you, "So what kind of ghost talk are you thinking?"
For a moment you contemplate what you want to reveal to Eva. Telling her everything about Yoongi would make you sound crazy, but you want to hear everything Eva knows about ghosts.
So that's exactly what you settle on, "Tell me everything you know."
Eva smirks, and so begins an afternoon full of ghost talk.
When Eva does paranormal research, she doesn't use any tools. She tells you about her long nights spent alone with the ghosts, not even a flashlight in hand. Her ideology is that if the ghosts want to communicate, they'll find a way.
You listen as Eva tells you stories about her trips into the woods. How she's heard the ghosts talk to her in hushed voices in the night, whispering secrets she still won't tell. Eva has heard their voices countless times and often will catch a glimpse of a shadow out of the corner of her eye. She doesnât mention ever having a full encounter with a ghost. Nothing long enough to have a conversation or even make out features.
Nothing like you have with Yoongi.
Based on her own research, Eva has a theory on how 'ghost laws' work. Her philosophy is that ghosts aren't quite stuck where they die. Rather that they choose to hang around where they died or spent a lot of their lives.
"Eva, how long have you lived in this town?" You ask.
She snickers, "My whole life, why?"
You pause. You want to ask Eva about the cabin you're staying in. About the old man, about Yoongi. For some reason it feels wrong to ask about it.
An unusual bolt of confidence shoots through you. So you ask the question before your anxiety knows your mouth is talking, "Do you know the old cabin up on Chestnut Hill?"
"Yup," Eva starts, "The one that that crazy dude lived in? On the same property as his weirdo daughterâs house?"
"What?"
She snickers, "Oh yeah. That guy was the dictionary definition of 'man goes absolutely insane after being in war.'"
Your eyes widen, "He served in the military?"
"Yup," Eva says again, "Had real bad PTSD and shit. Some kid around our age died via a gunshot on the property and the daughter had the audacity to say it couldnât have been her dad."
As the words fall out of Evaâs mouth, your stomach drops so hard you feel nauseous. You feel your face become numb as you connect the dots in your head.
Yoongi was murdered by the old man who lived in the cabin.
Eva continues, completely unaware of your internal dread, "Like bro, you let your father with military PTSD own guns and live in a house by himself? What did you think was going to happen?"
The half-eaten muffin on the table stares up at you and you feel the eaten half come up from your stomach. You attempt to keep it down. Evaâs voice becomes background noise in your head.
Yoongi was murdered. He didnât tell you that. You would think that someone that was murdered would be a little more upset about it. At least enough to mention it.
"âŠand the crazy daughter lady didnât even report the body when it happened!" Eva yaps aimlessly behind your racing mind, "âŠand so obviously when his family realized he was missing they sent out a search partyâŠ"
The tragedy of the whole situation comes crashing down all at once. There was more to this story than just Yoongi being alone and without human contact for decades. Yoongi has been stuck for all this time in the house of the man who ended his life.
"âŠsomehow the crazy old man and delusional daughter won the court case." Evaâs scoffs, "The old guy got to keep living there until he couldnât walk by himself. Was about time."
The air in the building becomes suffocating, "Eva, thank you for your time, but I have to go."
"Of course! Come back any time!" Her voice is way too chipper considering she literally just talked about murder.
You walk as quick as your feet will take you. Nothing is on your mind other than getting out of this stuffy coffee shop.
You slowly navigate the car up the gravel driveway. It's been about a half hour since the rain stopped. Despite that, the ground is still squishy and the air is still muggy. There are clouds blocking most of the sunlight, which is a disappointment because that means no rainbow.
The door slams behind you as you walk back into the cabin. Itâs been a few hours since you left, so you assume Namjoon has moved on from the schoolwork he was doing when you left.
"Joon?" You shout to nowhere in particular, but definitely loud enough for the whole cabin to hear.
Youâre surprised when there is no response. He couldnât have gone far, you took the only car between the two of you.
In quick strides you walk over to the bathroom door and give it a slight push. The door swings open, lights off and no Namjoon in sight. You turn to the side and open your bedroom door only to meet nothing again. No Namjoon.
You begin to get frustrated. Where could he have gone?
After opening the front door and taking a few steps onto the porch, you shout out, "Namjoon?"
Still nothing. You sprint down the couple of stairs leading you back to the ground. The cabin is in a pretty secluded area, and all around you is forest. If Namjoon wandered off to explore, who knows where he could be.
So you begin to walk towards the woods. It takes only one squishy step in the mud for you to come to a stop. You slowly lift your foot up to assess the damage. You wince at the amount of mud now caked onto your shoe.
A sigh that is more on the side of a groan pushes its way through your lips. Before you can spin around to go back to the house and grab some rainboots, you run into something solid.
All at once, you scream, squeeze your eyes shut, and jump in a panic. Your startle is so intense that you stumble back and lose balance. You brace for your butt to make impact with the ground, but strong arms around your waist prevent that from happening.
"Calico?" Namjoon's gentle voice instantly washes away all your worries. You open your eyes back up and lock in with his.
You make an attempt to speak but it comes out almost too soft, "Namjoon?"
He tilts his head at you, a mix of concern and confusion painted across his face, "What are you doing yelling my name out here?"
"Looking for you, Namjoon," you answer, "you weren't in the house when I got home."
Namjoon's face scrunches into pure confusion, "Y/N, I haven't left the house all day."
"What?" The word falls out of your mouth before your brain can catch up, "but I just went in there and you weren't there."
Namjoon opens his mouth as if to speak, then closes it and looks away from you. His eyebrows furrow even further. You can tell he is trying to process what you insist happened.
For a second, neither of you say anything. You look down at your feet and reach a hand up to rub your temple as you think over it. It is possible that you're so tired and stressed that you imagined the whole thing.
You bring your eyes back up to look at him again. He's already looking at you.
The look on your face must concern him because his hands, which have remained on your waist this entire time, pull you flush against him. Namjoon wraps his arms around your shoulders and his thumb gently rubs against your skin.
"It's okay, don't worry about it," he whispers, "let's just go inside and rest."
And so the two of you do exactly that.
As soon as you get into the house and take off your shoes and take off your shoes, Namjoon guides you into the couch and wraps you in a warm blanket. He walks over to the kitchen counter and grabs a mug from the cupboard. You hear the sound of him ripping open a hot chocolate packet and dump it into the mug.
The fridge opens and Namjoon pulls out the milk. He pours some into a separate mug to put into the microwave. He knows better than to make you hot chocolate with water.
Namjoon makes his way back over to you. He crouches down to take off the damp socks that cling to your feet.
"God, girl. Your feet smell." He muses.
You scoff, "Itâs because I stepped in mud, asshole."
He smirks. Once heâs done, he lifts his face up to look at you. The difference between your heights puts your faces at level with each other in this position. At level, and in very close proximity.
For a quick moment, Namjoonâs eyes flick down. Itâs almost too quick to notice, but you catch it. Catching it causes heat to rush to your cheeks.
Namjoon lingers. Because of course he does. You can practically feel his every exhale on your nose.
His voice is so gentle you almost miss it, "Do you feel better?"
You are so nervous to move, so the nod of your head is basically microscopic. The closeness of your faces has temporarily stunned you. The thumping in your chest is so loud that you are certain Namjoon can hear it.
He almost leans in closer. Almost. Except itâs that exact moment that the microwave is done and beeping.
You startle. Of course you do. Namjoon smiles fondly at you, then stands up to go fix your hot chocolate, leaving you on the couch to process what just happened. It takes a second for your breathing to return to a normal rate.
After Namjoon makes your hot chocolate and plops some real marshmallows in on top, he brings it over and sets it on the table beside you. He then grabs a blanket of his own and sits next to you on the couch. Far enough away to be safe. Close enough that your knees brush against each other.
Namjoon puts something on TV. Whatever anime heâs been watching. It doesnât matter, you canât focus. The only thing on your mind is a replay loop of whatever just happened.
Waking up before your alarm always sends dread through your mind. A full night of sleep is literally all youâre asking for. Hopes for it to be closer to sunrise are denied when you check the time and it starts with a 2. You sigh.
It then occurs to you that youâve somehow made it to your bed when the last thing you remember is dozing off on the couch. You conclude that Namjoon must have carried you to bed.
"Yeah and he tucked you in and kissed your forehead too. Fucking gross."
You let out a shriek before turning in the direction of Yoongiâs voice, "I thought we talked about knocking!"
"Oh Iâm sorry," he begins, his tone sarcastic, "maybe I wouldâve remembered if you had decided to chat the last few days."
You sit up and try to explain yourself, "Iâm sorry, Yoongi, Iâ"
"No, no." He doesnât let you finish, "Instead you exhaust yourself on useless investigations despite the fact that you know better now."
A whine of pure helplessness sounds out of you, "Yoongi, please."
"Please what? Use your words, Blossom."
The nickname combined with his tone does something for you. Something youâd rather not name. It makes your brain temporarily unable to form thoughts, so you opt to let out a small squeak in response instead.
Yoongi takes two quick strides to close the gap between you. He reaches towards you and places his index and middle finger under your chin before lifting your face up to look at him.
"Iâm sorry," he says in a tempting tone, "I couldnât hear you there."
You feel your heart rate quicken and your body becomes weak. You watch helplessly as Yoongiâs eyes scan over you. It feels as if youâre a baby bunny at the mercy of a wolfâs deadly claws. A feeling that you havenât yet decided if you like or not.
Yoongi lets go of your chin and your face drops. You whine at the sudden lack of contact. He scoffs and turns his body away from you with his arms folded.
"I thought the original agreement was that we pretend each other are not here." You look back up at him and pose the argument.
"Yeah well," he mumbles, still refusing to look directly at you, "I kind of enjoyed having someone to talk to."
A sharp pang of guilt stabs through your chest. After all, you are the first person heâs properly talked to in decades. Also the first person heâs talked to that wasnât related in his murder.
"Oh Yoongi," you quickly stand up and step towards him, "I'm sorry, I really am. I'll try to make time for you at night from now on."
"No." He says flatly, "I'm sorry. I overreacted. You don't have to talk to me."
"Yoongi, don't say that. I love chatting with you." You make an attempt to tilt your head to look him in the eyes. Almost certainly, you catch a glimpse of a shine from tears in his eyes. Though he turns his head further before you can properly look at him and know for sure.
When he doesn't say anything, you push further, "Yoongi."
He turns his head to fully face you, and now you can clearly see the sad glimmer in his eyes. Now you know that ghosts can cry. Somewhere deep in your chest, you feel your heart break a little for the poor ghost.
You extend an open hand towards him, "Will you come lay with me until I fall asleep, please?"
Yoongi blinks, causing a tear to fall down his cheek. He nods slowly and gently places his hand in yours.
He follows your lead and the two of you lay into bed. Yoongi gently lies his head on your chest and you instinctively bring your hand to card through his hair. As soon as you determine that he's comfy, you decide to ask the question.
"Yoongi, how did you die?"
Silence. Long silence. The gentle inhale and exhale from the both of you is the only sound that fills the room for a few painstaking minutes.
He breaks it, "I don't want to talk about it."
You decide not to push. It's probably a touchy subject for ghosts. Probably.
A sudden realization pops into your brain, "Yoongi?"
Yoongi doesn't answer, but you decide to continue talking anyways.
"How am I touching your hair right now?" Every time you think you understand the ghost physics something throws a wrench in your theory. As per what Yoongi told you already, the rule was that he could only initiate contact with you. Except in order to be running your hands through his hair right now, wouldn't you have to be initiating contact?
"I'm focusing."
Focusing? What could that even mean?
Before you could spend too much time overthinking it, Yoongi begins to snore. You decide that's probably not a bad idea and begin to drift off yourself.
One quiet anxious though ripples through your head as you fall asleep.
He knows you know.
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hereâs what iâve been up to :3 might be awhile until i can get an update out, since iâm currently on my way to busan to see bts !! i promise i havenât forgotten about my fics tho <3
So the cabin that Namjoon and the reader are staying in is a real cabin! It is a cabin I stayed at in summer of 2022 with my family. I do not recall the real location of this particular cabin, as my family goes camping a lot to a lot of different destinations.
I have that thing in my brain where I can't actually visualize new concepts in my head. Most of the time when I write or read books, houses end up taking the shape of people's houses I've been in before (often it ends up being my old house). So for this cabin, my brain just picked one of the dozens of cabins I've actually been in before.
I knew I had this video somewhere, I just had to do some digging.
It is important to note the loft bedroom upstairs. There is no wall or door. Namjoon takes the upstairs bedroom, while the reader takes the downstairs master bedroom.
In addition to what is shown in this video, there is a wrap around porch (that had a nice hammock may I add). Also, this cabin has an unfinished and super creepy basement. There is also only one bathroom in the whole cabin.
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"I don't know," you admit, "Maybe I'll be a barista."
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đž wc: 2.9k
đž content warning: Depictions of mental heath struggles including depression and anxiety (panic attack).
Also mentions of life and death. They are in a graveyard. This is a story about ghosts. What do you want from me??
đž a/n: Alright lets get past the elephant in the room. Yes. This is a repost. Yes. I rewrote the end of the chapter. When I originally posted this chapter, I was debating how to end it. I was in a haste to post the chapter, so I just quickly picked how it ended without giving it enough thought.
Then the following days I regretted my decision. I thought about the next parts after my original chapter ending and I realized we aren't there yet. We aren't ready for big cryptid action and the aftermath yet.
Lets be real: there's only like 12 readers on each chapter of this book. So nobody is really going to care this early in that I posted something, regretted it, and then changed it. If they do they can cry about it.
Bottom line is, if I'm not satisfied with the book, I'm not gonna write it. So just this once, I deleted it and fixed it. It won't happen again.
It's been 3 weeks since I posted this chapter the first time (March 30th), so I have given this enough thought. I am satisfied with the ending of this chapter now.
Moving forward, I will not be holding myself to the original 2 week deadline for chapters. Obviously I will make an effort to move forward with this book every chance I get, but I am not going to rush myself. This book is for me and I want to be happy with it.
Well then, lets just get on with it and enjoy this chapter! I sure as hell enjoy it now :)
P.S. If you catch the super niche reference I made in this chapter you get to marry me.
November, Senior Year
"Calico."
You hate that nickname. Have hated it since he started calling you Calico freshman year. At the time, he was making fun of you for being childish and collecting those Calico Critters figures. Those cute animals you once treasured are now collecting dust in a box in your closet.
It should be painfully obvious to anyone around that you're not a calico cat, but instead a black cat. So full of negative energy that people avoid you as to not catch your bad vibes.
You don't raise your head from where it's buried in your arms, and you don't bother answering him.
He repeats himself, more stern this time, "Calico."
Your head snaps up so your eyes can meet his, "What do you want?"
Namjoon furrows his brows, "I want you to listen to me."
"No." You grumble as you lay your head back into your arms. The thick black hoodie helps block out any light.
He pokes your arm. You swat it away and curse him out.
"What is wrong with you?" You shout, your voice laced with hostility.
"I care about you, I'm sorry." he says, frustrated, eyes glossed over with the threat of tears.
"Well then stop caring," you spit out, "save us both the energy."
You shoot up in bed in a cold sweat. Immediately, you reach for your phone and tap the screen to check the time. It reads:
Sunday, September 21st 3:57am
Before you can think or move, Yoongi's hand lands gently on your shoulder.
"Are you alright?" he asks, voice deep with a mixture of sleep and concern.
You turn to him with tears in your eyes. Yoongi immediately understands the severity of the situation and sits up himself. He hastily pulls you towards him so you are pressed against his chest, legs straddling him.
Somehow your face is pressed against him as he rubs your back in steady, gentile strokes. If your brain wasn't actively trying to process that night terror you just had, you would be wondering how it's possible to rest your head against him.
Instead, your breath begins to get uneven. Why do those horrible memories plague your brain? And how could you have been such a shitty friend to Namjoon?
The nightmare felt too real. Like you were re-living the whole thing again. Making the same stupid mistakes, saying the same horrible things.
Almost as if he could hear your thoughts, Yoongi whispers to you, "Shhh. You didn't mean it. He knows you didn't mean it."
Yoongi puts his chin on top of your head, carding his hands through your hair. With his other hand he gently rubs circles onto your back while he shushes you in an attempt to calm you down.
Your eyes squeeze shut to force the tears out. Embarrassingly, your crying causes you to hiccup as you try to breathe in. Yoongi whispers small things to attempt to comfort you, but the sound of his voice gets distant and the ringing in your ears becomes more prominent.
Those things happened years ago. You apologized to Namjoon over a hundred times since. Yet, something unconscious deep inside you won't let it go.
Out of nowhere, Yoongi pulls you back so forcefully it knocks the ringing out of your head. His hands stay planted firmly on your shoulders, forcing you to look back at him. He just stares at you for a second, studying your face.
"I had an older brother," he starts, "three years older than me. We used to play outside in the street before our mom trusted us to go where she couldn't see us from the house."
Heâs attempting to distract you from your frantic mental state.
"We would play this game where we would toss giant bouncy balls as high as we could over the power lines. Whoever got it over the most wires won." He paused to let out a sarcastic laugh, then continued, "Brilliant idea, really."
Slowly, and almost so subtly that you don't notice, your breathing matches back to a stable pace. Momentarily, the tears stop falling from your eyes, and your heart no longer feels like it's going to thump out of your chest.
Yoongi doesn't falter, "One time my brother hit one of the power lines so hard it made sparks fly through the air. We got so scared we ran straight back into the garage and didn't play that game for like a week."
A small smile finds itself on your face and you chime in, "My little brothers and I used to play that game, too."
Yoongi's eyes find yours again, fondness spreading across his face, "Feeling better?"
Gently, you nod your head to let him know you're okay.
"Do you want to try go back to bed?" He asks gently with a tilt of his head.
You do. So again, you nod to him. Slowly and carefully, Yoongi pulls back the covers and the two of you shift back to laying in the bed.
It isn't long before you fall back asleep to the sound of Yoongi's steady breathing. His arms wrap around you in a tight embrace, and your face lays gently pressed softly against his chest.
Beside you, the sun sets beautifully in the distance. Mother nature paints a perfect picture of reds, oranges, and yellows that drift perfectly into the hazy purple dusk above the sky.
In front of you, you struggle to keep balance on your tippy toes. Your current task at hand is to hang these thermal cameras around the investigation location for the night. Tragically, you are too short to reach where the buckle should tie around this tree branch.
Before you can figure it out, a presence comes up behind you and brushes against your back. You jump out of fear and let out a squeak.
Namjoon's hands reach over you to finish what you were attempting and secure the camera to the tree. You turn around to shoot him a sharp (but harmless) glare for scaring you.
"Should've known better than to ask the short one to hang the cameras." He muses, offering you a sarcastic smile.
You turn and walk away while mumbling, "Stupid, cocky tall people. Always think just 'cuz they're taller than me means they're better than me. Shut up, go to hell."
Namjoon follows close behind you and the two of you walk back to the car where the rest of your equipment is. With the thermal and night vision cameras all set up, all that was left was to set up microphones.
Once you get back to the car, you open the back passenger door and take the lid off the box labeled 'mics'. You take the biggest one out of the box, then hold it out behind you to hand it to Namjoon.
He takes it gently from you, "Are you nervous for our first night of investigation?"
"Joon, I have just about every emotion floating around my brain right now," you admit to him as you take the other two microphones in your hands.
With your hands full, you can't shut the car door. Namjoon steps forward to help, but just as he reaches for the door, you hoist your leg up to slam the door shut with your foot.
"So cars are expensive to fix when broken, you know." Namjoon says flatly, sending you a glare.
You beam back up at him.
The two of you walk in silence to where you'll set up the microphones and connect them to a few chosen cameras. The sunset dips lower now, almost no sun peaking above the horizon.
For a few peaceful minutes, the two of you just work alongside each other. It's nice to be comfortable around someone without the constant need of small talk. You and Namjoon have been so close for so long that you are both content with just existing near each other.
Namjoon breaks the silence, "What are your plans after grad school?"
Plans. After. You hadn't really put any effort into thinking about it. Mostly because sometimes you still don't accept that there is an after now. Some part of your brain is still wired to thinking it'll all end soon.
Except it isn't like that anymore. You do need a plan for your life. Sure, you had found your one true love being the arts, but getting a long-term career in art or music isn't exactly easy. More likely, it would be small gigs for the rest of your life and that won't sustain you.
"Calico?" Namjoon calling by the nickname he reserves for you pulls you out of your thoughts.
"I don't know," you admit, "Maybe I'll be a barista."
Namjoon scoffs. Because of course he does. In his head, you're this amazing musical artistic prodigy that should be world famous with multiple paintings on display in the Louvre. In Namjoon's eyes, you are perfect.
When you look at yourself in the mirror, however, you're far from it. Sure, you might be good at the liberal arts university you attend, but on the large scale you're nothing. Not in a depressing way, in a realistic way.
"You can do much more than that." He whispers. Namjoon's words send a heat straight to your cheeks. So when you glace up at him, you're surprised to find his own cheeks are painted a bit blush as well.
You turn back to working on the microphones and try really hard to ignore the butterflies in your stomach. Now is not a good time to go over your feelings for Namjoon. There is a forest of paranormal to be investigated and a long trip stuck in a cabin with him.
So you make your best attempt to brush aside your feelings and concentrate on what is important right now.
Once the two of you are completely set up, dusk has arrived and the sun was mostly gone. You follow Namjoon back to the car to grab some EMF readers and maybe the spirit box. Definitely your pendulum.
Namjoon sets up the REM pod on top of the hood of his car. Probably the most flat surface out here. The REM pod sits idly and quietly for now.
He sighs, then turns to you, "You ready?"
Despite the fact that you are the furthest thing from ready, you nod your head at him. You can tell that something is up with Namjoon, but you decide not to press. Deep conversations can occur later if the two of you don't get much activity.
You pull out your investigation journal and note the date and time:
Sunday, September 21st 7:23pm
The two of you turn on your EMF readers and begin to walk along the trail in the woods.
For a long while, you two get nothing. The lights on the EMF reader stay on the red side, sometimes hopping up to orange but never any higher. Every once and awhile you hear the bushes shuffle due to a small animal.
You and Namjoon stay quiet. Both of you are too nervous to say anything that could lead to anything else. The comfortable silence from earlier now is laced with something thick.
Every once and awhile you pull out your journal to jot something down. Every time you do, you feel Namjoon's eyes on you.
"What, Namjoon?" You demand, not even looking up from your writing.
"Nothing." He sputters out, and you know you've caught him off guard because the word comes out quick and short.
An unimpressed hum sounds out of you, but you decide to let it go. There are more important tasks at hand, anyways.
You decide to begin your investigation routine. You pull out you pendulum and take a deep breath. Intention channels through you while you wait for your pendulum to tell you which direction to go.
The pendulum is stationary for a small moment. Most people are too impatient to use pendulums, but you prefer to move slowly so it fits your vibe. Slowly, the pendulum begins to sway in a specific direction, signaling where it wants you to walk.
So you follow the pendulum's lead and end up wandering around the woods. Through the trees and down the path with Namjoon trailing close behind you. The quiet crunch of fallen leaves beneath your feet is the only sound either of you make.
The two of you are only wandering along for about ten minutes when you come upon a clearing in the woods. Throughout the clearing are stones, evenly spaced in a grid across the grass. It quickly dawns on you that you've stumbled upon a graveyard.
Your head turns back to look at Namjoon, "Too bad we don't have the REM pod."
"I can run back real quick and get it?" he asks with a smile.
The idea ponders in your head for a second. You aren't entirely happy about the idea of being alone, even for just a few minutes. However, being in a graveyard is the perfect opportunity to use the REM pod.
You think for a second and make your decision. An attempt at a brave breath escapes your lips before you turn and nod to Namjoon. He offers you a reassuring smile for your obvious worries.
After he turns to leave, you decide to walk up and down the headstones to keep anxious thoughts at bay.
Forgettable names and dates pass you by and you can't help but daydream about the lives of each person's grave. You wonder about their jobs and daily lives, their families and friends, their interests and their quirks. Did they live their lives to the fullest? Did they die with no regrets? Usually it is assumed that dead people were old when they died, but that's not always the case.
You're careful to not step anywhere you shouldn't, pausing at each stone to read the engravings. You read each unfamiliar grave until one particular name catches your eye.
Min Yoongi
March 9th, 1966 - June 12th, 1992
Beloved Son and Brother
He was only 26. And he's been dead for over 30 years. You pause and begin to wonder what could've caused Yoongi's death.
The old man who lived in the cabin that you and Namjoon are currently staying in was far older than Yoongi was. That means the old man must have owned that cabin before Yoongi was even born. So that rules out Yoongi being stuck in the cabin due to living there. You conclude then that Yoongi must have died there.
Your mind races with theories on how Yoongi died. He died in or near the cabin, since his ghost was stuck there. But if he didn't live in the cabin, how could he have died there?
And at such a young age. People don't often just die in their 20s. You start to make a list in your head of possible causes of death. Illness, injury, accident; none of it made sense for him to have died in a cabin in the middle of the woods where an old man lived.
Then you realize that the old man probably wasn't actually that old when Yoongi died. Some quick mental math confirms that the old man wasn't even 50 yet.
"Doing alright, Calico?" The sudden nature of Namjoon speaking causes you to jump a bit. You had been so lost in thought that you didn't even hear him come up on you.
You take a quick glance back at Yoongi's grave before answering, "Yeah, I'm fine."
Normally, when you come to a burial ground (of any sort), your routine is to ask the pendulum to guide you to a grave. Then you try to talk to whoever is buried there. Because up until this point, you thought you had been communicating with ghosts at their burial spot.
Turns out the truth is that graveyards and cemeteries aren't even a bit haunted. The past few days have shown you a side of the paranormal that you hadn't even taken into consideration. Ghosts are stuck to the location they died.
Namjoon flips on the REM pod in his hand and places it in front of a rather large headstone before sitting in the grass facing it. You're hesitant to tell him that you won't pick up any paranormal activity here. How would you even explain to him how you came to figure that out?
Plus, that would be a huge letdown. To tell Namjoon that very investigation you've ever been on has been for nothing. That the two of you have wasted years of time and effort.
So you bite your tongue and let him believe the lie. Although, you're not too sure how to move forward with this information in general. You make an attempt to ignore it for now and file it as a later problem.
You join Namjoon in the grass and the two of you begin your routine. The both of you take turns asking questions out loud and looking for any activity on the REM pod or your pendulum.
Every so often a flicker of light would shine on the REM pod or your pendulum would swing a certain way. Usually you'd note it all down in your investigation log. But now you don't know what to believe. Is any of it real?
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Hiiii! This is an interest check for an OT7 one-shot series I am planning to write. All in the same AU, but each member got their own story like with a member. This is totally inspired by their "Keep Swimming" airport fashion, btw, and totally self-indulgent.
Kim Seokjin: the wide shoulders senior is ambitious, as he seeks to show for his last year that he deserves his spot at the National University competition, and maybe, even catch the interest of the olympic team. Too bad you're coming too, ready to distract him.
Min Yoongi: Just coming back from an injury, he is eager to prove he still got it, especially when he has a grudge against the opposite team. You catch him hiding his pain, and from then on become the most reliable ally he has.
Jung Hoseok: You're only coming to support you best friend/crush/ ex-situationship, you promise yourself. Okay, maybe because you also like partying with the other nerds of the swim team. But that's it, you swear. Not because you like staring at his shoulders and naked abs once in a while. He only sees you as a friend anyways, right?
Kim Namjoon: You accepted to become an assistant kinesiologist for the swimming team for the practical experience. You didn't expect academic weapon, stupid, idiot, genius, annoying Kim Namjoon to be part of the SWIM, him and his fucking dimples.
Park Jimin is a true campus sweetheart, easily catching the attention of anyone with functioning eyes. Too bad he fucking hates your guts, and now you're stuck together in an uncomfortable situation.
Kim Taehyung: When you were called to assist at a college swimming event, you were more than shocked to find in the SWIM team the man you had to save from drowning at a pool party a few months ago.
He, on his side, can't believe the first time the hot paramedic touched him was checking his airways right before attempting to perform mouth to mouth.
Jeon Jungkook is the rising star of the swim team, with his tattoo sleeve and his temper worthy of a hockey player. Sadly, it's your job to write an article about him and his performances for the university journal.
i know i promised updates every 2 weeks but i was on spring break (therefore my laptop did not open once) and then this past week has been insane for me at uni and my studies always come first.
i listened to arirang! (my unofficial ratings below) and i promise there will be an update soon. iâm about a third of the way through the next chapter of grey area and reforged has been written just needs editing (if anyone is even still interested in that)
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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đž wc: 3k
đž content warning: Mentions of mental heath struggles (including depression, anxiety, and sucidal thoughts) as well as struggles with alcoholism. Neither of these are actually in the chapter, just mentioned as past events.
đž a/n: The orignal goal I had set for myself was to get the chapters for this book posted no more than two weeks apart. And I did intend to have this done last week. Then I had a particulary rough week with anxiety so not much got done in my life other than useless worrying.
Speaking of anxiety! The main characer in this book sure is full of it. Oh wow, would you look at that, Tasha is writing her current struggles into her art. Everyone act suprised.
Seriously though I think I did a pretty good job portraying anxiety? Idk I'm not a particulary good writer but I think I did okay.
Okay okay just enjoy!
P.S. It's 12:30am for me so any grammar or spelling mistakes are truly not my fault :)
Saturday, September 20th
Your gaze is frozen watching out the window, observing a squirrel shove acorns in his mouth. You assume he's starting early preparations for winter. Or maybe he's just really hungry.
"Y/N." Namjoon's voice wakes you out of your daze. Your head turns sharply towards him.
He tilts his head at you, holding up a piece of equipment before he asks, "Little help here?"
The two of you had decided that this morning is dedicated to testing equipment. There are lots of devices to test (and consequently, probably a quick battery run.) Tomorrow will be day 1 of your longest investigation, so you have to be ready.
"Yeah, coming." You shuffle your way over to Namjoon, who is currently hunched over the equipment box. He is digging through the box a bit too aggressively for your standard.
First and easiest thing to test are the EMF readers. Most paranormal equipment uses real life science explanations to connect with ghosts. EMF readers, in technical terms, are electronic readers. They'll go off for little things like home appliances and any wiring. They also go off if there are cell phones around, so you and Namjoon usually leave your phones in the car on paranormal investigations.
EMF readers are noiseless, handheld devices. There is a dial at the top with colored lights, gradient from red to orange to yellow to green. When the reader glows green nice and bright, that means it is sensing paranormal.
Next up are the REM pods. As with the EMF readers, there is a technical excuse for people to use when skeptical of your work. REM pods create their own electromagnetic fields. When the ghosts tamper with the electromagnet field, the REM pod glows various colors and whines and beeps at various volumes.
REM pods are stationary. To use them, you put it down on a flat-ish surface and let it do it's magic. They can be used for communication, for example, asking the ghost to light up the REM pod for "yes" and to keep it dark for "no".
Last on the list is the Spirit box. The Spirit box flips through radio frequencies, allowing the ghosts to pull certain words out of the stations to communicate directly. They can be held or left to sit, and are easily the most entertaining of the three.
Once you and Namjoon test all the equipment, flashlights, and all the batteries, it is lunchtime.
Namjoon opens the fridge and grabs a few things out of it then sets it all onto the counter. You walk over to him, then lean on the counter and look up at him.
"Hey." You say, tilting your head to the side, your eyes remaining on his side profile.
Namjoon hums at you in a questioning manner, his eyes glancing over to you, but not turning his face. You take this as an opportunity to observe his side profile. Specifically his jawline. Was it always this sharp, or are you only noticing right now?
"I'm gonna go get my stuff all ready while you make lunch." You tell him.
He turns to you now, "Okay! I'll come get you when lunch is ready. Take your time."
You turn from him and walk into your bedroom, shutting the door behind you. You take a deep breath before you walk over to the window, closing the blinds to shut out as much light as possible.
Turing to the bag of your supplies, you unzip the big middle pocket and begin pulling things out. As you set things on the chest at the foot of your bed, you mentally scold yourself for not setting this up earlier.
Out of the bag comes a plethora of items. First some pink candles, then some rose petals you had dried over the summer. After that you pull out a rather large rose quartz to set out, and tons of seashells. Finally, a string of pearls and a small statue of Aphrodite. Not the best altar you've ever made, but it'll do.
"Sorry, girl. I'll get you more stuff," you whisper out to the universe, in hopes someone out there is hearing you.
You zip open one of the side pockets to pull out some incense. Sandalwood and rose are your go-to since they are closely associated with Aphrodite. With a flick of your wrist, you light a match to light both the incense and the candles. After you get everything lit and the incense safely in a tray, you sit on the floor with your feet tucked under you. For a second, you just focus on your breathing.
After a quick minute or two of mindful breathing, you open the other side pocket of your bag to pull out your equipment. Sure, the technology is great, but intuition is better.
The tools you brought consist of: two decks of tarot cards, a pendulum, a yes/no coin, and some dowel rods. After you have everything set out, you carefully pick up the incense to cleanse each object.
You carefully pick each item up one at a time, mindful of the energy each one holds. As you hold each object in your right hand, you left hand waves the incense around each object, causing the energy to be cleansed with smoke.
Just as you get finished, you hear a light tap at the door, followed by Namjoon's voice, "Y/N, lunch is done."
"Just got done, be right there!" You call to him, standing up. Carefully, you snuff each of the candles out. The incense is safe enough to burn out in it's tray while you two eat.
The two of you have been walking in silence for miles. It was decided that the afternoon was dedicated to exploring the trails in the woods. The both of you had agreed that it would be wise to see the forest for the first time in daylight, rather than going in blind.
The silent crunch of dead leaves echoes against your every step. Occasionally, the shuffle of an animal rummaging through the leaves or a bird's call breaks the silence, but otherwise it is a very quiet walk.
You canât hear anything over the sound of your drowning thoughts.
Namjoon turns his head to glance at you. Again. He's done that about a dozen times in the two hours you've been walking. To be fair, you probably have that look on your face that tells other people you're currently overthinking every decision you've made in your entire life.
The next time Namjoon turns to look at you, you bring your eyes up to meet his and ask flatly, "What?"
Caught off guard, Namjoon's eyes go wide, "SorryâI just⊠you seem stressed."
You sigh and look back at your feet as you walk. You are stressed. Between your relationship with Namjoon, the threat of cryptids, and whatever was going on with Yoongi, you barely have time to breathe.
None of those things are even the reason you came on this trip.
"I'm fine." Is what you settle on. Lame and unbelievable, but it's your only defense mechanism.
"You're not fine," Namjoon scolds, though his voice is soft, "Don't you think I know better than to believe that."
Your footsteps come to a halt as you look up at him again. He's right. Namjoon has known you for too long to know that the words 'I'm fine' roughly translate to 'Help me' in your vocabulary.
"I'm scared, Namjoon." The sound of your own voice is so quiet you can barely register that you spoke.
Namjoon doesn't hesitate before he takes two steps forward to eliminate the space between the two of you. Swiftly, he pulls you into a tight hug.
That breaks you. Mentally, you scold yourself for being too vulnerable, but deeper down you know that's just the way you are. Any sort of affection makes you emotional.
A shaky breath escapes your lips. Your face is currently smooshed into Namjoon's chest, his tight embrace making it impossible to pull back. You hate that he knows you'll push him away if given the opportunity.
Downsides to having a childhood best friend: part of him knowing everything about you is that he knows all your flaws. Pushing people away when you need support being the flaw currently at hand.
You keep most of it in, only allowing a few tears to fall down your face. But then Namjoon brings one hand to rub your shoulder and you can't help but begin to sob.
Out of your mouth begins to flow a string of incoherent words. Namjoon doesn't interrupt, because of course he knows by now not to interrupt you when it gets like this. He knows you just need to let it all out.
Once the tears have subsided, Namjoon pulls back to look at you, "Better?"
You sniffle and nod your head. Namjoon offers a small smile in return and extends his hand to you.
Your eyes glance up to his in curiosity before taking his hand. He threads his fingers through yours and gives your hand a gentle squeeze.
In an attempt to regain stability, you let out a long and mostly shaky breath. Namjoon's smile widens and the two of you continue walking hand in hand in silence back to the car.
You lay in bed staring at the ceiling above you. Accidentally, you had let yourself doom scroll on reels for the past three hours and now you're having a mini existential crisis. Because of course your reels today decided to show you creepy horror folklore videos.
So now you're too scared to move out of bed to turn off the light.
You could just fall asleep with the light on. Waste of electricity, but the alternative is taking off the blanket that is currently shielding you from the impending doom of whatever crawls around at midnight.
"Do you really think I'd let anything get you?"
The sudden voice causes you to startle, then you immediately sit up in anger, "You have got to start knocking or something!"
Yoongi just smirks back a you. He tilts his head, and his tongue darts out for a second to wet his lip.
You don't back down, "I'm serious. I am a jumpy person on a normal day and my anxiety lately has been making it ten times worse."
He furrows his brows and switches his teasing to a serious tone, "What is making you anxious?"
A long and shaky sigh lets out from your lips. Yoongi somehow seems to notice the tension playing in the back of your brain. He motions for you to move over, and climbs on the bed, sitting crisscross facing you.
"Talk to me about it." The softness in Yoongi's voice makes you feel like you could tell him anything.
So you tell him everything.
You tell him about your original intentions of this trip. How badly you wanted to document something to prove to the university that your club wasn't just bullshitting. You tell him about the plans to find ghosts for real.
You tell him about your extensive friendship history with Namjoon. How you two met freshman year of high school when Namjoon transferred schools, and how you immediately took him under your wing. Then about the two of you becoming so close and inseparable that everyone in high school assumed you two were dating.
Then you tell Yoongi about how bad your mental health began to decline at the end of your sophomore year of high school. How Namjoon was the only person who stuck by your side when your own inconsolable brain told you to lash out and be mean to everyone you loved. You share stories of the nights Namjoon stayed up until the sun rose because he was afraid you'd do something stupid.
So then high school graduation came along and despite your original plans, you walked across that stage with a diploma in hand. Namjoon knew you never made plans for after high school graduation because you thought you wouldn't need them.
In a haste to appease your parents, you applied to the university Namjoon was going to. Undeclared major at first because, again, you didn't have a clue what you wanted to do with your life.
Then somehow you fell in love with the arts. And suddenly, your extremely complicated and often overwhelming emotions became ten times easier to express.
By the end of your freshman year of university, your paintings were being displayed at local museums and you were performing solo musical pieces in front of large audiences. The director of the theater program at your uni told you that you should look into professional stage acting. You kept improving and improving as time went on.
Life was looking up until right about a month into your junior year of uni. It was then that Namjoon began having complications with his drinking habits.
At first it was just weekend parties, as fresh adults tend to do. Quickly, however, his weekends began starting on Thursdays. Then soon his classes began to stress him out so bad, there weren't many days he went without.
You both tried to ignore it at first. Lots of students struggle with alcohol problems, it's part of university culture. But then Namjoon started skipping classes and getting terrible grades. You began to insist he cut back and offered him support for his stress in other forms.
At first, he didn't want to hear it. He insisted he was fine and he could manage it. 'Stop drinking whenever I want' he would say.
The night he called you sobbing after he totaled his car into a tree was the night he admitted he had a problem. Had his car landed into the tree just a foot to the right, he would've been dead. You remember so vividly how his voice shook on that call.
Namjoon wasn't sobbing because he almost died. Namjoon was sobbing because he couldn't bare to think he nearly abandoned you.
So he took a semester off to focus on himself. He took some self-help classes and did lots of work on himself. It sure as hell wasn't easy though. There would be nights that you'd have to rush to his house at 3am to hold him shaking.
Always crying because he could never quite forgive himself for being so dismissive to your concerns that he almost died. Namjoon couldn't stand the idea that his own ignorance could've left you without him around to take care of you anymore.
It's been two years since then. You finished your undergrad last spring with a degree in fine arts, and are now working on your masters degree of arts in music. Namjoon was catching up after a semester off and some classes he had to retake and should graduate in the coming spring.
After talking Yoongi's ear off for god knows how long, you let out a sigh.
"That was a lot." Yoongi admits, "Thanks for feeling like I'm comfortable to share that all with."
"Thanks for letting me share it all." You reply, although truthfully all that mental heath stuff wasn't any big secret you kept deep down. Often you share your own journey in hopes it helps someone else with theirs.
"Do you want a hug?" he asks, tilting his head.
"You can hug me?" Your brows furrow as the words escape your lips.
Yoongi offers a small smile as he rises to his knees to move towards you. He scoots a bit closer and takes your hands in his to guide your body closer to his.
He wraps his arms around you in a warm embrace, which you still don't believe because you assumed that ghosts emit cold energy.
Your thoughts don't stick around for long. Instead, every loud voice in your head seems to fizzle away when Yoongi is close to you.
You bring your arms up around his torso to return the hug, but find yourself going through him. You had expected to collide with a solid plane, so when you don't, it causes a strangled whine to sound from you.
He pulls back to send you a knowing look, "You can't touch me."
"But you can touch me?" You're still not understanding this.
Yoongi hums and pulls you back into a tight embrace. It's a bit awkward at first, not being able to hug him back, but soon the comfort of him outweighs any other feeling.
The two of you sit in comfortable silence for a few moments. When Yoongi speaks, it comes out in a hushed whisper, "What is stressing you out right now?"
You pull back to look at Yoongi properly, "The girl at the coffee shop told us about the cryptids."
Yoongi tilts his head, "The Yow? Just big dogs, that's all. They won't hurt you."
"Maybe not you," you protest, "but I'm mortal."
Yoongi lets out a short, amused laugh, "I won't let anything hurt you."
For some reason, something in his voice leads you to believe you could trust him to protect you.
So you let him guide you back to laying down in bed under the covers as he follows in next to you. You open your mouth to say that the lights are still on, but Yoongi beats you to it. With a flick of his wrist, the light switch shuts off on it's own.
When you turn your head to offer him a smile, you find he's already looking at you with an expression of fondness on his own face.
He reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear as your eyes flutter shut, "Time for bed, Blossom."
Your eyes shoot open at the nickname, "Blossom?"
"Pink cherry blossoms like the pink on your altar for Aphrodite." He reasons.
You want to protest more, but then Yoongi runs his hand through your hair again, and you drift off even quicker than you were before.
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taglist: @mimadymo
{comment to be added to the taglist !!}
°ââ.àłàż*: hello, friends! my name is tasha!
i just realized that i don't have an introduction post on my page! don't want the people to think i just spawned in here hehe âËàż
â ËïœĄâàšà§Ë about me !!
â€ïžâ i go by tasha online, please call me by my current preffered name :3
â€ïžâ i am an â04
â€ïžâ i am currently in uni studying early education (so please be patient, school comes first!)
â€ïžâ i am in EST timezone
â€ïžâ my favorite color is pink (like a baby pink, no hot pink for me)
â€ïžâ i talk to myself sometimes on this page. you'll find me do that in pink and purple
â ËïœĄâàšà§Ë my history with bangtan:
â€ïžâ i have been army since 2018
funny story about how i got into bts: i was HUGE into the maze runner fandom and for some reason the maze runner video editors of instagram loved using bts audios? so i was like what is this music and bam the rest is history
â€ïžâ my bias is yoongi and i have no wreaker. love the rest of my boys equally after that <3
â€ïžâ on that note, i am ot7 or nothing. no member hate is allowed on this page.
â€ïžâ i am not, however, ot7 for the bt21s. shooky and tata are ugly and you cannot change my mind.
â€ïžâ my favorite album is lys:her and my favorite song is paldogangsan
â€ïžâ i am perpetually stuck in hyyh era </3
â ËïœĄâàšà§Ë outside of bts:
â€ïžâ i have a concerning addiction to animal crossing: new leaf.
NOT new horizons. the version i play is the one on the 3ds. i don't play the version on the switch so don't try and bond with me over that :)
â€ïžâ i love hatsune miku! my bf and i have a shared shrine for her :3
â€ïžâ my other hobbies outside of writing include penpaling, journaling, and sewing!
ÊÉ âșË âžâž thanks for taking the time to get to know me !! i hope you enjoy my fics <3
"What are you taking pictures of me for, creep?" "For when I auction you off as a housewife."
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đž wc: 2.2k
đž a/n: Okay! So uhhh the whole time I was writing this chapter, I thought I had set this book's chapter length goal at 2k words not 3k that I had for chapter one. So my mistake this one is a bit shorter than the last.
But hey! I'm making consistent progress so be proud of me for that. I don't have much else to say here so enjoy the chapter!
Friday, September 19th
You wake up with a headache. That was, by far, the weirdest nightmare you've ever had in your entire life. On the floor next to your bed is your book, which tragically is closed and without bookmark. Finding the place in a book after you fell asleep reading is like, top 10 of things you hate doing.
You shuffle your way into the kitchen, still a bit groggy from sleep. Namjoon is already there, of course, and he must have heard you moving around in your bedroom because he started boiling water on the stove for your tea.
"Good morning, Sunshine." Namjoon beams at you, like he is basking in your sleepy misery.
You offer him a light grumble in response. You practically fall onto the bench at the table, slumping down over yourself and rubbing the sleep from your eyes.
"Bacon, egg, and cheese bagel?" Namjoon asks as he flips a small pan in his hand. Namjoon has had your breakfast order memorized for years.
You nod your head sleepily as he clicks on the stove. The teapot whistles and Namjoon grabs the rag hanging from the oven handle so he doesn't burn his hands on the kettle handle. He pours the boiling water into the mug on the counter, prepared with a tea bag already in it. He sets the tea kettle down on one of the backburners that is currently turned off. Then, he turns to grab an egg for your sandwich.
"Scrambled or fried egg on your sandwich?" He asks, turning to you.
"Mhm⊠scrambled." You pull your phone out of your front hoodie pocket and swipe over to the camera app. You angle your phone up and snap a picture of Namjoon as he cracks the egg into a bowl.
"What are you taking pictures of me for, creep?" Namjoon squawks, sending you a hard side-eye as he grabs a small fork from a drawer. Next, he puts some heavy cream into the bowl with the egg, then starts to whisk it with the fork.
"For when I auction you off as a housewife." You giggle, looking down at the picture you took of him. You zoom in specifically on his biceps, and wonder to yourself if he's been working out extra lately or if you're only noticing it now.
Namjoon hums in response and pours the egg mixture into the hot pan. The sizzling sound of cooking eggs is immediate, and soon after follows the smell of cooking eggs. As if on cue, your stomach makes a noise that vaguely sounds like a brown bear hunting for salmon.
Namjoon looks over at you, amused. You giggle as he flips over the whole egg in one quick swipe. It's mildly impressive, since usually when you make eggs they turn into a mess of a million little pieces. Soon, the egg is cooked, and he carefully transfers the egg onto the bagel.
Next, he puts some strips of microwave bacon onto a paper towel and pops it in for 30 seconds. Namjoon always makes your egg first. He knows you don't like your food as burning hot.
The microwave dings as he cracks his egg over the pan. Guess he decided on a fried egg today. While his egg cooks, he pulls the bacon out of the microwave and puts it onto your bagel sandwich. He flips his fried egg, then carries your plate over to you while the other side cooks.
"For you, your highness." He says dramatically as he sets down your plate.
You giggle, "My knight in shining armor."
He gets back to his egg and carefully makes his sandwich as well. He fixes your tea (exactly how you like it), and carries his plate and your mug over to the table, where he sits across from you.
"What's the plan for today, captain?" He asks before taking a sip of his coffee. Namjoon drinks his coffee black. No sugar, no milk, no creamer. As if coffee wasn't bad enough, this man also doesn't add any flavor.
"Well," you begin, "There's this coffee shop in town called Epigram CoffeeâŠ"
"Girl, I have my coffee." Namjoon says, mouth full of food.
"I know that," you say as you put down your sandwich for a second to talk, "But yesterdayâyou know, when you were being a lazy bitchâ"
Namjoon scoffs, putting a hand to his chest in a dramatic fake offended gesture.
"I went to this trail conservatory for the Appalachian trail," you continue, ignoring his dramatic scene, "The guy working there said that the daughter of the owner of this coffee shop knows about the local ghosts."
Namjoon raises an eyebrow at you, then pulls his coffee mug back to his lips. He sets the mug back down and looks back at you. He's skeptical of you, that's for sure.
On the other side of the table, however, you are shooting him the biggest puppy eyes. Namjoon lets out a long sigh.
"Grab your things, lets go to this coffee shop."
Namjoon sucks at parallel parking. He has ever since you watched him learn how to drive. Consequently, stepping out of the car and taking a look at Namjoon's parking job causes you to burst into giggles.
"You're a bitch, you know that?" Namjoon scoffs as he clicks the car keys twice, confirming it's locked with a beep.
The coffee shop is two floors. You and Namjoon step up the few steps onto the front porch and inside the front door. The smell of coffee brews and freshly baked bread hit your nose instantaneously. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to get a croissant or a muffin while you're here.
You walk up to the counter and put on that fake high-pitched voice you use with strangers, "Hi. I was wondering if I could speak with the owner's daughter? Um, Eva? I think her name is?"
"That's me!" The girl behind the counter says with a smile, "What can I do for you?"
"I was told you knew some stuff about the paranormal around here?" You ask, tilting your head. The girl perks up as if she's been waiting her whole life for someone to ask her that.
"Mom!" She turns around to shout, "I'm taking a five, be back!"
Eva ushers Namjoon and yourself to a cozy corner of the coffee shop. You and Namjoon sit next to each other on a slightly worn looking leather couch, while Eva sits in a very vintage-looking chair across from the two of you.
"What do you want to know?" Eva asks, practically bouncing in her seat.
"Everything?" Namjoon offers.
"Okay, okay," the girl ponders for a second before settling, "Have you two been told about the snarly yow yet?"
"The what."
"The snarly yow!" Eva repeats, "Its a giant wolf-like cryptid that stalks the woods near here."
You and Namjoon exchange a shared look. The two of you had expected paranormal activity, yes, but the most you expected were ghosts. Nothing as serious as a cryptid.
An unsettling disturbance begins to form in your stomach. Cryptids are no joke, this is how people die for real.
"People say they have dark grey fur and glowing red eyes," Eva continues, "Most people think it works alone, but I think it's controlled by a stronger force."
Neither you nor Namjoon can find anything to say. You both just sit there, mouths slightly agape.
"Eva!" You hear a voice shout from the front of the shop.
"Oh, oops," Eva gives you both an apologetic look, "I gotta get back to work or my mom will kill me. But please, come back whenever with questions. I work most days!"
With that, the girl stands up and hurries back to the front of the coffee shop. You turn to Namjoon to see if he has anything to offer. Namjoon, however, is just mindlessly staring where Eva was just sitting.
"A cryptid?" You whisper harshly.
Namjoon slowly turns his face towards yours, a slightly horrified look on his face. Cryptid hunting requires so much more equipment than you could ever afford. Years of training, months of searching and lots of risk. It isn't something the two of you are quite ready for yet.
The knot in your stomach tightens. This changes just about everything.
To absolutely no surprise, you can't fall asleep. After the ghost nightmare last night and the cryptid talk this morning, there is absolutely no hope. Your already busy mind is overpopulated with additional anxious thoughts.
"I thought we agreed that you would be asleep already."
The sudden voice causes you to let out a yelp. It's the ghost from last nightâYoongiâwho you had completely convinced yourself didn't exist.
"Quiet, or you'll wake up your boyfriend." He hisses.
You narrow your eyes back at Yoongi, "He's not my boyfriend."
Yoongi lets our a laugh and sits down on the bed beside you. The bed sinks down under his weight, which comes as a shock to you. For some reason you had assumed the bed wouldn't react to him. Ghost physics. Does anyone understand them?
"Girl, be honest with yourself," Yoongi muses, "only a boy in love would put on that show of affection that he did for you this morning."
You scoff, but Yoongi continues, "I can see why he puts so much effort into you. You seem like an investment worth the time."
Your head shoots towards him, glaring at him half with shock and half with anger. He smirks, and you make the effort to sit up in bed to talk to him.
"What do you mean by that, ghost boy?" You shoot at him.
"First, don't call me that," Yoongi says with a sigh, "second, I'm just saying. If I was alive I would chase you, too."
A most disgusted sound comes out of your chest. You have enough on your plate with Namjoon being supposedly in love with you. You don't need a ghost flirting you up, too.
"Can ghosts physically flirt? Can ghosts fall in love? ⊠Can ghosts date?" You shoot him rapid-fire questions, beginning on one of your infamous pestering sessions. You have this bad habit about nagging people with questions. It drives Namjoon crazy, but you do it anyways.
"Of course ghosts can date," he replies, his voice laced with annoyance, "it just gets difficult being stuck here."
"Stuck here?"
When your eyes meet Yoongi's, the look he gives you say it all. He is stuck. Ghosts get stuck. Yoongi can't leave the cabin. Whether it's because he lived here or died here is unclear to you (again, does anyone understand ghost rules?) Regardless of how he got stuck here, it dawns on you that Yoongi probably hasn't had human contact in years. The woman who owns the cabin said it had been empty since her father passed away⊠who knows how long ago that was.
"Yoongi?" Your question comes out so soft he almost misses it, "How long have you been alone here?"
Yoongi is looking away from you now, his mouth curling into a sad smile, "They took that old man to the retirement home almost a decade ago."
A decade.
That isn't a length of time to joke around about. Spending that much time alone has to be tortuous to the psyche.
"I mean, I haven't been alone," Yoongi's voice interrupts your thoughts, "sometimes the old man's daughter would come up here and I could observe her grieving process."
"Did you ever talk to her?" You ask, tilting your head to look at his side profile better. Your annoyance towards him has faded completely, changing now into a need to comfort the poor ghost.
"Only if I wanted to fuck with her and pretend to be her dad." Yoongi lets out a forced laugh, "To be fair, I never talked to the old man either. Chatting with you last night was the most I've talked since I was alive."
Your eyebrows tilt in, a face of pity forming for him.
He turns his head back to you and offers you a small smile, "It's really not as bad as it sounds. I enjoy being alone."
You're not entirely convinced. Hastily, you scoot over in bed (up until now you had been in the middle of this queen sized bed like the queen you are), and gently pat the empty space beside you for Yoongi to lay down.
He follows your lead, pulling the covers down and getting himself underneath them. You can't help but wonder if ghosts can even get cold.
You both lay on your sides, faces towards each other.
"You're always welcome to talk to me while I'm here," you offer him, "I'll keep you company."
Yoongi's face turns into a genuine, warm smile, "I think I'll take you up on that."
You find yourself mirroring his smile. For a moment, all the noisy and anxious and terrible thoughts in your head seem far away. You feel yourself breathe a little bit easier.
"Go to sleep, Y/N, its late and you need the rest." Yoongi whispers to you softly. He's not wrong, you've had a long past two days.
Your heavy eyes and temporary peace of mind make it extremely easy to drift off into peaceful slumber. An easy sleep is a tiny victory in your busy world that's about to get ten times more complicated.
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"What if this trip is all for nothing and it turns out to be a dud? What if something goes wrong while staying in a stranger's cabin? And why are you trying so hard to ignore the fact that a few months ago you started having feelings for your decade-long best friend who happens to be sleeping right in front of you?"
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đž wc: 3.2k
đž a/n: Tada! Here she is! Been working since... September? Doing research and daydreaming and whatnot. Unapoligetically, I am so much more passionate about this book than all my others that I basically had to hold myself back from writing this first chapter back in the fall. (Wait a minute maybe I shouldv'e done that since the first part of this book takes place in the fall...)
Nah, I had to do research. I had to let it marinate. Not gonna lie, I posted the masterlist to this story 3 days ago and got a whole 8 likes on it and now I'm nervous I won't live up to people's expectations.
Oh, who cares. Let's just post the chapter, shall we? Enjoy!!
Thursday, September 18th
You kick the door open with such force that youâre surprised it doesnât fall off the hinges. In your defense, you donât have much of a choice. Your hands are full with an awkward shaped box, heavy with the equipment you and your partner brought with you.Â
You waddle into the living room, attempting to navigate with the box blocking your view. The unfamiliarity of a new environment adds an extra challenge.Â
The box hits the table a little bit more aggressively than you intend. But, mission success, so there is that.
After catching your breath, you turn toward the door to shout to your partner, âNamjoon! Get your weak ass in here!â
âIâm coming, Iâm coming!â You hear him shout back from the distance, a hint of annoyance in his voice.
Soon, Namjoon himself is maneuvering his way through the door, careful not to run into anything with the bags haphazardly thrown over his shoulders and hanging from his arms.
âYou didnât really give me the opportunity to take the equipment box, you know.â Namjoon says as he sets down some of the bags, âI couldâve carried it in.â
âYeah right. Last time you dropped it halfway to that cabin in Cookâs Forest and almost broke half our equipment.â
Namjoon narrows his eyes at you before turning back to the car.
âYouâre just going to leave all these bags in a pile here?â You shout out to him as he walks towards the car.
Namjoon just throws his hand up to dismiss you. You scoff. Truthfully, however, your friendship is nothing without the playful bullying. Itâs how the two of you show love.
You sigh, turning to the bags to evaluate the damage. Itâs a lot to unpack, this is by far your longest planned trip yet.Â
Ninety percent of your investigations are just quick after-dinner trips that the two of you take to local graveyards or trips to visit the old ladies at the historical society. Every once in a while you two take a weekend trip to a cabin at a state forest near your hometown. Last summer the two of you used your summer job cash to take your first week-long trip to a hotel near Pennhurst Asylum.Â
None of those, however, are real investigations. Some local cemeteries and the historical society are just to prove to the University that your club is doing something. Everyone knows state forests are too mainstream to really be hiding anything. And Pennhurst barely counts, you stayed in a nice safe hotel the whole week.
This trip is different. By some miracle, the University had given the club a substantial grant to take an expedition. After months of reaching out to local places in search of somewhere haunted, someone reached out to you.
A message had come in from a woman, probably in her mid thirties, rambling about her grandfatherâs old cabin in the back of her property. She said she and her husband were planning on renting it out as a vacation cabin, and offered the two of you to stay for free for a few months in exchange for a test trial and good reviews on the place to keep people coming.Â
âLost in thought there, Y/N?âÂ
You blink yourself back to reality. Namjoon is back in the house and you didnât even register it. You shake your head at him in response, and start to unzip one of the duffel bags.
âCanât do that on an investigation,â Namjoon warns playfully, âSomething might get you.â
You roll your eyes and shake your head at him, but a smirk tugs at your lips. You two never have any real threats while on investigations, you barely have any findings at all. The chances of âsomething getting youâ are low to none.
After two hours, you and Namjoon can finally say that you have unpacked all your things and put everything away. Which is actually refreshing after the three and a half hour car ride you made before you got there.Â
âAlright, naptime,â Namjoon declares, heading upstairs to the room he claims as his.Â
âWhat? Youâre not going to come explore the town with me?â You bounce after him, grabbing his arm in an attempt to drag him with you.
âY/N, I just drove three and a half hours,â Namjoon pulls the keys out of his pocket and tosses them to you, âI need rest.â
You scoff, but leave the poor man to his slumber. You flick your wrist up to check your watch. 4:15. Still about three hours until the sun begins to set. You have plenty of time.
So you leave the cabin, careful to shut and lock the door behind you, and jump in Namjoonâs car.Â
The ride to town is easy. Harperâs Ferry, West Virginia is a small town. When you did the research, Google had told you the population is under 300 people. Perfect for a paranormal investigation.Â
You drive into town and park in front of a building that is labeled on your maps app as âAppalachian Trail Conservatoryâ.Â
When you open the front door, which squeaks as you do, you find yourself in a welcome center and gift shop.Â
Upon arrival, a man behind the counter greets you, âHi, there! Anything I can help you with?â
âHi!â You use your fake, high pitched voice, âMe and a friend are staying in a cabin up on Chestnut Hill. Just checking out the town since today is our first day here.â
âOh! Well allow me to be your unofficial trip advisor.â The man smiles as he comes out from behind the desk, âHow long are you staying? What brings you here to Harperâs Ferry?â
âUhâŠâ You feel a sudden sting of nervousness that you always feel when youâre about to tell someone that youâre on an investigation for your paranormal society.Â
It isnât always something people are too kind to. Especially strangers. People suspect that you and Namjoon are in a cult, or are trying to wake the devil or something.
âWe are here for a few months.â You decide on, âMy friend and I heard the local myths about the ghosts in the woods and thought it would be fun to check it out.â
The manâs face does this thing that leads you to believe he knows something about âthose ghosts in the woodsâ. More than he cares to tell you, though, because his cheerful demeanor comes back quickly.Â
âOh, those silly ghost stories.â The man chuckles, âTell you what, thereâs a coffee shop here in town. The ownerâs daughter, Eva, works there and she believes in all those silly things. You should talk to her.â
You perk up, âOkay! Whatâs the coffee shop called?â
âItâs called Epigram Coffee,â the man says, âCute little place.â
âWhat other places in town do you recommend?â
You stay talking to the man until he has to close the business. You now have multiple informational pamphlets and a notebook full of places in town to check out. From cafes to bakeries, museums to cemeteries, it seems like this cute little town has everything.
Except a grocery store. Nearest one is a ten minute drive. Which, actually, isnât that bad for rural America.Â
Since it is only around five oâclock when you are done at the trail conservatory, you decide to make that drive to pick up dinner for yourself and Namjoon.
By the time you get back to the cabin, itâs quarter to six.Â
You push through the door and put the grocery bags onto the table. You carefully put away the cold items in the fridge, then begin up the stairs to find Namjoon.
When you get to the top of the stairs to the loft bedroom, you find Namjoon asleep in his bed. You squat down to be eye-level with the sleeping boy.
He looks peaceful like this. Like the stress of the universe doesnât exist and he has nothing to worry about. You're almost jealous. Your brain never lets you know peace.
Even now, your mind has just short of a thousand worries floating around. What if this trip is all for nothing and it turns out to be a dud? What if something goes wrong while staying in a stranger's cabin? And why are you trying so hard to ignore the fact that a few months ago you started having feelings for your decade-long best friend who happens to be sleeping right in front of you?
You reach your hand up to push a stray hair out of his face. Doing this causes him to grumble. His eyes flicker open to you, then back shut.
Namjoon makes a familiar whine that sounds almost like a question. You've known him long enough to know that sound roughly translates to 'why the hell did you wake me up.'
"I got us dinner while I was out." You reply softly. Namjoon's eyes dart open to that.
He takes a second to rub his eyes and sit up. He stretches his arms high above his head as he lets out a yawn.
"You're an angel, you know that?" His voice comes out deep, laced with sleep.
He follows you down the stairs to where you've left the hoagie rolls on the table for the two of you. As if on cue, his stomach grumbles, causing you to giggle.
After knowing someone for as long as the two of you have known each other, conversations become limited. You two eat almost every meal together nowadays, so you opt to play card games while you eat instead of silence.
Well, just one game of cards, that is. You and Namjoon have had a game of 500 rummy going for almost 3 years now. You've long exceeded 500 points each, reaching up to the ten-thousands by now. You've altered the rules, added in wild cards, and made the most confusing and competitive game of cards the world has ever seen.
"I use this joker as the queen ofâŠ" you trail off. The house rule with jokers is that while they are used as wild cards, if the other player has the intended card in their hand, the points go against the score.
"Diamonds." You finish confidentially. The other two cards in your group of 3 are the queen of spades and the queen of clubs, so its a 50/50 shot.
Namjoon's eyes glance up at you in a mysterious glare. Then a smirk appears on his face as he grabs a card from his hand and slowly flips it to face you.
It's the queen of diamonds.
"Bitch!" You shout, reaching over the table in an attempt to snatch the card out of his hand. Unsuccessful, however, as Namjoon retreats his arm in time.
"Ah, Y/N, you're going to knock over a drink!" Namjoon scolds you, though there's no real bite behind it.
The two of you finish dinner and clean up. It isn't until you're washing dishes that Namjoon gets serious.
"Think we'll find anything this time?" Namjoon began as he handed you the next dirty plate.
You turn to him and shrug. You've never found anything groundbreaking before. What's to say this time will be the lucky one?
He hums in response and focuses back on putting things away in the fridge.
After you finish cleaning up, you go to your room to put on your pajamas. Inconveniently, you hear a knock at the door.
"Coming!" You shout as you slip your feet into your slippers. You walk towards the door and turn the knob to open it. You find Namjoon standing there.
"I'm heading up to bed." He yawns. Namjoon is dressed similarly to you, cozy pajamas on. Your eyes drift down to his slippers, which you right now realize are bunnies.
"Seriously?" You point to his slippers as your eyes shoot back up to match his.
Namjoon smirks, "What? They were on sale and they're comfy."
You hum in response and begin to shut the door, "Goodnight, Namjoon."
"Sleep well and dream of me." You hear Namjoon say as he pads his way up the stairs to the loft bedroom. You sigh and shake your head before walking back to your own bed.
It is absolutely too late to still be reading this book. Your eyes hurt, your mouth is dry (your glass of water has been empty for awhile), and you should have stopped hours ago. But you keep telling yourself 'one more chapter', and then every chapter happens to end on a cliffhanger.
A knock at the door causes you to startle enough that you drop your book and lose your page.
"Dammit, Namjoon." You huff as you slip your feet into your slippers and walk over to the door.
You feel a strong surge of deja vu as you reach for the doorknob. Except, when you twist your wrist to turn the knob, the knob doesn't twist with you.
"What the fuck?" You whisper under your breath as you try again to turn the knob, harder this time.
When it doesn't budge again, you turn your body around to give up and go to bed.
Except, when you do, there is someone standing between you and the bed.
In that exact moment, you stomach drops so hard you think might've peed your pants. Your instinct is to scream, but when you open your mouth to do so, no sound comes out. You turn back around frantically and try again at the knob, to no prevail.
"Oh my god you're dramatic." The words come from a voice behind you, presumably whoeverâor whateverâyou saw standing there.
You're shaking as you turn back around and push your back flat up against the door.
"Please, please, please don't hurt me." Your voice comes out high-pitched and wavered, and you squeeze your eyes shut, causing a tear to roll down your cheek.
After a second of not-dying, you open your eyes to see a young man there, arms folded.
"Done with your little meltdown?"
You nod your head quickly, wishing to be anywhere but here right now. You take a second to analyze the boy in front of you. He seems about your age. Taller than you, for sure, but not as tall as Namjoon. He has black hair, dark eyes, and⊠he's transparent?
Then it all clicks.
"You're a ghost?" You manage sputter out.
The ghost rolls his eyes at you, "I have a name, you know."
"Oh?" Is all you can manage at the moment. The past two minutes have been so much for you that you feel like your feet are numb.
"I'm Yoongi," he offers you a reassuring smile, "You are?"
"Y/N." You continue to keep your answers brief since your chest is so heavy.
Yoongi offers a hand out for a handshake, but you can't seem to do anything but stand paralyzed staring at it.
Yoongi sighs and rolls his eyes again, "So long as I initiate contact you'll feel it and not go right through me."
Your eyes shoot back up to him in a confused trance. You still can't find it in you to move your arm enough to meet his. Yoongi lets out a groan of annoyance and gives up, letting his arm fall back to his side. He takes a step dangerously towards you, causing you to shrink down even more than you already are.
He takes another dangerous step forward before he begins to interrogate you, "Why are you in my house?"
You let out an embarrassing sound that sounds like the squeak of a baby chick, if the baby chick was currently at the hands of a deadly wolf. You really, really, don't want to die.
A frustrated scoff sounds from Yoongi and he rolls his eyes again. You make a mental note that this ghost is sassy.
His upper lip twitches out of frustration as he repeats himself, more stern this time, "I said, what are you doing in my house?"
"My friend and I are here to do paranormal research."
Yoongi lets out a quick laugh, "Is this paranormal enough for you?"
You bite at the dead skin on you bottom lip. Its a bad anxiety habit you've had for years that you can't seem to shake. Yoongi's eyes flicker down to the movement of your lips, and his face morphs into an emotion you can't file because your thoughts are currently occupied by panic right now.
Yoongi takes a step back, "Well, this is my house, so you have to leave."
"What?" The word bursts out of your mouth before you can think. Your hand shoots up to cover your mouth out of fear. You slowly pull your hand away before you continue, "I mean- we don't have anywhere else to go. Our house is three hours away and we already paid for our time here."
"How long?" He shoots at you.
You can't manage to make eye contact with him, "A few months."
Yoongi lets out a dramatic groan (who's the drama queen now?) as he paces the room. He walks back and forth a bit, deep in thought. Slowly, he runs a hand through his hair, letting out a long sigh.
"We could share the cabin." You lightly suggest.
"Share?" He snaps back at you. He's back to looking at you, staring down your soul, and it causes you to get anxious and shy again.
"This is your room, right?" You wait for a second as he nods his head. "Well, there is a queen bed in here."
"Are you suggesting we share a bed?" He asks as he tilts his head at you judgmentally.
"No! I mean- yes, but⊠not really?" You exclaim, voice shaky. Yoongi raises a brow to question your logic so you continue, "I mean, you only appeared at, what? 2am? If I just fall asleep before you want to sleep, and then you disappear by morning, it'll be like you were never there."
Yoongi takes a step back to ponder. He appears deep in thought, running through the idea in his head.
Finally, he turns back to you, "Fine. But don't make this a big deal. And don't tell that boy upstairs about my existence."
"That's my friend, his name is Namjoon."
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Just don't freak him out." Yoongi says as he steps aside, clearing space for you to make it back into the bed, "He's totally in love with you, I don't think he'd like the idea of you sharing a bed with a male ghost."
His words take you by surprise, "What?"
Yoongi tilts his head towards you in a knowing way, as if to say 'oh, you clueless girl'. He extends an arm towards the bed to usher you to it.
"Go to bed." Yoongi scolds you as you walk over to the covers, "If you don't fall asleep soon, you'll oversleep past when the coffee shop is open and you'll miss talking to the owners daughter."
You slip yourself under the covers and snuggle into the pillow. Yoongi is right. You need to talk to the girl at the cafe if you want to get any information about why you chose this town specifically.
It isn't until you're too far asleep that the thought occurs to you, how did Yoongi know about your plans to talk to the girl at the coffee shop?
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⧠SUMMARY: You meet Min Yoongi at a GS25 on a nothing Tuesday. You don't expect him to change your life. You certainly don't expect to change his.
â§Â TAGS: strangers to lovers, angst (with a happyâbut hopefully realisticâending), smut, fluff, this is a heavy one so please heed the warnings!
⧠WARNINGS: mental health issues, depression, depressive episodes, suicidal ideation throughout, suicide mentions throughout, implied suicide attempt (sort of?), panic attacks, specifically panic attacks after (consensual!) sex, smoking, recreational marijuana use, vaginal fingering, oral (m. receiving), oral (f. receiving), vaginal sex, mentions of unprotected sex (but no real unprotected sex), MINORS DNI, please do not read this fic if any of these warnings are triggering to you!
⧠AUTHORâS NOTE: okay. so... i said i wasn't going to post any more fics until june. and i won't post any more until then after this! i'm still on semi-hiatus! but something happened in my personal life last week, and i couldn't... not get it all out, somehow. so... here's this almost 14k monster. thank you claret @yoonmetogether for beta reading and giving me so much love and support while i was in the process of writing this! i love you! and thank you yoongi, for writing/releasing so far away (and the last) in 2016 and teaching teenage aqua how to stay, even when i didn't want to. and teaching adult aqua the same thing every year since. i hope this fic helps someone. that's why i'm posting it.
P.S. i recognize that i haven't edited my taglist since my hiatus. if you want to be removed, let me know.
⧠WORDCOUNT: 13.6k words
Itâs a Tuesday night, which means nothing. Just like Monday meant nothing. Just like Wednesday wonât either.
The buzzing fluorescent lights in the 24-hour convenience store stutter overhead. Youâve been zoned out in the ramen aisle for at least five minutes now, doing the same song and dance you always do. Pretending youâre going to try something different this time, be a little spontaneous. Because you must break the pattern today or the loop will repeat tomorrow, right?
Still, though, your hand hovers over the same one you always getâthe spicy one in the black package that scorches your mouth and makes your nose run. But at least it makes you feel something. So, you grab it.
Into the basket it goes, landing beside a bottle of Milkis and a crumpled bag of gummy worms. You sigh, turn aroundâ
âand nearly walk straight into some guy you didnât even know was in the store.
You both do that awkward side-step thing, freeze, then side-step the same way again.
âOh. Shit. Sorry,â the guy mutters, voice low and scratchy, like it hasnât been used yet today.
Heâs wearing an oversized hoodie, the drawstrings uneven. His hair, bleach blonde, is tucked messily under a beanie, and thereâs a faint line on his cheek from what was clearly a very intense nap. Heâs holding a can of cold coffee and a pre-packaged egg sandwich in one hand, clutched between long fingers.
His eyes flick up to yours, and you realize, belatedly, that youâre staring. You should probably move, or say something.
âNo, Iâsorry,â you say, taking a step back. Your basket clinks against your knee. âDidnât see you.â
Both of you are still kind of in each otherâs way. Thereâs that weird, hesitant pause where youâre not quite sure whoâs supposed to move next.
You clear your throat, nodding at his sandwich. âMidnight craving?â
âSomething like that,â he says, eyes flicking down to the ramen in your basket. âYou going for pain, huh?â
You blink, then smile a little. You didnât expect him to be game. âOnly the kind I can control.â
That makes him huff a short laugh through his nose. âHey, no judgment. Iâm out here buying coffee at midnight, so.â
You nod toward the sandwich again. âAnd that. Bold choice.â
âI wasnât ready to commit to tuna.â
âFair.â
It feels dangerously like flirting, just for a second. Awkward, clumsy flirting, sure, but flirting nonetheless. But the moment ends just as quickly as it came, like youâve both run out of things to say at the exact same time.
You awkwardly step in opposite directions after that.
You return to your mission. First, hot water from the machine by the coffee counter. Plastic fork from the stack thatâs always slightly sticky. You sit on one of the cracked stools by the window while the noodles steep and sip from your Milkis while staring out at the empty street.
By the time you make it to the register, the guy is gone. You kind of expected that.Â
He was cute, you think. A year ago, when you were a different girl and sort of had your shit together, you probably wouldâve asked for his number. Batted your eyelashes or something stupid like that.
But now? You barely have the energy to brush your teeth most days. Youâre certainly not in a place for romance. Not when your big life plan has boiled down to âsurvive one more month.âÂ
So no, youâre not mourning the possible missed connection with the kind-of-cute stranger in the GS25. Just acknowledging it.
But then, when youâve paid and make a move to shuffle out, the automatic doors slide openâand there he is.Â
Again. Leaning against the low brick wall, trying to light a cigarette with the wind working against him. The flame sputters out twice before catching.
You could leave. You should. But you linger, and since the street is pretty much desolate, he notices.
âDidnât mean to loiter behind you,â he says, glancing up.
You shrug. âDidnât mean to run into you. Twice.â
He waves his free hand dismissively, the other bringing the cigarette to his lips, plastic bag dangling precariously. âNo harm done.â
That should be it, probably. End of conversation, end of interaction. Two strangers walk in opposite directions to wherever it is they call home.
But something about the slump in his shoulders, so similar to your own, makes you momentarily brave.
âYou got somewhere to be?â you ask, gnawing at your bottom lip.
âDoes it look like it?â
It doesnât. Neither do you.
âWanna sit?â you offer, gesturing towards the curb. âIâm just gonna eat before it gets cold.â
His eyes widen, like thatâs the last thing in the world he expected you to say.
âUh. Yeah, sure. Thanks.â
You sit. He settles a little awkwardly beside you, pulling the sandwich out of its crinkled plastic. Itâs predictably silent between you, but you donât hate it.
He eats. You slurp noodles.
And eventually, inevitably, you glance sideways.
Okay. He is cute. Decidedly. Maybe even hot, if you caught him on a better day. In a bleary, worn out way. The kind of good looks that sneak up on you, delicate and masculine all at once. Pale skin. Sharp jaw. Soft mouth. Youâre not going to do anything about it. Obviously. But⊠still.
âWhatâs your name?â you ask around a mouthful of noodles.
âYoongi.â
You nod. Donât offer yours yet.
Yoongi takes another bite of his sandwich. Swallows. âYou here often?â he asks, immediately grimacing. âGod. That soundedâ"
âLike a line?â You laugh. âYeah. It did.â
âDidnât mean it like that.â
You shrug. âIâll allow it. Just this once.â
Small talk comes easy after that. You find out he used to live on the other side of the river and only recently moved to this part of the city because of a roommate situation that imploded. You tell him that you only planned to live in your current apartment for a year, until you could afford something better. Itâs been three now.
He tells you heâs currently between jobs. You admit youâre technically not sure if you still have your night gig, because your boss hasnât texted you in three days and you donât want to ask.
He gives you the remaining half of his sandwich. You pass over your ramen wordlessly, letting him steal a few bites. Itâs still awkward, eating so closely with a stranger like this. Sharing your dinner with someone who doesnât even know your name. But itâs weirdly nice.
When the food is mostly gone, he holds out his cigarette pack. You take one and he lights it for you. You both pass it back and forth in silence for a minute.
âI used to think Iâd be famous by now,â he says eventually, exhaling toward the gutter. âLike, not stupid-famous. Just⊠enough that I wouldnât be here. You know?â
You nod. You do know.Â
âI wanted to be a writer,â you offer in return. âBut I hate writing. And I hate people who are good at it. And I hate that I still kind of want to do it anyway.â
âI donât even know what I do anymore,â he says. âI was making music for a while. Then I got tired. Now I sleep too much. Avoid my friends. Pick up shifts at my cousinâs record store when he gets desperate enough to ask.â
âThat actually sounds kind of nice.â
He snorts. âItâs not. But thanks.â
You tip your head back, look up at the sky, which is a washed-out navy and completely starless. Seoul smog. âI work part-time at a bookstore that almost exclusively sells erotica. And I cry like, three times a week, minimum. Usually in the bathroom. Sometimes in front of customers.â
Yoongi flicks ash onto the ground. âYou win.â
You both sit with it. The warm, awful food. The too-sweet soda and the gummy worms melting in the bag between your knees. The companionship of a stranger willing to share a cigarette and half of his shitty sandwich, whose life isnât all that different from yours.
You turn your heads at the same time. Your eyes flick down to his lips where theyâre sealed around the cigarette. Inhale, exhale. To his long fingers, thumbnail bitten to shit.Â
Heâs really pretty, even like this, in the unflattering light of the streetlamp youâre sitting under. Long lashes and dark eyes that pierce through you. You wonder if his mouth really is as soft as it looks.
Heâs looking at your lips, too, you realize. When you catch him, he looks away fast, ears pink.
âThis is nice,â he says, staring at the concrete beneath his shoes.
You blink. Then, just as quietly, âYeah. It is.â
He offers the cigarette again. You take it. Neither of you says anything else for a long time.
â§
The bookstore has been blissfully, predictably dead since you opened this morning. Thatâs really the only upside of the jobânobody shows up. You could count the regulars on one hand, and half of them only come in to use the bathroom, despite the clearly posted sign that says they canât.
Youâve developed a theory about it, about the shame that still lingers around buying erotica in person. As if reading about sex is fine, but purchasing it in the flesh is something to feel embarrassed about. You could write a dissertation on it, probably. But you wonât. You donât write anymore. You just clock in, count the till, and reorganize displays no one looks at.
Youâve already done your morning routine. Opened up. Counted money. Packed a frankly alarming number of online orders (apparently people really love vampire erotica). Now, youâre posted up behind the counter, flipping through a paperback about sexy cowboys with a bright red cover and a title that would make your mother blush.
Youâre in the middle of counting how many times the author uses the word member on one page (six, and one was throbbing) when the bell above the door gives its half-hearted ding.
You glance up from the counter, fully prepared to give your standard âwe donât have a public bathroomâ spiel, when you see him. Hoodie. Messy, bleached hair. Soft mouth.
Yoongi.
Your mouth actually falls open a little. You eventually gave him your name that night, but you hadnât exchanged numbers. You didnât even follow each other on social media. And yet, here he is, bearing witness to you in all of your smut-peddling glory.
âI guessed,â he says, by way of explanation. He sounds a little breathless. âYou said bookstore, and thereâs like, two in the area. The other one didnât have nearly enough erotica.â
âSo you just⊠showed up?âÂ
He shrugs, sheepish. âYou didnât give me your number.â
If he wasnât cute, you might be a little creeped out. Heâs lucky heâs got such a nice face. It makes things feel romantic.Â
âYou want something?â you ask, gesturing to the wide variety of bodice-rippers your manager has displayed so proudly at the register.
âYeah,â he says. âA cigarette. And maybe to talk to you again.â
You exhale through your nose, amused despite yourself. âCome on.â
You lead him through the back, past the haphazard âEmployees Onlyâ sign that no one respects. Outside, the alley smells like stale piss. Very romantic, indeed.
Just like Tuesday, he lights a cigarette for you to share. You take it, and he leans against the brick wall, watching you.
âI kept thinking about you all week,â he says suddenly, no preamble. His eyes are fixed on the smoke curling off the end of the cigarette.Â
You take a drag, the smoke clinging to your teeth. âI thought about it too.â
âYeah?â
âYeah.â You look down at your shoes. âDidnât think youâd actually show up, though.â
He gives a quiet little laugh, almost self-deprecating. âHonestly, I almost didnât.â
âSo why did you?â
âI donât know. Stubbornness? Hope? Boredom?â He shrugs. âI guess I just didnât want to go another week without feeling like something mattered. Even if itâs just a conversation in a piss alley.â
That earns a smile from you. A real one. You pass the cigarette back.
âI donât know what this is,â he says eventually. âI donât even know if Iâm in a place to have a thing. But I liked talking to you. And Iâm tired of not liking anything.â
You look at him. Heâs not exactly looking back, more at the space near your shoes. But his profile is soft, a little hopeful.
âI feel the same way,â you say, cheeks hot and heartrate climbing. Something you havenât felt in a long timeânot for good reasons, at least.
He smiles. Itâs small, but it feels real.
âYouâre gonna give me your number this time, right?â
You dig your phone out of your pocket and hand it to him.
He types in his number one-handed, cigarette dangling from the other, then calls himself so he has yours too. When it buzzes in his hoodie pocket, he hums like that settles something. Like now, technically, you belong to each other in some tiny way.
You take the cigarette back from him. Your fingers brush, knuckles stay touching longer than they should.
âYouâre not gonna ghost me now that youâve won the chase, right?â you murmur.
Yoongi raises an eyebrow. âYou think that was a chase?â
You shrug. âIt was something.â
For a moment, you just stand there in the alley. The world keeps moving, traffic hums in the distance. Your shitty boss is probably inside wondering why youâve been gone more than the regulation five minutes.
But you donât move.
You look at him. His mouth. The cigarette between your fingers. And your body makes a decision your brain is too tired to argue with.
You lean in and kiss him.
Itâs clumsy at first. Your lips a little dry, the angle off, but it doesnât matter. He makes a sound like a surprised exhale against your mouth and then heâs kissing you back, slow and warm and honest.
He tastes like smoke and canned coffee. You drop the cigarette and his hand finds your jaw. Your fingers reach for the edge of his hoodie, twisting in the fabric like youâre worried heâll disappear if you donât hold on.
You kiss him again. And again.
Youâre not trying to make it romantic, really. Youâre not trying to make it anything. Itâs justâfuck, itâs been so long since someone touched you like this. Since someone wanted to.
And Yoongi kisses like he wants to be anywhere but alone. Like he gets it.
When you finally pull back, both of you a little dazed, he lets out a quiet, almost embarrassed laugh. âOkay,â he says, voice rough. âSo⊠this is happening.â
You nod, heart hammering. âDonât make it a thing.â
âI wonât.â
And he kisses you again, one more time for the road, hands on your hips like maybe he needs the grounding just as badly as you do.
Yoongi leaves around the back and you go back inside like nothing happened.
But he leaves with your number, and you can still taste him on your lips.
â§
Weeks pass, but you both take full advantage of having each otherâs numbers.
You text mostly during lulls, when youâre hiding behind the register pretending to alphabetize the books, or when Yoongiâs stuck in the back room of the record store sorting the new arrivals.
You never say good morning or good night. Itâs not like that. But he sends you photos of weird album art, and you respond with blurry selfies surrounded by piles of books with egregious titles.
Thereâs comfort in the ease of it. No pressure. Just a quiet thread tying your days together.
You: someone asked if we have a bathroom and when i said no they said âthen what do you do?â like they wanted me to shit in front of them for proof
Yoongi: People are the worst. Come work here. The pay is shit but at least no one talks to me
Sometimes you send voice notes instead of typing because youâre too tired, and he never comments on how drained you sound. He just sends one back where his voice is raspy and low and heâs clearly half-asleep but trying anyway.
Itâs not dating, but itâs not not dating. Youâre not friends, not exactly, but you care, at least a little, about whether he eats. Whether he sleeps. Whether he means it when he says heâs fine.Â
Itâs just whatever the two of you are capable of giving right now. Somehow, thatâs enough.
Itâs nearly midnight when your phone buzzes.
Yoongi: You up?
Yoongi: Donât say anything about how that sounds btw
You stare at it for a second. Then you type:
You: i am. whatâs up?
You: and yes iâm going to make fun of you anyway
You: is this a booty call
Three dots bubble up and disappear. Once, twice, three times.
Yoongi: I just want to see you
Yoongi: Is that okay?
You sit up, heart doing something inconvenient in your chest.
You could say no. You could ask why. You could point out the hour, claim you have work in the morning. But you havenât seen him since the day you exchanged numbers (and saliva), so instead, you say:
You: yeah
You: come over
You send him your address. Twenty minutes later, he shows up, in the same hoodie as last time. Holding a plastic bag with canned coffee for him, Milkis for you, and a package of cookies you once mentioned liking in a text two weeks ago.
You donât say anything at first. He holds up the bag like itâs proof that he should be allowed inside, and you take it with a soft, bemused snort. Then you step aside so he can come in.
He enters like someone trying not to wake a sleeping houseâcareful and quiet and unsure of what to do with his hands.
You close the door behind him. You both fidget for a second.
âI couldnât sleep,â he says finally, standing just inside the doorway, shoving his hands in his pockets. âKept thinking about you.â
Your heart tips, like itâs leaning closer to him whether you let it or not.
âIâve been thinking about you too,â you admit softly.
And then, because itâs late and youâre lonely and heâs warm and real and here, you kiss him. Again.
Itâs immediate this time. No fumbling. No hesitation. Just mouths pressing together like theyâre picking up where you left off in the alley behind the bookstore. His hands find your waist. Yours cup his face, thumbs brushing the sharp edges of his cheekbones. You kiss him slow, then faster. Harder.
You donât think about what it means. You donât try to label it. You just let yourself feel itâthe weight of his body, the sound of your breaths, the sudden, startling relief of being touched.
His mouth trails to your jaw. Your neck. His hoodie bunches in your fists.
When you finally pull back, both of you flushed and breathless, he presses his forehead against yours.
âI like you,â he says quietly.
You swallow around the knot in your throat and nod. âKiss me again.â
There's a sharpness to the way your mouths move now. You tug at his hoodie, fingers slipping under the hem to touch skin, and he makes a sound against your lips, small and desperate.
Yoongiâs hands are everywhere. Gripping your waist like heâs trying to ground himself, sliding up your back, curling in your shirt like he canât bear to let go. He presses you up against the door, urgent, and you gasp when his teeth graze the underside of your jaw.
âFuck,â he mutters, breathing hard. âIâm sorryâI didnât come here for this, I justââ
âDonât stop,â you say, voice barely there. âI want this.â
That undoes him a little. You feel it in the way his mouth crashes back to yours, the way he exhales sharply through his nose like heâs already drunk on it. He kisses you hard, lips and teeth and tongue with no finesse.
His thigh slips between yours and you move against it, just enough to chase friction, just enough to let him feel how badly you want this too.
âJesus,â he whispers, low and raw. âYouâre gonna kill me.â
You tilt your head back and let him mouth at your throat, lips wet, sucking a bruise into the skin. Your hips roll down again, slow and deliberate, and Yoongiâs breath stutters.
âI missed this,â you admit, half-ashamed. âI missed being touched. I missed wanting someone.â
Yoongi lifts his head just enough to look at you, eyes heavy, expression unreadable.
âYouâre not the only one,â he says.
And then he kisses you again, deep and dizzying, and slips a hand beneath your waistband. His fingers are warm against your skin. Tentative at first, like he's giving you a chance to stop him, even now. Like some small, rational part of him is still waiting for you to say, âdonât.â But you donât. You tilt your hips forward instead, breath catching, and he exhales like thatâs all the permission he needs.
He pushes his hand into your underwear and groans when he feels how wet you are.Â
âFuck,â he gasps. âYouâre soâfuck.â
Itâs been a long time since someone touched you like this. Since someone wanted you like this. Desperate but gentle, afraid of messing it up. His fingers slide through your slick heat and you let out a sharp breath, clinging to his shoulders, your forehead pressed to his.
âIâm not gonna last long,â you whisper, already dizzy. âThis isâfuckâthis is embarrassing.â
Yoongi huffs a soft, broken laugh. âDonât care. Come for me. Come fast. I want to feel you lose it.â
He fucks you with his fingers slow, then fast, then slow again. Just enough pressure to make you tremble, to make you cry out softly into his hoodie. His thumb finds your clit, and you nearly sob from the shock of it.
âYoongiââ you breathe, hands scrambling for purchase. âIâfuckââ
âYeah,â he murmurs. âJust like that. Let me have it. I got you.â
You come fast. Hard. Pathetically hard. Your body locks up and then shudders violently, mouth open against his collarbone, heart pounding like itâs trying to claw out of your chest. Yoongi holds you through it. Doesnât say anything. Just lets you ride it out with his mouth pressed to your temple, breathing you in.
When itâs over, youâre shaking. Barely upright. He eases his hand out of your underwear and presses a kiss to your hairline, tender in a way that makes your eyes sting.
You bury your face in his neck.Â
âI canât believe I let you finger me against my front door,â you mumble, mortified as you catch your breath.
âCanât believe you invited me to,â he replies, grinning against your skin.
You both laugh. Quiet and shaky and a little shellshocked. Youâre still leaning into him, your breath evening out, your body boneless. The high is fading, but the warmth he left behind is stubborn.
You lift your head, eyes still a little glazed, and give him a suspicious squint.
âI have a question,â you say.
Yoongi blinks, cautious. âShoot.â
âHow the fuck are you not getting laid constantly?â
His eyebrows shoot up. Then he laughs, quiet but full-bodied, like heâs genuinely caught off guard.
âI mean,â you continue, gesturing vaguely to your crotch, âthat wasâGod. And I didn't even know if youâd be good at it! Like, I kind of assumed it would be decent, because you have a mouth and hands and a pulseâbut that was fucking criminally good. Who taught you that? Why is this not a more widely available service?â
Yoongi presses his face into your shoulder and groans, laughing harder now. âJesus Christ.â
âIâm just saying, someone out there is missing the opportunity of a lifetime.â
He finally lifts his head again, his cheeks tinged with pink. âYeah, well. Most people donât really stick around long enough to find out.â
That sobers you a little.
You study himâhis messy hair, his blown pupils, the way he tries to play it off with a little shrug. But thereâs something underneath it all. Not sadness, exactly. Loneliness, maybe.
You reach up and brush your fingers through his bangs, almost absently. âTheyâre idiots.â
Yoongi watches you for a moment. Doesnât argue. Doesnât deflect. Just leans into your touch.Â
And then the quiet gets to you, makes you want to crawl out of your skin, so you say:
âSo⊠uh⊠want me to suck your dick?â
Yoongi freezes. His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
â...Right now?â
âNo,â you say dryly. âNext Thursday.â
He laughs. âAre you always like this?â he asks, amused, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
You ignore him and reach for the waistband of his sweatpants instead, fingers slipping under, deliberate and slow. âSo?â
Yoongi exhales sharply, eyes fluttering shut. âYeah. Fuck. Yeah, I want you to.â
His head tips back when you start kissing down his neck. His breath goes shallow. The way he touches you, light on the back of your neck, like he doesnât know what he did to deserve thisâit makes you want to give him everything all of a sudden.
So you drop to your knees in your entryway, hitting the floor with a quiet thud that echoes in the quiet. Yoongi looks down at you in amazement, eyes wide, lips parted, chest rising and falling fast.
You tug his sweats down and he helps, fingers twitching against the fabric, thick cock already hard and leaking at the tip.
âYouâre serious,â he says, voice thin. Disbelieving.
You glance up at him, smirking. âThat a problem?â
âNot even a little.â
You spit into your palm, spread it over the head, and he twitches in your grip. When you lean in and lick a slow stripe up the underside of his cock, Yoongi lets out a quiet, broken sound.
Youâre a little rusty, but you donât tease. You donât take your time. You just sink your mouth down around him, spit-slick and sloppy.Â
âFuckââÂ
Yoongiâs head knocks lightly against the wall. One hand finds the back of your head, loose and shaking like he doesnât know whether to pull you closer or hold you still.
You bob your head faster, messier. Let your saliva drip down over your fingers, curled around the base of his cock while you work the rest with your mouth. He groans again, choked and startled, and you feel him twitch in your palm.
âJesus, youâre gonnaâfuck, youâre gonna make me cum.â
You hum around him. That does it.
He gasps. Buckles a little. Then pulls back. Not all the way, just enough to jerk himself through the last few strokes, breathing ragged.
âShit, shitâIâmâfuck, baby, fuckââ
You look up at him, mouth open, lips shiny and wet, tongue out just barely.Â
He spills across your mouth, your cheek, your chin. Hot and messy and so, so much. You blink through it, a little stunned, a lot turned on.
âHoly shit,â he breathes, staring at the mess he made of you. âYouâreâgod. Youâre insane.â
You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, still grinning. âYouâre welcome.â
Yoongi laughs breathlessly. âI think I just fell in love with you a little.â
You feel the shift, then. Itâs small, almost imperceptible, but suddenly the air feels different. Too quiet. A little too still.
âDonât be weird about it,â you huff, just to fill the space.Â
Yoongi leans down and helps you up with careful hands. Your legs are a little wobbly. His hoodie is rumpled. His hairâs a mess. His sweatpants hang loose on his hips and his lips are kiss-bitten and red.
You glance at him, then away just as fast.
Youâve crossed some invisible threshold. You both know it. And now youâre just... here.
âIâm gonna, um.â You gesture vaguely toward the hallway. âWash my face.â
Yoongi nods, but doesnât say anything. You donât look back as you walk away.
In the bathroom, you stare at yourself in the mirror, palms braced on either side of the sink. You wash your hands. Splash your face. Pat dry and breathe.
Or try to.
Fuck, are you having a fucking panic attack? Over that? Your chest is tight, every cell of your skin foreign to you. Like youâre wearing someone elseâs body and she just did something you werenât supposed to.
What the fuck was that?
Not the act itself. That part was great. The enthusiasm, the sheer filth of itâyou donât think you regret it. Maybe. It felt good, in the moment. You wanted it.
Itâs what came after.
The shift. The quiet. The moment you felt like he saw too much of you. The part of you that glows when itâs being wanted, and dims just as quickly when itâs alone again.
AndâJesus, âI think I just fell in love with you a littleâ? Who the fuck says that?
It takes you longer than youâd like to calm down. You do the breathing exercises you were taught, back in college when counseling was free and they handed out pamphlets on every corner of your campus. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. You smooth down your shirt. Brush your fingers through your hair.Â
Then return to the living room like you didnât just spiral for fifteen straight minutes.
When you return, breathing still a little labored, Yoongiâs sitting on the arm of your couch with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like heâs afraid of what comes next. Like youâve left him with his thoughts for too long.Â
He sits up when you approach, brow furrowed at the state of you.
âYou okay?â he asks.
You sigh and sit down.Â
âYeah. I justâŠâ You stare straight ahead. âThat was good. Really good. But itâs been a while. And I donât know what Iâm doing. With any of this.â
Yoongi nods slowly. âYou donât have to know,â he says. âI donât either.â
You turn to look at him, and the thing in his eyes, the softness, itâs too much. So you keep going.Â
âNot just the sex. Not just⊠you. This,â you say, gesturing at yourself, then your apartment. The mess thatâs accumulated over the past month. âLetting someone see me when I donât have it together. When Iâm not even trying to pretend I do.â
You rest your head on the back of the couch, stare up at the ceiling like maybe itâll swallow you whole if you keep talking.
âI donât know why the fuck now of all times is when Iâm letting myself feel anything,â you say. âItâs not like my life is better. Itâs not like Iâve earned it.â
Silence.Â
Then Yoongi shifts. Leans forward, elbows on his knees again, like heâs working up to something.
âYou donât have to earn anything,â he says. âThereâs no quota for being okay. Or being wanted. You can be a mess and still deserve good things. You can be at your worst and still⊠feel.â
You laugh. Bitter and small. âSo what, weâre just two disasters trying to convince each other itâs fine?â
He shrugs. âPretty much.â And then, so gentle it nearly breaks you, he adds, âI donât think Iâm here to fix you. I just want to be here.â
How can he be so sure?
You donât know a damn thing about him. Not really.
You know he works the stock room in a record store part-time and hates most of his coworkers. You know he smokes too much. That he eats terrible sandwiches and drinks canned coffee. That he texts like heâs trying to make you laugh even when heâs probably in the middle of some breakdown of his own.
You know heâs good with his hands.
You know he looked at you, in all of your mess, like you were still human. You know that he says dumb, grossly honest shit way too easily.
But you donât know where he grew up. You donât know what keeps him up at night. You donât know what kind of heartbreaks heâs carrying, or who let him down hard enough that he walks around like he does.
And still, thereâs something in your chest that wonât calm down. Something desperate. Clawing. A tightness you donât want to name.
Why?
Why the fuck are you feeling so much for someone whoâs barely more than a stranger?
Is it just the attention? The intimacy? The fact that, for once, someone touched you without asking you to be okay first? Is this what happens when youâre starving? When your skin has been untouched for too long and someone comes along with warm hands and tired eyes and lets you fall apart without flinching?
Maybe.
But it doesnât feel shallow. It doesnât feel fake. Instead, it just feels too easy. Like being with him turns the volume down in your head. Like you donât have to explain yourself to be understood.
It scares the shit out of you.
Yoongi slips down from the armrest, sinks into the cushion next to you instead. Your knee brushes his. His arm rests behind you on the back of the couch, not quite around you, but near enough that if you leaned even slightly, heâd catch you.
Neither of you moves for a while. You just breathe.Â
Then his arm moves and his pinky finger nudges yours.
A small thing. Stupid. Barely anything.
But itâs the first deliberate touch since everything happened in the entryway. And itâs soft. Hesitant.
âWe donât have to do⊠that,â he says, quiet but firm. You know he means the sex. âWe donât have to do anything.â
Maybe you donât need to define it yet. Maybe itâs not about love or fate or healing. Maybe itâs just about want.
Two people letting themselves be wanted for a while.
You hook your pinky around his.
Just this, you think. Just this is fine.Â
â§
Yoongi doesnât push. He doesnât label anything. He just keeps showing up.Â
Sometimes at your place, sometimes at his. Sometimes at the bookstore, when he has a day off.
Thereâs a pattern now.
Late-night convenience store runs. Shared ramen on cracked stools by the window, making fun of peopleâs bad haircuts as they pass on the street outside. Socks borrowed and never returned. His hoodie living permanently on the back of your chair. Your phone lighting up with âProof of life?â on days he knows youâre at a low.
Sometimes you kiss. Sometimes you just sit in the same room and donât say anything. Sometimes he talks and you donât respond. And thatâs okay, too.
Itâs not about what it is. Itâs about the fact that it keeps happening.
When you disappear, he still shows up. Like today.
Itâs not a dramatic breakdown. Not this time.
Instead, itâs the kind of bad week that sinks its teeth in slow. No single catalyst, no big meltdown. Just one exhausting day stacked on top of another, until your body forgets how to move without dragging. Your sink is full of dishes you canât look at. Your hairâs unwashed. You havenât eaten anything substantial in days.
You didnât text Yoongi to come over. You didnât say much of anything at all this week.
But you mustâve sounded off, or maybe he just knows how to read silence better than most, because around three in the afternoon, you hear the soft knock at your door.
You donât answer at first. You donât mean to ignore him, you just canât make your legs move.
A minute passes, and your phone buzzes from somewhere near your pillow.
Yoongi: Not trying to crowd you. Just wanted to drop off some food
Yoongi: Leaving it by the door. No pressure
You muster the energy to roll out of bed and crack the door open. A plastic bag sits at your feet and Yoongi is already halfway down the hallway, hands in his pockets.
âYoongi,â you call, your voice raspier than you expect.
He turns around.
âHey,â he says, probably surprised that youâre upright.
You open the door wider. âYou can come in. If you want.â
Yoongi hesitates just for a second, checking that youâre sure. Then he nods. He picks the bag up and slips inside without a word, setting it on your kitchen counter.Â
He doesnât try to hug you or touch you or ask whatâs wrong. He doesnât judge your apartment, the clothes strewn about, the closed curtains, the dishes piling up in the sink. He barely even looks.
âYou eaten today?â he asks, gently.
You shake your head. âNot really hungry.â
âOkay,â he says. âIâm gonna make something anyway. Just in case.â
He moves around your kitchen like itâs his. Not because heâs overly familiar, but because heâs not afraid of your mess. He pulls out eggs, rice, a few green onions from the bag he brought.
You retreat back to your couch. You didnât mean to lie down again, but the second you sit, your body droops until youâre horizontal. So you stay curled on your side, facing the wall. Listening.
The clink of metal. The whoosh of your gas burner catching. The soft sizzle of garlic hitting oil.
You donât remember falling asleep, but when you wake up, Yoongi is sitting on the floor in front of the couch, cross-legged, a steaming bowl in his lap and another on your coffee table.
You push yourself up slowly. Your head aches, your throatâs dry, but you canât lie. It smells good.
âYou didnât have toââ you start.
âI know,â he says, soft. âI wanted to.â
You eat in silence. The rice is soft, buttery, a little salty from the soy sauce and the eggs scrambled through it. Youâre hungrier than you thought, but you pace yourself.
Halfway through, he glances over at you.
âYou wanna watch something dumb?â
You nod.
Yoongi takes your bowl when youâre done, rinses both of them without comment. When he comes back, he takes a seat next to you. He scrolls through streaming apps on your TV until he lands on something you like.
The opening credits roll.
He doesnât try to hold you. Doesnât try to tell you itâs going to be okay. He just sits beside you, shoulders barely brushing. When your body droops again, he lets you lean into his side.
Somewhere around the fifteen-minute mark, he mutters, âYou donât have to be okay for me to want to be here.â
You donât look at him. Your throat tightens like youâre going to cry. Which is something, at least, after the numbness of the week.Â
âThis could be me next week,â he says, like itâs nothing. âOr tomorrow. So. I get it. Thatâs all.â
And then the movie continues. One ridiculous scene after another. The light from the screen flickers across his face.
You donât say thank you yet, but you know you donât have to.
â§
You still havenât put a name to it.
Neither of you has tried. There was one moment, maybe, a few days ago. Yoongi was over for no particular reason. Heâd looked at you from your kitchen floor, head propped against the cabinets, lips red from kissing, and opened his mouth like he might ask.
But then the takeout came, and the moment passed.
You text like friends. âWant anything from the store?â âThis customer just asked if we sell records on vinyl. I hate it here.â âWhat are you doing tonight?â âAbsolutely nothing.â âCome do nothing with me.â
You hang out like youâre in a relationship. Eat cross-legged on his bed. Steal fries from each otherâs plates without asking. Sometimes fall asleep shoulder to shoulder watching terrible TV.
You make out. A lot.Â
Against walls. On couches. Outside each otherâs doors at night when neither of you feels like saying goodnight just yet. It never quite escalates to the point it did that nightâmaybe once or twice it almost does, but one of you always pumps the brakes.
You donât meet each otherâs friends. You donât ask about exes. You donât introduce him to your sister or take photos together or exchange socials. Because that doesnât feel like what this is.
You like the bubble youâve built. The little world where nothing outside matters. Where it doesnât have to matter yet.
Because outside the bubble, your life is still a mess. Rentâs overdue. Work is torture. You havenât written anything in over a year and you havenât figured out how to be proud of yourself again, not really.
But inside itâwhen Yoongiâs mouth is on yours, when he texts you âMade extra ramen if youâre hungry btwâ like thatâs not the most romantic shit anyoneâs ever said to you, you feel steady.
But, like anything else, it comes with its own set of issues.
The thing about not fucking is that it used to be about not wanting. A lack of drive. A lack of spark. A lack of time or energy or libido or options.
But now? Now, itâs something else. Because you have the option.Â
Now, itâs starting to feel like a crack in the glass. Like every time you grind against his thigh with your hips twitching and your breath shaky, or every time he pulls your shirt off and buries his face between your tits but doesnât go lower, the crack gets a little deeper. And youâre both pretending not to see it.
Because the truth is: you want to fuck him.
You desperately want to fuck him.
You think about it constantly. The way his fingers curled inside you that first night, the soft, filthy way he talked to you, the way he looked down at your face when you sucked him off like he was watching a goddamn miracle unfold.
You think about how heâd feel inside you.
You ache with it.
But you donât bring it up. Because once you do, once you have sex, itâs not a bubble anymore. Itâs real, something with expectations.
And you know yourself, you know how you get. Youâll start needing more. Wanting more. And Yoongi, sweet and quiet and lost in his own way, will become another thing you donât know how to manage. Another thing you donât know how to keep.
Youâre scared of that. Of ruining it. Of letting your body talk you into something your heart might not be strong enough to carry.
So you kiss him like youâre dying, but when his hands drift to your waistband, you laugh, too high-pitched, and pull away. Pretend youâre tired. Or hungry. Or something, anything. Any excuse not to cross that final threshold. Yoongi never pushes. He just nods, catches his breath, and helps you back into your shirt like a gentleman.
But you feel the tension growing. Between your thighs. In your chest. In the way you wake up soaked and aching after every sleepover, body clenching at nothing. In the way your kisses are starting to come with more teeth. With soft little growls in your throat you didnât mean to let out.
Tonight, heâs at your place again. Itâs late. You both know he shouldâve left hours ago, and the crack is splintering even further, faster than you realize.
Youâre straddling Yoongi on the couch, your knees bracketing his hips, your mouth fused to his. Your hips are rocking down, slow and aimless at first, but building. You can feel him getting hard beneath you, feel the press of him through his sweats as you drag your clothed pussy over him like your body is starving.
Yoongi groans into your kiss. His hands grip your thighs, fingertips twitching. But, like always, he doesnât push. He just lets you move, lets you grind down on him with that ragged little gasp in your throat, lets you take what you need without crossing the line youâve both carefully danced around for weeks.
Because when he tilts his head and mouths at your neck, hot and slow, and mutters, âyouâre gonna make me come in my fucking pants,â you snap.
Completely.
You pull back just enough to look at him, breathing hard, eyes wild. âI want to fuck you.â
He blinks. Catches up slowly, like heâs not sure if he imagined it.
âI want you to fuck me,â you amend, a little louder. Desperate.
Yoongi just stares at you for a moment, mouth parted, chest heaving. His hands tighten on your thighs.Â
âYou sure?â he asks, voice rough.
Once you say yes, it happens fast.Â
Yoongiâs hands are everywhere. Gripping your hips, your waist, sliding up your back to tug your shirt over your head. He peels it off and tosses it somewhere behind you, eyes locked on yours like heâs giving you one last chance to change your mind.
You donât.
Your braâs off next, fast, and he curses the second your tits are bare, like he canât believe this is happening. Like heâs been thinking about it for weeks too, and now that itâs real, he doesnât know where to start.
So he starts with his mouth.
He palms your breasts and groans low in his throat, then leans forward and takes one into his mouth like he needs itâhot tongue flicking over your nipple, lips sucking gently before he bites, just enough to make you gasp. His fingers find the other, circling and pinching lightly.
âFuck,â you whimper, arching into him. âYoongiââ
You grind down on his cock again, still half-dressed from the waist down, the friction sharp and unbearable. Youâre soaked. You can feel it. Your panties are useless at this point, clinging wetly to your folds, and youâre half a second away from tearing them off yourself if he doesnât move faster.
âCondom,â you breathe. âPlease. Whereâ?â
âYeahâfuckâyeah, hold on.â
You scramble off his lap at the same time he stumbles off the couch, both of you half-laughing and swearing under your breath. He digs through his bag on your floor, frantic, muttering, âI swear I had oneâfuck, waitâyes.â
He holds it up like a prize, and you donât even give him the chance to rip it open before youâre tugging your shorts and panties down in one go, stepping out of them and crawling back onto the couch.
Yoongi stops cold, stares at you for a second.
Hair messy. Chest heaving. Legs spread. Eyes hungry.
âFuck,â he murmurs, tearing the foil open and shoving his sweats halfway down his thighs with shaking hands. His cock bobs free, hard and flushed and so ready, and your mouth actually waters.
He rolls the condom on with practiced ease and climbs back over you, settling between your legs like he belongs there. Like heâs done it a hundred times in dreams and is finally allowed to touch.
He presses inside you slowly, inch by inch, and the stretch knocks the breath from your lungs. Youâre soaked, but itâs still so much, been too long, and you cling to his shoulders with a gasp.
Yoongi groans, forehead dropping to yours.
âJesus, youâre tight,â he rasps. âFucking wet.â
You whimper, hips already rolling up to meet him. âBeen wanting this,â you whisper. âNeeding thisââ
âYeah?â he murmurs, voice shaking. âYou gonna let me give it to you?â
âYes, pleaseââ
And then he starts to move. Just the brutal press of his hips to yours, every thrust deep and deliberate and filthy, like heâs trying to bury himself somewhere he wonât be able to crawl back from.
Your head tips back against the couch, eyes rolling up, mouth falling open on a gasp that barely sounds like a real word. Heâs got one hand gripping the arm of the couch behind your head for leverage, the other wrapped tight around your thigh, keeping you pinned wide open beneath him as he fucks into you.
âFuck, Yoongiâfuckââ
âYou like it, baby?â he growls.Â
You whimper, nodding helplessly, your hands scrambling up under his hoodie to claw at his back, his sides, anywhere you can touch.
Your skinâs on fire. Your thoughts are gone. All you know is the sharp, perfect drag of his cock, the sound of your soaked cunt every time he slams into you, the guttural noises he makes when your walls flutter around him.
âYou feel so fucking good,â he groans, eyes squeezed shut, jaw clenched. âTight little pussy just gripping meâshit, baby, I canâtââ
His pace stutters for half a second, like your body is pulling the soul out of him.
You cry out when he hits deepâtoo deepâand he groans, pulling your legs higher around his waist to get the angle just right.
âThere,â he growls when you shatter under him, thighs shaking, cunt clenching so hard he nearly loses it. âFucking cum.â
You come like youâve lost control of your body. Loud, legs locked, nails in his back. It hits hard and fast and doesnât stop, rolling through you in hot, humiliating waves. Yoongi hisses, desperate now, chasing his own end, rhythm starting to break.
âGonna fill you up,â he pants, even though the condomâs there, even though itâs just a filthy fantasy, and you sob at the idea of it. âFuck, I wishâwish I could come inside youâfuckâyouâd let me, wouldnât you? Let me ruin you for anyone elseââ
âYes,â you gasp, not even sure you mean it, but it sounds right. Feels true.
Thatâs all it takes.
Yoongi groans like itâs been punched out of him, hips jerking as he comes hard, cock twitching inside you, face buried in your neck as he spills into the condom.
You both stay there, gasping against sticky skin through the aftershocks. He kisses your neck once. Then again. And again.
âHoly shit,â you breathe, dazed. âI think you just rearranged my internal organs.â
Yoongi laughs. âCool. I was aiming for your soul.â
The couch cushions are half off the frame, your legs still trembling where theyâre spread open around his waist. Yoongi pulls out slowly, careful, and your body aches from it, clenches down involuntarily, already missing the stretch.Â
He ties off the condom, looks around for somewhere to put it before settling on the empty takeout bag from earlier. Pulls his sweats back up.
You sit up with limbs like jelly, not bothering to put your underwear back on just yet, and run a hand through your hair. Your thighs are sticky. Your lips are swollen. You feel fucked out and raw and wrung clean.
Your body is so satisfied.
Predictably, your brain is a different story.
You glance over at Yoongi. Heâs slouched against the other end of the couch, head back, eyes closed. His hair is damp at the temples, chest still rising and falling like he hasnât quite come back to himself yet.
He looks gorgeous.
You want to kiss him.
You also want to run.
That tight, itchy feelingâthe one youâve been avoiding since you first let him touch youâcomes roaring back. You just crossed the line. You fucked the one good thing in your life that wasnât tangled in expectations. That didnât ask anything from you.
You broke the bubble.
He opens one eye and glances over at you.
âYou okay?â
You nod. âYeah. JustâŠâ You trail off. Shrug. âThat was intense.â
Yoongi huffs a soft laugh. âYeah. You think?â
You stand. Your legs are still shaking.
âIâm gonna, uh⊠go pee,â you say, already heading toward the bathroom. âBefore I die.â
He doesnât stop you. Just nods, eyes following you for a second before he looks away.
You close the door and sit on the edge of the tub. Breathe.
You want to feel good. You do feel good. But also⊠you feel like maybe youâve fucked up. Or youâre about to. Or like this is going to change something that shouldnât be changed.
You think about what youâll say when you go back out there.
You think about whether heâs getting dressed. Whether heâll leave. Whether he should.
You think, I donât want this to become another thing I have to recover from.
â§
When you finally open the bathroom door, the light feels harsher than it should, and your skinâs still warm from the shower you didnât really want but took anyway. Just to delay, to think, to scrub away the sweat and the way his hands felt on your hips and the way your body sang for him.
You step into the living room wearing clean underwear and a fresh shirt. Your face is bare. Your hair is damp. Your expression, despite your best effort, is a little too tight.
Yoongi looks up from the couch, where heâs still sitting, this time in his sweats and hoodie again, elbows on his knees, fingers idly twisting the hem of his sleeve.
His eyes meet yours. He doesnât smile, but his gaze softens. Immediately.
âHey,â he says, quiet.
You nod, cross your arms. âHey.â
He watches you for a second, then leans back, patting the space next to him.
You hesitate, but you lower yourself onto the couch anyway. Not quite touching, not quite distant. A safe middle.Â
âWanna tell me whatâs wrong?â
âIâm fine.â
âOkay,â Yoongi says, disbelieving. âThen why do you look like youâre trying to figure out how to ghost me while Iâm still in your apartment?â
You wince, staring at your knees. âI justâI didnât mean for this to turn into, like⊠a thing.â
He nods slowly. âOkay.â
âI mean, weâre not, right? A thing?â
You look at him now, really look. Your heartâs racing. Your stomachâs twisting. Youâre not sure what kind of answer you want.
Yoongi looks back at you for a long moment. Then he leans back again, scrubbing a hand through his hair.
âI donât know what we are,â he says. âI wasnât trying to make it anything.â
You swallow hard, because part of you thinks that should make you feel better. Instead, it just makes your chest ache. You were the one who let him in, even when you swore you wouldnât. Youâre not trying to make him feel like heâs the one at fault here. Itâs you. Itâs always you.
âBut,â he adds, eyes flicking to yours again, âI like you. I care about you. And if weâre fucking now, yeah, thatâs gonna mean something to me. Even if we never put a label on it.â
âDoesnât that make it worse?â you ask, voice thin. âIf it means something?â
Yoongi doesnât speak for a long while. You sink into him without meaning to, thigh to thigh, arm to arm. You donât really know why.
He exhales, slow and deliberate, and says, âCan I tell you something?â
You nod against his shoulder.
âI wasnât supposed to be at that convenience store,â he starts, voice shaky in a way that makes you sit up, just slightly. âI mean, I didnât have a reason to be anywhere. But that night⊠I think I was sort of⊠walking around to see if Iâd change my mind.â
You still. Your heart trips over itself, because that could mean a lot of things. Because you know, just by the tone of his voice, that he means the worst.Â
He keeps going.
âIâd been thinking about it for a while. Not in a loud way. Not even like a plan. Just⊠wondering. If things would be better. Easier. If I just stopped. Just disappeared.â
You donât interrupt. You donât breathe too loud. You just listen.
âAnd that night, it felt close. Like maybe I was ready. Like maybe no one would notice.â He lets out a shaky laugh. âI hadnât talked to anyone in a couple days. I didnât even brush my teeth before I left the house. I just started walking.â
Your eyes sting. You try not to let it show.
âI stopped at the store because I thoughtâfuck it. One last shitty sandwich. One last can of cold coffee.â He huffs. âReally poetic, right?â
You let out a breath. âYoongiââ
He shakes his head. âIâm not telling you this so youâll feel bad. Or because I think you saved me. You didnât. You just⊠made it a little easier to stay.â
Youâre crying now, because god, you didnât know, but you know. You know how it feels to always have that in the back of your mind, to convince yourself that there would be relief in giving up. Letting go.Â
He turns his head toward you now, not quite meeting your eyes, like heâs still unsure if heâs allowed to say all this out loud.
âI still think about it. Sometimes. Not all the time. But⊠it comes back. When itâs quiet. When Iâm alone too long. But since that night, itâs been easier knowing that someone gets it. That I donât have to pretend Iâm fine all the time.â
He finally looks at you, and itâs not a dramatic, sweeping kind of moment. Thereâs no soft lighting or music swelling. Just his tired eyes, and your tired heart, and the shared weight of knowing what it feels like to want to give upâand choosing, for whatever reason, not to.
âMaybe thatâs all this has to be,â he says. âNot a love story. Not some perfect, clean thing. Just⊠two people who donât always want to be here, making it a little easier for each other to stay.â
You canât speak. You nod, and your eyes blur, and Yoongi presses his forehead to yours like itâs the only way he knows how to say thank you for seeing me.
â§
Days later, things arenât betterânot in the way people usually mean. Your life is still a mess. His is too.Â
But somethingâs changed. Settled.
He lets himself in now. Doesnât knock. Kicks his shoes off like he lives there, shrugs his hoodie off and drops it somewhere near the couch, grabs two cups and fills them with whateverâs in your fridge.
And you let him.
You sit next to each other, thigh to thigh, flipping through shows you wonât finish. You kiss during the commercials. You fall asleep with his hand on your waist.
You still havenât said youâre together. You still havenât said what you mean to each other. But when youâre quiet for too long, he looks up from his phone and asks, âOkay?â
And when heâs too quiet, you ask, âWanna stay the night?â
And when you both lie awake in the dark, not talking, not moving, you think: Iâm still here.
And so is he.
â§
It starts with scraps. Half-sentences in your notes app. A phrase here, a sentence there. Something you jotted down after Yoongi left one night, when your chest felt like it was holding more than usual and your bed still smelled like his shampoo.
Then it becomes a little routine. You open your laptop without the usual dread. You stare at the cursor blinking in a half-finished document and think: maybe I can.
Itâs not for meant to be published. Itâs not for anyone but you. But itâs something.
One night, Yoongi finds you sitting on the floor with your laptop on your thighs. Youâre so focused, you donât even hear him come in.
He just watches for a second, quiet.
âWriting?â he asks eventually, and you jump.
âJesusââ You slam the laptop shut on instinct, and he raises both hands in surrender, shoulders shaking with laughter.
âYou donât have to show me,â he says, setting down the drinks he brought. âBut⊠thatâs new.â
You shrug, embarrassed. âItâs nothing. Just⊠stuff.â
Yoongi sinks to the floor beside you. âYou havenât written since we met.â
âI havenât written in a long time.â
He doesnât ask why not. He already knows.
Instead, he leans his head on your shoulder and says, âIâm glad youâre starting to again.â
He doesnât push. He doesnât ask for details. He doesnât ask to read it. He just sits with you, there on the floor, eyes closed. Like your writing means something just by existing.
You open the laptop again.
You keep writing.
â§
Yoongi is sitting cross-legged on your bed while you type, cradling a cup of tea you made him because he clearly needed something to do with his hands.Â
You can tell heâs nervous. Heâs got that look on his face like heâs about to say something serious but is trying not to scare the shit out of you. It isnât working.
âSo,â he says, after a long stretch of silence, âI have a friend.â
You glance up from your laptop, blinking. âAmazing.â
Yoongi huffs. âKim Namjoon. Heâs an old friend. College. We used to mess around with production stuff, back when I thought I was gonna be a genius producer with a Grammy by 25.â
You smile a little at that, set your laptop aside. âWhatâd he say?â
Yoongi hesitates, fingers drumming softly against the side of his mug. âHe got some seed money. Not much. Just enough to rent a space, get a couple of half-decent mics, some gear. Says he wants to start a small label.â
Your stomach does a little flip. Not because youâre worried. Not yet. But because of the way heâs saying it. Like heâs trying not to want it too much.
âHe wants me in on it,â Yoongi continues, staring down into his tea. âItâd be three of us, working in a basement, surviving off cup ramen. Maybe getting a local artist to sign on eventually.â
You exhale. âThat sounds⊠really fucking cool.â
Yoongi finally looks at you. Heâs smiling now, just a little, but itâs tight at the edges. âYeah. It does.â
âAnd?â
He shrugs, but itâs not a real shrug. Itâs that shoulder-lift people do when something matters too much. âAnd I donât know. I donât know if Iâm ready to give a shit again. I donât know if Iâll fuck it up. I donât even know if I still have anything to say.â
âYou do,â you say, instantly.
His jaw flexes. âYeah, well. Maybe. Heâs starting soon. Wants me to come by next week. Just to mess around with some demos, get a feel for it again.â
You nod slowly. Try not to let the âwhat ifâs start swirling. What if it pulls him away? What if he leaves? What if this tiny, fragile thing youâre buildingâwhatever it isâgets buried under a dream he's only just remembered how to want again?
But you donât say any of that.
Instead, you say, âYou should do it.â
Yoongi searches your face for a long time, hesitant, like heâs trying to catch you in a lie.Â
âYeah?â
You reach over and take his mug, set it on the nightstand. You curl into his side, your face pressed to the crook of his neck.
âYeah,â you whisper. âI think maybe⊠weâre both starting to remember how to want things again.â
You feel him breathe out. Slow. Unsteady.
But he nods.
â§
Yoongi doesnât stop texting. He still sends you memes, voice notes, the occasional photo of his workspaceâa cramped basement room with exposed pipes and cords spilling out over his desk, coffee-stained notebooks piled next to a MIDI keyboard.
But heâs not around as much.
The nights you used to spend togetherâhalf-draped over one another on the couch, kissing during reruns, sleeping side-by-side without labelsâare fewer now. Sometimes he falls asleep at the studio. Sometimes he doesnât respond until 2 a.m., when youâre already asleep.
Itâs hard. You wonât lie to yourself about that. You feel the absence like a low-grade fever. Always there, dull but insistent.
And thereâs still no word for what you are. No boyfriend, no girlfriend. Just⊠you, and Yoongi. And this thing youâve built together, quiet and warm and undefined.
But when you do see himâwhen he walks through your door smelling like coffee and sweat and workâyou can see it on him. The spark. The momentum. The low, buzzing joy of trying again. Of wanting something bad enough to bleed for it.
Heâs tired. But heâs tired for a good reason, now.
And that makes you want to try, too.
So you keep opening your laptop. Not just to scribble down half-formed ideas, but to finish. You sit with the mess of it, the aching in your fingers, the voice in your head that says âwhy botherââand you write anyway. You dig up old stories, rework scenes that used to make you cringe. You find your voice again, piece by shaky piece.
Sometimes, late at night, you send him snippets. Just to say, look. Iâm doing it, too.
And he always responds, eventually. Usually something like:
Yoongi: Fuck yes
Yoongi: Proud of you
Yoongi: Also the studio toilet flooded again. Iâm going to kill Joon
You laugh. You keep writing.
It still hurts sometimes. Missing him, wondering what all this means. But now the hurt is paired with movement. With hope.
â§
Eventually, you finish something.
Itâs not perfect. Not even close. There are typos and sentences that feel like strangers to themselves, and places where the ending is still a little jagged and wrong. But itâs done.
A full manuscript. Your name at the top. Your words, your voice, your pain and hunger and stupid hope wrapped into a whopping 112 pages.
You think of Yoongi when you submit it with an application to a graduate school program. A program youâve read and re-read the description for more times than you care to admit. You don't know if itâs good enough. If youâre good enough. But for the first time in a long time, you do it anyway.
And then you donât tell anyone.
Maybe itâs selfish, but you want the hope for yourself. Just for a little while. You want to keep it quiet and sacred, untainted by expectations or well-meaning encouragement or the crushing weight of what if it doesnât happen. You just want it to be yours.
You keep seeing Yoongi, of course. When he can. When heâs not tangled up in late-night meetings and studio sessions. You see each other in stolen hours, sleep-heavy kisses, lazy dinners eaten on the floor.
But lately, even those small moments feel bigger.
And then one night, you get a text.
Yoongi: You home?
You are. You say yes.
He shows up ten minutes later, breathless, hoodie damp from trying to dodge light rain, cheeks flushed with joy. Real joy. The kind that lights his whole face from the inside out.
âI had to tell someone,â he says the second you open the door. âI had to tell you.â
You let him in, confused but smiling all the same. Youâve been doing a lot of that lately. âWhat happened?â
He doesnât even sit. He paces back and forth, rakes a hand through his hair, practically vibrating.
âWe signed someone,â he finally says. âTentatively, but, this artist from Busan, sheâs insane, sheâs so weird and good and her voice is likeâfuck, I donât even know how to explain it. But Namjoon loved her. We all did. And she said yes. She said yes, to us.â
You blink, stunned. âYouâYoongi, thatâsâholy shit!â
He grins, wide and unguarded, and youâve never seen him like this before and it just makes you so fucking happy. Youâre up on your feet before your brain catches up.Â
You hug him tight, breath caught in your throat. Because heâs shaking a little, and he smells so good, and this is what he looks like when heâs proud of himself. When heâs living.
You pull back to look at him, hands on his jaw.
âIâm so proud of you,â you whisper.
And Yoongiâs expression shifts. Softens. Deepens. He takes a breath.Â
âI love you,â he says.
Like itâs not sudden. Like itâs been sitting on his tongue for weeks, waiting for the right moment to fall out.
âI justâI do. And I didnât want to say it while things were still messy, or early, or whatever. But this is what I wanted. That night, at the convenience store. This. You. Someone who gets it. Someone who doesnât fix me but lets me stay. And I love you.â
Fuck. There it is.Â
You donât speak right away. You reach for him instead. Pull him back in. Rest your forehead against his and let yourself feel it. All of it.
And then, soft and steady, you say it back.Â
âI love you too.â
â§
Itâs not frantic, not this time.Â
Not messy or rushed or born of need. Itâs slow, reverent, deep. Yoongiâs hands cradle your face like youâre something fragile, something heâs terrified of breaking now that he knows what you mean to him. His thumbs stroke your cheeks. His breath catches when you tilt your head and kiss him harder but just as slow, open-mouthed and aching.
You walk him backwards toward the bed. He lets you. He goes willingly, grinning against your mouth like he canât believe this is happening again, that youâre his, and that this time, itâs not just comfort or heat or distraction. Itâs love.
He sinks onto the mattress, and you climb over him, straddling his lap, kissing him again and again, hands tangled in his hair, grinding down against the hard line of his cock through his sweats.
But then he pulls back. Barely. His hands settle on your thighs. His eyes are dark and shining and hungry.
âLet me eat you out.â
Your breath catches.
âIâwhat?â
Yoongi licks his lips. âYou donât get it,â he says, too far gone to filter it. âIâve been wanting to. Since the night I fingered you against your fucking door, Iâve wanted to get between your thighs and just live there. I love you, and I love your pussy, and Iâm gonna make you come so hard you forget every single bad day youâve ever had.â
You stare at him, slackjawed.
Then you exhale, soft and wrecked, and whisper, âOkay.â
Yoongi repositions you onto your back, gentle, lips back on yours. His hands slide down your body like heâs mapping out every inch. He tugs your shirt off, unhooks your bra, kisses down your neck, your chest, your ribs, like he has all the time in the world.
And then he pulls your shorts down. Your panties too.
He groans when he sees you. Like, actually groans.
âGod, baby. Look at you.â He kisses your inner thigh, drags his nose along the crease, eyes flicking up to yours. âSo fucking pretty.â
And then he licks into you.
You cry out, sharp and sudden, because itâs so much. Heâs warm and wet and greedy, tongue flat against your clit, then pointed and precise, then everywhere, like he canât choose, like he doesnât want to.
He moans against your pussy like heâs the one being touched. Like he could cum just watching you feel good, because of him.
âYoongiâshitââ Your hands fly to his hair, thighs trembling, already shaking, already close.
He wraps his arms under your thighs, holding you open, keeping you grounded, mouth working you over like heâs worshipping you. He sucks on your clit, gentle but firm, and you arch off the bed.
âIâm gonna come,â you warn, voice breaking. âFuck, Yoongiââ
He groans, messy and eager, never once letting up. And then you do.
You come hard, thighs clamping around his head, hands in his hair, eyes rolled back. Itâs hot and overwhelming, your body jolting and twitching, his name a broken whimper on your tongue.
He keeps going until you push him away, overstimulated and trembling.
âJesus,â you breathe.
He grins, climbs back up your body, presses his mouth to yours without hesitation. You taste yourself on his tongue.
âYou love me,â he murmurs, like itâs the best thing heâs ever been told.
You nod, dazed. âI do.â
He kisses you again.
âYouâre gonna let me do that every day, right?â
You laugh, breathless. âIf you keep doing it like that, yeah. I might not survive, but yeah.â
You let Yoongi kiss you for a while, slow and soft and full of so much love, but eventually, you push at his shoulder. He pulls back instantly, eyes wide and brows furrowed.
âLie down,â you murmur. âLet me take care of you.â
Yoongi blinks, lips swollen and wet. But he lets you push. âBabyââ
âYouâve been working so fucking hard,â you say, crawling into his lap, straddling his thighs. âLet me ride you. Let me make you feel good. Please.â
Whatever protest he mightâve had dies in his throat the second you reach down and palm him through his sweats. Heâs hardâhas been since he had your pussy on his tongueâand he groans, low and helpless, as you slide your hand beneath the waistband.
You stroke him slow, loving, watching the tension bleed out of him with every pass of your fist.
âFuck,â he whispers, eyes fluttering shut, hips twitching into your touch. âFeels good.â
You smile. Kiss his chest as he fumbles for the condom in his wallet.
When you finally sink down onto him, Yoongi lets out a groan. His hands fly to your hips, gripping hard, eyes squeezed shut, jaw clenched so tight you can see the tension in his neck when he leans his head back.
âGodââ he gasps. âFuck, baby, youââ
âI know,â you breathe, grinding your hips in slow, careful circles. âI know. Just relax. Let me do this for you.â
You ride him slow, deep, dragging his cock through your tight, wet heat over and over. Every inch of him feels like it was made for you, thick and perfect and pulsing inside you, your cunt already fluttering from how good he made you feel earlier.
Yoongi canât keep still. His fingers squeeze your thighs, your hips, then your waist, like he canât decide where to hold on. Like heâs barely holding on at all.
He opens his eyes to look at you and whines, higher than he probably meant to. Because youâre riding him like you love him. Because your tits are bouncing with every slow roll of your hips, and your face is flushed, and your eyes are locked on his like thereâs nowhere else you want to be in the entire fucking world.
It springs him into action.
He sits up, wraps his arms around you, mouths at your tits like heâs starving. He sucks at one nipple, then the other, licking and kissing and biting softly like he canât stop, like he needs to touch you.
âYoongi,â you gasp, fingers tangling in his hair.
He moans into your chest. Hands moving down to your ass, guiding you up and down on his cock in that same slow, dirty rhythm, like he wants to make this last forever.
âCanât even think,â he pants. âYou feel so fucking goodâtoo goodâfuck, I love youââ
You ride him harder, faster, your hands on his shoulders. Your whole body shakes with how good it feels to be full of him, to see him like thisâwrecked, undone, yours.
âIâm so close,â you whisper, hips stuttering. âYoongiââ
âCome for me,â he begs. âPlease, baby, come on my cock, wanna feel it.â
You do.
You fall apart in his arms, gasping his name, pussy clenching around him so tight it nearly rips the orgasm out of him too. Youâre shaking, sweating, still grinding through it as he buries his face in your neck, groaning your name, fucking up into you just a little, just enoughâ
He comes with a low, broken âfuck,â arms locking around your waist, cock pulsing inside the condom. Heâs so loud, so needy, and god, youâve never loved anyone like this.
You collapse against his chest, both of you breathless and slick with sweat, still joined, still trembling.
And Yoongi holds you like he never wants to let go.
â§
You stay like that for a while, pressed to his chest, his arms strong around your back, the rhythm of his heartbeat still racing under your cheek. The room smells like sweat and sex. Yoongiâs hand is stroking slow lines up and down your spine.Â
He hasnât said much since you both came down, but the silence isnât uncomfortable. Just full.
Youâre the one who breaks it.
âI did something,â you admit.
Yoongi hums, not missing a beat in the way his fingers trace over your skin. âYeah?â
You nod against his chest, then force yourself to sit up, just enough to look at him. His hairâs a mess. His eyes are half-lidded and lazy, but sharp with attention the second he realizes youâre serious.
âI applied to grad school.â
Yoongi blinks.
âFor writing?â he asks.
You nod again, heart hammering. âYeah. An MFA. I submitted a portfolio. Finished something for the first time in forever. I wouldâve told you sooner, I justââ You shrug. âI didnât want to jinx it.â
His mouth opens. Then closes. Then opens again, like heâs still processing.
And then he grins. Slow. Genuine. Gums showing and eyes shining.
âHoly shit,â he breathes, sitting up and grabbing your face in both hands.
Your eyes sting. âI donât even know if Iâll get in. Itâs probably stupidââ
âItâs not,â he cuts in, firm and quiet. âItâs not stupid. Itâs huge.â
You try to look away, but he keeps your face in his hands, thumbs brushing your cheeks, grounding you.
âIâm so fucking proud of you,â he says. âSeriously. Iâve watched you try so hard to find something again, and you did it. Whether or not you get in doesnât matter. You tried. Thatâs fucking everything.â
You bite your lip, blinking fast. Yoongi kisses your forehead, then your nose, then your mouth.
âThanks for telling me,â he murmurs. âIâll keep it safe.â
And you know he will.
For the first time in a long time, the future doesnât feel so terrifying.
â§
The email comes on a Wednesday.
Youâre not expecting it. Youâve nearly forgotten the timeline, pushed it into the back of your mind like a daydream you didnât want to get too close to. Youâve been telling yourself not to hope too much. Not to want it, even though you do. Badly.
It hits your inbox around 11:42 a.m., and you stare at the subject line for a full minute before you open it. And thenâ
Youâre in.
You read it twice, then two more times. It still doesnât feel real. You read the phrase Weâre pleased to inform you like itâs in another language. Like itâs not something anyone was ever supposed to say to you.
Then you laugh. A startled, breathless sound that turns into something half-sobbing.
You call Yoongi.
He doesnât pick up on the first tryâheâs a busy man these daysâbut he calls back two minutes later.
âHey, baby. Whatâsâ?â
âI got in.â
Thereâs a long pause.
And then, softly, âwhat?â
You swallow hard. Youâre pacing your kitchen now, barefoot and trembling. âI got in. Grad school.â
âHoly fuck.â
You laugh again, breathless. âI know.â
âHoly fuck.â
âI know! Yoongiââ
âYou got in,â he says. âYou fucking got in.â
He sounds like heâs smiling. Like heâs trying not to cry. Youâre trying, too.
âIâm so proud of you,â he says. âSo fucking proud of you. Iâm gonna lose my mind.â
Your throat tightens. âI donât know what to do now.â
âCome to the studio,â he says instantly. âNo oneâs here today except me. Iâll order food. Iâll roll a joint. Iâll kiss you a lot. Do some very dirty, celebratory things to you on the desk, if you want.â
Youâre already grabbing your keys. âOkay. Yeah.â
âMeet me out back.â
When you get to the studio, heâs outside. Leaning against the back of the building, waiting. The joint is already rolled, tucked neatly behind his ear, and heâs got that look on his faceâthat slow, lazy grin.
âYou,â he says, pushing off the wall the second he sees you. âFucking you.â
You donât say anything. Just drop your bag on the cracked concrete and launch yourself into his arms.
He catches you easily, wraps you up in himâhoodie and warmth and the faint smell of cigarettes and detergent and Yoongi. His arms curl tight around your waist, and he lifts you slightly off the ground as you bury your face in his neck.
âYou got in,â he murmurs again. âYou reallyâbaby, you did it.â
You nod against him, laughing and sniffling all at once. âI did.â
He sets you down but doesnât let go. Just pulls back enough to kiss you. Once. Twice. Then a third time, slower. Deeper. Like heâs trying to memorize this version of youâbuzzing and breathless and so fucking proud of yourself.
When he finally pulls away, he grins and taps the joint behind his ear.
âCelebration?â
You nod. âGod, yes.â
He lights it. Takes a drag, passes it to you, and you both sit on the loading dock out back, knees bumping, fingers laced, smoke around your heads. The sunâs low in the sky. Itâs chilly, but you donât feel cold. Not with his hand in yours.
And everythingâs⊠okay. Not fixed. Not perfect. But better.
Because loving Yoongi didnât save you, and you didnât save him. You still have bad days. Panic attacks. Guilt. Long, unbearable silences you have to claw your way out of. He does, too. Life is still life.
But he holds your hand through it.
And when things are goodâlike now, like thisâyou feel it in your bones: you love him. You fucking love him.
You lean into his side, head on his shoulder, and you think:
I can do this. I can live this life.Â
Especially if heâs in it.
â§Â shoot me a reply or an ask if you enjoyed this fic! feedback is always appreciated <3 join my taglist if you want to be tagged in future fics!
There are two members of the WPPS (Western Pennsylvania Paranormal Society): Kim Namjoon, and yourself. After saving a bit of money, the two of you decide to take your paranormal equipment deep into the Appalachian forest to see if the local folklore there is true.
⟠min yoongi x reader AND kim namjoon x reader
⟠genre: paranormal / horror
⟠read author's note and tws HERE
⟠rating: 18+
⟠status: ongoing ! {current wc: 14.4k}
⟠read on wattpad
đž chapters đž
book one: fall into place
{one} {two} {three} {four} {five} {...}
book two: frozen over
{?}
book three: seeds of growth
{?}
book four: dog days
{?}
đž extras đž
đ€ cabin tour !!
đ€ pinterest board
đ€ apple music playlist
â disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. any mirrors of real life are purely coincidence. members of bts are used solely for visuals.
