#work.zip

Still, you’d thought your beloved boyfriend would have some sort of reaction.  Maybe a quirk of his perfectly groomed brows, a certain tightness belying his displeasure in the softly peaked bow of his mouth.  You’d spied neither after extracting yourself from the hug and waving goodbye.  Jungkook had been sunshine and sweetness, opening your door for you and stamping a kiss to your cheek.  

That night, he’d loved you how he always had, with you crying his name and making a mess of his sheets.

Another time, you’d been at a work function.  One of those ridiculous galas you loved, full of women in their highest heels and men in their swankiest watches.  (You’d worn Aquazzura that night, Jungkook with an Audemars Piguet loose around his wrist.)  

He’d stuck close to your side, far more interested in the way your dress hugged your figure, cut intimidatingly high over your thigh and revealed the swell of your ass at juuuust the right angle.  Yejin had been the only one to tear him away, insisting on shots that you knew she couldn’t handle.  Anything went if free booze was involved.

Thirty minutes later - give or take, since you hadn’t had a watch of your own on - your boyfriend had returned, flushed and adorable.  There’d been a garden of colour creeping over the expanse of his chest, peeking around the collar of his shirt and disappearing into his neatly tousled strands.  He’d giggled his way back to you, somehow completely oblivious to the man that’d found you at your table and settled himself into the spot labelled Jeon Jungkook.

The imposter had been affronted, gaze narrowed at the younger man who was a little too loose, a little too smiley.  Wholly out of place at an event like this, where people spent too much time up their own asses, noses held aloft and business cards exchanged.  

(One of the reasons you loved Jungkook so much.  He was a breath of fresh air in a world you thrived in - found humour in, at the very least - carrying you high above the clouds with the sound of his laughter.)

“Hi, baby.”  Your darling boy smothered you in kisses, traced them up and over the exposed expanse of your shoulder, nosing against your skin, utterly unbothered by the man shooting him daggers, wishing him ill from the spot he’d wrongly claimed.  

Of course, he’d thought Jungkook was making a point - claiming what was his - but that was so far from the truth you’d almost laughed when he’d spoken, voice carrying above the slightly laboured breaths of your lover.  “I guess that’s my cue to leave, huh?”

You’d smiled, nodded with a hand threaded into cornsilk curling over Jungkook’s nape.  “Looks like it.”

(Then your idiot love - your big-hearted moron, your doe-eyed baby - had come up for air, cheek resting in the palm of his hand.  “Where’s your friend?”  He’d asked, eyes so wide you couldn’t doubt the sincerity of his question.)

Such was the kind of person Jungkook was, with an unwavering belief in the goodness of others, a silver thread outlining everyone’s silhouette.  You sometimes wondered what it would take to drive him to any sort of displeasure, any sort of emotion beyond quiet melancholy (seldom seen but heavily felt, when the rare occasions rose) or easygoing amicability (his default setting).  Not that you’d ever push to see that, of course.

You were happy.  Hopelessly in love.  You wouldn’t have traded him for the world - couldn’t even fathom doing anything to hurt him.  

And yet, you discover albeit by accident - it’s really not that hard.  All it takes is a pretty girl.

“This looks incredible,”  she says, standing close, long dark hair falling in a fluid curtain down the line of her back.  It’s the loveliest shade, cool-toned beneath the boutique lights, and reflects colour like a waterfall.  You’d complimented her on it when you’d stepped into the fitting area, a handful of hangers set across the rolling rack.

Fingers smooth over embroidery, revelling in the feeling of it over your skin.  It’s a beautiful thing, black tulle that hangs to your fingertips.  Not Jungkook’s preferred style - he much prefers harnesses and so many straps it might as well be a cat’s cradle - but you think he loves it nonetheless. 

(You’d confirm, but he’s been stoically silent, seated in the plush chair tucked beside the privacy partition, normally soft gaze hard and trained on his phone.  He doesn’t seem very much in the mood to talk, hardly reacting with each outfit change.  A nod here, a smile there.  Not even the most scandalous of the options - a black corset decorated in Leavers lace - had elicited his usual enthusiasm.)  

“You think so?”  You’re not insecure about your body - know what it looks best in, which assets to play up.  Still, it’s nice to hear from someone other than your doting boyfriend, the people caught in your orbit.  

The sales associate nods, beams at you in the multiple mirrors.  A hand of her own drifts over the thin strap of the slip - an innocent gesture that dislodges wayward strands of hair from beneath.  “Of course— and I’m not just saying that because I’m trying to sell it.” 

You nod, satisfied.  Even if Jungkook doesn’t seem ecstatic, your own joy makes up for it, buyer’s delight spilling over.  “I’ll take the satin robe, the blush silk set, and this in the violet.”  

“Great choices,”  she hums, pulling back the curtain to the adjoining change room to allow you privacy.  Silence follows as you slip the delicate number off, returning it to its hanger.  You don’t expect when the brunette continues speaking - presumably to your surprisingly surly boyfriend.  “Don’t you agree?” 

“Yep.”  He’s never been a man of few words, usually so full of excitement that he rambles when he doesn’t mean to.  

It’s a dead giveaway - a confirmation that something’s wrong.

Unfortunately for you, you don’t have time to broach the subject, your purchases already paid for and a firm hand on the small of your back the moment you’ve stepped out of the dressing stall.  “Jungkookie?”  You mean it quietly, just for the two of you, but falter when he slots his fingers between yours and all but tugs you out of the boutique.  You hardly even have a chance to toss the helpful girl an apologetic smile, imposing glass swinging shut behind you.

“Men—men are fine.  I don’t have to worry about them.”  There’s a confidence you’re so proud to see, turning his words as solid as the weight that rests against your hip, sears burning heat into your bared skin.  “No other man is going to love you better than me.  But women?”  A shudder runs the length of his imposing frame, tugs his shoulders up to his ears and tingles the small of his back.  “Women are scary.”  (It’s a sentiment he’s echoed in the past.  In particular, months ago when you’d insisted he dive into the dating scene.)

Hands thread through his too-soft strands, twirl the ends around your fingers as he speaks, nearly muffled into the crook of your shoulder.  He’s being so tender, giving you all the love he has to offer as he writes his insecurities into your skin, offers them with the wet of his tongue.

“A woman might sweep you off your feet and steal you away.”

You laugh then - sound snapping past your teeth before you can tuck it away.  It filters loudly into the baies scented candle you’d lit when you’d gotten into his apartment.  

Jungkook whines in response - a terribly endearing sound that makes you roll your eyes but only with affection (always with that) - and buries his face into your tits, sucking your nipple into his mouth with complete disregard for the tulle that acts as a barrier.  Saliva stains the material, makes it stick to your hardened bud as he laves over it with his tongue - bites surprisingly gently - and tugs it just hard enough to have you keening.

“S-s’not funny,”  he huffs, palming your other breast in his broad tattooed palm.  When he continues, he bites into you like he’s got a personal vendetta against whatever lies beneath your flesh.  “She was flirting with you.”  

It’s less of a sigh of annoyance - more sensual, drowning in need.  “She was not.”

He nips at the delicate flesh again, spreads crimson marks all across the sensitive skin until it’s a mosaic beneath the fabric, his finest work painted by his second favourite brush.  “That’s what you think but she was.”  The hand previously kneading your skin drops, flat of his palm sliding easily over your bare pussy.  

There’s zero hesitation when he slots his fingers on either side of your clit, catches the delicate pearl against the webbing of his hand and applies pressure that has you bucking beneath him.  It’s not nearly as aggressive as he normally is but it’s just as good, paired with the sinful motions of his tongue and teeth. 

“She wants to be the one doing this,”  he continues, saliva pooling across your chest, slipping into the valley of your breasts only to be licked up by the flat of his tongue.  He continues even once you’re clean, skin sticky and a little gross but so erotic it makes you quiver.  Then he descends, pushes the hem of your new slip higher, and licks another stripe from the joint of your thigh up to your belly button.  Repeats it again, moving lower with each pass until he’s sucking your clit into his mouth.  “She wants to be the one tasting this pretty, pretty pussy.”

You reach for his hand - the one somewhere near your ribs, side of his wrist soothing against the ladder of bones - and tangle your fingers together as he drives you mad, tip of his tongue switching between sweet kitten licks and tantalising figure eights.

“Baby,”  you coax, reprimand almost.  Jungkook’s never this lenient, never this sweet on you (not inside the bedroom, at least).  It brings you to a different high, his love folded into lovely origami cranes you tuck into your pockets and the spot you’ve carved out for him within your chest.

“Sing for me, sweetheart.”

He doesn’t mean literally - refers instead to the sound of your voice when it leaps three octaves, bounces between sultry and singed, burnt at the edges by the fire he brings to life. 

“Tell me you’ll never leave me.”  Despite how the words muffle, come broken between the glide of his tongue within your fluttering walls, you can hear the sincerity in them.  The earnestness that begs you to promise him this simple thing.  “Not for her.  Not for anyone.”  

“Getting all the headshots?”  A question punctuated by a roll of your hips, a minute adjustment of your burning thighs that allows you to sink further down upon him, hard cock snug within your fluttering walls.

He tries to answer - you feel his chest rise and fall, the movement of his lips dislodging strands of hair from the loose braid down your back.  It’s a spectacular fail when it finally comes, more a broken breath than anything articulate.

“What was that?”  Your head turns just enough, mouth level with the delicate shell of his ear.  His hair’s back - pulled into a sprout of a bun held together with your hair elastic - and he flinches at the touch, terribly light and somehow like a thousand volts of electricity right to his groin.

He bucks into you then, stutters another sound that muffles against your shoulder.  (It’s not anywhere near enough, just the barest hint of stimulation, and yet you’re keening, grinding against him.)

“Angel, stop moving.”  It’s meant to be a seething reprimand but you can read everything he doesn’t say - all the words caught behind his teeth and swallowed down.  Can read it in the tension that threads through muscle and sparkles in his stare, bouncing from your face to the television screen.  

He’s struggling just as much as you are, five seconds from saying fuck this and pounding you senseless into your couch.  It’s almost comical how hazy his stare is, how the dark of his pupils have all but engulfed the usual warm chocolate hue.  It’s so different from how he normally is, insistent on treating you like a princess, littering you with love and praise.

But for once, there’s no rush.  No obligations that hang above his head, threaten to drag him from your arms with just one call.  For once, there's only the two of you, held in your little piece of carved out paradise. 

As hard as it is, you want to take your time and do this right - enjoy this closeness, this quiet. 

“J-Jungkook—”  Whatever you’d meant to say is swallowed up, eaten alive by the lewd sounds he’s making with his mouth, lips sealed around a perked nipple as he presses you further into your seat.

It’s not the most comfortable position - he’s twisted all weird, hip protesting as it digs into the seat belt buckle.  He doesn’t care though.  Can’t even begin to complain about it when you’re crying out beneath him, so pretty and breathless it makes his heart skip a beat.

There’s a flush creeping over your skin, painting your cheeks the colour of fresh-picked apples.  The same hue descends past your collarbone and sits centre stage over your tits.  Practically a neon outline directing him to his preferred destination.

“Can’t believe you thought you could get away with it.”  It’s a snarl against your chest, a low groan dressing the edges and turning it dark as he sucks at the pebbled bud, dragging the flat of his tongue in lazy languid circles.  “No bra, baby?  Really?”  The edge of his teeth glide over tender flesh, leaving little love bites and a mosaic of maroon that contrasts brightly with the soft cream of your top (currently hooked beneath your tits, thin straps hanging off your shoulders).  It looks so nice blending with the heat that pools beneath your skin - a masterpiece he’d like to hang up on his wall.

“It’s not—”  He doesn’t know why you bother when you’re keening with every movement, unable to focus on a single thought before he tears all sensibility away with a pass of his lips.  

One hand cups your breast - holds the teardrop that fits so perfectly within his palm - and the other presses over your back, insistent on bringing you closer, on forcing more of you into his mouth.  “Not what?  Not a big deal?”  The sound of his laugh vibrates through your body, sets your heart on a breakneck sprint as his hands shift.  Rough fingers pinch your neglected nipple.  Hard. 

When you gasp, it shoots straight to his groin, cock twitching in his pants.  Oh, he wants to hear that again.

“You can do whatever you want, baby.”  And it’s true.  Jungkook will never stop you - never tell you what to wear or who to see.  He’ll let you live your life, even break his heart if that’s what it takes - but you can’t expect him to let something like this go.  You know how much he loves your tits.  

He nuzzles his face into your cleavage, face deep in the valley of death - what a glorious death that would be - and roughly palms both breasts, thumb and forefinger pinching at the straining buds.  Your heart plays a melody he loves, tattoos itself against his cheek when he presses his ear against where it beats.

You’d been wrong.  So terribly, awfully wrong.

Hell hadn’t been standing under a blanket of snow, waiting for some backwoods Prince Charming to sweep you off your feet.  It’s now, in the warmth of a car that’s got some questionable stains on the seats and a giant crack through the front windshield.  It’s beside someone who makes you want to tear your own hair out, who’s been singing (surprisingly on-key) along to Christmas songs since the moment you stepped foot into the vehicle.

“Could you not?”  Anyone else might have some semblance of kindness, too afraid to speak out so rudely to someone they’ve just met.  Not you, though.  You’re, as even your closest friends would say with affection in their eyes, the Grinch in human form, a piece of coal kept in your pocket for days like this where the holiday cheer is just too much.

“Huh?”  The brunet - Jungkook as he’d introduced himself when he’d pulled up thirty-three minutes late - has the audacity to sound offended, head snapping to the side to level you with a look that you don’t bother returning.  You’re already tired, not even the lukewarm cold brew bottle you’d brought with you enough to keep you going.  

A hand waves between you in a nonsensical gesture, as if he should already know the answer.  “Sing.”  

The girl - Kiko, was it? - stares at you for the longest moment, as if she’s trying to figure out where she recognises you from.  You can practically hear the Windows shutting down noise as the seconds stretch on.

Then, without another word, she’s got her focus back on Jungkook.  Sweet darling Jungkook who simply remains silent, bottom lip caught and worried between enamel.  

“Who is that, Kookie?”

God, you want to throw up.  Fight her, maybe too.  

“This is—”  You’re glaring daggers at him, daring him to give the wrong answer.  “This is my girlfriend.”

“Your girlfriend?”  She laughs as if it’s a joke, flutters her obnoxiously long eyelashes. 

You’ve had enough, seizing Jungkook’s much larger hand in your own, practically yanking his arm from its socket as you stalk toward the elevator.  Irritation skips up your spine, settles like a weighted chain necklace around your throat.  You mash your knuckle against the call button.  (If you’d used your nail, you’d have surely snapped it.)

You don’t miss the expression in the mirrored wall, Barbie still standing where you’d left her.  Your smile is simpering, wholly artificial.  And then she’s gone from view and it fades, slips into something even worse.

“What was that?”  It comes in a whisper, gritted past your teeth that turn to ash.

“What was what?”  Your boyfriend has the audacity to look surprised, peering down at you as if you’ve just asked the weather or the time.  There’s not even an ounce of guilt - nothing to be found in those big round eyes of his.

It’s times like these that you resent the person Jungkook is, too soft and kind to tell people to fuck off.  

You can’t blame him, though.  This is how he’s always been, even if it’s gotten better over the months.  At his core, he’s just marshmallows and Lucky Charms, milk and cookies on Christmas morning.  (You love these things about him, even when they drive you absolutely insane.)

“Are you mad?”  He asks when you barrel out of the lift, push into his apartment with the key that sits alongside your own.  You don’t answer - know you’ll say something (deservedly) petty - and instead focus on hanging your coat, setting your stilettos into your side of his hallway closet.  “Baby?”

You make it halfway down the hall before he’s scampering after you, threading his arms around your waist and burying his face into your hair.  It’s such a sweet gesture that you almost soften, almost let him get away with murder.  

“You’re jealous, aren’t you?”  The idiot - your beloved idiot - seems terribly proud of this fact, smile pressed against your neck.  

“I’m not,”  you seeth, shoving his hand off you. 

He knows you’re lying.

“Tell me, baby,”  he purrs, eyes so wide and innocent you curse him internally.  

Would do so verbally, if there weren’t a gag blocking the way, rubber slick with saliva and tears that’ve mingled into an absolute mess.  It’s snug around your head, buckled into place and kept from hurting by the goose down pillow keeping you semi-upright. 

(Even when he punishes you, takes you over his knee or cuffs you to the bed, he’s considerate.  Thoughtful beyond all comprehension.)

Jungkook rocks back on his heels, half-seated on the bed between your spread knees.  He’s picturesque, beaming brightly, devastatingly handsome in his comfy pants (a material that feels like heaven any time it brushes your heated skin).  His chest is delightfully bare, the only blemish across the supple expanse being the glint of his silver chain, hanging over you and tickling your sternum when he graces you with the occasional chaste peck.

The hand holding the unassuming black and gold device between your legs shifts, presses it just that much deeper within your walls, and he grins.  “You were jealous, weren’t you?”

It’s shameful, how wet you are, how slick pools down the crack of your ass, how your entire body trembles, heart rattling around in your ribcage.  It’s unbelievable how weak you are for him, completely at his mercy as he rains pleasure upon you.

You nod, grimacing when the bob of your head has spit transferring from your chin to the valley between your breasts.  

A hand tracks through the drool and lube (chocolate delight, because Jungkook has a sweet tooth), rubbing the mixture lewdly over your aching nipple.  It strains beneath his touch, perks and pebbles with each pass of his tattooed fingers.  

When he tweaks it - yanks so hard your back arches off the bed - he soothes the other, laving over the peak with the flat of his tongue.  Between your legs, the vibrator goes and goes, pressed lightly against your most sensitive spots.  Stimulated inside and out, it feels like every nerve ending is shot, burnt to hell by the match he strikes and pours gasoline over. 

Fireworks spark before your eyes with each passing moment, growing in intensity the longer the device runs, the more time he spends sucking your tits into his mouth. 

It’s too much - feels like heaven and hell all at once.  

But it’s not what sends you over the edge - isn’t what has you coming apart all over his hand, soaking through the delicate material of his pants.  It’s his voice, crystal clear past the haze of lust, whispering sweet nothings.

It’s your unbelievable, incredible boy telling you all the things you ache to hear. 

“Nothing to be jealous about, ____.  You’re the only one for me.”  He offers his heart just as readily as he does bliss, granting you an earth-shattering orgasm that starts at the base of your spine and threads heat to every limb.  He sucks his affection into the swell of your breasts,  fucks the silicon toy into your dripping heat, makes you come apart even as he holds you together. 

It’s nirvana with him, a place you only find in his arms, his bed, wrapped up in his warmth.  

You’d drenched all the grey in technicolour, turned paper leaves green, spilled colour into his cheeks.  Made them rudied red and full of life, warm warm warm in the curl of your palms, scorching coals under the weight of your kisses.  Filled all his cracks with the silver quality of your laughter, honeycomb smile turned gold filigree to piece back all the fragments. 

So of course he’d showered you in affection, appeared with an armful of flowers and a smile that rivalled the sun.  “Happy Valentine’s day,”  he’d hummed, a heart full of hope, hands full of freesias and white roses and enough baby’s breath to take yours away.  He thought you’d love it - like you loved him, with unashamed adoration and lines at your eyes, brow creasing with delight.  But you’d only blinked once, twice, with a polite turn of your chin, a knife slipped between his ribs and pressed, too gentle for purpose. 

You’d smiled and shook your head, caught a petal between your fingers and dipped your nose to the leaves.  Inhaled deep and pure and then continued on, moved along, already miles away by the time he’d caught up.  

“Don’t you like them?”  He’d asked, doubt creeping up, twining around his lungs like a rose bush, heavy with thorns.  They’d pin-pricked his heart, spilled his insides out;  your bandages were nowhere to be found, no chiming bells or liquid gold in sight.  It’d beat for you, in time with you, one to one for each of your own.  It’d stuttered and tripped, caught on its own too feet, overeager and delirious.  “The girl who helped me said freesias symbolise trust and baby’s breath mean love and—”

“They’re lovely.”  

Maybe you’d meant it, for the briefest of moments, in the quiet before you’d crossed the threshold, before you’d swung open the door and turned his efforts to ash.  Surely you’d appreciated them - him.  Surely you never intended to hurt him the way you had.  

“But they’re kind of a waste.”

A heart is a well of impossible depths, an abyss of contradictions and contrived notions.  Even the brightest of rays do little to penetrate its darkness.  Moonlight filters over the surface in ripples and waves, undefined and blurred.  Thoughts without end and often without start.  

He supposes he can’t help the way he feels, how his shoulders turn stiff beneath your touch, the set of his mouth worn and sagging, a poorly strung noose tying his lips up.  (It feels more like the thing around his neck, tattered and heavy, a reminder of all the reasons the door had been better left shut, sealed.) 

“What’s wrong?”  You’re a birdsong in his ear, lilting and lovely, impossible to ignore.  You hold him in your hands and press kisses to his throat, sear stardust beneath skin, and hum in hopes of an answer.  He’s stoically silent, a statue fit not for hallowed halls but mausoleums, stone cold and sad.  

Jungkook doesn’t mean for this - for the sorrow that rains down in sheets.  You’re a Monday in May, a winding path speckled with flora, springtime.  His misery will surely suffocate you, tear life from limb with its torrential cast.  

“Nothing,”  he says, through the pristine white cage of his teeth, untruths bleeding past enamel and staining them red.  He speaks them well, well enough to fool anyone else, well enough that his lies are dressed lily white, stunning in their Sunday best.  “Just don’t feel well.”

Hasn’t, since you’d come home, since dinner, since exactly four hours and four minutes ago.  

“Don’t lie.”  It’s not an accusation, baseless and blunt.  It’s coaxing, pleading, whittling away amber, crystallised and hard around the too-soft thing in his chest.  A layer of wax giving way, melted by the warmth of your touch, the fire in your eyes.  Icarus’ wings, hummingbird wings, monarch wings.  Stained glass creaking and cracking beneath the weight of your words.  

“I’m sorry.”

The apology lays itself over crushed velvet, spins itself into silk and twines into strands, a braid twisted over your shoulder.  It settles, indistinguishable from the salt-sweet, his whisper finding a home within the shell of your skin.  He threads his fingers with yours, twists and turns knuckles until they knock awkwardly, unkempt and unsure.  

Your sigh is a salve, soothing ointment spread over scorched earth, dulling the sting.  He still aches all over, from the base of his spine to the top of his head, a rattle in his bones when he brings you close.  It trembles through the both of you, an eruption of emotion felt to the core.  (But still, he feels best when he’s with you.)

“For what?”  

He thinks and thinks, works himself into a knot he doesn’t know how to unfasten.  It coils in the centre of his chest, a slipknot he’s tied wrong, whose tail has been folded in on itself.  He grasps at frayed rope, seeks aimlessly for the answer.  A tidal wave of emotion sweeps high above his head, an unnamed terror that threatens to upend his rowboat.  He settles as the sea does, in breaks and luls that belie something far worse, in a voice small as a drop in the ocean.  “For being too much.”

“Jungkook.”  The way your voice breaks hits like a thousand pounds, an assault to the back of his knees, a shot to the vulnerable soft of his gut.  A sound whines out - another apology - and you swallow it whole, take it in and turn it around, offering tenderness in its wake.  “You’re never too much.”

He believes you.  He swears he does, even if the words come tumbling out, glass too full to hold them all.  “You didn’t like the flowers.”

“So what?”  You cradle him careful with magic hands, understanding threaded between each digit.  You hold him tight even as he threatens to run away, can’t keep the skip of his stare from doing so.  “I don’t need flowers.  I don’t need gifts.”  (Not the jewels he’d laid in your lap, stamped with an interlocked ‘C’ and nestled within pristine white tissue.  Not the flowers that’d poured onto every surface of his apartment, a mountain of blooms with typewritten cards nestled amongst stems.  Not the five course meal he’d ordered in, because love and devotion didn’t translate into a masterclass in cooking.)  “All I wanted for Valentine’s Day was you.”

Something he’s never heard before.  Less an excuse and more akin to you’re enough, echoed in the quiet, repeated in a daisy chain that attaches itself to the end of his thoughts and undoes all the sadness.  That unravels him in a single fluid motion and has him melting against you, leaking love from all his undone seams.

“I’m sorry.”  This time, he means it as thank you.

Like this, molded to your back, he can’t see your face.  It’s impossible to read your expression, buried so into your pillow, hidden from view by how your shoulders hike up around your ears.  (His do the same when he’s excited, but he knows this isn’t that.)  Somehow, he still feels it all - the melancholy blue that paints the entirety of you, turns blood into the sea and spills saltwater from your eyes.  It crests above you in an intimidating wave, threatening to drown you.  

He knows this because you’ve told him before.  The sadness you can’t seem to escape, that seems to have wound itself between your bones, replaced muscle and bone with its own shapes and structures.

(You’d always made it sound so poetic, as if there was beauty to be found in your pain, something more than skeletons in your closet.  There was no beauty to be found in this sort of heartache, that filled you up and consumed you whole, bringing you crumbling to the ground, lost beneath a thousand leagues to swim among sharks and get lost in the dark.)

(But you hated when he worried - told him he didn’t need to.  It’s just one of those days, you’d tell him with that smile of yours, that pretty thing you’d perfected through years and years of practice.)

Jeon Jungkook’s heart aches for you. 

“How can I help?”  He asks because he always asks, because it doesn’t feel right not to.  He asks because maybe, one day, you’ll find an answer somewhere beneath the sea.  (He doesn’t expect you to but he hopes for it.)

You say nothing for a long time, framing his patient silence in more of the same.  That’s okay, too. 

He’ll stay like this with you for as long as you need - hold you through the blue and grey. 

You wonder whether he notices the attention or if it’s just another part of his life.  (You think he must know.  These college students don’t really hide it well, too handsy for their own good, years of growing up in semi-close proximity instilling a certain confidence in their motions.  That, and because Jungkook is quite possibly the least intimidating person you’ve ever met.)

“Thank you for coming!”  It’s Jisoo, flushed and excitable, round eyes as bright as her brother’s as she crosses to you.  This had been her moment - her time to shine - but you appreciate the effort she makes to include you, finding you within the crowd.  “I was a little nervous but…”  A shrug rolls her narrow shoulders, shakes her dark hair from its loose coil.  

You’d seen her practice before this - watched the long videos she’d regularly send to Jungkook - but seeing her in real life motion was an entire league of its own.  Dancing was her calling, every bit of her made for it.  There was just something lyrical about the way she moved, how her hips rolled, limbs seemingly guided by the rhythm of the music.  A grace you’ve never had, even on your best day.

“You shouldn’t have been.”  You’re beaming right back at her, sisterly reassurance on your tongue.  “You were amazing.” 

Whether she believes you or not - you think she does by how her cheeks grow ten sizes and her eyes are all but swallowed whole by the expression - she’s gracious, accepting the compliment with her blinding smile.  (She really was like Jungkook like that.)  

“You guys should come to a class one day.”  By that, she means a class she helps teach every once in a while.  You’ve heard about it on more than one occasion, seen the choreography posted on Instagram and YouTube.  

Still, you don’t expect that, brows shooting high.  Laughter filters past your teeth, springing off your tongue.  “I am not a dancer and I doubt your brother—”

Now it’s Jisoo’s turn to wear surprise like a neon sign, expression splitting with giggles of her own.  “Wait— have you not seen Kook dance?”  The way she says it is incredulous, Bambi eyes sparkling with what looks like mischief.

“No?”

“Your sister told me something.”

You’ve never seen this particular brand of worry on his face, eyes even more comically wide than usual, whatever words he’d originally meant to speak dying on his tongue.  He looks like a literal deer caught in the headlights, one of his nicknames suddenly very apt.

“What did she say?  She likes to embarrass me.”  True.  Jisoo and Jungkook had a textbook sibling relationship, full of teasing and mockery and copious amounts of love.  “Whatever she said, don’t believe—”

“She said you used to dance.”

“Oh.”  Oh?  You hadn’t expected Jungkook to deflate so easily, relief flooding his features.  “Yeah, I did.  In university.”  He’s utterly unbothered by this knowledge, attention back on the soondubu jjigae he’d been shovelling into his mouth.  “I had some friends who were dancers, so it was good exercise.”

“I want to see.”  

His answer is immediate, despite the heaping bite of rice and stew in his mouth.  “No.”

You whack him across the shoulder, startling him into clattering his spoon on the countertop.  It leaves a messy red streak across marble but you’re dragging his attention back to you with a firm glare, fingers cradled under his jaw.  “I want to see.”

Talent apparently runs in the family, you realise halfway through the third video.  Jungkook moves with the same assured movements his sister does, with power and grace and a confidence that frankly baffles you.  He treats the practice room like a stage, running through the motions so fluidly you almost have trouble believing it’s your man on the screen.  (Not that he’s particularly ungraceful.  It’s just surprising, like watching a dog walk on its hind legs.)

“So, what happened?”  You say it so conversationally, innocently, with eyes that mimic his own.  From the corner of your periphery, your boyfriend shifts, hand flexing over your knee.  There’s the furrow between his brows, the subtle tension in his jaw.  Worry.

“What do you mean?”  

Your own hand waves toward the screen, where the image of Jungkook from over half a decade ago sits paused.  “You were so…”  You’re not sure what you mean.  There are just so many options to describe the literal baby boy on the television.  Young?  Confident?  Round?  (You can’t get over his haircut, though you suppose you can’t hold it against him.) 

Jungkook simply stares at you, waiting for you to find whatever words you want to use.  Despite the uncertainty that swims somewhere in the depths of his eyes, he’s endlessly patient.  Always so soft when it comes to you.

“You had a coconut head.”

Laughter explodes off his tongue, entire face screwing up with amusement.  “Are you serious?”

“You did!”  Admittedly, the cut had somehow worked on him but it’s so reminiscent of grade school haircuts you can’t help but focus on it, too distracted by the glossy sheen to offer much else.  “I guess I get it, though.”

“What do you mean?  Everyone had that haircut—”

“In first grade, maybe.”  He sticks his tongue out at you then;  you scowl in response. 

“What do you get?”  As always, he’s perceptive, immediately aware of your carefully knit brow, the thoughtfulness that fits itself around your teeth like gleaming white veneers and holds his attention hostage.  He’s grown used to it over the months you’ve been together - knows you cling tight to things with an iron grip, turn them over and over until you’ve made sense of it in that brain of yours. 

“The crushes.”  You look affronted, almost appalled at the realisation.  He bursts out laughing, broad palm coming down upon your bare leg in a smack.  (He apologises profusely when you complain.)

“What’re you talking about?”

Your nose is wrinkled, velvet strands dislodged by the shake of your head.  “All your sister’s friends.  They’re in love with you.”  Jisoo had even agreed, laughed about it when you’d commented on it at the recital.  Something about them having grown up with Jungkook, obsessed with the image they’d retained of him since university.  “But you were a coconut.  You wore Timberlands and drop-crotch pants.  You weren’t even that cute.”  An exaggerated shudder slips over your shoulders.  

“I was nineteen.”  As if that makes it better.  Your judgment doesn’t lessen, the lines running the bridge of your nose only deepening.  

“Still.  Embarrassing.”

Your boyfriend truly is the best sport, rolling his eyes at you in the same instance he reaches for you, tugs you closer with broad palms, affection searing into your skin.  “Well, luckily, no more Timbs.  No more bowl cut.”  He nuzzles into the warmth of your neck, spreads your knees wide over his hips.  The sound of his laughter melts into your throat, dresses it in heat deposited by your breath.  “Are you jealous again?”

He doesn’t even get a verbal response to that.  Just a heavy glare and two hands squishing his cheeks.  “Absolutely not.” 

It comes up again in bed, your head on his chest, his hands on your hips.  He asks it quietly, conversationally, with a twinkle in his eye that makes you want to smother him with one of his many pillows. 

“You’re sure you’re not jealous?”

“I’m not,”  you grit, paired with a roll of your eyes and a little snort from your nose.  You really aren’t.  Those girls are inconsequential, irrelevant.  They’ll never amount to what you are to him and that’s just a simple fact.  He’s yours - something he reminds you of day in and day out, both verbally and in action. 

(You love him for it, appreciate it more than you can possibly begin to explain.  There’s a certain bliss to be found in the knowledge that you’re loved.  A warmth that rivals even that of the sun on the summer’s hottest day.) 

“Then why’re you pouting?”  What he really means is why aren’t you smiling.  You don’t pout often - at least not in the same ways he does.  

“I’m not,”  you repeat for what feels like the sixth time. 

“Smile for me.”

You do the opposite - throwing your eyes in an exaggerated circle.  It earns you a pinch to the side, a tender sting blooming beneath ink-strewn fingers. 

“Really—“  When he looks this earnest, it’s hard to deny him,  “you’re sure everything’s okay?”

At most, you can sigh perhaps overdramatically.  Fold your awkward limbs upon his and bury your face into the crook of his neck.  You’re not jealous of those girls, no.   

You’re envious of his talent - the simple fact that Jeon Jungkook is, by all definitions, a golden boy.  God’s favourite, with his heart wrenching smile and easygoing charm and grace that seems almost surreal.  There’s not a single thing wrong with him - okay, except for his bad habit of never answering his phone and always messing up the top sheet and the fact that he absolutely never ever puts the cap back on the toothpaste tube - and it’s absurd.  Utterly, absolutely unfair. 

But you can’t say that.

“Baby,”  he hums, threading the sound of his voice among your hair, tucking the soft syllables behind your ears.  “Talk to me.”

You relent - a little.  “You’re too good.”

“Too good?”  The depth of his laughter rumbles your bones, tickling your insides when it vibrates out of his chest.  “At what?”

A hand gesticulates wildly.  You’re not sure what it looks like, how close it is to hitting Jungkook in the face.  You’ve still got your face pressed to the warmth of his skin, greedily siphoning his sunny radiance with your cheek.   “Everything.”

Despite how he laughs - cackles, really, so adorable and high pitched it’s breathy - you know he knows what you’re talking about.  You’ve given him a hard time about it before.  

“I’m not good at everything, ____.”

He’s somehow even good at making you believe you’re wrong.  That’s a feat in and of itself. 

“Are too.”

“Are not.”

“Whatever!”  Whether he acknowledges it or not, he’s stupidly gifted.  Everyone and their - even his - mom knows it.  “Don’t believe me then.  I don’t care.”

“Then why’re you making that face?”  It’s almost comical that he’s calling you out for your expressions when he’s the king of funny faces, throwing his features into exaggerated (and adorable) masks.  (Maybe he’d just rubbed off on you?)

“I’m not,”  you huff, exasperated but not quite.  Still soft over his skin, velvet on silk. 

“You’re so cute.”  Sometimes, you think he really is just a child - too happy with putting you on a pedestal and praying at your altar.  Devoting himself to you when you’re nothing but a bag of flesh and bone, dressed in designer fashion and wrapped up with a satin ribbon made from sarcasm and candor.  (Not that you mind.  Who would argue if they were offered such love?)  “I still think something’s wrong but…”

It’s a smart tactic.  He doesn’t press you for an answer, opting to let it linger between you.  Settle like bothersome lint until you offer it yourself.  

When you relent - because you always do, unable to shut out the sunshine that practically pours out of him - you’re quieter.  Not shy, but bashful.  Uncertain in a way you very rarely are.  “I’ve always wanted to dance.”  So much so, you’d begged your parents to enroll you when you were younger.  Demanded lessons upon lessons - only to fail at all of them.  Rhythm simply didn’t exist anywhere in your body. 

“Really?”

You’re pulled from your safe haven, shifted until your entire point of view is filled with Jungkook, his starry eyes and his fluffy fluffy hair.  There’s that look he sometimes gets - full of wonder and adoration - when he learns something new about you.  As if just the smallest tidbit of knowledge opens up a whole new world.  

“Yes?”  You’re half regretting the admission.  He looks like he’s up to something, all the cogs in his head turning in perfect tandem. 

“I’ll teach you.”  

“Hard pass.”

Like a hot air balloon, he deflates, mouth rounding sweetly.  (If you didn’t know better, you’d assume the man was made of cotton candy, semi-sweet chocolate heart where the real organ should be.)  “Why not?”

“I do not dance.”  It’s nothing but a statement of fact, firm and unyielding. 

The pout evolves, swings down into a frown that drags his eyebrows with it.  “You could dance.”

“No, baby—“  So you’re a little frustrated, all your childhood memories pricking beneath your skin.  “I do not dance.”

“Why?”  He’s upright now, tugging you with him as if you weigh nothing.  His way of turning the conversation serious, pulling you from the warmth and comfort of the bedsheets to this.  (He’s still holding you, hooking his big broad hands over your hips, so you don’t mind.) 

“No rhythm.”  Unable to keep a beat.  Two left feet.  The list could go on and on, according to your ballet instructor. 

“Not true.”

Your brow quirks, mirrored by his as if in challenge.  You almost swat at him - so close your hand twitches on his shoulder.  “Very true.”

(Why does this conversation feel so familiar?  It’s déjà vu.) 

“Is not.”  Your boyfriend seems insistent, as if he knows better than you.  (He doesn’t.)  Stares up at you with those pretty eyes and has the audacity to grin when you roll your own, ready to rebuff him. 

Because you’re in bed, the one place where you defer to him whether you like it or not. 

(You do like it, though.  Love it, in fact.  Just like you love him.)

“You’re graceful,”  he hums, bridging the gap between you with a forward roll of his shoulders.  “You’ve got rhythm.”  The hand on your hip grows firm, guides your knees to spread wide on either side of him.  With each brush of his lips - tender little brushes, endlessly sweet and reassuring - he pushes and pulls, dragging you across his lap.  “You can do anything you want.”

You’ve almost forgotten the topic of conversation, preoccupied by how he guides you in languid circles.  How the cotton of his boxer briefs feels against the sensitive inside of your thighs.  The weight that grows between your legs and nudges indelicately against the soft fabric of your thong.

All part of his plan, of course.

“Your body’s the most beautiful thing in the world, ____.”  

When he looks at you like this, you think he might be right.  You’d believe it if he kept saying it, sparking desire through your limbs until they’re jellied and loose.  

(How he sees right through you - cuts straight to the core of your insecurity - you’re not sure.  It feels almost like a superpower, something unquantifiable, unbelievable.  He’s too good for you, always.  So kind and loving, pressing his belief in the form of his mouth, the tender edge of his teeth when he kisses you slow slow slow.)