#tae x reader

The rain starts soft.

It taps gently against the window, a quiet rhythm that fills the room while you sit curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket you've claimed as your own. The world outside looks blurred, gray skies, slick pavement, people rushing with umbrellas like they're trying to outrun something.

You sigh, tucking your chin into the fabric.

Perfect weather to stay inside.

Perfect weather to not deal with anything.

"Y/n."

You don't even look up. "No."

A beat.

Then, dramatically, "You don't even know what I was going to say."

"I do," you mumble, eyes still fixed on the rain. "And the answer is still no."

There's the sound of shuffling, then footsteps light, quick, familiar. The couch dips beside you, and suddenly there's a face far too close to yours, eyes bright with something that should probably concern you.

"Come outside with me."

You finally turn your head, unimpressed. "Absolutely not."

"Why?" he asks, already halfway to pouting.

You gesture vaguely toward the window. "It's raining."

"And?"

"And I don't want to get wet."

He gasps like you've personally offended him. "Y/n, that is the point."

You stare at him.

He stares back, completely serious.

"...No."

He leans closer, lowering his voice like he's about to share something important. "You're missing it."

"Missing what?"

His lips curl into a soft, almost secret smile. "This."

Before you can question him, he's already grabbing your wrist.

"Taehyung—"

Too late.

⸻

The door swings open, and the sound of rain rushes in louder now, heavier. The air is cool, fresh, wrapping around you instantly as you step outside, shoes hitting damp pavement.

"Kim Taehyung!" you protest, trying to pull your hand back. "I am not—"

He doesn't let go.

Of course he doesn't.

Instead, he turns to face you, already soaked at the edges dark hair beginning to cling to his forehead, drops of water tracing down his cheeks. And yet, he's smiling like this is the best thing that's happened all day.

"Relax," he says, softer now. "It's just rain."

"It's cold," you argue, shivering slightly as another drop hits your neck.

He tilts his head, studying you for a moment really looking at you. Then, without warning, he steps closer.

"Trust me?"

You hesitate.

Because it's him.

Because it's always been him.

"...I don't like where this is going."

He grins.

And then he spins you.

A startled laugh breaks out of you as the world tilts..his hand steady in yours, pulling you into a slow circle. The rain falls harder now, soaking through your clothes, your hair, everything but somehow it doesn't feel as miserable as you thought it would.

"Taehyung !" you laugh, trying to steady yourself.

"See?" he says, voice light, almost triumphant. "Not so bad."

You shake your head, breathless. "You're insane."

"Probably," he agrees easily.

But he doesn't stop.

He spins you again faster this time and your laughter comes easier, louder, mixing with his. It echoes in the open air, blending with the sound of rain hitting the ground, the rooftops, everything.

For a moment, it feels like the world shrinks.

No expectations.

No pressure.

No noise beyond this.

Just you.

Just him.

Just this.

He slows eventually, hands still holding yours as you come to a stop, a little unsteady, a little dizzy. Your hair is a mess, your clothes cling uncomfortably, and you're definitely going to regret this later—

but you're smiling.

And he's looking at you like he knew you would be.

"Better?" he asks quietly.

You try to roll your eyes, but it doesn't land the way it usually does. "A little."

"A little?" he repeats, mock-offended.

"Okay..fine," you admit, softer now. "Maybe more than a little."

He beams.

There's a pause.

The rain doesn't let up, falling steadily around you, but neither of you move to go back inside.

Instead, he steps closer again. Closer than before.

Close enough that you notice the way his smile softens, the way his eyes linger just a second longer than they should.

Close enough that your breath catches just slightly.

"You should smile like that more," he says.

Your heart stumbles. "Like what?"

"Like you're not thinking about everything else."

You swallow, suddenly very aware of how close he is. "And what makes you think I can just... turn that off?"

His thumb brushes lightly against your hand, still holding onto yours like he forgot to let go.

"You don't have to," he murmurs. "Not all the time."

The world feels quieter.

Or maybe it's just you.

"Just sometimes," he adds, almost like a promise, "I'll remind you."

Your chest tightens, but not in a bad way.

Not in the way it usually does.

"...By dragging me into the rain?" you ask, trying to keep your voice steady.

He laughs softly. "Exactly."

You shake your head, but you don't pull away.

"Unbelievable."

"Admit it," he nudges. "You're glad I did."

You hesitate.

Then, quietly—

"...I am."

His smile returns, softer now. Warmer.

And for a moment, standing there in the rain with his hand still in yours, it really does feel like nothing else matters.

Not the things waiting for you tomorrow.

Not the worries you carried just minutes ago.

Just this.

Just him.

Just the way he looks at you like you're something worth pulling into the rain for.

"Next time," you say after a while, "we're staying inside."

He hums, unconvinced.

Thursday wakes up bright enough to feel like a slap.

Sunlight cuts clean through your curtains, sharp and unapologetic, dragging you out of sleep before your alarm even gets the chance to try. For a second, you just lie there, squinting at the ceiling like it offended you.

Too bright. Too normal.

After yesterday, it feels wrong.

You drag your phone off the nightstand, thumb hovering for a second before unlocking it.

naomi: pls tell me ur awake naomi: i don’t want to drive

You huff, rolling onto your side.

you: i am now

you: and u are driving 😌

Three dots. Gone. Three dots again.

naomi: traitor

You smirk to yourself and finally sit up, pushing your hair out of your face. The air in your room is warmer than usual, sunlight pooling across your floor.

The apartment is already awake by the time you step out.

Victoria is at the counter, half-dressed and fully caffeinated, scrolling through her phone with one hand and eating something out of a bowl with the other. Naomi is by the sink, rinsing out a mug, her bag already slung over her shoulder like she’s been ready for twenty minutes.

Rachel is talking.

Of course she is.

“…and I’m just saying, if he wanted to partner with me, he could have said something earlier instead of acting like—”

“Good morning,” you cut in, grabbing a mug before Rachel can spiral any further.

Victoria glances up. “Look who lives.”

“Barely,” you mutter, pouring coffee and taking a careful sip. “Why is it so bright outside?”

“Sun,” Naomi says helpfully.

“Unnecessary,” you reply.

Rachel eyes you as you lean against the counter. “You look tired.”

“I am tired,” you sigh.

“From what?” she presses. “We literally did nothing last night.”

“Existing is exhausting,” you deadpan.

Victoria snorts. Naomi smiles. Rachel rolls her eyes.

“Are we going or what?” Naomi asks, already halfway to the door.

The drive to campus felt… off.

Not in a way you can immediately name. Not dramatic. Not wrong enough to set off alarms. Just… different.

Maybe it’s the sunlight.

It paints everything in this too-clear, too-sharp clarity that makes the campus feel almost unfamiliar. The buildings look cleaner. The walkways feel wider. The people… there are more of them, or maybe you’re just noticing them more.

You fall into step beside Naomi, Victoria and Rachel just ahead of you, still half-arguing about something that has long since lost its original point.

Your eyes drift. You don’t mean for them to. You’re not looking for anything. They just… move. Across the courtyard. Toward the parking lot. Over the clusters of students gathering near the steps.

Nothing.

No familiar figures standing just a little too still. No luxurious clothing cutting through the crowd like it belongs somewhere else.

Why should there be?

Get a grip, you tell yourself.

English is loud.

Students talking over each other, chairs scraping, the professor barely trying to corral the chaos into something productive.

You slide into a seat beside Naomi, dropping your bag at your feet and pulling out your notebook.

“Bless,” Naomi murmurs. “Normal class.”

“Define normal,” you mutter.

“No one is staring at you like you’re the main character in a psychological thriller yet,” she replies under her breath.

You huff out a quiet laugh.

“Low bar,” you say.

“Very low,” she agrees.

The class settles eventually. The lecture starts. Notes are taken, questions are asked, and for a while, it’s easy to just… exist.

No tension crawling up your spine. No awareness pressing in from either side. No feeling like every movement you make is being tracked. Just you and Naomi. And a room full of people who don’t care what you’re doing. It should feel good. It does feel good. Mostly.

But there’s a strange absence sitting in the edges of it all. Like something that had been loud enough to notice yesterday is suddenly gone, and your brain hasn’t decided whether it’s feeling relief or something else.

You tap your pen against the page, eyes flicking once toward the door when it opens.

Just a late student.

You stop, look back down, and focus.

“You’re doing it again,” Naomi whispers as the class winds down.

“Doing what?” you murmur back.

“Looking,” she says simply.

You still.

“I’m not—”

“You are,” she smiles, not unkindly. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”

Art feels bigger. Emptier.

Maybe it’s just because you’re sitting with Victoria and Rachel this time, the three of you clustered around your table with charcoal sticks and sketchpads spread out between you.

No Jungkook. No Jimin. No quiet tension humming under the surface of every movement.

Just Rachel complaining and Victoria making snide comments under her breath.

“Okay, but tell me why we’re doing still life,” Rachel groans, staring at the setup in front of the class. “I didn’t sign up to draw fruit.”

“You signed up for art,” Victoria says. “This is art.”

“This is torture.”

You snort softly, sketching the outline of the bowl in front of you.

“You’re enjoying this way too much,” Rachel accuses.

“I’m enjoying the silence,” you correct.

“There is no silence,” Victoria points out, gesturing to Rachel.

“Exactly.”

Rachel gasps, scandalized. “I’m being attacked.”

“You’re being loud,” Victoria says.

You shake your head, lips tugging into a small smile as you shade in your sketch.

It’s easier today.

Not better, necessarily, but easier.

Your hand moves without hesitation. Your focus stays where you put it. There’s no pull to the side, no distraction tugging your attention away from the page.

You glance up once across the room.

Nothing.

Just other students. Other conversations.

You look back down.

First Aid Industrial is quiet in a different way.

You take your usual seat, pulling on the disposable gloves provided as the instructor walks you through bandaging techniques with the kind of calm authority that makes it easy to follow along.

Wrap. Secure. Check.

Repeat.

Your hands move on autopilot, muscle memory kicking in faster than expected. This class feels easier. Partially because you had it alone already, but also because you’re kept so busy. Your brain doesn’t have time to stray, your hands have to move, and your brain has to keep pace.

It’s only one class, but it’s some sort of reprieve from your wandering mind. Your thoughts could get loud.

But not here, and not now. 

By the time First Aid Industrial lets out, the day has started to yellow around the edges.

The bright, almost obnoxious sunlight from that morning has mellowed into something softer, warmer, more bearable, golden light stretching long over the concrete paths of campus and catching in the leaves of the trees that bordered the far end of the lot. It should have made everything feel easier. More picturesque, maybe. Like one of those afternoons people write home about, all soft light and the promise of a mild evening.

Instead, you just feel… tilted off your axis.

Not bad. Not upset. Not even tired in the way you’d been that morning.

Just strange.

Like the whole day had passed by in a series of disconnected moments that should’ve added up to something more than they did. A whole portrait instead of abstract art. 

You shove your notebook into your bag and sling the strap over your shoulder, trailing out of the classroom with the rest of the students. Their voices blend together around you in bursts—weekend plans, complaints about assignments, someone laughing too loudly at a joke you didn’t hear. The sound follows you down the hall and out into the open air, where it gets swallowed up by the wide, sunlit quiet of campus.

For a few seconds, you just stand there at the top of the steps, blinking against the light.

People move around you in small groups, heading toward the lot, the library, the student center, the cafeteria. A normal Thursday. A completely uneventful afternoon.

You should probably feel relieved.

“Well,” Victoria says from somewhere to your left, drawing the word out until it sounds like a verdict. “That was weird.”

You glance over. She’s coming down the steps from another wing, sketch pad tucked beneath one arm, bag hanging low off one shoulder. Rachel is next to her, already talking with her hands, while Naomi trails half a step behind them both and looks about as worn out as you feel.

“Weird how?” Rachel asks immediately. “Like weird-weird or boring-weird? Because if we’re talking about boring, then yeah, absolutely. I almost died in—”

“You almost die every day, according to you,” Victoria cuts in.

Rachel flips her off.

No one had stared at you all day. No one had hovered near your desk, asked pointed questions in that too-soft, too-careful way that somehow made every conversation feel like it had a multitude of purposes. You got through English without the strange pressure of being watched from the row in front of you. You got through Art without the static hum of Jimin’s calm attention or Jungkook’s crooked smiles snagging at your focus. You got through your last class without glancing toward the door and finding someone already there.

You got what should’ve been a normal day.

So why does it feel like something’s missing?

The thought arrives uninvited and sits heavy in your chest.

You frown at it.

Then, because apparently your body has decided humiliation is the vibe for the afternoon, your eyes drag across the quad again. Over the students moving between buildings. Over the cars glinting in the lot. Over the shaded patch near the art wing, the benches outside the student resources building, the parking spaces lining the far curb.

Nothing.

No black Volvo. No sleek BMW. No expensive, impossible Rolls-Royce that looked ridiculous parked beside dented sedans and old pickup trucks. No impossible faces. No dark silhouettes. No too-still posture set apart from everybody else’s restless movement.

Nothing.

You let out a breath you hadn’t meant to hold.

“What’s got you sighing?” Naomi asks.

You look up to find the three girls converging toward you, Naomi with her tote bag tucked against her side, Victoria carrying her sketchpad under one arm, Rachel with her sunglasses shoved up into her hair even though the sun’s already easing lower. They move toward you like they always do at the end of the day now, an accidental little pack forming in the lot.

You almost say nothing.

Almost.

Instead, because apparently you enjoy making things harder for yourself, you glance back toward the empty row where you’ve gotten used to seeing some variation of their cars and say, a little too casually, “It’s just kind of weird they weren’t here today.”

There’s a beat.

Then Victoria’s mouth opens in immediate delight.

Naomi actually laughs.

Rachel goes very, very still before the slowest, meanest little smile curls across her mouth.

“Oh my God,” Victoria says first, scandalized in the way only a best friend can be when she’s having the time of her life. “You noticed.”

Naomi presses her lips together, though it does absolutely nothing to hide how amused she is. “I told you she would.”

Your brows shoot up. “Excuse me?”

Rachel’s laugh is softer, sharper. “No, no. Don’t backpedal now. You snapped at me last night because I asked one too many questions, and now suddenly we’re all supposed to pretend it’s not very interesting that you were keeping tabs on whether the Kims showed up to school?”

Heat flares at the back of your neck instantly.

“I was not keeping tabs,” you say, too quick, too defensive.

“You kind of were,” Naomi says gently.

“I was not,” you repeat, glaring between the three of them now. “They’ve been around a lot. They weren’t around today. I noticed. That is not the same thing.”

Rachel folds her arms over her chest and tips her head. “So just to be clear, when I bring them up, you bite my head off. But when you notice their absence and bring them up, that’s somehow normal?”

Your jaw tightens.

Last night flashes through you in a quick, unpleasant sequence—Rachel asking too many questions, you snapping, the whole room going tight and quiet afterward. The memory sits there between the two of you now, thin and prickly.

“Rachel,” Naomi starts, warning in her voice.

But Rachel only shrugs one shoulder, eyes fixed on you. “I’m just saying.”

“No,” you reply, sharper than you mean to at first, then force your tone down before it can get away from you. “You’re holding it over my head because I snapped at you.”

Rachel raises her brows. “Should I not?”

You stare at her.

She stares right back.

Then Victoria, bless her, cuts through before it can turn into something uglier. “Okay, okay, before we all start throwing hands in the parking lot—yes, YN noticed they were missing. That does not automatically mean she wants to marry one of them.”

Rachel snorts. “She doesn’t have to marry one of them. I’d settle for her admitting she thinks they’re hot.”

“Oh, grow up,” you mutter, adjusting the strap on your shoulder and starting toward the car, because if you stay rooted to the pavement any longer you may actually combust.

The girls follow, of course.

“Hot is objective,” Victoria says, falling into step beside you. 

“You know that’s not the part I’m curious about,” you groan. 

Naomi nods. “The interesting part is that they weren’t there.”

You glance at her. “So it is weird.”

“A little,” she concedes. “But not in a bad way.”

Rachel makes a doubtful little noise.

“It’s not bad-weird,” Victoria says. “They do this.”

You frown. “Do what?”

“Disappear on nice days,” Rachel says before Victoria can. “Which you would know if you’d listened to me instead of acting like I was insane.”

That catches you off guard enough to slow your steps.

“They skip when it’s sunny?”

Victoria barks out a laugh. “Yeah. All the time.”

“All the time?” you repeat.

Naomi shrugs, like this is the most normal thing in the world. “Yeah. A few students do, but the Kims do it enough that people notice. Especially this time of year, when everyone’s been trapped under rain for, like, three straight centuries.”

“They go do outdoorsy shit,” Victoria says. “Hikes. Trails. Cliffs. Forests. Whatever rich, hot recluses do when the weather turns nice. Like some weird REI campaign.”

Despite yourself, a laugh slips out.

And because the universe hates you, the sound only encourages them further.

“See?” Victoria says, pointing at you triumphantly. “You care.”

“I do not care,” you say. “I was asking.”

“Mhm,” Rachel says. “Because you were curious.”

“Because they were gone.”

“Because you missed them,” Rachel corrects smoothly.

You stop by the trunk and turn to face her fully. “I did not miss them.”

Rachel’s expression goes infuriatingly serene. “Then why were you looking for their cars?”

Your mouth opens. Then closes. Because there is no answer to that that doesn’t sound incriminating.

Victoria outright cackles. Naomi tries and fails to smother another laugh with the sleeve of her cardigan.

“This is ridiculous,” you mutter.

“It is,” Naomi agrees, smiling. “But it’s also a little funny.”

You drop your head back and squint up at the sky for a second, blue fading at the edges now where late afternoon is threatening to take over. “You’re all awful.”

Victoria reaches over and hooks her arm through yours. “And yet, here we are.”

Rachel is still watching you like she’s waiting for a confession.

Not a dramatic one. She knows better than that. Just something small. A crack in the wall. Some tiny admission she can pocket and use against you later.

You give her nothing.

“They’re just people,” you say finally, opening the car door. “Hot, weird people who apparently ditch class to go roll around in the forest whenever the sun comes out.”

Naomi smiles. “That’s basically the gist of it.”

“Sounds kind of fun,” Victoria says.

Rachel scoffs. “No, it doesn’t.”

“You hate dirt.”

“I hate bugs. The dirt is just another reason not to go frollick into the fucking woods.”

You climb into the passenger’s seat before she can drag the conversation any further off course, and the girls pile in around you with the easy rhythm of routine already settling into your bones. Naomi slips into the driver’s seat. Rachel slides into the back behind her. Victoria drops in next to Rachel, behind you, leaning forward between the seats almost immediately.

“So,” she says, voice bright with menace. “Who do we think is the outdoorsiest?”

“Please don’t start,” you groan, listening to the engine start.

“It’s Namjoon,” Naomi says.

“It’s absolutely Namjoon,” Victoria agrees.

“Wrong,” Rachel says. “It’s Taehyung. He seems like the kind of person who would stand silently in a field for four hours and call it healing.”

You snort.

Victoria catches it instantly in the rearview and grins. “There she is.”

You roll your eyes and the car eases out of the lot, the golden campus slipping by in pieces outside your windows.

The conversation keeps going, because of course it does.

“Jungkook would go if there was an audience,” Rachel says.

“Jungkook would cliff dive for fun,” Naomi counters.

“Jimin would complain about his shoes,” Victoria adds.

“Seokjin would bring snacks,” Naomi says.

“Yoongi would mysteriously already be there somehow,” Rachel mutters.

You shake your head, trying not to smile and failing a little anyway.

Layered underneath your thinly veiled frustration is relief. The kind of relief that comes from having the weirdness made ordinary by other people. Like if Victoria can reduce the Kims to hot hikers in a fake REI ad and Rachel can make passive-aggressive comments about Taehyung communing with nature, then maybe all of this really is just… normal. Or normal enough.

You come to a stop at a red light just beyond campus, Naomi’s fingers tapping once against the steering wheel.

Your reflection stares back at you faintly from the windshield—sun-flushed cheeks, tired eyes, hair a little wild from the day. You look like a girl who had class. Nothing more. Nothing special enough to warrant this much attention from anyone, let alone a group of boys everyone in town seems to orbit from a careful distance.

“They really do this a lot?” you hear yourself ask.

There’s a tiny, satisfied silence from the backseat.

Rachel pounces first. “See? There it is.”

“Oh my God,” you mutter immediately. “That is not what I meant.”

Naomi laughs softly beside you. “Yeah. They do. At least from what I’ve seen.”

“Sunny days, especially,” Victoria adds. “They vanish. Sometimes for just the day, sometimes the whole weekend.”

“Hikes,” Rachel says dramatically, as though personally offended by the concept. “Trails. Scenic overlooks. Outdoorsy shit.”

“Maybe they like nature,” you say.

Rachel goes quiet for half a beat, then says, “Listen to yourself.”

“What?”

“You’re defending them now.”

“I am literally not.”

“You said maybe they like nature with your whole chest.”

You make a strangled sound and beg Naomi to hit the gas as the light changes.

The girls laugh.

Even Rachel.

The sound fills the car, easy and bright and a little mean in the affectionate way only friends can get away with. By the time you pull into the lot outside the quad, whatever tension had been threatening to wedge itself into the afternoon again has dissolved into something more manageable… lighter, even if you know damn well Rachel is not done with you.

The four of you pile out of the car in the slow, loose way of people who don’t yet have evening plans beyond homework and food and pretending not to be exhausted. Naomi stretches, arms overhead. Victoria grabs her sketchpad. Rachel waits until you’ve shut your door before circling back around the hood of the car to walk beside you toward the building.

You brace automatically for another jab.

It comes.

But quieter this time.

“I’m just saying,” Rachel murmurs as the others head a few steps ahead, “if you do like one of them, you can tell us. I won’t act weird about it.”

You glance at her. “That is the least true statement anyone’s ever made.”

She shrugs. “Fine. I’ll act a little weird about it. But not in a malicious way.”

“You’re lying,” you tell her, climbing the stairs.

“And you’re dodging,” she singsongs lightly.

The apartment door opens. Warmth spills out. Naomi tosses her keys into the bowl by the entrance. Victoria is already talking about snacks.

You step inside and toe off your shoes, the familiar creak of the floorboards grounding you more than anything has all day.

For a moment—just a moment—you let yourself imagine it.

Some winding trail deep in the trees.

The weather clear.

Seven of them somewhere under all that sun and sky, doing whatever strange, expensive, outdoorsy shit everyone swears they do on nice days.

The thought is so absurd it makes your mouth twitch.

Then Rachel breezes past you into the kitchen and calls, loud enough for the whole apartment to hear, “By the way, YN was looking for the Kims in the parking lot.”

Your head drops back.

“Rachel.”

Victoria howls.

Naomi gasps, “Dude!”

Your middle finger is loud and proud as you shoot it her way from the living room.

The apartment feels softer after sunset.

Not quieter, necessarily—Rachel is still Rachel, Victoria still has a running commentary for nearly everything she does, and Naomi hums under her breath whenever she’s focused—but softer in the way places do when the blinds are shut, the lamps are on low, and nobody has anywhere else they need to be.

You change into leggings and one of your old Portland State hoodies after dinner, hair twisted up in a claw clip that’s already threatening to give up. By the time you come back out to the living room, Naomi has spread her notes neatly across the coffee table, Victoria has claimed the floor with her sketchpad and a textbook she looks openly offended by, and Rachel is in the kitchen with a bottle of wine and four mismatched glasses.

You pause in the doorway.

Rachel notices.

“What?” she asks, already pouring.

“Nothing,” you say slowly. “I just didn’t take you for a red wine girl.”

Rachel snorts. “Please. I’m not a monster. I like a ton of different things.”

“Yeah, like the time she saw a French film in eighth grade and made it everybody’s problem,” Victoria says without looking up.

Rachel gasps. “That is such an oversimplification of my personality.”

“It’s not an oversimplification if it’s true,” Naomi murmurs.

You laugh before you can stop it, and Rachel’s eyes flick to you for just a second—not hard, not sharp, just enough for you to catch that she noticed.

The air between you is still a little bruised from last night. Not broken, exactly. But tender in the places where you both pressed too hard.

Rachel pours anyway.

“Study night,” she declares, setting a glass in front of each of you like she’s officiating something. “This can be a tradition starting tonight, since last night was messy. And before any of you start, yes, one glass of wine while studying is the mark of a well-rounded student.”

“It is definitely the mark of something,” Victoria mutters.

Naomi accepts hers with a smile. “Thank you.”

You take yours too, fingers curling around the stem. “If I fail a quiz or something tomorrow, I’m blaming all of you.”

The first twenty minutes pass in the easy, stop-start rhythm of four people pretending to study more efficiently than they actually are. Naomi is the only one truly committed to the bit, posture straight, highlighter uncapped, eyes skimming over her notes with deadly seriousness. Victoria does a decent enough impression of productivity until her attention starts drifting and she begins doodling in the margins of her reading packet. Rachel reads in dramatic bursts—three pages in perfect silence, then a loud sigh and a complaint to no one in particular. You bounce between actually reviewing your notes and letting your eyes go unfocused somewhere over the top of your glass.

The wine helps.

Not enough to make you fuzzy. Just enough to sand down the edges of the day.

It’s Rachel, unexpectedly, who shifts the night.

Naomi asks some harmless question about where everyone grew up—something that comes up because Victoria is making fun of the tiny-town energy of Forks and you mention Portland again—and somehow it circles its way toward Rachel before anyone fully realizes they’ve wandered there.

Rachel rolls her wine between her palms and stares into it like there might be an answer at the bottom.

“My dad’s a chef,” she says finally, tone so matter-of-fact it almost misses the room entirely. “Like, not line-cook chef. Actual chef. Ran restaurants in Seattle before he decided he was over the city and wanted to ‘curate a quieter culinary experience,’ which is rich-person code for opening a bougie place somewhere nobody asked for one.”

Victoria looks up, immediately interested. “Wait, really?”

Rachel nods once. “And my mom’s a flight attendant. Has been since before I was born. Still is, technically, though now she mostly picks the routes she wants and complains about junior crews.”

“That’s kind of cool,” Naomi says

Rachel gives a half shrug. “It is. I guess.”

You watch her over the rim of your glass.

There’s something different in her face now. Not softer, exactly—Rachel doesn’t really do soft—but less arranged. Less curated.

“Were you in Seattle before here?” you ask.

“Mostly,” she says. “Some Bellevue. Some Mercer Island when my grandparents wanted everybody closer together. My family’s got money, which is as annoying to say out loud as it sounds.”

Victoria snorts. “At least you know it.”

“Oh, trust me, I know it. I’ve known it since I was old enough to realize most people don’t grow up with dinner parties where everyone’s talking about mutual funds and prep schools over tiny food portions.”

Naomi smiles faintly. “That sounds awful.”

“It was awful,” Rachel replies, and this time there’s no sarcasm in it. “My parents aren’t bad people or anything. My dad actually worked his ass off for most of what he has, and my mom just… kind of floats through life like everything will work out because it always has. But everybody in my family is so—” she searches for the word, nose scrunching. “Polished. Intentional. Their kids all went to stupidly expensive schools. My cousins are all in law school or med school or marrying finance guys with vacation homes. And then there’s me.”

Victoria lowers her textbook a little more. “Forks College Rachel.”

Rachel smiles, but it doesn’t fully land. “Forks College Rachel.”

Naomi frowns. “That doesn’t make you a disappointment.”

Rachel glances at her like she doesn’t quite know what to do with being contradicted gently. “Tell that to my grandmother. She cried when I didn’t get into Yale.”

Victoria’s mouth falls open. “Shut up.”

“I wish I was kidding.”

“What did your parents say?” you ask.

Rachel swallows, then takes a drink. “My dad told me there were worse things in life than disappointing your family. My mom told me there was always the option to transfer later.” She laughs once, but it comes out thin. “So. You know. Different vibes.”

For a moment, nobody says anything.

The room hums softly around you, the heater clicking, pages shifting as Naomi absently straightens her notes, the distant rush of a car passing outside.

Then Victoria, quieter than usual, says, “That sucks.”

Rachel lifts one shoulder. “Yeah.”

There’s no dramatic breakthrough after that. No movie moment. Just the slow, strange comfort of the silence not turning hostile.

You take a sip of your wine and say, “Portland State turned me away.”

Rachel’s eyes flick to you. “Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“What the hell?”

You let out a soft laugh. “Exactly.”

Naomi looks between the two of you. “You guys are having a moment. Should I leave?”

Victoria gasps. “Don’t ruin it.”

Rachel rolls her eyes, but some of the tension leaks out of her shoulders.

“It’s not that deep,” she mutters.

But then, maybe because the wine’s warm in her system, or because the apartment feels safe in a way she didn’t expect it to, or because once a person starts saying things they usually keep packed away it’s hard to know where the stopping point is, she keeps going.

“There was this girl,” Rachel says, so abruptly that it takes the room half a beat to catch up. Her gaze stays locked on her glass. “When I was younger. Like… middle school into freshman year kind of younger.”

Victoria doesn’t move.

Naomi doesn’t either.

You stay very, very still.

Rachel laughs under her breath, but it isn’t a happy sound. “She was my best friend. We did everything together. Sleepovers, camp, soccer for one miserable season because her parents thought team sports would ‘build character.’ We were always at each other’s houses. Always texting. Always…” She trails off.

The silence stretches, but not unkindly.

“And?” Naomi asks gently after a second.

Rachel’s mouth presses into a line. “And nothing.”

Victoria’s brows lift just slightly, but she’s smart enough not to push.

Rachel stares down at the dark red in her glass. “I mean, not nothing. We were kids. But also—” She stops again, jaw tightening in a way that tells you there’s more there than she intends to give. “It got weird. Her family moved. We stopped talking because what was there to talk about anymore? End of story.”

It is very obviously not the end of the story.

But she’s done. You can feel it.

She lifts her glass and drains what’s left of it in one go, expression sharpening back into something more familiar. Guarded. Curated. Rachel-shaped.

Victoria, to her credit, only says, “That would mess with anybody.”

Rachel gives her a look. “Don’t psychoanalyze me.”

“I literally didn’t.”

Naomi reaches for the bottle and tips it toward Rachel’s glass. “More?”

Rachel holds it out. “Please.”

The mood never gets maudlin. Thank God.

It brightens incrementally, though.

Opens up just enough that the next hour passes in a softer rhythm than the start of the evening had. Naomi talks about growing up in Washington, about how her family still sends her home with enough leftovers to feed an army every time she visits. Victoria tells a story about breaking her wrist in eighth grade trying to ollie off a curb because some girl she liked was watching, which gets enough laughter out of all of you that Naomi almost spills her wine. You talk about Portland, about tutoring, about the weird ache of leaving a city you never thought you loved all that much only to realize you miss it in specific stupid ways, your coffee spot, your bus route, the exact smell of your mom’s house after it rains.

Rachel listens more than she talks after that. But she listens differently now.

Less like she’s waiting to be entertained. More like she’s measuring what everyone says against herself.

The second glass of wine is what does it.

Not enough to make you sloppy, not enough to have you spilling your guts against your will, but enough to warm your face and melt the part of your brain that usually keeps a hand clamped over your mouth. Enough that when Rachel starts in again, this time not about the Kims exactly, but about your classes, your professors, how “Professor Collins looks like he sleeps in a coffin” and how “Art would be better if Modez had better taste in charcoal”, you don’t think before speaking.

“Phillips is weird with me.”

The words fall into the room almost lazily, like they don’t know they’ve changed everything.

Naomi’s pen pauses over her notes.

Victoria looks up first, brows furrowing.

Even Rachel stills a little, the stem of her wine glass hovering halfway to her mouth.

“What do you mean weird?” Naomi asks softly.

You stare down into your glass, watching the dark red slide against the curve of it when you tilt your wrist. “I don’t know,” you mutter. “Just… weird. Too familiar. Too comfortable.”

Victoria sets her textbook aside entirely. “Define that.”

You shrug one shoulder, suddenly wishing you’d kept your mouth shut, but the wine’s already loosened the knot and now the thread keeps pulling. “He keeps checking in on me. Which, okay, fine, he’s my professor, whatever. But it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like…” You grimace, searching for the right word. “Like he’s trying to make it seem like we have some understanding or something. Like we’re in on a private conversation nobody else can hear.”

Rachel lowers her glass. “That’s gross.”

“Yeah,” you say, quieter now. “It is.”

Naomi’s expression has gone pinched in that gentle, worried way of hers. “Has he actually said anything out of line?”

You shake your head almost immediately. “No, not really. That’s what’s pissing me off.” You laugh once, humorless. “It’s all technically harmless, I guess. It just…” You look up then, meeting Victoria’s eyes before glancing away. “It makes my skin crawl.”

Nobody jokes.

Nobody interrupts.

The room stays very still around the confession, all that easy warmth from a minute ago settling into something more attentive.

“What’s he doing?” Victoria asks, voice flatter now. Colder.

You tuck one leg beneath yourself on the couch and exhale through your nose. “He keeps hovering. Complimenting stupid things. Acting like he’s checking in because he cares how I’m adjusting here, but it never feels like that. It feels like he’s trying to—” You cut yourself off, frustrated. “I don’t know. Get comfortable. Make me comfortable. Or make it look like I’m comfortable.”

Rachel’s nose wrinkles. “Oh, that is such a type of man.”

You glance at her, a little surprised at how quickly she says it. She catches the look and rolls her eyes, but there’s no sting in it.

“I grew up around rich restaurant people,” she says. “There’s always one. Usually with a scarf and a weird obsession with mentorship.”

Victoria makes a face. “Ew.”

“Exactly.”

Naomi shifts closer on the couch, cardigan sleeve pushed over her hand. “Did he touch you?”

“No,” you answer. “Not like that. He’ll crouch near my desk or stop beside me and comment on my notes or whatever, but…” You swallow. “It’s the way he says things. The way he looks at me after. Like he’s waiting for me to play along.”

Naomi’s mouth tightens.

Victoria’s jaw does too.

Rachel, to your mild surprise, looks furious.

“Okay,” Victoria says after a moment. “So he’s a creep.”

You let out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh. “Thank you.”

“No, seriously,” she says. “That’s creepy. I know creepy. Pastor energy was not a joke.”

That gets the smallest smile out of you.

Rachel leans back in her chair, arms folding over her chest. “Have other people noticed?”

Your mind flashes to the classroom yesterday. To Jungkook beside you, too close and too aware in that way he always seems to be. To the sound of his soft throat-clear when Phillips lingered too long. To the way he and Seokjin had gone oddly quiet while your professor stood over your desk smiling like he’d earned it.

You stare at your glass again.

“I think Jungkook did,” you say finally.

That gets everyone’s attention for a completely different reason.

Naomi blinks. “Jungkook?”

You nod. “Yesterday. In Drama. Phillips came over to my desk after class and was doing his whole check-in thing, and Jungkook was still there with Seokjin. He kept clearing his throat, like—” You make a vague gesture with your fingers. “I don’t know. Like he was trying to break it up. Or remind Phillips he wasn’t the only person in the room.”

Victoria’s eyes narrow with interest. “Oh?”

“It was weird,” you say quickly. “Not weird like that. Just… he was there for it. He definitely heard enough to know something was off.”

Rachel is watching you with a look that’s half-curious, half-thoughtful. “And did he say anything?”

“No.” You shake your head. “Not directly. But when I left, Jin looked at me all…” You trail off and grimace. “I don’t know. Apologetic, almost.”

Naomi’s brows knit together. “That’s kind of telling.”

You shrug, the motion sloppy this time from the wine. “Maybe. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it because I already felt gross.”

“No,” Victoria says immediately. “If a man is weirding you out, and another man in the room notices, you are not reading too much into it. That’s just survival instincts.”

Rachel hums into her wine. “Especially if the second man is usually busy being hot and mysterious instead of socially aware.”

You cut her a look.

She lifts her shoulders. “What? I’m right.”

You hate that she kind of is.

Naomi reaches over and nudges your knee gently. “You don’t have to brush this off just because he hasn’t technically crossed some huge line.”

You look at her.

She holds your gaze.

“That’s still enough,” she says quietly. “If he’s making you feel weird, that’s enough.”

For a second, something in your chest eases. Not all the way, and definitely not enough to disappear. But enough.

“I know,” you murmur. “I just feel stupid saying it out loud when it all sounds so small.”

“It doesn’t sound small,” Rachel says, sharper than usual, like she’s annoyed on your behalf now. “It sounds calculated.”

You blink at her.

She rolls her eyes immediately, like she regrets being perceptive in public. “Don’t make that face.”

“What face?”

“That one,” she mutters. “Like you’re surprised I occasionally have a functioning brain.”

Victoria snorts.

Naomi smiles into her glass.

You laugh then, soft and brief, but real.

Rachel points a finger at you. “But if he says anything weird again, I want details.”

“Rachel—”

“No, seriously. I’m not saying go nuclear over one off feeling, but if he keeps doing it? That’s a pattern.”

Victoria nods. “Agreed.”

Naomi adds, “And don’t stay after class alone with him if you can help it.”

You sink a little deeper into the couch, warmth from the wine and the room and their attention settling over you all at once. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good,” Victoria says.

Rachel tips the rest of her wine back and sets the glass down with a soft click. “Also, just for the record, if Jungkook noticed and looked concerned, that means it was probably very obvious.”

You groan and tip your head back against the couch cushion. “Please don’t make this about him.”

“I’m not making it about him,” she says. “I’m saying if Captain Lip Ring clocked it, then Creepy Phillips was not being subtle.”

Naomi chokes on a laugh.

Victoria nearly spills her wine.

And despite everything, despite the crawl of discomfort that still lingers when you think about Phillips’s voice or smile or the way he hovers, your own laughter joins theirs a second later.

Not because it’s funny.

But because the room is safe, and the girls are here, and the thing that felt ugly and private and easy to dismiss in daylight has been dragged into the open where it looks smaller. Less like a thing eating at you and more like something real and manageable and witnessed.

Eventually the books come back out in earnest, and the wine settles into your bloodstream just enough to make everything feel pleasantly slowed. Naomi quizzes you on some English reading. Victoria makes Rachel explain an econ concept she’s pretending not to understand just to watch her get dramatic about it. Rachel actually helps, though—sharp and quick when she wants to be, irritation giving way to competence so fast it almost makes you laugh.

It’s close to eleven when the night finally starts to fold in on itself.

Naomi yawns first, hand flying to cover her mouth.

Victoria notices immediately. “Grandma alert.”

Naomi shoves her shoulder. “Some of us believe in a healthy sleep schedule.”

Rachel gestures vaguely at the living room. “And some of us believe in suffering for the sake of higher education.”

“You go to bed at ten thirty when no one’s looking,” Victoria says.

“That is slander.”

“That is a confession.”

You carry your empty wine glass to the kitchen, rinse it, and leave it upside down by the sink. The apartment is warm in the sleepy, lived-in way you’re starting to recognize already. Naomi is stacking her notes. Victoria is gathering her sketchpad and textbooks into a messy armful. Rachel is recorking the bottle even though there’s barely anything left.

You disappear into your room long enough to swap your hoodie for an oversized sleep shirt and wash your face, and when you come back out your phone is buzzing on your bed.

Mom.

You smile before you even open it.

Mom: Are you alive, college girl?

Mom: Or have your new roommates already sold you for rent money

You laugh softly and type back as you sit on the edge of your bed.

You: still alive unfortunately

You: if they sell me i hope it’s for a decent amount

Her reply comes quick.

Mom: Minimum $40 and a good candle

Mom: How is school going?

You stare at the screen for a second, thumbs hovering.

How was school?

Too many ways to answer that.

You: weird

You: but okay weird

You: made progress w the girls tonight tho

This time there’s a slightly longer pause.

Mom: That sounds promising

 Mom: Okay weird is survivable

 Mom: Bad weird, less so

You smile and flop back against your pillow.

You: yeah no not bad weird

 You: just new place weird

You: everyone already has their dynamics here and i’m kind of dropped in the middle of it

Mom: You’ve always been good at finding your footingMom: Even when you pretend you’re not

Your throat tightens in that stupid, small way it always does when she says the exact right thing too easily.

You: don’t get all wise on me at 11 pm

You: i’m fragile

Mom: You’re dramatic

Mom: Go to sleep

Mom: I love you

You hesitate only long enough to let yourself feel it.

You: love u too

You: tell the dog i miss him

Mom: He misses your bed, not you

Mom: goodnight baby

You set your phone down with a smile still tugging faintly at your mouth.

When you step back into the hall to brush your teeth, the apartment has entered that final stage of winding down where every sound seems louder than it should—the click of Naomi’s door, the rustle of Victoria changing in her room, the faint murmur of Rachel’s voice as she talks on the phone to someone in a tone that’s flatter and more guarded than the one she uses with you girls.

By the time you’ve finished up and climbed under your blankets, the place has gone still.

Not silent. Still.

The kind of stillness shared spaces only get once everybody has retreated behind their own doors with their own thoughts.

You lie on your back and stare at the ceiling for a while.

Your mind drifts through the day in strange fragments. English with Naomi. Art without them. First Aid Industrial. The parking lot. The girls laughing because you’d noticed the Kims were gone. Rachel admitting just enough to make sense of some things and not enough to absolve others.

And underneath all of it, annoyingly persistent, is the knowledge that tomorrow is Friday.

The party.

Small college guy house, according to Victoria. Loud music. Questionable drinks. A crowd full of strangers.

And, if the girls are to be believed, absolutely no Kims.

That should probably comfort you more than it does.

At some point your thoughts blur into dreams without warning.

Friday morning arrives faster than it has any right to.

Sunlight doesn’t attack you this time—it slips across the room in pale, pretty strips, soft enough that for a second you almost forget where you are. Then the apartment groans awake around you and it all comes back: school, Friday, party.

You stretch beneath the covers and squint toward your phone.

7:49 AM

A new day.

From somewhere beyond your door, Victoria’s voice carries down the hall.

“If Rachel uses the bathroom for thirty minutes again, I’m going to commit a crime.”

Naomi laughs.

You groan into your pillow.

Friday, apparently, has begun.

Rachel is talking in the kitchen.

Not loudly, exactly. Just… continuously.

Something about eyeliner. Something about a top she swears she left draped over the back of the couch. Something about tonight, tonight, tonight in that increasingly animated way that means the party has officially taken over her brain.

You stare at the ceiling for a second, eyes still gummy with sleep, and let the noise of the apartment build around you like weather.

Cabinet doors open and shut.

The coffee machine sputters to life.

Naomi laughs softly at something Victoria says.

Rachel says, “No, because if Kyle thinks I’m showing up looking anything less than incredible after the week I’ve had, he can actually go to hell.”

You close your eyes again and let out a quiet breath through your nose.

Friday.

The thought sits in your chest with an odd combination of relief and dread.

At least you only have two classes.

At least after those, the day is yours.

You check your phone again. No new messages.

Nothing from your mom. Nothing from the girls’ group chat beyond Victoria reacting to something Rachel said at one in the morning with three skull emojis. Nothing of note.

For once, your brain doesn’t reach automatically for the thought of them.

Maybe because the pattern is already there now. Sunny means absence. Easy enough.

Annoying, but easy.

The apartment smells like toast and Naomi’s vanilla lotion when you step out into the living room.

Victoria is perched on the counter in bike shorts and an oversized sweatshirt, one leg swinging idly while she drinks iced coffee through a straw. Naomi is at the stove, poking at something in a pan that looks suspiciously like scrambled eggs. Rachel is seated at the table with one leg tucked under her, a compact open in front of her while she does the lower half of one eye with surgical precision.

No one says good morning right away.

You lean against the kitchen island and take the mug Naomi wordlessly slides your way.

It’s only after your first sip that Victoria glances over and smirks.

Rachel flicks her gaze up to you in the mirror of her compact. “You look less haunted than yesterday.”

“Thank you?”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

Naomi makes a quiet disapproving noise. “Be nice.”

“I am nice,” Rachel says, and even she sounds unconvinced.

“Objectively false,” Victoria replies.

You cradle the mug in both hands and let their familiar bickering wash over you. It’s easier this morning—lighter than it had been the day before. Rachel still has that little edge when she looks at you, like she hasn’t fully let go of the fact that you snapped at her despite your bonding last night. Still, it’s buried under enough eyeliner, enough caffeine, enough anticipation for tonight that it doesn’t bother you.

“Only two classes, right?” Naomi asks, finally sliding a plate your way.

You glance down. Eggs. Toast. Something green shoved onto the side like she’s trying to rescue your health by force.

“Yeah,” you say. “Drama and astronomy.”

“Bleak,” Victoria says.

“Agreed.”

Rachel clicks her compact shut and looks at you over it. “At least creepy Phillips will be the highlight of your day.”

You frown. “That sentence feels criminal.” You tear off a piece of toast and shrug one shoulder.

Victoria gags. “I’m telling you. He screams pastor energy.”

Rachel actually laughs at that. “Oh my God.”

“No, seriously,” Victoria presses. “Like he’d ask if you’ve accepted the Lord into your heart and then compliment your skirt.”

“That is horrifyingly specific,” you tell her.

“And accurate,” Rachel adds, grimacing.

Naomi gives you a sympathetic look. “Well. At least it’s Friday.”

At least it’s Friday.

You nod like the words mean more than they probably should.

Campus is all glare and motion by the time you get there.

People seem louder on Fridays, even when they aren’t actually speaking above a normal volume. There’s something looser in the air. A kind of early-release energy. The trees along the far end of campus cast thin, sharp-edged shadows over the walkways, and everywhere you look there are groups of students lingering a little longer than necessary, half-turned toward the weekend already.

You walk with the girls until the courtyard splits you apart.

“Text me if Phillips says anything gross,” Victoria tells you, adjusting the strap of her bag.

“What am I supposed to text?” you ask. “‘He breathed weird in my direction’?”

“Yes.”

Rachel slides her sunglasses up into her hair and points at you. “And if he gets too friendly, remember you have a father-shaped ally on campus.”

You stare at her.

She rolls her eyes. “Trevor. Or whatever. The old dude your dad knows.”

“Professor Phillips is Trevor.”

Rachel’s entire face changes. “Oh.”

Victoria starts cackling.

Naomi covers her mouth.

Rachel points at you again, horrified this time. “That’s worse.”

You laugh in spite of yourself, shaking your head as you back away from them. “You’re all useless.”

“Good luck!” Naomi calls after you.

“Don’t die!” Victoria adds.

Rachel cups her hands around her mouth. “And if he says something weird, weaponize a stage prop!”

You keep walking, cheeks warm with laughter, and don’t look back.

Intro to Drama is half full when you get there.

The door sticks a little when you open it, the metal handle warm from the sun. Inside, the classroom is dimmer than the hall, blinds half-drawn against the brightness outside. Dust hangs lazily in the warm bands of light that still make it through, drifting over the rows of desks and the little raised strip of floor at the front that Professor Phillips insists on calling a stage even though it’s barely more than a platform.

You pause just inside.

Then, because habit is a strong and stupid thing, your gaze skims automatically toward the side of the room where Jungkook and Seokjin had sat.

Empty.

Of course.

No weird little twist settles in your chest this time. No reflexive disappointment. Just a quiet acknowledgment.

Sunny day.

Gone.

Right.

You move farther back and choose a seat near the wall, one with a decent view of the room and plenty of space between you and everyone else. Your notebook comes out. Pen. Syllabus shoved to the side. You settle in, trying to let the room become just a room.

For a while, it works.

Professor Phillips is late enough to be noticeable but early enough that no one comments on it. He breezes in through the side door with a stack of papers tucked under one arm and enough forced charm in his smile to make your shoulders tense before he even speaks.

“Morning, my little tragedians,” he announces, voice already too warm for eight-something in the morning.

A few students laugh.

You don’t.

He crosses to his desk, dropping the papers down and smoothing a hand through his hair like he’s stepping into a spotlight instead of a community college classroom. There’s a looseness to him today, sleeves rolled to his forearms, tie absent, collar open one button too low. Casual, but in the calculated way some men are casual when they want to be praised for it.

His eyes sweep the room.

You hate that you know the exact second they find you.

“Good turnout for a Friday,” he says, and the line is clearly for everyone, but the smile lingers in your direction just a beat too long.

You look down at your notebook and uncap your pen.

Today’s class ends up being less Shakespeare and more performance theory, which should be boring enough to numb you out, but Phillips has the kind of ego that turns even straightforward material into a monologue about his own past successes. He paces when he talks. Uses his hands too much. Stops beside desks without needing to.

The first time he comes near yours, you tell yourself not to stiffen.

You fail.

He doesn’t touch you. Doesn’t say anything out of line. Just pauses by your row while explaining emotional realism in modern acting, glances at your notes, and says, “You’re a fast writer.”

You look up. “Uh. Thanks?”

He smiles like you’ve offered him something rather than the other way around. “Good skill to have.”

Then he moves on.

It’s innocuous enough that if you repeated it later out loud, it would sound ridiculous to even mention.

That’s what makes it worse.

The second time is during a small in-class exercise where he has everyone pair off to read a scene flatly, then again with exaggerated emotion. You end up with a girl named Amber from the front row who has a nice voice and smells like peaches. It should be painless. Mostly, it is.

Until Phillips crouches at the edge of your shared desk while you’re reading and says, low enough that it doesn’t carry, “There you go. More confidence today.”

It sends a ripple of discomfort over your skin so fast it almost makes you lose your place on the page.

You recover.

Barely.

Amber doesn’t seem to notice anything odd. She just keeps reading, then smiles at you when it’s your turn.

You read your lines. You do the exercise. You keep your expression neutral and your voice steady and your pen moving whenever there’s a gap long enough to fill.

And all the while, somewhere under the surface of your thoughts, one small ugly certainty begins to harden:

Rachel was right.

Not about the Kims.

About him.

By the time class ends, you feel wrung out in a way that has nothing to do with the material.

Students start filing out in loose, chatting little groups. Chairs scrape back. Backpacks zip shut. Amber gives you a quick wave over her shoulder as she leaves. You return it automatically and begin gathering your things as efficiently as possible, every instinct in your body suddenly singular and focused: leave.

Just leave.

You’ve got your notebook in your bag and your hand around the strap when Professor Phillips’s voice cuts through the room.

“YN?”

You close your eyes for half a second.

Then turn.

He’s standing near his desk with one hand braced against the edge of it, papers tucked beneath the other arm again like some kind of prop. His expression is friendly. Too friendly.

“Yeah?”

“Quick question,” he says.

Almost every other student is gone now.

Of course they are.

You shift your bag higher onto your shoulder, careful to keep distance between you and the front of the room. “Okay.”

“Are you looking for work or experience?” he asks.

The question is mild. The tone isn’t.

Or maybe it is. Maybe you’re too keyed up. Maybe this is all perfectly harmless and you’ve just talked yourself into unease because he reminds you vaguely of every other overfamiliar adult man who’s ever mistaken politeness for invitation.

Either way, your smile feels brittle as glass when you offer it. 

“Not particularly.” 

“Oh?” his brows lift. “Well, I have an opening for an assistant if you do happen to find yourself interested.” 

“I’ll keep it in mind,” you nod.

He studies you for a second too long. “Still making friends?” 

You nod once. “Yeah.”

“Good.” He smiles again, smaller now, easier to mistake for sincere. “College can be lonely at first.”

You say nothing.

He seems to realize, finally, that he’s losing whatever rhythm he thought this conversation had.

“Well,” he says, straightening. “My door’s always open if you need help with coursework. Or just getting adjusted.”

There’s a beat.

Then another.

You grip your bag strap tighter and force yourself not to visibly recoil at the or just getting adjusted of it all.

“Thanks,” you say, putting just enough distance into the word that even he has to hear it. “I should get to astronomy.”

Something flickers in his face, not irritation, not exactly. More like surprise that you’re ending the exchange rather than letting him. It’s gone fast enough to make you wonder if you imagined it.

“Of course,” he says.

You don’t wait for anything else.

You turn and head for the door, heartbeat a little too loud in your ears, and the second you’re out in the hall you pull your phone from your pocket and type a message to Victoria.

You: i need u to know u were right and he DOES have weird pastor energy

The reply comes before you’ve made it down the hall.

vic: LMFAO

vic: WHAT DID HE DO

You type as you walk, weaving around slower students.

you: nothing bigwhich is somehow worsehe just keeps being weirdly familiar and acting like we have some special understanding when we literally don’t

Three bubbles appear.

Then disappear.

Then reappear.

vic: ewkill him

You snort under your breath.

you: working on it

It helps.

A little.

Enough to get you across campus without grinding your teeth.

Astronomy is cooler than the rest of the buildings.

Not temperature-wise, exactly. Just in feeling. Professor Jones keeps the blinds open, lets the sunlight in where Phillips had tried to tame it, and something about that alone makes the room feel easier to breathe in.

The class is already filling when you slip inside. You choose a seat near the middle this time—not all the way back, not all the way front. A compromise between wanting an exit and wanting to be treated like a person rather than a body in a chair.

As you sit, your gaze catches on the empty seat beside yours.

You blink once.

Then drop your notebook down and sit anyway.

No Namjoon.

Right.

Still no sting to it, exactly. Just a little hollow acknowledgment, quickly smoothed over.

Professor Jones starts class promptly, which you appreciate more than you can say. No monologuing. No pacing. No weirdly pointed check-ins. Just lecture, diagrams, questions, and that steady, intelligent cadence of someone who genuinely likes her subject and trusts that liking it is enough to teach it well.

You sink into it almost immediately.

Galaxies again today.

Classifications. Shapes. Movement. Distance.

Spiral galaxies, barred spirals, ellipticals, irregulars. Light-years. Clusters. Rotation curves.

You take notes until your hand aches pleasantly, and when Professor Jones projects a grainy image of Andromeda up onto the board, the room goes dim and blue around the edges and you feel, for the first time all morning, fully present inside your own body.

The universe helps with that sometimes.

Its scale.

Its indifference.

The comfort of knowing how little any one strange classroom interaction or overfamiliar smile really matters when set against collapsing stars and cosmic drift.

“Miss LN?”

You look up, startled enough that a few people glance your way.

Professor Jones is smiling faintly from the front of the room. “You looked like you had a thought.”

Heat flickers in your cheeks. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Share, if you want.”

You glance down at your notebook, then back up. “I was just wondering if irregular galaxies are always the result of disruption. Like collisions or outside gravitational influence. Or if some of them… just form that way.”

Professor Jones lights up.

Actually lights up.

“No, that’s a great question,” she says, turning back toward the board. “Often there is some kind of interaction involved, yes, but not always in a dramatic way…”

And just like that, the room moves with her into the answer, and you let your mind be carried along with it.

By the time the lecture ends, you’re calmer than you’d been walking in.

Students start packing up. Someone a few rows ahead of you is already talking about beach plans. Another girl complains loudly that if the weather stays this nice she’s never going to survive being indoors this weekend. You linger long enough to copy one final line from the board, then slide your notebook away.

Professor Jones catches your eye on your way out and says, “Good question today.”

Simple. Warm. Professional.

You smile back, and this time it comes easy. “Thanks.”

Then you step outside into the bright noon air and feel the day slacken.

Done. Friday, officially, your own.

The parking lot is sun-soaked and crowded in the disorganized way Fridays always seem to be, students peeling out of campus in clusters and waves. You spot Victoria first by her car, then remember with a little jolt that no—today’s your day to drive after all. Or was it? You squint.

No. The girls had arranged to go back together and then Uber later.

Right.

Your brain is already halfway toward tonight.

You pull out your phone, and there’s a text from Naomi.

naomi: we’re by the front steps!!! don’t get kidnapped by professor creep

A second later, Rachel’s name pops up beneath it.

rachel: if he tries anything, remember you can always bite

And then, because apparently Victoria cannot let anything sit unpunctuated:

vic: or seduce him and ruin his life

for legal reasons this is a joke

You bark out a laugh, earning a brief look from a passing student. Then you type back as you head for the front steps:

you: you’re all deranged also i survived also if anyone mentions the kims today i’m steering us into a tree idc if Victoria’s driving 

naomi: so I should sit passenger good to know 

When you round the building and spot them waiting in a bright patch of sun, Victoria shades her eyes dramatically and calls, “She lives!”

Naomi smiles. Rachel lifts her iced coffee in salute.

And for a moment, with the sky wide and blue overhead and the whole strange, sunny day flattening itself into something manageable behind you, it feels easy to smile back.

Friday is only half over.

But it’s yours now.

And somewhere underneath the relief of that is a different kind of anticipation entirely, already beginning to hum.

Tonight.

The evening starts in pieces.

In the slow drag of your brush through still-damp hair. In the soft hiss of Victoria’s curling iron from the bathroom. In Naomi kneeling on the floor of her bedroom trying to decide between two cardigans even though nobody sane wears a cardigan to a house party. In Rachel standing in the middle of the living room in a slip and one earring, barking directions at all of you, looking like she’s running a backstage production and not trying to find her lip gloss.

Your room is warm from the sunset still fading through the blinds, the last of the daylight catching on the navy blue dress you’d laid out hours ago like setting it there would make the night easier to walk into.

It doesn’t.

It just makes the whole thing feel more real.

The dress is simple enough that you don’t feel like you’re trying too hard, but fitted enough that when you pull it over your head and smooth it down your hips, you do pause and look at yourself in the mirror a second longer than necessary. Navy suits you. It deepens everything, your eyes, the curve of your shoulders, the line of your waist. It’s the kind of dress that doesn’t beg for attention but catches it anyway.

“YN!” Victoria calls from the hall. “If you’re hotter than me, I need a warning before I see you.”

“You’re so dramatic,” Rachel says somewhere behind her, followed by the sound of a cabinet slamming shut. “It’s exhausting.”

You step into your heels and open your door.

Victoria, halfway through clipping an earring in, turns and stops dead.

“Oh, fuck off,” she says immediately.

You laugh. “What?”

“That is not fair,” she says, pointing at you accusingly. “You cannot just come out looking all—” She gestures at you helplessly. “—that.”

Rachel appears behind her a second later and lets out a slow whistle. “Okay. Cute.”

“Cute?” Victoria repeats, scandalized. “She looks like she’s about to ruin somebody’s will.”

Naomi, who’s just emerging from her room in black jeans and a forest-green top with her makeup done softer than usual, smiles the second she sees you. “You look really pretty.”

“Thank you,” you say, warmth creeping into your cheeks.

Rachel is still looking at you in that assessing way she has, like she’s trying to decide whether to be nice or feral. Tonight, apparently, she chooses nice.

“The navy was the right call,” she says. “Makes you look expensive.”

“Was that finally a compliment.”

“It was.”

Victoria finally finishes pinning in her earring and points to herself. She’s in a black mini skirt and a white baby tee tucked just so, curls fluffed out around her face like she was born under a disco ball. “And what about me?”

“You look like the reason somebody’s girlfriend is going to get into a fight tonight,” Rachel says.

Victoria beams. “Thank you.”

Rachel looks incredible too, unfortunately. A fitted burgundy top, dark jeans that probably cost more than your monthly gas bill, and hoops that catch the light every time she turns her head. Naomi’s gone softer, sweeter—gold gloss, brushed-out lashes, that green top hugging her just enough to make the whole look effortless.

And then there’s you.

Navy blue minidress. Hair down. A little gloss. A little perfume. Feeling just steady enough to pretend you’re not thinking too hard about the fact that you’re about to walk into a stranger’s house full of drunk college kids.

“You good?” Naomi asks quietly when the others drift toward the kitchen.

You nod. Then, because she knows you well enough already to catch a lie in your posture, you add, “I will be.”

She smiles. “That works.”

The Uber gets there while Rachel is still fixing her lipstick with the front camera on her phone. Victoria snatches the tube right out of her hand and drags her toward the door before she can start a second coat.

“You can overline in the car,” Victoria says.

“I hate you,” Rachel mutters, but she’s smiling when she says it.

The outside air is cooler than you expect, carrying that clean autumn edge that only shows up once the sun disappears fully. The neighborhood around the quad is already slipping into night, porches lit up, the occasional burst of music floating from some distant apartment window. Your heels click against the pavement as you all pile into the backseat, somehow managing to fit in a tangled mess of bare knees, bags, perfume, and last-minute complaints.

“Can somebody tell me if my eyeliner’s uneven?” Rachel asks.

“Yes,” Victoria says instantly.

Rachel gasps.

“I’m kidding,” Victoria adds.

“No, you’re not.”

Naomi laughs under her breath and leans into you as the Uber pulls away. “Okay,” she says. “Game plan.”

“Oh Christ,” you mutter.

“No, listen,” she insists. “We stay together for at least the first half hour. Nobody disappears upstairs with some guy named Hunter or Brayden or whatever. We watch our drinks.”

Victoria nods sagely. “And if anyone starts crying, we go home.”

Rachel turns from the front-facing camera long enough to point at her. “No. If I start crying, we go home. If one of you starts crying, I reserve the right to pretend I don’t know you.”

“That’s expected,” you say.

Rachel smiles approvingly. “Thank you.”

The ride is short enough that your nerves don’t have time to settle into anything too big to ignore. You pass through darker residential streets, then brighter ones, then into the kind of neighborhood where college boys think three couches and a rented speaker count as a personality. By the time the Uber slows, you can hear the music before you even see the house.

It’s alive.

That’s the first word your brain gives you.

Alive.

The house is bigger than you’d pictured and absolutely vibrating with noise. Music punches out through the walls and open windows, low bass rattling through the pavement beneath your heels as the Uber pulls to the curb behind a line of cars. The front lawn is crowded with people holding red cups and shouting over each other in loose, gleeful clusters. String lights have been thrown up across the porch in a way that looks accidental but not unsuccessful. Somebody’s laughing so hard near the front steps they nearly topple sideways into a bush.

“Oh, this is already disgusting,” Rachel says with approval.

Victoria grabs your wrist before you can hesitate. “C’mon.”

The four of you spill out onto the street and into the party’s orbit all at once.

Everything hits at the same time.

Music. Heat. Perfume and beer and weed smoke and somebody’s vanilla body spray. Bodies pressing in from every direction as people head in and out of the house in waves. Laughter so loud it doesn’t even sound human for a second. The dark sky above all of it, clear and crisp and full of stars no one here is bothering to look at.

Your pulse kicks.

Not with fear, exactly.

Just impact.

“Well,” Naomi says, wide-eyed as she takes in the house. “This is… more than I expected.”

Rachel’s grin turns wicked. “I told you.”

“God, I love a fire hazard,” Victoria sighs.

A guy you vaguely recognize from somewhere on campus opens the door wider when he sees Rachel and immediately brightens.

“Rachel!”

“Kyle,” she says, like she’s greeting both a nuisance and a fan. “You remembered to invite hot people. I’m proud of you.”

Kyle laughs a little too hard at that and ushers you all inside.

The party swallows you whole.

The entryway is packed shoulder to shoulder, floor sticky already, walls vibrating with music. Colored lights flash from somewhere deeper in the house, turning people blue, then red, then purple in quick succession. The living room is chaos—girls dancing with drinks sloshing over their wrists, boys yelling over a game on the TV no one is actually watching, somebody perched on the arm of the couch like they were born there.

“Drink first,” Rachel declares, already leading the charge toward the kitchen.

The kitchen is somehow worse.

A counter covered in bottles. Cups stacked in precarious towers. Ice melting in a sink that looks like it gave up on being useful hours ago. A guy in a backwards hat attempts to flirt with Victoria while pouring something violently pink into a cup and gets ignored so thoroughly you almost feel bad for him.

Almost.

Rachel makes all your drinks like she was put on this earth for exactly that purpose.

“Vodka Sprite,” she says, handing one to Naomi.

“Thank you.”

“Rum and Coke,” she says, handing one to Victoria.

“My love.”

She looks at you, then at the bottles, then back at you. “You?”

You hesitate just long enough for Victoria to notice.

“Oh my God,” she says. “Make her something fun. She deserves whimsy.”

“I do not need whimsy.”

“You absolutely need whimsy,” Rachel says. “You’ve had weird-girl energy all week.”

“Thank you so much.”

She ignores that and mixes you something with cranberry juice and vodka and maybe lime, sliding the cup into your hand with a smug little nod. “There. Pretty and dangerous. Like you.”

Naomi chokes on her drink.

Rachel rolls her eyes. “Don’t make it weird.”

You take a sip.

Cold. Sweet. Strong enough to make your nose wrinkle.

“That is mostly vodka.”

Rachel smiles. “And yet?”

You take another sip.

“And yet,” you admit, “I’m not complaining.”

The first drink goes down faster than you mean for it to.

Then half the second.

The party starts to blur at the edges in the nicest possible way—not messily, not badly, just enough that your shoulders loosen, your laugh comes easier, and the pressure of being in a crowded stranger’s house starts to ebb beneath the warm buzz settling low in your veins.

You dance a little.

Not enough to call it dancing, really. Just that loose swaying, laughing, moving-with-the-room kind of motion that happens when Victoria grabs your hands and Naomi lets herself get pulled into it and Rachel acts like she’s above all of you while absolutely singing along to the song.

At some point, Victoria disappears long enough to reappear with a guy she apparently knows from one of her classes and then disappears again when Naomi sees someone from your English class and drags her into conversation. Rachel gets intercepted twice in one hallway by people who either want to talk to her or be looked at by her.

You’re not alone, exactly.

Just… momentarily unanchored.

You don’t mind.

Not until you drift near the dining room doorway with your third drink and look up.

And there they are.

Your stomach drops so fast you almost feel it in your knees. At first it’s just one of them.

Jungkook.

He’s leaning against the far wall near the archway between the dining room and what looks like a den, a glass in one hand. He’s dressed nothing like anyone else in the room, which is saying something considering half the people here look like they got ready in a dark closet. Black slacks. Fitted black shirt with the sleeves rolled just enough to show forearms and jewelry. Hair pushed back from his face in a way that makes him look older, sharper, less like a boy trying to get under your skin and more like a man who already knows he can.

He’s laughing at something someone says.

Then he looks right up at you, like there’s a magnet pulling his attention towards you.

The laugh doesn’t leave his mouth so much as fold into something else… slower, knowing.

Your hand tightens around your cup.

“Nope,” you murmur under your breath.

Like that alone might undo the fact that he just spotted you, or that he’s at the party in the first place.

Then your gaze jerks past him.

Jimin is there too, seated on the arm of a chair with one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, looking unfairly elegant in charcoal slacks and a dark wine-colored shirt that makes his silver hair look almost luminous under the low lights. A ring flashes when he lifts his drink. He follows Jungkook’s line of sight.

He finds you and smiles, half moons on partial display. It’s not the kind of smirk Jungkook wears. Jimin’s is soft-- for now.

Your breath catches.

And then, because apparently tonight is not interested in subtlety, you start seeing the rest of them.

Namjoon near the back of the room, broad shoulders turned half away from the crowd, dressed in dark gray and black so cleanly put together it makes your brain stutter. Seokjin by the fireplace, posture perfect, shirt open at the throat just enough to be cruel about it. Yoongi half-shadowed in a chair with a drink no one else would dare bother him enough to spill. Hoseok laughing with his whole body near the hall, pale blond hair bright even in the low light.

And then—

Taehyung.

He’s standing just past the others near the doorway to the back deck, one hand in his pocket, the other loose at his side. Black trousers. Dark silk shirt, open at the collar, sleeves rolled to his elbows. His hair falls softer tonight, loose and dark around his face in a way that should make him look younger and somehow only makes him look more dangerous. More unreal. The lights from inside catch on the planes of his face and turn him into something too beautiful for this house, this town, this stupid sticky floor.

He’s watching you.

Not glancing. Not accidentally catching your eye. No, he’s watching.

And unlike the others, there’s no easy smile waiting when you notice.

Just that same unreadable, charged stillness that had been following you around since the assembly. The same sense that he is both restraining something and failing at it in tiny, visible ways.

The room tilts.

Not literally. Not enough to make you stumble.

But enough that everything else drops one layer lower, muffled beneath the sudden thunder of your pulse.

They’re here. All of them.

Even Taehyung.

At a party they “never” go to. At a house full of people they supposedly avoid. At a party you are at.

A hand catches your elbow, and you jump.

Victoria appears at your side with a drink in her hand and one eyebrow arched so high it’s nearly in her hairline. “Okay,” she says slowly, following your stare. “So either I’m drunker than I thought, or we have a bit of a situation.”

You don’t look away from them. “You told me they don’t go to parties.”

“They don’t,” she says.

“They are literally here.”

“I can see that.”

Naomi appears on your other side a second later, mid-laugh at something over her shoulder, until she follows both your gazes and stops cold.

“Oh my God.”

Rachel, of course, takes the longest to arrive and the shortest amount of time to react. She looks where the rest of you are looking and nearly drops her cup.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Jungkook lifts his glass slightly from across the room.

Like he enjoys the effect it has on you.

Victoria makes a strangled noise. “They don’t go to parties. This has never happened.”

Naomi shakes her head, stunned. “Not once.”

Rachel turns to look at you, expression split cleanly between vindication and disbelief. “You. This is your fault somehow.”

“My fault?” you hiss.

“Energetically.”

“That is not a real thing.”

“Then why are they staring?”

You open your mouth and shut it, because she’s not wrong.

Not all of them stare at you, at least, not all at once. Not obviously enough for anyone else in the party to pick up on it. But enough.

Enough that it’s impossible to pretend you imagined it.

Namjoon’s gaze passes over the three girls flanking you and settles on your face with something calmer than the others, but no less intent. Seokjin says something to Jimin without taking his eyes off the room. Hoseok, halfway through smiling at someone beside him, turns just enough to catch sight of you and goes visibly still for a fraction of a second.

And Taehyung…

Taehyung doesn’t look away.

summary: The gods put her to sleep. The world woke her up for revenge. Twelve hundred years ago, the world nearly ended in a flash of purple lightning and a promise. To save the realm of Ravus from an ancient darkness, demigod siblings Y/N and Jungkook were sealed away in a magical slumber, destined to wake when the world needed them most. But when Y/N claws her way out of the salt and sand of a strange shore, she finds a world that has forgotten her name. The towering marble spires of her home are dust, the Nine Ancients are a myth, and she is a living weapon in a time of peace that's starting to bleed. Worse, she's alone. Her brother is missing, possibly dead; her sword has probably settled at the bottom of the ocean; and a new shadow is rising from the East—a fearsome General who commands the darkness with a terrifying familiarity. Surrounded by a band of mismatched protectors who aren't sure whether to view her as a savior or a time bomb, Y/N must decide if she is fighting to save the future, or if she is the monster the future was designed to forget. Under a sky where the stars have shifted, and the history books are wrong, the "destiny" the gods wrote for her is starting to look like a death sentence.

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book i: katayn / altharia ~44.9k chapter one ~4.5k chapter two ~5.1k chapter three ~5.1k chapter four ~5.0k chapter five ~7.0k chapter six ~4.1k chapter seven ~5.1k chapter eight ~4.6k chapter nine ~4.4k

book ii: port maris / aethelis ~49.1k chapter ten ~4.5k chapter eleven ~5.0k chapter twelve ~4.1k chapter thirteen ~5.4k chapter fourteen ~5.7k chapter fifteen ~6.0k chapter sixteen ~5.6k chapter seventeen ~6.6k chapter eighteen ~6.2k

book iii: the stelreth mountains / kragstin ~45.5k chapter nineteen ~5.1k chapter twenty ~4.9k chapter twenty-one ~4.8k chapter twenty-two ~4.7k chapter twenty-three ~4.3k chapter twenty-four ~4.1k chapter twenty-five ~5.1k chapter twenty-six ~6.8k chapter twenty-seven ~5.7k

book iv: the vespar steppes / the cerulean expanse ~50.1k chapter twenty-eight ~4.4k chapter twenty-nine ~5.0k chapter thirty ~5.0k chapter thirty-one ~5.3k chapter thirty-two ~5.3k chapter thirty-three ~4.6k chapter thirty-four ~5.5k chapter thirty-five ~4.9k chapter thirty-six ~10.1k

book v: draykspire / the weaver's keep ~49.7k chapter thirty-seven ~5.2k chapter thirty-eight ~5.0k chapter thirty-nine ~6.2k chapter forty ~6.0k chapter forty-one ~7.5k chapter forty-two ~6.0k chapter forty-three ~5.1k chapter forty-four ~4.6k chapter forty-five ~4.1k

book vi: aethelgard / meridia ~42.3k chapter forty-six ~6.0k chapter forty-seven ~4.0k chapter forty-eight ~3.7k chapter forty-nine ~4.6k chapter fifty ~4.2k chapter fifty-one ~3.6k chapter fifty-two ~5.1k chapter fifty-three ~5.5k chapter fifty-four ~5.6k

book vii: ravanis ~37.5k chapter fifty-five ~4.3k chapter fifty-six ~4.0k chapter fifty-seven ~3.1k chapter fifty-eight ~5.5k chapter fifty-nine ~4.9k chapter sixty ~6.8k chapter sixty-one ~5.0k chapter sixty-two ~4.6k chapter sixty-three ~6.1k

You’d bought the set on Tuesday.

Black lace. Delicate straps. A balconette bra that lifted your heavy breasts into perfect, overflowing temptation, and matching panties so sheer they were more suggestion than coverage. The garter belt and thigh-high stockings completed the look something you’d never dared wear before.

You told yourself it was for Minho.

A desperate attempt to spark something in your polite, distant marriage.

You even practiced posing in front of the mirror, cheeks burning, imagining his surprised smile.

But when Friday afternoon arrived and you stepped into Dr. Kim’s private office for your “extended session,” the lingerie was still brand new tags barely removed.

He noticed the moment you walked in.

The way the lace peeked just above the neckline of your modest trench coat. The subtle click of your heels. The nervous way you kept smoothing your palms over your hips.

Taehyung didn’t speak at first.

He simply locked the door, drew the blinds halfway (enough to blur the view from the hallway, not enough to hide the risk entirely), and turned to you with that slow, predatory smile.

“Coat off, sweetheart.”

Your fingers shook as you unbuttoned it.

The coat pooled at your feet.

His gaze devoured you slow, deliberate. From the way the black lace framed your full breasts, nipples already stiff against the thin cups, down to the soft curve of your belly, the flare of your hips, the dark shadow between your thighs barely concealed by the sheer fabric.

“Fuck,” he breathed, almost reverently. “You bought this for him, didn’t you?”

You nodded, voice tiny. “Y-yes, Doctor…”

He stepped closer, towering over you.

“And yet…” One finger traced the scalloped edge of the bra, dipping just inside to brush your nipple. “I’m the first one who gets to see it. Touch it. Ruin it.”

Before you could answer, his mouth crashed against yours hard, claiming. His tongue pushed past your lips like he owned them, while his hands gripped your waist and lifted you effortlessly onto the wide mahogany desk.

Papers scattered. A pen rolled to the floor.

He didn’t care.

He pushed your thighs apart roughly, standing between them, and yanked the lace panties to the side.

“Look at this pretty pussy,” he growled, voice thick with hunger. “Already soaked through the lace. You walked in here dripping for your doctor, didn’t you?”

You whimpered, head falling back as two thick fingers plunged inside without warning, curling hard against that spot he’d mapped so perfectly last week.

“Answer me.”

“Y-yes—ah!—Doctor, yes—”

He slapped your clit sharp, wet, stinging.

You cried out, hips jerking.

“That’s for thinking about anyone else while wearing this.” Another slap. Harder. “This body belongs to me now.”

He tore the bra cups down, freeing your breasts. They bounced heavily, nipples dark and swollen from the friction of the lace.

Taehyung groaned like a starving man.

He bent, sucking one nipple deep into his mouth teeth grazing, tongue flicking mercilessly while his hand kneaded the other, pinching, rolling, tugging until you were sobbing with need.

“These tits were made to be worshipped,” he muttered against your skin, biting down just hard enough to leave a faint mark. “Made to leak when you’re pregnant. Made to bounce while I fuck you raw.”

He straightened suddenly, unbuckling his belt with one hand while the other kept three fingers buried deep, pumping ruthlessly.

You were shaking overstimulated, close already.

“Not yet,” he snarled, pulling his fingers free and slapping your pussy again three quick, punishing smacks that made you wail.

Then he lined himself up thick, hot, bare and slammed home in one brutal thrust.

You screamed muffled against his palm as he covered your mouth.

“Quiet, baby,” he hissed, though his hips never stopped. “Wouldn’t want the nurses to hear what a filthy little wife you really are.”

He fucked you like he hated you.

Deep, punishing strokes that rocked the entire desk. Your breasts bounced wildly with each thrust; he watched them with feral fascination, occasionally leaning down to suck bruises into the soft tops, claiming every inch he could reach.

He pulled out abruptly, flipped you over chest pressed to the cool wood, ass in the air and drove back in from behind.

The new angle made you see stars.

He gripped the garter straps like reins, yanking you back onto his cock with every snap of his hips.

“Look at this ass,” he groaned. “So full. So perfect. Bet your husband never fucked you like this never made you cry on his desk.”

He reached around, rubbing harsh circles over your clit.

He reached around, rubbing harsh circles over your clit.

“Come,” he ordered. “Come all over the cock that actually knows how to use you.”

You shattered hard, violent, thighs trembling, slick dripping down your stockings.

He didn’t stop.

He fucked you through it, then pulled out, spun you again, and pushed you to your knees between his legs.

“Clean me up,” he commanded, fisting your hair.

You took him deep gagging, messy, tasting yourself and him together.

When he came it was across your breasts hot, thick ropes painting the black lace, dripping down your cleavage, marking the lingerie you’d bought for someone else.

He smeared it in with the head of his cock, rubbing the sticky mess over your nipples until they glistened.

“Keep it on,” he said, voice dark and satisfied as he tucked himself away. “Go home like this. Let it dry against your skin. Let him smell me on you when he finally touches you if he ever does.”

You stood on trembling legs, coat half-buttoned, breasts still exposed beneath, cum cooling on your skin.

Taehyung brushed a gentle thumb over your swollen bottom lip contrast to everything that came before.

“Next week,” he murmured, “bring something red. I want to see how pretty you look bleeding my marks through lace.”

He opened the door for you like a gentleman.

You walked past the reception desk with your head down, thighs slick, heart pounding, the scent of sex clinging to you like perfume.

And somewhere behind you, Dr. Kim Taehyung smiled.

------

author's note ♡

thank you for all the love you've shown this series so far. every like, reblog, comment, and ask genuinely makes my day and keeps me motivated to keep writing.

i'd love to know your thoughts:

✦ do you think y/n still feels guilty?

✦ is taehyung becoming possessive, or has he always been this way?

✦ where do you think this story is heading?

as always, please remember to reblog if you enjoyed reading it helps writers more than you know ♡

Namjoon scans his members awkwardly scattered around his apartment. Jimin sits on the couch in front of the window and so do Taehyung and Hoseok but due to the large gap that Taehyung has left between himself and Jimin Hoseok is left painfully squashed into a corner. Jin sits on the couch opposite the TV in a.. suit? For some reason in contrast to Yoongi who is sat next to him in an all black outfit. You sit on the right next to Yoongi’s feet due to Namjoons lack of seating in his living area while Jungkook stands hovering next to the door clearly ready to leave at any given moment. No one says a word in response to Namjoon’s first statement except Yoongi who lowly scoffs. The room is quiet and everyone avoids eye contact.

Namjoon sighs 

This was going to be long

 so painstakingly long.

“Jungkook, why don’t you sit down?” 

“I’m not sitting on your floor Namjoon” 

“We’re never gonna get any-”

“This wasn’t a good idea. Y/n let’s leav-” 

“Jungkook please just- you don’t have to sit just stand closer you can stand next to y/n just for a bit so we can have a conversation ok?” 

He pokes his cheek with his tongue in annoyance but moves to stand closer to you anyways.

”We’re not staying for long” 

”Isn’t it unfair to be speaking for-”

”Don’t speak to me” Jungkook doesn’t even spare Jimin a glance when he cuts him off. 

Yikes. 

This is all just… yikes. 

Since you’re at an awkward angle to hold his hand right now, you do what you think is the next best thing logically and rub your hand against the back of Jungkook’s leg in half attempt to calm him down and half attempt to remind him why you’re both here. 

Normally any physical affection you throw Jungkook’s way has him jumping for joy and running for the hills but today you are simply met with a quick glance down from the boy in acknowledgment in which his facial features moderately soften before he's back to furrowing his eyebrows his gazed sharp. At least it was something you suppose. 

Silence falls upon the group once more. You turn to face Namjoon. He’s sat on a single seat couch. Deep in thought he looks lost yet… determined. That’s good you guess at least someone is actively trying to fix whatever this is. Well, you hope that’s what he’s trying to do here. He did send a message to the group chat the first message anyone’s sent in weeks to meet at his place at 4 stating ‘This is serious it’s starting to affect work you ALL will be here to talk’ Scary but your 99.9% sure that Namjoon did call you all here for the greater good. Buuut thinking about it you do feel somewhat guilty as much as it most definitely did hurt when Jimin said you were the ‘root of like 95% of our issues as a group’ he wasn’t necessarily wrong per say it’s… a complicated situation  but you do feel as if you should take some… leadership? here. You know, at least try and help Namjoon. You scan the room, no eyes meet yours Jimin’s taken a sudden interest in Joon’s choice of wallpaper, Tae finds joy in picking at the loose string off his hoodie sleeves, Hobi by the looks of it is struggling to breathe still stuffed into the corner, Yoongi now scrolls mindlessly at his phone, Jin sits upright staring intently at the TV that is in fact turned off and Jungkook… his fists clenched and eyes seemingly ready to kill should tell you everything. Ok yeah, there’s no way you’re taking leadership here you’re not even the leader anyways! And this was Namjoons idea so yeah sorry not sorry Joon you are most definitely on your own but fighting or whatever!

…

…

…

Ok.

….

….

….

Yeah no, this isn’t going to work at all. Fuck aright, where should you even start? Maybe you should bring up the conversation you and Jimin had first? Or would it be better to address the Jungkook blowing up part? Maybe it’ll be best to start with the fact that you all haven’t spoken in weeks or maybe you should take the emotional approach and just start with how much you miss them all? Um… ok yeah no the emotional one is looking like your best option right now the easiest one too. Yeah ok sure you’ll go with that one… ok hold on- fuck ok you’re good- no you’re lying why are you so nervous? These are your people your boys it shouldn’t be this hard wh–

“We should probably start with-”

“Why the fuck is Jin in a suit?”  Hoseok’s voice cuts off Namjoon’s “It’s 4pm on a Friday” 

“Listen, I have places to be after this. You know since you’ve all decided to be emotionally constipated, go MIA on every single social media platform and on top of that decline and delay every single piece of group work we have they’ve been working me like a fucking dog”

Woah. 

”Ok first of all Tae you need to move the fuck up bro im dying here and second of all damn? I just wanted to know about the suit…” 

“It’s called being employed. You should try it sometime, all of you right Namjoon?”

Hoseok flashes Jin his middle finger mumbling a barely audible “whatever” under his breath while Taehyung moves the tiniest bit closer to Jimin on the couch.   

”Right! guys we’re behind on a lot of work and we nee—”

“Jin when you say emotionally constipated i fear that statement just can’t be in reference to me…. like at all. I feel like i’ve been shitting recently” 

You all stare at Taehyung dumbfounded. 

He blinks back at you all. 

“The fuck did you just say?” You're surprised to hear Yoongi speak. 

“Like… I've been shitting, emotionally that is, I feel like i’ve laid all my cards out on the table” 

”Your cards being….?” Hoseok asks, face scrunched up in disgust and confusion much like the rest of the faces in the room except Taehyung himself.   

“That I'm in love with y/n? That i would do anything and every-” 

“Anything and everything?” Jungkook steps forward in Taehyung’s direction. Immediately you grab onto the back of Jungkook’s jeans from your sat position in an attempt to hold him back. You know your shallow grip wont don’t much in stopping the man actually get to Taehyung but thankfully after his first step Jungkook doesn’t make any attempt to get closer to the man but you are ready to stand up and block his path all the same. 

“Kook…” You try and soothe. 

“To protect her? To defend her? Don’t make me laugh right now” He ignores you completely. 

You didn’t think it was possible but the tension in the room seems to rise even higher. 

“Love?” Jungkook continues “Jimin called her a slut ninety five percent of all our problems upset her and hurt her and instead of checking up on her, you decided to be best buddies with him the next week? So love? Anything and everything? Protecting her? Yeah fuck you. You have never loved her” 

With that Taehyung is on his feet immediately you instantly follow suit so do Namjoon and Hoseok. Jin and Jimin watch with wide eyes while Yoongi watches seemingly unfazed. 

“What? So I don't blow up the way you think I should have and now all my feelings are invalid? All those built up feelings and moments nothing? Just ‘cuz you didn’t like the way I went about all of this?” 

“Bro come on not like this” Hoseok attempts to stop Taehyung moving any closer to Jungkook.

“Yes Jungkook, ok i admit that i should have been there for her more. I should have and I regret not being there everyday. But in a way i understand why Jimin blew up like that and—”

“Understand? You understand why he called her a slut? Am I hearing that right the man that’s in ‘love’ understands why the girl he’s in ‘love’ with got called a slut? Should I beat the shit out of you know or later?” Jungkook attempts to take another step closer to Taehyung but Namjoon blocks his path. 

“Move” 

“You know i won’t” 

“Move Namjoon” 

“This is not what we’re here for Jungkook” 

“So what the fuck are we here for Namjoon? Please enlighten me. I'm begging you to actually. What are we here for?” 

“To talk. Openly and honestly. To make this work” 

Jungkook laughs at that. Like full body laughs yet you know he finds no humour in Namjoon’s words. 

“This? Did you hear what he said about understanding Jimin?” 

“I’m sure he has a explanation for that” 

“Fuck his explanation” 

“Jungkook you are so fucking selfish it’s unreal” 

Everyone’s eyes snap over to Jimin who now is also standing. 

“Jimin you shou-”Taehyung tries to interrupt.

“He doesn’t know what is like to not be the favourite and he’s never taken how we feel into consideration at all” 

Yoongi raises his eyes at Jimin’s statement. Yours furrow. 

“Do you have any idea how fucking difficult it is to watch everyone bite their tongue just for you?”

“Me?” Jungkook leans forward and you grip the back of his shirt in panic. 

“You have never cared about anyone but yourself when it comes to this” 

“Shut the fuck up” Jungkook tries to move forward your grip tightens unable to do anything else Namjoon now actively pushes Jungkook away from Jimin as Jungkook struggles against him Jimin continues 

“With your feelings for her you’ve only ever acted with you in mind” 

“That not even fucking true and you know that” Jungkook pushes a Namjoon but he doesn’t budge. 

“And I'm so sick of the rest of the guys letting you get away with it all. You fucking live with her Jungkook” 

“And? The fuck is your point?”

“My point is that you’re a piece of-”

“OKAY guys geez…  okay…

what Jimin means is-”

“Hoseok? Don’t tell me you’re on his side”

“There are no sides to this Jungkook. I just.. Look, the whole ‘favourite’ thing I’ll admit i get it for a while even I felt like I wasn't the most… popular romantically with y/n i mean sure she would flirt back on occasion but it seemed that most of her energy was focussed on you. After that I realised I should probably assert myself more and you know ‘fight’ for my place with her right? But then her attention was on Yoongi, Tae started being more vocal,  then Joon beat me to it and then Jin and I felt even more behind. I couldn't keep up or compete with you all. I’m a really good observer, you see? And during all of this  I observed that Jimin felt the same way. Why do you think I said I should talk to him when this all went down? it's ‘cuz he was feeling exactly how i was then”

“That doesn't excuse what he said” “It doesn’t. But emotions are to be processed. And after my talk with Jimin, it's only recently he’s actually verbalised his feelings for Y/n and him feeling… behind. It’s easy to blame others because you’re jealous i went through it and i'm pretty sure all of you have too”

“But that still doesn't excuse what he said”

“Jungkook dude i know that. Are you even listening to what I'm saying right now?”

“Of course he’s not listening. Jimin was right. I'm done holding my tongue for the sake of everyone's feelings, especially his.” Yoongi's loud tone surprises you all. 

“ Okay it’s like we’re going backwards can we just-”

“Namjoon, aren't you sick of being unhappy because of him?” Yoongi interrupts 

“I’m not unhappy bec-”

“You wanted to move in with her. Waayy before he did you looked at places even rehearsed how you were gonna ask her and everything but then he-” 

“I am not unhappy because of Jungkook” 

“You keep telling yourself that” 

“Projectison isn’t a good look you Yoongi” 

“Call it projecting all you want Namjoon but we all know the truth” 

Namjoon rolls his eyes at Yoongi. Your stomach turns. Your thoughts wild. 

Silence.

“I dated Jaehyun to avoid this” The words leave before you can even realise. 

Silence. 

“This unhealthy cycle of jealousy and weirdness around each other. I love you all so fucking much and no not just in a freind way i love all of you i’m the selfish one. At first it was silly the little arguments and empty ended threats you would throw at each other but now it's grown into something real ugly i dated Jaehyun in hopes it would stop. Yes i genuinely liked him i really fucking liked him he was diffrent a good different but i love you all of you in a way i could never love Jaehyun and i think he knew that as well. But even when Jaehyun was here It all just got worse nothing changed you all- i just- i don't know what to do anymore this is just all so much and i know its my fault i shouldn’t of done anything with anyone ever and i- i’m so fucking sorry to all of you i-”

You cut yourself off your mind blank yet swirling with thoughts. 

Silence. 

“You’re crying?” Yoongi breaks it

 “You tell me you regret everything we’ve ever done and you’re crying?”

You bring your hand to your cheek, your face wet, you are crying when did that happen?

“Yoongi what the fuck is wrong with you? she wasn’t talking to just you” Jimin’s quick to argue. 

“And i’m the selfish one? Yeah right.” Jungkook scoffs 

“No you definitely are i kinda get what they were saying now”

“Who the fuck asked you Taehyung?”

“Guys..” You think Hobi speaks your not sure any more your head is swimming with thoughts and tears cloud your vision. 

“This is so childish” 

“Always the same shit from you Namjoon how about you grow some balls and say what you want” 

 “I want you to shut the fuck up how about that?”

“Was that supposed to scare me?”

“HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT”  

Once again silence. 

“You guys are genuinely the most emotionally dense people i’ve met like ever and you know i’ve met a fuck ton of people i’m Kim Seok-fucking-jin. But thats besides the point right now holy fucking shit the woman you’ve all been in love with practically your whole lives just said she loves all of you on fucking valentines day of all days and you’re arguing? The love of our lives is crying right now and your fucking arguing right after she just told you she hates that all you guys do is fucking argue? Are you guys ok? Like genuinely Yoongi your tough love acting isn't fooling anyone pull that fucking stick out your ass, Jimin you have nothing to be jealous of she quite literally said she loves you, Jungkook people will fuck up sometimes we have to learn to forgive and forget also keep that boxing shit in the ring, Namjoon it’s okay to speak up when you want something we wont shoot you, Taehyung just stop talking challenge for 7 years starting now, Hobi you cool as hell, Y/n my sweet baby that can never do wrong ever only that one time you dated he who shall not be named never apologise to these idiots ever i love you to the moon and back and Kim Seokjin you fucking sexy fucking son of a bitch you outdo yourself Every. Single. Time”  

He takes a breath.  “Amen” 

“It’s Valentine's day?”

“I told you not to talk”

“You’re not a feminist what happend to awoman?”

“I told you to stop fucking talking”

“But-”

“Taehyung”

“Seokjin”

“Does anyone have any questions?”

“What happened to you being a femi-”

“No one? Great! Me and Y/n will be leaving now.” Seokjin finally rises from his place on the couch and moves towards Namjoon's front door not before placing his hand in yours and tugging you along “I would say this was a great talk but I wanted to blow my brains out the whole time. See you all on Monday for work! Thank you all. Now my love we have reservations at 7:30 and it’s already 6 so we’re really cutting it fine”

“Wait thats so not fair that's two valentines days in a row you’ve spent with her i'm coming with what the hell” 

You don’t say a word as Jin drags you to Namjoon's front door. Everything's happening so fast it's not like you even have a chance to say anything. You blink and you find yourself sitting in the passenger seat of Jin’s newest Porsche. You hear Taehyung mumbling to himself in the back. You turn to face Jin in the driver's seat, his gaze already on yours. 

He smiles at you, his eyes warm. 

“They’ll figure it out. I promise you they will, for you they will” 

You don’t say anything in return and he doesn't expect you to. Instead he gives you another warm smile and begins to pull out of Namjoon’s drive. 

You let out a breath you weren’t aware you were holding. 

 for you they will. 

You’re unsure if Jin's statement holds any truth if you're being completely honest but for now you let it bring you comfort. 

for you they will. 

The car is silent for a record breaking 5 seconds until none other than Kim Taehyung breaks it. 

“So like… does this mean I'm a taken man now or what?”

“You’re not supposed to be talking right now”

“And you’re supposed to be a feminist but clearly things change Kim Seokjin get with it”

You giggle at that. 

for you maybe they will. 

—

almost 1 year in the drafts isn’t that crazy if this sucks don’t tell me pls i’ll fr cry