#jkwritober

“Hand over the dumplings, thief.”

“I’m not a thief,” you say, already chewing. “I’m a sampler.”

Jungkook lifts an eyebrow. “A sampler who steals the last bite… veryyy interesting new species.”

“Endangered,” you say, reaching for the soy sauce. “Must be protected.”

“You’re definitely protected, pretty,” he murmurs, leaning in to kiss your forehead- quick, unshowy, like he’s done it a thousand times and plans to do it a thousand more. The kiss lands between your brows- his breath smells faintly of ginger and sesame.

“Mm. Try the noodles,” you say, pushing a carton toward him with a pair of chopsticks sticking up like antennae.

He laughs. “The chopsticks a threat?”

“They’re a friendly warning,” you say. “Approach with respect.”

“Noted.” He twirls noodles, slurps, gives a reverent nod. “Respect achieved.”

The record crackles. Somewhere between the couch and the kitchen, the apartment’s warmth gathers like a blanket. Rain fingers the glass, a thousand tiny taps. Streetlights blur into gold streaks through the droplets. Your shoes- kicked off- rest by the door, one tipped on its side, a tongue of rainwater dried across the rubber. You still catch yourself thinking it’s just his apartment sometimes, even though your things have been here a month now- your mug in his cabinet, your coat on his hook. The place already smells like the two of you.

“Rate the day,” he says, leaning back, one ankle hooked over his knee, hoodie sleeves shoved to his elbows.

“Solid seven,” you say. “Boss didn’t breathe down my neck, coffee machine didn’t revolt, I only screamed internally twice.”

“Only twice?” He clutches his chest. “Proud of you, baby.”

“What about you?”

“Eight.” He shrugs. “Somebody liked my mockups, and the train didn’t trap me in hell.”

“High standards,” you say, but you’re smiling.

He nudges your knee with his foot. “Want to split the egg tarts now or later?”

“Now,” you say immediately, and he grins like he knew.

You reach for the little paper bag on the far end of the table, but your fingers pause, hovering. The key bowl- a shallow, chipped ceramic dish you thrifted together- sits on the console near the door, a half-moon of shadow cupping it. You keep your keys there. You always put them on the right side, your small habit to make mornings easier. The dish isn’t where it usually sits. It’s slid left, just a few inches, as if nudged by a lazy hand.

“Did you move the bowl?” you ask, casual voice, not-casual pulse.

Jungkook follows your gaze. “Huh?” He looks, tilts his head, then looks at you again. “I don’t think so.” He squints. “Wasn’t it always there?”

“No. It was more… centered.” You gesture. Your fingers draw a ghost in the air. “It-” You exhale, shake your head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You want me to put it back?”

“It’s fine,” you say, and you almost mean it. The rain talks to the windows like a busy friend. “I probably bumped it this morning.”

“You did leave in a rush,” he says, soft. He doesn’t make you feel silly- he never does. “We can mark a little tape X under it if you want. Scientific precision.”

You laugh. “You’re going to label our furniture like a crime scene?”

“If it helps the morning chaos,” he says, nudging the paper bag toward you. “Here you go, baby.”

The first bite flakes everywhere; he catches a crumb on your lip with his thumb, then pretends to eat it while you swat his hand away with exaggerated scandal. He’s all dimples and doe eyes and warmth- something about him dissolves your edges. You lean your shoulder into his, and the record on the player sighs through the end of a song, needle whispering along.

“You know what I learned today, baby?” he says, eyes glinting like he’s about to announce something groundbreaking.

“That you can’t microwave fish in a shared office again?” you shoot back instantly.

He laughs. “Again? That was one time, and technically it was salmon- very classy.”

“Classy people don’t fumigate their coworkers”

“You’re lucky I’m cute,” he says, mock wounded.

“Debatable,” you tease, kicking his knee under the table.

“Okay, I knew that,” he says with mock offense. “I learned that when you soak rice noodles too long, they turn into… rice ghosts.”

“Rice ghosts?”

“Slippery,” he clarifies, deadpan, and you snort.

“Terrifying.”

He gives you the last egg tart without comment, like it’s already decided. You break it in half and stuff both pieces into your mouth, cheeks bulging. He laughs helplessly, his eyes creasing, then props his elbow on the back of the couch and watches you chew like you’re the entertaining part of his meal.

The lamp by the couch throws a pool of amber on the wall, and your plant- an overconfident pothos- casts a long, jungle-ish shadow above the console. You set your chopsticks down. For a second, the air feels strange, like a held breath. It’s only rain and warmth and him, and yet-

Tap… tap.

You both freeze. Your eyes flick to the wall behind the console table.

Another heartbeat.

Nothing.

“What was-” you start.

“Probably the pipes,” Jungkook says, easy as a sigh. He cocks his head, listening. “Old building.” He gives the wall a fond, apologetic glance. “She’s grumpy when it rains.”

“She?” You try to smile. It lands crooked.

“She,” he repeats, solemn. “This lady has seen some things.”

You listen with him- your ears turned toward the plaster. The apartment answers with rain and record hiss and the low hum of the fridge. The earlier sound slots into memory- two quick, light taps. Not a burst pipe. Not a knock. More like the knuckle of the house rapping on bone.

“See?” he says finally, gentle. “It settles at night, love. Temperature drops, wood expands or contracts- science.”

“Science,” you echo, letting your shoulders loosen. “My favorite occult.”

He grins. “Want me to call the landlord tomorrow? Ask about the science of our haunted pipes?”

“You don’t have to-”

“I will,” he says, simple as a promise. He reaches over to squeeze your knee. “I’ll call.”

The lamp sighs again, and you realize the record has spun into silence, needle busy in a quiet groove. Jungkook gets up to flip it, passes by the console, straightens the key bowl without looking at it, the way you straighten your own hair- automatic, affectionate. He pauses to peer at the rain, his reflection ghosting over streetlight gold.

“There was a couple downstairs who hung wind chimes inside.” he says as he flips the record. “Maybe we should get some. If it’s going to be noisy, let it be on purpose.”

“Inside wind chimes are serial-killer behavior,” you say, and he cackles.

He comes back and drops onto the couch with that liquid, boneless grace that always makes you think of cats. He hooks one arm around your shoulders and tugs you against his side. 

You go easily, head finding the soft place where his shoulder becomes chest. His hoodie is warm and smells like laundry and the outside world- a damp, clean scent that sneaks into your lungs and persuades them to breathe slower.

“Better?” he says.

“Better,” you say, eyes on the lamplight’s halo. 

The room’s edges grow unimportant. Tap… tap becomes nothing more than rain negotiating with gutters. The couch puts a heavier hand at your back. You stretch your legs- bare feet, cold toes- and push your heels under the couch cushion. He hums a tuneless piece of melody just under his breath, not even a song, more like a shape of comfort.

“Tell me a story,” you say with your eyes closed.

“What kind of story?”

“One where everything turns out fine.”

“Ah,” he says, thumb tracing circles on your upper arm, lazy geometry. “There’s this girl who steals the last dumpling-”

“Endangered sampler.”

“Right. And this guy whose brand-new hobby is patience.”

“Sounds boring,” you whisper.

“It was,” he agrees, mouth close to your hair. “Until a storm came and they had to stay inside and-”

“And?”

“And eat noodles for the greater good of the world,” he says, scandalized, like the answer is obvious. “Noodles and egg tarts. And then they watched a dumb movie that one of them pretended not to like.”

“I like dumb movies.”

“Not the one with the cursed doll.”

You grimace. “She was misunderstood.”

“She killed six people.”

“Allegedly,” you say, which makes him laugh low and easy, vibration ringing through your cheek where it rests on him. The record winds into a favorite song of yours and the apartment feels like it’s nodding along. Outside, a car sends a shiver through puddles; their reflections stutter.

“Okay,” you concede. “Maybe not the doll.”

“Thank you,” he says, solemn again, which makes you smile into his sleeve.

“Promise me you’ll actually talk to the landlord?” you ask, the earlier stiffness not quite gone. You look past his shoulder to the wall- just a wall. Beige paint, one tiny chip near the outlet, plant shadow like a hand splayed.

“I will,” he says. He doesn’t hesitate. “First thing. I’ll call from the coffee shop so he can’t dodge me.”

“You’re very brave.”

“Braver than the doll,” he says.

“Low bar,” you say.

He squeezes. “I’ll get him to check the vents too. Maybe there’s a loose grate or something.” He’s casual, matter-of-fact, ordinary- his voice a handrail. “If anything’s off, we’ll fix it.”

“We?” You tilt your head up to look at him.

“Team,” he says. His eyes are warm- dark drowned gold in the lamplight- and the word lands somewhere behind your ribs and makes a home there.

You put your fingers under his hoodie cuff, touch the inside of his wrist, the delicate highway of tendons. His pulse tick-ticks against your fingertip, a tiny metronome. “You’re good at that.”

“At… blood circulation?”

“At making things feel simpler,” you say.

He shrugs with one shoulder. “Things usually are.”

“Not work,” you say. “Not rent. Not- life.”

“Those are complicated,” he agrees. “But us?” He tips his head down until his forehead brushes yours. “Simple.”

Your laugh fogs his mouth. You kiss him there, right on the corner where his smile lives when he’s trying not to show it. He catches the kiss with an easy hum, not deepening it, not heavy, just yes. The kind of kiss that says more later without rushing toward later at all.

From the kitchen, the fridge kicks on with a rattle that’s always sounded faintly like a bicycle bell. The building gives a small, settling sigh; your plant’s shadow wavers, then steadies. You breathe with the house. The house does not breathe back.

“Want tea?” he asks after a minute.

“Chamomile?”

“I can do chamomile.”

“I won’t sleep if I drink tea late,” you warn.

“You will,” he says, lifting your hand to kiss the undersides of your fingers, each press a punctuation mark. “I’ll bore you with a YouTube video about- what was it today… rice ghosts.”

“Educational,” you say.

“Terrifying,” he corrects, getting up. He doesn’t let go until the last possible second, fingers grazing yours as he stands, and you feel the tiny absence like a sudden draft. He moves around the coffee table, sidestepping cartons, and the lamp light catches in his hair; his hoodie rides up as he reaches for the kettle. You watch him in the ordinary choreography of your life- water, kettle, click- your gaze drifting back to the console while you aren’t thinking about it.

The key bowl sits tidy and centered now, holder of small metal moons. Your key fob peeks from the pile like a tongue. It looks correct, which is almost worse, because you can’t find a single thing wrong with a correct thing.

“Do you ever feel like this place is listening?” you ask, half-joke, because it’s easier you think when it’s disguised as a joke. “Like it’s a therapist we don’t pay.”

“Wow,” he says over a chuckle. “I was just thinking we should get it a plant friend.”

“It already has one.”

“More friends,” he says, and you hear the kettle start its tiny pre-whistle tremor like a bird clearing its throat.

You sink more deeply into the couch, the cushions accepting you with a soft, polite whomp. Rain gestures at the windows, finger-painting with water. Your phone buzzes: Hana, a meme of a cat that looks like it’s given up on capitalism. You send a crying-laughing emoji. You start to type:

You: come over soon 

But you erase it- it’s cozy here, and you’re tired, and you don’t want to get up to fix the blanket that’s sliding off your knees. The record is warm. He is warm. The evening is small and good.

From behind the console: tap… tap.

Your head turns without your permission. The sound is so light you could fold it in half and still have room for a thought. Two knocks, no echo. Your skin goes tight as silk stretched on a drum.

Jungkook’s head lifts. His eyes meet yours across the room- his expression open, attentive, eyebrows raised in a question. You hold very still together, like deer with shared breath.

The kettle’s tremor fattens into a clear whine. He reaches to turn the stove off without looking away from you. Steam breathes over his knuckles.

“It’s fine,” he says quietly, which is exactly what a person would say for everything simple and ordinary and explainable in a world where walls don’t have knuckles to rap with. “Old pipes. I’ll call the landlord.”

Your mouth is dry. “Okay.” The word feels small, the size of a breadcrumb on your tongue.

He brings the tea and sits, close enough that your knees bump. He sets the mugs down to cool and slips his arm around you again, more deliberate this time, his palm warm where it cups your upper arm. The hand is an anchor. Maybe you needed an anchor- you didn’t know until it’s there.

“Listen,” he says, and you try, you really do. You listen to the rain. To the record’s new track; a singer you like murmurs about moonlight and other benign lies. You listen to the apartment breathing the way all apartments do- a stomach settling, a throat clearing, a fridge politely announcing its intentions. You listen to your pulse decide to calm down. The air tastes of tea and takeout and damp wool. You exhale, and your breath ghosts the rim of your mug.

“Probably our neighbor,” he says after a moment, voice still quiet, as if he doesn’t want to wake the building, or maybe he just doesn’t want to wake anything in you that’s trying to sleep. “4B has that tiny dog that thinks it’s a horse.”

“Pony in a sweater,” you say, a smile cracking open like a small egg.

He laughs into your hair. “Exactly.”

“Do you ever-” You stop, embarrassed of the sentence you can feel forming because it sounds like a flashlight under blankets on a dare. “Never mind.”

“What?” he asks, not pushing. “Say it.”

“It sounded like… two taps,” you say. “Like someone… I don’t know, knocking to get attention. Not plumbing.”

“Could be the radiator,” he offers. “Metal expands, contracts-” He squeezes your arm once. “We can ask the landlord to bleed the lines. I’ll call, baby.”

“You’ve said that three times now,” you say, but there’s no accusation in it, only relief at the repetition of the promise, its familiarity, the way it fits the shape of the room. You like the idea of him talking to the landlord. You like the idea of someone older, someone official, shrugging and saying buildings do that, and handing you a form that explains it in words you forgot as soon as you read them.

He shifts so you can tuck your feet under his thigh. He’s heavy and warm, the pressure pleasant. You lean into him until your spine remembers how to stop pretending it’s a fence post. He sets his cheek on the top of your head like you’re a pillow he trusts.

“This building’s ancient,” he says, a smile in his voice. “It settles at night.”

You picture the building settling like an animal curling up, ribs on old ribs, brick on winter air. Maybe that’s the sound- bones on bones. The thought should be eerie, but the way he says it makes it cozy, like a folktale. You feel ridiculous for the way your breath is still too fast.

“Tomorrow,” you say. “Call tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” he says. “Promise, baby.”

The promise lifts and floats above the coffee table and the tea, gentle as steam. You sit very quietly with it and with him and with the rain. It’s not silence so much as everything soft that chooses to be a background. The key bowl sits obedient and centered, a good dog watching the door. You let your eyes close again because his hoodie smells like home and the record loves you and the rain says shh and your body listens.

“Hey,” he says, so quietly that if he were any closer it would be a thought. “I’m right here, pretty.”

“I know,” you say into cloth, the words muffled and safe. “I know.”

You don’t hear anything else from the wall. Not now. Not while his arm is warm and steady and the lamp is a candle no one blows out. The apartment is nothing but the size of a couch and two mugs and two people who learned how to be a shape together. If the house is a throat, it clears it politely and leaves you alone.

You sip your tea when it’s ready. You watch him blow on his. The rain keeps tapping its code against the glass. Neither of you knows the language, so you lean into the only translation you share- his thumb moving slow circles, your breath matching his, the little noises a home makes that mean, stay, stay, it’s fine, we’re fine.

═══════

Morning drizzles pale light through the kitchen blinds, slicing the counter into silver and shadow. The record from last night sits in its sleeve on the sideboard, half pulled out like a yawn. The air smells faintly of toast and detergent.

You’re perched on the counter in Jungkook’s hoodie, feet swinging, scrolling your phone. He moves in front of you, mug in one hand, hair still damp from the shower. His voice comes soft, half-sung.

“Morning, pretty.”

You hum in response. “You make coffee or a potion?”

“Potion,” he says, grin lazy. “Guaranteed to cure bad dreams.”

He presses the mug into your hands; it’s the color of earth and warmth. The first sip burns just right. “Mm. It works, baby.”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

He leans his hip against the counter, watching the kettle steam. The apartment is quiet except for the clink of spoons and rain tapping like distant footsteps on the balcony rail. Everything feels normal again- so normal it almost erases last night’s whispers.

You hop down to grab your anxiety meds from the shelf above the stove. The bottle stops you mid-reach.

Different color bottle.

Same label, but the pharmacy sticker looks new, the date recent.

You frown, twist it in your hand. “Huh.”

“What’s wrong, love?” he asks, pouring his own coffee.

“Did I- did I reorder these? I thought the old bottle was orange.”

He glances over, eyebrows lifting. “That your anxiety meds? Maybe the pharmacy changed suppliers? Different brand of the same thing. 

He steps close enough to bump your shoulder with his. “If they taste the same, it’s fine.”

You shake one into your palm. Same shape, same chalky coating that always sticks to your tongue. It clicks back into routine easily. He kisses the top of your head before moving to rinse a spoon.

“Generics always look different, baby. Same formula.” He adds lightly. 

“Where’s my charger?” you mumble, scanning the counter. The cable usually snakes out of the wall by the coffee pot. It’s gone.

Jungkook glances up, puzzled. “Didn’t you move it to the bedroom?”

“No, I always charge here.” You crouch to check the outlet. Empty. “Maybe I-”

“Maybe I did,” he says quickly, crouching to open a drawer. “I tidy on autopilot sometimes.” He finds it neatly coiled beside the scissors and holds it up with a sheepish grin. “See? I’m the guilty one.”

“You and your cleaning streaks,” you tease, taking it from him. “This is why I can never find anything.”

He bows his head. “The curse of domestic competence.”

You kiss his cheek. “Hot.”

He laughs, eyes half-moon bright. “Everything’s hot when you say it like that, pretty.”

You roll your eyes, plug in your phone. “You’re ridiculous.”

“True,” he says. “But you love it.”

You don’t answer out loud; the smile gives you away.

The morning unwinds in small rituals- toast popping, shoes by the door, the sound of water running for plants you’re still trying not to kill. You glance at the calendar on the fridge. The box for yesterday is a blur of highlighter: 

Overtime, 8 p.m.–midnight. 

You stare at it a second too long.

“You were up late again,” Jungkook says, noticing. “That’s why you heard things last night, love. You’re overtired.”

“Maybe,” you murmur. It’s plausible. Work’s been relentless. The walls last night were probably just the pipes doing pipe things.

He slides an arm around your waist, chin resting on your shoulder. “You’re not haunted, baby,” he says, and kisses your jaw. “Just tired. We’ll rest tonight.”

You let yourself lean back against him. “Promise?”

“Promise,” he says. “Cross my heart.”

Outside, the rain thins to mist. Inside, the apartment hums with ordinary life- the hum of the fridge, the kettle’s tiny sigh. On the counter, the prescription bottle sits bright and wrong in the corner of your eye, but you don’t look twice. It’s just new packaging, that’s all.

And somewhere behind the walls, unseen, a faint click echoes- the building settling again.

═══════

Rain has slowed to a soft hiss, a background lullaby against the windowpanes. The apartment smells faintly of detergent and his shampoo- warm, human smells folded into the dark. You’re lying on your side, one arm tucked beneath your pillow, half-dreaming. The digital clock paints a square of red light across the sheets: 12:47am.

Jungkook’s breathing is even beside you, low and steady, the sort of sound that convinces you the world is right. His hand rests on your hip, fingers lax, middle finger ring gleam catching the streetlight that filters through the blinds. You listen to him inhale, exhale, and your body learns the rhythm by heart.

Somewhere in that rhythm, the apartment hum changes.

It’s so subtle you almost miss it- air shifting through the vent, the faintest new tone under the white noise of rain.

Then:

“Y/N…”

The sound is the length of a breath, close enough that the syllables ruffle the space just above your ear.

You freeze.

Your first thought: dream.

Second: neighbors.

Third: the quiet before every horror movie ever.

Your pulse trips.

You push up on one elbow, stare into the dark. The window shows your reflection- two faint ghosts in red-lit sheets. The vent near the ceiling sighs again, only air this time. You lick your lips. “Hello?” slips out before you can stop it, the whisper small, absurd, already dissolving.

Nothing.

You glance at Jungkook. His lashes rest heavy on his cheek, mouth slightly open. He’s beautiful when he sleeps- unguarded, softer than the day allows. You almost leave it; almost convince yourself it was a fragment of dream memory chasing you awake.

But the air moves again, and with it- barely audible- your name, stretched thinner now, as though traveling through walls:

“Y/N…”

You jolt and grab his shoulder. “Jungkook.”

He makes a small sound- half groan, half question- and blinks into the dark. “Hm? What’s wrong, baby?”

“I-” You swallow. “Did you hear that?”

He props himself on one elbow, hair mussed, eyes still blurred by sleep. “Hear what, love?”

“My name. Someone- someone just said my name.”

For a heartbeat he’s completely still, listening. You both hold your breath. The apartment hums back: the fridge motor, the faint drip in the bathroom, the rain. Nothing else.

He rubs his eyes. “Maybe it’s the TV upstairs,” he murmurs. “Didn’t Mrs. Kim leave it on all night last week?”

“Maybe.” Your voice sounds thinner than you mean it to.

He reaches out, finds your hand under the blanket. “Come here.”

You let him tug you closer until your forehead finds the hollow beneath his chin. His heartbeat is slow against your cheek. He smells like soap and sleep.

“It’s just sound, pretty girl,” he whispers into your hair. “Old building, thin walls. She talks in her sleep sometimes; remember last week?”

You nod, trying to let the logic fit. “Yeah. It just-”

“I know,” he says, cutting softly across your stammer. His thumb strokes your temple. “it sounded close.”

“Too close.”

He smiles, eyes closed again, still tracing the same circle against your skin. “I’ll sleep closer to the wall tonight, okay? If anything knocks, I’ll hear it first.”

You manage a laugh- quiet, shaky. “That’s your plan? Human shield?”

“Always, baby.” He shifts, scoots closer until his back brushes the cool plaster. “See? I’m on guard duty.”

You try to match his calm, to settle back into the mattress, but your ears won’t obey. Every creak sounds deliberate now: the tick of cooling pipes, the faint vibration when a car passes below. You hold still, listening through the layers of dark.

“Go back to sleep,” he murmurs, voice already thick with it. “It’s nothing.”

You nod into his chest even though he can’t see it. The warmth of him seeps through and your eyelids start to drag.

Somewhere between waking and the slide into dreams, the vent sighs again- a long, low exhale that could be air conditioning, could be rain, could be something with a mouth.

This time it doesn’t say your name. It only breathes with you.

═══════

The afternoon light is the color of dishwater and rain. You stand in the hallway barefoot, fingers tracing the seam of paint that runs beside the utility closet door. The vent above it hums softly- ordinary white noise now, though you keep glancing up as if it might start breathing again.

“Okay,” you mutter to yourself. “Science experiment.”

You tap the wall once with your knuckle. A hollow sound.

You tap again- two short knocks, deliberate.

From somewhere behind the drywall comes a faint click, too neat to be echo, too quick to be accident.

You jerk your hand back. “Nope.”

Jungkook’s voice floats from the living room. “What are you doing, baby?”

“Being brave,” you call back. “It’s overrated.”

He rounds the corner, a dishtowel slung over one shoulder, amusement already in his eyes. “You look like you’re arguing with the closet.”

“The closet knocked back.”

He raises his brows. “A polite ghost? We love good manners in this house.”

You try to laugh but it comes out thinner than you intended. “Guess she wanted to say hi.”

He leans one shoulder against the wall beside you, head tilted toward the vent. “If she starts paying rent, she can stay.”

“Otherwise eviction?”

“Exactly.” He reaches up, presses his palm flat against the plaster near the vent grille. “You feel that? Warm air. Probably the heater kicking on.”

“Warm air doesn’t click.”

He shrugs, easy. “Pipes. Wiring. Tiny mouse with impeccable timing.”

You snort despite yourself. “Tiny mouse that says my name?”

He grins. “Multitalented.”

You let the humor settle between you until it feels like safety again. Then he reaches for your wrist and drags your knuckles gently back toward the wall. “Here- tap again, love. For science.”

You roll your eyes but comply. Tap tap.

Silence stretches. Just as you’re about to turn away, a single tick answers from behind the vent, soft and sharp as a fingernail on glass.

You stare up at him. “You heard that.”

“I heard something,” he says carefully. “Could be metal expanding. The ducts are right there.”

He steps back, eyes scanning the hallway ceiling like a man considering blueprints. His calm steadies you; it always does. “I’ll text the landlord,” he adds. “He mentioned duct cleaning next week, right? I’ll make sure he actually does it.”

“Please do,” you say, half-laughing, half-pleading.

He pockets his phone. “Done. In the meantime, I can get a white-noise machine. Drown out our ghost’s social life.”

“You and your gadgets,” you say, grateful for the levity.

“Gadgets keep us sane, pretty.” He wraps his arms around you from behind, chin settling on your shoulder. The hug lingers a moment longer than habit allows. His heartbeat thuds steady against your back; you match it without thinking.

“Better?” he asks.

“Better,” you admit.

He presses a kiss just below your ear. “She’ll quiet down. Buildings talk when they get old.”

You glance once more at the vent. The metal slats stare back, clean and still. “Then she’s got a lot to say.”

“Then we’ll listen,” he says easily. “From a safe distance.”

You laugh again, softer this time, and let him guide you toward the living room. The sound of your footsteps fades; behind you, the vent gives a tiny settling pop- almost approval, almost echo.

═══════

The apartment is all black edges and hush.

Rain has stopped, but water still murmurs somewhere in the gutters. The heater ticks once, pauses, ticks again.

You lie on your side, facing the wall, phone dark on the nightstand. The digital clock blinks 2:11am- each second feels wider than the last. Jungkook’s arm drapes loosely over your waist, heavy with sleep. His breath ghosts the back of your neck in even, slow rhythms that your body keeps trying to match.

The quiet isn’t empty- it’s too full, like a room that’s holding its own breath.

You start to drift.

Then a small current brushes your ankles: cold, delicate, deliberate. Air.

You blink into the dark. The vent near the ceiling is a faint rectangle against the black, almost invisible. You can’t see movement, but you can feel it- a whisper of wind licking the sheets.

Your skin prickles.

Then, very softly, like someone mouthing through cloth:

“Don’t… look…”

You stop breathing. The words are inside your ear, close enough to warm the tiny hairs there, and gone before you can decide they existed.

“Jungkook,” you whisper.

He shifts behind you, groggy voice rough with sleep. “Mm? Baby, what’s wrong?”

“I think-” You swallow hard. “It said something. The vent.”

He doesn’t laugh- doesn’t tease. He only props himself on one elbow, listening with you. The house answers with its small orchestra of night noises: a pipe settling, a branch somewhere scraping glass, the hum of distant traffic. Nothing speaks again.

“Could be wind, baby,” he murmurs, sliding his hand into yours beneath the blanket. His palm is warm, solid, the kind of warmth that rewires panic. “Weather app said gusts tonight. Maybe they got through the vent.”

“Maybe.”

“Shh.” His thumb strokes over your knuckles, slow as breathing. “It’s alright.”

The words are ordinary, but something in the way he says them presses the air flat, like smoothing the wrinkled sheet of a dream.

You let him pull you closer until your back fits his chest. The shape of him around you feels safe enough to trick your nerves into believing it. The cold at your feet fades. The vent hums a low, content sigh- nothing more.

He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear, his mouth close when he whispers, “Go back to sleep, pretty. I’m right here.”

“Promise?”

“Always.”

You breathe in. His scent is warm linen and skin- the tension in your shoulders begins to slide away. His lips graze your temple, then your jaw, just enough to pull the static out of the air. The touch isn’t hungry- it’s grounding. His mouth traces another small, calming kiss, and another, until the spaces between them are only silence.

Outside, the weather app would show the wind picking up again- gusts threading through the city- but you don’t reach for your phone. The bed feels steady, the dark heavy with his warmth.

When your eyelids finally give in, the last thing you hear is his heartbeat against your spine and, just under it, the faintest hiss of air from the vent- breathing with you, not against you.

═══════

The day begins with the vibration of your phone on the counter, sharp enough to cut through the rain outside. You squint at the screen, still half-asleep.

PHARMACY NOTICE: Your prescription has been refilled. Ready for pickup.

Your eyebrows pinch together. You scroll through your texts just to be sure, but there’s no request, no auto-refill confirmation, nothing. You’d picked up a full bottle barely two weeks ago.

“Everything okay, baby?” Jungkook’s voice drifts from the doorway. He’s buttoning his shirt, hair still wet, collar sticking to the side of his neck.

“Pharmacy says my prescription is ready,” you say, showing him the screen. “But I didn’t ask for a refill.”

He glances at it, unbothered. “Maybe your insurance auto-renewed the script.”

“Wouldn’t they text me first?”

He shrugs. “Pharmacies love a mystery. I can grab them for you after work if you want.”

You hesitate. “You don’t have to-”

“I want to,” he says, the decision already made. He steps closer, fingertips brushing your hip as he leans past you for his keys. “You’ll forget anyway, pretty.”

You laugh because he’s not wrong. “Fine. Thanks, Kook.”

That evening, the new bottle sits on the bathroom counter, its label sharp white against the dim mirror light. You twist the cap and frown.

“Different color again,” you murmur. “I swear they change every week.”

Jungkook leans against the doorway, sleeves rolled up, watching you shake one into your palm. His reflection in the mirror looks taller from that angle, dark eyes heavy and unreadable. “That’s generics for you. Cheaper company, same thing.”

You hold the pill up to the light. “They look… smaller.”

He steps up behind you until his chest brushes your shoulder blade, his breath fogging the edge of the mirror. “Everything’s smaller lately,” he says softly, “except your stress level.”

The corner of your mouth lifts despite yourself. “Ha.”

You take it with a sip of water. It catches on your tongue before sliding down- same bitterness, same chalk. It should feel familiar, but something sticks in your throat anyway.

“Thanks for picking them up,” you say. “They said you could?”

“They asked for ID and your birthday. I told them I’m your emergency contact.” His smile is mild, reassuring. “You should’ve seen the pharmacist’s face- looked like I asked to adopt the entire store.”

You laugh, and the tension breaks. His hand settles briefly at your waist, fingers tracing idle shapes through your shirt before he turns to grab a towel. The touch leaves a print of heat that won’t fade.

Later that night, the two of you sit cross-legged on the bed, your phone propped on a stack of books. The idea was yours- proof, one way or another.

“If we catch something,” you say, “then we know it’s not just me losing it.”

“If we don’t catch anything, it’s just bad acoustics,” Jungkook says, leaning back against the headboard. “Either way, science wins.”

He says it like a joke, but the look he gives you isn’t. It’s softer, heavier. His thumb brushes over the inside of your wrist, and you realize his pulse is quick, too.

You hit record. The phone begins to hum its quiet, endless listening.

For a while, there’s nothing. Just the sigh of wind through the balcony rail, your breathing, the steady cadence of his thumb drawing circles against your skin. The small space between you feels charged- each exhale seems to fall into the same rhythm.

Eventually, sleep drags you both under.

When you wake, early morning sunlight stings your eyes. The phone lies face down on the nightstand, screen black.

“Morning,” Jungkook says, voice still gravel-thick with sleep. His hand slides lazily over your hip before he stretches. “Did it record?”

You reach for it, press the power button. Nothing. The screen stays dark.

“Battery’s dead,” you mumble. “Weird… it was full.”

Jungkook props himself on one elbow, squinting toward the phone. “Guess the app drained it overnight. Those background processes, baby- they eat power.”

You plug in the charger, watching the screen flicker to life. The low-battery symbol blinks, then the home screen loads. You open the app, scrolling through the night’s files- and stop.

The most recent recording shows a timestamp. Zero seconds. No playback bar.

A small gray pop-up flashes: File corrupted. Cannot open.

“What the hell?” you whisper.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s there, but it’s-” You hand it to him. “Corrupted. It didn’t save.”

He leans over your shoulder, hair brushing your cheek. The scent of his skin- warm linen, faint coffee- makes it hard to think straight. “Battery must’ve died mid-recording, baby. File probably didn’t finish writing.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

He rubs your back in slow, soothing arcs. “Maybe the app glitched. My old phone used to crash if I looked at it wrong.”

You laugh, weakly. “Ours only crashes when ghosts are involved.”

“Exactly,” he says, mouth curving against your hair. “We’ll buy one of those cheap baby monitors instead. They’re motion sensitive- better than an app.”

“Good idea,” you say, relief creeping back in.

He smiles, presses a kiss to the edge of your shoulder. “I’ll grab one this week.”

Outside, the rain has stopped, leaving the windows smeared with light. The room smells like sleep and static, like something faintly burned out. You glance once more at the blank phone screen- your almost-proof- and set it aside.

Jungkook pulls you back down beside him, voice soft against your ear. “Hey. Team science still wins.”

You laugh, small and sleepy. “Guess so.”

You fall back into him, into warmth, into the illusion that everything is being taken care of.

═══════

The shower hisses loud enough to swallow thought.

Steam thickens the small bathroom until even the tiles sweat. You stand under the spray, eyes closed, water slipping through your hair and down the curve of your spine. For the first time in days, it’s quiet. Just sound and heat and skin.

When you finally reach to shut the water off, the room exhales. Steam lingers, ghosting around you as you towel your face. The mirror across from you is blank white fog- a sheet of breath over glass.

You turn away to grab your clothes. Behind you, there’s a faint drip. Normal. Everything drips. You pull your shirt over damp skin and glance back-

Something darker glistens through the fog.

Not letters exactly-  more like the idea of them.

Vertical, diagonal, curved.

You blink hard. The condensation shifts with your breath, and for one shivering second the shapes align into something that looks almost like your name.

Y/N

Your throat locks.

“Jungkook?”

No answer.

You step closer, bare feet sticking to tile. The letters glimmer faintly, uneven. Not perfect- human-drawn, maybe finger-traced from the other side of the mirror if mirrors had sides.

The air feels colder near it.

“Jungkook!” you call again, louder.

Footsteps pound down the hall, quick and heavy. The door slams open, and he’s there, half-dressed, hair still dripping, water streaking from his shoulders like he ran straight from the sink.

“What- what is it, baby?”

You point with a trembling hand. “There- look!”

He follows your gaze. The mirror stares back at both of you, two blurred reflections haloed in fog and light.

“I-” You take a shaky breath. “It said my name. It said my name.”

He moves closer. Too close. His chest nearly brushes your back as he reaches past you and wipes the mirror with his palm in one hard sweep.

The letters vanish in an instant.

“Hey. Don’t look,” he says quietly. His voice doesn’t match the movement- soft but firm, grounding. “Breathe with me, pretty. Just breathe.”

“I swear it was there.”

“I know.” His hands settle on your shoulders, fingers warm against your damp skin. “Probably cleaner residue. The glass spray, remember? I used it this morning.”

“I didn’t-”

“Maybe the ammonia streaked,” he interrupts gently, not scolding, just soothing. “Old marker stains can bleed through when it fogs up.”

You shake your head, but he’s already pulling you against him. His shirt is half-unbuttoned, still damp where it clings to his skin. He smells like soap and rain and something faintly metallic from the tap.

“I’m not crazy,” you whisper.

“Never said you were.”

His thumb traces the back of your neck, slow, careful. “You’re just tense. Anyone would be.”

He presses his forehead against the side of your head, breathing in sync with you. The heat from the shower seeps between you, steam curling around your legs.

For a moment, your pulse slows. The world narrows to the weight of his hands and the sound of both your breathing. He stays there until the mirror fogs over again completely- smooth, blank, empty.

“See?” he murmurs. “Nothing’s here but us.”

You nod, eyes fixed on the silver where the letters had been. It’s spotless now, except for the faintest smudge of his palm- an erasure you didn’t ask for.

He tips your chin up until you meet his eyes in the mirror. His reflection behind you looks steady, calm, but his pupils are blown wide, black swallowing brown.

“You trust me, right?” he asks softly.

Your chest rises and falls once before you answer. “Of course.”

He smiles, barely there. “Good.”

He presses a kiss to the spot just below your ear, a small wet punctuation mark. “Let’s get you out of here before you freeze.”

He shuts off the light on his way out.

In the dark, the mirror breathes once more- steam sliding downward- and for half a second, you could swear you see the ghost of a curve reappear, half-formed and vanishing.

═══════

Outside, the storm starts without warning- a sheet of sound against the windows, thunder stitched deep into the clouds. The apartment hums with it, the walls catching vibrations like skin picking up a pulse.

Jungkook drops the remote onto the coffee table and pulls the blanket higher around your shoulders. “Movie marathon,” he declares, voice steady over the rain. “The louder the better.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Therapy via bad horror films?”

He grins, dimples flickering. “Exposure therapy, baby. If we’re gonna get haunted, we might as well learn from the pros.”

You laugh, tension cutting in half. The movie's glow spills across both of you- cool blues and flickering whites. The curtains billow faintly behind the couch, rising and falling like slow lungs.

“Do you feel that?” you whisper.

He glances toward them. The fabric inhales again, exhales, a rhythm too regular to be chance.

“Draft,” he says quickly. “Probably the balcony door not sealed right.”

The wind outside moans through the gutter, an animal sound in metal.

You lean closer. “That’s a strong draft.”

“I’ll fix it in the morning,” he promises, and you believe him, because he says it like he’s already done it.

Another thunder roll rattles the frames on the wall. The lights dim, blink once, then hold steady. The air feels thick, heavy with rain.

Jungkook shifts closer, shoulder brushing yours. “You’re not sleeping until the monster dies,” he teases.

“I’m fine.”

He studies your face for a moment longer, then pulls you toward him. “C’mere, pretty. Warmth tax.”

You settle against his chest, cheek to his heartbeat. The sound fills your ear- steady, deep, anchoring. The movie continues, half-forgotten. Rain becomes applause against the glass.

After a while, the pattern of the curtains and the rhythm of his breathing start to blend. Inhale, exhale. The apartment seems to mimic it- a slow expansion, a gentle contraction. The ceiling creaks on every second beat, the sound almost organic.

Your eyelids grow heavy. “You ever notice the house sounds like it’s… breathing?” you mumble.

He hesitates just long enough for you to feel it- a pause so brief it might be nothing. Then, softly:

“Yeah. I did, actually. When I first moved in two years ago. But never like this.”

“Never like what?”

“Never this deep. Guess the storm’s giving it lungs.” He smiles, voice light again, hand never stopping its slow circles on your back. “Let it do its thing.”

You smile into his shirt. “Everything in this place has a thing.”

“Us too.”

Thunder murmurs again. The storm’s pulse syncs with the clock’s tick, the walls’ settling, his thumb’s movement. Everything- your breath, sound, pressure- falls into the same slow rhythm.

You drift.

The last thing you register is Jungkook’s voice, soft in your hair. “Stay with me a little longer.”

“Mm,” you manage, nearly gone.

When you wake again, it’s unclear if you ever truly slept. The TV has gone to black screen; its faint static reflects on the coffee table. Rain still whispers outside.

Then, very faintly, through the wall vent- not the television, not the storm- comes a tune.

A lullaby.

Not a melody you know, but simple, lilting- something a mother would hum to a restless child.

Your breath catches. You turn your head toward the sound. The curtains flutter once, like the apartment exhaling.

“Jungkook?”

He stirs behind you, eyes half-open, sleep-drugged. “What is it?”

“Do you… hear that?”

He listens, head tilted toward the vent. The lullaby fades into rain, leaving only the hiss of air.

“Just the storm,” he murmurs. “Go back to sleep.”

“But it-”

He hushes you gently, thumb brushing your temple. “Shh. I’ve got you.”

You try to stay awake, but his warmth pulls you back under. The baby monitor on the counter crackles once, sharp and soft- static that almost forms a note- then quiets.

Just before your eyes close, you think you hear something threaded through the storm- a single word breathed so quietly it could be wind curling under the balcony door:

“Sleep.”

You exhale.

He moves carefully, lifting you in his arms, the blanket falling away as he carries you toward the bedroom. You barely stir, head pressed against his chest. His heartbeat is steady. Solid.

“Got you,” he whispers again.

The door clicks shut behind you.

═══════

The clock’s red digits blink 3:02am across the room.

Outside, the rain has gentled into a slow drip, a metronome for dreams. The apartment hums with it- distant, steady, almost like breathing again.

You stir when fingers graze your hip. Soft. Careful. Testing.

A second touch follows- firmer this time, tracing the hem of your sleep shirt, sliding just beneath the fabric.

You inhale, eyes fluttering open. “Kook?”

“Couldn’t sleep, baby,” he murmurs against your neck. His voice is low, hoarse, thick with warmth. “You were moving in your dreams.”

His hand spreads across your stomach, palm warm, thumb brushing lazy circles that make your skin prickle. His breath is steady at your ear, every exhale tasting faintly like mint and sleep.

“Did I wake you?”

“A little,” you whisper, but your voice betrays no complaint.

He hums, the sound vibrating against your collarbone. “Sorry, baby. You just looked too good like that.”

The sheets shift as he pulls you closer, lips finding the base of your throat. The kiss is slow- a press of comfort that edges toward hunger without crossing it. His nose grazes your jaw, his fingers moving in soft, grounding motions, exploring the shape of you through the blanket’s half-slip.

Then, faintly- a sound.

A small click from somewhere across the room.

You freeze.

“What was that?” you whisper.

He stills, one hand resting against your hip. His voice drops to a hush. “What?”

“The closet.”

Another sound: metal tapping metal. A hanger nudging another hanger. The closet door creaks a few inches, slow enough that you feel the movement before you see it- a slip of shadow wider than before.

You sit up, sheet clutched to your chest. The air feels colder now, the hum of the vent muted, expectant.

“Do you see that?” you breathe.

Jungkook’s eyes follow yours into the dark. He doesn’t blink. His voice is barely audible when he answers.

“…Yeah.”

The single word lands heavy in the room.

You both stare. The door sways another inch, deliberate, measured. A hanger tilts, catching the faintest sliver of lightning from outside.

Click.

You flinch. His arm is around you instantly, pulling you close, body shielding yours.

“Shh,” he whispers. “It’s just the air, baby. Just the air.”

But his voice trembles, just enough to make you believe him. Or want to.

Another click. 

The rain begins again, louder this time- as if the house has exhaled. You clutch the blanket, pulse hammering in your throat. “Kook…”

“Stay here.”

He slips out of bed in one motion, bare feet silent on the floorboards. The room glows faintly from the streetlight bleeding through the blinds- enough to silhouette his shoulders as he moves.

You watch him approach the closet. The door is already cracked open, shifting gently as the storm breathes through the room. He steadies it with one hand, pushing it wider just enough to look inside. The hinges complain softly, the sound small but sharp in the quiet.

Inside: stillness.

He exhales slowly, stepping closer, pushing the hangers aside one by one. Each one gives a soft click, too quiet to be the sound you’d heard.

“It’s empty,” he says finally, glancing back at you with a small, reassuring smile. “See? Probably just air pressure. Storm pushed the air through the vent again.”

You stay frozen for a moment, staring past him at the open space, waiting for something- anything- to move.

Nothing does.

He crosses back to the bed, sits beside you, and brushes your hair from your face. “Hey. Look at me.”

You meet his eyes. They’re calm, steady. “You okay?”

You nod, though your heartbeat’s still too fast.

“Good.” His hand finds your jaw, thumb stroking slow and sure. “Let’s try to sleep again.”

He pulls you against him, tucking your head beneath his chin. His skin is warm from movement, the scent of rain still clinging to him.

The closet door stays open, the hangers still.

You keep watching them until the dark softens at the edges, until his breathing evens out beside you.

Then- just as your eyes start to close- one of the hangers gives a tiny, single click.

Not loud enough to wake him.

Loud enough to keep you awake.

═══════

Morning filters through the blinds in soft gold bars, painting stripes across the kitchen counter. The air smells like coffee and detergent. For once, the apartment is quiet. No hum, no sigh- just the small, rhythmic sounds of a normal morning trying its best.

Your phone sits on speaker beside your half-eaten toast. Hana’s voice crackles through the line, warm but threaded with concern.

“Babe, I’m serious. You sound like you haven’t slept in days.”

You twist the mug in your hands, tracing a ring of condensation around the base. “It’s just the storms keeping me up. The walls are old, they make noise.”

“Uh-huh.” Hana’s tone sharpens. “And the whispering? The mirror thing? That’s not old pipes, that’s you losing peace of mind. I don’t like it.”

You smile faintly, though she can’t see it. “You make it sound haunted.”

“It sounds bad. You should stay here. I’ve got the guest room now- bring your meds, we’ll binge something stupid, detox from spooky-boy apartment energy.”

You laugh despite the knot in your chest. “You’re dramatic.”

“I’m observant,” she counters. “When was the last time you were alone there without Jungkook?”

You pause. “I don’t know. Why?”

“Because maybe you’d notice what’s actually weird if he wasn’t distracting you every five seconds.”

Your laugh comes out thinner this time, softer. “He’s not trying to distract me, Hana- he’s just… trying to help. He hears it too sometimes. The noises freaked him out when he first moved in, but he says you get used to it.”

“You said he keeps saying it’s the building. That’s cute and all, but if he’s not freaked out, I am. Stay with me a few nights. Please.”

The word hangs between you, tempting. Stay with me. You picture Hana’s apartment- bright, cluttered, safe. A space where walls don’t whisper and vents don’t breathe.

Before you can answer, the front door opens behind you.

“Baby?” Jungkook’s voice drifts in, calm, easy.

You flinch. “Hey,” you say into the phone quickly. “I’ll text you later, okay?”

“Wait-” Hana starts, but you’ve already hung up.

Jungkook steps into the kitchen, setting his keys down with a soft clink. His smile is gentle, the kind that melts through whatever’s left of your nerves. “Who was that?”

“Hana.”

“She checking in?”

You nod, suddenly self-conscious. “Yeah. She, uh, wants me to stay with her for a bit.”

For a moment, his smile doesn’t move- it just freezes, like he’s thinking how to respond. Then he steps closer, tone warm, careful. “If you need to go, we’ll go together.”

You blink. “What?”

He brushes a strand of hair from your face, thumb resting just beneath your chin. “You shouldn’t be alone if you’re scared. We’ll finish the lease repair tomorrow, then pack a few things, okay? We’ll make it a little break.”

“Jungkook, I didn’t mean-”

He cuts you off softly. “Hey. I get it.” He smiles again, the kind that almost convinces you he’s relieved too. “Sometimes people just need space. I can take a few days off.”

The tension in your chest loosens a fraction. “You’d really do that?”

“Of course,” he says. “I’d do anything for you, baby.”

You look up at him- the easy warmth, the small crescent of dimple at the corner of his mouth. Nothing about him looks wrong. Maybe Hana’s overreacting.

The hum of the fridge clicks louder, filling the silence.

Then you notice it- the note on the refrigerator, a new one in his neat, tidy handwriting:

DUCT CLEANING - 10 AM. TOMORROW

You tilt your head. “When did you put that up?”

“This morning,” he says easily, reaching past you for his coffee mug. “Finally got the landlord to schedule it.”

“Oh.” You nod slowly. “That’s… good.”

He kisses your temple on his way out of the kitchen, leaving a faint warmth behind. “Don’t worry about anything today, pretty. I’ll handle it.”

You stare at the note again.

The tape at the corner flutters slightly, moved by a breeze you don’t feel.

A second later, somewhere deep inside the wall, a low metallic whirr starts- soft, mechanical, rhythmic.

It could be a fan. It could be something else.

You press your palm against the drywall. It vibrates faintly beneath your touch.

“Already starting,” you whisper.

The hum answers, almost like a sigh.

═══════

By the time evening settles, the light through the blinds is syrup-thick and orange, pooling across the counter.

The sink is empty, dishes drying in neat rows. Knives rest on the cutting board, clean but catching the last streaks of sunset in their silver edges.

You lean against the counter, scrolling through your phone. Somewhere below, a car alarm chirps once, stops.

Then- bang.

You flinch.

It comes again, sharper this time- a fist on drywall. Then muffled shouting, words tangled in distance.

Jungkook’s head lifts from where he’s seated at the table. “4B again,” he mutters. “They’ve been fighting all week.”

You listen. A woman’s voice, loud, furious, cut off mid-syllable. Then nothing.

“Should we-”

He shakes his head before you finish. “They’ll stop. They always do.”

You stare at the wall a moment longer, the echo still vibrating faintly behind it. “You said the duct guys were coming this morning?”

He nods, reaching for his mug. “Came and went while you were at work. I stayed to let them in. Just a few minutes of drilling, then gone.”

“Huh.” You glance toward the vent above the stove. The metal looks… newer somehow. Polished. “Did it help?”

Your phone buzzes against the counter, a message notification lighting the screen. It’s from Hana:

Hana: If anything else happens, promise you’ll call.

You type a quick Promise. and flip the phone facedown.

From the corner of your eye, movement catches- a shadow crossing the crack of light beneath the front door. Someone passing in the hallway, slow, dragging footsteps.

You and Jungkook both go still.

A pause. Then another soft bang- this one lower, near the baseboard.

He rises, crosses to the door, and peers through the peephole. “It’s fine,” he says after a beat, his tone reassuring. “Probably someone taking out trash. Sound carries weird through these halls.”

He’s smiling when he turns back, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Come here. You’re shaking.”

You hadn’t noticed until then, but your hands really are trembling. He steps behind you, palms settling on your shoulders. His thumbs trace slow, rhythmic circles at the base of your neck, grounding you back into the kitchen light.

The simple touch pulls you in two directions- one part of you relaxes, the other feels cornered.

“Here,” he says suddenly, reaching for his phone with one hand while the other stays warm against your back. “Look what I found earlier.”

He scrolls, taps a link, and holds it out toward you. “Building forum. Someone posted this morning- said they’ve been hearing whispers through the vents, too.”

You take his phone. The page loads slowly, the glow lighting both your faces in blue.

Anyone else in Northview Towers hearing things? Late night vents making weird breathing noises?

Replies trickle down the thread:

Yes omg thought I was losing it

Maybe plumbing?

Moved my bed away from the wall. Still happens.

Your breath catches halfway down the list. “Oh my god,” you whisper. “So it’s not just us.”

He leans closer, chin brushing your shoulder as he reads with you. “Told you, pretty. Old buildings talk to each other.”

You laugh, a small, nervous sound that dies fast. “Still… this many people?”

“Yeah,” he says softly, pressing a kiss just behind your ear. “It’s kind of comforting, isn’t it? We’re not alone.”

His words echo strangely in your head. We’re not alone.

You set the phone down. The room feels too quiet again, the orange light dimming toward gray.

Outside, the hallway is still.

Somewhere above, faint and steady, a vent hums back to life- low, hollow, and far too deliberate to be wind. It could be air conditioning. It could be the storm settling.

Either way, it keeps breathing long after the sun disappears.

═══════

The room feels too close tonight.

The blackout curtains swallow every hint of light; even the glow of the digital clock looks muted, as if the darkness has thickened into something you could touch.

You lie on your side, knees drawn up, heartbeat tripping. The air feels heavy, like breathing through fabric.

“Baby,” Jungkook murmurs. His voice is low, half-asleep, but he hears the way your breath catches. “Hey… what’s wrong?”

“I can’t-” Your throat tightens. “It’s too dark.”

He shifts instantly, sitting up. His hands find your shoulders, steady but soft. “Okay. Breathe with me.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.” His thumb presses beneath your jaw, a point of warmth. “In through your nose.”

You shake your head, tears already burning at the corners of your eyes.

“Shh,” he says, leaning close until his forehead touches yours. His breath mixes with yours, slow, even, patient. “One… two…”

He inhales, guiding you with the rhythm. You match him- barely at first, then deeper, until the trembling in your chest starts to ease.

“See?” His voice gentles. “That’s it. Just us. Nothing else.”

Your lungs finally fill without catching. “It’s not stopping,” you whisper. “The panic. It just- keeps looping.”

“I’ve got you,” he says, firmer now. “Tell me what you need.”

You hesitate. The word won’t form, but he already understands. 

His hand slides down to your wrist, his fingers tracing the inside slowly, deliberately, sending a shiver up your arm that’s equal parts nerves and budding desire. 

“Okay,” he murmurs, his voice a low rumble that vibrates through you. “We’ll go slow. You stay in control.”

You nod, eyes closing as you lean into him, the solid press of his chest against yours a reminder that you’re not alone in this apartment.

He doesn’t rush. Every movement is careful- a grounding weight, a quiet rhythm between breath and touch. His free hand cups the back of your neck, thumb stroking the sensitive skin there while his other hand drifts upward, fingers grazing the edge of your sleeve before slipping beneath the fabric to brush your forearm. 

He keeps whispering small reassurances, the kind that anchor more than words: “You’re safe with me,” he breathes against your ear. “I’ve got you. You can stop anytime- tell me, and I’ll stop.”

You breathe in time with him, your inhales syncing with his, the rise and fall of your bodies creating a shared pulse. 

The panic begins to melt, replaced by something steady, human, real- the kind of closeness that pushes the dark a little further away, even with the faint creak of vents echoing distantly in the background.

His hands stay gentle, exploring with permission in every inch. He tugs lightly at your shirt, waiting for your subtle nod before easing it up and over your head, exposing your skin to the cool air. 

His palms glide over your shoulders, down your sides, thumbs circling your ribs in soothing patterns that make your nipples tighten. 

“You feel so good,” he whispers, leaning in to press a soft kiss to your collarbone, his lips warm and unhurried. “Tell me what you need. More? Less?”

You murmur a quiet “more,” your voice steadier now, and he responds with a quiet hum. His mouth follows the path of his hands, kissing along the swell of your breasts before taking one nipple between his lips, sucking gently, his tongue flicking in slow, deliberate strokes that draw a soft gasp from you. 

His hand slides lower, over your stomach, pausing at the waistband of your pants. “Can I?” he asks, eyes searching yours for confirmation.

“Yes,” you breathe, and he slides them down your legs along with your underwear, leaving you bare before him. He moves slightly, hands on your hips, kissing the inside of your thigh, inching closer to your core but never rushing. When his fingers finally part your folds, they’re feather-light, tracing your wetness with reverence. 

“You’re already so ready for me,” he says softly, circling your clit with the pad of his thumb in lazy loops that build heat without overwhelming. “I want to make you feel everything- only good things.”

You grip his shoulders, nails digging in just enough to ground yourself as pleasure coils low in your belly. He watches your face, adjusting his touch- slower when you tense, firmer when you arch into him- always in tune. 

“Look at me,” he whispers eventually, rising to meet your gaze as he sheds his own clothes, his cock hard and straining but held back by your pace. You do, and for a moment, nothing else exists- not the apartment, not the vents, just his warmth surrounding you, his heartbeat aligning with yours.

He lays down gently, settling between your legs without pressure, his tip nudging your entrance. “Tell me when,” he says, holding still, one hand stroking your hair while the other teases your breast. 

When you nod, he pushes in inch by inch, his thick cock stretching your cunt slowly, the initial pressure giving way to a deep, satisfying fullness that makes your inner walls flutter around him. 

He pauses after the first few inches, his breath hot against your neck as he waits for your body to adjust, his fingers interlacing with yours to squeeze reassuringly. 

"Breathe with me," he whispers, his voice steady and low, guiding you through the sensation until you relax enough for him to slide deeper, bottoming out with a shared sigh.

His groan rumbles from his chest, vibrating through where your bodies connect, mingling with your moan as you arch slightly, feeling the heat of him buried inside you. 

He rocks his hips in a measured rhythm, pulling back almost all the way before thrusting forward again, deep but unhurried strokes that let you feel every ridge of his shaft dragging along your sensitive folds, every pulse of his arousal throbbing against your core. 

His free hand rests on your hip, thumb tracing small circles on your skin to keep you grounded, never gripping too hard, always checking your face for any sign of discomfort.

"You’re perfect," he murmurs against your lips, capturing them in a soft kiss that deepens as he moves, his tongue sliding against yours in time with his gentle thrusts. 

He breaks away just enough to add, "Safe. Mine to care for," the words punctuating each roll of his hips, his cock plunging steadily into your wetness, building friction that sparks pleasure without overwhelming the tenderness.

You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him closer, and he responds by angling his hips to hit that spot inside you with precision, his pace remaining slow, deliberate- each withdrawal slick with your combined arousal, each entry filling you completely. 

Sweat beads on your forehead, and he leans down to lick it away from your temple before kissing your jaw, your throat, murmuring, "That's it, feel how good we fit. Tell me if it's too much." But it's not- the rhythm coaxes your body to open further, your cunt clenching around him involuntarily, drawing a low hiss from his lips as he fights to stay controlled.

The intimacy builds like a gathering storm, your bodies slick and synced, skin sliding against skin with every careful push and pull. His hand leaves yours to cup your breast, pinching your nipple lightly between his fingers, rolling it until you gasp, the sensation shooting straight to where he's buried deep. 

He watches you intently, eyes dark with desire but soft with care, whispering, "You're doing so well- let go baby, I've got you," as his thrusts grow just a fraction firmer, his cock swelling inside you from the tight heat.

Your breaths come faster now, matching the increasing tempo, though he keeps it reined in, focused on your pleasure. One arm braces beside your head, the other slips between your bodies to rub your clit in slow circles with his thumb, the dual stimulation making your toes curl. 

"Cum for me when you're ready," he says softly, his voice breaking on a groan as your walls tighten around his length. The pressure coils tighter in your belly, every nerve alight from the way he fucks you- steady, attentive strokes that grind against your depths, his balls brushing your ass with each hilt.

His reassurances weave through the rising ecstasy, a constant thread: "You're safe here, just us," he breathes, nipping at your earlobe before soothing it with his tongue. The words push you higher, your hips bucking up to meet him, chasing the edge. 

When it hits, you shatter around him, your cunt clenching tight in rhythmic spasms, milking his cock as waves of release crash through you, your cry muffled against his shoulder. He holds still for a moment, letting you ride it out, his thumb pressing firmer on your clit to prolong the bliss.

He follows soon after, unable to hold back against your pulsing grip, spilling inside you with a shuddering breath- hot spurts of cum flooding your depths as he thrusts shallowly through his orgasm, groaning your name like a prayer. 

His body trembles above yours, but he doesn't collapse- instead, he gathers you close, rolling to the side so you're tucked against his chest, his cock still softening inside you. 

Through the aftershocks, he strokes your back in long, soothing lines, kissing your forehead, your eyelids, murmuring, "I've got you, always," his arms a protective cage of warmth and touch that lingers long after the pleasure fades, the distant hum of the vents a faint reminder of the world beyond this moment.

The storm outside starts again, a faint drizzle tapping the glass. The air between you hums low and alive.

And then silence.

He strokes your hair, thumb brushing along your temple. You’re still catching your breath when it happens:

Soft. High-pitched. A giggle.

You go still.

It comes again- quick, light, like a child’s laugh, echoing faintly through the vent above the bed. The breath leaves your lungs all over again.

“Jungkook.”

He lifts his head, listening. For a heartbeat, you’re sure you see something shift in his expression- surprise? concern?- before it smooths away.

“What is it?” he asks softly.

“Did you-” Your voice breaks. “Did you hear that?”

He glances at the vent. Nothing moves. “It’s probably wind, baby. Air pockets make weird sounds when pressure changes.”

You shake your head, tears spilling before you can stop them. “That wasn’t wind.”

He gathers you closer, voice almost a lullaby. “It’s okay. It’s over. I’m right here.”

You bury your face against his chest, sobbing quietly while he rocks you, whispering that you’re safe, that it’s just the house.

But the sound lingers behind your ribs, the echo of that laugh- too small, too soft, too human to be air.

When you finally fall asleep, his hand is still tracing slow circles between your shoulder blades.

The vent hums once. Just a breath. Almost… pleased.

═══════

Morning comes in fragments- the soft echo of the shower shutting off, the smell of coffee already made.

You stand at the sink, towel around your hair, light from the frosted window painting the counter in pale squares. The pill organizer sits where you always leave it: seven little compartments, days marked in neat white font.

But the pills inside- they’re wrong.

At first glance, it’s small things.

The Tuesday capsule looks more ivory than white. Thursday’s has a number stamped sideways instead of centered.

You frown, flip open Monday’s lid, and spill one into your palm. The tablet is smooth, coated, a color you don’t recognize.

You grab your phone, thumb flying through your photo gallery- old screenshots from refills, careful notes you’d taken months ago when your dosage changed.

There: last month’s batch. Same shape. Different imprint.

You zoom in and your stomach turns.

This one says GG257.

Your photo says 031R.

“What the fuck…” you whisper.

You scroll further, comparing timestamps. The pictures line up perfectly- all taken when you thought you were double-checking refills. No irregularities. No gaps.

Except… the codes are always different.

“Everything okay, love?”

You jump at Jungkook’s voice. He’s leaning in the doorway, mug in hand, hair still damp from the shower.

“I don’t know,” you say, your voice shaking a little. “These don’t match. They changed something again- the pills, the code, everything.”

He sets his coffee down and crosses the room slowly, eyes scanning your face. “You think it’s the pharmacy?”

“Who else could it be?” you say, heat rising behind your eyes. “Look-” You thrust your phone toward him, scrolling through pictures. “See? Every refill’s a different code, but the label never says anything. They shouldn’t do that.”

He studies the images for a moment, then looks back at you. “Could be a new supplier. Insurance companies swap generics all the time.”

“I know, but-” You shake your head. “Not every month. That’s not normal. It’s like-”

“Hey,” he says softly, placing a hand over yours. “Let’s not spiral, pretty. We’ll call them, okay?”

You nod, chewing the inside of your cheek. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll call.”

You step into the hall, phone already ringing. After a few tones, a click- then a woman’s voice, friendly, professional.

“Northview Pharmacy, this is Nari.”

“Hi- uh, I’m calling about a refill issue. My medication looks different this month. The pills are a different color, different code.”

A brief shuffle of keys clacking on the other end. “Can I get your name and birthday?”

You tell her. There’s a pause, the faint tap of nails on a keyboard.

“Everything looks consistent on our end,” she says finally. “Same generic, same manufacturer, same lot number as last time.”

“That’s impossible,” you say quickly. “The pills are different. I still have the old ones.”

“I understand it’s concerning,” she says, tone even. “But we’ve dispensed the same product to you for the last six months. Nothing’s changed.”

Your chest tightens. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Nari says gently. “You can come by and compare if it helps, but it’ll be the same bottle.”

You thank her, hang up, and stand there staring at the phone until the screen goes black.

They said it’s the same. Exactly the same.

“Baby?” Jungkook’s voice floats down the hall. “What’d they say?”

“They said…” You force a laugh that sounds nothing like one. “They said it hasn’t changed. At all.”

He steps closer, his expression softening, brows furrowing just slightly- perfectly. “Maybe the coating oxidized a little. Humidity does that. Want me to grab a silica pack from the drawer?”

You shake your head. “No. It’s fine. I just…” You trail off. “I must’ve mixed them up.”

He brushes a hand through your damp hair, thumb pausing just below your ear. “We’ll switch pharmacies if it helps.”

You nod slowly, your pulse still climbing for reasons you can’t name.

He smiles, presses a kiss to your temple. “You’re doing everything right, pretty. You just need a break.”

You return the smile- small, tight, grateful- and turn back to rinse your mug.

When you look up again, the mirror over the sink catches your reflection. For a second, it looks normal- two figures in soft light, domestic and calm.

Then you blink.

And the reflection doesn’t.

It stares back half a beat longer- your face frozen mid-motion while the real you flinches. Then, like a buffering screen, it snaps to match.

Your breath catches in your throat.

“Kook,” you whisper.

He glances up, following your gaze. “What is it?”

The mirror is normal again.

“I thought-” You stop. The words sound stupid even before they form. “Nothing.”

He tilts his head, concern painting his features in soft strokes. “You sure?”

You nod, forcing a smile. “Yeah.”

He touches your chin lightly, guiding your face back toward him. “Good. Don’t let this place mess with you, okay?”

You try to laugh, but it comes out thin. “Yeah. Okay.”

He keeps watching you a moment longer before stepping away, humming under his breath.

The mirror stands behind you, the glass cold and still- until your reflection doesn’t. For one long second, your face stays in mid-motion while the image in the glass watches you with a steadier stare. Then your reflection snaps into place.

═══════

The blackout hits like a slap.

One blink, and the apartment is gone- swallowed in wet, electric dark. The television dies mid-sentence, the refrigerator cuts out, the hum you’ve learned to live with collapses into a void so dense it feels like the air itself stops moving.

You stand in the living room, every hair on your arms lifting. The only light comes from the window- lightning flashes that strobe white across the furniture, then leave everything ink-black again.

“Kook?”

Nothing. Then, from the hall: “Fuse blew. Stay there.” His voice is calm, distant, swallowed by the dark.

You take one step. The floorboards groan beneath your heel- louder than they ever have, like the wood itself is straining.

Another flash. For that single pulse of light, the reflection in the blank TV screen doesn’t look like you. It looks almost … tilted.

The thunder hits a beat later, shaking the windows.

Then you hear it.

At first it’s a hiss- air through the vents- until it starts forming shapes of sound. Not words yet, just syllables, stacked on top of each other like overlapping breaths.

“sssshhhhh- ahhhh- nnnn-”

Your pulse jumps. You step back until your shoulder hits the wall.

The hiss rises, twisting, breaking apart and reforming into something almost human:

“leeeeeeeave-”

“-don’t-”

“-no one’s there-”

“-can you hear it-”

The voices multiply. Men, women, children, all whispering over one another in a cadence that makes no sense. Some are right beside your ear, others echo from behind the drywall.

“Stop,” you whisper, covering your ears. “Stop it-”

It doesn’t. It changes.

A scraping sound starts inside the vent above the couch. Slow. Dry. Metal against metal. Then, distinctly, something drags.

You stagger backward, hit the edge of the coffee table, pain flashing up your thigh.

“Jungkook!”

No answer.

The emergency lights kick on with a faint hum- dim, red, barely enough to carve outlines in the dark. Every shadow looks alive.

The dragging stops.

You wait, breath held, until you hear the tiniest tap-tap-tap, like fingernails against the metal vent cover.

Then a whisper- clear this time, close enough to vibrate through your ribs:

“Y/N.”

You freeze.

It says your name again, sharper, like a child learning to speak.

“Y/N. Y/N.”

You lunge for the switch out of instinct, but the power’s dead. The button clicks uselessly beneath your thumb.

The whisper turns to laughter- light, brittle, as if two voices are laughing out of sync.

“Stop it!” you shout, voice cracking. “Stop!”

A loud clang answers- the vent cover snapping once, hard, like something struck it from the inside.

“Hey!” Jungkook’s voice finally, cutting through the dark. Footsteps. Then the narrow beam of his phone light slicing across the room. “What happened?!”

You spin toward him, sobbing. “There’s something in the walls! It said my name-”

He’s already pulling you into his chest, the phone beam jerking wildly as you shake. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” he says, voice steady but low, like he’s afraid of spooking something invisible. “Power outages mess with the wiring. Pressure in the ducts. It’s nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing!”

He hushes you, hand sliding to the back of your neck. “I’ll light candles. I’ll stay up all night if I have to.”

The vent rattles again. Both of you look.

The beam of light catches dust falling- slow, lazy motes drifting from the metal grate. No movement. Just dust.

Still, the sound of whispering hasn’t stopped; it’s lower now, just under hearing, like the noise your mind makes when it’s too quiet.

You can’t tell if it’s outside or inside your head.

“See?” Jungkook murmurs. “Nothing there.”

You try to speak, but the words won’t come. He guides you down onto the couch, presses your forehead to his chest, rocks you gently. His heart beats steady, unbothered.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

You clutch at his shirt, sobbing until your voice burns out. The apartment stays silent except for the thunder miles away.

After a while, your breathing evens. He wipes your cheeks, tells you to rest.

You close your eyes because there’s nothing else to do.

The dark behind your lids is red. You can still hear the faint hum of the emergency light.

Just before sleep drags you under, something brushes your ankle. Light as a fingertip.

Your eyes snap open. Jungkook’s arms are still around you. He’s whispering something- soft, rhythmic, like a lullaby you can’t quite catch.

You stare past his shoulder. The vent above the couch is open an inch wider than before.

The air that seeps out is cold. Wet. Breathing.

You start to tremble again, whispering, “Please make it stop.”

“I will,” he says into your hair. “Tomorrow we’ll fix it. I promise.”

You nod, but your thoughts are a jumble, looping back on themselves.

Maybe it’s not the house.

Maybe it’s me.

Maybe the house is quiet… and I’m the thing that’s wrong.

The red light flickers once, twice.

From the vent, a sound like laughter crawls out and dissolves into static.

═══════

The voices stopped after that night.

Or maybe they just moved deeper into the walls.

For two mornings, you wake to silence so complete it hurts. The kind that doesn’t ring or hum, the kind that feels like holding your breath. Jungkook says it’s because he fixed the vent- tightened the screws, cleaned out the filters. He even replaced the air freshener plug-ins with sage bundles he burned himself, waving the smoke through every room while the windows cracked open.

It worked.

It must have worked.

The apartment smells like rosemary and citrus now instead of dust. You tell yourself that’s what calm smells like.

Sunlight pools through the living room again- real sunlight, gold and heavy. The coffee table gleams, every surface has been wiped down. The carpet looks freshly vacuumed, the tracks neat and straight like a heartbeat that’s finally evened out.

The white noise machine hums softly by the bed- except it’s not humming. It’s off. The plug dangles just short of the outlet, tucked behind the nightstand.

You notice it every morning. You tell yourself it doesn’t matter. The quiet feels earned.

“See?” Jungkook says, smiling as he carries in breakfast. “Told you it just needed attention.”

He’s barefoot, sleeves pushed up, hair falling into his eyes. He sets the tray down, arranges your cup exactly the way you like- milk before sugar, not after.

You lean back against the headboard. “You didn’t have to cook again.”

“I wanted to.” He slides a plate toward you: eggs, toast, sliced strawberries. “You’ve been sleeping better. You look better.”

“Do I?”

He nods, brushing a crumb from your cheek with his thumb. “A hundred percent. Color’s back in your face.”

You smile, weak but real. “Guess I needed rest.”

“Guess so.” He sits beside you, crossing one ankle over the other. “And maybe food that isn’t instant noodles.”

You laugh. “That too.”

He grins at that, boyish and easy. The light catches in his eyes, and for a moment he looks exactly like the Jungkook you moved in with- warm, attentive, the version of him that made the apartment feel like home.

Days pass this way.

He keeps busy- cleaning, cooking, fixing little things you never knew were broken. You nap in the afternoon sunlight, the quiet stretching like silk through the rooms.

No rattling. No whispers. No laughter from the vents.

Sometimes you catch yourself standing in the hallway, listening. The silence presses close, thick enough to feel- not empty, not exactly, just… waiting.

You shake it off.

Jungkook finds you there once, hand still on the wall. “You okay, baby?”

“Yeah,” you say quickly. “Just listening.”

He tilts his head. “To what?”

“Nothing.”

He smiles and kisses your temple. “That’s the point, right?”

You nod. He squeezes your shoulder once before heading to the kitchen, where the sound of water running and soft music fills the air again.

You hear his voice from the other room, cheerful.

“Found us a new place, by the way. Bigger kitchen. Actual backyard.”

Your heart stutters. “Wait- really?”

He leans against the doorway, grin widening. “Told you I’d get us out of this shoebox. It’s out near Bansong-dong, up by the base of the mountain. Quiet streets, trees everywhere, no neighbors pressed against the walls.”

You blink. “That’s… pretty far from the city.”

“Yeah,” he says easily, crossing the room to you. “But maybe that’s good, right? You said you needed space. Somewhere peaceful. No noise. No stress.”

You nod slowly. “What about work? Hana, my friends-”

He brushes a hand through your hair, gentle. “You’ll still see them. It’s not that far—just a short drive. It’s perfect, baby. It’s clean, private, ours.”

You hesitate, the word ours lingering in your chest. “Just us, huh?”

He smiles, presses a kiss to your temple. “Exactly. Time to start over. You deserve something real, love.”

He means it. You can hear the sincerity in his voice. And for the first time in months, you almost believe him.

Almost.

Because when you lie down that night, eyes half-lidded, the quiet feels heavy again- not hostile, just too perfect.

The kind of silence that watches.

And just as sleep starts to pull you under, the vent above the bed exhales- one slow, shuddering breath that smells faintly of metal.

You don’t open your eyes.

You just whisper, “Let’s move soon.”

═══════

The boxes make the apartment feel smaller.

Everywhere you look, there’s cardboard- stacked against walls, sealed with strips of tape that whisper when the air shifts. The furniture looks naked without the framed photos and throw blankets, the corners sharper somehow, unfamiliar.

You tell Jungkook it’s a good kind of strange. He agrees, smiling like it’s all progress.

The days leading up to the move stretch thin and anxious. The weather turns muggy- thunder stays on the horizon, never quite coming close enough to break the tension.

You wake early each morning to find him already packing- always busy, always humming under his breath. When you offer to help, he hands you light things: clothes, books, the harmless stuff. Anything breakable, anything heavy, he insists on handling himself.

“Don’t strain yourself,” he says, brushing dust from your fingers. “I’ve got it.”

He always says that. 

“I’ve got it.”

And he does. Every box labeled, every drawer emptied, every trace of the old life folded into neat rectangles.

Still, something feels off.

The bedroom lamp (unplugged since yesterday) glows faintly when you pass by, a ghost of current flickering through the bulb. You stare at it, heart skipping, until the light winks out. When you call Jungkook’s name, he’s in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, wrapping glasses in newspaper.

“It must’ve been a charge,” he says easily, not even turning around. “Static from the storm.”

You tell yourself that makes sense. You tell yourself a lot of things.

By evening, the air feels heavy with dust and candle smoke. The living room is mostly bare now, walls showing faint outlines where frames used to hang.

Jungkook pushes open the balcony door, the hinges sighing. “Come on,” he says softly. “You’ve been cooped up all day.”

Outside, the city hums under the fading sky. The streets below glint with rainwater, headlights streaking into silver lines. You lean on the railing, inhaling the damp air.

He stands close beside you, his hand brushing yours. “Looks better out here, huh?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Like it’s waiting for us.”

He smiles faintly. “Maybe it is.”

You watch the skyline for a while, the quiet between you comfortable. The horizon bleeds from gold to violet, and the scent of wet pavement drifts up from below.

“Thank you,” you say at last, turning toward him.

He glances over. “For what?”

“For… everything. For staying. For saving me.”

He laughs softly, shaking his head. “I didn’t save you, baby.”

“Yes, you did.”

He takes your hand, brings it to his lips, presses a kiss to your knuckles. His eyes meet yours, warm and unwavering. “You saved yourself. I just helped you see it.”

You swallow hard, smile through it. “You always know what to say.”

“I just say what’s true.”

His thumb moves slow against your wrist- steady, reassuring. Behind you, a soft sound interrupts the stillness.

A tap. Then another.

You turn your head, expecting wind against the windowpane, but the glass door is open- nothing could be hitting it.

Another sound, this one duller- the faint shuffle of a box sliding across the hardwood floor inside.

Jungkook doesn’t look. Doesn’t even blink.

“Probably the draft,” he murmurs, still tracing small circles on your wrist. “Or the building settling.”

You look back into the apartment. The box in the corner has shifted an inch closer to the door.

“Yeah,” you whisper. “Settling.”

He smiles, satisfied with your answer, and pulls you a little closer. The last of the sunlight fades behind him, leaving the balcony in amber gloom.

For a while, neither of you speak. The city hushes. A car passes somewhere below, its tires whispering through puddles.

Finally, he speaks- voice quiet, certain.

“Once we’re in the new place,” he says, “we’ll leave all of this behind. No more whispers, no more bad nights. Just us.”

You nod, leaning your head against his shoulder. “You really think it’ll be that easy?”

His thumb traces lazy circles against your wrist. “Doesn’t have to be easy,” he murmurs. “Just has to be ours.”

That makes you smile. “Then ours it is.”

He turns his head, kisses your hair, and breathes, “That’s my girl.”

Inside the apartment, a single box shifts again- a low scrape, quick and almost shy.

Neither of you notice.

═══════

The new house breathes differently.

It’s not loud like the old apartment- no neighbors above or below, no pipes sighing in the walls- but there’s a kind of pulse to it, slow and patient, the way wood expands in heat. The silence feels alive in a way you can’t name.

By the time the sun starts sinking, the rooms are golden. Light spills through the half-unpacked boxes, striping the floor in warm, straight lines. The smell of fresh paint lingers beneath the faint sweetness of sage.

Jungkook sits propped against the headboard, a book closed on his lap. You’re stretched across his chest, head on his shoulder, your breath syncing with the rise and fall of his. Outside, cicadas start their evening chorus, a soft droning that fills the gaps between your heartbeat and his.

“Feels weird,” you murmur, eyes half-closed. “Too quiet.”

He hums low in his throat, fingers combing through your hair. “Good weird or bad weird?”

You shrug against him. “I don’t know yet.”

He chuckles- the sound rumbles under your ear. “When I was a kid, I used to hate quiet. Thought it meant something bad was about to happen.”

You lift your head slightly. “Really?”

“Mm.” His thumb strokes idle patterns along your arm. “During storms, I’d hide under the blanket and pretend I was asleep. The thunder used to sound like someone knocking on the door. Drove me crazy.”

“You? Scared of storms?”

He grins. “Don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin my image.”

You smile, eyes drifting shut again. “I like thunder. Makes me feel small in a good way.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hm.” You yawn. “Makes the world sound alive.”

He’s quiet for a moment. Then: “Maybe that’s why you’re so good at hearing things.”

You open one eye, glance up at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that you notice stuff most people don’t,” he says easily. “The way the apartment creaked, the way wind shifts.”

You study his face. “You make that sound like a bad thing.”

He smiles- soft, reassuring. “Never bad. Just rare.”

You hum in response, too tired to question it further. The light outside fades from gold to blue, the edges of the room softening into shadows.

The house is utterly still. No voices. No scraping. No breathing vents.

You let yourself relax for the first time in weeks.

His fingers drift through your hair again, slow, rhythmic, like the motion of water. His heartbeat is steady beneath your ear- not loud, but insistent, a quiet metronome of safety.

You whisper something- maybe his name, maybe thank you- and he murmurs, “Sleep, pretty.”

You do.

But as your breathing slows, the quiet begins to feel heavier, thicker, like something holding its breath.

The last thing you hear before slipping under is the faintest creak- the kind a house makes when it’s settling, or when someone steps lightly just outside the door.

He doesn’t move.

He just keeps stroking your hair.

And in the silence, the rhythm of his heartbeat never misses a beat.

═══════

jungkooks’s pov:

She fell asleep on his chest again.

The weight of her- warm, trusting- pressed into him like proof that everything had worked. The storm had passed. The ghosts were gone. The house was quiet, and she was safe.

That was all he’d wanted.

For her to feel safe.

He keeps his hand in her hair, brushing slow patterns down the strands, careful not to wake her. The room hums with the faint breath of night air through the open window. The clock ticks in soft, regular beats.

He lets his mind drift- not forward, never forward, but back.

═══════

He’d known the apartment before she ever saw it.

The walls, the vents, the crawl spaces- all of it mapped in his mind from the year he’d lived there alone. The place had quirks, sure- weak sound insulation, old pipes, ducts that carried noise like secrets. He’d learned them like language.

That’s how the tapping started.

He’d unscrewed one of the vent covers months before she moved in and mounted a small hinge plate behind it- a bent piece of tin attached to an old fan motor from a discarded alarm clock. It clicked on at intervals, soft tap-tap-taps against the drywall, irregular enough to sound organic.

He’d sit beside her on the couch, arm around her shoulders, and feel her stiffen when the sound came.

She’d gone still, eyes on the wall.

“Old pipes,” he’d murmured, hiding his smile behind a sip of wine.

It was perfect. Simple. Believable.

═══════

The whispers came next.

He’d already known where the ducts met- the perfect echo chambers. From the utility closet, his voice carried like breath. He didn’t need to raise it; just a whisper would do.

“Y/n…”

“Y/n…”

Sometimes he’d use the Bluetooth speaker hidden behind the bookshelf to play pre-recorded sounds - his own voice, layered and slowed, whispering fragments of her name between static.

That’s how she heard him even when he was next to her.

He’d tested the timing: the loop would run for twenty seconds while he held her, pretending to listen. He’d glance at the ceiling, jaw tight, eyes wide in mock concern. “It’s the neighbors,” he’d say. “Or maybe the wind.”

She’d tremble against him. He’d tighten his arm around her.

“Shh. I’ve got you.”

He’d even accounted for nights when he was asleep.

Or when she thought he was.

The small speaker on the nightstand, tucked behind the lamp base, had a timer app synced to his phone. It whispered at 2:17am- precisely when her REM cycles were deepest, when her dreams blurred with the dark.

Sometimes, half-awake, she’d whisper his name, and he’d mumble something back without opening his eyes.

Perfect synchronization. Perfect control.

═══════

The first real test had been the phone recording.

He remembered the hum of her breathing while she slept, the soft red light blinking on the nightstand. The app was recording. He waited.

Then he triggered the ping- a quiet, invisible pulse from the Bluetooth speaker hidden behind the dresser. It drained the battery just enough to corrupt the file. No proof, no playback.

She’d been so sure she’d caught something that time. Her face had fallen when she saw the black screen, eyes wide and wet.

He’d hated that part. But she needed to see that she couldn’t trust the noise- only him.

“Battery must’ve died mid-recording, baby.”

He’d said it so gently. And she’d believed him.

═══════

The mirror had been an experiment.

A leftover remnant from before she moved in- the silvering along the back was damaged, just enough to catch moisture patterns. He’d traced her name across it once with a cotton swab dipped in diluted cleaner, faint enough to vanish when dry.

He’d waited.

Steam did the rest. The letters appeared ghostlike through condensation.

When she screamed, he’d come running- barefoot, half-dressed, water still dripping from his hair. He’d grabbed her shoulders and wiped the glass clean, quick and firm.

“Don’t look. Breathe with me.”

And she did.

He’d felt her heartbeat racing through her palms. The memory still made his chest ache with something like pride.

═══════

The hanger trick had been easy. A cracked window, a bit of fishing line looped through the metal hook, pulled tight to the vent’s rhythm. Just enough movement to catch her eye, never enough to show the string.

He’d tested it a dozen times before letting it happen. He remembered the way she froze when the closet door creaked open by itself, her breath catching against his chest. He’d whispered reassurance into her hair, feeling her pulse flutter beneath his hand.

“Shh. I’ve got you.”

And he had. Every piece of her fear was threaded through his fingertips.

═══════

The pills had been harder.

That part scared even him sometimes- not the doing of it, but how easily it became routine.

He’d switched the capsules slowly, one bottle at a time, enough for her to doubt herself but never enough to hurt her. She always looked at the pills like they were strangers.

And before handing the bottle back to her, he’d taken her phone, opened her gallery, and edited the timestamp metadata on the old photos- replacing one imprint with another.

He’d paid the pharmacist to confirm her fears were baseless. A small envelope, a quiet favor, an understanding.

“We’ve dispensed the same product for six months.”

He’d stood beside her that morning, hand on her back, feeling her tension unravel while the lie played through the phone speaker. She’d cried afterward. He’d held her until she fell asleep.

“You’re not crazy,” he’d whispered into her hair. “You’re just tired.”

═══════

The posts about the building had been his favorite. He’d typed them in the dark while she slept beside him, glowing phone light soft against his knuckles.

“Anyone else hearing weird noises in the walls of 4B?”

“Might be the plumbing or something”

A few replies. Enough to seed the thought that it wasn’t all in her head- just enough to make her trust his calm even more.

Because that was the point. It wasn’t about ghosts or fear or madness.

It was about dependence.

She needed him. She always had.

He presses his lips to the top of her head now, breathing her in- shampoo and sweat and sleep.

Her breathing is steady, shallow, the kind of sleep that only comes after surrender. He watches the rise and fall of her back, the little curls of hair caught against her lips. The rhythm soothes him- predictable, soft, his.

She used to flinch in her sleep. Now she doesn’t. Now she trusts the silence.

He leans forward, pressing a quiet kiss into her hair again. “Good girl,” he whispers.

For a moment, he just listens. The new house hums differently than the old one- heavier, denser. The kind of quiet that doesn’t simply exist, but waits.

He reaches for the vent above the headboard, the one he sealed earlier. The metal is cool beneath his fingers. He tugs gently- it doesn’t move. The screws are tight. He smiles.

No gaps. No echoes. No ghosts.

Just him.

He sits back, the shadows folding around him. The streetlight through the window slants across the floor in thin, trembling stripes. He can almost hear her heartbeat still, even from here.

He thinks about how easy it had been to make her doubt herself- not out of cruelty, but necessity. She had needed order. She had needed someone steady enough to hold the noise for her.

He convinces you you’re losing your mind. Moving your things. Switching out your pills. Whispering your name at night until you think you’re hearing voices.

It had never been about hurting her. It had always been about love- the kind that fixes, that quiets, that teaches.

He traces the edge of the blanket where it meets her shoulder, fingers light as breath. Her skin is warm. Her body trusts him even in sleep.

He leans close, his voice barely a whisper against her ear. “Don’t worry, baby,” he murmurs, tone soft enough to sound like a dream. “I’ll take care of you. Nobody else will.”

He presses one last kiss to her temple, eyes open now, watching the darkness settle around them like a second skin.

The house is utterly still. No wind. No voices. No sound at all.

And yet- if you listened closely, past the hush of sleep and the hum of distant power lines, you could swear the walls themselves were learning to breathe.

Learning to whisper.

Because he was teaching them how.

═══════

Post A/N: did we see the twist coming 😭 or did i pull it off???

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JKWRITOBER ♡ MASTERLIST ♡ a03

♡ requests are welcome ♡ taglist ♡

These characters are fictional and do not represent any real-life individuals. Their likeness is used solely for visual inspiration and does not reflect the actual person or their story.

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Posted: 10/24/2025 (let’s just pretend lol)

The first scream snaps the street in half.

“Left!” Namjoon shouts, shoving a crate aside so you can scramble across broken pavement. Your lungs burn, vision star-sparking. Sirens that no longer belong to anything weaves with the drag-scratch of hands on asphalt, the hungry chorus behind you getting louder- wet, animal, relentless.

“Door- there!” Jisoo points at a storefront with its glass spiderwebbed and a handwritten sign that says CLOSED, like that means anything anymore.

You hit the latch- stuck. “It’s jammed- ”

“Move,” Yuna grits, swinging the crowbar. The glass gives with a shriek. Hanni’s already hauling you through, palms slick, Jimin diving last as a body slams the frame behind him. Namjoon and Jin ram a vending machine against the hole. Something on the other side groans, bone-deep.

“Count,” Jin says, panting.

“Six,” Namjoon confirms, scanning. “We lost the cart. Shit.”

Hanni’s breathing too fast. “We can make do- tonight- just… just need water.”

Jimin squeezes her shoulder. “We’ll be okay. We always-”

The vending machine jerks forward an inch, a smear of blood fingerprinting the glass. More hands thump. You all stumble back into aisles of dust and toppled cereal boxes.

“You good?” Jimin asks you, eyes flitting to your knee. You look down and there it is: a gash where you clipped the curb, oozing bright and ugly. You swallow. “Fine,” you lie.

“Let me see,” Jin says, already digging in his pack for gauze that isn’t there.

“It’s gone,” Jisoo says, voice tight. “Was in the cart.”

The front windows cave another inch. Yuna curses. “They smelled us for blocks. We should’ve cut through Ninth like I said.”

Namjoon shakes his head, hair stuck to his forehead. “The fire on Ninth was funneling them. We’d be ash by now.”

The vending machine shudders. Your heart drops through the floor.

“Back!” Jin orders. “Through the stock room. There’s gotta be a rear exit-”

The door to the stock room swings open before you can reach it.

He’s framed in dim light like a myth that walked out of the old world- broad shoulders, black jacket scuffed and patched, hair falling into eyes that cut quick across the room. There’s already blood on the ax in his hand. Not his.

“Hi,” he says, like he’s about to ask for the time. “You’re blocking your own barricade. Cute, but dumb.”

Yuna lifts the crowbar. “Who the hell-”

“Name’s Jungkook.” His gaze slides to you and stills. Like he’s locating Polaris. “You’re bleeding.”

Namjoon steps half in front of you on instinct. “We don’t know you.”

Jungkook nods like that’s fair. “You don’t. But you’ve got twenty- no, twenty-three- on the front, and you’re about to lose your makeshift door. There’s a service corridor to the alley. It’ll be packed too. Or…” A corner of his mouth tips up, a private joke only he knows. “We can make a different exit.”

He drops a duffel with a clang. Inside: coils of wire, a screwdriver, two flashbangs, and- Jisoo sucks in a breath- bottled water.

“How’d you get those?” Hanni whispers.

“Costco,” he deadpans. “Buy one apocalypse, get two free.”

The front windows creak. Something screams- high, hungry. You flinch. Jungkook’s eyes flick back to you, gone warm and steady, like he’s bracing you with just his attention.

“Okay, team,” he says to no one and everyone. “This machine is dead weight. The back wall is drywalled over a delivery hatch. I pop it. We move when I say. You-” he points to Jin, “-keep pressure on her knee. You-” a look to Namjoon, “-count breaths. If anyone falls, you shout, not whisper. Whispering is for secrets, not survival.”

“Who put you in charge?” Yuna snaps.

Jungkook flashes a quick grin, all teeth and sweat. “Because standing still gets you killed.”

He’s already at the wall, checking studs with quick taps. “Three, two- step back.” The ax goes through gypsum like wet paper. Dust blooms. He carves a square, kicks, and a square of night opens, alley-bitter and cold. The front barricade shrieks behind you as the dead press harder, a dozen mouths working at once.

“Go,” he says, and the word lands like a promise. “I’ll hold.”

“Like hell,” Namjoon starts, but Jungkook’s already moving- flashbang pin clicked out with his teeth, a clean throw that skitters under the vending machine.

“Cover ears,” he calls.

The burst is a sun inside a tin can- white sound, white light, the horde’s chorus tipping into chaos. Jungkook is motion and muscle, flipping the vending machine on its side by wedging the ax and leveraging it like a crow. He doesn’t look real. He looks inevitable.

“Now.” His hand steadies your elbow, guiding you through the opening with quick precision. “Keep going.”

Outside, the alley is a jawline of brick and stinking trash. Two shamblers turn slow, heads twitchy, and Jungkook is there before Namjoon can lift his pipe- two fast strikes, wet thuds, bodies folding. He shoves a dumpster along rails of its own filth, sealing the opening he cut.

“Left is clear,” he says easily, like he’s checking the weather.

“How do you know that?” Yuna says, suspicious and breathless.

“Because I walked it,” he says, already scanning rooflines. “Ten minutes ago. You’re not the only ones who like to window-shop death.”

You don’t remember deciding to trust him, only that your feet move when he says “move,” and your body believes him when he says “I’ve got you.” His hand never quite leaves you: a palm at your elbow, a steadying pressure at your back when you stagger, fingers ghosting your pulse after a stumble. The attention feels like a hand around your throat and a blanket at the same time.

By the time he shoves open the metal door of a laundromat, your legs are shaking. Inside: rows of silent machines like pale mouths, detergent turned to chalk in boxes. He slams the bolts, then finally looks at your knee like he’s allowed to.

“Sit,” Jungkook says, and it comes out soft. You do.

Jin crouches, fingers hovering as he assesses. Jungkook is already pulling a roll of bandage from his duffel and a little brown bottle that burns when he uncaps it.

“Wait,” Jimin says. “That’s- where did you even-”

“Pharmacy raid,” Jungkook says. “A while back.” He doesn’t look away from you while he says it. “This is gonna sting.”

“Everything stings,” you say, trying for light.

He smiles, brief and crooked. “Not like this.”

It’s like being set on fire from the inside out, the antiseptic kissing into open skin. You suck a breath through your teeth. His free hand finds yours, sure as gravity. “Breathe with me,” he murmurs. “In for four, out for six.” He counts quietly, sticking the rhythm to you like an anchor. You focus on his voice until the room dial-turns back from white.

“Good,” he says. He wraps the bandage with a medic’s neatness, grazes the edge with his thumb, and it feels like a promise you don’t understand. “You’re okay.”

Namjoon clears his throat. “Thank you,” he says, wary but sincere. “We… owe you.”

“Debts are tricky,” Jungkook says lightly, finally releasing your hand. You feel the absence like a draft. He stands, assessing the room as if drawing a diagram in his head. “This place is decent for a night. Back door, one front, glass not ideal. But there’s a roof hatch, and I rigged-” He stops, something private shuttering. “I can rig a line if we need a quick exit.”

“You’ve been around here long?” Jin asks.

Jungkook’s eyes tip toward the windows. “Long enough to know which corridors breathe and which choke.” His gaze returns to you, heavy as a hand. “Long enough to find you.”

The silence after that is a taut wire. Hanni fidgets with a broken zipper. Yuna watches him like a lit fuse.

“We worked together,” Jimin blurts, as if to reset the room’s shape. “Before. All of us. Same building. Same coffee machine, tragically. You know, when…before.” He gestures vaguely toward the world.

Jungkook’s mouth softens. “Must be nice. To carry each other forward.” His eyes flick to you again. “To be carried.”

“It’s not charity,” Yuna says. “It’s family.”

Jungkook’s smile says he’s heard the word and filed it somewhere. “Sure.”

“You got a place?” Namjoon asks. “A group?”

Jungkook’s jaw moves once, like he bites a word in half. “People don’t stick.” He rolls his shoulder, a little crack. “I usually run solo.”

“Why help us, then?” Jisoo asks.

He doesn’t answer right away. He peels off his gloves, the backs scuffed, the palms smooth, and sets them carefully beside the duffel as if they matter more than anything else he owns. “Because you needed it,” he says finally. “Because I was there.” Then, quieter, eyes on you- “Because sometimes you see something worth staying for.”

You stare back, throat dry. The room feels small suddenly, the six of you too loud, the machines too white, Jungkook too much. He breaks the look first, tipping his head toward the back. “I’ll check the hatch. Someone should stay with sleeping beauty.”

“I’m awake,” you say, and he grins like he’s glad.

He moves like water up the rear stairs, silent even in a dead building. Namjoon exhales.

“Thoughts?” he says low.

“Convenient,” Yuna says immediately. “Too convenient. He shows up, knows the exits, has meds, water, jokes. What is he, a catalog order?”

“Catalogs used to take weeks,” Jimin says, forcing levity. “He took like two minutes.”

Jin looks down at the neat bandage. “He knows what he’s doing.”

“Exactly,” Yuna says. “Why?”

“Because some people survived by learning,” Jisoo says, pragmatic. “Not all competence is conspiracy.”

Yuna’s gaze swings to you. “What do you think?”

You look at your wrapped knee. You looked at the blood drying along Jungkook’s knuckles, the ax leaning against a washer like a pet. You remember his hand covering yours while pain made the world disappear, the way he counted you back into it. Your heart is a fist punching the inside of your ribs.

“I think,” you say slowly, “we’re alive because of him.”

“That’s not an answer,” Yuna says.

“It is for tonight,” Namjoon decides. He rubs a hand over his face, exhaustion a furrow. “We rotate watch. We barricade what we can. Tomorrow, we reassess.”

Footsteps on the stairs. Jungkook drops back into the room without disturbing the dust. “Roof’s clear. Two buildings over, there’s a fire escape that kisses the alley. If the front gets cozy, we can skip across rooftops like we’re in a musical.” He looks at Jimin. “You look like you know choreography.”

Jimin brightens despite himself. “I dabble.”

Jungkook’s smile flickers again- then, gone. He unscrews a water bottle, offers it to you first without asking. You hesitate, then take it. The plastic crinkles in your hand, a sound you haven’t heard in days. He watches the way you drink like he’s memorizing gratitude, like it feeds him.

“Where’d you come from?” Hanni asks when you pass the bottle on.

Jungkook leans against a washer, head tipped back. For a second, you see the shape of him without the grin: the lines cut by hunger and not-sleep, the twitch in his jaw he keeps swallowing. “Nowhere special,” he says. “Everywhere awful.”

“That’s poetic,” Jisoo says.

“Just true.” His gaze snags yours again, deliberate. “I heard you before I saw you.” He taps his ear. “High scream. Not yours.” He points at Jimin. “Yours.”

Jimin flushes. “There was a lot going on!”

“And then I saw you-” Jungkook’s voice goes quieter, a thread. “-and decided I wouldn’t let that be your last day.”

Yuna makes a sound under her breath. “There it is. The line.”

Jungkook looks over at her, mild. “Would you prefer I said I came for the ambiance?”

“Prefer you say nothing at all,” Yuna shoots back.

“Yuna,” Namjoon warns, and she bites her lip, angry-silent.

Jungkook lets it slide, attention sliding back to you like it was always coming home. “You need sleep,” he says. “Shock wears a pretty mask, but it bites later.”

“I’m fine,” you say.

“You’re shaking,” he says, and when you glance down, you are. He steps closer, crouches, his voice softened to something you wouldn’t want anyone else to hear. “Hey. You did good. You ran when you had to. You lived.” His smile is smaller now, not for performance. “Let someone else hold the line for a few hours.”

You nod, because he’s right or because he sounds right. He eases your pack under your head, tucks a folded hoodie from his bag beneath your bandaged knee with absurd care, like the world hasn’t been reduced to teeth and metal.

“I’ll take first watch,” he tells the others. “I sleep light anyway.”

Jungkook tips a lazy salute and pads to the front windows, where the night presses its face to the glass. He stands like a question mark unbent, ax slung loose, head cocked- listening to something you can’t hear. You mean to keep him in your sight until your eyes close, just in case. You mean to count breaths like he counted yours.

Sleep steals you between one blink and the next.

You wake to a whisper.

“Shh,” Jungkook breathes, close enough that warmth ghosts your ear. The room is still dark but silver now, the moon dragging its nails across the city. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you croak, throat sand. “What- time?”

“Middle of the night,” he says. “Witching hour. Or whatever lives now.” He offers the bottle. You drink and he watches again, lips parted like he’s learning something sacred. “You were dreaming.”

“Bad?” You don’t remember.

He tilts his head. “You said a name.”

“Who?”

He smiles, rueful. “Not mine.”

You stare at him, because something about the way he says it makes your pulse skid. “I don’t even know you.”

“You will,” he says simply. Then, softer, like he can’t help himself- “I’ll make sure.”

At the windows, something drags by, a slow thump-smear. Jungkook doesn’t look away from you. “They won’t get in,” he says. “I won’t let them.”

“Why?” The word slips out before you can wrestle it back. “Why…me?”

He breathes out a laugh, quiet, a small burst of fog in winter. “Because I was looking for a reason,” he says. “Now I have one.”

Footsteps rustle. Namjoon sits up, rubbing his eyes. Jungkook straightens immediately, gaze slitting back to the glass. “Switch,” he says. “You snore?”

“Only when I’m dead,” Namjoon mutters. Jungkook’s mouth tips; he claps him once on the shoulder in passing like they’re old friends and glides toward the back of the room, shadow swallowed by darker shadow.

As he passes you, his knuckles brush your wrist and you feel it all the way up your arm, a heat that doesn’t belong to fever. He doesn’t look at you when he whispers, as if speaking to the room, or the night, or his own patience:

“Sleep. I’ll be right here when you wake.”

You think it should feel like safety. You think it should feel like a warning. You think it might be both.

Behind Jungkook’s calm, the city rearranges itself, quietly, like chess pieces moving between blinks. Somewhere, out there, something knocks once, and then again, in a pattern only one person recognizes.

And at the laundromat window, Jungkook finally looks up, eyes reflecting the dark like the eyes of something that learned how to love by watching wolves.

═══════

Sleep comes jagged. Every time you stir awake, Jungkook is there- posted at the laundromat’s dark window, ax leaned against his thigh. His profile is cut sharp by moonlight, hair falling into his eyes. Sometimes you catch him glancing at you when he thinks you’re asleep, his stare heavy enough to feel even in dreams.

The last time you surface, he’s crouched in front of you, adjusting the bandage on your knee. His voice is low, almost too soft for the end of the world.

“You did good tonight.”

Your throat is dry. “Did I?”

His smile is crooked. “You’re still here, aren’t you?”

═══════

1 day later

The city is a furnace under noon sun. You’re rooftop-hopping, following Jungkook’s lead. He moves like he’s memorized the whole map of ruin, always knowing which ladder is safe, which alley breathes.

The ambush happens when you’re tired enough to hope for quiet.

You’re funneling through an alley when they pour out- first three, then five, then more. Their flesh is sloughed and bloated, dragging chains of saliva, hands outstretched like begging children.

“Shit!” Jisoo trips over a broken curb, screams as one grabs her ankle.

Before Namjoon can swing, Jungkook is already there. The ax comes down with a wet crack, splitting skull like rotten melon. Gray matter sprays the alley wall. He doesn’t flinch.

Another grabs for you. Its nails rake your thigh. Then Jungkook’s boot hits its chest, pinning it, and the ax buries so deep in its skull that it sticks. He yanks it free with a grunt, gore dripping from the blade.

“Left!” he barks, pulling you forward by the elbow. His hand is firm, unyielding, already steering you before you realize you’re stumbling.

The sound of bone breaking echoes, wet and final. Blood smears across your cheek. You gag, but Jungkook’s body shields yours as he finishes the kill.

“You’re fine,” he says, breath harsh. “Keep moving.”

Later, when the group regroups in a half-collapsed stairwell, Jungkook crouches in front of you. His fingers smear blood from your cheek with slow, deliberate care, like he’s wiping away something sacred. His thumb lingers too long on your skin, and his gaze doesn’t waver.

“You don’t look at me,” he murmurs, so low only you can hear. “But I see you.”

═══════

3 days later

The daycare is quiet, full of crayon murals and dust. Hanni finds a box of tiny blankets, clutching one like it might still smell like childhood.

When Jungkook returns from scouting with a bruise darkening on his jaw and a bag of canned pears, Yuna eyes him like a wolf.

“What happened?” you ask.

He shrugs, but this time he explains. “Stairwell. Thought it was clear. One of them lunged. Slipped on the steps, slammed my chin. It got close, but I split its skull before it could bite.”

You hover, thumb just short of touching the bruise. His eyes soften, watching.

“Thank you,” you whisper.

“For pears?” His mouth quirks. “Anytime.”

That night, when you wake to rain leaking through the roof, you find him sitting too close. His hand brushes yours deliberately, knuckles grazing yours in the dark.

“You dream loud,” he whispers.

Your pulse stutters. “What did I say?”

“Not my name.” His mouth tilts, bitter. “But I’ll change that.”

═══════

5 days later

The street outside the daycare is wrong. Too quiet.

You’re with Jimin and Jin, Jungkook at your side. Then- movement. A horde pours from a side street, more than you’ve seen in weeks. Their jaws work open and shut, spit hanging in strings. One is missing its jaw entirely, tongue dragging across its chest as it lunges.

It slams into you. Your back hits the ground, your knee screaming.

Its face lowers toward yours, breath hot and rancid, teeth broken but eager. You scream.

And then Jungkook’s ax cleaves its skull open, brains spraying across your shirt. He hauls you up, grip bruising your arm. His voice is low, dangerous, the kind that cuts through panic like glass.

“Stay behind me.”

The kills are brutal. He’s soaked in gore, moving like he’s in a trance. The jawless one goes down twitching under his boot, skull caved in until it’s unrecognizable. The sound is sticky, final.

You can’t breathe. Then Jungkook’s hand finds your back, steadying you, pushing you toward the door.

Inside, your chest heaves with sobs you can’t choke down. Jungkook grabs your wrist, presses his forehead to yours, forces your gaze on him.

“Breathe,” he commands. His voice is softer now, breaking. “With me. In for four, out for six. Do it, baby. Look at me.”

Your eyes widen at the word- baby. But you obey, lungs matching his. His fingers trail down your wrist to your pulse, grounding.

“Don’t go scouting without me,” he whispers. “Promise me.”

Your lips tremble. You nod.

His thumb strokes once across your skin, and something in his face shifts- possessive, claiming. Yuna watches from across the room, suspicion sharp as a knife.

═══════

7 days later

The church you hole up in smells of mildew and ash. Rain drills the roof. You keep watch from a narrow alcove where cracked glass throws moonlight in slats.

Jungkook appears, silent as shadow, setting a tin cup at your side.

“Tea,” he says. “Sort of.”

You sip. It tastes like dirt and dust, but it’s warm. His fingers brush yours deliberately, lingering.

“Why are you always awake?” you ask.

He leans closer, voice dropping. “I don’t like closing my eyes when I haven’t earned it.”

Your pulse stutters. He sees it. His thumb traces your cheek and lingers. Then he leans in.

It’s soft at first, testing- but your fingers curl in his shirt, dragging him closer. He groans into your mouth, the sound breaking loose from deep in his chest. His hands are everywhere at once, gripping your waist, sliding up your back, cradling your jaw.

“You don’t know what you do to me,” he breathes against your lips.

“Show me,” you whisper.

He does.

The kiss turns bruising, desperate. His tongue sweeps against yours, claiming. His thigh wedges between yours, pressing hard enough that your body arches against him. You moan, and his hand clamps over your mouth instantly, muffling the sound, eyes burning.

“They’ll hear,” he growls. “Not them. Only me. You give me those sounds, no one else.”

Your thighs squeeze around his leg, grinding down, needy. He smirks against your cheek. “That’s it. Take what you need, baby. I’ve got you.”

The grind becomes frantic. His free hand sneaks under your shirt, hot palm sliding up your stomach, gripping your breast rougher than he means to. His thumb teases your nipple, rolling it until you gasp against his hand.

“Fuck,” he hisses, breath ragged. “So pretty like this. Mine.”

You’re clinging to him, hips rolling harder, your body betraying you with how much you want. He bites your jaw, teeth dragging, then sucks your neck, marking you.

You cum against his thigh with a muffled cry, shuddering. His hand clamps tighter over your mouth, holding you through it, his forehead pressed to yours as if your pleasure is his oxygen.

When you collapse against him, shaking, he breathes, “Never risk yourself. Never leave me. Promise.”

You nod, weak, dazed. His lips brush your temple. “Good girl.”

═══════

2 days later 

The horde floods into the church. Pews collapse, bodies slam into each other. You’re hauled up into the loft on a rope. Below, Jungkook fights like something feral- ax cracking skulls, gore spraying, boots crushing windpipes.

You only see Jungkook below, fighting like something feral. He swings the ax, cracking skulls, spraying gore. He grabs a zombie by the jaw and wrenches until it tears free, a wet snap, then buries his blade in its chest.

When he climbs to you, spattered in blood, he grabs your face with both hands and kisses you like a man starving. You taste blood and fear and him.

“They won’t protect you the way I can,” he breathes against your mouth. “Say you know it.”

You don’t say it. You kiss him back.

═══════

3 days later

The church sleeps in uneasy silence. Rain hammers the roof. Namjoon’s on watch, his silhouette steady in the loft. Everyone else snores below.

Jungkook catches your eye across the dark, jerks his head toward a half-collapsed confessional at the edge of the nave. Your pulse leaps. You follow.

Inside, shadows swallow you whole. The space is narrow, smelling of incense and dust.

He crowds you back against the wood, mouth crashing onto yours. The kiss is savage, tongues clashing, teeth catching. His hands roam your body- your waist, your ass, your thighs- gripping like he can’t believe you’re real.

You palm his chest, feel the thunder of his heart. Then your hand drifts lower, cupping him through his jeans. He groans, low and sharp, head dropping to your shoulder.

You palm him through his jeans, feeling how hard he is. He shudders, groaning into your neck. “Fuck, baby…”

You stroke him harder, your hand working him through denim until he’s gasping into your neck. Then he fumbles your pants down, fingers sliding between your thighs, rough and sure.

You bite back a moan as he finds your clit, circles it, then plunges two fingers inside you, stretching you. His thumb works your clit while his fingers fuck you deep, curling until your body arches.

“So wet,” he mutters, breath ragged. “Fucking dripping for me.”

You grind down onto his hand, muffled whimpers slipping from your throat. He swallows them with messy kisses, his tongue stealing every sound you make. His fingers fuck you faster until your knees give. He catches you, strong arms holding you up.

“Please,” you whisper into his mouth.

He doesn’t hesitate. Shoving his jeans down, he hoists you up, your legs wrapping around his waist. He lines himself up, cock thick and hot against your entrance, and then- slow, brutal- he pushes inside, raw.

The stretch makes your eyes fly wide. You bite down on his shoulder to stifle your gasp. He groans into your neck, trembling as he bottoms out.

“Fuck- you feel so good,” he growls, voice wrecked. “Tight. Mine.”

He braces you against the confessional wall, grinding in deep, hips rolling slow at first just to feel you clamp around him. His hand covers your mouth suddenly, pressing firm. “Quiet,” he hisses. “Namjoon’s awake. Only I get to hear you.”

His rhythm builds, thrusts snapping up into you, hard enough to rattle the wood. Each stroke drives you higher, his cock dragging deep, hitting that place that makes your vision spark. His grip on your hip is bruising, dragging you down to meet every thrust.

Your nails dig into his back through his shirt. He huffs into your ear, teeth catching your earlobe. “Take it, baby. Take every inch. You’re mine- do you understand me?”

You nod frantically, muffled under his hand. His eyes blaze in the dim. “Good. Then hold onto me.”

The pace gets rougher, sweat slicking your skin, his chest pressing yours into the wood. He ruts into you with a desperation that feels like worship and violence tangled together. His thumb finds your clit and rubs, ruthless, until your body jolts against him.

The pressure builds sharp, unbearable. You’re clinging to him, shaking, your body on the edge of breaking.

His hand slides from your mouth to your jaw, forcing your gaze up to his. “Say it,” he growls, low and dangerous. “Say you’re mine.”

“Yours, Jungkook,” you whisper, breathless, barely holding your voice down. “Only yours.”

His eyes darken, and he fucks you harder, kissing you with teeth. The sound of skin slapping fills the tiny booth, mixed with his harsh grunts. The ache turns white-hot, and then you unravel- your orgasm tearing through you, wet and violent, body spasming around his cock.

The tight pulsing drags him over the edge. He gasps, curses, then drives into you one last time and spills inside you with a guttural moan, hips jerking as he fills you.

You collapse against him, panting into his neck. He presses frantic kisses along your jaw, your temple, whispering hoarse: “No one else. Ever. You’re mine, baby. Always.”

═══════

5 days later

Fog swallows the city. You and Jungkook sit on the bell tower, the air cold enough to burn your lungs.

“Why do you always take the hard shifts?” you ask.

He smirks. “Because when it’s just us, it feels like the world makes sense.”

His eyes catch yours. The kiss that follows is slower, tender- but his hand grips your thigh like he’s anchoring you to him. When you whimper into his mouth, he groans, deep and rough.

“They’ll never keep you safe,” he whispers, dragging his lips down your neck. “But I will. Even if it kills me.”

═══════

1 day later 

Rain lashes the church. Yuna corners you. “You know something’s off. You feel it. Don’t let him blind you.”

You don’t answer. You can’t.

When you slip back to the loft, Jungkook is waiting in the shadows. He takes your hand without asking, presses a kiss to your knuckles. His lips linger too long.

“Sleep,” he murmurs. “I’ll be right here when you wake.”

You believe him. That’s the most dangerous thing you’ve done all week.

═══════

next day, morning 

The group moves like ghosts through the church nave, careful with every footstep. Food is thinner, morale thinner still.

When you duck away to refill water at a leaking pipe, voices murmur behind the organ.

Namjoon’s voice, low and steady: “He circles her. You see it. He’s useful, yeah, but he’s orbiting. Not us- her.”

Jin sighs. “Doesn’t mean he’s bad. He’s… invested.”

“Invested,” Yuna spits, voice sharp. “He doesn’t even try to hide it. Every second, every move- like he’s stalking, not protecting.”

“You’re just jealous,” Jimin says quietly.

“No,” Yuna fires back. “I’m not stupid. And neither are you. Tell me you don’t feel it.”

Silence stretches. Then Namjoon: “We keep eyes open. On him. On her. If it turns, we move fast.”

“Eyes open,” Jin echoes. 

═══════

that afternoon 

The storm has rolled on, leaving the world wet and silver. You’re dozing on Jungkook’s lap when you hear Yuna’s voice, sharp as glass.

“You.”

Jungkook’s head lifts lazily. He doesn’t move, just tilts his chin toward her, lips curving like she’s amusing him. “Problem?”

“Yeah. You,” she says, stepping closer. “You just happen to show up everywhere? You just happen to have ropes, exits, meds, food? You just happen to save her every time she trips?”

His smile doesn’t falter. If anything, it grows. “Maybe I’m just lucky.”

“You’re not lucky. You’re calculated,” she spits. “And I don’t buy it.”

He leans back against the pew, stretching like a predator who already knows the end of the story. “Then don’t.”

Yuna’s hand tightens on her crowbar. “If you hurt her-”

Jungkook cuts her off, soft but lethal. “If I hurt her, I’d already be dead.” His eyes find yours, even as he speaks to Yuna. “Because she’s the only reason I’m still breathing.”

The tension hangs, taut and sick. Namjoon steps between them, voice firm. “Enough. We don’t fight each other.”

Jungkook only chuckles, shaking his head. “Suit yourself.”

═══════

later that night

You wake to commotion. Jisoo is at the loft rail, whisper-shouting. “She’s not here!”

“What?” Namjoon bolts upright.

“Yuna. Her bag’s gone.”

They search, frantic, but the rain-slick streets are empty. No sign of her.

“She went out alone,” Jin mutters. “Reckless.”

“Reckless gets you killed,” Jungkook says, voice flat, final. His eyes are on you, heavy, deliberate. “Stay close to me, or you’ll end up like her.”

The words sink into your ribs like teeth.

═══════

2 days later

You wake at dawn to find Jungkook gone. Panic spears your chest. You pull on your boots, slip from the church, careful not to wake the others.

The streets are wet, pale with morning light. You follow faint scuffs in the mud, tracks too clean to be chance.

At first, it feels innocent. You just want to see where he goes, what keeps him away from you. But then-

You see it.

Jungkook crouches in an alley, working with precise, silent motions. A tin can strung with wire clinks as he ties it to a doorframe. Farther down, a shattered window glints with bottles arranged to fall at the slightest shake.

Your stomach drops.

Another groan rises. You freeze as a shambler staggers out from the noise he’s already set off. Jungkook doesn’t look startled. He looks expectant. He steps back, watching it shamble closer, his ax balanced loose in his hand like punctuation to a sentence he’s already written.

He lets it come close. Too close. Then, at the last moment, he strikes- head cracking, body collapsing.

You clap a hand over your mouth.

He moves deeper into the building, slipping through a door. You follow, quiet as you can.

Inside: a hidden room. A lantern flickers, illuminating stacks of supplies. Water bottles, canned food, bandages, batteries. Perfectly organized. Too much for one man to have scavenged by chance.

Your knees weaken.

Every rescue. Every “lucky” save. Every moment he appeared right when you needed him.

It was never luck.

He built this.

You find him in the loft an hour later. The stained glass bleeds weak light across his face, painting him half-saint, half-sinner. Your chest burns with betrayal.

“Jungkook.”

He looks up from where he’s sharpening his ax. “Baby.”

“Don’t.” The word cuts your throat raw. “Don’t call me that.”

His brows twitch, but the smile stays. “Why are you shaking?”

“Because I followed you,” you spit. “Because I saw what you’ve been doing. The traps. The supplies. Every rescue- every time you showed up- it wasn’t luck. You made it happen.”

The mask slips. His smile falters into something raw, unhinged and honest. His voice is low, trembling.

“You wouldn’t even look at me if the world hadn’t ended. Don’t you see? I made sure you’d never have to live without me.”

Your chest stutters. “You stalked me?”

His eyes glint, fever-bright. “Before the world fell. In the city. Coffee shop windows. You laughed once in the lobby and it felt like my ribs cracked open. And then the world burned, and it gave me the chance to make you mine.”

Horror slams through you. “What did you do, Jungkook?”

His voice dips, soft like confession. “She tried to keep me from you. She thought she was protecting you. But she was stealing you. I couldn’t allow that. She was going to take you from me.”

His lashes lower. His smile is small, intimate. “She came at me in the stairwell. Crowbar raised like she knew what she was doing. Brave girl. She swung for my head.”

His hands flex on the ax handle, remembering. “It glanced my chin. Hurt like hell. But it slowed her down. I put the ax through her side first- heard her ribs crack like kindling. She fell to her knees, still trying to hold onto that crowbar. Still thinking she could fight me for you.”

Your heart pounds against your ribs, sick.

His gaze sharpens. “So I finished it. Brought the blade down. Once. Twice. Until she stopped shaking. Her blood ran warm over my boots, and I thought- now she can’t take you away.”

His smile widens, teeth glinting in the dawn light. “She gasped your name before she died. Even then, she couldn’t let you go.”

You stagger back, bile rising in your throat.

Jungkook steps forward, caging you with his body, the ax hanging loose in his hand but more terrifying than ever. His words drip devotion warped into iron. “Everything I’ve done is to keep you. Every trap, every kill, every drop of blood. I’ll burn the whole world down if it means you’re mine.”

Your knees tremble, but he hooks a finger under your chin, forcing your gaze up. “Don’t cry baby. I’ll take care of you. Always.”

He ushers you back to the pews, his hand on your lower back like a lover escorting you into a ballroom. The group stirs awake.

“Where were you?” Namjoon demands.

“She was with me,” Jungkook says smoothly, dropping onto a pew like nothing’s wrong. “Safer that way.”

The church is too quiet. The storm outside has passed, but the air inside feels worse- thick, sour, ready to break.

Jin is the first to speak. His voice trembles, but it carries. “Where’s Yuna, Jungkook?”

Jungkook wipes the ax head on his jeans, slow, deliberate. His eyes stay on you even as he answers. “Gone.”

“Gone?” Jisoo’s voice cracks. “That’s all you have to say?”

“She went outside,” Jungkook replies smoothly. “She didn’t listen. The world eats the reckless. That’s what happens.” His gaze sharpens on you. “And that’s why you’ll stay close to me. So you don’t end up like her.”

“You killed her, didn't you?” Jisoo hisses.

The words drop like stones.

For a second, no one breathes.

Jungkook doesn’t deny it. He tilts his head, smile curling faintly. “She got in the way. She thought she could keep me from what’s mine. She was wrong.”

Namjoon surges to his feet. “She was one of us.”

“She was nothing!” Jungkook snaps, finally tearing his eyes from you to glare at him. “You all are- unless you understand. She’s all that matters. Don’t you get it? Everything I’ve done is for her.”

“Everything?” Jin shouts. His voice echoes through the church. “The ambushes, the supplies, the rescues- it- it was all you? You made us think we’d die without you!”

Jungkook laughs once, sharp, humorless. “Because you would.”

“You twisted bastard,” Namjoon growls.

Jungkook’s eyes blaze. “No. I’m the only one who sees clearly. I built a world where she survives. And none of you will take that away from me.”

Jin lunges, fury twisting his face, pipe swinging. The rusted metal whistles through the air, aimed for Jungkook’s head.

Jungkook doesn’t flinch. He steps into it, catching the blow on his shoulder. The pipe bounces off with a hollow clang, leaving a bruise but no hesitation. His ax flashes up.

The blade severs through Jin’s forearm with a crack that echoes like a snapped branch. Blood sprays in an arc, splattering the pews and hymnals.

Jin’s scream rips through the church. He collapses to his knees, clutching the mangled stump, blood pumping in hot bursts between his fingers. His eyes are wide with shock, mouth open in a soundless plea.

“Jin!” Jimin shouts, starting forward. Namjoon grabs him, holding him back.

But Jungkook isn’t finished. He looms over Jin, breathing hard, gaze never leaving your face as he raises the ax again.

“Don’t- ” Jin gasps, coughing blood. “Please-”

Jungkook’s voice is calm, almost reverent. “She doesn’t need you.”

The ax drops, burying itself in Jin’s chest with a wet crunch. Bone splinters. Blood bubbles from Jin’s mouth as his body convulses once, then stills. His head slumps sideways, eyes glassy, fixed on the vaulted ceiling.

Jungkook yanks the ax free, chest heaving, gore dripping. He doesn’t look at Jin again. His focus shifts immediately- back to you. His lips twitch in something close to a smile.

“One less obstacle,” he murmurs.

Namjoon charges next, fury making him reckless. He slams into Jungkook with his full weight, the ax handle clattering against the pew. For a second, it looks like he might overpower him.

But Jungkook snarls, muscles corded, and twists free. He rams the ax handle into Namjoon’s gut. The breath explodes out of him. Before Namjoon can recover, Jungkook flips the blade and drives it down across his thigh.

Bone gives with a crack, flesh splitting open. Blood spills down his leg in a slick stream, pooling fast on the stone floor. Namjoon collapses, groaning, clutching at the wound as if pressure could hold back the flood. Jungkook plants a boot on his chest and shoves him down.

“You think you can lead her?” Jungkook spits down at him. “You can’t even stand.”

Jisoo drags Hanni behind her, crowbar raised. Her face is wet with tears, but her voice is steady. “You’ll never touch her again!”

Jungkook’s grin cuts across his face, wolfish. “You really believe you can stop me?”

Jisoo swings, the crowbar catching his already bruised shoulder. He grunts, staggered a step. Fury sparks in his eyes. He grabs the bar mid-swing, wrenching it from her grip with brutal force.

The ax arcs. It buries in Jisoo’s side with a sickening crunch. Her scream shatters the air as blood gushes from the wound. She stumbles, collapsing against a pew, gasping wetly, her hands slick with her own blood.

“Hanni,” she sobs. “Run-”

But Hanni doesn’t run. She screams, shrill and panicked, and rushes at Jungkook with a kitchen knife clutched in both hands. She stabs wildly, catching his arm. The blade leaves a shallow cut.

Jungkook roars. He seizes her by her neck, lifting her slightly off her feet. Her knife clatters to the floor. His free hand grips the back of her skull, and he slams her face into the altar.

The sound is awful. Bone cracks. Blood spatters the wood.

She gasps once, dazed, hands clawing at his wrist in her hair. Jungkook slams her down again. The second impact leaves her slack, her body sagging in his grip.

He lets her drop. She crumples in a heap at the base of the altar, blood pooling under her head, limbs twisted wrong.

He doesn’t even look at her again. His eyes lock onto you. “See? I told you. The world eats the reckless.”

Jimin, trembling but defiant, steps forward. A chair leg clutched like a spear shakes in his grip. His face is pale but determined. “If you want her,” he says, voice breaking, “you’ll go through me.”

For a moment, Jungkook almost smiles. There’s a flicker of admiration, twisted but real. “You think you can stop me? Brave, Jimin. But not enough.”

He advances. Jimin thrusts the makeshift weapon forward. Jungkook bats it aside like it’s nothing, the ax head catching the wood and snapping it in half. The ax cleaves the chair leg in two, splinters flying. Jimin stumbles back, wide-eyed.

Jungkook doesn’t hesitate. The blade swings low, smashing across Jimin’s hand. Fingers snap backward with a sickening crunch. His scream is piercing.

He collapses, clutching his ruined hand to his chest, blood dripping between his fingers. 

Jungkook leans down, voice almost gentle as he snarls in Jimin’s ear: “You can’t hold her. You can’t hold anything.”

The church is painted in blood. 

Jin lies slumped against the pew, chest split wide, eyes glassy, blood soaking bibles. Hanni is a crumpled heap at the altar, face broken, a pool of red spreading beneath her. Jisoo gasps weakly, clutching her side, blood leaking between her fingers. Namjoon writhes, his thigh torn open, face pale with shock. Jimin sobs into his mangled hand.

And Jungkook stands tall among the wreckage, chest heaving, ax dripping, his face alight with something unholy.

He turns slowly, deliberately. His gaze finds you.

And then he smiles.

The kind of smile that says he’s won. The kind that says there was never any other ending but this.

“It’s just us now,” he whispers. His voice breaks on the words, like they’re holy. “You’re safe, baby. I’ll protect you. Always.”

Before you can move, his bloody hand clamps around your wrist. His grip is iron, dragging you across the gore-streaked nave. You stumble, boots sliding in blood, heart hammering.

Behind you, the surviving groans rise into screams. Through the broken windows, the first shadows stagger in. The dead, drawn by the noise, pour into the holy space. The last sounds you hear are the screams of your friends- choked, torn, swallowed whole.

You bite your lip until it bleeds, trying not to cry. If he sees weakness, if he sees resistance…

He’ll do to you what he did to them.

Jungkook drags you through rain-slick streets, his ax still in hand, his steps urgent but steady. Even as it washes away, the smell of blood clings to him like a second skin.

He whispers broken things as you walk.

“You don’t understand, baby. I had to. They would’ve taken you. They didn’t see you the way I do.”

His thumb strokes your wrist as if it’s a comfort, not a shackle. “Now you’re mine. Only mine. No more whispers, no more doubts. Just us.”

Your stomach churns, but you nod, forcing the smallest smile. “Just us.”

The relief in his eyes is terrifying.

He takes you to a crumbling apartment. The door to the room is barricaded, the windows blacked out. Inside, it smells of dust and wood rot, but it’s quiet.

Jungkook locks the door behind you, drops the bloody ax by the bed like it’s a relic. He turns, eyes shining, hands shaking as he cups your face.

“You stayed,” he breathes, forehead pressing to yours. “You’re still here.”

You freeze, body stiff. He mistakes it for exhaustion, for surrender. His lips find your temple, then your cheek, then your mouth.

The kiss is desperate, trembling. He tastes of iron and rain. His hands roam- waist, hips, sliding under your shirt, gripping too tight. He moans softly against your lips, like touching you is salvation.

He pushes you back onto the mattress. The springs groan, the sheets stale, but he lowers you as if it’s an altar, as if every inch of you is sacred and already his. His hands are rough, trembling, roaming everywhere at once- waist, thighs, ribs- gripping too tight like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he lets go.

His mouth trails down your throat, sucking bruises into your skin. Each mark a claim, each bite a vow. “Mine,” he murmurs against your pulse, voice shaking with need. “I’ll cover you in me until no one can look at you without knowing.”

When he slides inside you, his entire body shudders. He groans into your shoulder like it’s agony and bliss in the same breath. “Fuck- baby- do you feel it? You’re made for me. Only me.”

His thrusts are harsh, frantic, each one a declaration. He kisses you messily, teeth catching, his hand sliding over your mouth to muffle the sounds he drags out of you. His eyes are wild, fever-bright as he watches you under him.

“Quiet,” he pants, sweat dripping from his jaw onto your skin. “Don’t let the world hear you. You’re too precious. Only I get to hear your sounds. Only me.”

You whimper under his palm, and his gaze burns hotter. “That’s it. Take me- take all of me. You don’t need anyone else. Don’t ever think of anyone else. I’ll kill them all, baby, every single one, until it’s just us.”

He ruts into you harder, erratic with desperation, the old bed frame slamming against the wall. His words are ragged, half-prayer, half-threat. “I’ll keep you alive if it kills me. I’ll carve this whole world apart just to make sure you stay mine.”

When he finally comes, it’s with a broken groan, his hips jerking, spilling deep inside you. He clings to you as though the act itself sealed a bond, whispering hoarse against your neck as his pulse races.

“Mine. Mine. Always mine.”

You lie stiff beneath him, heart pounding. His arms lock around you like chains, his body heavy, his whispers endless.

“You’ll see,” he breathes into your hair, lips brushing your temple. “They didn’t understand. But you do. You have to. We don’t need anyone else now. Just us. Forever.”

You nod weakly, your throat tight. The word he wants to hear slips past your lips like a blade: “Forever.”

His smile curves against your skin. His grip tightens.

And you know you’ve never been less free.

═══════

2 days later

Morning comes thin and gray, a cheap sheet thrown over a body that doesn’t breathe. The apartment stinks of old smoke and sweat and whatever part of last night you can’t wash off. Jungkook is already up, moving soundless through the room, packing with a clean efficiency that looks like penance.

“We’re moving,” he says, voice hoarse from too little sleep and too much wanting. “Outskirts. Suburbs. I’ve got… less than I like here.”

You watch him slide batteries into one pouch, bandages into another, count cans with quick, clipped glances. The ax sits on the mattress edge like a dog that knows the word “stay” only because it likes breaking it.

“How far?” you ask, your voice smaller than you want it to be.

“Couple hours,” he says. A look over at you softens his mouth. “I’ll carry you if your knee-”

“I can walk,” you say. It’s automatic, stubborn. You want to feel like a person. You want to feel like anything except an object carefully wrapped and tucked into a bag he keeps under his heart.

He steps close anyway, knuckles curving under your chin, tilting your face like a fragile thing he intends to display forever. “Stay behind me,” he murmurs, eyes steady, a command disguised as concern. “No wandering. No heroics. We get there, we rest, I make you food. You’ll sleep and forget the church.”

You don’t think forgetting is possible. The pews, the wet sound of bone, the way he said one less obstacle like love has a checklist. But you nod because nodding draws his hands away, and because fear has taught your body how to mimic consent.

He kisses you once, slow and reverent and wrong, like a blessing he doesn’t deserve. “Good girl,” he whispers, and your lungs turn to salt.

They step into a world that looks scrubbed raw by rain. The streets wear a new shine that can’t hide the rot. They move swift and quiet, Jungkook at point, you in his wake, the city slowly thinning into concrete margins and weed-choked ramps, the sound of traffic ghosts the only proof there was once a tide here.

He speaks as you walk, not loud, always to you. “We’ll find a cul-de-sac- dead-end, easy to fortify. Two-story. Angles I can cover from the stairwell. If I don’t like the sightlines we move again. I want a yard. Something that pretends to be a future.”

The idea of a yard claws at your chest. Your brain offers images without consent: grass curling around a plastic slide gone chalky with sun, a faded tricycle, a wind-chime tinking a tune the dead don’t know.

You step over a toppled mailbox. The painted name says a family you’ll never meet. Dandelions burn bright as warning flares in the cracks.

“Hungry?” he asks. His hand finds your lower back as if your answer could tilt gravity.

“No,” you lie.

“Always say if you are,” he murmurs. “I’ll tear the world open for you.”

They skirt a big-box parking lot. Cars sit like graves. A banner ripped in the wind reads GRAND OPENING and you almost laugh. A lone shambler drags itself through puddles, face peeled by weather into something lesser than human. Jungkook’s gaze flicks to it, then back to you; he threads your fingers and squeezes once, silent threat to the rest of the world: don’t.

Two hours become three because he doubles back at every echo. He knows the suburbs like a trick he practiced without telling anyone. Streets curve like the alphabet you learned as a kid and forgot when it stopped being useful. It smells like cut grass turned to mold, like swing sets gone to rust, like doorbells with no fingers left to ring them.

“Here,” he says at last, voice low. His palm comes up, stop-signal, and you still as if pulled by the wire inside your bones that now answers to his hand.

The house he chooses looks like a memory with a bruise: white siding streaked with rain, green shutters hanging cockeyed, a porch that still believes in welcome. A pink scooter lies on its side in the yard, wheels silted with dirt. A plastic flamingo watches with one eye. The front door is closed; the curtains are not.

“Back window,” he says, scanning rooflines, corners, sightlines like a gambler reading a rigged deck. “No silhouette in the frame. Quiet.”

You creep along the side yard. He tests the window with a gloved knuckle: tap, tap. Nothing answers except the quiet hiss of wind through the oleander. He wedges his knife, lifts, breathes through the creak. Then he’s sliding in, the glide of a predator that learned how to bless a threshold. He turns, offers a hand. You take it because not taking it feels like blasphemy that ends in blood. He draws you over the sill, light as if your body weighs what it did when you were still innocent.

Inside smells like soap and dust and something sweet that has gone wrong. The kitchen is a museum to a half-lived life: cereal boxes turned to bricks, a calendar stopped on a month you can’t bring yourself to read, a child’s drawing magneted to the fridge- stick figures holding hands under a lopsided sun. Mom in purple. Dad in blue. A little person in neon orange between them with a crown.

Jungkook lifts two fingers. Listening. The house holds its breath.

“Clear the first floor,” he whispers. “Stay on my heel.”

You nod, following. The hall lays down a line of family photos. Beach day. First day of school. Halloween. You keep your eyes on the back of Jungkook’s neck. His hair there is damp, a black curl that wants your fingers. Your hand twitches. You curl it into a fist. You keep moving.

The living room: couch collapsed into itself, TV cracked, a pile of mail that no one will open. The coffee table hosts an empty glass with a lipstick ring. Your heart does a weird little skip, as if some part of you thinks you could put your mouth where a stranger did and absorb her safety by osmosis.

“Stairs,” he breathes. The banister is sticky with dust. The carpet mutes your steps, a thousand footfalls remembered and then forgotten. He takes the first step. Then the second. Third.

The fourth step betrays the house. It moans, a long complaint that says intruder to anything listening.

Everything happens in a single, tearing heartbeat. Something launches out from the top landing, weight and stink and hunger, a blur of gray skin and pajamas patterned with rockets. You see the rockets first because of course you do, your brain trying to make it a child, a boy, ten maybe, a scared kid, before it is a jaw.

Jungkook is faster than physics. He surges, shoves you sideways, and the thing slams into him chest-first instead. It snaps and snarls and his arm is there, the ax is there, the motion is there- he scythes up and through and the head comes off with a sound like wet rope tearing and the body is still moving because bodies are liars now.

You crash into the wall, bounce hard enough to flash stars. The rocket pajamas smear past you on the carpet and you hope, in some tiny clean corner of your mind, that he was gone before anyone dressed him for bed the last time. 

The ax head thuds into plaster as Jungkook follows through, burying steel and rage an inch too far. Silence returns in a ragged shiver, like it’s surprised to be allowed back in the house. You suck air and try to stand. Your knees strobe with adrenaline.

“You okay?” Jungkook pants, already reaching for you, already scanning you with hands that catalog every inch like a prayer.

“Yeah,” you start to say, because that’s what you say now when he asks and because you want it to be true.

Then your arm lights up with a pain so pure it feels like clarity. It starts where the flesh gives under your fingers and moves outward in a flower of heat. You look down and the flower is not metaphor- it’s blood blooming through torn sleeve, bright and obscene. There are teeth marks in you. They are not small.

Time slows like you both fell into syrup. Your mouth opens and you make a sound you don’t recognize as yours. He makes a sound you’ve heard him make before, but only when he finishes something awful and beautiful at the same time. This time it’s grief.

“No,” he says, and the word cracks so hard it seems to take the walls with it. “No, no, no.” He’s already there, hands pressing over the wound, hands trying to hold your blood where it belongs. “Not you. Anyone but you.” He looks at the bite as if glaring could undo it. He looks at the ax with such hate you’d think it was the one that lunged. “No.”

Your legs go warm, loose. You let him steer you to the floor because he would anyway. He is all frantic competence now, the touch you’ve learned to need going high-voltage. He rips the sleeve. He pours something stinging over the crescent dents. “Hurts,” you gasp, more surprised than mad, and he laughs a sound like dying.

“I promised I’d keep you safe,” he chokes. His hands shake so hard the bandage sticks wrong and he peels it up and lays it again like neatness could negotiate with the end. “I promised, I promised. Baby- fuck- don’t do this to me.”

“It’s not me,” you try to say. Your teeth chatter. Your lips are cold. Every part of you feels far away and too close at once. “It’s the world.”

“I am the world,” he says, and you want to hit him and kiss him for how much he believes that. “I’ll cut it out of you. I’ll- I’ll suck it out-” He bends like a man drowning and your hands fly down to catch his head.

“No,” you say, softer than you mean. Your fingers in his hair. “No, Jungkook. Don’t be stupid.”

“Don’t call me stupid,” he says, broken. “Call me anything else. Call me yours.” His mouth is shaking. His eyes are wild, glassed with tears he can’t find a place to put. “Tell me what to do.”

There’s a kind of kindness you didn’t know you had. It wears your voice like a borrowed dress. “Hold me.”

He hauls you into his lap, back to the wall, your body folded into his as if you were always meant to sit this way for this reason. He rocks you, a tiny motion you didn’t know he knew how to make, a gesture stolen from a life he never had. His tears fall into your hair. You taste salt, metal, dust. You taste goodbye.

“Please,” he says to anything that will listen. “Please, not her. Take me. Take me instead. Take my fucking hands, take my eyes, take my whole body- just not her.”

“Don’t let me turn,” you whisper, and your voice is a thread. You can feel the heat creeping up your arm like a vine. You can feel it in your throat, a thrum that isn’t your pulse. You can feel the clock that doesn’t care.

His whole body goes still, the way a dog hears a word it knows means loss. “No,” he says again, but it’s different now. It’s an answer to a question he hates. “No. Don’t say that.”

“Please,” you say. And you put your hand on his cheek, the one you kissed last night when you hated yourself for wanting him and loved yourself for wanting to live. “You promised to keep me safe.”

“I did,” he says, like confession in an empty church. “From everything. From everyone.”

“From this,” you say.

Something in him falls through. You feel it because he’s made you his container. His breath comes hard once, twice, then evens like he’s forcing it to. He presses his mouth to your hair and inhales as if he could bottle the moment and pour it out later when being alive hurts too much.

“Okay,” he whispers, the word ruined and holy. “Okay, baby. I won’t let you turn.”

He shifts you in his lap like you’re glass he plans to break with kindness. He kisses your forehead. Your temple. The corner of your mouth. Each touch a goodbye that pretends not to be. “I love you,” he says against your skin. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“I know,” you say. You do. That’s the worst part.

He reaches. His fingers close around the ax haft. He goes very still. His hands tremble so hard the steel shivers. “I can’t,” he says, voice sand. Then, to the floor, to god, to the house, to the boy in rockets who didn’t grow up: “I have to.”

You nod, because nodding is the last thing you can do for him. “It’s okay,” you lie. “I’m not scared.”

He looks at you and sees the lie and loves you for telling it. Tears carve clean paths down the dirt on his face. “I’m going to make it quick,” he promises, and you believe him because he has always been so, so good at that.

“Jungkook,” you say, because names matter, because you want him to remember the sound of you making his. “It’s okay.”

He swallows. The ax rises. His arms are shaking. His lips form a shape you don’t catch, a prayer or your name or both. With shaking hands, he lifts the blade and whispers like a vow that cuts both ways:

“I’ll love you forever… even if it kills me.”

He moves. For an instant the world holds its breath with you. And then there is a mercy so fast it barely has time to be pain, and everything goes very, very quiet.

The ax drops from his hand and thuds on carpet. He gathers you back into him even though you’re no longer there to be gathered, rocking on the hallway floor, his body the metronome now because you have none left. He breathes your name like it’s the only word that stayed after the fire. He kisses your hair and your mouth and your eyelids with a care that arrives late and refuses to leave.

“I promised,” he sobs into your neck. “I promised. I promised.”

Outside, a wind chime tinks a tune for an empty street. Somewhere in another house a radio that no one turned off mutters to itself. A dog bark echoes and is not answered.

Jungkook’s tears stop because bodies can only do so much. He sits very still with you in his lap for a time that doesn’t belong to clocks. When he finally lifts his head, there is nothing left in his face except the kind of devotion that eats. He presses his forehead to yours one last time. He smooths your hair. He wipes the blood from the corner of your mouth like you might wake and prefer to be tidy.

He lays you down with a reverence that would make saints jealous. He tucks your hands together over your chest like you’re making your own prayer. He finds a blanket in a hall closet- pink, soft, printed with strawberries because of course- and he spreads it over you as if warmth is still an option. He sits cross-legged beside you like a penitent who expects no absolution and doesn’t want any.

He could end it. He knows that. The ax is an arm’s length away. The thought crosses his face like a shadow in a window. He touches the blade once, two fingers to its edge like kissing a relic. Then he pulls his hand back. He lifts it to his mouth. He presses your blood to his tongue and swallows, eyes closing, a communion only he believes in.

“No,” he says to the ax, to himself. “Not yet. Not until I’ve made the world remember you.”

He rises. He moves through the house like he belongs to it. He opens a child’s desk and takes a crayon- purple, the color your name might be if it were a bruise. He goes to the fridge. He writes three words over the family drawing in a hand you wouldn’t like but would know: I keep promises.

He returns to you. He kneels. He touches your hair again because he cannot imagine a universe in which he doesn’t. His voice is sand and prayer and oath as he speaks to the only altar he’ll ever kneel at.

“I’ll make a place for you,” he tells your quiet face. “I’ll clean a house and set a table and hang a wind chime, and if the dead come I’ll kill them and if the living come I’ll kill them, and I’ll keep you there in the room with the light that makes your eyes look like they did that first day. I will keep you safe. I will keep you mine. I will live long enough to make the world pay for thinking it could take you from me.”

He kisses your forehead. He stands. He takes the ax.

When he walks out the front door, the pink scooter bumps his boot. He picks it up and sets it upright on the porch, because the world should learn how to stand. He closes the door gently behind him. He looks nothing like a man. He looks like a promise walking.

The suburbs hold their breath as he goes. Somewhere, far off, the church bells of a place that still believes in them try to ring, but the rope is cut. He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t know how.

Your blood is under his nails. Your breath is not in the air. The road ahead is empty and wide and cruel. He steps into it anyway, his vow trailing him like smoke.

Always yours, the vow says, to no one who can answer. Even in ruin. Even in death. Until there is nothing left to love me back.

And the wind chime plays a song the dead don’t know.

═══════

JKWRITOBER ♡ MASTERLIST ♡ a03

♡ requests are welcome ♡ taglist ♡

These characters are fictional and do not represent any real-life individuals. Their likeness is used solely for visual inspiration and does not reflect the actual person or their story.

═══════

Posted: 10/10/2025

The air tastes like sugar and smoke, and for once, you don’t mind the cold. Your friends move like a storm of noise and color around you, tugging you from game to game, and for a few minutes, everything feels simple, electric, alive.

Fearfield Farm is dressed in its October best: floodlit banners whipping in the wind, strings of mismatched bulbs draped across vendor stalls, foam tombstones leaning at tipsy angles beside hay bales. The air smells like kettle corn and woodsmoke and the faint, metallic tang of fog machine mist. Somewhere to your left, a cheap chainsaw revs and cuts off mid-scream; somewhere to your right, teenagers shriek into laughter and sprint toward the line for the corn maze. You rub your arms and pretend you’re not counting the exit signs.

“Okay, okay, okay-” Jimin bounces in place beside you, clutching a bundle of game tickets in his mittened fist. “First: obliterate Minhyuk at ring toss. Then: group photo. Then: haunted house. THEN-” He points toward the dark rise of the corn field, a grin flashing sharp in the carnival light. “We enter the realm of regret.”

“You say that like you haven’t been planning this since August,” Jennie laughs, brushing her hair behind her ear as she takes your wrist and tugs you forward. “Come on, scaredy-cat. We’ll warm you up with victory.”

“I am plenty warm,” you protest, burrowing deeper into your coat, trying to ignore the way the breeze sneaks under your collar. “And I’m not a scaredy-cat. I simply have a healthy respect for… Halloween.”

“Uh-huh,” Yoongi says, deadpan, hands tucked into his jacket pockets. “A respected scholar of spooky. Put it on your resume.”

“Don’t bully her,” Chae-won chimes in, looping her arm through yours. “We need her steady hands for ring toss domination.”

Minhyuk is already swaggering ahead, scanning the prize wall like he’s about to negotiate a hostage release. “I’m getting the giant stuffed puppy,” he announces. “And when I do, I’m naming it Jimin.”

“You wish,” Jimin scoffs. “Prepare to be publicly humbled.”

You let their banter carry you, warm as a scarf. The line at the ring toss is short, the carny in an orange beanie flipping rings back into a cardboard box with the distracted rhythm of someone thinking about their break. You watch Jimin plant his feet and narrow his eyes at the wobbling bottles, tongue caught between his teeth. He throws- the ring clinks around a neck and slides off. He throws again- it bounces, skitters, falls.

“Conspiracy,” he declares. “These bottles are lubricated.”

“They’re just mocking your small hands,” Yoongi says.

“My hands are beautiful.”

“Small,” Yoongi says, and wins on his first try, lazy and precise.

Chae-won misses and laughs. Jennie misses and pouts. Minhyuk misses and immediately blames the wind, the angle, and “the fraudulent geometry of glass.” You miss too, and the ring makes a neat, damning sound as it kisses the bottle and slips away like a secret. You shake out your fingers, pretend your heart isn’t kicking at your ribs for no reason at all, and try again.

“Wait-” Jennie steps close behind you and steadying-warms her hands over yours. “Looser grip. Breathe.”

You breathe. The ring leaves your fingers, slides through the light, and for a split second balances perfect- the promise of a win- and then it clanks down with a hollow little laugh.

“A tragedy,” Jimin says, clutching his heart.

“Shut up,” you say, but you can’t help laughing, too. The laughter rises in white puffs and drifts away like tiny ghosts.

Behind the stalls, beyond the lights, the corn stands black and tall, frayed tassels combed by the wind. If you glance there too long, the rows seem to rearrange themselves, drawing thin lines of shadow that hint at paths and dead ends. The hand-painted sign at the entrance to the maze leans like a lopsided grin: 

FEARFIELD FARM CORN MAZE - ENTER IF YOU DARE

The letters drip red paint down the plywood, festive as a wound.

You pay for hot chocolate and the paper cup scalds your palm. You’re grateful. Heat has a way of convincing you of safety. While Jimin and Minhyuk argue about whether to try the whack-a-zombie booth, you let your eyes wander, taking in the faces moving through the lights. Couples with matching devil horns. A pack of middle schoolers wrapped in blinking necklaces. A dad in a skeleton hoodie carrying a toddler in a pumpkin hat.

No one is looking at you.

And yet, every hair at the back of your neck is awake.

“Picture!” Chae-won says, rescuing your cup to free your hands. “Before we go get fake murdered.”

The photo booth is an old wooden frame draped with burlap and strung with orange bulbs. A chalkboard propped on a hay bale reads:

TONIGHT’S THEME: “LOST IN THE STALKS.” 

Props spill from a basket: plastic sickles and straw hats and a rubber crow with a peeling beak. Minhyuk immediately jams the straw hat on Yoongi’s head; Yoongi takes it like a cat wearing a bow, expression unchanged.

“Okay, okay, positions,” Jennie says, already angling everyone toward the camera. “Y/N in the middle- main character energy.”

“Main character anxiety,” you mutter, but you sink into the curve of your friends, Chae-won warm at your shoulder, Jimin’s cheek pressed in against yours as he stretches his smile to cartoon size.

“Three, two-” Jennie’s thumb hovers over the button. “Say ‘Fearfield!’”

“Fearfield!” everyone choruses.

The shutter clicks.

You smile at the printed strip while it cools in your fingers. In the background, between two hanging ears of dried corn, a shape slips behind a post. You blink, and it’s nothing at all- just the rust-brown smudge of old wood, the trick of shadows. You don’t mention it. You tell yourself not to be ridiculous. You tuck the photos into your coat pocket like a talisman.

“Stick together,” Chae-won says as you reach the entrance. “We’re not losing Y/N to barn ghosts.”

“Barn ghosts wish,” Yoongi says.

Inside is all dark wood and cheap rot smell and animatronics that snap alive with pre-programmed menace. A skeleton farmer jerks a scythe when you pass; a projected face moans from the surface of a fake mirror. You squeal exactly once- when a hand darts from an opening in the wall- and Jimin makes a delighted, treacherous note of it.

“I will remember this forever,” he whispers in your ear. “For leverage.”

“Dead to me,” you say, and grab his sleeve anyway when the lights flicker.

Halfway through, the path narrows to a corridor of hanging burlap. The cloth brushes your cheeks, your forehead, soft as a whisper. You can hear other groups somewhere ahead and behind, voices deformed by the fabric and the acoustics into something not-quite-human. Your friends keep up a running commentary to prove they’re not scared: Minhyuk loudly critiquing the prop choices, Jennie threatening to sue the mannequin that leaned too close, Chae-won promising to fistfight the next boo actor. Yoongi says nothing and somehow that’s funnier than jokes.

As you push through the last swath of burlap, something brushes your shoulder- just a feather-light touch, nothing, a stray thread- except you’re almost sure the cloth is cut short there, and the touch is warmer than fabric. You whip around, ready to glare, but there’s no one at your back. The group behind is still tangled in the curtains. The corridor ahead yawns empty.

“Hey.” Chae-won’s hand is on your elbow. “You good?”

“Yeah,” you say. Your voice sounds like you left it somewhere and borrowed a replacement. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

You are not fine. You are fine. You are-

The exit tips you back out into the open night like a held breath finally released. The cold kisses your cheeks and you could moan at the relief. Jimin bows deeply to the pig-mask man on his break. “Exquisite hospitality,” he says. “Five stars on HauntAdvisor.”

“Fried dough,” Jennie reminds, grandly holding out her hands.

“Later, later,” Minhyuk says, eyes bright, pointing his chin toward the field. “Maze time, babies.”

You look at the corn. It looks back.

The path to the maze entrance is lined with tiki torches that smoke and sputter, their flames thinning into the dark. At the head of the path, another painted sign warns: 

NO RUNNING. NO CUTTING THROUGH THE STALKS. NO TOUCHING ACTORS. NO CRYING (JUST KIDDING… OR ARE WE?). 

Someone has doodled devil horns on the smiling cartoon corn cob in the corner. You wipe your thumb over your stamped skull until it smudges, as if a blurred outline might be a better kind of protection.

“Last chance to chicken out,” Yoongi says mildly.

You take a sip of your hot chocolate and discover it’s gone, the cup empty and feather-light, as if you’ve been drinking it mechanically for minutes without tasting it. You toss it in the barrel beside the sign and square your shoulders.

“I’m going in,” you say. “But if something grabs me, I will scream and I will punch.”

“That’s the spirit,” Jennie says approvingly.

“Group rules,” Jimin announces. “Stay in pairs. Communicate your fear with jazz hands if you lose your voice.”

Minhyuk wiggles his fingers in your face. “Like this?”

“Die,” you tell him sweetly.

The staffer at the entrance in a moth-eaten cloak scans your tickets and leans in conspiratorially. “If you hear whispering,” she says, “follow it. It might be your friends. It might not.”

“Great,” you say flatly. “Fantastic.”

She grins, unbothered, and points you toward the mouth of the field. The stalks tower, rattling softly. The first few feet are lit by path lights shoved into the soil, their beams swallowed by the rows ahead. Somewhere in there, a whistle blows- one long note that could signal anything: start, warning, surrender. You imagine the maze as a living thing: arteries of path, a beating heart in the center that no one reaches.

Behind you, someone passes close enough that your hair lifts. You turn automatically, a polite smile ready, and there’s only space and the echo of bootsteps fading toward the vendor stalls. You think you see a shoulder dip behind a banner, the briefest edge of a black hoodie disappearing like a thought you almost had. The banner flutters and settles. The wind makes the corn speak in a language you’re not supposed to know.

“Y/N,” Jennie calls, her voice already sounding distant in the change of acoustics. “You coming?”

“I’m coming,” you say.

Your friends bunch up at the threshold- five silhouettes shifting in the torchlight, laughter bubbling, fear catching at the edges like static. You step into the maze with them, the earth soft under your shoes, the walls of stalks closing in on either side. The lights behind you thin and shrink and then there’s only the moon and the tangled crosshatch of corn against the sky, like a net flung over the stars.

You don’t see him. No one does.

But somewhere behind you, between the rows where the path kinks and forks, where the mud keeps a careful record of every footfall, a pair of eyes has been on you since the parking lot. They never lost you in the crowd. They didn’t even try.

You pull your coat tighter and keep walking. The maze accepts you. The night keeps its secrets.

═══════

“Pairs,” Jimin declares, bouncing on his toes as the path splits immediately into three tight corridors of corn. “But by ‘pairs’ I obviously mean I’m beating Minhyuk in a footrace to the center. Ready, set-”

“Do not-” the cloaked staffer at the entrance starts, but Jimin is already gone, laughter flaring like a fuse.

“-go!” Minhyuk shouts, blasting after him. “No running, my ass!”

“Jimin! Minhyuk!” Jennie yells, scandal and delight braided together. “You’re going to get us kicked out!”

From somewhere ahead: Jimin’s voice, triumphant and thin with distance. “You’ll never catch me alive!”

“Not the point!” Jennie cups her hands to her mouth. “Come back!”

“They’ll be fine,” Yoongi says, not sounding particularly invested. He stares down the center path as if it personally offended him. “I’m taking this way.”

“You can’t just-” you begin.

He already has. Yoongi slides into the dark like a shadow that remembered it had someplace better to be.

“Yoongi!” Chae-won calls after him. “At least text your location!”

He lifts a hand without turning around. It could be a wave. It could be a promise. It could be nothing.

“Great,” Jennie mutters, rolling her eyes. “One pair of idiots and one feral cat.”

Chae-won bumps your shoulder. “Guess the girls are sticking with you.”

“I’m thrilled,” you say, and you are- really, you are- but your voice comes out thin, frosted around the edges. The path your trio takes angles left and then left again, the corn whispering close enough to brush your sleeves. Little path lights blink irregularly, as if the maze is powered by a dying heartbeat.

“We’re fine,” Jennie says, and laces her fingers through yours for punctuation. “It’s all actors and corn and aggressive signage.”

“‘No crying- just kidding… or are we?’” Chae-won quotes, deeply unimpressed. “Peak corporate menace.”

“Exactly,” Jennie says. “We are not in danger.”

“Right,” you say. You squeeze her hand. “Totally not in danger.”

A rustle skitters to your right- soft, small, like a rabbit bolting through the stalks. You picture a rabbit. You decide it was a rabbit. You don’t mention that you didn’t hear the thump of paws on dirt.

“Okay,” Jennie says, bright for you, “game plan: we go slow, we stay loud, we find the center, we get a selfie, we use the safe word-”

“There’s a safe word?” you ask.

“‘Funnel cake,’” Chae-won says solemnly. “If anyone screams ‘funnel cake,’ it means I want funnel cake.”

“That’s not how safe words work,” you say, but you laugh despite yourself.

“Details.” she says. “Left or right?”

The fork is a joke on your nerves: both routes look identical, both hemmed by walls of dry, rattling corn that smell faintly sweet and dusty. A path light at the right-hand fork buzzes and flickers; the left-hand one holds steady like a dare.

“Left,” Jennie says, and pulls you that way with the surety of a girl who believes the world will meet her halfway. You let her. You try not to check behind you. You do it anyway.

No one is there.

“Y/N?” Chae-won’s voice is gentle. “Head thoughts?”

“I’m good,” you say. “I’m just… cataloging.”

“Catalog harder in the direction we’re walking,” Jennie says.

You go. The maze tightens. Overhead, the sky narrows to a ribbon between the tips of the stalks. Laughter from other groups threads through the rows, elastic and weird, stretched out by distance and corn into a shape it didn’t have when it left their mouths. A whistle blows somewhere deep in the field, the single tone long and thin. It could be an actor’s cue. It could be a signal for nothing.

“Jimin!” Jennie tries again, pitching her voice high and sweet like a lure. “Minhyuk, this is your conscience! Come back!”

“You don’t sound like his conscience,” Chae-won says.

“I sound like a better conscience than he deserves.”

A scarecrow leans on a pole at the next bend. Its shirt is flannel, its head a burlap sack stitched with a crooked grin. Straw leaks from its sleeves like unlucky hair. You brace for it to jump, to scream, to do anything theatrical.

It does not move.

“See?” Jennie says, stepping boldly past and wagging a finger at its stitched smile. “You stay put.”

The scarecrow stays put. A moth wings itself against the nearest path light, tapping its glass with frantic persistence. Tap. Tap. Tap.

“You okay?” Chae-won asks you under her breath.

“I’m fine,” you say, and you almost mean it. “Just… my heart’s on a treadmill, you know?”

“Same,” she says cheerfully. “Adrenaline makes my hair shiny.”

“Scientifically accurate,” Jennie says. “Fear is the new conditioner.”

Another fork. A sign planted at the base of the post read-

THIS WAY (?) 

with an arrow that points nowhere useful. Jennie groans. “I hate whimsy,” she says, and picks the right-hand path this time out of spite. You follow, because you always follow Jennie when she sounds that sure. Chae-won swings your joined hands as if the motion itself can shoo away anxiety.

Rustle. Rustle. The sound is closer now, and this time it’s on both sides. You tell yourself the maze is full of people, that running parallel through the rows is exactly what other groups would be doing. You picture teenagers with glow sticks, an overconfident dad in a vampire cape, an employee in a black hoodie checking on a stuck fog machine.

“Y/N,” Jennie says, half-teasing, half-testing, “scale of one to ten?”

“Like a… four?” you lie.

“Bold,” Chae-won says. “I’m a five-point-affectionate-for-funnel-cake.”

“You can’t just append ‘for funnel cake’ to every sentence,” Jennie says.

“I can and I will.”

“Group selfie,” Jennie announces, as if photos are talismans. She holds her phone up, backs toward the corner where the rows meet, and grins. “Say ‘Fearfield!’”

“Fearfield,” you and Chae-won chant obediently, and the shutter clicks with a soft sound that seems suddenly too loud.

Jennie checks the photo. “Cute,” she says, satisfied. “I look amazing.”

“Obviously,” Chae-won says, peering. “Y/N’s eyes are huge. Adorable.”

“They’re normal,” you protest, and then- because you can’t quite stop yourself- “Do you see anything behind us?”

Jennie squints at the tiny picture. “Just corn and that dumb sign,” she says. “And my good side.”

“Let me see,” Chae-won says, but a noise interrupts: a distant scream that’s cut off too sharply to be a laugh, too ragged to be staged. The three of you freeze, your hands tightening instinctively.

“Okay,” Jennie says after a beat, voice clipped into briskness, “actors. It’s actors.”

“Right,” you echo, because you’ve come here to be scared and you’ve paid for it and this is the contract: you scream, they scream, everyone goes home. “Actors.”

A second scream answers the first, farther away. It sounds rehearsed somehow- too even, too timed- like something played through a speaker instead of torn from a throat. The sound shivers down the rows, and you feel your body try to move toward it and away from it at the same time.

“Left,” Jennie decides, too brightly. “We keep going left. Left leads out.”

“Proof?” Chae-won asks.

“Trust.”

You follow- left, left again- and the maze obliges with a long corridor that narrows until your shoulders brush the stalks. Something coarse snags your sleeve and you hiss, twisting to free yourself. Chae-won’s hand tightens around yours. Jennie glances back and gives you a look that says I see you without making a big deal of it.

Footsteps patter on the other side of the wall. Quick, light, then stopping right opposite you. You hold your breath, straining to hear the rustle that would mean whoever-it-is continued on. The air thins. The path light ahead buzzes, lowers, brightens. The footsteps don’t move.

“Hey,” Jennie calls, casual, friendly. “You good over there?”

Silence. Then the slightest scrape, like someone adjusting their stance.

“Probably actors,” Chae-won whispers, but her fingers are cold where they lace with yours.

“Hello?” you try, and you hate how small your voice sounds. 

A long beat. Then a whisper you can’t make out. It rides the corn like a breath. It could be your name. It could be nothing at all, just wind shaped by charred tassels.

“Okay,” Jennie says, decisively fake-jovial. “We’re moving.”

You move. The corridor kinks and opens into a little clearing where the corn is pulled back and the dirt is stamped with a dozen crisscrossing footprints. A plywood placard stands on two stakes: 

THIS WAY TO THE HEART

a red arrow pointing deeper in. Someone has scrawled beneath it in sharpie: 

LOL NO.

Jennie snorts. “Relatable.”

“Look,” Chae-won says, crouching. “Jimin’s shoe print.”

“You can tell that from-”

“It’s obnoxiously small and has a star on the heel,” she says. “I know his shoes.”

“Follow the star,” Jennie says, and leads on.

The star prints head straight, then veer. You tail them past a tangle of stalks that lean into the path like eavesdroppers. Somewhere behind you, a whistle blows again- one long note, then two quick ones close together. It pricks your skin without meaning anything you can name.

“Jimin!” Jennie calls. “If you can hear me, stop being a feral dog and answer!”

From far off: “I AM A MAJESTIC DOG,” Jimin’s voice yodels back, and the relief bubbles out of you as laughter.

“Idiots,” Chae-won says fondly.

“Beloved idiots,” Jennie agrees.

Another fork. The left-hand path is muddy, churned up by what looks like a lot of traffic. The right-hand one is crisp, the dirt smooth, the corn undisturbed. Jennie eyes the mud and sighs. “Okay, team. Left means we’re probably on the right track.”

“Or we’re joining the queue to our doom,” Chae-won offers.

“Optimism,” Jennie says, and splashes forward.

You step after her and your shoe sinks, the mud sucking at your heel with a childish, obscene sound. You yank free, wobbling, and something crunches under your other foot- dry and brittle. You glance down and see a snapped corn stalk, its inside pale and frayed like tendon. You tell yourself none of that means anything.

“Ten out of ten for ambience,” Chae-won says. “Minus one for mud.”

“Minus two,” Jennie says, shaking her sneaker like a wet dog. “These are new.”

“Funnel cake,” you murmur, not quite a joke, and they both squeeze your hands.

Voices drift close: not your boys, not anyone you recognize. A cluster of people passes on the other side of the wall, their shadow-shapes bumping and reforming through the gaps. Someone giggles in a way that sounds like they’re trying to convince themselves they’re having fun. An actor moans somewhere near them, a theatrical zombie groan, and your shoulders drop a fraction- there, see, it’s fine-

-and then something else cuts across the moan, sharp as a snapped string: a scream that claws and breaks.

Jennie stops so fast you bump her back. Chae-won’s nails dig crescents into your palm.

“Actors,” Jennie says. It’s the same word. It holds less.

“Totally,” you say. Your tongue is thick with sugar and smoke. “Totally actors.”

A path light ahead dies. The darkness it leaves behind isn’t complete- the moon paints everything with a faint, bone-colored wash- but the sudden lack of the small, civilized glow feels like a promise withdrawn.

“Okay,” Jennie says, rallying. “We’re going to take- this turn.” She picks right this time, the crisp path with undisturbed dirt, as if contrary decisions might trick the maze into revealing its pattern. You go with her. You keep your breathing even. You keep a lid on the way your pulse hammers your throat.

“Y/N,” Jennie says quietly, not looking back, “do you want to hold both our hands?”

“Yes,” you say, and it’s the easiest truth of the night.

Chae-won threads her free arm through your elbow until you’re a three-person knot. You walk like that, a little awkward, a little brave. Your boots scuff, your breath ghosts, the corn talks to itself. Somewhere else, a voice you think is Jimin’s says your name and then dissolves into echoes, and you don’t know if it was real or your brain rifling through what would make you move faster.

“You’re okay,” Jennie says. “We’re okay.”

“We’re okay,” Chae-won echoes, and then she yelps and jumps back because a scare actor in a cracked porcelain mask leans into the path with a jerky animatronic hiss.

“Jesus!” Jennie barks, the relief in her anger. “Boundaries!”

The actor does his little programmed jolt and retreats into the corn, the mask tilting with an unfunny elegance. You make yourself laugh, shaky and grateful. See? Actors. You’re fine. You’re-

A voice rides the rows, closer than close, low enough that you could pretend it’s only a thought. “This way.”

You stop. Jennie stops. Chae-won stops. The corn on your left breathes like a curtain someone just walked past. You can’t see anyone. You don’t move.

“Actors,” Jennie says again, weakest yet.

“Funnel cake,” Chae-won whispers.

You cling to them, and the maze clings to you back.

From somewhere deeper in, where the paths cross like veins, there’s a scream that doesn’t sound like it’s performing for anyone. It rips through the threads of laughter like a tear in fabric. The bad feeling you’ve been politely ignoring lifts its head and asks, very calmly, what if.

Jennie swallows. “Left,” she says, voice barely above a breath. “We keep going left.”

You nod, even though your throat is tight. You nod, because moving feels like the only spell you have. You turn- and behind you, the corn rustles once, as if something has finally decided.

You don’t look back. Left, you tell yourself. Left leads out. Left is logic. Left is a promise you made to your own fear and you’re not ready to hear the terms.

“Jimin?” Jennie calls again, lighter than she feels. “Minhyuk? Sound off!”

The maze breathes. Corn rubs against corn; the sound is dry and private, like the whisper of heavy skirts in an empty hall. You push into the next turn, boots sucking at the mud, the air cooler now that the path lights are spaced farther apart. Your breath steams and dissipates. It’s harder to pretend you’re warm.

“Left again,” Chae-won says, a steady metronome at your side. She squeezes your hand once. “We’ll run into them soon.”

“You say that like you’ve mapped this place,” Jennie mutters, but she still angles left, shoulders tight, chin high.

Movement flickers to your right. A body’s width within the rows, just far enough that the path wouldn’t catch them. Black fabric. The pale triangle of a cheek. The tilt of a head, turned toward you.

You stop dead. Jennie bumps into you. Chae-won swears soft.

“What?” Jennie asks, following your gaze.

There’s only corn. Moonlight limns the leaves in a thin ghost-glow.

“I thought-” you begin, but it feels childish to finish the sentence. I saw someone. It’s not unusual; it’s a maze. People are everywhere. That’s the point.

“Actors,” Jennie says automatically, and then gentler: “Probably just another group cutting through. Staff would yell if it really mattered.”

“Right,” you say, and you make yourself take a step. Another. Your ankles ache like the ground’s an inclined treadmill, pulling you forward and back at once.

“Jimin!” Jennie hollers, relief bright in her voice. “Stop being annoying and answer me!”

You freeze. Chae-won’s hand tightens painfully. Jennie breathes in loud enough to hear and holds it for a count of three before letting it go in a careful line.

“He’s messing with us,” she says. “He thinks he’s funny.”

“Yeah, he thinks he’s funny,” Chae-won agrees automatically, as if saying it together will make it true.

You listen for him. The maze gives you rustle and wind, a distant squeal you tell yourself is a delighted stranger, a farther-off clatter that could be a prop reset, a fog machine wheeze, the thin ring of a path light buzzing back to life somewhere out of sight. You don’t hear Jimin again.

“Left,” Jennie says, but the word sounds like she borrowed it from someone braver.

You push on. The next bend opens into a narrow chute hemmed with stalks that have been bent across the top, their tassels making a ragged arch overhead. Little flags dangle from twine- triangles of cheap felt that brush your hair as you pass. Each flag has a letter stenciled in red. 

H-E-A-R-T. 

Then a blank. Then a smudged one you can’t read. Then a reversed R. Someone has swapped them, jumbled them, laughed with their friends while they did it.

“Cute,” Jennie says flatly.

Movement again- left this time, a clean, human glide parallel to your steps. Not a lurch. Not a jump. A walk. The pace of someone who doesn’t feel the need to hurry. Your scalp crawls.

“Hello?” you call, because politeness is a reflex. “We’re- hi, sorry, we’re on this side.”

The motion stills. If you’d blinked, you might have missed the way the leaves shut over the gap like a mouth.

“Keep moving,” Jennie murmurs, and the rhythm of her words presses you forward.

“Jimin!” Chae-won snaps, louder now, annoyed because she’s scared. “Stop playing. Answer.”

Silence answers back.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket, and you all jump. You fumble it out with stiff fingers. Jimin lights the screen with a text:

Jiminie💛: y/n

Jennie leans over your shoulder. “Huh?,” she says, with a tuned brows. 

“Call him,” Chae-won says.

You hit the green button. The ring sounds tinny and wrong inside the maze, a domestic noise transplanted into a place that doesn’t want it. It rings once. Twice. Three times. On the fourth, the call clicks live.

“Jimin?” you say, too fast. “We’re- left turns. Maybe near the center? Are you with Minhyuk? If you’re messing with us, I’m going to-”

Static hisses. It’s brief and hot, like breath across the microphone. Then: a noise. Not static- movement. A shoe scuff. Rustling. Breathing that’s too close to the mic.

“Jimin?” Jennie says, her tone sharp. “Answer us. Where are you?”

The next sound doesn’t belong. It’s muffled- like someone’s hand covering the phone- and underneath, a strained voice you barely recognize as his. Your name breaks through, hoarse, panicked, cut off halfway.

“Y/N-”

Something hits the ground. A grunt follows- low, quick. The line fills with the sound of movement: corn bending, a wet thud, the soft drag of something heavy through dirt.

Jennie’s eyes go wide. “What- was that-?”

You can barely breathe. “Jimin?”

No answer- just the sound of the phone shifting again, the mic brushing fabric, and what might be a choked sound- pain, fear, or both. Then, in a voice so faint you almost doubt it- faint words that disintegrate in static. The call ends.

“Service,” Jennie says quickly, too quickly. “It’s just bad service. It has to be.”

“Try again,” Chae-won says, her voice a whisper now. “Try Minhyuk.”

You do. Minhyuk’s call rings and rings and rings. Voicemail picks up with his usual cheerful bravado. You hang up before he can call you a “little goblin,” because you might actually cry if you hear his joke voice right now.

“He’ll pick up in a second,” Jennie says, already moving. “He’ll call back and tell us we’re slow.”

You shove the phone into your pocket with hands that won’t stop trembling and catch another sliver of motion- closer now, a fraction of a shoulder, the curve of a jaw, hair falling forward as a head tilts. The hoodie is ordinary. The posture is ordinary. The attention is not.

You freeze.

Whoever it is doesn’t move. Doesn’t hide. Doesn’t run. Just stands there- watching.

You swallow. “Hi,” you try again, because some part of you insists that if you keep the script normal, the night will remain normal. “We, um- if you see two idiots racing? Can you- tell them to answer their phones?”

For a heartbeat, you think the stalks lean inward, listening. Then the space where eyes would be- a small, neat rectangle inside the rows- goes dark. Not gone. Withdrawn. Like a blink.

“We’re not alone,” you whisper.

“We’re never alone in a haunted corn maze,” Jennie says, pragmatic, strained. “That’s literally the point.”

“Right,” you say. “Right.”

The next corner is a hairpin, a tight little switchback that makes your trio compress and then unfurl. You reach out to steady yourself on the inner post and your fingers come away dusty, a chalky smear you rub against your coat without thinking. The ground dips. Water glints in a shallow rut where path lights reflect in a trembling line. Your shoe slides. Jennie grabs your elbow; Chae-won steadies your shoulder.

“We’re okay,” Jennie says again, like she’s been taught to say it until it’s true.

You hear footsteps ahead- running, breathless, fast. Your heart leaps into your mouth. “Jimin!” you call.

The running stops. Dead.

A wet sound follows, not anything that dramatic- just the squelch of someone’s shoe twisting out of mud. Then nothing.

“Jimin,” Jennie tries, her voice turned down too low, as if she’s afraid of the answer. “This isn’t funny.”

Silence. The flags above you stir. The path light to your left hums and flickers and steadies and goes dim again, like it’s losing interest.

“Left,” you say, because you don’t know what else you have.

“Left,” Jennie echoes, and you turn.

The corridor you choose is narrower, the stalks leaning in like nosy neighbors. The corn smell is thicker here- sweet and green and faintly rotten underneath, like something that was supposed to be harvested and wasn’t. Empty zip ties dangle from a post, edges sharp where props used to be. The breath you take catches on something invisible.

“Do you hear that?” Chae-won whispers.

“Hear what?” Jennie asks too fast.

You listen. Not screams. Not actors. Not laughter. A thread of sound, high and metallic, like wind in wire. It’s steady. It’s very thin. It could be anything. You decide it is a loose sign somewhere. You decide it is not a phone vibrating on vibrate in someone’s pocket inches from your path. You decide all kinds of things.

Your phone buzzes again- three quick haptic taps- and this time the screen flashes:

Location shared: Jimin 📍 

-with a little blue dot skittering on a cartoon map that refuses to load fully. The dot pulses at the edge of your screen and then drifts, uncertain, like a boat with its anchor cut.

“He shared his location,” you say, a weird little laugh hitching off the end of your words. “He’s- he’s trying.”

“Tap it,” Jennie says, crowding your shoulder. The map zooms. Blue dot. Gray nothing. A street name that doesn’t belong in a field. The app thinks you’re at an address that could be the farm entrance. Or not. The dot jumps, stutters, blinks out, pops back an inch to the right.

“Useless,” Jennie mutters, but she turns her head like a compass anyway, aligning the blue dot with the direction her body wants to go. “Okay. This way.”

You follow. The corridor kinks and kinks again. The rustle beside you returns and keeps pace. It’s almost companionable now, as if whoever is there has decided to walk with you rather than ahead. You think: if I stop, will they stop. You think: if I run, will they run.

You stop.

The rustle stops.

“Hello,” you say to the corn, and you want to laugh at yourself and you can’t. “Do you- do you work here?”

Silence, patient as a hand on a knee.

“Sir?” Jennie tries, bland politeness as armor. “If you’re staff and we’re doing something wrong, please tell us.”

A soft shift. A breath you can’t hear but feel, the way you feel a room when someone has just entered it. Then the smallest sound, like a fingertip brushing a leaf.

“Move,” Chae-won whispers, and you do. You move because staying feels like an invitation you don’t understand.

The corridor spills into a wider space- another clearing stamped with footprints, the dirt churned to a dark soup. There’s a bench here, painted red and black, its slats sticky with dried something that’s almost certainly paint. A plywood cutout grins beside it: a cartoon scarecrow offering a jagged heart. On the bench, someone has left a paper cup like yours, a smear of chocolate along the rim.

Jennie calls again, softer now. “Jimin. Come on. Game over.”

Nothing.

“Okay,” she says, decision hardening in her face, “we’re pinging Minhyuk again, then we’re doubling back to the entrance and flagging staff, because-”

Your phone lights before she finishes, the screen bright in your palm. Incoming call: Jimin.

You answer on the first ring. “Jimin? Hey-”

At first, only breathing. Not panicked. Not running. Just there. Present. Close enough to the microphone that for a second you think he’s joking, holding his phone to his mouth to be dramatic.

“Jimin,” you say, and you hate how it sounds like you’re begging.

Your name comes through at last, thin and cracked, barely a whisper. It’s Jimin’s voice- but softer than you’ve ever heard it, like the air itself is trying to pull the sound away. You almost cry.

“Where are you?” Jennie demands, leaning into your shoulder to crowd the phone’s tiny speaker. “I’m going to strangle you with your lanyard.”

Static swirls- a thin, papery sound like fingers on wheat. Then, very faint, a voice you don’t know, low and ordinary, says something near the phone that doesn’t seem meant for you, just… said. You can’t catch the words. A second voice answers. Yours? No. No, not yours. A guy, breathless, maybe not any of you. The call fizzles and drops.

“Hey!” Jennie barks at your blank screen, because rage is a safer room than fear.

You don’t realize you’ve started moving until you’re halfway across the clearing, phone clenched white-knuckle in your hand, eyes scanning the ground because suddenly the idea of looking down feels smarter than looking up. Footprints, shoe treads, a bottle cap half-pressed into the mud, a trampled bracelet with plastic bats, a smear where someone skidded sideways.

And there- a rectangle half-buried at the edge of a bench, caught under the slat like it tried to hide. A phone case you recognize by the stupid sticker peeling off the corner: a star with sunglasses.

“Jennie,” you say, and your voice has run out of tricks. “Chae-won.”

They’re already looking. You kneel and pry it free. Jimin’s phone lies in your hands, screen cracked, back damp with mud. The star sticker sloughs under your thumb.

The screen wakes for a second- one bright, stubborn blink- and you see your own name still at the top of the call log. Then it goes black.

Jennie’s mouth opens and closes. Chae-won wraps both hands around your wrist as if to ground the moment in something you can hold.

Behind you, very softly, someone walks away through the corn. No hurry. No showmanship. Just a person taking their time, knowing you’ll be right where they left you.

You don’t turn around.

═══════

The night wraps around you like a secret. Every breath tastes of earth and fog, the air thick enough to swallow sound. You move through the maze as if it knows your name, the stalks parting just wide enough to let you pass. You’ve been watching her for hours- years actually- but time doesn’t mean much anymore. Every turn she takes, you’re there, one path behind, the scent of her perfume caught on the wind. You tell yourself you’re patient, that this is what devotion feels like. The moment has come, and you’re ready.

═══════

Minhyuk was my first target. 

You hear him before you see him- his laughter spilling through the rows, bright and careless, cutting across the hush like something that doesn’t belong. He’s wandering alone now, separated from Jimin, humming under his breath, oblivious to the predator closing in, his steps light and unguarded. 

You follow the sound, each step measured, every movement swallowed by the corn. The knife in my hand felt like an extension of myself, its weight familiar and comforting. 

You breathe once, slow. The world narrows to the rhythm of his footsteps and the whisper that tells you this is how you keep her safe. As you crept up behind him, the faint moonlight caught the blade, casting a cold, silver glow. 

You raised it high, the movement fluid and practiced. In a single, fluid motion, you drove the knife deep into his back, feeling the resistance of flesh and muscle before it gave way with a sickening thud. 

Minhyuk gasped, his eyes widening in shock and agony. The sound was raw and primal, a guttural cry that was cut short as he clutched at the wound, his hands slipping in the warm, sticky blood that gushed from the deep gash.

You just couldn't resist the urge to strike again. With a savage grin, you pulled the knife out, the blade slick with blood, and plunged it in once more, this time aiming for his kidney. 

Minhyuk screamed, a sound of pure agony that echoed through the maze. You twisted the blade, relishing the feel of his flesh tearing, his blood pulsing around the steel. 

With a final, brutal stab, you drove the knife into his chest, feeling it pierce his heart. His scream cut off abruptly, replaced by a gurgle as blood filled his lungs.

Blood soaked his clothes, turning his shirt a dark, crimson red. It pooled on the ground, spreading out in a gruesome stain that seemed to pulse with an eerie life of its own. 

Minhyuk stumbles ahead of you, his rhythm broken, breath catching in short, uneven bursts. He reaches into the dark, grasping at the air as if the night might lend him a hand.

But the maze offers nothing.

His strength faded quickly, his body weakening with each passing second.

Each step drains a little more of his strength until the sound of his movements fades into the hush between the rows.

You watched, your heart racing, as he sank to his knees, his hands still pressed against his chest, trying to stop the relentless flow of blood. His breaths grew shallow- labored, until they were nothing more than a faint rasp. 

With a final, ragged exhale, he collapsed, his lifeless body crumpling to the earth. 

For a long moment you simply watch, caught between wonder and certainty. His eyes- once bright with laughter- glint dully in the torchlight before stilling, the last of that noise slipping out of the world. 

The silence that follows folds itself around you, thick and absolute. You stand in it, tasting the calm it leaves behind, and feel the night settle closer. The maze has accepted another secret, and somewhere ahead, she is still walking.

═══════

Next, your attention shifts to Yoongi. He’s further ahead, little more than a shadow moving against the faint orange glow of a lantern swaying on its post. The light catches his breath in short, pale bursts.

You move toward him, slow and certain, your steps folding into the hush of the corn. Every sound he makes- every crunch of dirt, every rustle of fabric- draws you closer. Near the base of the lantern, half-buried in the mud, something glints: an older metal-edged lantern, its surface dulled by rust.

You crouch, testing its weight in your hand. Solid. Steady. The kind of object that feels meant for purpose. The kind that promises silence after the noise.

You crept up behind Yoongi- breath steady, your movements calculated. He never saw you coming. With a swift, powerful swing, you brought the lantern down on his skull. The impact was brutal, a sickening crunch of bone and metal. 

Yoongi stumbled, his body twitching as blood spilled from the deep gash in his head. He reached up, his hands slipping in the warm, sticky fluid, trying to staunch the flow, but it was no use. Blood poured down his face, obscuring his vision, dripping onto the ground in thick, crimson drops.

You struck again, and again, each blow more vicious than the last. The lantern connected with his skull with a series of wet, cracking sounds, each impact sending shards of bone and blood spraying into the air. 

Yoongi's body jerked and spasmed with each blow, his screams turning to gurgles as blood filled his mouth and lungs. His eyes rolled back, showing only the whites, as his body convulsed in agony.

Finally, with a last, desperate gasp, Yoongi collapsed to the ground, his body twitching weakly before going still. You stood over him, watching as his life slipped away, his breaths growing shallower and shallower until they stopped altogether. His chest no longer rose and fell, and his eyes stared blankly at the night sky, seeing nothing.

You stand there for a moment, letting the silence settle over you like dust. The maze is quiet again- almost peaceful- and the stillness hums against your skin. Two shadows gone, and more still moving through the dark. The thought steadies you. She’s closer now. You can feel it.

A faint shiver works its way down your spine, not fear, but something sharper. The night feels alive beneath your fingertips, pulsing with purpose. 

You think of the others- the two girls still clinging to her, keeping her from seeing what’s true. Their voices carry faintly through the corn, bright and careless, and each sound grates like static in your head. They don’t understand; they never will. If they stay with her, they’ll ruin everything. They’ll make her afraid of you. You can’t let that happen.

You move deeper into the rows, following the rhythm of their laughter until it thins into distance. The path tightens around you, the stalks brushing your shoulders like hands urging you on. The night hums in your veins, alive and waiting. The night isn’t over- not yet.

═══════

A short distance ahead, you spot Jimin. He’s drifting between the rows, steps uneven, breath catching in the cold air. His phone is already in his hand, the screen lighting his face in quick, frantic flashes as he lifts it to his ear. The glow flickers against the corn as he says her name- soft at first, then sharper, trying to reach her.

The sound cuts through the maze like an alarm.

Too loud.

Too close to her.

He tries again, thumb trembling over the call button, the screen bright in the dark.

And that’s when you move.

You wait until the moment bends just right- his back turned, his deep breathes echoing off the rows. Then you move. You break from the corner of the stalks in a rush of sound and shadow, the maze splitting around you as you lunge forward, every nerve alight with purpose.

With a swift, powerful punch, you connect with his jaw, feeling the bone crunch beneath your knuckles. Jimin staggered back, his eyes widening in shock and pain. 

You followed up with a series of brutal blows, your fists raining down on his face and body, each impact sending spasms of agony through him.

Jimin tried to defend himself, his arms flailing weakly, but he was no match for your strength and fury. You pummeled him- blows unrelenting, until he collapses to the ground, his body bruised and bloodied. You stand over him, your breath coming in ragged gasps- heart pounding with a mix of exhilaration and triumph.

But you weren’t done with him yet. You knelt beside him, your hands closing around his throat. You squeezed, feeling his windpipe crush beneath your fingers, his struggles growing weaker with each passing second. Jimin's eyes bulged, his face turning a deep, purplish red as he gasped for air, his hands clawing at your wrists, trying to pry them loose.

Finally, with a last, choking gasp, Jimin went still, his body going limp. You stood up- breath coming in ragged gasps, your heart pounding with a mix of exhilaration and triumph. Three down- two more to go. The night was far from over, and it was just beginning.

You left him there, his body crumpling to the earth, his life fading away. As you turned to leave, the sound of her voice filled with fear and desperation. 

You followed the sound of her voice, moving silently through the corn stalks, your heart pounding with anticipation. 

You watched from the shadows as she stumbled upon Minhyuk’s body, her screams echoing through the maze. You knew you had to act fast. You couldn't risk her escaping, not when you were so close to completing the hunt.

Then you hear it- a sound that shouldn’t exist anymore. A faint, rasping voice slipping through the noise of the maze, thin as paper, words broken by distance and pain. It’s him. Jimin. Still clinging to breath, calling for her.

The phone she’s holding crackles in the distance, her name trembling through its tiny speaker, the sound half-swallowed by static. For a moment, you stand perfectly still, listening as the maze carries his voice in shreds, drifting between the rows like smoke. 

Then you hear another tone layered under it- low, unfamiliar, too close to the receiver. A second voice. Yours, maybe. Or something that shouldn’t have been recorded at all.

The line cuts. The silence that follows is heavy and accusing.

You draw a breath through your teeth and feel the night tighten around you. You’d underestimated him. You hadn’t finished it cleanly. Now she’s heard. Now she knows enough to be afraid.

You press your hand against the nearest stalk, the leaves sharp under your palm, and whisper to the field as if it can hear you. You have to end this- fast, before fear turns her away from you completely.

You moved back to where Jimin lay, his body twitching weakly. You knelt beside him- hands closing around his throat. You squeezed harder than before, feeling his windpipe crush beneath your fingers, his struggles growing weaker with each passing second.

Finally, with a last, choking gasp, Jimin went still, his body going limp. You stood up, your breath coming in ragged gasps- heart pounding with a mix of exhilaration and triumph. 

═══════

The corn sways around you in restless waves, every stalk whispering something you can’t quite catch. The path ahead feels longer than it should, the turns repeating themselves, the lanterns too far apart. Somewhere up front, Jennie and Chae-won keep calling your name, their voices fading and returning like signals through static.

You quicken your pace, but the wind pushes back, cold against your cheeks, carrying the faint metallic scent that doesn’t belong to October. You round a corner- and stop breathing.

Minhyuk lies ahead. The world narrows to the sound of your pulse and the soft hiss of the corn moving in place. His eyes are open, glassy, catching the flicker of a dying path light. Blood pools beneath him, soaking into the earth, turning the soil a dark, crimson red. 

The sight is gruesome, his body contorted at an unnatural angle, his clothes torn and stained with his own blood. You take a step back, your shoe slipping in the mud, the night spinning around you.

Run, your mind says, but your body refuses. Every direction looks the same. You turn, stumbling through another row, branches catching your sleeves, and there- Jimin. 

The lantern beside him rocks gently where it fell, its flame guttering out. Jimin's face is a mask of pain and terror, his features twisted in a final, agonized expression. His body is bruised and bloodied, his throat a raw wound, the flesh torn and mutilated. 

The sight punches the breath from you. A scream rips free, high and thin, swallowed almost instantly by the maze.

No one answers.

You press your hands to your mouth, shaking, until movement breaks the stillness- two figures rushing toward you. Jennie and Chae-won burst through the rows, faces white, eyes huge. 

For a second, the three of you only stare, the realization settling heavy between you.

“He’s gone,” Jennie whispers. “They’re all-”

“Don’t,” Chae-won cuts her off, voice splintering. “Don’t say it. We just have to move.”

You nod, but the word "move" has lost its meaning. The maze seems to shift around you, walls closing in, the air thick with the smell of soil and fear. Jennie edges forward, scanning the ground for some trace of a way out, and Chae-won tugs at your sleeve, urging you to follow.

A sound- something between a footstep and a sigh- threads through the rows behind you. Jennie spins, eyes wide. "Run," she says, barely audible.

You all do.

The three of you sprint through the maze, your hearts pounding in your chests, your breaths coming in ragged gasps. The corn stalks whip past, leaving stinging marks on your skin, but you don't slow down. You can't. The sound of pursuit is close, too close.

Suddenly, a figure jumps out from behind the corn stalks, his movements swift and silent. He moves toward Jennie, his steps quick and deliberate, a cruel smile playing on his lips.

Jennie turns to face him, her hands raised in a futile attempt to defend herself. But Jungkook is too fast. With a swift, precise motion, he drives his knife straight through her throat, feeling the blade slice through flesh and bone. 

Jennie gasps, her eyes bulging, her hands clutching at the wound, trying to staunch the flow of blood. But it's no use. She collapses to the ground, her body convulsing as her life slips away.

Chae-won grabs your arm, pulling you away from the gruesome scene. "We have to keep moving," she urges, her voice trembling. But it's too late. Jungkook advances, his movements fluid and practiced, and you know you're no match for him.

You turn to run, but Chae-won is frozen in her spot, her eyes wide with terror. 

Jungkook draws closer, and you finally clearly see his face. His eyes are blown, his face splattered with blood, and you know with a sickening certainty that he's the one responsible for all of this. 

He moves toward Chae-won-and with a swift, powerful punch, Jungkook connects with Chae-won's jaw, sending her sprawling to the ground. 

She cries out in pain, her body curling in on itself, but Jungkook isn't done with her yet. He kneels beside her, his hands closing around her head. You watch in horror as he snaps her neck with a sickening crack, her body going limp instantly.

You're frozen in your spot, your heart pounding, your mind racing. You need to find a way out, to escape this nightmare, but the maze seems to shift around you, the walls closing in, trapping you. 

Jungkook stands up, his eyes locked on you, a predatory grin spreading across his face.

He moves toward you, his steps slow and deliberate, and you know you're next. You back away, your hands shaking, your breath coming in ragged gasps. You scream, the sound echoing through the maze, but no one comes. You're alone, trapped in a nightmare with no escape.

═══════

The maze has gone quiet. Even the wind seems to hold its breath. You stand in the middle of the path, mud cold against your shoes, the rows of corn leaning close as if listening.

Only four feet away- close enough for you to see the sheen on his skin, the shallow rise of his chest, the streaks that might be dirt or might be something else. His eyes catch the light and hold it, too bright, too wild, like a reflection that doesn’t quite belong to him anymore.

He takes another step forward. The air bends around the sound of it, the soft scrape of his boot against the soil. Another step, slow, deliberate, and your body forgets how to move. Your mind tells you run, but your feet have sunk roots.

“Y/N.”

He says your name like it’s the only word left in the world.

The lantern between you sputters; the flame flares once and gutters down. In that dimming light, you can see the tremor in his hands, the twitch at the corner of his mouth. His breathing stutters between a laugh and a sob.

“They were in the way,” he says, the words spilling out too fast, too raw. “You’ll see, baby. You’ll understand. I did it for you.”

You shake your head before you even realize you’re doing it- a tiny, helpless motion.

He takes another step. The space between you collapses.

“They wanted to hurt you,” he continues, voice climbing and breaking, caught somewhere between devotion and fury. “All of them. But not anymore.”

The light catches on him again and for a second he looks almost human- just a boy lost in the maze, shaking, eyes wet. Then he smiles, small and wrong.

“I’ll protect you forever.”

The words settle in the air like ash.

You can’t answer. Your throat closes around a sound that never forms, your hands trembling at your sides. The maze waits, breathless, as if it, too, is listening for what comes next.

You can’t move. The night has folded itself around the two of you, the maze gone utterly still. Even the lights seem to dim, giving him center stage.

Jungkook kneels, slow, like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he moves too quickly. The mud stains his jeans, smears across his hands as he steadies himself. When he looks up, his expression softens in a way that makes your stomach twist.

“It’s all right now,” he murmurs. “You don’t have to be scared anymore.”

His voice shakes with something that sounds almost tender. Almost.

He looks at you like he’s studying a prayer he’s memorized- tracing the curve of your face, the tear still caught on your cheek, the tremor in your fingers. Every small detail seems to undo him.

“I’ve been watching you for years,” he says quietly, like a confession whispered in church. “You didn’t notice, but I was there. Every morning, every walk home, every time someone looked at you wrong. I saw everything.”

Your throat tightens. “You… you what?”

He smiles- small, crooked, fond in a way that should have been harmless. “You looked lonely sometimes. I thought- maybe you’d feel safer if someone stayed close. So I did. I kept you safe because I love you.”

Each word lands like a stone. You can hear your pulse behind your eyes, quick and bright.

“Love isn’t-” The rest of the sentence dies on your tongue. You don’t know what to say that won’t break him further.

He tilts his head, eyes wide and bright. “You don’t have to say anything yet. I know it’s a lot. I just need you to understand that everything I’ve done- it was for you. The world is ugly. People hurt each other for fun. But I can fix that. I can make sure nothing ever touches you again.”

He reaches for you- slow, open-palmed. You flinch, and he stops, the motion freezing in midair.

“See?” he says softly. “You’re shaking. You still think I’d hurt you. I never could. I’d die before I did.”

The corn whispers somewhere behind you, a faint reminder that the maze still exists, that there’s an outside world beyond this narrow tunnel of light. You take a half step back. He notices. His smile falters.

“Don’t run from me,” he says, voice breaking. “I did everything right. I made it safe. I did it for us.”

The word us hangs between you, heavy as the dark.

You realize then that there is no “us.” There never was- only him, and the maze, and the silence that’s swallowing every possible escape.

═══════

It starts small.

Freshman year- the cafeteria too bright, too loud, a blur of people who never seem to see you. You sit where you always do, corner table, tray untouched. She’s two tables away. Headphones in. Book open. Lost in her own world. You tell yourself you’re only watching because there’s nothing else to do.

But then she laughs at something she’s reading, and the sound pulls the air right out of you.

You start noticing things: how she pushes her sleeves up before she eats, the way she smiles with her whole face, the quick glance toward the door before she leaves- as if she’s checking that the world is still where she left it. 

You start writing it down in the edges of your notebook, half-hidden between lecture notes and grocery lists. Little fragments of her life scattered across your pages.

The library becomes your favorite place. It’s quiet enough to listen without looking obvious. You learn the rhythm of her days- when she comes, where she sits, how long she stays. Her habits turn into a pattern, and the pattern becomes something like music. You tell yourself it’s harmless to memorize it. You tell yourself you’re just paying attention.

Sometimes she walks close enough that you can smell her perfume, faint and sweet, a detail you’ll carry for days. In those moments, you let your eyes close and imagine what it would be like if she turned toward you, if she said your name, if the invisible space between you collapsed into something real.

At night, when the dorm goes quiet, you replay the day. You rewrite it in your head- each glance sharper, each small kindness exaggerated until it becomes proof. You convince yourself that watching is a kind of care, that you’re keeping her safe simply by knowing where she is.

═══════

You pulled her close, her body pressing against yours in the soft light of your shared space. Your lips crashed into hers, hungry and desperate, tasting the sweetness of her mouth as your tongue slipped past her lips to tangle with hers. 

You kissed her deeply, one hand cupping the back of her neck to hold her steady while the other roamed down her side, fingers tracing the curve of her waist. “God, you taste so good.” you murmured against her lips, your voice low and reverent. 

Your kisses trailed from her mouth to her jaw, nipping lightly at the skin before moving to her neck, sucking gently to leave faint marks that claimed her as yours.

Your hands grew bolder, sliding under her shirt to grab at her breasts. You squeezed them softly at first, thumbs brushing over her nipples until they hardened under your touch. 

You pushed the fabric up, exposing her skin to the cool air, and lowered your head to take one nipple into your mouth. You sucked on it firmly, your tongue swirling around the peak while your hand kneaded the other breast, pinching and rolling the nipple between your fingers. 

She arched into you, and you groaned, the sound vibrating against her chest. “These are perfect,” you praised, switching sides to lavish the same attention on the other. 

“So soft, so responsive. I could worship them all night.” 

Your free hand wandered lower, slipping into the waistband of her sleep shorts, fingers dipping between her thighs to stroke over her pussy through her panties. You felt the warmth there, the slight dampness, and it drove you wild. You rubbed slow circles over her clit, feeling it swell under your touch, while your mouth continued its assault on her breasts.

You couldn't wait any longer. 

You tugged her shorts down, along with her panties, leaving her bare from the waist down. You move down the bed, your eyes locked on her exposed pussy, glistening with arousal. “Look at you,” you breathed, your voice thick with awe. “So beautiful, so wet for me already.” 

Your hands gripped her thighs, spreading them apart as you leaned in, your breath hot against her folds. Your tongue flicked out, tracing a long, slow line from her entrance to her clit, savoring her taste. 

She gasped, and you smiled against her, then dove in fully. You licked at her cunt with broad, flat strokes, lapping up her juices like you were starved for them. Your lips closed around her clit, sucking gently while your tongue teased the sensitive bud, flicking and circling until her hips bucked against your face.

Your hands held her steady, fingers digging into her ass as you pulled her closer, burying your face deeper. You alternated between sucking on her clit and thrusting your tongue inside her, fucking her with it as deep as you could. 

“You taste like heaven,” you murmured between licks, your words muffled but fervent. “I love how you drip for me. Cum on my tongue, baby- let me taste you.” 

You worshipped every inch, your nose brushing her clit as you tongued her hole, feeling her walls clench around the intrusion. 

One hand slid up, two fingers pressing against her entrance before pushing inside, curling to hit that spot that made her moan. You pumped them slowly at first, matching the rhythm of your licks, building the pressure until her body trembled.

Her first orgasm hit hard, her pussy spasming around your fingers as she cried out. You didn't stop- you kept licking, sucking, fingering her through it, drawing out every wave until she was shaking. 

“That's it, good girl,” you praised, your voice husky. “You’re going to cum for me again. I want to feel you soak my hand.”

You added a third finger, stretching her as you thrust faster, your tongue relentless on her clit. You worshipped her body with every touch, kissing her inner thighs between licks, murmuring how perfect her pussy was, how it clenched so beautifully around you. 

The second climax built quicker, her juices coating your fingers and chin as she came again, harder this time.

But you weren't done. You stood, shedding your clothes in a frenzy, your cock springing free- thick, veined, and leaking pre-cum. 

She was already sprawled across the bed, chest still rising unevenly against the sheets. You climbed back onto the mattress beside her, eyes tracing every curve, every mark you’d left behind, drinking her in like you hadn’t just had her.

“You're mine,” you whispered, climbing over her, your hands caressing her sides, her hips, her breasts. You positioned yourself between her legs, rubbing the head of your cock along her slick folds, coating yourself in her wetness. 

“I’m going to fuck you now, fill you up just like you deserve.”

You pushed in slowly, inch by inch, groaning at the tight heat enveloping you. “Fuck, you're so tight, so perfect around my cock.” Once fully bottomed out, you paused, kissing her deeply, your hands stroking her hair, her face, worshipping her even as you began to thrust.

Your pace was loving, steady, each roll of your hips driving deep into her pussy. You talked her through it all, your voice a soothing rumble. “Feel that? That's me claiming you. You're doing so well, taking my cock like this.” 

You angled your thrusts to grind against her clit with every stroke, building that familiar tension again. Your hands roamed, pinching her nipples, squeezing her ass, pulling her closer as you fucked her harder.

“Cum with me, baby. Let me feel your cunt milk my cock.” Sweat beaded on your forehead, your muscles flexing as you pounded into her, the wet sounds of your bodies slapping together filling the room. 

Her third orgasm crashed over her, her walls fluttering and squeezing you tight, and you followed moments later, burying yourself deep as you came, hot spurts of cum flooding her pussy, marking her from the inside.

You collapsed beside her, holding her close, whispering praises into her hair- how amazing she was, how you'd never let her go. 

But as the afterglow faded in your mind, reality snapped back. 

You were alone in your dorm, laying on your bed, your hand wrapped around your aching cock. The notebook lay open beside you, pages filled with her details fueling the vivid hallucination. 

Your strokes had matched every thrust in your dream, fast and desperate now as the fantasy's climax echoed in your body. With a choked moan, you came hard, ropes of cum shooting across your stomach and chest, your hips jerking as you milked yourself dry. 

Panting, you stared at the ceiling, the emptiness settling in. One day, you told yourself, it wouldn't just be a fantasy.

═══════

The maze seems to change as you run. Paths you thought you knew twist into strangers; the lights burn lower, then vanish. Every turn brings only more walls of corn, the stalks whispering your name in the wind.

You reach a dead end. The ground there is softer, trampled. You spin back-

-and he’s already there.

Jungkook stands at the mouth of the corridor, chest heaving, hair plastered to his forehead. The lantern light wavers across him, turning the streaks on his clothes a darker shade of rust. His eyes find you and stay.

“Why are you running?” he asks. His voice breaks halfway through the sentence, the sound caught between pleading and anger. “You don’t have to. It’s over now. You’re safe.”

You shake your head, back pressed to the wall of corn. “You killed them,” you whisper. “You-”

He steps forward, slow, desperate. “I saved you. They were in the way, but it’s done. You’re here.” His hand lifts as if to touch your face, then stops midair. The expression that flickers across his features is almost childlike- hurt, disbelief.

“You don’t understand,” he says, voice trembling. “I love you. Everything I’ve done was to keep you close, to make sure nothing could hurt you again.”

You swallow, trying to breathe past the knot in your throat. “You hurt me.”

The words hang there. For the first time, he looks uncertain- eyes darting over your face as if searching for a different answer.

“No,” he whispers. “No, I… I could never-”

He takes one more step, and the distance between you evaporates into breath and heat and the quiet crackle of the dying lantern. The night feels smaller, the maze closing in.

Before you can pull back, Jungkook's hand shoots out, fingers gripping your wrist with a desperate strength that pins you against the rough corn stalks. 

His body presses forward, trapping you in the shadowed corner, his chest heaving against yours. You twist your head away, heart pounding in protest, but he doesn't relent. His free hand cups the back of your neck, forcing your face toward him as his lips crash down on yours.

The kiss is brutal, unyielding- his mouth devours yours, tongue shoving past your clenched teeth to claim every inch. You taste the salt of his fear-sweat mixed with the metallic tang of blood, his stubble scraping your skin raw. 

He groans into the kiss, hips grinding instinctively against your thigh, his obsession pouring out in the way he sucks on your lower lip hard enough to bruise. Your hands push at his shoulders, nails digging in, but he only tightens his hold, kissing deeper, wetter, as if he could fuse your souls through sheer force.

You wrench your mouth free for a gasping breath, shoving harder, but his eyes lock on yours- wild, pleading, broken. “Please,” he says, voice shaking, “don’t leave me.”

You don’t plan the motion- your body just decides. One heartbeat he’s reaching for your face, the next you’re moving, shoving, every muscle working off pure panic. The air between you breaks apart with a sound that could be breath or a sob.

He staggers back, surprise flashing across his face, and in that split second you see him not as a monster but as a boy who doesn’t understand what he’s done. Then the fear returns, sharp and electric.

Your hand finds the first thing it can- a scattered prop littering the path, its paint cracked and peeling. You swing, the heavy object connecting with his skull with a sickening thud. Blood sprays from the wound, and he stumbles, his eyes wide with shock and pain. 

The noise startles even you. For a moment, you can’t tell whose voice you heard- his or yours.

He goes down to one knee, eyes wide, shock blooming across his features, blood dripping down his face. You don't wait, but instead, you hit him again, this time aiming for his back. 

The prop connects with a dull thud, the force of the blow sending him sprawling to the ground. He grunts, his body going limp, stunned by the impact. 

The maze opens behind you, and you run, lungs burning, the cold night slicing through your chest. The lights flicker as you pass, your shadow jumping from row to row. 

Every corner looks the same, every turn feels like déjà vu, but you keep running until the sound of him fades into the hiss of the corn and your own heartbeat.

Behind you, somewhere deep in the field, the maze exhales- a long, low sound that might be wind, might be a name.

You don’t look back.

═══════

The corn gives way all at once- rows breaking open into air, night, and the jarring blaze of light. You stumble out of the maze on hands and knees, mud and blood streaking your clothes and face, the sudden noise of people hitting you like a wall.

Someone screams. Someone else catches you under the arms, but the world won’t hold still long enough to see who. The cold air feels too bright.

You try to speak, but the words won’t stay in order. “He- he was in there- my friends, they-” The rest dissolves into a sob that doesn’t sound like yours.

Sirens split the air. Red and blue lights wash over the field, painting everything in pulses of color. People run toward the maze entrance- security, staff, strangers in masks still laughing because they don’t know. Not yet.

A woman kneels in front of you, voice soft but urgent. “Honey, are you hurt? What happened?”

You shake your head, though every inch of you aches. The smell of blood and smoke fills your lungs. “They’re gone,” you whisper. “He- he said he was protecting me.”

“Who?”

You look back toward the maze, toward the dark mouth you just crawled out of. The corn sways as if breathing, the rows whispering secrets to the wind.

“I don’t know,” you breathe. “He- he’s still-”

The woman exchanges a glance with someone behind her. Words pass between them that you can’t make out. You watch their lips move, but the world has gone too far away for sound to matter. The edges of everything blur.

Someone drapes a blanket around your shoulders. Someone else speaks into a radio. A man kneels near you, his flashlight cutting through the dark toward the maze.

Your teeth chatter. You realize you’re still clutching the fake prop you used- plastic bent, paint chipped, the edge stained dark. You drop it, and it lands with a hollow sound against the ground.

You whisper something- maybe a prayer, maybe nothing at all- but even you can’t tell which.

═══════

You lie on your side in the corn, staring up through the stalks at the slice of sky. The sirens are distant, a broken melody somewhere beyond the field. Light flashes over the rows- red, then blue, then gone. Each pulse paints the inside of the maze like a heartbeat.

You can feel the warmth running down your back, soaking into the soil, sticky and thick where it pools beneath you. More warmth trails from your temple to your jaw, a slow line of blood tracing the curve of your cheek before it disappears into the dirt. The pain blooms somewhere deep behind your eyes, steady and dull, but already fading into something else- something almost peaceful.

You focus instead on the memory of her face- the way her eyes looked when she saw you, the way her lips parted, trying to form words that never came.

You smile. It hurts to do it, but you smile anyway.

“They’ll take her away,” you whisper, voice catching. “They’ll tell her it’s over. That she’s safe.”

You close your eyes, the darkness behind them softer than the one above. “But she’ll remember. She’ll hear me every time the wind moves.”

A breath rattles in your chest. You taste iron, cold and sharp.

“You’ll never really leave me, Y/N,” you murmur, the words slipping between your teeth like a secret meant only for the night. “I’ll always be here.”

Somewhere in the distance, someone shouts for an ambulance. The sirens grow louder. The light washes the field in red again, and for a moment, it looks like the maze is on fire.

You close your eyes, and the darkness folds over you like a blanket.

“She’ll remember,” you murmur, breath thinning. “She has to.”

And somewhere between one heartbeat and the next, your chest rises again.

═══════

epilogue:

═══════

corn maze

The field begins to glow before the sun does. Floodlights bleach the maze, turning the rows of corn into a map of shadow and metal. Mist rises off the ground in slow curls. Officers pick their way through the paths with flashlights held low, the beams sweeping back and forth like pendulums.

“Start from the western rows,” someone calls. “Work toward the entrance.”

They move in pairs, marking each intersection with orange tape. Radios crackle, footsteps sink into the mud. Every few minutes, a shout cuts through the static, then falls silent again.

═══════

police station

At the police station, you sit beneath humming fluorescent lights. The room smells like paper and disinfectant. A clock ticks too loud. You try to count the seconds between the ticks but lose track before you reach ten.

The detective across from you has the kind of voice made for bad news.

“Just take your time,” he says. “Tell me what you remember.”

You tell him pieces- the laughter before the maze, the screams that didn’t sound like acting, the phone call that turned into static. When you falter, he nods as if he understands, but you can see his hand tightening around his pen.

═══════

corn maze

The first bodies appear near the center path. 

Two women, close enough that their fingers almost touch. A medic kneels between them, murmuring something low before lifting the edge of a tarp. 

The first girls body lies still, her eyes wide and glassy, a deep, gaping wound in her throat, blood congealing around the edges. 

The second girls neck is bent at an unnatural angle, her face frozen in a mask of terror, her lifeless eyes staring blankly at the sky. The camera flashes once, then again. The officers avert their eyes.

“Names?” someone asks.

“Kim Jennie, Kim Chae-won,” another replies after checking the student IDs pulled from torn handbags. Their names echo over the radio and drift into the fog.

═══════

police station

The detective asks, “You came with five friends, right? Can you say their names for me?”

You nod slowly, the blanket around your shoulders too heavy.

“Jennie. Chae-won. Jimin. Minhyuk. Yoongi.”

He writes the names in a slow, careful column, leaving a blank space after each one.

“And the man?” he prompts, pen hovering.

You swallow hard. “I never… I never got his name.” The words scrape your throat. “He said he was protecting me.”

The detective nods once, expression tightening. “All right. Can you describe him? Anything at all- clothes, height, hair color?”

Your mind blanks. The room tilts.

“I… I don’t know,” you whisper. “I barely saw him. It was dark.”

He waits.

You close your eyes, trying to pull up something, anything.

“A… hoodie,” you manage. “Black. I think. And tall? Dark hair? I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Your voice cracks on the apology.

“He… he killed them,” you add, quieter now. “All of them.”

The detective exchanges a slow glance with the officer by the door, then writes a single line in the empty space beside the column of names:

Unknown male- black hoodie.

═══════

corn maze

Further down the path, another body is discovered, this one male. He’s lying on his back, his body a mass of bruises and contusions, making identification difficult. His face is swollen and disfigured, barely recognizable. It takes a moment for the officers to realize who he is, but a wallet in his back pocket provides the answer.

"Looks like a brutal beating," one officer murmurs, shaking his head. "Poor kid."

Another officer kneels beside the body, carefully turning it over. He reaches into the back pocket and pulls out a wallet, flipping it open to reveal an ID. "Park Jimin," he says softly, his voice heavy with the weight of the discovery.

The medical examiner approaches, her expression grim. "Extensive bruising and signs of strangulation," she notes, her gloves snapping as she puts them on. "He died from asphyxiation. His final moments were a struggle for breath."

The camera captures the scene, the flash illuminating the horrific sight before the tarp is gently placed over him. The officers stand in somber silence, the weight of the tragedy settling over them.

═══════

police station

At the station, the detective’s partner leans against the wall, arms crossed. “We found five victims so far,” he tells the room quietly. “All students. No sign of the attacker.”

═══════

corn maze

By noon, the search team located two more bodies. The first was Yoongi, discovered half inside a collapsed row of corn. His body was contorted at an unnatural angle, his head completely bashed in. 

The sight was gruesome, with shards of bone and blood splattered across the surrounding area. A metal lantern lay beside him, its surface stained with more blood, the evidence of its use as a brutal weapon.

"Looks like someone really wanted to make sure he was dead," one officer muttered, shaking his head. "This is brutal."

An officer crouched beside the body, his gloves snapping as he put them on. He carefully searched the area, his eyes scanning the ground. "Found something," he called out, holding up a wallet. He opened it, revealing an ID card. "We have an ID," he said, his voice heavy with the weight of the discovery. "Min Yoongi."

The team moved on, their expressions somber, the weight of the tragedy settling over them. 

Further into the maze, where the mud turned to clay, they found Minhyuk. His body lay face down, his clothes torn and blood-soaked. It was clear that he had been stabbed multiple times- his back, chest, and side bore deep, gaping wounds, the flesh torn and mutilated. 

Blood had pooled around him, turning the clay a dark, crimson red.

"Multiple stab wounds," the medical examiner noted, her gloves snapping as she put them on. "He bled out quickly. There's no way he survived this."

The officers stood in somber silence, the horror of the scene sinking in. 

An officer, younger and clearly shaken, nodded in agreement. "How could someone do this? It's inhumane."

The camera flashed once, then again, capturing the gruesome sight before the tarp was gently placed over Minhyuk's body. 

The officers averted their eyes, the reality of the situation hitting them hard. They couldn’t find his ID, adding to the eerie and unsettling nature of the discovery. There was nothing left to write; the notes stopped for a while as they processed the horrific findings.

Near the entrance they find a smear of blood and a black hoodie caught on a branch, the fabric stiff with dried red. They follow the trail until it ends abruptly in the open field behind the maze.

“Could be the suspect,” one officer says. “Or the last victim.”

No one answers.

═══════

police station

Back at the station, the detective closes his notebook. “That’s everyone you came with,” he says carefully. “Five of them.”

You nod, throat tight. “And him? The man?”

He hesitates. “We found blood closer to the entrance. No body. We’re still searching.”

For a moment you can’t breathe. The world shrinks to the hum of the lights, the scratch of his pen, the pulse hammering in your ears.

“You didn’t find him,” you whisper.

“Not yet,” he says. “But with that much blood, he couldn’t have gotten far.”

You stare at your hands, the gauze wrapping your palms already spotted brown. “He’s still out there,” you say, not as a question.

The detective exhales through his nose. “Try to rest, Miss. You’re safe now.”

═══════

home

Outside the window, the wind rises, bending the trees. The sound is faint, like someone breathing through the leaves. You close your eyes, but the field is still there behind them the rows of corn, the lantern light, the hush after each scream.

You tell yourself it’s over.

You tell yourself he’s gone.

But when the air-conditioning hum dips for a moment, you think you hear another sound underneath it- a low, rasping breath, steady and patient, waiting for you to notice.

═══════

JKWRITOBER ♡ MASTERLIST ♡ a03

♡ requests are welcome ♡ taglist ♡

These characters are fictional and do not represent any real-life individuals. Their likeness is used solely for visual inspiration and does not reflect the actual person or their story.

═══════

Posted: 10/31/2025 (let’s just pretend okay? 😭)

You’d just left your church after a quiet confession, still tasting the salt of relief on your tongue. The grocery store was supposed to be your next small penance- milk, bread, a new candle for your kitchen altar. But when you stepped out, the rain started hard and sudden, and the bus schedule glitched on your phone. Of course. You walked instead.

Rain hunts you down the block like a persistent hymn, needling your scalp, your collar, the fragile paper bag with the groceries you promised would last a week. A neon cross flickers above a ruined ed marquee- EDEN REVIVAL in broken bulbs, only the word EVIL still glows, humming above the rain like a dare. You duck beneath the dripping arch because the storm is sudden and New York is cruel to umbrellas, and because the door is open and the corridor spills warmth and a low-throated singing that feels like heat from a stovetop- close your fingers, get burned.

“Come in, sister,” a woman says, pressing the door wide with the sweep of her wrist. Her bracelets flick, little bells. “No one has to be cold here.”

“I’m not-” you start, because you want to tell her that you’re only cutting through, that you belong to a different set of stories. But your protest fades in the warm air and the music before you finish it.

Inside, the theater is transformed. The velvet seats have been ripped out and replaced with long white runners that glow beneath strings of cheap bulbs. The stage- once chipped, once graffitied- is now an altar: milk-white cloth, glass vases with floating tea lights, microphones that wait like patient birds. Cameras perch at odd angles- tripods and mounted cameras line the walls, their little red lights blinking like patient eyes. The walls sweat with old paint. The air tastes like shared breath.

“-she’s here,” someone whispers.

“-Beloved,” someone else answers, quick as a reflex.

You hesitate. You don’t know who they mean.

Then you see him.

He stands near the edge of the stage as if he has just stepped down from a painting. He wears a plain black shirt, simple black pants, and no jewelry except the gleam in his mouth when he smiles. He is beautiful like certain knives: clean-lined, balanced, purposeful. His hair is dark and disobedient. His eyes are what the camera would call true north- they pull everything level. He has that odd stillness of someone who expects the room to tilt toward him.

“Welcome,” he says, not into a microphone, but the theater hears him anyway. “You’re late.”

You glance behind you to see who he’s scolding, but there’s no one there, only rain smearing the doorway and your own reflection in the slick floor. Your chest gives a little knock, like a cupboard door opened by a draft.

“I think you have the wrong-” you begin.

He steps forward. “You don’t have to tell me your name,” he says, voice even. He stops an arm’s length away, as if he remembers the rules of strangers, then breaks them with a look. “The rain already did.”

“That’s not-” you try, and then you don’t bother finishing, because the room reorganizes itself around you the way a tide decides what is shore. Camera lenses adjust with little whirring sighs. The choir- a dozen people in soft grays- narrow their harmonies to a key that feels familiar without being yours. The crowd parts like a book opening to the worn page.

He doesn’t offer a hand. He offers a question.

“Will you stand with me?” His voice is gentle, an unopened gift. “Only a moment. The weather is cruel, and we are mid-service, but mercy has terrible timing.”

A man near the front hisses, “Jungkook,” like a prayer shaped into a name. The word becomes a ripple: Jungkook, Jungkook, Jungkook. You’ve heard that name in gossip-chains and doctored clips. They call him the Second Coming, the city said, half-mocking, half-afraid. He makes people cry. He makes people walk. He makes people give up the things that keep them alive.

“I’m not part of this,” you say, softer now, trying to excavate yourself from the softness of it all. “I have my own-” You almost say faith, but you have promised yourself you will not argue in public about what you carry like a hidden flame. “I’m just waiting out the rain.”

He tilts his head, and the corner of his mouth lifts, and it is both sweet and terrible. “We are all waiting out a storm.”

Voice in the balcony: “Bring her,” breathless.

Voice from the aisle: “Don’t force- don’t force-”

“No force,” Jungkook says, without looking away from you. He is careful with the word, as if it matters. “Only invitation. Beloved, stand with me and then leave as you like.”

You open your hands. The grocery bag crackles. The carrots inside knock like bones. “My name isn’t-”

“Names,” he says, the way a teacher might correct a small error, “are the clothing of the soul. In here, we undress before God.”

You should leave. You know this in the same way you know not to touch a hot stove twice. But the choir inhales. The crowd shifts. And the storm is loud. And your shoes squeak, taking you forward, and his relief is visible- sharp, private, almost childish- as if he had been holding his breath since before you were born.

“Good,” he whispers when you reach him. “Good.”

The woman who opened the door- Karina, someone murmurs- takes your dripping coat with too much reverence, as if it is a relic. Another attendant- tall, velvet-voiced, a dangerous calm- steps to Jungkook’s shoulder. “Taehyung,” people breathe, and he nods to you like you’ve done him an old kindness.

“Only a moment,” Jungkook promises again, to you, to the room, to himself. He raises a hand not to you but to the audience. “We will continue. A child is here.”

A mother, eyes ravaged by sleeplessness, stumbles forward holding a boy whose skin gleams with heat. The boy whimpers like a kettle about to boil. “Please,” the mother says, and her please is not polite; it has teeth. “He’s burning.”

Jungkook looks to you, not to the child. It is intimate and unnerving. “Stand here,” he says, guiding you with only the idea of touch- his hand hovering, a warm moon near your back, never quite landing. “Breathe as you would on a cold window. Think of nothing you love more than the truth.”

“You don’t know what I-” you begin.

“I know enough,” he answers, and the tender arrogance of it makes your throat tight. “Namjoon,” he calls without turning, and a man with serious eyes lifts a notebook, ready. “Note the time. Note the rain. Note her closeness.”

The mother’s words hitch. “Please. He’s- please.”

“Shh,” Jungkook says, and the shh is not to quiet her but to hush the air itself. He kneels to the boy’s level, settling with a lithe grace that feels less like movement than like falling into his proper place. “Hello,” he says to the child, smiling the smile that built this sanctuary. “You are a furnace. Shall we open a window?” He does not touch the boy yet. He looks at you again. “Beloved?”

“I’m not-” you say, but your breath leaves you anyway, a cloud you can’t find in the light.

He places his palm on the boy’s head.

The sound the mother makes is a sound mothers have always made, in every language, in every century. The boy twitches, eyes wide, mouth open with a sob that shortens midair into a surprised breath. A cheap pharmacy thermometer shrills once. Karina reads it aloud, voice shaking: “Ninety-eight.”

“Impossible,” someone says. “Fake,” someone else says. “God,” another says, and you are not sure which is right.

You, though. You feel it- the loss. It is exactly like reaching for an old word and finding the drawer empty. Something leaves you, delicate as birds, and you shiver with a cold that isn’t on your skin.

Jungkook’s eyes glitter. Not with triumph. With relief so raw it borders on sorrow. “Thank you,” he tells the boy. “Thank you,” he tells the mother. Then he looks at you with a wonder that is too hungry to be safe. “Thank you.”

“What did you do?” you ask, trying to arrange your breath into sense. Your palms are colder than rain should allow.

“What we were made for,” he says.

The room- people, cameras, candles- sinks to its knees the way tall grass bends when the wind chooses a direction. You do not kneel. You can’t. Your knees shake without moving, your spine held straight by a reflex called no.

“Angel,” someone whispers. The word slithers over your shoes.

“Don’t,” you say, your voice small and sharp. “Please don’t call me-”

“Only in her nearness does God agree to be seen,” Jungkook says softly, and the theater takes the sentence like bread, tearing it into a hundred mouths. In her nearness- God agrees- to be seen. Namjoon writes it down with a purposeful calm, as if it were inevitable and he is only catching up.

Taehyung leans close enough that the wind from his breath touches your ear. “We’ll get you tea,” he murmurs. “It helps.”

Jungkook lifts the boy into his mother’s arms and kisses the air above the child’s brow, as if reluctant to touch anything that isn’t you. When he faces you again, it is with an expression you have seen only once before, when a stranger on a subway platform realized the train had spared him by accident. Gratitude and terror, married in a single breath.

“I thought I would die,” he says softly. He smiles as if to soften the confession, but his eyes do not smile. “I am so very tired of being believed. I prefer to be proven.”

“You used me,” you say.

“I asked the rain to bring you,” he answers, and the sentence is ridiculous and beautiful and irresponsible. “And the rain is obedient.”

“You can’t keep me here.”

“I will not,” he says, immediately. “I will walk you out myself if you wish.” He raises a hand, silencing the room. “We are grateful,” he tells them. “We will not consume. We will only witness.” He turns back. “Forgive their awe. They forget you are a person when they think you are a door.”

“A door to what?”

“To the one we all want and cannot name.”

Karina edges forward with a cup that smells like honey and clove. “Sip,” she says, her smile shy and wrecked. “You did beautifully.”

“I did nothing,” you say.

“Exactly,” Namjoon murmurs, already writing, ink forced into neat lines by a steady hand. “Emptiness is useful.” The heart that opens is- and here he pauses, glancing up at you over the rim of his glasses- “A vessel’s heart.”

The phrase lands like a pebble in a glass bowl.

“No,” you say, too quickly, as if speed could undo meaning. “Don’t say that.”

Jungkook studies your hands, as if looking for a way to hold without scaring. He does not touch you. He keeps not touching you with such focus it feels like contact. “You are cold,” he says. “It will pass. You’ll leave, and the rain will finish its assignment, and when you are warm again you will return. Or you won’t, and I will look for you in the weather.”

“I’m not coming back,” you manage. “This isn’t- I don’t- this isn’t my god.”

He tilts his face as if catching a different light. “That is the sweetness of Him,” he says. “He will be yours anyway.”

You set the tea aside, untouched. “I want to go.”

Jungkook nods, and for a beat- you think he means it. He steps back. He gestures toward the aisle, its white runner bright as a bone.

Then the congregation moves- no instruction, no cue. Knees fold. Heads bow. Palms press. The aisle becomes a shore of bodies, an ocean of surrender. The cameras, confessional-eyed, pivot to track your path. Someone begins a hum and the hum becomes a voice and the voice becomes many: “She was sent- she was sent- she was sent-” The word sent sibilants like rain, circles like smoke.

Jungkook’s smile is small and helpless. He looks embarrassed by their love. He looks in love with their embarrassment. He looks at you like you are something he once promised to a dark room and is astonished to find in daylight.

“Make way,” Taehyung calls, velvet-hard, but no one rises.

“They kneel for you,” Namjoon says, apologetic and pleased. “It is difficult to tell them they are wrong.”

“I’m not-” you start, and your voice blurs. A fuzz at the edges, a loss of color. You blink.

Jungkook leans, finally, as if pulled by the gravity of your refusal. His breath touches the soft at the hinge of your jaw. He does not touch you. The not-touch is a blade.

“Only a moment more,” he whispers. “The rain will let up. Then we will walk.”

“What is this?” you ask. “What do you want?”

He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t look away. Devotion, unblinking, is a frightening thing up close. “Beloved,” he says, tender as a bruise. “The proof I prayed for. The altar I cannot carry without breaking. The first and last evidence that I am not mad.”

You want to laugh. You want to run. You want to place your hands over your ears and hear your own faith louder than all this music. Outside, thunder answers a question no one asked. Inside, a child’s cooled breath mists his mother’s shoulder. Karina begins a new hymn in a minor key. Suzy- someone says that name, a soft warning- watches you with a look like she knows a door that still swings.

“You will be free,” Jungkook says, and the promise cuts twice. “And I will be yours, also free.”

“How?”

“By surrender,” he says, and his smile is the gentlest weapon you have ever seen. “What is faith, if not surrender?”

The lights buzz. The cameras blink. Your hands tremble around nothing. You take a step toward the aisle, meaning to part the sea with an apology and a steady elbow.

The kneeling bodies do not move.

Above you, a camera drone hums to life, its single red light blinking awake.

The sanctuary exhales after the fever breaks. People swaddle their awe in whisper and movement: phones slide back into pockets, candles are cupped, the choir hums a low thread that isn’t quite a song. Namjoon is already writing, pen steady, the words shaped like they’ve been waiting inside the ink. Taehyung walks the aisles in a calm sweep, easing people to their feet, un-knotting the aisle with a firm, velvet patience.

Jungkook lifts his head like he’s listening to a wind only he can feel. Then he turns to you.

“Walk with me,” he says. “Just to the door.”

You mean to say no. You manage a nod.

He doesn’t touch you, not at first. He leads by proximity, letting space tug you along as if a string ran from the soft notch of his spine to your sternum. The sanctuary narrows into halls that remember when this place was a theater- paint-stripped doorframes, backstage chalk that says HALF HOUR in a hand that never erased. On a table to the left were a shallow bowl of folded papers. Petitions, though some are photographs- eyes that look directly into the lens as if they expect to be known.

Namjoon’s voice follows, quiet, courteous: “9:17 p.m., temperature fell, choir in D minor, rain steady. Proximity observed.”

You stop. “Proximity?”

Jungkook glances back, smile quick and rueful. “He means you.”

“Of course he does.”

Past the petitions sits a glass case holding a mess of metal. It takes you a second to read the shape- braces, screws, a small wrist brace twisted loose from a life. On the glass, someone has taped a label in tidy block letters: Relics of Release.

“You keep trophies?” you ask.

“Proof,” he says. “People accuse me of tricks. Everyone loves a trick until it costs them their doubt.” He looks at the case a moment longer, and his expression is not greedy. It’s tired. “We wanted to bury them. Namjoon argued for transparency.”

From the main room, Karina’s voice drifts like a ribbon- no words, just a single held note. You hear Suzy’s whisper near the door, soothing a child who wants to touch your sleeve again. The air back here is cooler, the incense thinner; the hum of an old building replaces the crowd’s breath. You rub your hands together but they don’t warm. The cold in your palms feels stubborn, almost personal.

On the right, an office door stands already open, light spilling across the hallway floor. Inside, a whiteboard lists the week in marker:

Shelter meals - 64

Clinic fund - $1,820

Streaming pledges - 412 new / $9,403. 

Beneath: Tonight’s Tally followed by a blank space waiting to be filled. A clear box under the board is seeded with bills and folded envelopes; a small manual counter- like the kind bouncers use- sits beside it, the number frozen at 0000. Someone has taped a Post-it to the counter: BE GRATEFUL, BE ACCURATE.

Jungkook pauses with you in the doorway. He doesn’t hurry you past the money. He doesn’t pretend it isn’t there. “Namjoon insists we show the numbers,” he says. “He says sunlight keeps our hands clean. We post the tallies online each week. It angers some people anyway.”

“Some people think you’re a cult,” you say, not as an accusation but more like you’re naming a weather pattern.

“And what do you think?”

You look at the box, the board, the tidy handwriting that believes in order. “I think grief makes people generous,” you say. “And hungry.”

“Mm.” He nods, almost pleased. “Hunger is honest.”

He resumes walking. You follow because the hall is narrow, because it’s faster to move than to decide not to, because the rain on the roof sounds like someone knocking and the door feels- just for a second- close enough to matter.

A smaller room breaks off the corridor. Inside is a row of metal folding chairs and a card table set with paper cups, tissue boxes, and a battered kettle steaming on a hot plate. A corkboard holds Polaroids with dates scribbled beneath them. In the photos, people are mid-laughter, mid-tears, mid-something that looks like relief. One Polaroid is of the stage tonight, a blur of light where you would be standing; someone must have snapped it during the fever cooling.

“Green room,” Jungkook says. “Except for the green.” His smile tilts. “We call it Mercy.”

You look at the kettle. “Tea?”

“If you’ll drink it now,” he says, “I’ll make it.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Of course.” He doesn’t sound offended. He doesn’t sound like he believes you, either. “Walk a little farther. The door is ahead. You’ll tell me which street you prefer.”

He offers his hand then, not to take yours but to indicate the way. You don’t take it. He lowers it neatly and keeps moving, the refusal absorbed like rain into a dark shirt.

The corridor bends. The lights here are faint, motion-sensor things that wake reluctantly as you pass. He slows under one that flickers as if undecided, and turns, and finally- as if permission has been granted by the thin halo above- he rests his palm at the base of your skull.

It is not a grab. It’s not even a hold. The weight is feather-light, the pressure a suggestion. But everything in you shortens, the way a string tightens to tune.

“Why-” your voice surprises you; it skims the word like a stone, not quite dropping into it. “Why are you touching me?”

His eyes soften like a confession. “To steady you,” he says. “This part of the head holds too much weather.”

“Don’t say things like that.”

“What would you prefer?” His hand remains where it is, warm, reverent, patient. “The literal is crueler than poetry.”

“You think I need- what? Guidance? A leash?”

“A hand,” he says simply. “So you don’t fall.” His thumb doesn’t move, but somehow your breath notices it anyway, the way a room notices a clock even when it doesn’t tick.

“It’s too familiar.”

“It is worship,” he says. “Not ownership.”

He means it. That’s the most dangerous part- you can feel he means it. He is not playing a role- he is inhabiting a conviction. Your chest tightens against the shape of that.

“Take your hand away,” you say. Your palms are like ice. Your voice is steady enough to pass.

He does. Immediately. The absence leaves your neck feeling bare. He doesn’t fill the space with apology. He only dips his chin, then gestures with a small open palm toward a door painted a softened red, its brass push bar gleaming like it remembers better days. EXIT, the sign insists, honest and green.

You breathe. The kind of breath you take when a train door opens and you’re certain of your station.

“Wait,” he says, and the word is quiet, courteous, a pause button not a chain. “There’s one thing I must show you, and then you can go.”

“I don’t-”

“Two steps,” he says. “I promise.”

You give him two steps. You tell yourself it’s because the door is right there and a promise is nothing; you tell yourself it’s because refusing would be a kind of kneeling of its own. He opens a narrow cupboard beside the exit and reveals a shallow drawer unit packed with neatly wound cords, spare microphones, small velvet pouches, candles; the practical guts of a service. He slides out one velvet pouch and pours its contents into his palm.

You expect jewelry. It’s a ring of keys. Ten, maybe twelve, on a dull metal circle. He lifts it so you can see.

“Every lock in this building,” he says. “Taehyung carries the other ring.”

“So?”

“So I am showing you that all doors open,” he answers. “We are not a prison. If you’re here again, and you need air, you take a key and go.” He closes his hand around the ring and tucks it back into the drawer. “I want you to know that.”

“You expect me to come back?”

“I am not strong enough to lie to you,” he says, and that sounds so nakedly true that you have to look away. The exit sign hums like a small, eager creature.

“When you said ‘only in her nearness,’” you begin, because you need a different subject, any subject that isn’t the heat still ghosting at your nape, “you meant- what did you mean?”

“That mercy listens to some people more closely than others,” he says. “You are one of those. I don’t argue with the way water falls.”

“I don’t want to be one of those.”

“Not wanting doesn’t change the falling.” His tone is so gentle it almost isn’t an answer.

You look at your hands again. You rub your palms together. The cold hangs on, stubborn as superstition. “I feel wrong.”

He studies you like the answer sits on your skin. “First warmth goes,” he says. “It returns. Usually.”

“Usually,” you echo. The word sits sharp in your mouth.

“May I ask you something?” he adds.

“No,” you say, surprised by your own refusal.

He accepts it with a nod that reads like respect instead of defeat. “Then I will say something instead.” He eases a fraction closer, stopping at a distance you could measure with your breath. “Earlier, when you tried to say your name, you looked like you were laying it down. As if it was heavier than the word itself.” He holds your gaze. “You don’t have to lay anything down to walk away. You can keep all of yourself and still step through that door.”

“Is that your doctrine? Keep myself, give you my temperature?”

His smile is quick, almost boyish, and then gone. “Doctrine bores me. I only care about the live part- the moment the world says no and then yes.”

“Namjoon seemed very doctrinal.”

“Namjoon cleans up after me,” he says, with affection that looks a lot like reliance. “He builds the road where my feet wandered.”

“And Taehyung?”

“Guards the road so no one shoves us off a cliff.” He glances toward the main room. “And Karina sings us not to sleep.”

The hall fills with a small procession of sound- shoes, whispers, a wheel on a cart squeaking as someone ferries the tea to the foyer. You catch Suzy’s voice again, closer now, coaxing, telling someone, “It’s time to go home,” as if homes can be reattached like limbs.

You rest your palm on the push bar. Cold metal, colder hand. “I’m leaving,” you say.

He looks at your fingers on the bar, not your eyes. When he lifts his gaze, it’s with a softness that shouldn’t be terrifying but is. “Only after your warmth returns,” he says. Not a command. Not a plea. An observation dressed like a future.

The words catch in your throat because you can feel- right now, in your bones- that he believes it. That he is already counting the hours like beads on a string. That he will not follow you out, not tonight, because he trusts the door to turn you into a wheel that circles back.

“Don’t wait for me,” you say.

“I won’t,” he answers, and the lie is tender enough to pass for prayer.

You push the bar. The door gives. Rain leans in with the confidence of an old friend. Outside, the street is washed thin of color- signs blurred to halos, the crosswalk a white rib cage. The storm has not let up. The bus stop down the block is a glossy ghost. A man in a hood jogs past and glances at you, then past you, toward the glowing marquee that still  reads EDEN REVIVAL with only the letters E V I L burning brighter than before, humming above the rain like a dare.

Behind you, a rise of voices swells and then dims as the door eases shut. You stand under the slanted awning a heartbeat longer than you should, waiting for your palms to warm. They don’t. The cold lives there like a tenant who knows the lease.

You tuck your hands into your pockets and step into the rain.

═══════

Morning leaks into your apartment like it’s forgotten how to knock.

Steam curls from the mug between your palms, but your hands don’t feel it. Your phone is vibrating again, a small persistent heartbeat on the table.

Someone has tagged you in a video.

You watch it because you think maybe it’s a mistake. The thumbnail shows the inside of the theater- the altar, the crowd, the child in his mother’s arms. And you, blurred but undeniable, standing at Jungkook’s side. The caption reads: THE MIRACLE OF THE FEVER.

You don’t press play, but the sound auto-starts anyway- cries, singing, his voice: Only in her nearness does God agree to be seen.

The clip ends on your face: frightened, back-lit, haloed by coincidence.

Underneath, comments spill like prayer beads.

she looks so calm

where is she now??

does anyone know her name

THE VESSEL???

You close the app. You delete it. It doesn’t matter. It’s already everywhere.

By evening, strangers are looking too long.

At the bodega, the cashier stares until the scanner beeps twice.

On the train, two women whisper and hide their phones when you meet their eyes. A child in a stroller points and says, “angel,” and his mother hushes him like he’s cursed.

You tell yourself it’s coincidence until the third day, when someone slides a folded note under your apartment door. Inside: a still frame from the clip and a line written in careful pen.

“You can heal my mother.”

That night, you pass the old theater on your way home. The street is thick with candles and cell-phone torches. The rain turns the light into liquid halos. You stay on the opposite side, half-hidden behind a newspaper stand, watching the procession drift by.

They sing softly. Your name folds into the hymn.

The hymn drifts into silence. Someone in the front of the crowd notices you across the street, points, and shouts your name. Heads turn, phones lift, the chant restarts. 

Then- chaos: an older man limps forward from the press of bodies, dragging one leg, face drawn tight with pain. He is crying, gasping, reaching toward you as if the air between you were rope.

“Please,” he says. “Just- touch. Please.”

You step back, but the crowd presses forward, expectant. It’s easier to give in than to cause a scene. You reach out. His fingers brush your sleeve.

He exhales like something leaving him. His limp eases. He stares down at his legs in shock. Around you, the air changes- the way it always does before people start believing too hard.

You pull your hand away. The cold rushes in again, sharper this time. Something vanishes inside you- a tiny, irreplaceable melody. You try to hum it under your breath and can’t remember the tune.

Others see the man straighten, his voice breaking with relief, and they surge forward- hands outstretched, desperate to touch your sleeve, your hair, the hem of your coat. Their joy sounds like panic. The press of them steals the street’s oxygen. You twist sideways, elbow through shoulders, and run until the song of your own name fades behind you.

═══════

The next day, you don’t go back to the theater. But behind its closed doors, Namjoon is already writing.

He sits at a long table with neat stacks of paper, translating the chaos into scripture. The heading reads: Doctrine of the Vessel’s Heart.

He writes:

The miracle flows through the chosen until the chosen forgets herself.

In forgetting, she becomes proof.

Karina hums in the corner, sewing white cloth for the altar, saying she wants your chair to “feel like air.”

Suzy brings tea she never drinks, eyes wide and tired, trying to form a warning she can’t speak aloud.

When Jungkook reads the draft, he underlines proof twice and says only, “She won’t like the title.”

Namjoon answers, “Names are never for the named.”

═══════

You try not to look at the new messages piling in. You unplug your phone, turn off the Wi-Fi, tell yourself this will pass.

Then, a soft knock at the door.

You think it’s the neighbor’s kid again.

It isn’t.

Three people kneel in the hallway- raincoats, candles in jars, eyes wet and shining. One is holding a photograph of a boy in a hospital bed. Another whispers, “We waited outside the church, they said you were gone.”

You tell them to stand up. They don’t.

You tell them you can’t help. They call it humility.

By the time you manage to shut the door, you can still hear them praying through the wood.

An hour later, another knock.

Lighter. Single. Familiar.

When you open it, Jungkook stands there, hood damp with rain, smile small and wrecked with relief.

“I was afraid they’d frighten you,” he says.

“They did.”

“I told them not to come.” He glances at the threshold like it’s sacred. “May I?”

You should say no but you step aside.

He doesn’t enter fully, just stands near the door, looking at your small kitchen, the half-lit candles on the counter from your own church. “You still pray,” he says.

“Not to you.”

“That’s good.” His smile grows faintly. “Faith should have teeth.”

“Why are you here, Jungkook?”

“To apologize.” He folds his hands, like he’s practicing what his followers do. “I didn’t know the burden would move this quickly. I thought we’d have more time before they began to need you.”

“They don’t need me. They need miracles.”

“You are the miracle.” He says it simply, as if naming weather again.

When you don’t answer, he adds, “I will carry the suffering, if you let me.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“It’s a vow.”

He steps closer, eyes soft and wild all at once. “You think boundaries keep you safe, but faith is larger than safety. Doubt is the shadow of pride, my love.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Then tell me what to call you.”

You open your mouth and realize you can’t remember if you’ve said your name aloud since that night. It sits on your tongue, foreign.

“I’m leaving the city,” you manage.

His gaze trembles, the first crack you’ve ever seen in him. “No,” he says gently. “No, not yet. Not until your warmth returns.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because I can feel the cold in you.” He lifts his hand- slow, asking without words- and for a second you think he’ll touch your face. He doesn’t. He just looks. “Let me carry it.”

“I don’t want you to.”

He lifts his hand- slow, asking without words- and his fingertips hover a hair’s breadth from your cheek. You can feel the warmth of them without contact, a phantom sun against your skin. His eyes are wet, unblinking, his voice almost breaking.

“You already are letting me,” he whispers.

You don’t mean to move closer, but you do. His hand slides in, palm cupping your jaw, thumb dragging softly over your bottom lip until your breath stutters. The space between you collapses- his mouth on yours before you can think, before you can breathe. The kiss is rougher than you expect, almost angry, like he’s punishing himself for wanting it this badly.

His other hand finds your waist, then lower- fingers pressing through fabric until you gasp against him. He drinks the sound like it’s a confession. You feel the tremor in his grip as he pulls you flush against his body, his mouth tracing down the corner of your jaw, the edge of your throat. You arch into him, his breath hot against your skin, his thumb drawing slow, dizzying circles over the spot that makes your knees weaken.

It’s too much and not enough all at once. He stops first, forehead pressed to yours, both of you shaking.

The air between you trembles, heavy with everything he doesn’t do.

You move past him, needing air. The hallway is full of candle smoke. It takes a moment to realize it’s not smoke- it’s breath. The followers have returned, filling the stairwell, heads bowed, knees to tile. A hundred small flames shimmer in their hands.

Jungkook steps behind you, his voice a quiet tide at your ear.

“My love,” he murmurs, not commanding this time, almost pleading,

“please, do not leave your altar.”

The light flickers. Your palms ache with cold. The city kneels.

═══════

I. The Light

The woman with the scarf over her eyes calls your name like it’s a shoreline. Her daughter guides her forward, careful, tender, terrified of hope. You stand near the altar but not upon it, because they insist you don’t need the height. Jungkook lifts a hand- not to you, to the crowd- and everything hushes as if you had put a palm over the city’s mouth.

“Look toward the light, mother,” he says gently. “Not at me.”

The scarf comes away. The woman’s eyes are cloudy glass, but not empty. She flinches at the brightness of the stage bulbs. At you.

“Shapes,” she whispers. “I see… shapes.”

The daughter sobs like laughter grew thorns. “She sees me,” she says to no one and everyone. “She sees me.”

Heat prickles your skin, then stops. The prickling is supposed to become shivering- your body’s way of coming back to itself. It doesn’t. The cold in your palms finally wins the argument and takes the rest. It slides up your arms and settles along your ribs like a careful cat.

Jungkook stays to your left, a shadow at the edge of vision, his attention fixed on the woman- no theatrics, no flourish. The choir holds a note that sounds like standing very still.

“Thank you,” the mother murmurs, eyes wide with the novelty of outline. She turns in small, careful increments, marking the edges of things as if learning the world again. “Thank you, angel.”

“Don’t,” you say, but you don’t say it out loud- the protest lives under your tongue. You try to rub your hands together. They refuse to remember warmth.

After, behind the white curtain, he waits for you. The private room is narrow, crowded with coats and steam, the kettle rattling soft on a hot plate. Karina has left a cup on the table- honey, clove, something floral- its steam drawing a phantom lace that evaporates before it reaches your face.

“You were quiet,” Jungkook says, not accusing, simply noticing. “I worried you were in pain.”

“I’m not in pain.”

“Not yet,” he answers, so softly you almost believe it’s kindness. He leans in- close enough to see that his certainty trembles at the edges- and lowers his voice like the two of you are conspiring against the rest of the room. “The light listened to you.”

“It listened to itself,” you say. “I’m just… nearby.”

He smiles, a small, fierce thing. “That is what doors do: they locate the rooms.”

When you reach for the cup, Taehyung is there first, setting it in your hands with a look that warns the rest of the world, no touching. A woman from the choir steps forward with a blanket- Jungkook’s gaze flicks, almost imperceptible, the warmth of his attention turning suddenly sharp. The woman pauses, cheeks flushing, and folds the blanket back onto a chair as if she had that intention all along.

Jungkook notices your notice and softens, that edge vanishing like a wince erased by a vow. “Forgive me,” he says. “You are not to be handled. You are to be held.”

“By whom?” you ask.

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. The kettle clicks off with a sound like a full stop.

That night, you discover the first loss in its true shape: warmth. Not coldness. The absence of ever returning to warm. You stand by your apartment radiator until the metal sweats, press your palms to it, and feel nothing change. You stop shivering because your body has forgotten it can.

You sleep under three blankets and wake without the memory of dreams.

═══════

II. The Stillness

A man whose hands flutter like moths waits in the third row, knuckles tapping a frantic music on the arms of his chair. He can’t bear strangers, he told the usher. He can’t bear quiet, either. The world has been a drum for years.

“Just sit near her,” someone says, and he looks at you with the particular hope of those who have tried everything and found the bottom of the bag.

You sit. He sits. Jungkook doesn’t touch either of you.

“Breathe with her,” he tells the man. “Match her pace.”

You breathe. The man tries. On the fourth attempt, his fingers slow to a tremor you could count with your eyes. On the seventh, they go still like a small bird deciding to trust a hand.

“Do you feel it?” Jungkook asks him.

The man blinks, because the sudden lack of noise inside his bones is as startling as a shout. Tears leap out and go searching down the curve of his cheeks. “I can hear,” he says, stunned, like the quiet is sound. “I can hear nothing.”

The room applauds, then remembers itself and hurries the sound back into cupped hands. Someone says, “God is efficient,” like a joke you’re not sure how to answer.

Inside you, another subtraction. This one delicate as paper: voice. Not your voice entirely. But volume leaves you, as if it had errands elsewhere. When you try to speak after, your words arrive as whispers, gentle even when you mean them to be hard.

“Try not to speak for the rest of the night,” Namjoon advises, eyes tender with a physician’s distance. He scribbles vocals fatigued- rest like he’s noting the weather.

“Is this permanent?” you whisper.

“Nothing is permanent,” he replies. “That is what makes it holy.”

Backstage, a volunteer reaches for your wrist to help steady you from the chair and Jungkook is there faster, not angry, only absolute. He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to.

“She’s steady with me,” he tells the volunteer, and no one in the room would think to contradict a sentence said in that tone. The volunteer retreats with a smile that asks to be forgiven for what he didn’t do.

“Jealous?” you whisper when the room thins to only the two of you and a humming light.

He flinches like you’d placed a candle too close to his skin. “Protective,” he says.

“Of me?”

“Of what uses you,” he answers, eyes flooding with gratitude so open it hurts. “I’ve seen grace wasted on spectacle. I won’t let them crowd you as if God were a bus.”

You laugh. It comes out air. He smiles like the sound counts anyway.

That night you try to hum your favorite song while you wash dishes and find the melody is a hallway you cannot step into. Your throat shapes the first bar and emptiness answers back. The quiet presses your ribs like a binding. You realize that appetite for self isn’t hunger; it’s the list of small proofs that you are you. You stand there with wet hands and no song, trying to remember whether your favorite color was green or blue or the wrong kind of red. You can’t decide. You might never have known.

═══════

III. The Hymn

Grief breathes on a Thursday.

A woman in a black coat arrives with a receipt from a funeral home folded into quarters and tucked into her palm like a talisman. Her face is the map people wear after the worst has happened- a careful arrangement of ordinary expression, a door bolted against flood.

“Please,” she says, and the word is so tired it could sleep standing up. “I can’t do another morning like this.”

Jungkook doesn’t ask for details. He nods her into a chair near the front and nods you into the one beside her. The choir opens a soft, wordless sound. The woman presses the receipt flat between her hands as if preparing an altar from paper.

“Look at her,” Jungkook tells the woman, meaning you. “Tell her what you cannot say to God.”

The woman hesitates. Then the words spill- the small indecencies of grief that polite people never confess: that she hates the casseroles, that she wants the sound of his keys at the door so much she can’t stand the sight of her own door, that strangers’ pity feels like theft, that she is furious at sleep for coming without dreams.

You listen. You put your hand near hers on the arm of the chair, not touching, only near, so she can reach if she decides to. She doesn’t. She talks until her face finally remembers how to fold, and when the fold comes it’s not collapse- it’s breath. A tight thing lets go. It’s horror and it’s mercy at once.

Jungkook remains a step away, looking like a man who has watched rain reach a field.

“Thank you,” the woman says at last, exhausted and surprised by the relief. “I thought I’d drown inside my throat.”

“You learned to swim,” Jungkook says.

“Swimming is still drowning,” she replies, and the choir answers with a chord quiet as agreement.

You stand, and the subtraction wells up, so gentle you almost miss it. Sleep. Not fatigue; that, you have in abundance. But the bridge between waking and dreaming- gone. That night and the next and the next after, you close your eyes and find only a blank room where your mind used to perform the small necessary miracles of repair. Morning comes and you are exactly as tired as you were.

Karina writes you a hymn.

She says she took the key from your speaking voice, back when you could pitch a sentence higher on a question. She spreads the pages on the piano and pats the bench with the brave smile of someone offering a gift they believe might save a life.

“It’s yours,” she says. “It’s you.”

You try to sing it. Your mouth obeys. Your throat does what throats do. But the sound that leaves you doesn’t belong. It’s clean. It’s accurate. It’s perfectly placed. It isn’t you.

Karina’s eyes shine with awe and confusion, as if the notes have become mirrors that keep reflecting someone else. She plays slower, then faster, trying to catch what she lost, until finally she lives at the tempo the hymn insists upon. “It’s beautiful,” she says, sounding like a person apologizing for telling the truth.

“It doesn’t sound like me,” you whisper.

Jungkook stands in the doorway, listening no louder than a breath. His gaze is steady and tender and unblinking. “God has found the right pitch,” he says.

You feel an urge to correct him- a ridiculous urge, like telling the ocean it has mispronounced itself. You swallow the urge. Your voice breaks around it and becomes air.

Later, as people file past to press their hands to the stage and leave slips of paper with names and needs, a young volunteer offers you a shawl. Jungkook’s hand ghosts the air near your shoulder- no touch, only a soft declaration that there will be no other hands where his hover.

“Let them,” you whisper, not sure who you’re begging for. “Please.”

“They have you when I have you,” he answers, a terrible honesty spoken like prayer. “There is no scarcity in the heart that is emptied.”

Karina begins the hymn again from the top, playing it this time without you. The notes fill the sanctuary and you stand beside them like a stranger listening through a door. You try to remember the color you painted your first apartment. You try to remember the shape of your signature without a pen in your hand. You try to remember if you remember the taste of peaches in June. The answers come back thin as tracing paper.

Jungkook watches you with the devotion of a believer who has finally been given a relic warm from a saint’s body. He says, softly enough that only you and whatever lives in the space between you can hear:

“Every yes costs. I am counting with you.”

You nod because you cannot afford a no. Somewhere in the foyer, Suzy is pouring tea she cannot make her hands carry toward you. Somewhere in the office, Namjoon is writing a line that will feel inevitable later. Somewhere outside, the rain returns, punctual as need.

And there you are at the center of it, steady as a candle that has forgotten it is fire.

═══════

Namjoon reads as if he’s measuring each word against a scale. The sanctuary is half-lit, the rain steady, the congregation small enough to look like a secret and large enough to feel like a verdict. He stands at the lectern with his tidy pages and says:

“A vessel is holy in emptiness.”

The sentence lands in you like a diagnosis.

Around you, a soft murmur- agreement, awe, the rustle of people adjusting themselves to a new shape of truth. Jungkook stands beside the aisle, head bowed, eyes lifted. He looks pleased, and something else- like hearing his own pulse too loudly in his ear.

Namjoon continues, “Her silence is not absence but resonance. The more she is hollowed, the more clearly God echoes through her. We, witnesses, must not crowd the echo.”

A few hands lift in something halfway between applause and prayer. You do not lift your hands. You press them together and note, like a clerk in your own body, that they still won’t warm.

“Thank you,” Namjoon says softly. “We’ll post the text later. For now- quiet prayers, then dismissal.” His gaze flicks toward you and away, a courteous avoidance that feels like a signature.

After, as people drift- shoes on white runner, whispers threading the air- Jungkook catches your sleeve with nothing but his voice.

“Stay,” he says.

You pretend you didn’t hear.

“Just a moment,” he adds, gentler. “I want to show you something.”

Taehyung is already guiding the last of the lingerers toward the doors. Karina extinguishes votives with a practiced breath. Namjoon stacks his pages, aligning corners until it looks like obedience. The sanctuary thins to scaffolding- light, wires, the altar’s pale geometry, the echo of your own steps.

“Where?” you ask.

“The small room,” he says. “Where we keep our promises.”

You almost smile. You don’t.

He leads you down the side corridor to the narrow space with the kettle, the card table, the Polaroids pinned in an uneven grid. He closes the door, not all the way- just enough to hush the building.

“Before you refuse,” he says, and his hands are empty, open, patient, “look.”

From a drawer he lifts a length of silk ribbon. Not white, not red. A tender gray, the color of fog before sun. He places it on the table between you like a harmless thing.

“It’s not for holding,” he says. “It’s for remembering.”

“I remember too much already.”

“I know.” He smiles, sorrowed and proud. “That’s what makes you strong.”

“Strong isn’t what I feel.”

“Then let me lend you mine.”

You look at the ribbon. It would be nothing to turn and go. The door is cracked. The hall is only a step away. But you don’t leave, because leaving in the middle of a sentence feels like a lie and you were raised to finish what you start.

“What happens?” you ask.

“Words,” he says. “And a knot that undoes with a breath.”

He takes a careful half-step closer, stopping where your pulse can hear his. “May I-” He doesn’t finish. He waits. The waiting is the touch.

“Fine,” you whisper. It emerges soft, a confession that isn’t.

He lifts your left hand, not with possession but with ceremony, as if taking it from a bowl of water. The silk slides around your wrist, cool as the inside of a church. He loosely wraps it once, then threads the end through, leaving the knot fat and foolish, a knot that wants to be undone.

He ties his own wrist, mirror to yours, and links the ribbons with a single, slack loop. Nothing pulls. If you lifted your hand and walked to the door, the loop would open and fall like a shed snakeskin.

“It’s practice,” he says. “Choice, spoken out loud where both of us can hear it.”

“I already chose to stay,” you answer.

“You chose to wait. That isn’t the same.” His eyes search yours for argument and find only tiredness. “Repeat after me?”

“You’ll do it anyway.”

“I won’t,” he says, quick, honest. “I can’t bear to hear you say no.”

You almost say it then, to prove you still can. Instead you breathe.

“Say: I am open, not owned,” he murmurs.

Your mouth resists. The words feel like walking barefoot across a floor you mopped too clean. “I am… open,” you manage, a rasp. “Not owned.”

He closes his eyes. The relief that crosses his face is indecently tender. “Again.”

“I am open, not owned.”

He nods once, as if you’ve steadied something in him. His voice lowers, private. “Say: I consent to be witnessed, not used.”

“I consent… to be witnessed,” you whisper. “Not used.”

“And: I keep my name.”

You flinch. Your name sits in your throat like glass. “I keep my name.”

“Good,” he says, the word almost breaking. His hand hovers an inch from your cheek, warmth without touch. “You keep your name.”

The room is so quiet you can hear the paper Polaroids curl against their pins. He tugs his wrist gently and the loop between you slackens.

“This isn’t surrender,” you say.

“It is trust,” he answers. “And trust often looks like surrender to those who watch from far away.”

The air holds still between you, thick with unspoken things. His freed hand drifts along your wrist, tracing the ghost of the ribbon’s mark. You feel it everywhere at once- the quiet pulse under your skin, the tremor of breath shared in the small space between your mouths.

When he leans in, it isn’t hunger but devotion. His lips find the hollow of your throat, the corner of your jaw, the place just beneath your ear that makes you shiver. It’s slow, almost ceremonial- touch offered like prayers, returned like faith.

You tilt your head, giving him space, permission. His mouth opens against your skin, warmer now, reverent still but edged with wanting. His tongue follows the line his lips trace, and when you whisper his name it sounds more like a vow than a plea.

“Okay?” he asks quietly, the question folded between each kiss.

You nod, and then again when he pulls back to see your face. “Yes,” you breathe.

He exhales like he’s been holding that yes inside him for years. His hands find your hips, resting there first, the weight of them grounding rather than taking. The world narrows- his breath on your collarbone, your fingers ghosting over the hem of his shirt. You lift it up, feeling his heartbeat under your palms, feeling your own answer in the shake of your fingers.

When his mouth meets yours, it’s soft but certain. He tastes like relief, like the quiet after a storm. His tongue parts your lips slowly, asking, never assuming, until you meet him there. The kiss deepens, still careful, but charged with something that hums low and alive.

He draws you closer until your thighs brush. You feel him, hard and patient, restrained like every other part of him- wanting, but not rushing. You subconsciously roll your hips once, and he groans into your mouth, the sound catching at the edge of reverence.

His hand slides under your shirt, fingertips tracing the curve of your spine. When you arch into him, it’s almost a choice. When he slips the fabric higher, it’s a question answered in how you lift your arms.

The room hums with fluorescent quiet: faint buzzing light, the smell of tea gone cold, and the soft scrape of your back against the edge of the table when he presses you down. His fingers hook behind your knees, guiding you to sit at the table’s edge.

The silk between you slides when you shift. It’s an anchor, not a restraint- an unspoken reminder of what you’re giving, and what he’s honoring.

He kisses your mouth like it’s sacred, like he’s memorizing the shape of every yes you’ve ever given him. You taste the question in the way he parts your lips and you answer with the softest sound in your throat.

His free hand drags up your thigh- slow and sure. When he reaches the hem of your skirt, he looks up at you once more, asking silently. You nod, and he exhales, pressing a kiss to your wrist before sliding his fingers higher

The first touch makes your whole body stutter. He’s gentle, tracing circles through the thin fabric before pushing it aside, finding the heat that’s been waiting for him. His fingers stroke your clit lightly, then deeper, learning the rhythm of your breathing, the way you whisper his name like a confession.

His thumb presses firmer, his other hand gripping the table beside your hip as he sinks to his knees. The air shifts- holy becomes hungry. His breath ghosts over you, and then his mouth replaces his fingers, slow and deliberate.

You feel every wordless promise in the way his tongue moves against you- unhurried, reverent. Each motion feels learned from you, shaped by your breathing, by the quiet sound that leaves your throat when he finds exactly where your body wants him most. The rhythm builds gently, almost careful, as if he’s tracing the idea of devotion into you one stroke at a time.

Your thighs start to tremble, not from effort but from how close you are, from how thoroughly he’s undoing you. The ribbon between your wrists creaks softly each time you flex, a delicate reminder of the space you’ve chosen to give him. The silk shifts, brushing your skin, catching light as your hands tighten.

He hums against you- low, quiet, a sound that vibrates through your bones and turns breath into something weightless. The sensation rolls through you like a prayer finding its answer. 

When he finally stands, his mouth is wet, eyes darker than before. He kisses you through the ache of it- open, messy, reverent. His hands move to the button of his pants but stop when you reach for him first, still bound, still offering.

He guides himself to you, brushing the head against your dripping cunt. “Tell me,” he says, voice low and careful.

“Please,” you breathe.

He presses in slow. The stretch steals your breath, the ribbon tightens again between your wrists as you brace against his chest. Each push feels like a promise, each pull like a prayer. The table creaks under you, your skin slick where it meets his.

He moves slowly at first, controlled, watching your face with something close to awe. When you start meeting his rhythm, he loses the battle to stay quiet. His groans mix with the sounds of your body against his, the faint slap of skin and silk and breath.

“Still okay?” he rasps.

You nod, the words breaking apart. “More- please-”

He gives you more. Not faster, but deeper- each movement deliberate, a steady claiming that feels like he’s learning the shape of you from the inside out. Every thrust unravels another breath from your lungs, and every exhale catches on his name. The sound of your bodies meeting is quiet but insistent, a heartbeat that belongs to both of you.

The ribbon slides between you, soft friction marking each motion, tracing your movements like a living pulse. You can feel it everywhere- the silk against your wrists, his breath against your cheek, the table beneath you trembling in rhythm with his thrusts.

When your orgasm finally hits you, it isn’t a single sound but a series of them- soft, broken, real. The kind of sound that makes the world tilt, that carries every unspoken thing you’ve been afraid to say. He catches it with his mouth, swallowing the end of it like a promise.

He follows soon after, a quiet, strangled sound escaping him as he buries his face against your shoulder. His breath stutters there, warm and uneven, and you feel the tremor in his arms as he holds you through the aftershocks.

For a long moment neither of you move. The ribbon rests slack between your wrists now, more symbol than restraint. The light hums overhead, and the air smells faintly of coffee, sweat, and something cleaner- something like devotion, like trust that’s been made physical.

Then, he lifts the ribbon with his free hand and breathes on the knot. It loosens. He does the same to yours. The silk slithers away, leaving the faintest blush around your skin, a red half-moon that looks like a thought. He lays the ribbon back on the table with a reverence that feels out of scale to the object.

“You see?” he says. “No one keeps you.”

You swallow. “Except expectation.”

His eyes brighten, that dangerous, beautiful flare of recognition when you say a truth he can use. “Expectation is a kind of faith,” he says. “It believes in the future more than fear does.”

“And fear keeps people alive.”

“Faith makes them more than alive.” He pauses. “It makes them ready.”

“For what?”

“For whatever mercy asks.”

He steps back then, as if remembering a rule. The space he makes is measurable. You could draw it with a pencil. “I’m done,” he says, so softly the room might miss it. “Thank you for letting me be near you.”

You reach for the door. It opens on the first press- no drama, no trick. The corridor breathes. You breathe with it.

Halfway down the hall, a shadow detaches from the doorway to Mercy. Suzy. Her hair is pinned badly, like she put it up while running. She glances over her shoulder to no one and then slides toward you, the way people move when they’ve decided to betray something and hope it can be forgiven later.

“Take this,” she says, voice beneath a whisper. She fits a subway card into your palm, folding your fingers over it with both of hers. “It still runs. East platform. Second train after nine. Don’t take the first. They watch it.”

Your heart begins counting in threes. “Suzy-”

“Don’t thank me,” she says, panicked at the thought of gratitude. “Just don’t look back. And don’t go straight to the turnstile. There’s a stair by the florist and-” She stops herself before directions make her braver than she feels. “Go now.”

You nod. You hide the card up your sleeve, prayer-quick. Her hands hover, wanting to fix your hair, your coat, your whole fate but they fall. “I’ll pray for you,” she says.

“Pray for yourself,” you manage, and the ghost of a smile finds both your mouths.

The outer corridor yawns toward the exit. The green sign hums. You move faster than your breath. The building around you is busy with quiet chores- stacking chairs, coiling cords, Karina’s piano reduced to scales- but the door ahead looks like a door, nothing more, a square of ordinary freedom.

A small shape steps into your path.

He’s taller now only because he stands straight. The boy from the fever clip grips a paper candle on a chopstick- arts-and-crafts flame wobbling in a draft. His cheeks are pink with the smug miracle of being well. He beams up at you, already calling your name before he reaches you.

“You made me better,” he says, voice bright as a bell rung indoors.

You stop so hard your thoughts bump into your ribs. “Your mother- are you-”

“She sleeps,” he reports solemnly, proud of her sleep like a badge. “I don’t burn anymore.” He leans in, the way children do when their gratitude is bigger than their size, and presses his forehead to your coat for a single, thoughtless second.

It’s nothing. Less than touch. A star light, gone. But the hollowness swells in your chest as if that star took a planet with it. You feel the subtraction and cannot name what left you. A color? A scent? The word for the sound sneakers make on wet tile? You can’t tell. You only know there is more room than there was.

“Thank you,” he says again, as if your silence were modesty.

Behind him, in the sanctuary, someone begins tidying the hymn sheets. The door breathes a little sigh against its frame. Far beneath the city, a train gives one of those long, indifferent moans that mean now.

You look down at the boy. You look up at the EXIT sign. You think of Suzy’s finger pressing the subway card into your palm. You think of Jungkook’s breath on the knot. You think of Namjoon’s sentence, clean and cold as a blade: A vessel is holy in emptiness.

“Go to your mother,” you whisper. “Tell her… tell her to keep the windows open.”

He nods like that’s a normal instruction. He runs, paper flame bobbing.

You take one step. Another. The bar is under your palm, its metal polite, steady. You could push. You could burn the card’s strip with friction and be on the east platform in nine minutes if the lights are kind.

From the corridor behind you, low and blurred by distance, Jungkook’s voice begins to pray your name. Not loud. Not public. A private blessing sent to find you in the seam between staying and leaving.

═══════

Night is a low bell. You move beneath it with the subway card hidden up your sleeve, your breath counting the wet blocks to the station. Storefronts hawk their reflections to empty sidewalks- the broken marquee over the theater hums behind you like a memory you haven’t earned. Rain peels the city down to light and sound- sirens far away, a neon pharmacy sign blinking like a tired eye.

You don’t look back.

Stairs drop you into the subway’s throat. It’s late enough for the turnstiles to click like metronomes, for the vending machine’s bright options to look absurd beside a map of all the places you could be. You slide the card. The reader chirps. A green arrow approves your exit from your life.

“Wait,” a voice says from the pillar.

Taehyung steps into moth-blue light, umbrella dripping, suit jacket darkened where the rain insisted. He doesn’t block the turnstile. He stands just to the side, like a comma.

“I’m just catching a train,” you say, and your whisper makes you sound guilty.

“I know.” He shrugs one shoulder toward the tracks. “Eastbound’s slow after midnight.”

“I don’t need help.”

“I’m not here to help.” He gives a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m here to fail at stopping you.”

You hesitate. “Then why speak?”

“Because you’ll hate me if I don’t.” He taps the umbrella lightly against his shoe, a drummer keeping time. “I tried to run once,” he says, voice dropping so the station won’t hear. “Bridge over the river, winter, ugly wind. I wasn’t planning anything dramatic. Just… less.” He glances at your sleeve, as if he can see the square of plastic burning your wrist. “Jungkook found me half in, half out.”

“What did he say?”

“That I was a poor swimmer,” Taehyung answers, a huff of something like laughter. “And that drowning is inefficient.” His gaze lifts to yours, steady, soft. “He saved me. I don’t even believe in salvation.”

“You believe in him.”

“I believe in keeping him standing.” The umbrella ticks once, a water-drop metronome. “He will destroy himself if you disappear.”

“That isn’t my burden.”

“It will feel like love anyway,” he says, and for the first time his voice fractures. “I can’t tell you not to go. I won’t touch you.” He backs a step, palms visible. “But you’ll come back. Or he’ll find you. It’s what devotion does.”

You stare at him. “Move,” you say.

He moves. You pass. “Take the second train,” he calls softly. “The first looks like freedom.”

You don’t answer. You hurry down the stairs, the tile sweating with old water, the platform opening like a concrete shore. A few scattered figures keep their islands- night workers, a girl in a yellow coat asleep into her backpack, a man reading a paperback about stars. You can taste metal. The third rail hums.

A wind builds in the tunnel. The first train arrives harsh and bright, doors opening on a flock of empty seats. You let it sigh shut and go, your heart learning a new kind of patience. You pace the yellow line and count five bulbs in the ceiling that flicker out of time. In the soot-black mirror of the tunnel, your silhouette looks like a question.

The second wind rises. Lights bend in the distance. You stand your ground.

“Beloved.”

The word is small and enormous at once.

He is on the far end of the platform, breathless and drenched, as if the rain followed him down. Jungkook’s hair is plastered to his forehead; a dark seam cuts his lower lip where he must have stumbled. His hands shake. He looks like a man who ran a prayer all the way from the throat to the tongue and found it waiting on the floor.

“Don’t,” you say, your voice frayed and fragile but still yours. “Don’t call me-”

“I couldn’t breathe,” he says, as if explaining why breathing again might be a crime. “I tried, I did. I told myself you were air and air is everywhere. It wasn’t true.” He takes a step toward you. It isn’t a preacher’s step. It’s a person’s.

“You’re bleeding,” you whisper.

He lifts two fingers to the cut on his lip as if surprised to find his own body insisting on the scene. “It doesn’t hurt when you’re near,” he says, and the hope in it is unbearable. “Please. Please.”

The second train shudders into the station, lights strobing the tiled walls. Doors open with an obedient chime. No one gets out. No one gets in. The car waits, patient as a held breath.

“Go home,” you manage. “I’m not-” You try to say yours. Your voice bends and splinters around the word.

He closes the distance as if walking into weather. Not fast. Not dramatic. Simply inevitable. When he stops in front of you, he is trembling hard enough that it looks cold-blooded, like an animal warmed too quickly.

“I love you,” he says. He says it like he’s telling you where the emergency exits are. “I love you. I know that makes the doctrine worse. I know love is a kind of blade when it walks into holiness. But it was true before I could name it.”

You shake your head. “You love what I do.”

“I love that you keep saying no to me.” He smiles and it breaks his face in the sweetest way. “I love the way your hands won’t warm and you refuse to pretend. I love that you stood in my storm and called it weather. I love-” He swallows, and the next words are so soft the tracks lean in to hear them. “-the sound of you when you say my name by not saying it.”

The car’s chime tings again, patient as a saint. Doors still open. Your feet don’t move.

“You were chosen before breath,” he says. “I felt it like a pressure in my chest before I had words. I don’t know what the choosing means, only that it keeps me alive.”

“Jungkook.” Your voice is threadbare, pulling apart. “Please let me go.”

His hand lifts- slow, asking, visible. This time he doesn’t hover. His fingertips touch your cheek with a heat you hadn’t realized you missed. He is careful, as if you’re made of a better glass than he is. The contact is an admission: I am asking you for something I can’t deserve.

“Don’t,” you say, but the syllable fails. It splashes on the tile and vanishes.

He bends, barely, a motion so small the security camera could call it light changing. His mouth finds yours like a blessing finds its object- reverent, shaking, not greedy. The kiss is brief and it is endless. It takes nothing and takes everything: the way some doors open just by being looked at, the way a body becomes an altar when someone kneels without touching the floor.

A current moves. You feel it as a soft collapse inside you, a warm thread unwinding from your center and spooling into him. The cut on his lip cools beneath your skin. When he draws back, the blood is gone. His breathing is even. His shake eases to a shiver and then to stillness.

“You,” he says, wonder-struck and terrified at once, fingers rising to touch the healed place, “what did you-”

You try to answer and your voice breaks like a reed in wind. Air comes out. No word rides it. You press your fingers to your throat as if you could remind it of its job. Silence answers, faithful and complete.

His eyes flood. Not with triumph but with horror at his own relief. “No,” he whispers. “No, forgive me-” He looks at your mouth like it is the first and last language he ever learned and he has damaged it. “I didn’t mean to take. I only meant-” He can’t finish. The word love seems to warn him now, a bright edge.

The train doors begin to close. He flinches like a door himself, half-open, afraid of the draft.

You step back. He reaches- only air- then remembers the vow he made to your no and lowers his hand like a pen finishing a sentence. The doors meet. Glass reflects the two of you- two figures in a station that looks like a chapel wearing concrete. The car exhales and lurches forward, pulling a sound from the tunnel like a low organ note.

Jungkook stands very still. Water shines off his jaw. He says your name once, softly, the syllables more breath than music. The tunnel takes it and makes it plural, echoing it down the long throat until even the echo has no voice.

You turn toward the stairs. Behind you, the platform glows faintly, the air still trembling from the train’s departure. Through the glass of the closing doors, you glimpse him standing where you left him- soaked, motionless, touching his healed mouth as if testing whether the miracle was worth the wound.

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You come back.

You tell yourself it’s to collect the rest of your things, to speak once more to Suzy, to end it properly.

But the truth sits smaller and sharper behind your ribs- you came back because the silence on the train was too complete. You came back because something inside you still answers when Jungkook prays your name.

The theatre is unrecognizable.

The banners have changed- THE GREAT PROOF spelled in fonts that glimmer like wet metal. Drones drift in lazy ellipses above the stage, each carrying a halo of light. The seats are wired with live-stream cameras; the air smells like electricity and roses. Namjoon paces near the lectern, murmuring into a headset. Karina tests the microphones, her voice a clean bell, precise as surgery. Taehyung adjusts a camera’s focus, glancing at you once without surprise.

“You came,” Jungkook says when he finds you in the doorway. He doesn’t ask why. His smile breaks like sunrise over something flammable. “You always were meant to.”

Your voice doesn’t answer. It hasn’t recovered; it moves only inside your throat, a dry whisper. You nod.

He touches your elbow lightly- contact that feels more like recognition than permission- and leads you toward the stage. “Tonight,” he says, “they will see.”

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The lights dim at eight.

A hush drops over the crowd like a curtain.

Karina begins the hymn she wrote for you.

Its first chord is a held breath, the second a tremor in the floor. Her voice threads upward, joined by the choir, then the drums, then the flood of amplification until the sound presses against your skin like wind from the inside out. Drones pivot, catching faces tilted toward awe. The projection screen behind the altar blooms with your image: pale, still, ringed with light.

Jungkook steps forward. The microphone kisses his mouth. “Brothers and sisters,” he says, “mercy listens tonight. It will not wait for permission.”

Applause, a ripple that becomes a tide.

He turns to you. “Stand with me.”

Your body obeys. He takes your hand, lifts it high. “The Vessel’s Heart,” Namjoon’s voice announces from the side lectern, smooth as ritual. “Through whom mercy verifies itself.”

The crowd roars. Phones rise like a thousand tiny candles.

The first supplicant comes forward- a woman on crutches, her eyes wide with unshed apologies. Jungkook lays his hand above her crown; you feel the pull begin, gentle at first, then hungry. Heat leaves you. Light fills her. She cries out. The crutches fall, clattering across the stage like punctuation. The crowd explodes.

Another.

A man with tremors.

Another.

A child whose breathing rattles like a jar of coins.

Each one steadies as you sway. Each miracle stitches another hole in the crowd and tears one in you.

The noise becomes a pulse.

The tinnitus starts- thin, high, faithful.

It hums the melody of Karina’s hymn but out of key, a counterfeit inside your skull.

“Enough,” you whisper. The word dies in your mouth, eaten by feedback.

Jungkook doesn’t hear you. His voice surges, bright and terrible. “Watch what faith makes of flesh!” he cries. “Watch what love leaves behind!”

The lights bloom white. You smell ozone. You can’t feel your fingertips.

The woman with the crutches begins to sing without words. Others join. The sound is beautiful until it isn’t- until it vibrates the edges of your sight into static.

“Stop,” you mouth.

Karina’s voice sails above the chaos, unwavering. Suzy, at the edge of the stage, covers her mouth with both hands, her eyes glassing over. “Please,” she whispers to no one, to everyone. “She’s breaking.”

Your knees give out.

The crowd gasps.

Jungkook’s hand is suddenly under your chin, gentle, determined, his smile bright enough to pass for grace. “It’s working,” he says, half to himself, half to the cameras.

You fall into his arms as the drones swing closer, lenses whirring, halos flickering.

Someone in the audience screams, “It’s a miracle!”

Someone else, “Don’t stop!”

The sound swells until you can’t tell if it’s worship or panic.

Karina doesn’t stop singing.

When you wake, the stage lights have cooled to amber.

Your throat burns; every breath feels secondhand. The noise has faded to a single tone, high and constant, like the world holding its own breath.

You blink. The air tastes like static. The faces leaning over you- Karina, Suzy, Namjoon, maybe strangers- slide in and out of focus until they stop meaning anything at all. Eyes without edges, mouths without names. The shapes move but don’t cohere.

Only Jungkook stays intact. The line of his jaw, the curve of his hand, the shadow under his mouth. The rest of the world looks painted in fog, but he remains like a word carved into light.

“You saw,” he whispers. “They all saw.”

You can’t answer. You can’t even guess how long you’ve been lying there. A minute, an hour, a lifetime. Time folds flat as paper, without distance between moments. You feel both still onstage and already gone, stretched thin across whatever came after.

Something has been taken again, but you’re too far from yourself to mourn it. You remember Jungkook. Nothing else holds.

Namjoon steps into the light, script in hand, voice steady. “Brothers and sisters,” he says, “the proof has been witnessed.”

He pauses for the silence that follows, long enough for the audience to understand they are still inside a story.

“Now,” he continues, spreading his hands, calm as a surgeon preparing an incision, “we begin the culminating ritual.”

His eyes find yours.

“The Opening of the Vessel.”

The crowd exhales a sound that isn’t applause- it’s hunger.

Jungkook’s hand tightens just slightly where it rests over your heart. You feel it- not pressure, but permission.

The screens show your face twenty feet tall. Your image trembles under the lights, half saint, half ghost.

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The sanctuary waits where it began- silent, patient, lit by a hundred small flames that don’t remember being lit.

The air smells of melted wax and ironed linen. Dawn filters through the ruined marquee, pale as breath on glass. The old seats are gone- only the altar remains, draped in white.

Jungkook stands above you in the same place he once offered you tea and words. He wears no shoes. His hands are clean. His eyes are not. They shine the way wounds do before scarring.

Namjoon kneels beside him, reading in a low rhythm: “A vessel is holy in emptiness.”

The sentence lands without echo.

Karina hums the hymn she wrote for you, but lower now, slower, its melody warped by exhaustion. It sounds like something that crawled out of a dream.

Taehyung moves methodically through the aisles, lighting candles in glass bowls of water. The flames shiver with each of his footsteps. The air quivers as if made of thin skin.

Jungkook turns toward you. “We began here,” he says. “So mercy will too.”

You try to speak, but your tongue feels foreign, too large for its home. You only nod.

Namjoon dips his fingers into a brass bowl and pours water over your hands. It is cold, metallic, and faintly pink.

“Purified,” he murmurs. “Hollowed.”

Karina lifts something from a linen cloth- a crown of glass. The light catches on its edges until each point gleams like a frozen tear. She sets it on your head. The weight is delicate but certain. You feel it hum against your skull, as though remembering how to be alive.

Candle smoke thickens. It threads into your lungs, into your breath, a liturgy written in carbon. You taste wax and salt and something too sweet to be incense.

Jungkook kneels. He takes your hands in his, pressing his mouth to your knuckles, whispering between each kiss.

“They will know,” he says. “You were the proof. You are the promise.”

“Jungkook-” It’s barely a rasp.

He looks up. His pupils have gone wide, swallowing the light. “Don’t be afraid,” he says softly. “It’s just the world leaving you.”

You want to believe him. You do. But something in his face- the wideness of his pupils, the reverence that looks too much like grief- makes your chest twist. For a moment, you think of running, of closing your hands around the air and taking it with you. Then he breathes your name, and trust returns like reflex, cruel and automatic.

Namjoon’s voice rises.

Karina joins him, her tone trembling, hymn and scripture tangling.

Outside, the city answers.

Lights flicker in the towers beyond the windows. Sirens swell, cut, return. Streetlamps burst one by one. A dog begins to howl. Someone miles away shouts a name that could be yours, could be anyone’s.

The water in the bowls ripples. The flames bend toward you as though listening.

Your memories begin to fall apart gently, politely- first the grocery store, then the smell of rain, then the confession that started all this. The faces go next, soft dissolves on a film reel: your mother, Suzy, Karina’s eyes, Taehyung’s smile. Gone.

You blink and the world resets to one face.

Jungkook.

He’s crying now- real tears, clean lines down his cheeks. “It’s working,” he says through his sobs. “You’re almost free.”

You open your mouth to tell him you don’t want to be free, but the words break before sound. You feel something slide out of you- a final warmth, a final knowing. It leaves as light leaves a room.

The candles flare white as the city’s grid dies all at once, plunging everything beyond the walls into dark- the sanctuary glows alone, the last light in a swallowed world.

The hymn stops. Namjoon closes his book. His voice is calm. “It is done.”

You collapse forward. Jungkook catches you, lowering you to the altar as if setting down scripture. The crown slips sideways, one shard breaking loose and falling with a chime like glass teeth.

He leans close, whispering through his tears, “Do you know me?”

You open your eyes. You don’t know his name, or your own, or what a name is supposed to mean- but you recognize him the way a flame recognizes air. You know him deeply, instinctively, like remembering warmth after death. You nod.

“Good,” he breathes. “You’re home.”

Your chest rises once, twice. The smoke gathers, curling over both of you, thick enough to hide the ruin of the crown, the hands clasped together, the stillness of everything after.

He touches your cheek, trembling, reverent. The air stops moving. The smoke folds inward, a tide reversing.

The light presses close until there is no room left for thought, only knowing. And in that stillness, where the world forgets itself, something vast exhales through your ribs- slow, patient, endless.

You realize it isn’t God listening. It’s you.

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JKWRITOBER ♡ MASTERLIST ♡ a03 ♡ explanation

♡ requests are welcome ♡ taglist ♡

These characters are fictional and do not represent any real-life individuals. Their likeness is used solely for visual inspiration and does not reflect the actual person or their story.

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Posted: 10/17/2025 (let’s just pretend lol)

The night air smelled like copper and frost. Above, the blood moon hung swollen and terrible, its scarlet glow staining the sky as though heaven itself bled. Your boots crunched over the dead leaves scattered along the uneven path, and each step brought you closer to the manor everyone in town swore was cursed.

“Y/N, I swear to God, if you chicken out now, you owe me two bottles of soju,” Hoseok’s voice carried ahead, bright but tinged with the nervous energy none of you wanted to admit to. He pulled his hood tighter, glancing back at you with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

“I’m not chickening out,” you snapped, though your arms were wrapped tightly around yourself. The night was colder than it should’ve been. “You all are just obsessed with the idea of me getting murdered.”

Jimin’s laughter cut the tension, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. “Murdered, possessed, haunted- what’s the difference? Either way, you’ll be famous. You’ll get your own horror documentary.” He shot you a wicked grin, his breath visible in the cold.

Lisa bumped shoulders with you, her glossy lips curving into a smirk. “She’ll go down in history as the idiot who actually walked into Ravenwood Manor on the blood moon. Our girl, fearless and dumb.”

Your cheeks heated despite the chill, irritation prickling your skin. “You’re all just jealous because I’ve got bigger balls than any of you.”

The manor rose before you then, its towering silhouette framed against the bleeding sky. Iron gates loomed, their hinges rusted but somehow still closed tight, the curls of wrought metal twisted into shapes that looked disturbingly like skeletal fingers. Beyond them, the mansion squatted on the hill, all sharp lines and shadows. Windows glared down like empty eyes.

“Holy shit,” Hoseok whispered, his laughter gone. “Why does it feel like it’s… waiting?”

A silence fell between you, broken only by the restless crunch of leaves and the distant caw of a crow. The longer you stared, the more the house seemed alive- the air around it pulsed, as though the very ground resented your presence.

Lisa shoved her phone into your hand suddenly. The flashlight beam cut through the dark, weak but enough to paint the gates in pale light. “Proof,” she said, her voice low. “Video it. Otherwise, no one’s going to believe you.”

“You really want me to die just for clout,” you muttered, but your heart raced.

The gates groaned when you pushed, their rusted mouths opening with a scream that carried into the night. The sound of it made your bones vibrate. You stepped forward, the others hanging back.

“Y/N!” Jimin’s voice cracked. “Don’t actually go in- just touch the door and come back, okay? Don’t- don’t be stupid.”

But the manor pulled at you. You couldn’t explain it. Each step felt less like your decision and more like answering something that had been calling your name long before tonight.

The path led you to the massive oak doors, carved with strange patterns half-worn away by time. You reached out, hand trembling. The wood was colder than ice, frost biting your palm, and yet you didn’t pull away.

“Y/N!” Lisa hissed. “That’s enough! Come back!”

But when you pushed, the door opened on its own, heavy and deliberate, a sound like a sigh from the throat of the house. The others gasped, but their voices seemed far away, muffled, fading into nothing.

Darkness yawned inside, thick as velvet. And for a moment- just before the door swallowed you whole- you thought you saw movement in the shadows. A figure. Tall. Watching. Waiting.

Your friends’ calls echoed faintly, swallowed by the night.

And then the door closed.

═══════

The silence inside pressed against your ears until it hurt, a thick, smothering quiet that seemed to devour the sound of your breath. The door had shut with such finality that the echo still reverberated in your bones. You tried the handle instinctively, but it refused to budge.

The flashlight’s beam trembled in your hand as you raised it. The manor’s foyer stretched wide and high, suffocatingly grand. A staircase with a blackened banister curled upward like a spine, ribs of cracked chandeliers drooping overhead, their crystals dulled with cobwebs. The marble tiles beneath your boots were veined with shadows, and your every step seemed too loud, too intrusive.

The air was different here. Heavier. It smelled faintly of extinguished candles and something older- iron, dust, and the faint, metallic sweetness of dried blood.

A row of portraits stretched across the left wall, each framed in blackened gilt. At first glance, they looked blurred by time, just blotches of crimson and shadow. But when you lifted the beam of your flashlight, the details came alive.

The first painting revealed a woman in a high-necked gown, her hair swept into a tight chignon. The brushstrokes were meticulous, her pale throat luminous against the dark velvet background. Her eyes- your eyes- watched with quiet solemnity, her lips pressed in a faint, knowing smile.

The next portrait showed another woman, this one in lace and pearls, her face tilted slightly downward, but her gaze still locked to yours. The curve of her jaw, the slope of her cheek- it was you again, only dressed centuries older.

Your stomach tightened as you moved to the next. And the next. Each portrait bore a different woman in different clothes, spanning centuries- victorian silk, renaissance brocade, 1920s satin- but all with the same face. Your face.

The further you went, the more suffocating it felt, as though the women were waiting for you to take your place among them. Their painted eyes followed no matter where you stepped. Some smirked. Some looked mournful. All of them felt like they knew something you didn’t.

A chill skated down your spine. You stumbled back a step, and the floorboards groaned as though in laughter.

“Hello?” Your voice cracked, pathetic against the cavernous silence. “Is… is someone here?”

The shadows seemed to shift. At the top of the staircase, the darkness pooled thicker than elsewhere, a corner of black so deep your light couldn’t pierce it. And in that depth- eyes. Or maybe just the trick of the blood moon leaking through a window. You blinked, and they were gone.

You forced yourself forward, each step weighted by dread. The flashlight flickered once, twice, before stabilizing again. Your reflection wavered in a broken mirror on the far wall- fragmented, fractured, scattered into versions of yourself that didn’t blink in unison.

The sound of footsteps came then. Not yours. Slow, deliberate, echoing faintly from the corridor beyond the stairs. The hair on your arms lifted, every nerve screaming.

“Lisa? Hobi? Jimin?” Your voice was a whisper now, choked and desperate.

No answer. Only the creak of the unseen steps, coming closer.

You backed toward the foyer’s center, flashlight jerking to and fro. The beam caught another painting- smaller this time, tucked into an alcove. A woman in an ivory gown, her throat encircled with a red ribbon. Her gaze met yours, identical to the eyes in your mirror. Identical to your own.

And beneath the painted frame, in gilded letters almost eaten away by time: The Bride.

The footsteps stopped. The silence returned. And then, from the shadows above, a voice- low, velvet, impossible to mistake as human.

“At last… you return to me.”

The voice slid through the silence like silk drawn across skin, deep and unhurried, carrying a weight that made your chest tighten. You froze, every nerve strung taut. The flashlight quivered in your grip as you angled it toward the staircase, but the light bent strangely, swallowed before it could pierce the thickest shadows.

Something moved up there.

Your throat worked, but your voice barely escaped. “Who’s there?”

The reply came low and certain, closer this time, a reverberation in the marrow of your bones:

“Did I not say it? No matter the age, no matter the guise… you always return.”

A figure stepped forward into the fringe of your light.

He was tall, dressed in a black frock coat that clung to broad shoulders, the cut of it belonging to another century. The faint gleam of a white shirt collar peeked above, loose dark hair curling just past his jaw. His beauty struck like a blade- sharp, cold, inhumanly flawless.

But it was his eyes that held you fast. Wide, dark, unblinking, filled with something that was not quite relief, not quite joy- something hungrier.

Your breath hitched. You staggered a step backward, but his movements were deliberate, graceful, like a predator easing into striking range.

The flashlight sputtered once more, dimming, then flaring as if protesting his presence. He didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he didn’t care.

“I-” Your voice cracked. You swallowed hard, trying again. “I don’t know who you think I am. This is- this is a mistake. I just came on a dare-”

His lips curved faintly, a smile that was not kind. “Always some folly,” he murmured, voice like velvet soaked in dust. “Once it was a carriage broken on the road. Another time, a husband eager to see the manor’s wealth. Once, you came with a key stolen from your father’s desk. Now…” His eyes glimmered. “Now it is dares and laughter that drag you here. But always, always- it is fate that returns you to me.”

You shook your head, fear bubbling hot in your chest. “You’ve got me confused with someone else. I’ve never-”

“Indeed, you have.” His words struck with quiet finality as he descended a single step, the sound reverberating like a verdict. “Across centuries, in silks and in veils, with keys stolen or vows spoken- you have always come. And every time…” His gaze slid to the painted brides. “…you sought to flee me. Always to flee.”

Your heart hammered so loud it drowned out thought. The women in the paintings seemed to stare harder, their painted mouths tightening as if in warning.

The man- no, whatever he was- reached the base of the staircase. The air around him shifted, colder, charged, carrying that same faint sweetness of blood.

He tilted his head, studying you with an intensity that rooted you to the spot. Then, softly, reverently, as though speaking to a lover:

“You are my constancy… my eternal claim. Across every life, every name- you have ever been mine.”

The flashlight died.

The dark pressed close, velvet-thick, swallowing the last sparks of your flashlight. But his presence was unmistakable. A breath of cold, the whisper of fabric shifting, the scent of something faintly metallic and sweet lingering in the air.

You jerked back, your palms fumbling along the smooth marble behind you until they caught on the edge of a table. A candlestick sat there, black with soot. You seized it like a weapon, though your hands trembled too violently to make use of it.

A sound touched the silence- low, indulgent. A laugh, if one could call it that. “So like you,” he murmured, voice soft as a caress. “Always the instinct to fight. Always so certain it will free you.”

The darkness thinned as though obeying him. Faint light flared along sconces on the wall, each candle licking to life without a match. Their glow bathed the foyer in amber, shadows stretching long and deep. He stood fully before you now, no longer concealed by the gloom.

His face was carved with startling precision, as though a painter’s finest hand had traced each line- dark eyes unblinking, lips curved with that half-smile that made your blood quicken in terror. His frock coat brushed the floor as he stepped closer, fabric whispering against marble.

Your voice cracked as you lifted the candlestick higher. “Who are you?”

The question seemed to amuse him, his dark gaze glinting with something ancient. He didn’t answer. Not yet.

“Stay back,” you warned, though the quaver in your voice betrayed you.

He tilted his head, almost amused. “You speak as though you have not stood here before.” His gaze drifted to the portraits once more, lined like sentinels across the wall. “Do you not see? You have always returned to me.”

Your eyes darted to the painted women- your face repeated again and again, centuries apart. A tremor rolled through you, denial thick on your tongue. “Those… those aren’t me.”

He stepped nearer, close enough that the air around you thickened, heavy with his nearness. His hand lifted, fingers pale and elegant, hovering inches from your cheek. “Not you,” he agreed, voice low. “Not this you. But every reflection of you fate has carved. Every name you have worn. Every vow you have spoken.”

You flinched back, clutching the candlestick tighter. “You’re insane.”

His smile deepened, dark and knowing. “Insanity is believing that time severs what eternity has bound. You are mine. You have ever been mine.”

The flames shivered as though in answer. The portraits’ painted eyes glimmered strangely in the candlelight, watching, waiting.

And before you could draw another breath, the great double doors groaned of their own accord. The bolts slid into place with a violent clang, though no hand touched them. The sound reverberated through the manor like the toll of a bell, sealing the air with dreadful finality.

“You will not leave me again.”

The clang of the locks echoed long after the silence returned, each vibration sinking into your bones. The air seemed to pulse in time with your heartbeat, thick and heavy, as though the house itself inhaled around you.

You pressed yourself tighter against the wall, the candlestick wavering in your grip. He stood a breath away, his shadow swallowing yours whole.

“You-” Your voice fractured, desperate. “You can’t keep me here.”

A pause, long enough to stretch your nerves taut, then his lips curved- not cruelly, but with something far more terrifying. Tenderness.

“You say the same words every time.” His voice was velvet threaded with iron. “And every time, I prove them false.”

His hand lifted again, and though you flinched, you could not move. His fingers grazed your cheek, cold as stone at first, then warming with unnatural quickness, like heat spreading from a brand. The touch was reverent, his gaze devout, as though you were some holy relic returned to him.

You tried to jerk away, but his other hand caught your wrist, firm but not bruising, holding you steady. The candlestick wavered between you, ridiculous against the certainty in his eyes.

“I am not your enemy,” he whispered, leaning closer, his breath ghosting across your temple. “I am your constant. The one who waits when all else falls to ash.”

The portraits loomed in the corners of your vision, their painted eyes alive with silent accusation.

You swallowed hard. “Why… why do they all look like me?”

He drew in a slow breath, as though tasting the air around you, and his eyes softened with something feverish. “Because they are you. You who quicken the air with your presence. You whose eyes hold defiance, whose voice trembles yet does not yield. Always the same fire, the same sweetness… across every age, it is you.” His thumb brushed over your lips, reverent. “Ever you.”

Your heart thundered so hard it hurt. His face was inches from yours now, his eyes unblinking, his voice a vow and a curse in one.

“And this time, my bride…” His lips curved with quiet triumph. “…you shall not depart my keeping.”

The candles shuddered violently, plunging the hall into half-darkness. His hand tightened at your jaw, holding you still, and in that breathless moment, you felt the weight of every bride before you pressing down through the centuries.

And then- his lips touched yours. Cold. Certain. Claiming.

The kiss broke almost as soon as it began, yet the echo of it lingered, cold and clinging, like frost along your skin. You shoved him back with all the force you could muster, and though his body yielded, his gaze did not.

“What the hell are you?” The words tore out of you, raw and shaking. “Are you/ are you a ghost? Some kind of vampire? What are you?”

The candles guttered, shadows swelling with your voice. He only watched you, his expression unshaken, though his eyes gleamed with something perilously close to anger.

“You reduce me to a word,” he said softly, almost pitying. “A label to tame your terror. But I am not so simple.”

You swallowed hard, clutching the candlestick tighter. “You’re not alive.”

His lips curved faintly. “Not as you understand it.”

The answer made your stomach lurch. You backed away, but his step followed, measured, patient, like a hunter indulging a cornered creature.

“Do not ask me what I am,” he murmured, his voice low as a hymn. “Ask instead why you are always drawn back to me.”

You shook your head, fury and fear battling in your chest. “I am not- drawn to you. I don’t even know you!”

“You know me,” he said, the words sharp as glass. “Your heart knows. It has known me in lace, in silk, in bloodied sheets. It has known me in prayers whispered at an altar, in screams swallowed by stone. You have carried me in every breath of every life you have lived.”

“Stop it!” Your voice cracked. “You’re insane.”

His smile faltered, replaced by a shadow of something darker. The air around you thickened, as though the very walls leaned closer.

“You think me mad?” His voice dropped to a growl, not loud, but threaded with something that rattled through your bones. “Perhaps I am. What man would not lose his reason, when each time his bride returns, she slips from him before the vows are kept?”

The portraits loomed in the flickering candlelight, each painted version of you staring with silent accusation. His gaze flicked to them, then back to you, fever-bright.

“I endure,” he whispered, stepping closer still. “I wait, while dust takes kingdoms and bones rot beneath the soil. I wait, because you are mine. Always mine.”

His hand rose again, but this time it was not gentle. His fingers curled around your chin, tilting your face up toward his. His voice broke on the edge of reverence and demand:

“And this time, my bride… you shall not be loosed from my grasp.”

His grip on your chin softened but did not release, as though he relished the shape of your fear trembling beneath his fingers. You tried to twist away, but his hold followed, firm and inexorable.

“You tremble,” he murmured, his eyes dark as a midnight sea. “Not from hatred. From recognition.”

“I don’t recognize you,” you hissed, forcing the words out even as your throat constricted.

He only smiled, a shadow curling at the corners of his mouth. “You deny me now, as you have denied me in so many lifetimes. Yet you always yield in the end. And this time…” His voice softened, almost tender. “…I have prepared for you.”

Before you could recoil, he turned, releasing you as he strode into the wide corridor beyond the stair. The air seemed to bend with his movement, candles flaring to life along the walls as though the house obeyed his presence.

You stayed rooted, chest heaving, your knuckles white around the candlestick. Every nerve screamed to flee, yet your legs betrayed you, carrying you after him.

The corridor narrowed, lined with more portraits. Each frame was gilt and heavy, the faces within unbearably familiar. Some of the women smiled faintly, others stared with hollow-eyed dread. You quickened your pace, refusing to meet their gazes.

He led you to a door of dark wood carved with roses, their thorns entwined like chains. He pressed the latch and the hinges sighed, revealing a chamber bathed in the glow of dozens of candles.

The room was vast, its canopy bed dressed in silks of deep crimson and ivory lace. Rose petals littered the sheets as though a wedding night had been waiting centuries for its consummation. A mirror stood at the far wall, gilt frame curling into serpentine shapes.

The air smelled of wax, old wood, and something sweeter- jasmine perhaps, or blood disguised as perfume.

Your stomach turned. “What is this?”

He looked back at you, his expression softened into something perilous- adoration sharpened into obsession. “Your chamber.”

“I’m not staying here.”

“You are,” he said simply, as though it had already been decided by forces far older than your protest. His gaze lingered on the bed, then returned to you with quiet intensity. “I have dressed it in remembrance of you. Each veil, each rose, chosen because you once loved them. Do you not feel it?”

“I feel sick.”

He smiled faintly, though his eyes burned. “You will remember. You always remember. And when you do…” He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “…you will never wish to leave.”

The bridal chamber seemed to close around you, the candle flames bowing inward as though listening. You staggered back, bile rising in your throat.

“No,” you whispered, your fingers still tight around the useless candlestick. “No- I’m not staying here.”

You turned and bolted.

The corridor behind you stretched long and straight, portraits looming in the candlelight. Your footsteps pounded against the marble, echoing wild and frantic. The air was thick, each breath tearing through your chest. The front door- if you could reach it, if you could just-

You skidded to a halt. The door was gone.

Where the great oak doors had been, there was only solid wall, wallpaper mottled with damp roses that seemed to bleed. You gasped, shoving your palms against the surface, but it was unyielding stone.

Panic surged. You spun back toward the corridor and hurled yourself into it, boots hammering the marble. For one wild moment, freedom seemed possible- then the walls began to shift. The passage narrowed, pressing inward, the portraits crowding closer as if leaning down to watch. Their painted eyes gleamed in the candlelight, some mournful, some mocking.

“Help!” Your scream cracked the silence. “Somebody-!”

The walls groaned, shifting. The corridor stretched impossibly long, then bent, pulling you down its throat. You ran, heart hammering, but every turn only tightened the noose- every door you flung open led not to freedom, but back into endless hallways lined with your own faces.

You stumbled, chest heaving, and burst through one more door- only to find yourself back in the bridal chamber. The crimson bed loomed, the rose petals fresh and waiting.

“No,” you gasped. “No, no, no!”

The air shifted. He was there.

He stepped from the corner shadows as though he had never moved, his gaze locked onto you. The tenderness in his face had frayed, stretched thin by something harsher.

“Why do you flee me?” His voice was low, trembling with a fury too controlled to break. “You run from me in every age. You tear yourself from my hands, and each time the house devours you for it.”

You shook your head violently, stumbling back. “Stay away from me!”

But he was already there, impossibly fast, his hand closing around your arm with crushing strength. His grip burned cold and hot all at once, an iron band locking you in place.

“Do not run from me again,” he snarled, dragging you closer, his eyes blazing. “I will not suffer it. Not this time.”

The walls shuddered, the candles guttered, and you felt the manor itself tremble in answer to his wrath.

His grip on your arm tightened until you gasped, the candlestick slipping from your hand and clattering uselessly to the floor. His chest heaved, each breath trembling with the force of restrained fury.

“You run,” he snarled, dragging you flush against him, “as though you are hunted- when it is you who hunts me, every time. You return only to tear yourself from me again. Do you know what it is to wait centuries for a touch? For a vow that never stays?”

“Let me go-” you choked, shoving against his chest, but his hand only slid around your waist, crushing you closer, caging you in his arms.

“Never again,” he vowed, before his mouth seized yours with bruising hunger.

The kiss was violent in its hunger, bruising in its claim. His lips moved against yours as though he meant to consume the breath from your lungs. You whimpered against him, but his hand was already sliding lower, gripping the curve of your hip, fingers kneading with possessive fervor.

His other hand rose to your throat, not choking but holding, controlling, tilting your head back so his mouth could tear from your lips and sear down the line of your jaw. His teeth grazed your neck, his tongue following in a hot, slow sweep.

“You are mine,” he whispered against your lips, his breath ragged. “Every vein that quickens, every shudder that betrays you, every gasp torn from your throat- mine, in perpetuity.”

You tried to twist away, but his hand caught your thigh, dragging it against him. His thumb pressed into you through your clothes, deliberate, the contact shocking enough to draw a broken sound from your lips.

“Do you feel it?” His voice was hoarse, fevered, his kisses growing more desperate as he buried them into your throat. “The fire that binds you to me? You may fight, you may weep, but you will never leave.”

His lips claimed yours again, hungrier, his tongue plunging deep, tasting, demanding. His hand slid between your thighs, pressing firmly against the seam of your jeans. His palm rubbed in slow, grinding circles, the friction rough yet precise. Heat bloomed against your core, traitorous, making your hips twitch into his hand despite the terror clawing at your chest.

A strangled sound escaped you, half-moan, half-protest. His mouth curved against yours at the sound, his thumb pressing harder against the swollen bud through the denim.

“Even now,” he whispered raggedly, lips brushing your throat, “your body remembers me. It yields, though your tongue denies me. Every gasp, every tremor cries my name though you dare not speak it.”

His mouth grazed your jaw, your throat, his tongue licking over the frantic pulse beneath your skin. “None of them ever left alive,” he breathed, voice a dark caress. His fingers rolled insistently against your clit through the fabric until your knees buckled. “But you… you will never even wish to leave.”

The candles flared wildly as though the house itself rejoiced in his vow. The portraits seemed to lean forward, their painted eyes gleaming with shared knowledge.

And he kissed you again, so deep, so punishing, it felt less like desire and more like possession incarnate.

It built too fast. The friction, the heat, the press of his thumb- your body betrayed you. You bit down on a gasp, but the sound still slipped free, strangled and desperate. His mouth devoured it, swallowing your moan as if it belonged to him.

Your hips bucked once, twice, and then it crashed through you. A shudder tore down your spine, your thighs trembling violently as the climax ripped from you, sharp and humiliating. You cried out against his lips, the sound muffled but undeniable.

His hand stilled, holding you there, making you grind against his palm until every wave had wrung itself out of you. Only then did he ease his grip, pulling back just enough to see your face.

His smile was terrible. Reverent. Triumphant.

“There it is,” he murmured, his voice rough with something between devotion and hunger. “Proof eternal. No matter how you fight, no matter how you flee- your body remembers me. It welcomes me.”

“Shut up-” The words came broken, half-sob, but his thumb brushed your lips, silencing you.

“You yield to me in every life,” he went on, his tone shifting to something softer, almost tender. “You came to me with vows, with laughter, with trembling hands. And always…” He leaned close, his lips grazing your ear. “…always, you fall to me first in pleasure.”

Your knees buckled, but his arm around your waist held you upright, crushing you to his chest. His mouth roved down your throat, teeth grazing, tongue lapping at the frantic pulse as though he might drink it in.

“They withered in defiance, every one,” he murmured, voice low, worshipful and cruel at once. His hand tightened on your thigh, branding. “But you… you shall flourish, for you are the one who will stay.”

He kissed you again, harder, hungrier, his lips bruising, his tongue forcing past your protest. The manor groaned around you, the candles bowing as though in worship.

And just as his hand slid up, seeking more, he broke away- eyes burning, chest heaving, every inch of him strung taut with hunger he had not yet unleashed.

“This is but the beginning,” he said, voice shaking with promise. “You are mine tonight, tomorrow, and all the nights eternity grants us. You cannot undo what has already been written.”

The portraits loomed in silence, their painted gazes heavy with knowledge. The candles guttered low, plunging the chamber into shadow. His words lingered in the dark, suffocating, inescapable.

And you knew- you were fucked.

The candles sputtered, choking on their own smoke, as though the manor itself braced for what came next. He reached out to seize your wrist, pulling you toward the window where the blood moon bled its crimson light across the floor.

“Look,” he whispered, his voice frayed with hunger and awe. “Do you see how it burns for us?”

You stumbled against him, your shoulder striking the glass, breath fogging the frost-touched pane. Outside, the moon swelled enormous, a wound torn into the heavens, its light painting his face in shades of scarlet.

His eyes gleamed like black fire. “It is no common moon, but the blood vow moon. It rises once every seventy-seven years, burning the sky red to summon you back. Each time, you return. Each time, I claim you anew.”

“No,” you whispered, your voice raw. “This isn’t real. You’re not real.”

He caught your chin again, forcing your gaze up to his. “Not real?” His smile broke, sharp with fury and something near despair. “Do you think a dream would carve you into canvas for centuries? Would it keep vigil while kingdoms crumbled to dust? No, little bride. I am more real than time itself.”

The moonlight drenched you both, hot as blood, and with a sudden motion he swept you back into the center of the chamber. The bed loomed behind you, but he did not push you onto it- yet. Instead, he dropped to one knee before you.

Your breath caught.

He looked up at you, reverent, terrifying in his devotion. His hand tightened painfully around yours, his lips brushing your knuckles.

“Before this moon and these witnesses,” he murmured, his gaze flicking briefly to the portraits, “I take you again as mine. In flesh, in vow, in eternity. No altar is higher than these stones, no covenant stronger than the blood moon’s flame. You are my bride reborn.”

The portraits seemed to lean forward, their eyes glittering in the wavering light. The air was suffocating, thick with incense and decay, yet he breathed as though he were inhaling divinity.

“Stop it,” you begged, trying to wrench your hand away, but his grip only bruised deeper.

“You may deny me with your lips,” he said softly, lifting your hand higher, pressing it against his chest. His heart thrummed there, too steady, too slow. “But your body, your soul, has never denied me. Not once. Not in a thousand lives.”

The blood moon pulsed, shadows shifting along the walls, and the house seemed to sigh in answer.

And still he knelt before you, eyes alight with madness and love entwined, the vows of a groom no grave had ever claimed.

The moonlight pressed through the window, staining the chamber in red. It painted him as though he were carved from flame and shadow, his dark hair gilded crimson, his eyes gleaming with feverish light.

He rose from his knee but did not let go of your hand. Instead, he pressed it hard against his chest again, holding you against that unnatural heartbeat. Too slow. Too steady.

“Do you hear it?” he whispered. “The echo of eternity. But it falters. Without you, it dies.”

Your throat constricted. “Good,” you spat, yanking against his grip. “Then let it.”

His eyes blazed, and for a moment his control splintered. The air trembled, the candles bowing low as though the house itself recoiled from your words. He seized your shoulders, his voice breaking with a fury edged in fear.

“You think I endure for myself?” His tone rose, sharp as a blade. “No. I endure for you. Always for you. Every seventy-seven years, the blood vow moon rends the heavens, and it summons you back to me. And if you do not stay…” His voice faltered, dropping to a near whisper. “…the curse devours me whole.”

You stared at him, your chest heaving. His words rang with too much conviction to be a lie. “What curse?”

He smiled then, broken and desperate, a smile that did not belong to a sane man. “The curse of longing made flesh. The price of eternity without completion. I live, but not as a man should. I breathe, but not as a man does. Only when you are mine- fully, willingly- does the torment ease.”

His hand slid from your shoulder to your waist, drawing you closer until the heat of his body pressed against yours. His voice softened again, dangerous in its tenderness.

“You need not fear it. You are not their shadow, not their echo. You are the end of the cycle. You are the bride who will not flee.”

“I don’t want this,” you whispered, your voice shaking.

His lips brushed the shell of your ear, his breath hot, his words a vow that chilled your blood. “Desire comes. It always comes. Soon you will beg not to be parted from me. And when you do… the curse will break, and we will be bound beyond death, beyond time.”

The portraits seemed to lean even closer, their painted faces glowing faintly in the red light, as though the blood moon itself burned within them.

“This is madness,” you whispered, your words sharp, panicked. “I don’t want this.”

But your protest faltered when his mouth found yours again.

The kiss was ruinous, desperate. His tongue invaded, claiming, his hand sliding into your hair as though anchoring you to him. You tried to push away, but your body betrayed you- heat bloomed low in your stomach, your pulse fluttered against his lips.

“You deny me with words,” he murmured, dragging his mouth to your throat, “yet your body yields. It always yields.”

He pushed you back, guiding you until the backs of your knees struck the bed. The silk sheets whispered as you fell, and he followed, caging you beneath him. His coat flared open, his chest pressing against yours, crushing you down into the petals.

You gasped, clawing at him, but he caught your wrists and pinned them above your head with one hand. The other traced your body, slow and reverent, skimming your ribs, your waist, your thigh.

“You are divinity clothed in flesh,” he whispered, lowering himself between your legs. “And I- your most faithful disciple.”

He kissed down your throat, your collarbone, tugging at your top and bra with unhurried devotion until the fabric slipped away, baring your skin to his fevered mouth. His lips traced the swell of your breast, the valley between, tongue flicking over hardened peaks until your back arched in a shuddering gasp.

Then he moved lower. Slowly, reverently, as though savoring a religious journey. Each kiss burned hotter, trailing down your stomach, your hips. His hands gripped the waistband of your jeans, and with unhurried devotion he peeled them down, tugging your underwear with them. The cool air kissed your bare skin, making you shiver, and then his palms slid up your thighs, parting you with merciless patience. He inhaled deeply, savoring you, his eyes half-lidded with worship and hunger.

And then- his tongue pressed against you. Hot, broad, dragging slow over your clit. Your cry shattered in the air, raw and startled, your hips jerking despite your hands pushing at the sheets.

“Stop-” The plea broke into a moan as he worked you, tongue circling, lips sucking, drawing every sound from you like prayer. His mouth sealed around you, greedy, unrelenting, his tongue flicking faster, slower, teasing and tormenting until your thighs shook violently.

He pinned your hips down with his strong hands, thumbs digging into your flesh, holding you open, keeping you spread for him alone. Your body betrayed you, back bowing, chest heaving, each ragged gasp pulled from your lungs as though he had rehearsed them across centuries.

“You taste of eternity,” he growled against your soaked skin, his voice vibrating through you. His eyes flashed wild and reverent, gaze fixed on your face as though watching you break apart was the only sustenance he’d ever need. “I could worship here forever.”

He lapped harder, tongue circling relentlessly, lips tugging at you until your hips bucked helplessly, caught between terror and unbearable pleasure. The moonlight spilled across your body, scarlet and holy, illuminating every shiver as his tongue drove you higher, closer-

And then he tore himself away, lips slick, chest heaving, his gaze fevered and undone.

“No,” he whispered, crawling back over you, kissing you with your taste still on his tongue. “Not yet. Not without binding you to me fully.”

His hand fumbled with the fastening of his trousers, dragging himself free, thick and straining. He caught your hand, guiding it to wrap around him, forcing your fingers to stroke. A groan rumbled from his throat, ragged, desperate.

“Do you feel what you do to me?” he hissed, his hips thrusting into your reluctant grip. “I ache for you across centuries. No torment rivals this hunger.”

You tried to pull back, but his mouth swallowed your protest, his kiss so deep it burned. His hands roamed your already bared body, palms tracing your curves as though memorizing what was eternally his. His eyes drank you in, awe and madness entwined.

“Perfection,” he breathed. “My altar. My salvation.”

He pressed himself against your entrance, grinding, rubbing, coating himself in your slickness until your body shuddered with need despite your tears. His lips traced your temple, your jaw, his words fevered vows spilling hot against your skin.

And with a final, desperate thrust, he pushed into you, burying himself deep, groaning as though salvation itself had been carved into his veins

He filled you to the hilt, the force of his thrust knocking the air from your lungs. Your cry tore into the air, muffled against his mouth as he devoured it with a groan that trembled against your lips.

“Perfect,” he rasped, dragging back slow, agonizingly slow, before slamming into you again, the bed groaning beneath the violence. “You fit me as though you were carved for this. As though you were always meant to hold me.”

His hands roamed wildly, gripping your hip, your breast, your throat- possessive, reverent, claiming every inch of you. He thrust hard enough to rattle the headboard, each movement more desperate than the last, yet his eyes never wavered from yours, black fire burning in their depths.

“You are mine in vow,” he whispered, his breath hot against your cheek. “Mine in flesh.” His hips snapped into you, rough, relentless. “Mine in eternity.”

You sobbed, shaking beneath him, but your body betrayed you again- clutching around him, dragging him deeper. The heat, the friction, the unbearable stretch had your nails digging into his shoulders, desperate for something to hold on to.

“Yes,” he groaned, voice breaking. “Cling to me. I will bear your marks as I have borne your absence. Mark me, please, so I am never without you.”

His mouth moved over your body like worship: kissing your throat, biting your shoulder, dragging his tongue down between your breasts as his hips drove deeper, faster, relentless in their rhythm. Every inch of you became altar, every gasp another prayer he swallowed.

He shifted suddenly, hooking your leg over his shoulder, opening you wider. The angle was brutal- he hit deeper, harder, the head of him stroking places so raw you screamed. He caught the sound in his mouth, kissing you savagely, whispering against your lips.

“Do you feel it? The vows written into your bones? The curse breaking with every shudder?” His hand slid between your bodies, thumb circling your clit with ruthless precision. “Cum for me, little bride. Let the blood moon witness what it binds.”

Your body arched violently, pleasure building unbearable, unstoppable. His thumb pressed harder, his thrusts relentless, until the climax ripped through you, wrenching a cry from your throat that shook the room.

The candles flared high, the portraits glowed faintly, their painted eyes burning with scarlet fire. The house itself seemed to sigh.

“Yes- yes,” he groaned, pounding harder, chasing his own ruin. His thrusts grew ragged, desperate, his forehead pressed to yours. “I waited centuries for this- for you. I will never release you.”

You were still trembling from your orgasm when he stiffened, burying himself to the hilt, spilling into you with a guttural cry that tore from his chest. His hands clutched you like a drowning man, crushing you against him as he shuddered through his climax.

When it passed, he did not pull away. He pressed his lips to your temple, murmuring against your damp skin.

“My bride. My vow. My eternity.”

The portraits loomed above, the blood moon bled its light across the silks, and his whisper bound you tighter than any chain.

The room was still vibrating with the echoes of your cries, the scent of roses and sweat and candlewax heavy in the air. Jungkook did not release you; his body covered yours, his arms caging you in, his breath ragged against your cheek.

“You are mine,” he whispered again, softer this time, almost tender. “In every age, every hour, I waited. And at last- you stay.”

You closed your eyes, tears streaking hot down your temples. The fight in you had burned out, scattered with the ashes of your climax, with the knowledge that no door, no wall, no god could free you from this place. The portraits glowed faintly in the moonlight, their painted eyes unblinking, waiting for your choice.

“I don’t…” Your voice cracked. “…I don’t want this.”

His hand cupped your cheek, gentle now, though the strength behind it was undeniable. “Desire is a fleeting flame. Vows are eternal. Speak it, and the curse is ended.”

Your chest heaved, terror and exhaustion warring inside you. His gaze was unrelenting, black fire and blood moon light, and something deep inside you knew: whether you spoke or not, this house, this man, this curse would never release you.

Your lips trembled. The word slipped free, broken and soft. “Yours.”

The air shuddered.

Every candle flared at once, the flames bowing toward you as though in worship. The portraits glowed, one by one, until a new frame appeared in the shadows- your own likeness, painted in silks, eyes gleaming faintly red.

Jungkook’s breath caught, and then his lips crashed onto yours, sealing the vow. His tears mingled with yours, though his smile was triumphant, reverent, undone.

“My bride,” he whispered into your mouth, voice breaking with joy and madness entwined. “At last.”

The blood moon sank lower in the sky, its crimson glow fading- but it did not matter. The vow was sealed, the curse fulfilled.

And you, the last bride, remained in the manor that never let its portraits keep the living.

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The night outside the manor was cold, the air sharp with autumn leaves and the scent of smoke from distant bonfires. The blood moon hung heavy above, its light painting the weeds and crumbling stones in shades of scarlet.

Lisa hugged her arms around herself, glancing at the silent house. “She’s been in there forever,” she muttered, trying to keep her voice light.

Jimin snorted, leaning against the gatepost. “Forever? Lisa, it’s been, like, five minutes.”

Hoseok checked his phone, screen glowing blue against the night. “Six, tops. She’s probably just walking around inside, trying to freak us out. You know her.”

Lisa chewed her lip, her eyes fixed on the windows. Dark, unbroken. Not a flicker of movement, not even a shadow. “Still,” she whispered, “doesn’t it feel… weird? Like the air’s thicker tonight?”

Jimin rolled his eyes, grinning nervously. “It’s Halloween. It’s supposed to feel weird.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and called, “Y/N! Stop hiding already!”

The only answer was silence.

The moon flared red, bright enough to sting their eyes, and for a heartbeat Lisa thought she saw something shift in the upper window- a pale face, watching, framed in flickering candlelight.

But when she blinked, it was gone.

“Five more minutes,” Hoseok said, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “Then we go in after her.”

They stood shivering at the gates, the house looming silent above them, while inside, the newest portrait on the wall smiled faintly in the dark.

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JKWRITOBER ♡ MASTERLIST ♡ a03

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These characters are fictional and do not represent any real-life individuals. Their likeness is used solely for visual inspiration and does not reflect the actual person or their story.

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Posted: 10/03/2025

(1) What the Portraits Keep: 7.6k

(2) Safe Haven: 10.9k

(3) Hymn: 14k

(4) The Walls Are Whispering: 16.7k

(5) Fearfield Farm: 14k

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