yoongink.

You’ve left a void in his everyday, if only to make it achingly clear how little the sum of his parts are worth without you there to keep the engine running. The hours tick idly by as he tries to remember how to make dinner for one, then spends another two considering what to make for himself, utterly adrift without your input. He ends up ordering in.

Nothing quite fits without you. The coffee’s not as good when he makes it. You might have taken care of that spider in the bathroom. You would’ve remembered to put milk on the damn shopping list, he thinks bitterly, scowling at nothing in particular and chewing handfuls of dry cereal directly from the box.

And he gets on like that, reminding himself throughout the day ‘what would you do’, mostly just filling the empty spaces with his imagination and it makes life bearable, despite the fact that it only makes him miss you more. It’s pathetic, he knows. And while his confidence has taken a hit, he finds he’s too far gone to care now.

Shit, he really is, isn’t he.

The weekend drags on achingly slow and, apart from the milk, you’re always the one thing missing. He’s lived surrounded by you for so long, everything becomes a reminder of how dependent he is on you, how much he misses you, how hopeless he is without you now, and most of all how desperately, stupidly, achingly, and utterly hopelessly in love he is.

He really is.

So he stays up late Saturday night, determined to enjoy and take advantage of his freedom, drinks beer and watches Netflix in his pants, and finishes the box of cereal.

He sleeps late Sunday afternoon, too late to make plans and get out of the empty house.

In an attempt to busy himself he does laundry, but is overwhelmed once more with thoughts of you when he finds himself crouched in front of the washing machine. In his hands, the sweatshirt you had borrowed from him last week. He slips up, faint memories of your lovely hands getting lost in the sleeves, getting lost in his hair, in his sheets, and with a thrill of guilt coursing through him, surrenders to impulse and crushes the fabric to his nose. Inhaling deeply, he detects faint lingering traces of what he suspects is your deodorant, nothing more.

He’s so disappointed and he’s in love with you.

The realisation has been grinding him down since the morning you left. He’s tried to deny it, but with the evidence all around him, he was forced to admit it now. Not having you around was driving him loopy, because you’re all he can think about and he’s beginning to realise that he’s wanted you for so, so long. He’s fallen in love with you, and it took him this long to realise, to accept it.

He’s in love with you.

It clings to his skin, making it feel unclean and electric at once. Like he’s betrayed your friendship, but for the sweetest secret. Sinful treasure.

Shameful and defeated Hoseok takes a long shower and narrowly succeeds in not smelling your shampoo, as he’s practically infatuated with the scent. He’s had to use it on a few desperate and forgetful occasions, and toys briefly with the idea of emptying his own bottle of shampoo down the drain for the excuse, but he thinks better of it, resisting the temptation with help from the knowledge that you’ll be back this evening.

He reemerges from the shower, thinking he has shaken the realisation, when he sees your missed calls and reads your messages informing him you’ll stay a little longer than planned, and Hoseok is still in a towel when he dials Yoongi’s number.

“You’re losing it.” Yoongi observes casually, doesn’t even need to ask the questions, and Hoseok resents him for it but then the older man is winding his cool fingers through his hair and he might be forgiven. Hoseok’s just glad not to be left with his thoughts any longer, doesn’t care that he’s an open book as long as Yoongi keeps turning the page.

“You should fuck.” Yoongi states the obvious, and Hoseok suppresses a shudder.

When you finally do return to your shared home, a few nights later and sometime past 1am, it’s to the sight of the two men entangled on the sofa, towels discarded, fast asleep, hair still wet from the shower.

You force a smile, even though there’s no one around to fool but yourself, and swallow the sinking feeling, the rising jealousy. Because it’s your own fault, for deluding yourself into thinking he might have missed you too. 

That is the very nature of your agreement after all—unspoken—so that, apart from those fleeting moments when his mouth finds yours in the darkness, nothing really changes between the two of you. The need that now eats at the distance between you has simply replaced the unfulfilled tension that had previously compelled you apart, breathing new life into your mediocre coexistence. 

To your credit, it took the two of you a while to close the gap, for your roommate to realise that you actively wanted his hands on you, that it was okay to touch. You had both been afraid to risk what you had, your home, and the very foundation you were hoping to build your adult lives on, but keeping your hands to yourselves eventually proved impossible. 

“You’re staying in?”

“Yeah, everyone cancelled because of the snow.” Hoseok unwinds his scarf as you try to hide your excitement.

“Watch X-Files with me.” You pat his usual place on the sofa.

The lights are low. You’ve got your softest jumper on, the neckline has stretched and gone slack with many washes, and often droops off your shoulder. Hoseok has never said as much, but it’s his favourite. Especially when you tuck your hair away in complex twists and worn elastics, exposing your neck. You look so elegant like that. He wants so badly to reach out, trap stray wisps of hair with his fingers, trace your jawline, kiss your ears.

He tries not to think about it too much. But it proves even more difficult once you’ve propped yourself against him on the sofa, trapping him against the cushions. He’s grown absurdly attached to the smell of your shampoo, and you feel his breath tickling your hairline.

“You cold?”

It sends shivers down your spine in the most electrifying way, and you will yourself to relax against him despite the itch of anticipation, feeling obligated to play into the charade a little longer.

“A little.”

This game you play, pretending it’s an accident each time you fall into one another’s arms, as if it isn’t all either of you ever wanted. Neither of you can focus on the plot of the episode playing in front of you, but you still keep up the pretence, wait for the swarms of killer cockroaches to make an appearance again so that Hoseok can make his move.

And he does, one squeaky exhale against the back of your ear and he’s ducked to hide behind you, pressing his nose to the place where your shoulder and neck meet, hand firm on your arm, holding you even closer.

As you laugh softly and with sympathy, words of comfort get stuck in your throat and your breath catches. Your roommate, and dear friend, is once more trailing soft kisses along the neckline of your jumper, across your shoulders.

So much hangs in the balance between you and by such a thin thread, so much is left unsaid and yet neither one of you can keep your hands off the other for very long. Instead, very gradually, you found a way around it, an outlet for the mounting tension. A loophole that would eventually reveal itself a void. The pit of your combined desires proving deeper, potentially endless, devouring each advance and demanding more with a growing ferocity that would have been ominous, had either of you paid it any mind.

Because, in the dark, there’s no awkward eye contact to prompt rationale and second guesses. With the lights this low he doesn’t have to worry about flushing bright red, or that the touch he covets is that of his close friend. In the dark you find it much easier to stifle your embarrassment, and guide Hoseok’s hands up your shirt yourself, so that he doesn’t have to break the spell to ask your permission.

You melt to his touch, no longer bound by pretence, twist your fingers in his sweatshirt and sigh shakily with the kind of relief you could never find elsewhere, not in the arms of anyone else, even if the same could not be said for him.

As always–because this is routine now–his kisses get wetter, more passionate the further he travels your neck, and you bite your tongue so as to not shatter his illusion. In the dark, his kisses find your jaw, your chin, and finally your lips. Here, Hoseok is not your roommate, nor are you his. You’re simply two bodies, lonesome, wanting, starved of touch.

Or at least that’s what you tell yourselves.

When he presses deft fingertips into the nape of your neck, as if he never wished to let you go, the trick is to not get carried away, doing something forbidden like whimpering his name. And when your teeth catch on his bottom lip, feeling the breath hitch to a halt in his thrumming chest, the trick is not to imagine your name there, on the tip of his tongue. When given the chance, the key is to spring apart at the first excuse that presents itself, shuffling away with the lights still low, to your respective rooms, your respective beds. The only sounds you allow yourself are sighs and the occasional gasp. You don’t mind being a vessel for his desires as long and he’ll be one for your fantasies. 

You recognise the look of nausea from so many nights in the ER and get up to get him a glass of water. His blood runs down the drain as you wait for the water to run cold.

“It never gets any easier, does it,” you state as you hand him the glass.

“Not even for you?”

You chew the inside of your cheek as you consider how much to tell him. You used to enjoy hinting at the ways his involvement had made your life harder, because it had, and that was your tiny bit of revenge. But over months, almost a year, of patching him and the boys up you’d grown close, and you knew he felt guilt even without you pushing it. You care about him now, you frequently wrestle with the creeping realisation that he is the best thing in your life, and you only had yourself to blame for the situation you were in.

“In med. school I never had any issues,” you begin, relenting to the fact that this admission would be no more embarrassing than the one you had made the last time you saw him, even if he doesn’t remember it, or so you hope. “Didn’t faint, didn’t throw up, not once.”

Yoongi hands you the empty glass back and you refill it as you shrug and continue, “I don’t know, maybe it’s the controlled setting of a hospital, takes some of the pressure off, or-- I don’t know, maybe the pressure to perform is higher, to be professional, to seem unfazed.”

You hand him the glass again, but Yoongi doesn’t drink, just listens patiently. You feel your ears heat with the attention and rush through the rest of your explanation.

“Anyway, when you came here the first time I threw up, for the first time.” You turn to pick the staples out of the sink and pretend there’s nothing more to say on the issue, unable to face his scrutiny any longer.

“So it gets worse?” His voice is monotone and bare as ever, you can’t decipher a note of mirth, nor worry, without seeing his face.

“No, I just-- It was so unexpected, and so different, I didn’t know how-- I couldn’t deal with it the way I usually do.” You can’t shut down, can’t compartmentalise. 

That’s how you came to care so much for him and his gang. At work you would shut down and do your job, work yourself to the bone and pretend it didn’t hurt, remain professional at the cost of your own well-being. And at home you fell apart, burnt out and anxious, everything you kept yourself from feeling would flare up tenfold and consume you, leaving you empty and bitter. 

That, along with the stresses of nursing criminals back to health in your own home, had not been a great combination for you.

Luckily, the Bangtan boys were empathic creatures themselves, even Yoongi in his own wry manner had grown to show concern for your well-being in a way that you had so sorely needed. And little by little, your bitterness was melting into a sweetness that seemed so counterintuitive to the situation, yet made such perfect sense to you. 

For the first time in a very long time, something felt right.

“Hm,” Yoongi seemed content with your explanation, for whatever reason, and didn’t press further, instead changing the subject. “So can I put my pants on now, or?”

You splutter a laugh, “Sorry, I’ll fetch the bandages.”

Although you had to admit you were just a little eager to test the waters now that things had changed, curious to see what existed between the two of you now that the hostility and tension had more or less dispersed. Because the little inkling you had--the growing suspicion that grated on your nerves, chipping away at what you thought you knew--could by no means be right.

However, when you finally do see him again, Yoongi is slumped against Seokjin’s fridge, jeans around his ankles, gritting his teeth and banging his head against the fridge door to distract from the pain, as you press towels and gauze to the gaping wound in his thigh.

“This is exactly why I told you to contact someone about medical supplies, Yoongi!”

“Seokjin, he doesn’t need this right now.”

The eldest stands behind you, wringing his hands.

“Yeah, shut up, hyung.”

Under any other circumstance you might have laughed.

“Look,” you sigh, “I can’t suture without anaesthesia, I’m, uh--” you trail off, watching Seokjin steadily work himself into a frenzy.

Your patient groans, “Come on, spit it out, doc.”

“I’m going to have to staple the wound shut.”

“Oh, my-- word!” Seokjin exclaims, doubling over.

“It’s going to hurt, but it’ll be over a lot quicker.”

“Do I have a choice?” Yoongi winces as you check to see if the bleeding has stopped.

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“Then get it over with.”

This is not something you do on a regular basis, so you revert back to your professional self and do your best to recall your training. With surprisingly steady hands you go through the motions with what could be mistaken for practiced ease, and it’s not until you’ve finished the sixth and last staple that you return to yourself and realise exactly what you’ve done.

Seokjin is vomiting discreetly somewhere behind the two of you and Yoongi’s laboured breathing rings in your ears along with the echo of the staples.

You stare down at your work in detached disbelief; you’ve just shot six sharp pieces of metal into Yoongi’s flesh, with expert precision no less, and you have hardly any recollection of it.

Only then do you realise you’ve been holding your breath, and exhale what may very well be a sob of relief, pressing another wad of gauze to the wound. Yoongi gasps brokenly, gulping down more air than his lungs seem to know what to do with.

Seokjin shuffles off somewhere as you’re overcome with a wave of vertigo, slumping against what you realise far too late is your patient. Kept upright by your forehead on Yoongi’s shoulder, you can hear him struggling to breathe evenly. He jostles you slightly as he reaches up to grip your arm, in what may have looked like an ordinary embrace if you weren’t both covered in his blood, collapsed on the kitchen floor.

“Breathe, Yoongi,” you slur. “Deep breaths for me now.”

Eyes closed, you discard a slippery glove and press your palm against his sternum to demonstrate, taking a deep breath through your nose and exhaling slowly through your mouth. You feel his chest spasming as he attempts to follow and realise he may be crying, but you can’t bring yourself to look.

His breathing evens out a little, when he pleads through gritted teeth, “Tell me something.”

In your confusion you turn to face his neck, ear pressed to his shoulder where you can hear both your pulses rush. “Tell-- tell you what?”

“Anything.”

He’s asking you to take his mind off the pain and you trip over your own misplaced sense of guilt for something to say. Your first option, being ‘I’ve missed you’, is discarded hastily in favour of something just as embarrassing, if not worse: “I’ve been dreaming about you.”

“Yeah?” You’re not sure whether he’s laughing at you or if he’s simply that breathless still, nor do you care to know.

“Yeah, I mean, I’ve been having a lot of weird dreams lately, and you just kinda… turn up, sometimes.”

This time he does chuckle, you’re sure of it, but when he tries to sit up, immediately slumping back against the fridge with a painful groan, you slip into a panicked elaboration.

“--I mean, usually you’re just there. You know, skulking in the shadows, the way you do. And it’s like-- It’s like you’re watching over me, I guess.”

“Watching you?”

“Yeah, I mean, no-- Watching over me. Like you’re keeping me safe.”

There’s an aching stretch of silence as you cringe inwardly and wait for him to laugh at you, or shove you away from him, but he doesn’t.

“That’s nice.” Yoongi mumbles finally, letting go of your arm.

“Yeah, it is...” You breathe, watching with relief as his chest rises and falls evenly and with ease. “Last nightmare I had you were there too, you made it stop. You dried my tears and… and everything was okay.”

Embarrassed, yet feeling much better, you sit up and away from Yoongi, only to find that exhaustion has finally gotten the better of him; Yoongi fell unconscious before he could tell you that he dreams about you too.

You find Seokjin in the bathroom and help him through some similar breathing exercises before you both set about getting Yoongi into bed. Once he’s bandaged and blanketed, Seokjin pats you on the shoulder reassuringly, “I think I can take it from here, if you have work in the morning or--”

“--No,” you protest without even taking a moment to consider the logistics of calling in sick to work at such late notice. “I’ll stay.”

“Alrighty,” says Seokjin, smiling for the first time tonight. “Then, if you’ll excuse me, I have some cleaning to do.”

You sweep the hair from your face and lean back to inspect your progress, swaying dangerously all the while. Jin hurries forward to support you with a hand on your back and makes all sorts of chastising noises, muttering how if this whole crime thing isn’t the death of him, you certainly will be.

With spring just around the corner, Kim Seokjin--who is kind of your boss and owner of the bar you technically work at--had promised you a big bonus if you would come in one afternoon to help out with the spring cleaning.

Goodness knows the place needed it. Not that anyone seemed to mind, but the Christmas decorations would have to come down eventually, and you were determined to earn that bonus.

“Why don’t I take care of the high up stuff,” Jin suggests. “So you don’t hurt yourself.”

You flash him your most charming smile as you step down, when he reaches out to steady you by the hips. “Because you were going to make me a hot chocolate for my trouble.”

“All in due time,” he promises with a quick wink, taking your place on the chair.

“Am I supposed to believe that, from a man who has Christmas lights up past Valentine’s?”

“Are you supposed to question your boss this way?”

You consider that briefly. On one hand, you take particular pleasure in watching his ears grow pink with embarrassment, and he could stand to be reminded that lately you’ve been doing all sorts of things one shouldn’t be doing with one’s boss. On the other hand, you could spare him the embarrassment, until the next time he tries to flirt his way into a card game.

But the moment to decide passes when Yoongi stumbles in the door, stomps across the bar without a word, and collapses onto the sofa for a nap.

“He’s still like this?” You change the subject with a frown.

Seokjin disguises his laughter poorly and hisses at you to “shut it.”

“Don’t you guys own like, a brothel, or whatever?”

“We. Do. Not.” He asserts firmly, and you’re glad your boyfriend still has the decency to look scandalised.

“Okay, but wasn’t there like a doctor or something? What happened there?”

“Not so loudly, he’ll murder us both.” Jin warns you desperately, still struggling to contain his laughter.

“I’m just saying,” you exaggerate your tone and roll your eyes, because Seokjin knows this suspected crush of Yoongi’s has recently become your favourite topic of conversation. “The man desperately needs to get laid.”

But the conversation ends there. Seokjin sputters and nearly loses his balance, flailing and yelling, until Yoongi very politely implores the two of you to kindly “shut the fuck up.”

Twenty minutes later, once all the tinsel is down and you have finished scrubbing the worst of the surfaces, you convene behind the bar, in Jin’s kitchen.

It’s the same kitchen that’s too small to accommodate his dreams of running a restaurant. The kitchen that, to his mind, left him no other choice than to invite criminals into his business, and in the very same kitchen where he first met you, that he now makes you hot chocolate and picks tinsel from your clothes while you dangle your legs from your seat on one of the worktops.

“Boss,” you say, when he finally presses the warm cup into your hands. He’s grown quiet and seems preoccupied with something, so you catch him by the hand before he can retreat and he obliges, easily fitting his hips between your knees.

“Please, I don’t feel like the boss of anything.” He brushes the glitter from your cheek with a gentle thumb, a wistful smile tugging at his rosy mouth. “Happy Valentine’s.”

“I love you.” You smile, curling your fingers in the closure of his crisp button-up to keep him there while you sip your cocoa.

“I love you, too.” He grins, placing a warm hand over your own, holding it even closer to where his heart is, and it’s hard to keep from grinning in return when you feel it flutter excitedly in time with your own breathing, so you shuffle closer to meet him for a sweet kiss. Your noses brush lovingly and it dissolves into giggles when neither of you can seem to agree on a pace.

Eventually, your teeth catch on his bottom lip and he smooths his large palms against the outside of your legs, the warmth seeping through your clothes.

“Shall we go upstairs?” Jin tips his head in the direction of the staircase that leads to the small flat above the bar.

“A gentleman would let me finish my cocoa,” you resist feebly, taking too large a gulp of said beverage and swallowing loudly as your boyfriend leans closer to watch the motion unfold with heavy-lidded gaze.

“Are you saying I’m a gentleman?” He quirks a brow, belatedly flicking his eyes up to catch your own, seeming genuinely amused with the concept.

“Not at all,” you glance down at yourself. “But you’re gonna have glitter in your bed for weeks.”

“That’s okay,” he closes in on you, and you think he’s going to kiss you again so you straighten up, but he sweeps right past your mouth, warm cheek brushing softly against your own, lips just below your ear. “I’ll just have you on the table.”

You shiver helplessly as his promise washes over you along with the enticing timbre of his voice, and secure a leg around the back of his knee just so he doesn’t steal away again too soon. His murmur seems to ripple across your skin, and you squirm closer, seated on the very edge now, teeth in your bottom lip to keep from panting.

“Or the windowsill.” Jin presses a lingering kiss to your throat and continues to mouth at your skin, counting off all the different possibilities, and your mind reels as it tries to keep up with the imagery, wondering what exact angles he has in mind, and what they’d feel like, until the barest trace of teeth skimming your jaw has you arching, and fumbling to abandon the mug somewhere behind you. “Or in the shower.”

“Okay,” you push him away until there’s just enough room for you to hop down and for him to promptly press you against the kitchen cabinet.

“Okay, what?” He chuckles. There’s no mistaking the bulge in his slacks and you make sure to press against it when you push to your tiptoes and kiss the smirk clean off his face.

“Shower. Let’s go.”

Impossible to say how exactly, but by the time the two of you reach the top of the stairs you’ve already done away with most of your clothing. Jin embraces you once more when you’ve reached the bedroom as you fumble to get rid of the rest, kissing him fervently as you wrestle blindly with his belt, until he drops his trousers with a soft clink, and you step out of your underwear, pushing the shirt off his shoulders.

“You’re so lovely,” he mutters, seemingly more to himself than for your benefit, smoothing his palms along the soft skin of your hips and pausing to marvel, as if to thank whichever higher power had blessed his life with your presence.

The way his face lights up when he looks at you like this never fails to leave you breathless.

“And getting cold,” you interject, retreating in the direction of the bathroom to hide how touched you are by his raw sincerity, instead beckoning him to follow with the deliberate sway of your hips.

When you’ve adjusted the water to your liking he joins you just in time to be pulled under the spray, the firm curve of his arousal slipping wetly against the skin of your stomach as you brush his hair back and out of his eyes.

“How are you so handsome,” you laugh, a complaining lilt to your tone, tracing loving patterns over his exposed forehead, his brows, across his cheeks to finally run your thumb across his plump bottom lip.

He just shrugs, grins, takes your hands and starts kissing his way up the inside of your arm, while you hope that something in your eyes conveys the warmth in your chest, because you’ve never quite been able to find the words the way he does.

For good measure you do the next best thing, and sink to your knees in front of him, dancing fingertips along the length of his torso.

The way Jin sighs, rests his shoulders against the shower wall and angles his hips towards your mouth, makes the tiles biting at your knees so much more than just worth it. And yet you can’t resist the temptation to toy with him just a little bit longer, grasping at power, pressing open mouthed kisses down the length of his erection.

Finally you run your mouth along him, firmly, parallel with your hand, he’s already wet from the shower but with only a few sweeps he’s dripping, chanting the sweetest praise of your lovely mouth and soft hands when you grip him firmly by the base, run the swollen tip of him along your lips, licking him teasingly. He shudders and pants your name until you ease your mouth around him, push the head of him all the way past your lips, sucking, licking, then pulling back again.

You resume rubbing him against your open mouth and tongue until he’s softly breathing your name once more, both hands in your hair and then ease back down his length. You move your grip slightly, saliva and water lessening the friction as you take more and more of him into your mouth at a time, sliding your tongue along his cock with each motion.

“A-ah, that’s wonderful. You’re-- so wonderful.”

Finally, with his avid encouragement, you remove your hand and take as much as you can, blink the discomfort away and press the tip of your tongue to the very base of him, nose brushing against his damp patch of dark hair. Jin moans brokenly, hips twitching and you press fingers firmly to the back of his thighs.

You pull away finally, gasping wetly, hands sliding back onto his cock as you do. Jerking him in both hands, quick firm strokes, and brush his head against your lips as you regain your breath. You’re about to resume--after savouring the sight of your boyfriend all wet, flushed, and breathless--knowing you can take him deeper a second time, when he makes use of his grip in your hair to stop you.

The sensation tingles across your scalp and ripples down your back to meld with the feel of the running water, the sound of both your ragged breathing reverberates back at you from the bathroom walls, and a newfound sense of urgency surges through you as Jin meets your dazed gaze with a heavy stare.

“Sweetheart, darling, I love you,” he chants. “I love you, you’re so good, but not yet.”

He helps you to your feet and you immediately cling to his broad shoulders and press impossibly close, producing delicious friction.

In contrast, he merely hums for you to ‘be patient’, turns you around and runs his hand over your back and shoulders, sides and thighs, tipping you gradually forward to brace against the shower wall as strong hands admire the swell of your buttocks. Lulling you into a trance-like state of relaxed anticipation, they roam down to the soft plane of your abdomen, over your pelvis until his fingers reach your center, and he seems to lose his breath at how warm and slick and sticky he’s made you already.

“You’re so sweet,” Jin chuckles fondly, kissing stray drops of water from your shoulder, and pressing close so you can feel exactly how hard and aching you’ve made him in return. Then, he teases one finger into you, a touch so shallow that you arch, desperate to feel more of him.

“Good,” he breathes, encouraging the steep slope of your back with a steady palm. Instructing you softly to hang onto the shower railing as if he knows exactly how weak your knees are to his honeyed encouragements. Jin grasps his cock firmly and aligns his swollen tip with your slick entrance, eases into you unhurriedly and sighs through clenched features, “You’re so good, take me so well.”

You feel yourself clench at the intimate compliment, shuddering with each inch you feel filling and stretching you. Seokjin slips an arm around your waist and begins thrusting shallowly, sweet phrases giving way to soft groans and moans as you fumble for purchase on the slippery tiles, sighing your own wordless praise.

Once he’s positive that you’re comfortable with the intrusion, Jin straightens his back and fucks you leisurely with long, powerful strokes, each deeper than the last. His firm, double-jointed grip pulling you onto his cock to meet his thrusts, and enjoying all the ways you respond to his touch.

As he begins to grow impatient with your soft gasps and quiet mewling, he slows his movements, flattens three fingers at the crest of your sex and rubs you slowly. You cry out as each time your hips twitch away from his direct touch, nerves heated and swollen, you grind yourself further down his length until you’re taking as much of him as you possibly could.

In mere moments you’re clutching the tiles for fear you might collapse before you can climax. Jin still keeps a casual pace, sliding into your wet heat with just enough effort that he’s slightly breathless when he leans closer, arm tightening around your waist, his torso firm and warm and familiar against your back, brushes his nose along the ridge of your shoulder and asks, “Is that good?”

“Ahh, mhmm.” You exhale in the affirmative and all but whimper when his fingers sweep across your clit once more, feeling your insides seize him in response.

He groans, “Tell me.”

“Y-yes, so good, yes.” You very nearly choke on your response when he rewards your words with another sharp thrust, but then he stills.

Hips pressed firm against your ass, after grinding into you as far as he will go, Jin eases out again achingly slow. All the while he rubs your knotted nerves mercilessly, quicker, and quicker still, until you’re tensing, trembling, whimpering uselessly, desperate to feel him deeper once more.

“I said tell me,” he asserts, still easing out of you, and the edge in his voice makes every hair stand on end as his rumble rolls through your spine. “What’s so good, sweetheart?”

You’re panting as you fumble for the right words to tell him coherently all that you’re feeling, how badly you need him to fuck you to completion. Finally he feels so close to slipping out of you entirely that you disregard all aspirations of eloquence and warble breathlessly, “You! You’re so good, you f-feel so good, Jin. Please, Seokjin, please.”

Mouth pressed to the skin of your shoulder, satisfied with your answering plea, he groans again and slams back into you with enough force to leave you both breathless, your grip slipping on the tiles. He winds both arms tighter around you, setting a quick pace but still being mindful to make each stroke long and deep and deliberate, stealing your voice in sharp bursts as you rut eagerly against him.

His fingers still slip wetly across your tender clit, and you feel yourself contract with each direct encounter, inching desperately towards your end, his firm length stirring your arousal, the warmth swelling inside you, and sparks of delicious static wherever Seokjin’s skin meets your own.

You’re starting to quiver and his pace becomes a little more erratic, rhythm faltering as he tucks his chin into the crook of your neck. “Are you close?” He asks, chuckling brokenly, “Please, tell me you’re close.”

“Yes,” you sob, voice reverberating off the walls with the sound of the water falling and Jin’s skin on yours, somehow hurled even closer to your edge by the sound of urgency in his voice, now hanging on by the very thinnest of threads. “Yes, sosoclose p-please.”

Seokjin holds you tight and fucks you with renewed fervour, gritting his teeth to stave off his own climax until he’s seen to yours. All at once your orgasm overcomes you, a tidal wave of warmth and euphoria that sends you tumbling over the edge into momentary bliss with a strangled whimper of his name.

Boneless, weightless, you lose your grip on the wall, collapsing forward as Jin spills out of you. You’re still cumming, mewling your release desperately as your boyfriend keeps working you with his fingers, gasping and groaning as his cock once again slips against your skin and he empties himself across the curve of your lower back.

The powerful waves of your orgasm calm to sweet ripples, and your quivering stills to the occasional tremble, your knees growing weak as Jin presses loving kisses behind your ear.

Seokjin gives you plenty of time to recover, washing your back and shoulders in a perfect silence that he only breaks to mutter an occasional compliment about your soft skin, pretty hair, or how adorable he finds you fucked silly as you are in this moment, while you’re still docile enough to let him get away with it.

Several moments later you and Jin emerge from the shower refreshed and sated. He wraps you in a soft towel and leans close to kiss your forehead, nose, and then mouth.

“I love you.”

“I know.” You smile, and chase his lips for a second kiss. "Happy Valentine's."

“Now, get on the bed.”

Too pliant to argue or try to provoke him further, you instead do as he says and climb onto his bed, sinking peacefully into the pillows and his warm scent.

Next thing you know Jin has you by the ankle, pulling you down the bed with a familiar look in his eye, causing your breath to hitch with both excitement and laughter.

“Oh, Jin,” you giggle, wriggling away from him halfheartedly. “Have mercy.”

“I’m not done with you just yet, young lady.” Seokjin smiles sweetly, draping your leg over his shoulder as his other hand smoothes along your other thigh, inching up the towel you have covering you.

“Oh, Jin,” you sigh, once more giving in to his promising caresses.

You glance towards Yoongi, who's slumped in the armchair, mouth a slack pout, features soft with sleep, before returning your attention to your patient and his question. Jimin sits in front of you on the table, and you realise you’ve inadvertently recreated the scene of your very first meeting.

“I do.” It also occurs to you exactly how cavalier you’ve gotten with your makeshift medical practice in such a short amount of time, removing Jimin’s stitches at what is essentially their dining table.

“I bet you never thought you’d be one of us,” he says conversationally, well-meaning, no idea he is feeding your troublesome thoughts.

One of us.

You laugh bitterly at the sheer absurdity of the notion, unable to look Jimin in the eye for fear of your disappointment showing; this was indeed a far cry from anything you had ever envisioned for yourself. Similarly, you refuse yourself another glance towards Yoongi, afraid he’ll extinguish what little hope the simple claim has ignited in you.

This is the same conflict that has preoccupied you all week. The only people actively showing concern for your well-being are the very same people you should be avoiding, a yet there’s no use denying the kindness they’ve shown you, nor the positive impact they’ve made on your life. In and of itself, that is a sentiment you struggle with. Given your history it should be impossible, but you have no doubts you would have unraveled completely if not for Yoongi’s intervention last week. And all because a stain of Jimin’s blood had upset you.

Each time you go over these interactions in your head, acquainting yourself with the idea that this might be your new normal, it resembles friendship more and more. Not necessarily a kind you wanted, and yet a kind you sorely need.

“Oh, sorry,” Jimin, not as clueless as you once thought, deflates as he arrives at his own realisation. Fiddling with the shirt in his lap, a deep furrow works its way between his brows, his lips pursed to combat a pout. “I guess that’s not really a good thing, huh.”

“No, don’t—” you blink up at him, puzzled by your immediate impulse to contradict him, to comfort him. “Don’t say that.”

Jimin tilts his head at you and watches in silence as you sort through the words in your head, listens patiently when they begin to spill from your lips in segmented sentences.

“It’s not so bad.” All those years of school, the only thing that held you together was the promise that your work would give you purpose, that it would be fulfilling, when in fact it was anything but, and it left you feeling cheated and beaten. You sacrificed all the comforts you had known only to be miserable, with nothing to show for it. “I wasn’t… happy, anyway.”

Jimin watches on with an expression that makes your chest feel tight and heavy, and there’s no doubt in your mind that Yoongi is listening from the other end of the table. Unable to face either one of them you turn your attention away, across the room.

“The work I do is…” Unforgiving, devastating, soul-crushing. “Hard. It takes its toll, I guess, and I was… Well, I was lonely.” You take a deep breath, a moment to taste the words that well to your tongue before you let them slip, because can it really be that simple? All your objections, all your conflicting ideas, all your better judgement swept away by a single piece of damning evidence: “And now, I guess I’m not.”

It’s by no means a revelation, but it might as well be the way the truth seems to echo.

You had entered into this agreement willingly, with your eyes wide open, and you had made your choices for many reasons, but one truth remained no matter how much the circumstances changed: you were happier with the Bangtan boys than you had ever hoped to be again.

Swallowing this alarming realisation, you’re torn from your introspection once again to find Jimin’s hand resting on the top of your head. And, if not for the comforting weight of it, you may have burst into tears when you look up to see him smiling like you’ve just told him the best news he’s heard in months. Before you can get a real grip of yourself, laugh to undermine the weight of your admission and brush him off, Jimin has leaned in, embracing you carefully, pulling you close and pressing your flushed cheek against his naked shoulder, so he can rest his own against the side of your head.

Meanwhile, Yoongi hasn’t moved. Jimin unintentionally turned you to face him but he remains expressionless apart from the very slight crease to his brow, just enough of an indentation to make the simple act of blinking look pensive, as he meets your tearful gaze.

Later, as you pack up your things and bid Jimin a somewhat timid farewell, Yoongi pulls up his hood and stands waiting at the door, holding it open as you approach.

“Is this a thing now?” You ask, passing and waiting for him to join you outside. “You escorting me home like this?”

You don’t know whether to be embarrassed or flattered that Yoongi worries about you getting home safely, and that he would take that responsibility upon himself without so much as asking, so you settle for an uneasy mixture of the two. Mostly you just feel bad because it’s too cold outside to make walking you home seem even remotely convenient.

“Maybe I have somewhere to be,” he counters with a noncommittal shrug, voice a gritty drawl that suggests he may have been sleeping earlier after all. “Maybe you’re the one escorting me, in case someone tries to fucking kill me again.” The thought alone makes you cringe inwardly, but Yoongi punctuates the sentence with a chuckle, shaking his head.

You hesitate, “Do you have somewhere to be?”

“No.”

“So is someone gonna try to kill you again?”

An uneasy silence follows, and you quickly catch up with your actions and Yoongi’s corresponding frown, realise you’ve once again broken the cardinal rule upon which you’ve based all of your more civil interactions.

“I’m sorry, I’m not supposed to be asking—”

“— No.” Yoongi interjects abruptly, avoiding your startled gaze as he clarifies, “He left town, maybe even the country.”

“Wait,” you stammer, catching ahold of his sleeve to confront him with this new information, caution and informal agreement discarded as you struggle to comprehend what the world must look like through Min Yoongi’s eyes. ”You know who did this to you?”

“Hey, how long do you think my list of mortal enemies is? You think I don’t know who wants me dead?” He laughs, and the sound only serves your further bafflement.

“I mean, how am I supposed to know?” You sniff as your nose begins to run slightly from the cold, letting go of his sleeve as you near the end of the pavement and he turns to face you while he waits for the lights to change, even if these particular streets are all but abandoned so late on a Sunday.

“Your nose look kinda red,” he muses, with that familiar repressed twist to his mouth. He doesn’t ask whether in fact you’re cold, just takes in your huddled form for a moment before reaching out to tug a little on one end of your scarf, pulling it snug around your neck and chin. “What are we supposed to do if our doctor gets a cold, hm? Not get into fights? Not fall through windows and off of buildings?”

You hardly recognise the strained hiccup of laughter that leaves you in response, “I guess?”

A part of you suspects he’s only diverting your attention from the subject, but a deeply buried suspicion squirms to life with the less cynical suggestion that he may have other motives beyond manipulating you. Because, you reason, had the two of you been anyone else, meeting under entirely different circumstances, you wouldn’t have been completely amiss if you speculated that maybe, just maybe, he liked you. Would you?

Trying to make sense of this, your frantic thoughts scatter and scurry in an attempt to view his actions independent of circumstance and personal history, but you find you’re too tangled in the moment to see anything else clearly. You’ve become so used to witnessing Yoongi’s irregular displays of affection that you can’t picture his fond scowl on anyone else, and you feel your insides warm and twist sickeningly at the possibility that in some alternative reality far, far away from the universe you inhabit, to an uninitiated bystander you and Yoongi may even look like a couple.

“I’m not gonna lie,” he sighs, your scarf slipping through his fingers. “It’s, uh… It’s a pretty long list actually.” He sounds bitter, words needing a little extra force to get past his tense jaw and clenched teeth. “But it’s not what you think, most of them are in prison because of me.”

You hadn’t even noticed the light turn green when he starts crossing the street. Instead it occurs to you once more how little you know about Yoongi, about the rest of the boys, and that this is your first real chance to learn something, to seek the truth about them even if that was something you can never return from.

“Oh?” Your voice shakes as you fail miserably at sounding casual. “How so?”

“I betrayed some bad people,” he too, is trying to sound matter of fact about the issue, but the word ‘betrayed’ hangs heavy in the air between you, the obvious connotation being that he is one of the bad people himself. “For the sake of the boys, and what we have now. I betrayed some bad people so we could take their place, and now they would like to see me die for it.”

You don’t even feel your jaw drop.

At the hospital’s briefings covering gang violence, and even from the estate agent that showed you your current home, you’d heard many things about the past of this area, about the drug problems and the trafficking and the kind of crimes that would occur, about how things were turned right around after the gangs had been dismantled and prosecuted, about how things were now better than ever. You even remember it mentioned on the news back home.

All this time, you had assumed Yoongi was part of whatever little criminal activity remained, just some thug in a lowly street gang. You never thought to imagine him responsible for the fall of an empire, but isn’t that exactly what he’s implying?

“It’s funny,” he laughs, without a shred of mirth. “I ruined myself, you know? I can never amount to anything, in your world or my own. No one will even deal with us if they know I’m involved, it’s like I’m untouchable, and yet… It’s the only good thing I ever did.”

Stunned at his admission, somehow all you can think of is how this doesn’t correspond with how your inquiry started, as if that one missing piece would somehow make sense of it all. “But, then who…?”

“Someone’s brother.” Yoongi explains dismissively. “He had his chance and he ran, and that’s the end of it.”

“Oh,” you breathe. “Okay… Good.” You don’t notice Yoongi's lingering look of surprise, too busy ruminating over everything you’ve just learned.

While trying to fit the newly acquired pieces of information with the rest of your puzzle, you spend the rest of your walk home in silence. Yours is contemplative, while his is of a more wistful nature. You don’t realise this however, until you arrive at your block of flats, and turn to find Yoongi unable to face you directly, a distinct look of remorse on his features, a look reminiscent of one such other time he said too much and ultimately disgraced himself.

“I guess,” he mutters, “you’ll hear from us next time we need you.”

“Yoongi—” You call out to him just as he turns to leave, belatedly recognising your complete failure to provide assurance that you don’t despise him for the same reasons that everyone else does. That you feel not only differently, but quite the opposite. That you believe he made the right choice. That you were wrong about him.

“Yeah?” He looks back, and you immediately lose your nerve.

“Uh, hurry home, okay? Don’t catch a cold, because I’m, uh, not that kind of doctor.”

Yoongi nods swiftly to indicate his understanding, and carries on walking without another word.

You watch his hooded figure withdraw for another few moments, part of you wishing you had followed your initial impulse to invite him in for coffee, while the more rational side of you is relieved that you didn’t.