#yoongixreader

You have never been good at lying to yourself.

This is not a virtue. It has not always felt like one.

There are people who can look at something true and uncomfortable and file it somewhere dark and quiet and get on with their lives. You have tried this. You have tried it with intention, with commitment, with the full force of someone who understands the appeal.

It does not work.

You feel things the way you hear music — completely, from the inside out, no distance between you and the thing itself. You have tried the distance.

It just doesn't take.

Your mother used to say you wore your heart on your sleeve, and you would say I know, I'm working on it, and she would say I didn't say it was a problem, and you never quite believed her until you were old enough to understand what it cost people who couldn't.

You feel things fully and you say them when they need to be said and you build things out of them when you can. The feeling is not the problem. The feeling is the material. So you use it. Without apology. With both hands.

This is, more or less, the philosophy behind everything you have ever built.

Including the thing that should not exist.

Nobody believed the Maeum Arts Center would work. That is, historically, the wrong thing to tell you.

This is just the truth of it — that when you walked into a bank eight years ago and said I would like funding to open a music and arts therapy center for neurodivergent children in Seoul, the bank lady looked at you with the polite, careful expression of an institution that is about to say no in several different ways, and you walked out of that bank and into the next one, and the one after that, and eventually when literally any other person would have just stopped. You started asking everyone else, grant by grant, favor by favor, one stubborn inch at a time, until one day you turned around and there it was.

Yellow walls. 

That was the first decision — yellow, specifically the yellow of late afternoon in a room with good windows, warm and a little unreasonable.

The kind of color that says you are allowed to be loud here.

The walls are covered now: finger-painted handprints in every size, a mural that started as a class project and has been expanding for two years, a hand-lettered sign by the entrance that reads THE REAL STARS PRACTICE HERE because Kim Seojun, age nine, made it during a session where he was supposed to be working on fine motor skills, and you framed it, and now it lives there permanently, and you refuse to feel embarrassed about this.

The floors are scuffed wood, permanently chalky near the supply closet. There are plants in the windows that are thriving despite everything.

The front desk has a bowl of individually wrapped chocolates that Dani refills every Monday, because They understand that small comforts are also infrastructure.

Every room has a name — not a number, a name — and the kids named them, so Practice Room One is officially called The Dragon Room because Choi Jisoo drew a dragon on the door in marker three years ago and you told her it was permanent and you meant it.

Jisoo is twelve years old now, and hears music the way most people never will — not as sound but as sense, something that lives in her before she reaches for it.

Someone recognized this immediately.

He got her the better practice room and a cello that was not the center's cheapest option and has since denied both decisions flatly and without elaboration. Jisoo calls him teacher in a tone that implies she has a more accurate word and is choosing not to use it.

He pretends not to notice.

He absolutely notices.

You are thinking about him again.

You weren't going to do that.

You look at the schedule on your desk and keep going.

It smells like paint. And Rosin because it is Monday and the string kids have been in.

Sometimes, when Dani has eaten at the desk, whatever Dani had for lunch, which is usually something that makes you realize you have not eaten since approximately seven AM.

It is, genuinely, the best place you have ever been.

You built it. You would go to war for it. You would, and this is relevant, do almost anything to keep it running.

Almost.

You are in the Sunshine Room explaining to Kim Seojun why Für Elise does not need to be played at the speed of a man fleeing a crime scene to be considered a passionate performance.

"Speed," you tell him, sitting on the piano bench beside him, "is not the same as feeling."

Seojun considers this. He is nine years old and built like a question mark, all elbows and certainty. "My feeling," he says, "is that it should be faster."

"Your feeling is wrong."

"You said feelings are never wrong."

"I said your feelings about yourself are never wrong. Your feelings about tempo are subject to revision."

He thinks about this for a moment. Then, with the air of someone who has decided to be magnanimous: "I will play it fast and then slow and then you can decide."

"I have already decided, Seojun."

"You can decide again."

This is the negotiation you are in the middle of — Seojun playing the opening of Für Elise at a pace that suggests Beethoven was, in fact, running, and you telling him to slow down, and Seojun having opinions about this — when your phone goes off.

Not the center line. Not Dani's extension. Your personal phone — the one whose number is held by your landlord, your mother, and Dani, who is standing twelve feet away looking at their clipboard. Your mother is on a cruise in Antarctica and has been radio silent since last Tuesday, which she warned you about. Your landlord has no reason to call. Dani is right there.

That leaves one option.

One option that has not called in eight months.

You pull it out.

You look at the screen.

incoming call: Min Yoongi.

Directly.

You look at it for what is probably two seconds and feels like considerably longer.

Seojun looks at your face. Then at your phone. Then back at your face. "Is that bad?" he asks.

"Play the piece," you say. "Slowly."

"How slowly?"

"Like you mean it, not like you're winning a race."

You stand up. You step into the doorway. Dani is at the front desk twelve feet away and you know — you can feel it — that they have already clocked the name on your screen, because Dani notices everything and says approximately thirty percent of what they notice, and the sixty percent they don't say tends to live in the air around them like ambient information.

They look up from their clipboard.

They look back down.

You answer the phone.

"I need a favor."

Eight months. Eight months of center-related correspondence routed through Dani like diplomatic cables, and he calls your personal number, and his opening line is I need a favor.

This is, actually, very Min Yoongi.

The thing about him — and you have had eight months to not think about this, which means you have thought about it with some frequency — is that he does not do anything sideways. Other people would have opened with small talk. How are you, how's the center, hey so funny thing.

They would have built a little runway before asking for the thing. Yoongi does not build runways. Yoongi lands the plane directly in your living room and looks at you like well, here's the plane.

It is, depending on the day, either his most charming quality or his most catastrophic one.

Today you have not decided yet.

"Min Yoongi," you say.

But even as you say it, you are already doing the thing you have never been able to stop yourself from doing — feeling it first, thinking about it second, in that order, always in that order. Eight months of careful distance and his name on your screen and your heart just — opens the file. All of it. Right there. Like it never closed.

And it forces your mind to go back in time to understand it.

Approximately three and a half years ago, the company that manages BTS decided — or more accurately, decided for him — that Min Yoongi needed somewhere to be that was not his studio at two in the morning.

What you understood later was that the call was less goodwill and more intervention.

You knew who he was before he walked through the door. You would have been hard pressed not to — you live in Seoul, you run a center full of children who have opinions about music before they have opinions about anything else, and BTS is not a thing you can be adjacent to Korean culture and miss.

You knew the name Suga.

You had heard what he made, the mixtapes and the solo work, the kind of music that gets made when someone decides that honesty is the only tool worth using. The kind that makes you sit with it after, not because it's comfortable but because it's true.

You were wary when the company called. You said yes anyway, because the funding was real and the need was real and you have never been precious about where good things come from as long as they are actually good.

What you didn't know — what you pieced together later, in pieces, from things he said and things he didn't — was what the visit was really for.

He was in the middle of it then. His last album, though he didn't know yet it would be the last one.

Agust D was not finished, not closed, the trilogy still assembling itself, and he was somewhere in the dark interior of that process — converting the last of something that had taken fifteen years to excavate, bleeding it onto a record that the world would later call a masterpiece and he would later call done. He was drinking quietly. He was in his studio at hours that were not reasonable hours. And management, who had one eye on the asset and one eye on what the asset was costing, made the call.

A music center.

They sent him to your center because they needed him to be somewhere that had nothing to do with the music industry and everything to do with why music existed in the first place.

Children who knew exactly who he was and could not have cared less, because he was Teacher Min and Teacher Min was late on Wednesdays and had opinions about their finger positioning and that was what he was to them and fame is considerably less interesting than whether you are going to help them with the bridge section or not.

You understood later what the company was hoping for. That something ordinary might reach him where extraordinary had stopped working.

What you didn't expect — what none of them expected, probably — was that it would work. That he would sit in the corner of the Dragon Room on his third visit and hear Choi Jisoo play and just. Stop.

Jisoo was nine then. She had lost her parents eight months before — a car accident, her older sister barely an adult, both of them trying to stay above water by sheer force of will. She came to the center through a school referral and you knew within the first session that she was something rare. Talented doesn't cover it. She heard music the way he did — from somewhere it couldn't be taught, before anyone told her to be careful with it. It came out whole every time.

He recognized her immediately. You watched it happen from the doorway — the moment he heard her and went still, not the managed stillness he carried everywhere, but a different kind. The kind that happens when something outside you names something inside you that you didn't have words for yet.

She was nine years old and she had just lost everything and she was still playing.

You think that did something to him that the center itself couldn't have done. You think she reminded him why he started. You think some part of that last album — somewhere in the release of it, in the place where the anger finally loosens into something that can breathe — has this room in it. You cannot point to the measure. You just know.

You know Suga. You have always known Suga — the fire, the precision, the particular devastation of a lyric that doesn't blink.

You know AgustD. The thing underneath the fire. The part that took everything dark and made it into something that could exist outside his body so he didn't have to carry it alone anymore.

Min Yoongi walked into your center three and a half years ago in a black beanie.

He is the one you were not prepared for. And stood in your doorway and looked at everything you built.

A building that smelled like paint. A person who looked up from a grant proposal and said you must be the piano guy without a single trace of anything except mild administrative recognition.

He didn't announce himself. 

He didn't bring anyone. 

He came back the next week.

And the week after that.

He was — and you want to be precise about this, for your own accounting — not what you expected. Quiet in the way of someone who has decided that words are a resource to be used carefully rather than freely. Funny in the way that sneaks up on you, deadpan and perfectly timed, gone before you're sure it happened. He sat on the floor of the Dragon Room and listened to Jisoo play with an expression you recognized — the expression of someone hearing music the way you hear music, from the inside out, like it's a language and not a performance.

He was, against all available evidence and better judgment, a person you genuinely liked.

And then — and this is where the story gets less tidy — there was a period. A difficult period. The kind that happens when someone is at the peak of everything and the bottom of themselves at the same time, and you were there for part of it, and then you weren't, and then there was a morning that neither of you has addressed, and then there were eight months of Dani's professional neutrality standing between you like a very elegant wall.

That's the context.

That's why hi does what it does.

"You don't get to hi me," you say again, because you already said it once and it still applies. "You get to explain yourself."

"I was getting to that."

"You were getting to the favor. That's different."

"The favor is the explanation."

"Then start with the favor."

He starts with the favor.

What follows is approximately three minutes of Min Yoongi — who is, among other things, a Grammy-nominated producer, a member of the most successful musical group in history, a critically acclaimed solo artist, a man who once wrote a lyric so precise it made a journalist cry in a press conference — explaining how he arrived at his current situation.

The situation is this.

He tells you about his father first.

This is not what you expected. You were braced for the logistics of it, the ask — and instead he leads with this, quietly, in the voice he uses when he has been carrying something alone long enough that it has changed shape. The cancer is back. He found out three weeks ago. His parents don't know he knows how bad it is. He is not going to tell them he knows how bad it is. What he is going to do is make sure that when they visit, his father sees his youngest son okay. Settled. Not alone in his apartment at three AM eating ramyeon, which is what he actually is.

You don't say anything. You let him keep going.

His mother called, he says. Asked the question she has apparently been saving for the right moment — Yoongi-ya, is there anyone — and he said yes. He said yes because his father laughed in the background when his mother made a happy sound and he is, whatever else he is, not someone who takes that laugh from his father right now. Not with everything else.

And then his mother said who.

And your name came out.

He says this last part with the energy of a man reporting a minor natural disaster — something that happened, meteorological in nature, outside his control. Your name came out. His mother said oh, the one from the center, which means he has mentioned you enough that you exist in her mind as a real and specific person, which is something you are going to put in a box and close the lid on for now. They asked questions. He answered enough of them that a retreat is no longer possible. His parents arrive Tomorrow.

He is asking.

You are quiet for a moment.

Then he says the actual thing.

He needs you to come to dinner. Tomorrow. To meet them. To be, for twelve days, the person whose name came out of his mouth on a Sunday night when his father laughed in the background and everything felt urgent.

His girlfriend.

Fake, he clarifies. Obviously fake.

He will compensate you for your time. He says this last part quickly, like he is aware of how it sounds and has decided that speed is the only solution.

You stand very still in the doorway of the Dragon Room.

There is a silence on the phone that contains several things simultaneously — his embarrassment, which he will not name, and yours, which you are also not going to name, and the question of which of you should feel more humiliated by this phone call, which you are going to call a tie and move on from.

From the front desk, twelve feet away, you feel Dani look up.

You do not look at them.

You look at the yellow wall directly in front of you instead, which is a mistake, because the yellow wall has a mirror on it, and in the mirror you can see your own face, which has performed, in the last thirty seconds, a remarkable journey — draining of color and then filling back up with the specific red of the Dragon Room door, bright and total and absolutely visible.

Dani makes a face.

You turn away from the mirror.

"You want me," you say, very carefully, "to pretend to be your girlfriend."

"Yes," he says.

"For twelve days."

"Yes."

"And you'll compensate me for my time."

A pause. "...yes."

"Min Yoongi," you say.

"I know," he says.

You think about the grant proposal open on your laptop. Fourth draft. The methodology section you have been revising since February, it's March. The number at the bottom of the budget page that you have been looking at for three weeks like watching a clock you cannot stop.

And then you think about the thing that he also said and now you can't ignore, he said your name.

Your name.

"Why," you say, "my name."

"It came out."

"Things don't just come out, Yoongi."

"This one did."

"My name specifically."

"...yes."

"You panicked and the name that came out of your mouth was mine."

Silence. Then: "Are you going to keep repeating it back to me."

"I'm going to keep repeating it back to you until I understand how this is the situation I'm in."

"You're not in a situation yet. I'm asking if you want to be in a situation."

"That," you say, "is the worst pitch I've ever heard and I once sat through a grant presentation where a man used the phrase youth sonic ecosystem fourteen times."

"Fourteen."

"I counted."

A pause. And then — quiet, and you almost miss it — the sound of him trying not to laugh. Just barely. The exhale of it.

Something in your chest does something you are not going to acknowledge.

"My parents arrive at four," he says, back to level. "They're here for two weeks. My mother has—" A pause. "She's very thorough."

"I know what your mother is."

"You've never met her."

"You've told me about her. She's thorough."

"She's very thorough."

"Yoongi." You lean against the wall outside the Dragon Room. Inside, Seojun has abandoned Für Elise and is playing something that contains what sounds like a battle sequence. You ignore this. "What exactly are you asking me to do?"

"Come to dinner. Tomorrow, I'll pick you up. Be—" Another pause, shorter. "Be her."

"Be her," you repeat. "Be the girlfriend."

"Yes."

"That you invented."

"Yes."

"Using my name."

"I've acknowledged that part."

"I want to make sure we're both clear on the full picture," you say, "which is that you have created a fictional relationship, cast me in it without my knowledge, and are now calling me after eight months to inform me that I have rehearsal tomorrow."

The silence this time is different. It has the quality of a man who knows he has no defensible position and has decided that honesty is the only remaining strategy. "...yes," he says. "That's the picture."

You look at the ceiling of the Maeum Arts Center. Yellow. Unreasonable. The very best color.

The grant proposal is open on your laptop. Fourth draft.

"What's in it for me," you say.

He does not hesitate.

Then he mentions the funding.

Not as a plea. Not as desperation. He says it the way he says most things — clean, no preamble, like he has thought about it already and arrived at a number and is now simply communicating the result. Three years. Full program. No strings beyond an annual summary that Dani could do in their sleep.

He knows about the budget.

Of course he knows — you have talked freely about grant committees and funding gaps and the specific indignity of begging institutions for money to do work that should have been funded already. He has been sending money to the center quietly for two years, through a foundation, no announcement, the kind of generosity that arrives without a name attached because the name was never the point.

He has offered more. Several times, through Dani. You have declined every time because you have your own pride and he lost the right to give you things directly when he stopped talking to you eight months ago.

But this is the thing about building something real — and the center is real, the kids are very real, Seojun's future as a person who can negotiate tempo is real, Jisoo's better practice room and better cello and the future already forming in her hands is real — you get very practical about what it takes to keep it standing. You think about the Wednesday group and the Dragon Room and the eight kids on the waitlist you have not been able to say yes to yet because the budget page says what it says. You stop being precious about it. You learn to look at an absurd situation and ask but does it help before you ask anything else.

Does it help.

Three years, no strings.

Yes. It helps.

"My price," you say, "is the spring showcase. You play one piece. On stage. With the kids. In front of everyone."

A pause. "Which kids."

"The Wednesday ensemble group."

Another pause. Longer.

You happen to know that he has heard the Wednesday ensemble group practice, because he comes on Wednesdays, because this is one of the facts you have continued to know despite the eight months, and the Wednesday ensemble group at their current stage of development sounds like — and you love them deeply, this is not in question — organized enthusiasm.

"How long is the piece," he says.

"Three minutes. Maybe three-fifteen if Seojun takes the repeat."

"He'll take the repeat."

"He always takes the repeat."

"I know," Yoongi says, and just for a second it doesn't sound like it's about the music.

You clear your throat. "Deal or no deal."

Silence.

"Deal," he says.

Just like that. No negotiation. Like he was going to say yes before you finished the sentence.

You have a thought about this that you immediately put in a box and close the lid on.

"Fine," you say. "What time."

"Seven. I'll pick you up"

"Okay."

A beat. He doesn't say anything about this. You appreciate that.

"Dress like—"

"I know how to dress, Yoongi."

"I didn't mean—"

"I'm aware of what you meant and I'm telling you I know how to dress myself."

"Okay."

"I don't show up anywhere looking unprofessional."

"I know you don't."

"I'm just making that clear."

"It's very clear," he says, and there is definitely, definitely something in his voice that you are not going to give any oxygen to whatsoever.

"Tomorrow," you say.

"Seven," he says.

You hang up.

You stand in the hallway for a moment.

From the Dragon Room: Seojun, who has worked his way through the battle sequence and arrived at what sounds like a victory theme.

From the courtyard: three of the older kids, who were supposed to be doing a chalk activity that has clearly escalated past its original mandate. Someone has drawn something enormous. It might be a whale.

From the front desk: nothing. No sound at all.

You turn around.

Dani is looking at you. They have the clipboard in front of them and they are very technically still doing their job, which you appreciate, because Dani is professional, but their eyes over the top of the clipboard are saying something extensive.

"Don't," you say.

Dani says nothing.

"The funding is—"

"Three years," Dani says. This is the first thing they have said. It comes out with the flatness of a person who has had a thought, filed it, and is now simply confirming the record.

"Full program. No strings."

"He called directly," Dani says.

"Yes."

"Your personal number."

"Dani."

"After eight months." They look down at the clipboard. Then back up. Something shifts in their expression — something very small, almost invisible, gone before you can name it. "Obviously," they say.

Not obviously this makes sense. Not obviously you should do it. Just: obviously. The Dani obviously, which contains an entire thesis that you have neither the time nor the emotional real estate to engage with right now.

"It's twelve days," you say. "It's practical."

"Absolutely," Dani says.

"Completely practical."

"Of course."

"You don't have to say it like that."

"I said of course."

"You said it like that."

Dani looks at you with the serenity of someone who has made peace with the universe and all its workings. "Should I book you a blowout for tomorrow or do you want to do that yourself."

You open your mouth.

You close it.

"...book it," you say.

Dani nods and picks up their pen.

From the Dragon Room, Seojun has looped back around and is playing Für Elise again, still fast, but this time there is something in it — a little more feeling, a little less racing. Like he has decided, on his own terms and in his own time, that maybe slow and fast aren't opposites. Maybe they're just different ways of meaning it.

You grab your jacket off the hook by the door.

Twelve days.

Fake girlfriend. Real funding. Min Yoongi, who called your personal number after eight months and said your name to his mother and apparently has been sitting on that fact like it's a completely normal thing to have done.

Fine, you think. This is going to be completely fine.

You are a person who built something real out of nothing. You can do twelve days.

Easy.

You step outside.

The kid in the courtyard has finished the whale. It is enormous. Someone has given it a name — you can see the letters from here, chalked in big wobbly print.

Gerald.

You look at Gerald for a moment.

Gerald looks back.

"Yeah, Me too," you tell him, and go to get your car.

He picks you up at six forty-five.

This is, you will reflect later, very Min Yoongi. Not six-thirty, which would be anxious. Not seven, which would be cutting it. Six forty-five — enough time, no excess of it, accounted for without being performed. He texts when he's outside. One message Here No punctuation because punctuation on a single word is, apparently, where he draws the line on formality.

You grab your bag and go downstairs.

He is leaning against the car when you come out, hands in his jacket pockets, looking at his phone with the focused patience of someone who is not actually reading anything on it. He looks up when the door opens.

He stops looking at his phone.

This is the thing — and you have had three and a half years to observe this and several months to try to stop noticing it — about Min Yoongi. His face does not do much. This is not coldness. You figured that out early, faster than most people do, because most people look at the still surface and assume the water is shallow, and you have always known that the still ones run deep. He is not a man who performs calm. He is calm, genuinely, the way a room is calm after someone has learned how to arrange it. Unhurried. Considered. The bluntness of him — the way he says the true thing without decorating it first, without building a runway — it is not cruelty. It is the opposite of cruelty. It is the respect of a person who thinks you can handle the truth and gives it to you whole.

You know this about him.

You know the face he makes when he's decided something. You know the particular quality of his silences — there are at least four different ones and they all mean different things. You know that when he goes very level and very still it is not because nothing is happening but because quite a lot is happening and he has made a decision about what to do with it.

You know all of this.

Which is why you see it — the thing that crosses his face when you walk out the door in the blue dress. It is fast. It is almost nothing.

Almost.

Your dress is blue.

This requires some context.

Your wardrobe is, generally, a reflection of your actual life — which is to say it is colorful in the way that happens when you work with paint and children and the occasional catastrophic craft supply situation, and practical in the way that happens when you have learned, through experience, that dry-clean only is a promise you cannot keep. You own cardigans in every weight. You own trousers with good pockets. You own an apron that has developed a permanent glitter situation that three years of laundering have failed to resolve, and you have made peace with this because the glitter is a feature, not a flaw, and also because Seojun put the first piece of it there during a project about stars and you are not emotionally capable of fully removing it.

You also own earrings. You would like the record to reflect that you own earrings. They are simply not always the conventional kind — you have a pair of tiny cellos that Dani gave you ironically and you wear unironically, a pair of small gold music notes that have become essentially structural, and a pair of strawberries that came from a market stall and bring you genuine joy every time.

The earrings you are wearing tonight are different.

Small. Simple. A pale blue stone that catches light without announcing itself. Yoongi gave them to you fourteen months ago, offhandedly, after a trip to somewhere — Japan, you think, or maybe Tokyo specifically — and said these reminded me of something without saying what, and you said thank you and put them in the small dish on your dresser and have not worn them until tonight.

You are wearing them tonight because they match the dress.

That is the only reason.

The dress itself you bought for a hospital gala your ex-boyfriend invited you to three years ago, wore twice since, and kept at the back of your closet for occasions that required you to look like someone who had not recently been in contact with tempera paint. It is, objectively, a good dress. The kind of blue that makes someone look at you and then look again.

It hits right.

You have done something with your hair — Dani's blowout, smooth and deliberate — and you look, from the outside, like the other version of yourself. The one that exists in grant meetings and funding presentations, the one that walks into a room and makes people understand immediately that the Maeum Center is not a passion project, it is a business, and it is her business, and she built it from nothing and she will build it further still.

You don't lead with this version of yourself. You don't need to, most days.

But you know how to be her.

Yoongi looks at you coming through the door in the blue dress and the simple earrings and his face does the thing that almost isn't a thing, and he does not say anything for a moment that is slightly too long to be neutral.

"Hi," you say.

He blinks. "Hi."

"You're staring."

"I'm not staring."

"You stopped breathing."

"I didn't—" He stops. "I was thinking."

"About."

"Nothing." He pushes off the car. "You look—" He stops again. Min Yoongi, who once wrote a lyric so precise it made a journalist cry in a press conference, who has spent his entire adult life finding the exact right word for the exact right feeling, is standing in front of you failing to complete a sentence. "You clean up well."

You stare at him.

"That came out—"

"You're going to want to try that again."

"You look nice," he says, quieter. The correction filed with his eyes somewhere near your collarbone, near the earrings, and then quickly away.

"Thank you," you say pleasantly.

He opens the car door. You get in. He closes it, walks around, gets in the driver's side, and starts the car with the composure of a man who did not just short-circuit in a public street over a blue dress.

You look out the window so he doesn't see you smile.

"The earrings," he says, after a moment, eyes on the road.

"What about them."

A pause. "Nothing."

You look at him.

His ears are pink.

Min Yoongi, whose bars could make a stadium go quiet, whose lyrics have been tattooed on strangers' ribcages and quoted in academic papers about the commodification of grief — his ears are pink because you are wearing earrings he gave you.

It is, genuinely, one of the most devastating things you have ever seen.

When you pull up to the restaurant. He glances at you. Something steadying in it, something that is both for you and, you think, for him. "Let's go do this, Doll." he says.

And there it is. Landing quiet and certain, like it has always been there, waiting.

You face forward.

You think: this is going to be a problem.

The private room is warm and small, and his family is already there, and the first thing you understand when you walk in is that Min Yoongi did not come from nowhere.

His father stands. Shorter than Yoongi, broader through the shoulders, the same eyes — the kind that take things in and file them without announcement. He smiles when he sees you and it rearranges his whole face, and you think: there it is. That's where Yoongi got the one he doesn't take out often.

"You must be—" his father starts.

"She is," Yoongi says.

His father looks at him. Yoongi looks back. You recognize this immediately — the language of two people who argue not because they disagree but because agreeing out loud has never been either of their first instinct. They are, from a distance of four feet, almost comically similar. The same set of the jaw. The same economy of expression. The same way of standing like they have already thought about this and reached a conclusion and are simply waiting for the room to catch up.

"I was going to let her introduce herself," his father says.

"She was about to."

"Before you interrupted."

"It wasn't an interruption, it was context."

"The context," his father says, turning to you with a patience clearly developed over three decades, "was her name."

You put your hand on Yoongi's arm. Lightly. He stops talking.

His father watches this. Something moves through his expression that you can't fully name yet.

"He's exactly like you," you tell him.

His father laughs — real and surprised — and Yoongi makes a sound beside you that is not quite objection but is in the neighborhood.

"I've been saying this," his father says, "since he was seven years old and told me I was explaining a recipe incorrectly."

"I was correct," Yoongi says.

"You were seven."

"The kimchi jjigae was underseasoned."

"He was right," his mother says, appearing from the other side of the table, and kisses Yoongi's cheek before he can arrange his face properly, and then turns to you with warm hands and a smile that is, you understand immediately, where Min Yoongi's face actually came from. Because his father gave him the eyes, the jaw, the bluntness, the way of standing. But the face itself — the structure of it, the particular arrangement that makes strangers stop and look — that came from her.

She is beautiful. Warm and deliberate and currently looking at you like she is very glad you exist.

"I've wanted to meet you," she says. "He doesn't tell us enough."

"I tell you—" Yoongi starts.

"Enough about the center," his mother says. "Not enough about you." She squeezes your hands and then, before you can respond: "Come sit by me."

It is not a question.

Yoongi's older brother Jihoon arrives fifteen minutes late carrying, by your count, a diaper bag, two coats, a tote bag whose contents remain unknown but are clearly substantial, what appears to be a portable sound machine, and a look of a man who has not slept more than four consecutive hours since approximately three months ago. His wife Eunji follows behind him carrying the baby, who is three months old and fully, aggressively awake, and who is also the only person in this family currently unburdened by anything.

"Sorry—" Jihoon starts.

"The baby," Yoongi's mother says, already standing, already making grabbing motions.

"Her name is Haerin—"

"Yes, yes. The baby."

The handoff happens. Haerin — round and duck-onesied and deeply skeptical of this restaurant — is transferred into her grandmother's arms and immediately closes her eyes.

Yoongi's mother looks vindicated in a way that transcends language.

"Don't," Yoongi says. "I'm not doing anything." "You're doing the face." "I don't have a face." "Eunji, tell him he has a face." "He has a face," Eunji says without looking up.

Jihoon grins at you. "Welcome. He talks about you constantly. It's the center this, the kids that, the director—"

"He calls her by her name," his father says, from behind his menu. Conversational. Like he is reporting something mildly interesting. "Not the director. Not my friend from the center." He turns a page. "Your name. Since the beginning."

The table is quiet for a moment.

Yoongi picks up his water glass and takes a sip looking like a man who has decided that this glass of water is the most important thing happening in this room right now.

You look at the menu.

The menu is also very interesting.

"The bulgogi looks good," you say.

"It does," Yoongi says.

Neither of you looks up.

The dinner is, against all expectation, the best time you have had in months.

This is the problem with Yoongi's family. You were prepared to like them adequately. You were not prepared for Jihoon's deadpan timing, for Eunji's quiet devastating accuracy, for his father's questions about the center that build on each other and reveal that he has actually been listening. You were not prepared for his mother to refill your glass before you notice it's low or to ask about the grant history with the genuine interest of someone who wants to understand rather than just be polite.

You tell them more than you mean to. The yellow walls. Seojun's sign. The Dragon Room. The way you built it grant by grant because banks are not in the business of funding things that should exist but don't yet.

"It sounds," Yoongi's father says, "like something that should have existed already."

"It should have," you say. "That's why I built it."

He looks at you.

Across the table, you feel Yoongi looking at you too.

You think about who he is on stage — the precision of it, the controlled devastation, every word placed to land exactly where he means it to land. You have heard that album. You know what he made and what it cost him. You know the lyrics that made journalists cry and critics write dissertations and strangers get them tattooed somewhere permanent.

And here he is, passing his father the side dishes first. Cutting Haerin's blanket back into place when it slips without being asked, without making it a gesture. Listening to his mother with the particular quality of someone who does not take for granted that she is still talking.

The same person.

Both of them, every time, the same person.

You find this so unreasonably moving that you have to look at your chopsticks for a moment.

"Isn't he handsome?" his mother says.

This arrives without warning, in the small pause after the table has been laughing about something Jihoon said. She is looking at Yoongi with the uncomplicated pride of a woman who made a beautiful thing and knows it. Then she looks at you.

"My boy," she says. "Isn't he the most handsome man."

Yoongi goes very still.

"Eomma—"

"I'm asking her a question."

"It's not a—"

"Yoongi-ya, I'm talking to your girlfriend."

You look at him. He is looking at the table with the composure of a man who has made a decision about where his eyes are going and is committed to it.

You look back at his mother.

"Yes," you say simply. "He really is."

His mother beams.

Yoongi says nothing. He picks up his chopsticks and takes a precise, deliberate bite of food and chews it with great attention, and you think: he is so good at pretending not to be affected by things.

You look back at your plate.

This is going to be a very long twelve days.

It is Jihoon who breaks the argument.

He is explaining, incorrectly, why a particular investment strategy is correct. His father is explaining, patiently, why it is not. Yoongi has entered on his father's side with the energy of someone who has been waiting for an opportunity to be right about something. All three of them are talking at the same time.

"You're all saying the same thing," Eunji says.

They stop.

"From different angles," she adds, rocking Haerin. "And arguing about the angles."

Silence.

Yoongi looks at Jihoon. Jihoon looks at their father. Their father looks at Yoongi.

"She's right," you say.

"She's always right," Eunji says, without vanity. Pure fact.

The table laughs. Full, warm, the kind that lingers. Haerin opens her eyes, decides this situation is acceptable, and closes them again. Yoongi's mother is laughing with her hand over her mouth. Jihoon is shaking his head. His father—

His father's laughter fades last.

In the quiet after, he looks across the table at his youngest son. Something in his face has shifted — the argument is completely gone from it. What is there instead is older. Quieter. The look of a man who is keeping careful count.

"I'm glad," he says. "To see you like this. Settled." A pause — something moves through it, brief and real. "Happy."

The room doesn't go quiet. Eunji adjusts Haerin's blanket. Jihoon refills water. His mother smiles at her plate.

But you feel it.

And you watch it move through Yoongi — fast, like weather crossing open ground. He looks at his father. Looks down. When he looks up again he is composed, level, the surface arranged exactly where he keeps it.

"Yeah," he says. Careful and quiet. "Me too."

You look at your hands.

The blue dress. The earrings from a trip to somewhere, Tokyo maybe, that you wore tonight because they matched.

Practical, you told Dani.

Twelve days, you told yourself.

You pick up your chopsticks.

You do not look at Yoongi.

Because you have your own unresolved feelings about the morning that neither of you has mentioned, about eight months of deliberate distance, about three and a half years of knowing someone and choosing proximity and then losing it. You have been very organized about all of this. You have filed it and managed it and told yourself it was handled.

And now you are sitting at a table with his family while his father looks at his son like he is counting good moments, and you are wearing the earrings, and he said doll in the car like it was always a word that belonged to the two of you—

You are realizing, with some clarity, that you have made a miscalculation.

Not about the funding. The funding is real and the center needs it and that part is fine.

The miscalculation is this: you told yourself twelve days of pretending.

You did not account for the possibility that you would not entirely be pretending.

Outside, his family disperses.

His mother hugs you again, longer. Jihoon shakes your hand with the grin of a man exercising significant restraint. Eunji says it was lovely and means every word. His father takes your hand in both of his, warm and unhurried.

"Come again," he says. "Don't let him think you have to be invited."

"She doesn't let me think anything," Yoongi says, beside you.

His father smiles. Pats your hand. Lets go.

You watch him walk to the car.

There it is again — something in the careful way he moves. The way he takes the step from curb to street with a steadiness that is just slightly more deliberate than it should need to be. You file it. You don't examine it yet.

Yoongi is quiet beside you.

The street is still. The restaurant hums warm behind you. Somewhere above, an open window is letting music out into the night air, slow and unhurried, drifting down without knowing where it's going.

"Let's take you home, Doll."

Quiet. No destination in it. Not a redirect. Not reassurance. Just the word, slipping out like it forgot to wait for permission. Like something true making its own way through.

You look straight ahead.

"Goodnight, Yoongi," you say.

He says nothing.

But you hear the exhale. Small. Almost nothing.

You walk to your front door.

You do not look back.

You are in significant trouble and you know it and you you sit in your living room for a moment in the quiet with your hands in your lap, and you think about twelve days, and the earrings, and his father's face at the end of the laughter.

You think: I should call Dani.

The text arrives at five fifty-three PM.

You are in the middle of closing the center — which is less a single task and more a sequence of small negotiations, because closing the Maeum Center requires confirming that all children have been collected by a responsible adult, that the Dragon Room piano lid is down, that no one has left a snack somewhere it will become a science experiment by Tomorrow, and that Seojun, specifically, has not hidden himself in the supply closet again in protest of going home, which he has done twice and will do again.

Your phone buzzes on the front desk.

Unknown number: Come to dinner. Yoongi will pick you up at six. This is your mother in law.

You stare at this for a moment.

Then you look at Dani.

Dani is reading it over your shoulder because Dani has no concept of privacy when they have deemed the information relevant, which is always.

"She got your number," Dani says.

"She got my number."

"From Yoongi."

"Presumably."

"Who is currently," Dani consults their phone, because Dani knows things, "in rehearsal for the Gwanghwamun concert." "She called herself your mother in law"

You look at the text again.

Min Eunha: Yoongi will pick you up at seven.

Yoongi does not know he is picking you up at seven. Yoongi is, at this precise moment, somewhere in a practice facility running choreography for one of the largest concert events of the year, and his mother has drafted him as chauffeur without informing him, and this is so deeply, specifically funny that you have to press your lips together for a moment.

"Should I tell him?" you ask.

Dani considers. "She'll have already told him by now."

"You think?"

"She texted you at five fifty-three. She texted him at five fifty-two."

You think about this.

"She planned the whole evening," you say.

"She planned the whole visit," Dani says, with the tone of someone filing a thought they have held for several days. They pick up their clipboard. "Go get changed. You have paint on your neck."

You reach up. You do, in fact, have paint on your neck.

"It's a good color," you say.

"It's purple."

"It's a great color."

"Go," Dani says.

Yoongi texts at five forty.

Min Yoongi: I'm coming at six. My mother has opinions.

You: I know. She texted me at four fifty-three.

A pause.

Min Yoongi: She texted you before she told me.

You: Dani thinks five fifty-two.

A longer pause. You can feel, through the screen, the specific quality of Min Yoongi arriving at a conclusion about his mother that he has probably arrived at many times before.

Min Yoongi: I was in the middle of rehearsal.

You: I know.

Min Yoongi: She doesn't care.

You: I know.

Min Yoongi: Are you ready.

You look at yourself in the small mirror in your room. You have dealt with the paint. You are wearing a rust-colored top that is not the blue dress but is in the category of things that do not have craft supplies on them, and your hair is doing something acceptable, and you have put in the strawberry earrings because the blue ones feel like too much to explain to yourself two days in a row.

Ready, you type.

His response is immediate. Just: okay.

You know that okay. It is the okay of someone who is managing several things at once and has decided to manage them all quietly. It is the okay of someone who is feeling something about this situation — the rehearsal interruption, the mother's maneuvering, the fact that you are about to spend another evening with his family in a house that is his space and that he does not love sharing — and has filed all of it under fine because fine is more efficient than the alternative.

You know him.

This is, increasingly, the problem.

He pulls up at six fifty-eight.

Two minutes early. Of course.

He is still in his rehearsal clothes — black sweats, a worn jacket over them, his hair not the version from last night but the version that means he's been running through choreography and didn't have time to do anything about it after. He looks tired in the way of someone who is not going to say he's tired. He gets out of the car when he sees you and opens the passenger door, and you think — not for the first time — about the specific quality of his consideration. It is never performed. He does not hold the door because he is making a point about it. He holds it because it is the thing to do and so he does it, and that's the end of his thinking about it.

"Hi," you say.

"Hi." He looks at you. Something in his face adjusts — not the blue dress reaction, nothing that dramatic, but something. The strawberry earrings maybe. The fact that you showed up. He doesn't say any of this. "Ready?"

"I've been ready since four fifty-three," you say.

Something moves in his expression that is almost a smile. "She does this," he says. "Plans things and tells everyone at the same time and acts like the planning happened naturally."

"It's very effective."

"It's extremely irritating," he says, and gets in the car.

You get in. You look at him. "It worked though."

"Obviously it worked." He pulls into traffic. "It always works. That's what makes it irritating."

You think about his mother, warm and deliberate, refilling your glass before you noticed it was low. Planning from the first syllable.

"You love it," you say.

He doesn't answer.

Which is an answer.

He is quiet for most of the drive, which does not concern you the way it might concern someone who doesn't know him. His quiet is not absence. It is just — him, thinking, the interior running while the exterior idles. You have learned to sit in it. Most people can't. Most people feel the quiet and reach for something to fill it, and Yoongi registers this as noise, as effort, as someone requiring him to perform presence he is already giving. You don't reach. You just exist in the same space, and he drives, and the city moves past the windows.

After a while he says: "I'm sorry about this."

"You already apologized."

"I'm apologizing again."

"Yoongi—"

"It's my apartment," he says. "My parents are there. I know it's—" He stops. "I know it's a lot to ask."

You look at him. The line of his jaw. The way his hands sit on the wheel, unhurried, always unhurried, even when the interior is not.

His apartment. The one where everything has a place and the place is specific and the reason is usually music — stacked a particular way, a particular alignment, the kind of careful order that happens when someone's mind runs fast and they have learned that the outside world being organized is the only counterweight. You have been to his apartment. You know what the inside of it means.

And his parents are there.

"How's your dad doing?" you ask.

The question lands the way you meant it to — small, no weight added, just the question itself.

Yoongi is quiet for a moment.

"It's back, this time it is worse." he says.

You understand immediately what they contain: the cancer, the recurrence, the weight of why this visit matters more than the usual visit. He does not elaborate. He does not need to.

"I know, babe." you say.

Not I'm sorry. Not how bad. Just: okay. I have this information and I'm here and you don't have to carry it differently because I know.

He exhales.

"He wants to see—" He stops. Starts again. "He's been asking about my life. Whether I'm—" A pause. "You know."

"Settled," you say.

"Yeah."

You look out the window.

"Yoongi." You say it the way you've always said his name when you mean it directly. "I'm here. It's fine."

He doesn't say anything.

But something in his hands on the wheel goes slightly less tight.

"The aunt is also there," he says, after a moment. "My mother's sister."

"...okay."

"She asks questions."

"What kind of questions."

"The kind," he says, "that you should know are coming."

"How bad."

A pause.

"She asked Jihoon, at his wedding, in front of the officiant, whether he and Eunji had discussed having children specifically or were just hoping things worked out."

You stare at him.

"At the wedding," you say.

"During the ceremony."

"While it was happening."

"The officiant," Yoongi says, "recovered professionally. I'll give him that."

You look at the approaching apartment building. At the lights on in the windows.

"We should have made a story," you say. "A timeline. When we met, what we said—"

"We have a story," he says.

"We have the truth with some parts left out, which is different."

"The parts we left out are the parts that don't matter."

You think about the parts that don't matter. The morning. The eight months. The specific quality of his voice at 2:34 AM when he asked will you help me like it cost him something to say it.

"Right," you say.

He parks. He turns off the car. Neither of you moves for a moment.

"I'm sorry," he says again. Quietly. The third time now, which for Yoongi — who does not repeat himself without reason — means something.

"Stop apologizing," you say. "Let's go."

You get out of the car.

After a moment, he follows.

The apartment is warm with people in the way that his apartment probably hasn't been in a long time.

His mother has done something with the kitchen. This is the first thing you notice — not that she has rearranged it, but that she has worked within it, found where everything lives, and used it all. It smells extraordinary. His father is in the living room in the armchair that is almost certainly Yoongi's usual armchair, wearing the expression of a man who has found the most comfortable seat in the house through the reliable process of sitting in every seat until the right one revealed itself. Jihoon is on the couch with Haerin asleep on his chest, both of them out cold, father-daughter, breathing in the same rhythm.

Eunji, cross-legged on the floor with a cup of tea and her phone, looks up when you come in. She smiles at you with the warmth of someone who made a decision about you at dinner last night and is glad to confirm it.

And then, from the kitchen doorway, appears a woman who is clearly Yoongi's mother's sister, because she has the same bone structure and warm eyes and approximately none of the same restraint.

"There she is," she says, pointing at you.

"Auntie," Yoongi says.

"I'm just saying. There she is." She looks you up and down with the open appreciation of someone who does not believe in doing anything subtly. "Very pretty, Yoongi-ya. Good job."

"I didn't—" He stops. "That's not how—"

"Sit, sit." She waves you both toward the table, which has been set for the card game, chips divided into neat piles, a look about it that suggests this was organized by someone who wanted to win. "We've been waiting. Your mother said you were coming at seven."

"It's seven oh four," Yoongi says.

"Auntie has been here since five," his mother says from the kitchen, peacefully.

"I wanted a good seat."

The game is hwatu.

You have played it exactly once, in university, badly, and remember approximately nothing except that you lost everything and that the cards are beautiful — small, lacquered, thick as confidence.

Yoongi's father deals.

He does this with the ease of a man who has dealt these cards so many times that the shuffle is automatic, the distribution even, the whole thing done before the conversation around it has finished its first sentence. He sets the deck down. He looks at you across the table.

"You've played?" he asks.

"Once," you say. "I lost everything."

"Then you already know the important part." He picks up his hand. Studies it. Does not show any expression about what is in it, which tells you a great deal. "The rest is details."

Yoongi, beside you, leans slightly close. "Do you actually know how to play?"

"I know the basics," you say.

"The basics are not sufficient for this table."

"Watch me."

He looks at you.

You look back.

Something almost playful moves across his face — so fast you would miss it if you didn't know where to look — before he picks up his own cards.

The aunt starts forty-five seconds in.

"So," she says, arranging her hand with the focused attention of someone who is absolutely also managing a secondary conversation. "How long?"

"Three and a half years," you say, at the same moment Yoongi says, "About a year."

Silence.

Everyone at the table looks at you both.

Yoongi looks at you. You look at Yoongi.

"We met three and a half years ago," you say, smoothly. "We've been—" you glance at him—"together about a year."

"Together-together," the aunt clarifies, with a gesture that suggests she is specifying something specific.

"Yes," you say.

"Officially," Yoongi adds.

"What does officially mean," the aunt asks.

"It means," Yoongi's mother says, from her side of the table, "that they are together and you should play your cards."

The aunt plays her card. She does not look satisfied. She looks like someone who is going to return to this. "So before officially—"

"We were—" you start.

"Friends," Yoongi says.

"—close," you say, at the same time.

Another pause.

"Close friends," Yoongi says.

"Yes," you agree. "That."

Jihoon, who has woken up at some point during this exchange and is watching with Haerin still on his chest and the alert expression of a man witnessing something he will be thinking about for weeks, says nothing. He picks up his cards. He is smiling at them.

"What was the first thing you noticed about him?" the aunt asks. This is twenty minutes later, and you are, somehow, winning. You are not sure how this happened. You are beginning to have a theory.

"His music," you say, which is true. Which is so true that it barely needs to be said.

The aunt looks at Yoongi. "And you?"

Yoongi looks at his cards. Then at you. Then at his cards again. The tips of his ears, you notice, have gone a very specific color.

"The way she talks about her work," he says.

The table waits.

He doesn't add anything to this. He says it the way he says things that are true — without decoration, without the runway, just the thing itself set down plainly. The way she talks about her work. Delivered in a voice that has no performance in it.

You look at your cards.

Your cards are very interesting right now.

"Three years," his mother says, pleasantly, to you. Not looking up from her cards. "I call him every Sunday. Your mother calls on Sundays, you talk about your week—" she places a card, smooth and unbothered— "for three years, every Sunday, there was always something about the center. Something funny that happened. Something you said. Something you thought." She picks up her next card. "He never called you the director. Always your name. From the first week."

You look at Yoongi.

Yoongi is looking at his cards with the deep concentration of a man who has found them extremely interesting just now.

"He doesn't talk much," Jihoon offers helpfully. "So when he does—"

"We notice what he talks about," his father finishes, and takes a sip of his drink.

You think about eight months of silence. About Dani's extension and center-related correspondence and your name being said, apparently, every Sunday for three years to his mother on the phone while he said nothing to you directly.

You arrange your cards.

You are a little mad about this.

You are going to win all of his money.

"Are we playing?" Yoongi says, to his cards.

"We're playing," his father says, and deals the next round

Thirty minutes later, you are winning by a margin that has made Jihoon sit up straight.

You are winning because twenty minutes ago, while Yoongi was distracted, his father leaned over and showed you which cards to hold.

"But that's—" you started.

He raised one finger to his lips.

He looked back at you like a man who has never once lost sleep over this and does not intend to start.

You held the cards.

"She's cheating," Jihoon says, staring at your pile.

"I'm winning," you correct.

"Those are different things."

"Jihoon-ah," his father says, sorting his own hand, "sometimes the line is a matter of perspective."

"You taught her," Jihoon says, with the dawning horror of a son who has been the victim of this his entire life and is only now seeing it in a new light. He looks at his father. "You've been doing this to me for thirty years."

"You've been learning for thirty years," his father says. "There's a difference."

Yoongi is looking at his father with an expression you have never seen on him before — something open in it, the fondness so unguarded it almost doesn't look like him. And then he looks at you, and the fondness shifts somehow, gets complicated, gets warm in a different way, and he says:

"That's my girl."

Quietly. Not to anyone. Just out, into the air between you, the way something says itself when it has been waiting long enough that it stops asking permission.

Your chip pile suddenly requires your full attention.

Jihoon points across the table. "You're happy she's cheating with our father—"

"She's winning," Yoongi says.

"Same thing—"

"Jihoon," Eunji says, without looking up from Haerin, "you've lost four rounds."

"I've lost four rounds fairly—"

"Have you though," his father says.

The table erupts. His mother laughing, his aunt triumphant, Jihoon aggrieved in the way of a man processing a betrayal he did not see coming and is taking personally. Yoongi reaches over and takes a single chip from your pile and adds it to his own. You look at him. He looks back. On anyone else it would be a grin.

On him it is something small and private and entirely real.

You look back at your pile.

That's my girl.

He didn't even know he said it.

That's the problem.

That's the whole problem.

The evening winds down the way good evenings do — gradually, without anyone wanting to be the one to say it's time. The cards are put away. Tea is made. Haerin wakes up, decides the room is acceptable, goes back to sleep. The aunt has exhausted her question supply and is now telling a story about something that happened at a cousin's birthday that is long and elaborate and requires hand gestures.

At some point you end up on the couch beside Yoongi's father.

He is quieter at this hour. Still warm, but the energy of the card game has settled into something slower. He has a cup of tea in both hands. He is watching his family with the careful attention of a man who is not taking anything for granted.

"You're good for him," he says, without preamble.

You look at him.

"He's—" He pauses. Considers the words. "He carries things quietly. Always has. Since he was small. You'd never know from looking." He takes a slow sip of tea. "But he's lighter. When he talks about you." He says this not like an observation but like a fact he has held for a while and decided it was time to put down. "A father notices."

You don't know what to do with this.

You look across the room at Yoongi, who is listening to his aunt's birthday story with the expression of someone who has heard this story and all its iterations and has arrived at a relationship with it that transcends reaction.

He glances at you.

You look away.

You think about that's my girl, said to no one, just released into the air like a fact.

You think about a man who spends eight months not calling, who comes back with a practical arrangement and a funding offer, who holds a door and picks you up two minutes early and goes very still when his mother says something that catches him off guard.

You think: he is a performer. He knows how to make something feel real. The albums, the stage, the fifteen years of turning the inside of himself into something an audience could hold. He is very, very good at making things feel real.

That's why it feels real. Because he's good at it.

And then Yoongi laughs at something his aunt says — a real laugh, short and sudden and not performed, the one that escapes before he can do anything about it — and his father beside you makes a quiet sound of satisfaction, like a man hearing a song he wrote a long time ago and finding it still holds.

You tell yourself to stop it. You tell yourself twelve days. You tell yourself you are fine and this is manageable and you have handled harder things than Min Yoongi in a warm room being kind to his family.

You are not fine. This is not manageable. You have not handled harder things than this, actually, and you know it, and that is the most inconvenient true thing you have encountered all evening.

He drives you home at ten-thirty.

The city is quieter now. The car warm. You are both a little full and a little tired and sitting in the easy silence that has always been one of the things about the two of you — the way you can exist in the same space without it costing anything.

"Your father taught me to cheat," you say.

"I saw."

"He didn't tell me he was teaching me to cheat. He just showed me which cards."

"That's how he does it," Yoongi says. "He did it to me for fifteen years before I realized it was intentional."

You look at him. "When did you realize?"

"When I started doing it to Jihoon."

You laugh. He glances at you — quick, warm, gone.

"They likes you," he says, after a moment.

"I like them."

Yoongi nods. He doesn't say anything else about it. He doesn't say thank you for coming or I know this is strange or any of the several things that are true and available. He just drives, and you sit beside him, and the city moves past.

"The aunt is going to ask more questions," you say.

"Yes."

"We should figure out what we're saying."

"We're saying the truth," he says. "With some parts left out."

The truth. Right. The truth is a complicated document at the moment — it has eight months in it, and a morning neither of you has named, and the way your heart did the involuntary thing the second his name appeared on your screen, and the earrings you told yourself you wore because they matched the dress. The truth has edges. You have been carefully not touching them for a long time and you are sitting in his car right now with all of them and your face, which has never once in your life done what you told it to, is almost certainly showing every single one.

You look back at him.

He is watching the road.

Good, you think. Keep watching the road.

"We gave different timelines."

"We recovered."

"We barely recovered."

"You're very quick," he says. Quiet. Almost nothing.

He is very still.

"I know you," you say, before you can decide not to.

He's still looking at the road.

"Yeah," he says. "I know."

You reach your building. He pulls up. The engine runs.

Day Two ends the way the previous one did — with you in the passenger seat of Yoongi's car, the city quiet outside the windows, the particular easy silence that has always been one of the things about the two of you that you have tried very hard not to think of as a thing.

"Same time tomorrow?" you ask.

"Rehearsal runs until four," he says. "I'll come after."

"You don't have to come get me every—"

"I'll come after four," he says, in the tone that means this is not a discussion, which is distinct from rudeness — it is just Yoongi, who has decided something and communicated it and considers the matter addressed.

You have learned not to argue with that tone.

You have learned a lot of things about him that you are currently pretending you haven't.

"Fine," you say. "I'll be at the center until six anyway. Seojun has decided Für Elise needs a second verse and I have to talk him out of it before it becomes structural."

Something moves in Yoongi's expression. "He's not wrong that it's incomplete."

You stare at him.

"The ending is abrupt," he says.

"Do not tell him that."

"I'm just saying—"

"Min Yoongi, I am begging you, do not give that child musical ammunition—"

"He's nine and he has good instincts."

"He is nine and he will use this against me for months—"

Yoongi looks at you. The almost-smile again, the small private one, the one that lives just at the corner of his mouth and never quite commits. "I'll pick you up at five," he says. "Text me if it runs over."

You look at him for a moment.

This is the problem. Not the card game, not the aunt's questions, not that's my girl dropped into the warm air of his apartment like it belonged there. This. The specific, understated quality of his consideration — the way he shows up without announcing it, drives you home without making it a gesture, tells you text me if it runs over like it is the most ordinary thing, like of course he wants to know, like where else would he be.

He does not perform care.

He just — has it. Quietly. Permanently. Pointed at the people he has decided matter.

You think about nine days remaining.

You think: you are so good at this. Performer, fifteen years, a Grammy stage, a stadium that goes quiet when he wants it to. Of course it feels real. Of course he can make text me if it runs over land like something it isn't.

"Goodnight," you say.

"Goodnight."

You get out. You don't look back.

Upstairs, you take out the strawberry earrings and put them in their dish. The blue ones are still where you left them.

You have never been good at lying to yourself. This has always been the problem and the point of you — you feel things fully and you say them when they need to be said and you build things out of them when you can.

Twelve days of pretending. It is day two.

You are already failing. Read part 2

author's note 🎹

hi. hello. welcome to The Real Thing.

if you're new here — hi, I'm Ria, pull up a chair, we're going to have a very good time and also possibly cry a little, I make no promises about the ratio. This is a standalone fic. You do not need to have read anything else to be here. You have everything you need. Come as you are.

if you have read What Happens When You Fall — first of all, thank you, genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, for everything that story has meant. It's complete, it's sitting right there on my masterlist if you're new and curious, and yes, you might recognize a name or two in this story. You might notice something small that makes you go oh. That's intentional.

because here's the thing about The Real Thing — it stands on its own. It has its own people, its own mess, its own slow disaster of two people who know each other too well to be doing what they're doing. You don't need the map. You just need to show up.

which brings me to the bigger thing I want to tell you about.

The Real Thing is part of The B-Side Series.

Seven love stories. One universe. Seven members, seven readers, seven different ways of saying I choose this, even knowing what it costs. They're all connected — same city, same people moving through each other's lives, the same found family building itself one story at a time. Some connections are obvious. Some you'll only catch if you're reading everything. All of them are intentional.

WHWYF was the first. This is the second. There are five more after this, plus a finale, and I am not going to tell you anything else about that yet except that it's going to wreck you in the best way.

The B-Side Series is named for the songs that don't make the album. The real ones. The private ones. The ones that exist underneath the public versions of their lives.

This is Min Yoongi's.

I hope you love it.

— Ria 🖤

The Real Thing — Part One Part of The Truth and Lies Series Book 1

curious about a character or a story? want to know more before it drops? → ask me anything

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Y/N listlessly scrolled through yet more photos of Jimin—looking for hidden meanings in the recent videos the group had posted was starting to make her feel like she was overreacting at best and paranoid at worst. 

There were pictures of him with a variety of hair colors and outfits, taken over time, and he was flawless in all of them. Even ones she came across where he wasn’t glammed out in full makeup made it obvious he was just one of the lucky ones, naturally born attractive. 

“How many wardrobe malfunctions can one person have throughout their career?” Y/N found herself muttering, spying yet another photo where Jimin’s fancy jacket was sliding down his arm. “Is he allergic to keeping his shirt on his shoulders?”

Though, given how many fan compilations existed that compiled every single moment where Jimin’s shirt or jacket hadn’t quite managed to stay all the way on, it didn’t seem like there were many complaints. Army was swooning and swooning hard if anything. 

But really, being sued within an inch of her life wasn’t even the worst part about it all. If someone saw the “notes” section of her phone, they’d have her committed first, and ask questions later. She’d have her committed, under normal circumstances.

 Because what she had experienced not once, but twice? It went against everything she stood for. Logical, grounded, a firm believer in science and fact. Facts didn’t support phenomena like getting sucked through a mirror and ending up in an idol’s dance studio. 

Facts didn’t support seeing the face of another idol—because she now knew the reason the man in the mirror looked vaguely familiar was because he was another BTS member, Seokjin—instead of her own reflection when she went to brush her teeth. It just…didn’t make sense. 

Science couldn’t support it. It was nuts. Yet it happened to her. And that was the only reason she believed it. Too bad no one else would. Or worse, if and when Jimin announced he’d be pressing charges for assault, and she had confessed beforehand to someone…it would probably be taken as evidence the attack was premeditated.

 Sure, they’d have to prove how she got in. But…but still! She couldn’t risk it. Wouldn’t. Which meant her phone was her only safe secret-keeper. They were co-conspirators in it all. 

Speaking of the damned cursed thing… trying to outright return it hadn’t worked, even though she had the receipt and everything! She still remembered the bizarre events that day.

Y/N was almost out of breath by the time she entered the phone store, embarrassingly worked up in front of the few strangers milling around inside. She got a few curious, side-long glances, and then they went back to perusing the inventory.

“Welcome!” Called an employee already speaking to other customers. “Someone will assist you shortly.”

Y/N gave a short, affirmative nod, trying not to come off anxious as she glanced around. Everything looked…the same as the night she had bought the phone. Shiny new models on display, the monitor above their heads playing a loop of advertisements for different Samsung products, and everything neatly put away and organized. Absently, she began to think over the store’s layout, and the fact that it could have a strong subconscious effect on the consumer. Organization of inventory could actually play a role in whether or not someone wanted to buy something.

But, putting that aside, the store didn’t look like the kind of place that would sell someone a phone that would ruin their life. Looks could be deceiving, though. Who knew what was actually afoot?

“Oh, can I help you, miss?” A middle-aged woman wearing the store’s polo top came over with a tag that said her name was Hayoung asked in an attentive tone.

Y/N was quick to nod. “I’m here to make a return, actually. I bought a phone from your store not long ago.”

“Was the item not to your liking?” Hayoung asked, guiding her over to an available station.

The university student glanced down at the phone in question, which she’d placed back in the original purchase box. “You could…say that.” She mumbled. “I’ve thought about it, and I really don’t need anything even half this fancy.” Telling the woman she thought the phone might have it in for her was out of the question. “So I’d like to exchange it for something simpler.”

Hayoung dutifully accepted the box, scanning the barcode and then lifting up the lid. Y/N had anticipated a smooth return in which she’d flash her receipt, maybe some ID, and have the exchange completed in no time. But when Hayoung’s brow furrowed, she knew she wouldn’t like whatever the saleswoman was going to say.

“Is…is something wrong?”

“Well,” she paused, “Are you sure you purchased your phone here? From this store? I know we’ve had models similar to this in stock before, but this one’s just not ringing up.”

“Really?” Y/N shook her head, rummaging around in her purse. “I don’t see how that could be. I have the receipt if that helps…” 

She then proceeded to go through her small purse, searching the exact spot she knew she had folded and placed the receipt. “Um, hold on a minute please,” Hayoung waited expectantly as Y/N kept looking, growing increasingly more frustrated as she turned the contents of her purse inside out hunting for the receipt. 

No, no way was she ever that careless. She had made sure she put it into her purse before leaving the apartment, and she didn’t exactly care that much in it to begin with! It was all zipped up tight, so how could it have fallen out?!

It took several more long, awkward moments of searching futilely in vein for her to realize it was true. The receipt was no where to be found. Trying to fight down the flush of defeat crossing her cheeks, Y/N cleared her throat, speaking diplomatically, “I’m sorry, I don’t seem to have my receipt on hand after all. I guess I’ll just…try to search it out and return when I do.”

“Oh, there’s no need. Our system can search for and find the purchase if you happen to have the card on hand.”

Y/N wanted to slump over in defeat, “Actually my friend bought it…”

“Oh,” Hayoung tilted her head, “Do you happen to know the account number used?”

Y/N mentally wondered if Binna was free. She shouldn’t be in class right now, right? So it would be okay to quickly give her a call and get this sorted out. She had to leave the store without this phone. That was a must!

 “H-Hold on please!” It was a little embarrassing, snatching the phone she had been trying to return from its box and powering it on. In anticipation of making the return, Y/N had thought to wipe it and remove the SIM card chip, but then recalled hearing it was best to do that at the store when the transaction was complete, in case there was something forgotten on the phone that still needed to be retrieved.

Hastily scrolling down the admittedly short contacts’ list, Y/N located Binna’s number and pressed the button to dial. The phone rang three times, and she anxiously tapped her foot as she waited to see if her friend would pick up. ‘Please, Bin. Come on. Please.’

Of course, as it always was when she needed something to work out, it didn’t quite go smoothly. Binna hadn’t picked up, and she had ended up ending the call right before it switched to voice mail. Typing out a text message asking for the information she needed, Y/N had glared spitefully down at the phone.

“Do you recall the name of the clerk who sold you the phone?” Hayoung asked gently. 

Y/N thought it over, the sales associate’s face floating to mind. “Yes, his name was Suk-kyu.”

“Hmm, that name doesn’t sound familiar.” Hayoung shook her head. “I’ve been employed here three years and never heard anyone go by that name,”

It was unlike her, but Y/N felt she was entitled to a bit of out of character behavior when her jaw actually dropped. “You’re kidding…”

But, Hayoung assured her, she was not. She didn’t think they had ever carried the exclusive Army Edition of the phone. She didn’t know who Suk-kyu was, and Y/N couldn’t find her receipt, the only bit of evidence that might have been able to successfully lift the burden of the phone from her person. She had left the store, apologizing for wasting the patient woman’s time, and feeling like she was at least partially going crazy. 

Needless to say, Y/N had been…anxious about the phone since then. A bit scared, even. A fear she had no choice but to shoulder in silence for the time being. There wasn’t much she could do but continue searching high and low for the receipt and hope it turned up soon.

 In the meantime, she didn’t let on that anything was wrong, using the phone like before, though limiting that to when it was really necessary. No more playing around with it or downloading apps. Nope, she didn’t want to risk getting too attached to the thing. 

The only thing she did besides make calls was research. Things she never would have thought about looking up before. Like, unexplained phenomena with electronics, most of which led to completely wild conspiracy theories or dead ends.

Y/N had been so engrossed in breaking her brain over what to do, she jumped when the apartment door swung open, turning around on the coach to see Binna march in, a few grocery bags in her hands. Keys in her mouth, she gently kicked the door closed, humming to herself until she happened to look up and spot Y/N.

“Oh!” Binna hustled into the small kitchen to set her bags down, then her keys. “Y/N, didn’t expect to see you here right now. You’ve got class today, right?”

“It was canceled…” she sighed, sliding down the couch cushions and placing her phone on the coffee table. “The professor’s out sick with the flu.”

Binna winced in sympathy. “Yikes, poor guy…”

“Yeah,” Y/N took great care not to get sick, so she hadn’t so much as had a cold in years, but she still remembered times when she was a child in bed with chills, body aches and a fever. Once she had even had pneumonia, her mother forced to call out from work and nurse her back to health. “He just wanted us to go over the assignment we’ve been working on since the start of the semester. You know, take this as independent study time basically. But…”

“Buuut, knowing you,” Binna smiled, “You’ve already taken the initiative and gotten a head start a long time ago, so you’re ahead of everyone else.”

“Done, actually,” Y/N confirmed, not afraid to admit to her efficiency. 

Her roommate made a noise of encouragement as she began to put the groceries away. It didn’t look like much. A loaf of bread, some bottles of sauce they’d been running low on, some eggs and a carton of milk.

 “That’s great, since it actually kind of works out. Chin-Mae and Min Su invited me to check out this new steak house that just opened up. I heard reservations are booked out for weeks already, but thanks to Min Su’s connections, we can go this evening. What do you say?” Binna wiggled her eyebrows, trying to entice Y/N. 

“Alright, I’m in,” she agreed.

“Because I’m sure they won’t mind adding just one more to our party, especially if that person is you…” Binna continued to ramble.

“Bin, did you hear me?” Y/N clucked, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I said I’m in.”

Eyes round as the eggs she had put away, Binna blinked, nodded, and finally broke out into an ear to ear grin. “Oh, wow, that’s new. I m-mean not that it isn’t great you wanna join us, but…”

“What?” Y/N felt a little defensiveness creeping up on her, and she probably didn’t do the best job completely hiding it from her tone. “You made the invite, and you said Min Su and Chin-Mae would be fine with it. Did you not…really want me to come along?”

They thought she would kill the mood, the nasty little whisper entered her head unbidden. They thought she was so stuffy and boring.

“What, Y/N, no!” Binna immediately denied, “I’m really glad you can make it,” she shot over to the couch, wrapping her arms around her friend’s neck from behind as she bent over for the hug. “It’s true you normally put up a little more resistance when we ask you to come somewhere. You stay so busy, so I was a little surprised is all. But I’m glad you’re agreeing.”

Y/N’s tense shoulders relaxed, and she mentally sighed to herself, feeling silly. Of course, of course her friends wanted her there. And this was Binna, who struggled to have a bad thought about anybody. Secretly resentful definitely wasn’t her style. 

But with the stress she had been under, and the dread she’d done her best not to give into, Y/N could admit her nerves had been on edge. “Yeah, sorry about that…” she laughed weakly, reaching up and patting one of the arms looped around her neck. “I don’t know where that came from, but I’m happy to eat a little steak if Min Su’s recommending it.” The man had the best luck finding good places to eat, or stores that sold exactly what you were looking for but probably overlooked. 

“Good girl,” Binna uncoiled her arms and leaned back against the couch itself. “That’s the spirit. And hey, I heard from some of the girls in the campus’ BTS fan club that one of the guys on campus might be related to one of the waiters who might have catered the food on the set of a music video for Taehyung!”

She said it in a breathy squeal, and Y/N couldn’t help but smile indulgently. She was almost sure she knew which one Taehyung was, but she still wouldn’t put money on it. It might just as soon be someone else. Maybe Namjoon? 

She’d gotten more familiar with their names but as most of her time perusing videos and photos had been spent investigating Jimin, she wasn’t entirely sure on the others’ faces. Well, besides Jin and J-Hope. 

“Nice,” she said, letting Binna get all her gushing out as she texted Chin-Mae just to make sure it really was okay if she tagged along. Stupid to be anxious about feeling unsure if everyone really wanted her to come, but better to be safe than sorry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She was impressed the minute they walked through the door. Min Su stopped trying to sneak an arm around Chin-Mae’s waist and immediately went over to talk to the maître d. The two men spoke cordially, the head waiter confirmed their reservation, and then they were led to their table with a flourish. 

Binna was practically bouncing on her heels, squealing under her breath. “Can you believe this place?” she whispered excitedly, “I feel like a movie star, coming here.”

The restaurant was definitely lavish, so she understood where her friend was coming from. The tables were polished stained oak, and lit by a candle to provide ambiance, and the floors were a gorgeous brown tile that Y/N suspected to be marble. 

The restaurant was done in a mixture of black, gold with high beam wood ceilings and low atmospheric lighting. They walked past a bar, long and oval, with shimmering glasses the team of bartender would pull down as they did impressive tricks to wow the gathered guests. 

“It’s one of the hottest spots in Gangnam right now,” Chin-Mae commented as they sat down. The table comfortably fit the four of them, and everyone got settled as a young woman hurried over, handing them menus and introducing herself. 

“This is so cool,” Binna exclaimed, still wiggling in place. She shook Y/N’s arm. She was all done up with some icy blue eye shadow that matched her aqua dress, and a more subtle plum shade of lipstick. 

Her hair was secured in a complicated twist by a pin she recognized from the last time they had gone shopping together. Y/N adjusted the shawl draped over her shoulders, pulling down her own strapless dress. Binna had helped her pick accessories, which were mostly shades of amber or gold, and apply some light makeup. 

Y/N chuckled, nodding as she scanned the menu, trying her best to ignore the listed prices. She had come fully prepared to pay her own way, but Min Su insisted the meal was going to be on him. It must have been nice.

 The perks of being from an affluent family, she supposed. The guy was already well on his way to being a successful lawyer, following the family tradition. He had moved all the way from his hometown in China to come and work on his master’s degree at one of the top universities in Korea, just for a change of pace. “Thanks again for letting us crash your date night, guys.” Binna beamed.

“Please,” Chin-Mae scoffed lightly, not looking up from his menu. “What was I supposed to do all evening? Talk to him?”

Min Su pouted, but it didn’t diminish the fond glow in his eyes as he leaned over his boyfriend’s shoulder and whispered something in his ear that gave Chin-Mae pause.

 Their friend cut a sharp look at his partner, smacking his thigh and then proceeding to ignore the man who was happily leaning into him and commenting on the menu. Yeah, nothing new there. Min Su was totally gone on Chin-Mae, as always.

 There was nothing about Chin-Mae’s bluntness or dismissive attitude in public that ever put him off. If anything, the mean behavior only served to make Min Su try harder. Though, she and Binna both knew Chin-Mae wouldn’t be with someone this long if he wasn’t just as serious about them.

 He was just a straight shooter, raised in a family that wasn’t completely accepting of who he was, and unfortunately awkward and out of his depth about how to handle someone as affectionate and doting as the man he happened to fall in love with.

 They were well suited in that regard. Min Su was patient and persistent enough to shower Chin-Mae in all the attention he needed to overcome the lingering doubts about being worthy of such deep love and devotion. 

Y/N was perfectly fine, pursuing the path she was. Career goals first, everything else second. But sometimes, watching them, a little envy did ignite.

 It must have been nice to find something like that, and she was truly happy for them. It didn’t seem likely she’d have time in the near future to go out and chase it for herself, of course. And she wasn’t really worried about it. 

“So, what’ll it be for you guys?” Y/N cleared her throat, interrupting the warm and cozy silence they’d all been existing in.

“Ohh, I think I’m gonna have the smoked chicken and spinach salad, and a side of the fried mushrooms,” Binna announced, tongue poking out in concentration as her finger followed where the items she wanted were on the menu.

“You’re going so easy on him.” Chin-Mae remarked. “I’m getting the iron skillet trout,” he squinted, leaning further into the menu. Min Su only smiled, plucking the reading glasses from Chin Mae’s breast pocket that he had forgotten to put on and placing them on his face for him.

 The absent-minded pat he got on the hand for it made the law student’s whole face light up. “And the chicken fried steak. That okay, babe?” He might not have looked it, exactly, but Chin-Mae had a healthy appetite. And if they were coming to such an exclusive restaurant for the first time, it wasn’t surprising he wouldn’t be keen to hold back.

Min Su was nodding encouragingly before Chin-Mae had even fully gotten the question out of his mouth. “And what about you, Y/N?”

She clammed up slightly, having been looking at the menu, mentally ruling out what seemed too expensive, or wasn’t quite her taste. “Uh, the pot roast sounds like a filling entree.”

“And?” Chin-Mae prodded, interlocking his hands together and leaning on them.

“And nothing,” Y/N shook her head. “It comes with two sides, that’s more than enough.”

“Boo,” Her friend hissed dramatically. “Fine. If neither one of you is going to take advantage of this, then I guess it’s up to me.”

Their waitress returned with a tray of drinks at precisely that moment, and as she set them down in front of the correct person, everyone began telling her their orders, which she jotted down without missing a beat.

 Only Min Su had actually ordered any steak, but, given the price of a 24 oz there was just no way she felt comfortable doing that to the poor guy, even if he was a good sport about it and more than capable of handling a large bill. 

As they sat, sipping their champagne and waiting on the food, something Y/N had been putting off thinking about started floating through her mind. Ever since the whole Jimin fiasco, despite her deep diving and frantic searching, nothing had turned up that indicated anyone was coming after her. 

But she just wasn’t willing to believe she’d gotten away that easily. She almost killed a celebrity. And, due to that, she’d really wanted to seek legal advice from Min Su, under the guise of some far-fetched hypothetical, of course. Her friends weren’t onto her, and she couldn’t give them a reason to be. 

She just had to find a way to casually broach the topic…

“Oh,” Binna gasped from her side, drawing the whole table’s attention to herself. She was carefully scrolling her phone with a freshly manicured nail, scowling slightly. It was so rare that Binna displayed any actual disdain, it had Y/N a bit curious. 

“What’s wrong, Bin?”

“It’s nothing,” she replied immediately, then paused. “Well it’s not nothing but, it’s just…I really wished we lived in a world that respected idols as people, you know? Some people call themselves fans and act like famous people aren’t allowed to have any boundaries.” She then went on to describe how there’d been another sasaeng incident reported on a news site she followed to keep up with celebrity gossip. 

Apparently, it was a pretty serious one, and crazed ‘fans’ had attacked an actress a well-known idol was reported to be dating. Her bodyguard had fended them off, but the actress still went to the hospital with some injuries. 

Y/N perked up slightly, but Min Su and Chin-Mae were thankfully too engrossed in listening to Binna rant to notice. It would be much easier to bring up her question using the information Binna had just provided them as a pretext.

 It was about time she had a stroke of good luck. Stopping to think it over, Y/N cringed. Not that she wasn’t sympathetic to the poor woman who had been harmed because of someone’s delusions. But it just…presented an opportunity she had to take, and….

‘Oh, why am I trying to rationalize it to myself?! I should just ask the question before the subject changes.’

 That decided, she opened her mouth and spoke, doing her best to make it seem as casual as possible. “So Min Su, you’re practically a lawyer. What kind of charges could that person face? Attacking a celebrity and inflicting bodily harm isn’t the same as harassing them for a photo.”

 Y/N silently patted herself on the back, sitting from her glass with an expression carefully schooled to look only mildly interested. Inside was another matter. She was rocking back in forth, heart hammering and eyes wide, waiting for an answer with baited breath.

“Hmm, well, I’ve mostly studied corporate law.” He admitted, playing with a ring on his index finger, “But I do know that given the severity, it’s likely both the actress and the company she’s represented under will press charges. Things are also moving faster these days, prosecuting people who do things like that.” 

Y/N swallowed, eyes fixated on Min Su’s thoughtful expression. “There were also witnesses, so it’s very likely to result in a conviction.” Yes, there had been a witness in her case too. Well, J-Hope had only seen her fleetingly. Maybe. Hopefully not. But if she was on any camera then…it was most definitely over for her.

 “The court could go light on them if it was a first offense…they might be sentenced to a large fine and community service…” Okay, Y/N thought. It would probably drain her savings, but it was still possible to bounce back and have a future, right? She could still put it in the past and become a CEO one day, right?! “Then again, it was a premeditated attack. Jail time is also a strong possibility.”

Her heart sank back down to her feet. Jail. What successful CEO in Korea had been to jail before graduating, and for assaulting an idol no less. 

‘I. Am. Done.’

“What’s the matter, Y/N?” Binna giggled, “You look like you smelled a rotten egg. But I guess hearing about how far some crazy people will go is pretty disgusting, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ll have much sympathy for them, whatever happens.”

“…Yeah…” Y/N said once her words came unstuck. That was another thing. Her sweet friend was going to think she was a criminal. She had known Binna since high school, having shared a homeroom class with her. They were vague acquaintances then, friendly enough to speak from time to time but by no means close enough to hang out between classes or after school. 

In fact, admittedly, Y/N used to wonder if Binna’s perky personality was just an act. It had to be, in her cynical rationalizing, because who was really that upbeat, in high school? 

Later on, she would realize she was just projecting, and once she stopped doing that was when she truly came to appreciate Binna for all that she was, steadfast and supportive. Although they didn’t become close, didn’t become friends, until meeting at orientation when arriving at Korea University. 

“They knew the consequences before they did it.” Chin-Mae joined in, swishing the last of his champagne around before drinking it down. “It’s stupid to think your life won’t be impacted when you run wild like that.”

Except, Y/N wanted to wail. She hadn’t known. She wasn’t a sasaeng, and she knew she had assaulted someone but at the same time she hadn’t really done anything wrong. Except maybe buy a cursed magical phone, that somehow was behind all this.

…Yeah, she’d just keep that thought to herself. 

“Well,” Y/N smiled, “Thanks for giving your input.” She told Min Su, who nodded, humming with a cheerful ‘no problem’.

A cartoony chime went off, and Binna groaned as she stared down at her phone, “Nooo,” she sighed, sounding truly remorseful. “Right now?”

“What’s happening?” Chin-Mae raised a brow.

“Jimin is going live!” She whined, “And normally I’d watch but I’m having such a great time with all of you, and I don’t want to be rude…”

“It’s fine, go ahead.” Y/N said, forcing a smile. “We know how addicted to that stuff you are.” Really, she wanted the floor to swallow her into the abyss. She knew the minute she heard that sound what was going on. If her phone had been turned on, they would have heard the same noise coming from her purse too.

She had made an account on several apps BTS often broadcasted their lives to, and set an alert for just that occasion. There were a couple of false alarms she hadn’t tuned into once she saw they weren’t from the person she was basically stalking at this point. But this was it. The big moment. 

He hadn’t done a solo live since the accident…but Binna said his members had mentioned that he had a small accident while practicing and was recovering well. 

All of Army was behind him, sending him tons of well wishes from all over the world. It was sweet, but she wondered how fast they would turn if they knew she was behind their beloved idol’s injuries. 

“Yeah, what Y/N said,” Chin-Mae rolled his eyes. “Check on your man,” he joked.

Binna giggled, flashing them a cute heart. “He’s not my man,” she replied playfully, “I’d have to get in line for that. Plus, I’m really more of an OT7, you know? It’s really hard to stick with one bias.”

 Nonetheless, when she began to watch, since Y/N couldn’t exactly whip out her phone and do the same without raising suspicion, she subtly leaned closer to at least listen.

Of course, Binna was always more astute than she let on. “Oh, did you wanna see too?” She angled the screen so they could both see before Y/N even had the chance to protest. 

And the live was just starting, the exact same idol she had seen what felt like a lifetime ago was sitting in a room by himself. It looked like he was on a couch, legs crossed, looking small in his soft oversized sweater and giving the camera a cute wave. “Hi, everyone,” his sweet voice said. “Thank you for waiting on me!”

Gushing comments poured in, cheering him and welcoming him back, asking him what he’d been up to, and telling him he looked good. Jimin tilted his head, a coy, secretive smile appearing on his shiny lips. Y/N couldn’t tell if he was wearing gloss or if they always looked like that.

 She had been a bit too preoccupied the one and only time she had the opportunity to see them in person. He had dyed his hair a different color, though. It was now a shade of strawberry blonde that complimented his angelic features well.

 “Well, I haven’t been up to much. Just resting, really.” he explained. “Even on days when I felt better and tried to join practices, the members just shooed me away.” He laughed. “Oh, but look at this!” He reached down, his head dipping out of screen for a minute, popping up seconds later holding a little pot. “Taehyung got me this ‘get well’ plant!” He showed them a cute little sapling.

Binna cooed, Y/N glancing at her then refocusing on his words. Who knew when a hidden meaning would pop up.

“I don’t know how well I’ll be able to take care of it; I’m not sure if I have a green thumb. But I’ll try my best!”

Comments came pouring in again, people saying he was going to enter his plant dad era, because collecting succulents could be addicting.

 Other people gushed at the sweetness of the VMin friendship, whatever that was, and yet more people reminded Jimin that he looked really good. Yet one comment in particular seemed to catch his eye, and he squinted, seemingly intrigued. 

“Hmm? You wish you were a plant so I could take care of you?” He repeated. “You don’t have to be a plant for me to want to take care of you.” The statement was very matter-of-fact, “You’re Army. I’ll always watch over Army.”

Binna sounded like she released a tiny sniffle. “Is he not just the sweetest?” She asked, nudging Y/N a bit. “Since you’re new to BTS, have you chosen a bias yet?”

Y/N wished she could tell her the real reason behind her sudden interest, but that was kind of out of the question. “No, not yet…”

“Y/N’s a BTS fan now?” Chin-Mae asked, “Since when?”

“Pretty recent.” Binna replied.

Y/N was only half listening to her friends, mostly focusing on Jimin’s chatter. Someone was still insisting they wanted to be his plant, and he looked nothing short of amused. 

“Okay, if you insist. Should I start a garden then?” He asked his fans. Y/N watched, stunned, as his bright eyes narrowed into a practiced and very effective smolder. She had seen it in pictures before, but in real time it was really something else, “It’ll be full of so many pretty flowers, and you’ll all bloom just for me, right?” The heady purr of his words sent a shocked shiver right down her spine. 

Binna swooned, while Y/N felt her breath hitch. ‘What… the…hell…was that?!’ A flirty throwaway line like that had never had that effect on her before.

 But then, thinking back, he had flirted with her in the dance studio too. She’d just been too worried to pay attention. Clearly, the man was an old hand at the art of duality, going from wholesome to heathen in five seconds flat. That was…dangerous. 

Binna seemed to already know how she felt, leaning into her with a sigh. “That, Y/N, is what happens when Jimin turns from angel to demon.” Her friend explained. “I’d say you’ll get used to it, but odds are you probably won’t.”

Jimin then went back to amicably speaking to everyone, as if he hadn’t just teased fans within an inch of their lives. The conversation moved on, and he was speaking about upcoming projects he was excited about or a funny habit that he had noticed in his band member. All normal, non-threatening stuff. Y/N was almost thinking she could relax. Almost. 

“What? You want to tell me a secret?” Jimin was reading another comment. “Okay, I’m listening…”

Y/N quirked a brow at the comment. “Sometimes I dream about you.” it read.

The idol grinned, replying casually. “Sometimes I miss Army so much I end up thinking about all of you in the middle of the day.” Y/N’s blood ran cold as he looked intensely at the screen. “It’s almost like you’re there…”

That was it. The sign she was waiting for! He was talking to her. 

“I…” Y/N stumbled to her feet, startling Binna. “Need the bathroom, I’ll be back.”

“Oh, okay.” Her friend said slowly, setting down her phone. “Is anything wrong? You don’t…look so good suddenly.”

‘You wouldn’t either in my shoes,’ she thought miserably. ‘Park Jimin is going to sue me within an inch of my life.’

“It’s alright,” she held a hand to her stomach, selling the illusion of sudden nausea. “Just…lady problems.” She said lamely.

Poor Binna didn’t even question it; she nodded, eyes full of sympathy. “Well text if you need anything.” She squeezed Y/N’s hand. “I’ve got a few extra tampons in my purse.” she whispered discreetly. Really, Binna was too good of a friend for her. 

Y/N rounded the corner in a hurry, blindly guessing where the bathrooms might be located. She passed their waitress, rolling out a cart that she was pretty sure contained their meals. Everything looked delicious, and of course she couldn’t even enjoy the great evening Min Su had generously provided. All because she was screwed. 

She hustled into a bathroom as fancy as the rest of the steak house, and so spacious there would probably be an echo. She hustled over to the sink, activating the handless system by shoving her trembling fingers under it. As she splashed her face with warm water, the dread twisting up her stomach gave way to deja vu. 

‘This is just like…the event at the internship.’ The wild day that would be the beginning of the end of her life. Removing her hands from the water, she gently pressed the pad of her thumb up to her eye, tapping it a few times.

 Her makeup was well done, but it still felt like she could see bags. ‘At least it can’t get worse.’ She assumed. After all, what was worse than this? The dumb phone was put away in her clutch, turned off, and back at the table.

 The very least she could do was fake a smile so she didn’t ruin everyone’s meal, and enjoy what might be her last chance to experience this. They probably didn’t serve many steakhouse dinners where she was going. 

That thought firmly in mind, Y/N squared her shoulders and prepared to march back out, tightly gripping her clutch at her side. Wait, her clutch?!

Binna must have handed it over to her, assuming she might need it. She had said to text if she needed anything, and Y/N couldn’t exactly do that without a phone. Well, at least it was off. Y/N wasn’t totally sure what kind of phenomenon had disrupted her life, but it all started with that phone. 

No sooner had she backed away from the mirror than a wave of dizziness overtook her, sending her keeling forward. Instinctively, she clutched the sink to maintain her balance, almost screaming out when she looked up as the dizzy feeling passed. 

The mirror in front of her was the same as always, a reflection of her wide, mortified eyes. But the long glossy mirror that made up the entire wall of the bathroom at the entrance of the restroom? 

A reflection of another room, just like before. “No…” she whispered, not ready to admit that it was happening again. What was worse? All of it being real, or her losing her mind? “Not again…!”

She clenched her eyes shut, then attempted to get her feet moving. She would keep her head down and hurry right on past, to the exit. That was the plan at least. And she was making good progress to move without falling over in her modest heels, but the minute she actually got closer to the mirrors, a strange feeling overwhelmed her. 

Almost like a compulsion to stop. Y/N felt like she was watching a scene in a movie, watching a victim wander down the hall of a haunted house, towards the homicidal attacker lying in wait.

 Her feet were making her move on her own! Her fingertips reached out, and yet she had no control. She had to touch the mirror, see if that room on the other side was real. But deep down, she knew the answer before her fingers made contact.

It was a strange emotion somewhere between surprise resignation when she wobbled onto a floor that was not marble and found her eyes darting around a room that was not the steak house. 

Pressing against the mirror desperately, she confirmed what a large part of her had assumed. There was no give to the mirror, apparently no way back from the time being. Was she even still in Gangnam?

Her senses were feeding her all kinds of information, and frankly, it was starting to overwhelm her. The raw scents of sweat, male musk, and ammonia could only mean one thing, and it was further proven when she peered around the blind corner of a painted brick wall, only to see two people exercising. 

Well, one was doing stretches, and with the way he hopped up, he had just finished. An older man in a tank top and sweats had pads strapped to his hands, and Y/N watched closely, not even daring to breathe, as the younger man sat down and laced boxing gloves onto his taped hands. 

He stood up, and who she assumed was his trainer got into a defensive stance while the younger man hopped around nimbly. Y/N watched, wide-eyed as they began to train, the guy in the black hoodie practicing blocking, jabbing and dodging.

 It was clear he had put a lot of dedication into this. Y/N was never much of a sports person, but she knew the result of hard-work when she saw it. His moves were fluid, and instead of slowing down, they got quicker the more he went at it. 

Somehow, it never felt like a good time to draw their attention to herself, go wobbling over in her dinner attire, and ask for directions back to the High Tower SteakHouse. She had a few other options, of course, like calling Binna. Or maybe Chin-Mae…but how did she explain it? 

She had gone to the restroom for a few minutes and wound up in a completely different location without leaving the restaurant?! Then again, it meant they would really have no choice but to believe her. 

It was impossible for her to have gone anywhere far when they all saw her leave for the bathroom. Maybe she could sneak out while they were distracted and then call when she was outside the gym, not standing around all conspicuous.

Y/N was weighing the merits of her plan when she heard an excited yell, whipping her head around and watching the trainer give his client a few congratulatory pats on the back, apparently satisfied with the work he’d put in for the day. 

They began speaking lowly to themselves, and Y/N paled when she noticed the only door out of the room she could spot was behind them…. The corner she was standing behind seemed to be where the water fountains and locker rooms were located. 

Hiding out in there was another option, but it didn’t exactly appeal when she would have to keep checking to see when the gym was empty. Right now it was just the two of them, but what if more people came in? 

They’d have questions about someone being dressed like she was, right? Then again she could also be found out just staying put where she was. Ugh…it was beyond frustrating. 

Her luck was completely shot, huh?

A little hope returned when the trainer waved at the young man and then began heading for the exit. She assumed they were done for the day, and the second guy would be done soon too. But not so, because then she’d actually be lucky. 

As soon as his trainer had cleared the room, he gave a loud sigh, beginning to shimmy out of his hoodie. Y/N didn’t think she was close enough to make the door in the small moment he had his vision obstructed, but she was close enough to get an eyeful.

 If his training earlier hadn’t tipped her off that he was dedicated, his physique would have. He was all hard lines, though the minuscule glimpse of a thin waist when his shirt rode up with his hoodie was impressive too.

 She could see a full sleeve of tattoos decorating one arm, and coupled with his longish two-toned hair, a deep brown that gave way to a raging red, he was kind of…hard to look at. Distracting in a way she didn’t anticipate. She didn’t get distracted, not usually.  

He, on the other hand, got straight to business. Oblivious of her presence, he walked right over to the large, hanging punching bag and began to hit it. But he wasn’t just hitting it. Again, Y/N was no boxing aficionado, but she knew he knew what he was doing. 

His strikes were always controlled, his breathing never ragged the way she could guess hers would be. He pivoted on his back foot, and she knew that the small movement put more power into his strikes.

 He was hitting the bag like it owed him money, grunting occasionally, the muscles in his arms and shoulders flexing in his t-shirt. At some point, Y/N figured he would stop. He would either head out the door, or into the locker room, and that was when she would flee. 

Hopefully, wherever the cruel cosmic entity that thought her life was a joke had dumped her, it wasn’t very far from the restaurant. Then again, shouldn’t she have gotten a worried text by now? 

She’d been gone for a while. Or, maybe Binna had actually come to check on her and seen that she had disappeared entirely. Y/N could imagine the freak out as Binna flailed her way back to the table and informed Min Su and Chin-Mae that somehow, someway, she’d been kidnapped. 

What was her life lately, she thought miserably. With nothing to really do but scroll her phone or continue to watch the mystery man go at it, she turned to checking what news was trending for the day. Normally, she at least kept up with news involving the business world, if nothing else.

 The celebrity gossip blogs she left to Binna, BTS investment notwithstanding. Stocks were up at several companies she had an interest in working at after graduation—assuming she made it with her life in chaos lately—so that was good.

 A CEO had resigned from his post at a company she had almost interned at but decided not to at the last minute off a strange feeling. Some scandal involving embezzlement. So she dodged a bullet there.

 And, lastly, BTS’ Jungkook had endorsed some new sports brand, and now merchandise was selling out faster than it could be restocked. The article included a picture of Jungkook, posing in shorts and a t-shirt next to a mountain of different athletic gear for various sports. 

Wait. Y/N could have swallowed her tongue. Wait. That man, the man in the picture and the one boxing…were the same person?!

Feeling like she may just be sick, Y/N did a quick check, and really took in the boxer. That was undoubtedly the idol pictured in the article. 

Not only was she going to jail for assaulting one BTS member (albeit on accident) a fact that she had managed to forget up until that moment, she got pulled back into the same thing that got her in trouble before, and ended up crossing paths with another one?! 

Once it came out what happened between her and Park Jimin, there was no possible way people would believe she wasn’t a sasaeng. The circumstantial evidence just kept getting more and more damning. 

Jungkook. Jungkook. What did she know about Jungkook? Admittedly not much, considering all her focus had really been on Jimin for obvious reasons. She knew…that Binna said he was the youngest in the boy group. He was multitalented, and here her friend swore she wasn’t exaggerating or anything.

 According to her, he was like some kind of Barbie of idols, he could do it all. Those weren’t her exact words, but it was the gist. Jungkook also had a habit of being a little shy around members of the opposite sex, or so it was claimed. 

Y/N personally had always thought all idols had to be manufacturing some parts of their personalities for public consumption. Who knew which parts? None of the scraps of information she had been fed told her anything about whether he was liable to press charges for stalking him or not.

Then again, he was an idol, and knowing that, Y/N had to assume he had gone out of his way to book private gym time, hence why the spacious work out room was empty save for him. Which meant him catching her was going to lead to a world of trouble. 

How good were her odds if she just booked it for the exit the minute he went back to the locker room? Or if he left, she’d wait a little bit to be sure he had cleared the building, then she’d leave too. Waiting…yep…that’s all she could do. If she wasn’t in a dress, and didn’t find the idea so dirty, she would slump over on the floor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jungkook caught the punching bag as it swung back from his last strike, finally feeling satisfied with his boxing for the time being. His limbs had that good burn that he liked, and his heart rate was up, despite his controlled breathing. But he wasn’t ready to leave just yet, so he decided to switch from boxing to something new. After a break.

Unlacing his boxing gloves, he found his gym bag and rummaged inside for his water bottle. Sitting down on a mat, he took a few sips, trying not to gulp it down too fast. His bottle was empty in no time, despite his attempts at moderation, and refilling before he resumed working out didn’t seem like a bad idea. 

His footsteps echoing in the big empty gym was probably his imagination, but the weird sight when he rounded the corner? That he was pretty sure was real. Leaning against the wall, a woman…no, a girl, dressed up like she had somewhere important to be was nodding off. He froze, staring, all kinds of thoughts flying through his head. 

Who was she? How’d she get in? When did she get in? Was she dangerous? Did he need to call for back up? Jungkook had purposely began training at this gym because it was exclusive. As his fame had grown, unfortunately he had to stop using more easy to find public gyms.

 The one at HYBE was an option, but sometimes he wanted something…quieter. Trainees who came in meant well, and they tried to be respectful besides giving him friendly greetings, but they couldn’t help but gawk, and that made it awkward when he was trying to get in the zone. Here, he had thought, was perfect.

But maybe he was rushing to conclusions. He didn’t know anything about the situation besides a girl in a nice dress was falling asleep by the water fountains while standing up. Her head slumped forward, then snapped up quickly as she jolted awake, eyes wide and alert. 

That was when they locked gazes, and his loose, sore muscles tensed right up. She, on the other hand, curled away like she was facing a thug in an alley. It was bemusing; yeah he’d bulked up a lot in the last several years after he got serious about training. Jungkook never considered himself all that intimidating, though. 

“Are you… staff?” he asked, since it didn’t seem like she was going to speak up first. Not with the way she kept looking like the guillotine was coming down on her head any moment. 

It took a reasonably long time for her to compose herself and answer, which was another pretty big tip off that something was not right. He was ready to whip out his phone and call security. Or at least he would be, if he hadn’t put it on do not disturb and left it in his bag. 

“This is all a misunderstanding, really,” she warbled, her hands slapped the wall behind her like she was trying to steady herself. “I didn’t…I didn’t mean to be here.”

“What?” Jungkook was definitely growing suspicious. No one who wasn’t up to something just answered like that.

“I was just going to wait until you left and I guess I started to nod off…” she ran a shaky hand through her hair, disturbing it a little. “But really, please, if you’ll pretend you never saw me, I promise, I’ll be on my way.”

He backed away quickly as she lurched forward, but before he could tell her not to do anything funny, she bowed very formally, and the idol watched, perplexed. When he didn’t respond in any way, she resumed her upright position, then tried to brush by him with her head down. 

Though, when he noticed the phone clenched tight in her fist, he acted without thinking. Something his hyungs had told him to be careful of doing in the past. At least they weren’t around to scold him.

“Hey,” he seized her wrist, and she stopped in her tracks, though he wasn’t expecting her reaction at all. Her eyes took in the hand on her like she could just flay it off with the intensity of her stare alone, and then she met his eyes head-on, hers surprisingly stony. “Your phone…”

“What about it?” she tried tugging her hand away, but he wasn’t ready to let go just yet. Not until he got some answers. He liked this gym. He wanted to keep using this gym, and at the thought that his privacy was being invaded yet again, and he would have to find somewhere else, yet again, he was getting a little worked up. 

“That’s an Army phone, a Galaxy Z Flip 4: Army Edition.”

Her eyes widened, and then she scoffed, shaking her head. “Yeah, I guess you would know. But to tell you the truth, though I can admire your band’s marketability, this phone itself has been nothing but problems. This is just the latest one. Now, please, let go.” There was some bite in her tone now, her voice surprisingly stern. 

When she tugged again, he acquiesced, something she probably didn’t expect, since she stumbled before catching herself. And when she felt her cellphone tugged right out of her hand? She rounded on him, scowling. “That belongs to me.” She held her hand out, clearly expecting it back.

“Why are you here? This is a private gym, and you don’t sound like you’re staff.”

She snatched for the phone, but he held it away, using his speed to his advantage. “Are you Army?”

“What? No,” she sounded offended by the notion, which in turn offended him. Then again, a true Army wouldn’t do this to him. Wouldn’t invade his space. “And what does that matter?”

“You’re not Army but you’ve got a phone that’s a rare exclusive. Only Army would want to own something like this. And if you’d go this far, you might be a sasaeng.” 

Here, she did pause in trying to retrieve her phone, a bit red in the face under her makeup. “Please, between my class schedule and internship, who would even have the time? The people who think stalking and harassing idols is worth jeopardizing their future for really need…” Surprisingly, the girl tried to jump for the phone like she wasn’t in heels, but he held it above his head, which meant it was way above hers, “…a hobby!”

“So I won’t find pictures you secretly took on this?” Jungkook squinted, not convinced. 

“No!” She hissed, jumping again, “Now who’s invading whose privacy, you…you muscle-headed, bunny-eyed brute!” 

He was so taken aback, he faltered, and with one last pounce, the mystery girl had snatched the phone, though not without a cost.

 Before she could even yell out in triumph, her heel wobbled and her foot rolled. Jungkook watched in slow motion, wincing in automatic sympathy as she went down. 

Time sped up as she cried out, on the ground and clutching her ankle in a dress too nice to be touching the bare gym floor. He stood over her, carefully watching her face at first. He could tell she was in pain, but attempting not to show the extent.

 Something about that alone…took him back to his early days. A wave of nostalgia he didn’t want to feel washed over him. He would hide his exhaustion, sometimes even hide injuries sustained while on stage until the end of a performance, until he couldn’t hide it anymore, just to avoid worrying his hyungs.

 And when they caught him, like they inevitably always did, he’d cry, apologize, worry they would resent him. It didn’t make sense to everyone, probably only to those who had experience firsthand with the feeling. Not wanting to let others down, wanting to live up to everyone’s expectations, struggling with the fact that they were still human.

The girl gingerly tried to shift her injured ankle, and that alone seemed to send a fresh wave of pain throbbing through it. With the way she bit her lip and clenched her eyes to stifle the cry he could just tell. 

And even though Jungkook had been concerned about a million things regarding her appearance, including that she might be another delusional ‘fan’, no one could fake pain that expertly. Plus, she’d have to be some actress to make her ankle swell on command.

 It was probably stupid of him to drop his guard, even for a second, but he found himself dropping to his knees, almost reaching out, and then hesitating. She stared up at him through her lashes, her own eyes as guarded as his had been, but wavering as she focused on ignoring her obvious injury. “I need…I need to call my friend.”

Making up his mind, Jungkook loosely grasped her foot by the heel, ignoring her half-hearted attempts to swat his hand away. He extended her leg, careful not to hurt her as he manipulated her foot to get a better idea of how bad it was. “You rolled it pretty hard.” He finally concluded.

“Yeah, no kidding.” Jungkook briefly met eyes with her again, but she stubbornly looked away. “I wonder how that happened.”

Guilt hit him pretty fast. Yeah. Even if he thought she was an intruder, he should have just called security and let them handle it. They were never far, and there was no way she could have stopped him. Not by physically overpowering at least. 

“Hang on,” he told her, setting her foot down and getting back on his feet. “I can help.”

“That’s a nice gesture,” she ground out, failing to hide a wince, “But really, I have my phone, so I can just call my fri—” she grabbed it and opened it, only for her face to fall. “Really? Now?” He heard her grumble irritably.

Noticing his quizzical face, turned a blank screen to him. “It’s dead.” She deadpanned. 

“Okay, then let me help.”

Jungkook didn’t know this stranger by any stretch of the imagination, but he had anticipated what her response would be. It probably sounded something like “no”, since she seemed disinclined to take his help.

 Was she always like this, so stubborn? Was it some kind of pride thing? He had been there, too; his hyungs really had their hands full with him over the years, didn’t they? 

Retrieving the first aid kit Jimin had gifted him some time back, he made a brisk return to find the girl in much the same position he had left her, staring sulkily at her injured ankle. She looked up when he approached, but didn’t say a word. 

“You might have to take off your shoe.” he informed her.

He waited to get a response, the big plastic kit held by his side. Jungkook wondered if she just planned to ignore him, and if he should take her silence as consent and proceed, but that didn’t feel right. Finally, she mumbled, “…This is really happening…isn’t it?”

Nodding slowly, he popped the kit open and examined its contents, locating the roll of compression wrap. While he did that, he noticed her leaning forward, trying to unstrap her heel without moving in a way that would hurt her foot even more. 

Jungkook had never worn heels, but he always thought anyone who did without falling over must have some hidden talent. Hers weren’t as tall as some, but she was still plucking at the strap with building frustration. 

Guessing she wanted it over and done with just as bad as he did, the idol seized the heel of her foot again, bringing her leg out and reaching for the buckle himself.

If he expected a beaming smile and a grateful attitude, he’d be sorely mistaken. She gave him the stink eye. “I can do at least this much.”

“Maybe, but I can do it faster.” He shrugged, already loosening the heel and sliding it off while holding her foot steady. From so close, and without the shoe in the way, he could really see just how fast the ankle had discolored and swollen. Again, he wrestled with the guilt, absently reaching for the wrap. “So,” he began by holding her ankle at a ninety-degree angle, “Who are you? Because this doesn’t mean I forgot…”

“Believe me, I’m someone who doesn’t want to be here anymore than you want me to be here. I didn’t have a choice, not that you’d ever believe me…” she huffed. “But, because legal repercussions are probably unavoidable, I’ll start by being cooperative. Maybe when they review all this, that’ll work in my favor.” It sounded like she was talking to herself, not him, but then she cleared her throat and extended her hand. “My name is L/N Y/N.”

Jungkook didn’t expect such a strange introduction, and the attempt at a handshake reminded him of Namjoon-hyung. He grasped her palm very briefly, barely holding on to it long enough for their hands to go up and down, but she didn’t seem inclined to want to hold onto him either.

“Y/N…” he repeated. 

“As for what I’m doing here…well, again, it’s not something any sane person would believe.” She switched her focus to watching him meticulously wrap her ankle. It was pretty careful care for someone that could have been stalking him, but he had already started, and if he was going to do it, his sense of perfectionism said he had to do it right. 

“Are you…insane?”

“Excuse me?” She didn’t look very amused, but he guessed it wasn’t exactly a polite question.

“You said a sane person wouldn’t believe you…” he explained. 

“I am not insane,” Y/N rubbed a hand to her forehead. “I just feel like I am lately,” she whispered. “I was dining out with some friends, in the restaurant bathroom and then…”

Jungkook waited while he secured the wrap with some bandage clips and closed his first aid kit. “And then?”

“It’s going to sound insane,” she finished matter-of-factly, “You’re going to call me a liar and accuse me of stalking you, then we’ll be right back where we started.”

Jungkook was torn between still wanting to contact security, but also experiencing some curiosity he couldn’t quite tamp down. “Do you have proof?” It didn’t sound like she did. 

“Proof?” Y/N repeated, arching a brow as if he had just said something strange.

“You’re not even going to try to make me believe you?” he goaded. 

“Sure, help me up and I’ll hobble right over to the mirror. You’ll see exactly how I got here and this whole think’ll be cleared up just like that.” Her tone was so sugary the sarcasm was evident. 

Jungkook figured he had indulged this for this long…why not go all the way. Offering her a hand, he warned her to brace herself, and then pulled her up with ease. “Okay.”

“Okay?” She said warily, trying not to show him how much she was utilizing the wall for support. 

“Okay,” Jungkook nodded, “Show me.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Idols were weird. Y/N wasn’t sure if it was just the fact that they lived in a completely ‘different world’ from normal people or what, but she hadn’t expected her first extended run-in with some world-famous celebrity to go like this. 

Park Jimin was one thing; he’d been concussed, so that was enough to make him loopy. She hadn’t expected anything out of his mouth to make sense. But this guy, Jean Jungkook? 

Totally different. He wasn’t suffering a head injury, for one. And he had seemed angry at first, but still handled her appearance in much the same way a mean boy on the playground would in elementary school. Playing keep away with her phone, really?

He’d even treated her with decency when she tripped and sprained her ankle. God, that was yet another thing she was going to have to deal with. Sprained her ankle! Sprained! How was she supposed to get around campus quickly? It was huge. Though she supposed that wasn’t a concern at present. 

The idol’s strange demand was at the forefront of her mind, seeing as he was right behind her while she hobbled slowly to the mirror, her heel in one hand and her phone in the other. 

She must have looked like a suffering pigeon, doing a funny little hop. But she refused to let him touch her after she got her bearings. It was humiliating enough to have someone see her make a fool of herself and get injured to boot, idol or no idol. Well actually, his status made it even worse. 

And he was watching her oh so closely as she made it to the mirror, taking a deep breath and turned around to look at him with some difficulty. “Here it is.” She said flatly. “How I got in, and how I probably would be able to get out, if life felt like cutting me a break.”

He stepped around her, staring at her incredulously like she knew he would. She would look at herself that way in his position. Jungkook pressed against the mirror with the flat of his hand, one good time, as if to confirm it was solid. “You used the mirror? What, like magic? Like a drama?”

“You’re the one who said you wanted proof; I never said it would satisfy you.” she retorted. “I barely understand it myself, but what I’m saying is the only truth I have to cling to.” Her chin dipped, “No matter how implausible it is…” 

She knew she would get the same result he had when she pushed on the mirror, but as if to confirm her fate was truly sealed, Y/N tried anyway. When her hand went right through, the cool glass giving way to cool nothingness, she yelled, pitching forward.

Jungkook made a noise, something startled, and she glanced at him to confirm he was seeing what was happening. His bulging eyes made it evident that he was. Yes! Y/N jerked her arm away too fast, and in doing so almost fell back on her ass, if not for the lightning reflexes of the idol who moved to extend an arm around her waist.

 Y/N got her bearings, smoothed a hand over her shirt and her racing heart, and tried to hold back her tears. He could see. He could really see. The weeks of going crazy in silence, holding it all in, and someone else…could see.

“Your arm went through the glass,” he breathed.

“More than my arm’s gone through.” Y/N spoke with more confidence, now that there was no way he could deny it. “That’s…how I got here.”

The idol once again moved forward, pressing both hands against the mirror. Nothing. “How?” He wondered.

“I don’t know.” Y/N replied, “It’s been happening since…since I got this phone. So that’s my only theory, that the events are connected.” She held up the dead device and wiggled it around. “Not that that’s a story anyone would believe if I got caught breaking and entering.” 

The idol appeared to be thinking, worrying his lip piercing with his tongue, “Unless they saw it.”

Y/N squared her shoulders, eyeing him up and down. He fidgeted, looking small somehow, despite being fairly tall with a healthy amount of muscle. From close up it was even easier to see than watching him from behind the wall. 

“It might come as a surprise for you to know, not everyone would be as cavalier as you about all this. In fact, I’d go as far as saying your reaction was a bit…strange. Has anyone told you that you’re odd?”

  ‘Nice going, Y/N.’ She thought bitterly, ‘That was over the top blunt. You’re not trying to make an enemy out of the very first person to be witnessing the crazy with you.’

Luckily, the idol didn’t look overly offended. Jungkook pursed his lips, big eyes sheepish as he rubbed his head. “Uh-huh, my hyung.” he said thoughtfully.

“Well…” Y/N gestured vaguely. “Now that you’ve seen what I’ve seen, you know about as much as I do. Would it be too much trouble to ask if I could…go?” Pointing a thumb toward the mirror like she was about to miss her cab would seem dumb if he didn’t know. 

“Oh, right,” Jungkook’s tapped the mirror again. “You’re going back to where you came from.”

“Ideally,” Y/N frowned, “I’ve been gone a long time. There’s no way my friends aren’t concerned about that. And when they can’t find me who knows what they’ll think.”

Honestly, he was beginning to think they wanted to be caught. He wouldn’t be surprised.

Their father wanted them married by the end of the year, which gave them six months. Namjoon wasn’t opposed to marriage. He just hadn’t met a woman he could deem adequate enough to want to dedicate his life to. He wanted someone intelligent, beautiful, and confident (but not too much), a woman he could bond with. Noble women could be educated, and usually they were, but it seemed to be surface knowledge. They didn’t read because they liked to, they didn’t like to look at art or even take walks through the gardens. They were boring. He didn’t want to be bored.

At dinner his father had announced a party will be held in three days, all his sons were expected to be there the entire night. There would be no excuses. They will meet the women, they will mingle and dance, and they will find a bride, sooner rather than later.

Seokjin hadn’t been there, much to everyone's surprise. They were quick to make an excuse, he was unwell and resting. It was clear their father didn’t believe a word out of their mouths, but said nothing. When dinner ended everyone left but Namjoon. Somehow, Seokjin’s absence was his fault. Namjoon, of course, knew nothing of his eldest brother's plans to not join them for their usual dinner. It was a once a week tradition, and although none of the princes enjoyed it, they all went to keep peace and appearances.

Namjoon was stressed. He was tired. He was angry.

His brothers walked all over him, after everything he did for them. They had no respect for him. Was it because he was the middle child? Not quite the eldest, but not the youngest. Just somewhere in the middle? He was sick of it. Seokjin was the eldest, and yet nothing was expected of him. The man couldn’t even get himself married– no, wouldn’t. He wouldn’t get married, not even to help his own brothers.

Why did he have to take the blame for every issue his brothers have caused? Tripped a maid down the stairs? Namjoon why didn’t you stop them? Got too rough with Jeongguk and cut his cheek in training? Well Namjoon should have been there to keep them in line. Namjoon, Namjoon, Namjoon.

Seokjin sat on the hallway floor, back against his door as he fiddled with his fingers. His plan had gone to shit. He had no intention of being so late. He was going to show up, you in arm, dressed in the most beautiful gown and announce his engagement to his family. He was supposed to bask in his mothers joyful praises and loll in the thankful songs of his brothers, who would forever be in his debt, while they all whined in jealousy. His father would applaud him for finding such a beautiful bride, pat his back and scold his brothers for being so difficult.

“Follow in your brother's footsteps!” he would say.

Instead, he was sitting on a freezing floor, thinking of how to get back into his room without damaging his doors. He really liked his doors.. His plan was to get food, surely you were hungry, and lure you out with the smell. His plan could have been perfect if he had taken into account that he had missed dining with his family, angering his father and ultimately, Namjoon. But he hadn’t thought of this, too wrapped up in getting you to open up the doors. Instead he very proudly had jumped off the floor and rushed off toward the kitchen to have a feast prepared for you. He knew he shouldn’t be rewarding this behaviour, but he was going to give you the benefit of the doubt, he assumed you were scared and how could he blame you for this? Being in the presence of a prince, and one as attractive as himself, must have been incredibly overwhelming to a commoner such as yourself.

He will just prove to you that he is as kind as he is handsome.

When Namjoon had first begun his rampage through the palace he had every intention of tearing his eldest brother's head from its shoulders and kicking it out the nearest window. Yoongi had mentioned that Seokjin had gone for a walk that afternoon, promising to be back for dinner. So the eldest had actively missed out on meeting the women lined up for them, and then purposely skipped dinner with their father, clearly more than happy with getting Namjoon in trouble. The more he learned, the more heated he began to feel.

Oddly enough, when arriving in the hallway that his brother's room resided in he found the eldest prince with his head to the door, speaking so softly he couldn’t hear a word he uttered– which was odd considering how loud the man usually was. Namjoon watched as the elder man pushed off the door, a determined look on his face as he ran off down the halls in the opposite direction. A few beats passed before his door creaked open, a head poking out. Hair covered the face, but it was clearly a woman. Namjoon wasn’t sure which emotion was currently winning, curiosity or anger. Did his brother really skip out, and cause him trouble, for a woman?

The door quickly shut again, the girl disappearing back into the room. Namjoon had decided he would approach the woman, find out who she is and confirm his suspicions. Anyone in the court knows not to involve themselves with the princes at certain hours of the week, so who did she think she was to ignore the rules? To get him chastised for an action that he didn’t even do?

Namjoon had advanced toward the room, reaching for the door but his actions fell short when the door yanked open and a much smaller body collided with his own.

Fire.

His body was on fire.

Namjoon quickly shoved the body away, jerking himself backward as he examined his body looking for something, anything that would indicate harm, but he found nothing. He looked up, finding the woman on the floor, staring up to him with wide eyes. Messy damp hair hung over most of her face, pretty pink lips parted slightly in shock. Neither said a word, only staring for a minute before the girl scrambled to her knees and bowed, head to the floor. You didn’t speak, no apologies, just head to the floor.

Why did this irritate him?

He wanted you to look at him again.

“Who are you?” He asked, finally seeming to find his voice again.

Seokjin couldn’t remember the last time he had gone to the kitchen. For a while the prince had actually been banned at some point of time and just never bothered to go back, not that he had ever really needed to, the maids could do it for him. Only Jeongguk enjoyed going down to the kitchens, snooping through the ingredients, picking at the food while being cooked and for a while, watching the maid he was so enraptured by. Admittedly, Seokjin had never understood his brother's obsession with the dirty girl, she was less than average, filthy and all bones. He remembers laughing and teasing his brother, loving how angry and defensive the younger one got.

But now he understood.

Upon his arrival Seokjin’s eyes instantly landed on the remaining two chefs. One stood by the doorway, carrying in freshly washed pots, and the other looked ready to shit his pants. At first, the prince didn’t understand the instant look of fear that hit the man's features, but the sight of the gruesome scar over his right eye made him light up.

“Chef Geum, it has been some time.”

The head chef, Ho Geum, was especially cautious of the royal family, especially the eldest two. The older sons, Seokjin and Yoongi were both excellent cooks, their nannies had taught them as children and young teens per their request. Their nanny had believed she was doing a good thing, encouraging a hobby, helping them with independence. Unfortunately this made the princes far more pedantic toward the meals they were served. One wrong flavour, a change to a recipe, and there would be hell. He had learnt this the hard way.

//flashback; three years//

The kitchen staffed six chefs, two for deserts and four for the other three meals a day. They were older men, sweaty and exhausted. They not only cooked for the royal family, but the other staff, and any guests that the palace seemed to constantly house. There was never a moment for breaks or rests. These four chefs often rotate shifts overnight, two on and two off, allowing a few hours breaks to rest before jumping back in for the breakfast routine.

Prince Seokjin had been 21 when the incident occurred. The current head chef, had been on his first week and unaware of all the rules in place. There were just so many, and it was hard to keep up with them all. His previous employers had no issue with his food experimentation, in fact they encouraged it. They were foodies after all, and would often brag to guests about their creative chef who prepared the greatest dishes in the whole of Korea. Eventually Emperor Munpyo caught wind of the rumours and demanded he had the chef for himself.

Who could turn down an offer like that?

He quickly learnt his creative dishes weren’t appreciated. The fifth night of his new job he found two of the princes in the kitchen entryway, the taller of the two with a friendly smile on his plump lips, while the shorter looked at him with an expression that mirrored someone staring at a bug on the wall.

The smile never left the taller prince's face, not when he cut off the chef's index fingers. Not when he pinned poor Geum to the large counter, giggling at the way he squirmed and begged to be let go. The shorter brother hadn’t smiled throughout most of the ordeal, keeping his lips slightly pursed as he watched his brother explain every single thing wrong with every dish that had been served that evening. Seokjin had demanded the chef keep his eyes on him, he should be respected. Unfortunately, because his focus was directed to only one of the princes, he failed to notice Yoongi standing by the furnace with a metal ladle resting over the heat. The metal had begun to melt before the prince was satisfied. He quickly pulled the ladle out, and stalked over to the cook who had finally caught on to the younger princes movement.

No amount of begging, or screaming, helped the man. In fact, the begging only seemed to fuel the excitement the prince felt, because for the first time in the hours they had been down in the kitchen, he grinned. It had made him sick. His smile had seemed so kind, almost childish. It was such a sweet smile to give to someone right before you disfigured them. Yoongi had stood over him, his face hanging above the chefs who could only sob a blubbered apology, begging him to stop before he had even started.

The pure excitement on Yoongi's face had haunted the chef’s dreams even to this day. The smile on his lips as the prince pressed the underside of the burning ladle into his eye. The laughter sounding in the emptied kitchen that moulded into his pained screams. Geum was probably lucky he hadn’t seen the look of pure glee on the scarred prince's face as he pushed the burning utensil harder, or the elated look he had as the skin melted on his face.

When Yoongi had finally pulled away, it took a bit of force to rip the ladle from the skin that had melted onto it. The chef was quickly let go, and the princes watched as he rolled over, dropping from the counter top to the floor with a grunt. His hands shakily cupping over the face wound, hands still bloody from the elder prince's punishment. It was probably for the best that the chef had been looking to the floor, sobbing, otherwise his good eye would have seen the way Yoongi had admired the skin burnt to the ladle.

He would have seen the prince pluck off a chunk of burnt flesh, and eat it.

//flashback end//

“Y-your Highness, it is an-an honour to see you again.” Geum stuttered out, bowing deeply.

The prince quickly waved the man off, walking further inside as he looked through the baskets of fresh vegetables. “I need you to cook a meal,” He told the man, turning to look back at him.

“Something romantic.” He added, nodding to himself. “I’ll need deserts as well, so wake up the rest of the staff.”

The two cooks looked between each other, raising a brow before looking back to the prince.

“My prince, was the dinner not up to satisfaction?” They inquired, the blinded chef looking to his companion in shock.

“I wouldn’t know, I wasn’t there– do you have doubts about your work?” Seokjin grinned,

The two men quickly shook their heads, stuttering out incoherent sentences before the prince cut them off again, walking back toward the kitchen's exit.

“Have it in my room within the hour.”

You didn’t look up when he spoke, irking him further. His jaw clenched as you kept your head down, slightly shaking at the shoulders.

“Y/n.”

“Y/n, look at me when I speak to you.”

The words were familiar. Seokjin had said the exact same thing to you only hours earlier. Only this time you obeyed, his tone of voice didn’t feel as mischievous as Seokjin’s. And while yes, Seokjin had sounded playful, he still had an edge to his words, one that you were willing to ignore. This man held no mirth to his tone, there was a lingering anger to his words. You weren’t sure why, maybe he was angry at you for touching him? You weren’t aware of who he was, but by the fabric at his feet, and the attitude he spoke with, you were sure he was important. Was this the Emperor that Seokjin had wanted you to meet?

The air around him was suffocating. You wonder if he knew how stifling his presence was.

Ruffling of fabric filled your ears, making you peek up slightly. The man had squatted down to your level. You quickly tried to avert your gaze back to the floorboards but his hand shot out, grabbing your chin. He seemed to freeze when he touched you, fingers tensing on your skin making his nails dig into the flesh.

“I didn’t ask your name, I asked who are you?”

You frowned, is that not the same thing?

A soft grunt left your lips when he jerked your face upward to meet his gaze. He was handsome, even with the glare he was shooting your way. You weren’t sure how to answer his question, because who even were you here? You could imagine his reaction now if you told him: ‘I’m Y/n, and I’m not from here– wherever here is. I’m a homeless woman from what I can only presume is the future.’

Yeah, no. You would rather keep that information to yourself.

“I-I.. I don’t know.” You finally admitted, cheeks burning in embarrassment.

You barely knew where you were, you clearly weren’t home. You weren’t from here, from this time. That much you had gathered during your small meltdown in the room. You felt guilty when Seokjin tried to coax you out of the room, complaining about how late he was running. But the realisation of just how fucked of a situation you had gotten yourself into had dawned and you just wanted to hide. Which is exactly what you had done. Definitely not your finest hour, but how else is someone supposed to react?

You had been so relieved when the prince had told you he was leaving for a moment. It was a moment to escape. Once his footsteps had disappeared you had every intention of grabbing the clothes you had woken up in, and making a run for it. You had quickly changed back into the dirty, slightly damp silk nightgown, even putting the robe back on, deciding it was way too cold to leave it behind, and you were ready. You didn’t have any ideas of where to go exactly, but the feeling in your gut promised anywhere was better than here.

Clearly, your master escape plan didn’t go as you had hoped because the second you opened the door you almost broke your nose. The body clearly didn’t appreciate the unwanted contact, because within a split second you were on the floor. A new wave of fear had washed over you, terrified to do anything, so you had quickly moved into a bowing position.

The energy pulsing off this man was a true force. It shook you to the core. You feared speaking the wrong words, or even moving. You felt like a small animal, too scared to make a move, fearing the slightest movement of muscle would trigger an attack from the predator ahead.

Clearly your words hadn’t satisfied the man, how could it? You weren’t sure you would be convinced if some random woman claimed she didn’t know who she was either.

“Namjoon, what are you doing here?”

You froze at the icy tone. The man, who you could now only assume to be Namjoon, didn't budge. His gaze stayed on you, even if you were no longer looking at him. The floor seemed like the safest bet right now. You knew the other voice, it was the Prince who found you. He had spoken so much during the few hours you both had shared, that you could probably pick up on his voice from anywhere. You couldn’t tell if you were relieved for him returning, or annoyed. While you were glad that he was back, the only familiar thing you had so far in this place, you weren’t sure he could be of much help in this situation. You were convinced that the man before you was the Emperor. The way he spoke, the power he emitted.. There was nothing else he could be.

“I would appreciate it if you got your hands off my fiancé.” He spoke again, walking further into the room.

Seokjin wasn’t sure how he felt about the situation before him. While on one hand he was happy to see that the room was unlocked, allowing him to come back into you, he was bitter to find his brother's hands on you. He had barely been gone twenty minutes, he hadn’t expected any of his brothers to go to his room. Usually Namjoon would go off to his room to wallow in self pity before taking any anger out.

Either way, Namjoon had no right to be touching his woman.

“Fiancé?” He echoed, making no move away from you. If anything, his hand only tightened.

Huffing, Seokjin stomped forward. He grabbed the pale green collar of his brother's shirt and tugged him off you. The taller man hit the floor with a grunt.

“What the fuck Hyung!” He hissed, rubbing the back of his head.

Namjoon wasn’t sure why his chest had constricted at the news his brother had dropped. He wasn’t sure why his skin burned when he touched you, or why his lungs felt strangled when your eyes looked into his own. What he did know was that he didn’t like it. He didn’t like how he was feeling, and he didn’t like that his brother was claiming you.

“Who is she, Jin-Hyung?” Namjoon asked calmly, having pushed himself off the floor and brushed imaginary dust from his outfit.

Both brothers looked at you, still bowed to the floor.

“My future wife, was that not clear?” Jin asked dumbly.

Namjoon rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest. “What clan is she from?” He pushed. Seokjin was frustrating, as per usual, but Namjoon noticed he was slightly nervous at the question.

“She isn’t from here.” The elder shrugged, still avoiding answering directly. Moving around his little brother to crouch down beside you. His heart ached seeing you pressed to the floor, shaking in fear. But he couldn’t deny the butterflies in his stomach from seeing you in such a submissive state. Would you behave this way for him?

He rested a hand on your back, grinning when you didn’t flinch away. Even with the materials on your body, he could still feel the burning sensation as if he were pressing against your bare skin. Would the feeling intensify if you had been stripped bare?

“You never answered my questions.” Namjoon pressed, crossing his arms over his chest.

“And you never answered mine, and you best watch your tone Namjoon.” Seokjin scolded, not bothering to look at his brother. Instead, he gently took your chin between his fingers, just as Namjoon had been doing only minutes before. Seokjin’s grip was feather light, almost as if he wasn’t even touching you.

“My love, are you okay?” He murmured when your eyes met his. “Did he hurt you?”

You shook your head, making him smile in relief before he stood up, pulling you along with him. Seokjin’s arm curled around your waist, forcing you into his side as he looked back at the man standing across from you. His eyes were glued to the arm around your hips making you squirm uncomfortably. The movement only seemed to make the man's grip tighten on you.

“Y/n, meet my little brother Namjoon, Namjoonie, meet my soon to be wife, Y/n.”

Wife.

The word made your stomach twist. He kept saying that, you didn’t know him, and he you. How did he expect you to marry him? He hadn’t even consulted you on the idea. What made him think you even wanted him? You wanted to leave. You wanted to find your way home.

But what if there wasn’t a way home…

Jeongguk was a heavy believer in the spiritual realm, and a romantic at heart. He believed in the after world, reincarnation, he believed in true love and soulmates, and that there was always fate there to guide him to where he needed to be. He had believed Jin-i to be his soulmate, but soon after her death, despite the immense sadness he felt, he knew she hadn’t been the one. Fate had been kind to him, showing him a glimpse of what he could feel, promising that it had only been the beginning of how love would feel. It had allowed him some practice before true love found him.

Jin-i could have been a problem. If she had lived, what would have happened when he found his soulmate? He had always swore to be a loyal husband, so an affair would have been out of the question. Of course, there was always the option of just completely removing Jin-i from the situation, but he wasn’t too sure if that would have sat right with him.

Thankfully, he didn’t have these stresses anymore. He would be alert, ready to find the woman he was destined for, and all the while, better himself for her. Although, he wasn’t sure what more he could improve on.

Well, maybe he was.

Despite being 25, Jeongguk hadn’t been very experienced with women. He had dozens of them ready for him at any given moment, women that would do anything he desired and more. They had been used before, but not to the same extent his brothers had used them. Jeongguk had only used the women when his hand would no longer work, and even then he would only let them suck him off. He wanted he and his soulmate to experience sex together, for the first time, to be each others firsts. That plan very quickly went out the door.

He had been devastated to realise Jin-i wasn’t his soulmate. His promise to himself, to remain a virgin, had been ruined. After Jin-i’s husband's unfortunate death, Jeongguk, admittedly had little self control at the moment. He had slit her throat, and as she bled to death, he fucked her. A poor, and messy choice on his behalf. But the sight had been so exciting. The blood that covered her face and body, getting all over him as well was a feeling he wished to someday replicate. She had choked out incoherent words, clawing at any bare skin her nails could find with leaky eyes. 

She had never looked prettier.

He had been devastated at first, guilt eating away at him. He was saving himself for his soulmate, and he was soiled. Jin-i had ruined him. 

Would she be disappointed in him? He wouldn’t be able to blame her.

It had admittedly taken the prince a while to realise Jin-i wasn’t his fated one, and in his distraught state, he had.. Let himself go a little. The concubines had dropped in numbers, quitting or going missing after the youngest prince got his hands on them. He was too rough, too demanding, too unstable. Most women left bloody and bruised after their hours with him, weeping and begging the Emperor to release them of their duties.

Jeongguk had felt something in his chest. It ached, and pulled. It had felt that way since morning, and he had tried his best to ignore it. He was on his best behaviour. But the light tingle in his chest had turned into full fledged throbbing, it was like something was trying to tear its way out of his ribs. Nothing was easing the pain. So he had decided to let the pain lead the way. Whatever it was, the closer it got, the more the pain eased, the further he got the more it hurt.

He probably looked crazy, running around the halls with a hand to his chest, bursting in and out of different rooms. But he didn’t care, all he could focus on was the pang, pang, pang in his chest. The familiar hall that roomed Seokjin and Yoongi came into view, and the ache began to ease more. Jeongguk stumbled slightly, hand to the wall as he moved further down, passing Yoongi’s quiet room first, but the ache remained.

“You can’t be serious about this.” Namjoon’s voice echoed, catching the younger's attention.

“We’re in love, Joonie. Is this not what you all wanted?” Seokjin scoffed, his tone of voice lower than usual. He was pissed.

Jeongguk kept voice, his brother's voices getting cleared and the ache nearly disappearing. Fate was leading him somewhere, he was sure of it.

Seokjin’s door was wide open, Namjoon standing closer to the doorway with a ridged back. The eldest brother stood slightly to the side, one arm on his hip and the other seemed to be wrapping around something–or someone. The youngest prince stood just outside the door, head peeking around the corner of the door only just out of sight. The ache was gone, back to an itch. Whatever fate wanted him to find, it was in there.

“You just met her, how could you love her?” Namjoon groaned, head dropping into his palm. His larger body was blocking off whoever stood beside their elder brother, irking the youngest prince. He was curious.

“Oh what do you know, Namjoon?” Seokjin sneered, pulling away from the body beside him to step closer toward his brother. “Just because you’re so unloved, everyone else has to be too?”

Namjoon’s shoulders shuddered as he sighed, shaking his head. But he said nothing, letting Seokjin step closer, jabbing a finger into his chest. “She will be my wife, it is destiny.” The elder nearly whispered, the words only just ghosting Jeongguk’s ears.

Jeongguk was weighing his options, unsure if he should make his presence known. But it didn’t seem he had to. Seokjin seemed to have spotted him over Namjoon’s shoulder, raising a brow to the younger brother. In shame the youngest brother shuffled into the doorway, head hanging too embarrassed to make eye contact.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled pitifully.

Namjoon raised a brow, looking between the youngest and the eldest. “How long have you been listening?” He asked.

He shrugged. “Not that long.”

Seokjin eyed up the younger boy, purposely shielding you away from him. The young boy looked erratic. Sweat beading on his forehead, a red flush on his neck and cheeks, and his body shaking. Some would think he looked ill.

“Why are you here, Jeongguk?” Jin asked.

The younger boy frowned, itching at his neck. Why was here? He had only been following where fate had demanded, he hadn't thought he would find himself here. He himself was beyond confused.

“I’m not sure hyung,” He paused, thinning his lips in thought. “I just thought something of mine was here.”

It was a weak explanation, but it was true. The elder man grinned, stepping closer toward his brother gently patting his hair.

“What could you have possibly thought could belong to you here?” The tone was almost condescending. This bothered the younger prince, but he simply shrugged. He had nothing to answer with. He knew he had nothing in this wing of the palace, let alone his eldest brother’s room.

Namjoon seemed just as bothered by the eldest boy's tone, shoving the man slightly. He seemed unprepared for the force given, stumbling over and revealing you, wide eyed at the entire situation unfolding. The moment Jeongguk’s eyes fell to yours, the ache returned tenfold. He almost doubled over in pain, his hand shooting up to his chest, nails digging into the fabric of his dark shirt.

“Her.”

----------