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things to keep in mind; i write extremely slow-paced emotional slowburnsâwhich means sex happens early and itâs a narrative tool, but feelings wonât emerge before the idk 500k word mark | my stories are not easy to read. | all of my stories are written in limited point of view. | i have zero tolerance for bad faith, whining, hostility, or discourse bait. | i donât condone supporting plagiarism. | update schedule is explained in faq. | this blog is diehard ot7 â solos gtfo | if you make a post about my fics, use the tag format! (eg: #fmu) | i wonât reply to questions already answered on my author notes. read them. | my characters are not moral paragons and speak and act in ways that are realistic for them, which can include harmful language or viewsâthis is not endorsement.
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"Youâre baked, bleeding, tipsy, and doing a terrible job pretending Jasonâs words didnât land exactly where your mother left the bruise. Downstairs, Jungkook is discovering that noticing too much is only useful until it makes you want to commit a felony in a Ghostface robe."
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âŞď¸author's note : Okay, hello everyone! Welp. Long time no see, right?Â
I told you I was taking a little hiatus, and apparently I was not joking. Character development for me, honestly. Usually when I say âlittle hiatus,â I mean âI will disappear for three business days, reappear at 4 a.m. with 12k words, and act like that was normal behavior.â This time? No. June grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me through administrative hell.
I already mentioned this in the last chapter of OFL, but for those of you who only read FMU, (obsessed losers. i love you<3) I am extremely overworked this month and basically MIA. Like, spiritually unavailable. Physically present, barely. So, very gently, very lovingly, very âI am kissing your forehead while holding a spray bottleâ:Â
Please donât ask me for updates.
I know it comes from a place of love. I know you guys are obsessed with this story, these characters, and my writing, and I could not be more grateful that you enjoy these two forks being stupid so much. Truly. I would put you all in my pocket and feed you little crumbs if I could. But I am really, really stressed out this month, and I canât deal with the pressure right now. Iâve cried three times this week over paperwork and stress, and I simply cannot add writing expectations to the pile. So please. Iâll kiss all of you on the lips for loving my writing, but do not ask me when the next chapter is dropping. I genuinely donât know. Letâs stay civil, yeah? Mama will be back. Mama is just currently fighting for her life in the paperwork trenches because she has very busy next two years ahead and is working hard for that dream promotion.
In the meantime, I really suggest checking out the rest of my writing if you havenât already! I have a bunch of different stories that share similar DNA with FMU, just in different fonts.
If youâre looking for the same cozy, domestic, slice-of-life vibe as FMU, WGU is childhood best friends to lovers with Hoseok as an ADHD golden retriever overachiever.
If you want spicy, witty banter, 5STF is a rivals-to-lovers street-racing AU set in Tokyo, with Latino Jimin being obsessed with Y/N in a way that is deeply unwell and deeply correct.
If you want contemporary AU plus spicy banter, OFL is enemies to lovers with arrogant soccer player Taehyung, a man who has never been told no in his life, becoming fixated on the one girl who insists on treating him like furniture.
If you want my writing but in a shiny new sci-fi flavor, thereâs 25H, a cyberpunk/superpowers AU where Yoongi controls time and youâve lost your memory seventeen times. Casual. Normal couple stuff.
Thereâs also C:E, set in a dystopian alien semi-military heat-cycle world, with Commander Kim Namjoon being a 100% match to his nemesis. Because why be normal when we can add alien biology and emotional repression to the grocery list?
If you want stalker pathetic subby Taehyung x ballerina flirty dommy Y/N, we have ASW, which is for the mentally ill girlies who looked at âobsessionâ and said, âbut make it poetic.â
And if you havenât read my finished stories yet, KGP and OL are right there waiting for you. Go take a look while Iâm gone. Wander around the Kiki cinematic universe. Touch grass only metaphorically. Enjoy!
Now. As for this chapter.
The first scene comes in strong because Y/N is already in several states that make her extra sensitive. Sheâs on her period. Sheâs baked. Sheâs tipsy. Sheâs overstimulated. Sheâs already emotionally tangled from everything that happened before Jason even opens his mouth. So the word that detonates her is not only the word itself, but everything around it. Please keep that in mind before saying itâs stupid or dramatic, because I promise you itâs not. I have not been building this scene for twenty chapters for you gremlins to gloss over it and go âdamn, all that over one word?â I will appear in your room like sleep paralysis with a tax book and throw it at your head.
Scene two is also extremely important to me because we are seeing Jungkookâs attention to detail. And, as my beloved mod Flo would say, if I hear any of you reducing this to âomg he has romantic feelings,â I will smite you with my powerful writing quill. Or my nails. My nails work too. I donât actually own a writing quill. Point is, yes, Jungkook is protective of Y/N. Yes, there is development. Obviously. I am not writing thirty-three chapters of erotic emotional warfare for the vibes only. But please donât let the romantic subplot cloud your judgment. What happens with Jungkook here is tied to something much rawer and deeper inside him. This hits a core emotional wound. It connects to him, to his mom, to Mia, and to the specific horror of watching someone become smaller inside a relationship. The feeling of being trapped. The feeling of being managed. The feeling of not being able to breathe because someone else has convinced you the cage is care. Ruminate on that, my loves.Â
Also, whatâs a Kiki fic if I donât add social themes and then make everyone suffer through them with pretty prose and emotional damage? Taeâs monologue is not just there for dramatic effect. Itâs not only âbest friend stops best friend from doing something stupid,â though yes, that too. Itâs also there to uncloud Jungkookâs judgment because Jungkook is walking toward a situation where the reality is not in his favor. Asian man in the U.S. against a polite white cis man with academic credibility, glasses, and a vest? Yeah. The odds are not neutral. They are not clean. They are not âwho is morally right wins.â Tae knows that. Jungkook knows that. Yoongi knows that. And I needed that reality to sink in not only for Jungkook, but for you too.
Because what Jason representd doesnât need to be physically violent to win a narrative.
And finally, the last scene. I needed the female solidarity there. I needed Yeji and Irya after the Jason disaster. I needed Y/N to have women outside that door who understand the specific kind of violation that comes from being calmly, reasonably, gently made to feel insane. And I also needed someone who is not Jungkook to talk to her.Because I refuse to cheapen the depth of my side characters for the sake of pushing the romantic plot forward selfishly. FMU is not just about Jungkook and Y/N orbiting each other until one of them combusts. It is also about the people around them. The people who catch them. The people who understand different pieces of them before they can understand themselves. The person who comforts her is exactly the right person. And youâll understand soon why it had to be them.
Enjoy the chapter, my loves. Be patient with me. Be kind to each other. Donât make me tap the sign. Mama will be back. Just busy. Very busy. Horrifically busy. Dream-promotion busy.
Now go read, suffer, theorize responsibly, and behave yourselves.
Or donât.
But if you donât, at least be funny about it. đЎ
The room is smaller than it was this morning.
Which doesnât make sense, architecturally, because rooms donât shrink. Walls donât migrate inward while youâre downstairs eating drugged brownies and letting boys in bath robes corner you against kitchen counters. Thatâs not how buildings work. Thatâs not how physics works. You took a science elective. You passed it. Barely, but the point stands.
And yet.
The blue suite feels different. The ceilingâs lower or the bedâs bigger or the air is thicker or maybeâmaybe itâs just that Jason closed the door behind him with a click instead of letting it drift shut, and the click had a sound to it. A punctuation.
You didnât like it.
You havenât liked any of it walking behind him up the stairs.
He didnât reach for your hand. Didnât put his palm on the small of your back the way he usually does in hallways.
He just walked. And you followed.
And now youâre standing three feet inside the door and heâs by the window and the bed is between you like a negotiating table, and everything was fine earlier. It was fine when you got dressed in this room. It was fine when Irya did your collarbones and Jason called you incredible and held out his hand and you took it.
It was fine twenty minutes ago.
So why does the wallpaper look like itâs breathing?
âŚOkay. That one might actually be the weed.
This was definitely not your best pharmaceutical decision.
Jason turns from the window. Faces you. Brings both hands together in front of his mouthâfingertips touching, pressed to his lips, the prayer gesture. The one people do when theyâre organizing a thought theyâve already finished thinking and are now just choosing the delivery method.
He holds it there.
Drops his hands.
âOkay. So.â
A breath. Through his nose.
âWhatâs going on with him?â
Something catches in your throat. Not a soundâa shape. The shape of a word you werenât ready for, or the shape of being caught, or the shape of every single moment from the last forty-eight hours compressing into a single syllable that sits behind your tongue and refuses to move.
Fuck.
He noticed.
Fuck fuck fuck.
He saw you at the counter. He saw the way you were standingâhow close, how angled, the chocolate on your fingers, the laugh you didnât authorizeâand now heâs standing in this room with the door clicked shut and his hands in that prayer thing and heâs asking, andâ
The shower. The orange. The hallway.
ÂŤCircles, Nix.Âť
The bracelet. The fucking bracelet thatâs still on your wrist pressing the little rain charm into your pulse point.
He knows. He doesnât know how much but he knows something.
Act normal.
You are a normal person who does normal things and has normal friendships with her normal roommate and none of those things involve coming in adjacent shower stalls or the word cookie being used as a double entendre in a kitchen full of witnesses.
âI donât know what you mean.â
Nailed it. Completely nailed it. Meryl Streep would weep. Oscar-worthy. Standing ovation.
Jason looks at you.
âDonât do that.â
Okay. Fuck.
No. Donât be discouraged bitch. Make Meryl proud, come on.
âDo what?â
âThe thing where you act like you donât understand the question.â His voice is level. Measured. Patient in a way that somehow makes it worse. âYou know exactly what I mean. Heâs constantly in your space.â
Okay, Meryl, girl. There was an attempt.
Your fingers find the bracelet.
Automatic. Unconscious. The way your hand goes to a bruise to check if it still hurtsâyou donât decide to do it, you just do, and by the time you realize youâre doing it youâre already pressing the charm into your wrist and looking to the side, away from his face, at the lamp on the nightstand that is doing absolutely nothing wrong and doesnât deserve to be stared at this hard.
âWeâre friends.â You say it to the lamp. âThatâs it.â
âFriends.â
âYeah. Friends. People who talk to each other at parties. Groundbreaking concept.â
âY/N.â
âWhat?â
âCan you look at me?â
You look at him. Force yourself to do itâdrag your gaze from the lamp to his face like itâs a physical act, like your eyes weigh something they didnât weigh ten minutes ago.
Heâs not angry. Thatâs the thing. Heâs not doing the thing youâre braced forâno raised voice, no visible frustration, no clenched jaw or sharp edges.
He looks calm. Concerned. Reasonable.
For some reason, it feels like his most dangerous version.
âIâm not trying to start a fight,â he says. Opens his hands. Palms up. The universal gesture of âI come in peaceâ that people only do when peace is not, in fact, what they came with. âI justâI think itâs worth having a conversation about boundaries.â
âBoundaries.â
âYeah. About whatâs appropriate. In front of other people.â
Something hot flickers in your chest. Not guilt anymore. Something meaner.
âWhat exactly was inappropriate?â
âI didnât say inappropriate. I saidââ
âYou literally just said whatâs appropriate, Jason, which means something was inappropriate, so what was it?â
He takes a breath. The patient one. The one that says âIâm going to let that tone slide because Iâm the mature one here.â
And god, you hate that breath. You hate it the way you hate being corrected by someone whoâs technically right but fundamentally missing the pointâthat specific, grinding frustration of being managed.
âI just donât think itâs a great look,â he says. âHaving another guyâs hands all over you at a party where weâre here together.â
Hands all over you.
Hands all over you?
The kitchen counter flashesâJungkookâs palms flat on either side of your hips, the heat, the proximity, the vanilla bottle sitting there like a prop in a play about your bad decisionsâand your stomach drops because okay, maybe from across the room that did lookâ
âThatâs not what was happening.â
âFrom where I was sittingââ
âThen maybe you were sitting at a bad angle.â
âY/N.â The patient breath again. âIâm not accusing you of anything. Iâm just sayingâas someone who cares about youâI donât think you realize how it looks. To other people.â
His eyes drop. To your wrist.
âAndâI wasnât going to bring this up, but since weâre talking about it.â He gestures. A small tilt of his chin toward your left hand. âThat thing.â
You donât need to look down to know what he means.
âWhat about it?â
âYouâve been wearing it all week. I couldnât help but notice.â His voice is still calm. Still measured. Still wrapped in enough reasonableness that the words almost sound like concern instead of what they are. âAnd I didnât say anything because I didnât want toâbut itâs a bit childish, no? The colors. The beads.â
Yellow. Orange. Red. Little silver letters spelling âRogueâ across.
âItâs a bracelet, Jason.â
âIt says Rogue.â He says it amused in a way thatâs worse than meanâcondescending, like heâs being generous by only finding it slightly embarrassing. âWhat does that even mean?â
âItâs an inside joke.â
âWith who?â
âWithâpeople. Itâs a friendship bracelet. People have those.â
âAt your age?â
The question hangs. Rhetorical. Already answered by the tone he used to ask it.
His eyes move from the bracelet to your hand. To the back of it. To the fleshy part below your thumb whereâ
âAndâis that a bite?â
Your hand snaps behind your body so fast you nearly throw out your shoulder.
Too fast. Way too fast.
The speed of it is its own confessionânobody hides an innocent injury like theyâre palming evidence at a crime sceneâand you watch Jason clock the reaction the way he clocks everything: slow, but sure.
âItâs nothing.â
âItâs a bite mark.â
âItâs not. I just bumped into something.â
âThatâs teeth.â
âIt wasâthe brownie thing. In the kitchen. It was stupid, someone wasâit was a joke.â
âA joke.â Flat. âSomeone bit you. As a joke.â
And the way he says itâsomeoneâmakes it clear he doesnât need you to fill in the name.
His jaw works once. Controlled.
âSo youâre out there getting drunk and high andâwhat, bitten by people at a party? Randomly? While weâre here together?â
âIt wasnâtââ
âThatâs the kind of behavior you think isââ
âIt was a joke, Jason, we were fighting over a brownie and it was dumb and it lasted two secondsââ
âI justââ
He runs a hand through his hair. Looks at you with an expression thatâs trying so hard to be gentle it comes full circle into something sharp.
âThatâs not the girl I know. The beads and the nicknames and theâgetting bitten in kitchens at midnightâitâs not you.â
Not you.
Not the version of you he knows.
Not the version he built in his head from seminar answers and coffee dates and the careful, polished, composed woman who shows up when heâs watching.
The version that wears matching jewelry and speaks in complete sentences and doesnât have an inside joke with her roommate spelled out on her wrist in colored beads like a kid at summer camp.
âMaybe youâve just never known me.â
You say it quiet. Looking right at him.
His mouth opens. Closes.
And for one secondâhalf a secondâsurprise cracks in the diplomacy.
Then the composure reseals. The crack plasters over. The expression returns to its default setting: concerned, measured, slightly wounded.
âI think you should be more mindful. Thatâs all. About how you carry yourself. I think you shouldââ
A pause. Careful. Choosing.
âârespect yourself a little more.â
Respect yourself.
Your mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
âYou deserve better than being someoneâsâI donât knowâphysical prop. Being grabbed and hung on andâitâs not how someone treats a person they respect. And I think you know that.â
The hot thing in your chest is spreading. Climbing up your throat. Making your heartbeat louder in your own ears, which might be the weed or might be fury or might be some volatile combination of both thatâs going to end in either tears or property damage and you genuinely do not know which.
âNobody was grabbing me. Nobody was hanging on me. I was talking to someone. At a party. Like a person. With a social life.â
âYou wereââ
âWhat? Finish that.â
âCan you let me finish a sentence?â
âCan you stop starting sentences that end with me not respecting myself?â
âI just donât think Jimin sees it like that.â
Everything stops.
The room. Your breathing. The weed-warped wallpaper. The hot angry thing in your chest.
All of it hits pause, mid-stride, like someone yanked the needle off a record.
âWhat?â
âI said I donât think Jimin sees it the way you think he does.â
Jimin.
Jimin?
Heâs talking aboutâ
This entireâevery single word of this conversationâthe boundaries, the appropriateness, the respect yourselfâ
âYou think Jimin has feelings for me?â
It comes out flat. Incredulous. Like someone asked you to confirm the sky is blue.
Jasonâs expression doesnât change.
Same steady, reasonable, measured look.
Same concerned furrow between the brows.
Same âIâm saying this because I care about youâ energy pouring off him in waves of cedar and bergamot.
âI think Jimin knows what itâs like to be a guy,â he says, âand have a girl draped all over him.â
Draped.
He said draped.
Like you were fabric. Like you were a decoration. Like the arms you had around Jiminâs shouldersâwarm, platonic, the kind of casual affection you give to someone who just did your eyeliner and trusted you with the shape of his questionsâwere some kind of tactical maneuver. Some calculated display that poor innocent Jimin couldnât possibly interpret as anything other than sexual, because youâre a girl, and heâs a guy, and apparently that equation only has one answer in Jasonâs math.
Your fingernails press half-moons into your palms.
âDraped,â you repeat. Testing the word. Tasting it.
It tastes like your mother.
ÂŤYouâre too much, youâre too loud, youâre taking up space in a way that makes people uncomfortable, and youâd know that if youâd just stop and think about how you look from the outside for once in your life.Âť
You feel the beginning of a compression in your chest.
One that you recognize from a long time ago, from fights in kitchens with marble countertops, from sitting at dining tables where every fork was placed at the correct angle and every word was placed at the correct volume and every version of you that didnât fit the blueprint got folded up and put away.
Your lungs feel smaller.
Thatâs the weed. That has to be the weed.
âJimin is my friend.â You say it slow, clear. âHe did my eyeliner. I hugged him. I hug my friends, Jason. Thatâs a thing people do.â
âIâm not saying you canât have friendsââ
âSee, this is what Iâm talking about.â He gestures at youâat all of you, the sarcasm, the crossed arms, the whole defensive architecture of your posture. âThis. Right here. I try to have an adult conversation and you immediately go toââ
âTo what?â
âTo this. The deflection. The sarcasm. The making me the bad guy for expressing a concern.â
And the fucked up thingâthe really truly fucked up thingâis that heâs not entirely wrong.
You are deflecting. You are being sarcastic. You are making him the bad guy because the alternative is engaging with the actual content of what heâs saying and you canât do that because the actual content requires you to either (a) explain that Jimin is not interested in you because Jimin is currently navigating something about his own identity that is private and sacred and none of Jasonâs goddamn business, or (b) admit that the real problem isnât Jimin at all, itâs the guy in the Ghostface robe who said circles to you across a kitchen like it was a promiseâ
And you canât do either of those things.
Option A outs Jimin. Option B outs you.
So youâre stuck.
Trapped.
Standing in this room thatâs getting smaller with every sentence, defending a position that isnât the real position, fighting a fight that isnât the real fight, and your chest is doing the thing and your hands are doing the thing and the wallpaper is definitely breathing now and you canâtâ
âHe was sitting down,â you say, and your voice is thinner. You can hear it. âI came up behind him and put my arms around him. The same way Iâd hug Yeji. The same way Iâd hug Irya. Are you going to tell me thatâs inappropriate too?â
âYeji and Irya are women.â
âSo?â
âSo itâs different.â
âWhy?â
âBecause it is. Because whether you want to acknowledge it or not, there is a difference between how men and women interpret physical affection, and Iâm not being old-fashioned by pointing that out, Iâm being realistic.â
âYouâre being controlling.â
Jasonâs face does something youâve never seen it do before.
He looks hurt. Real, actual hurt, the kind that flashes across someoneâs face before they can catch it and tuck it behind something more presentable.
âIâm not controlling you,â he says. âIâm asking you to think about how your actions affect the people around you. Thatâs not control. Thatâs consideration.â
Consideration.
Your motherâs favorite word. Your motherâs number-one, gold-standard, go-to weapon for every single time you did something that embarrassed her or surprised her or reminded her that you were a separate person with separate wantsââhave some consideration. Think about someone other than yourself for once.â
You can feel your heartbeat in your fingers, in your wrists, in the base of your throat where the gold chain sits against your skin.
You want to scream that Jimin is already interested in someone else, that possibly he doesnât even like girls.
But you donât.
Because itâs not yours to say. Itâs Jiminâs. It belongs to him the same way the pink nail belongs to him, the same way the question in the bathroom belongs to himââwhat if none of it fits, what if there isnât a word for itââand you donât get to hand that to Jason Calloway like a hall pass just because youâre cornered and scared and your lungs wonât open all the way.
You donât get to sacrifice someone elseâs secret to win your own argument.
So you stand there. Hands shaking. Jaw shut. Pulse hammering against the rain charm on your wrist.
And you have nothing.
No defense that doesnât betray someone.
No explanation that doesnât expose something.
âI shouldnât have to justify hugging my friend,â you say, and it comes out cracked.
âNobodyâs asking you to justify anything. Iâm asking you to be aware.â
âAware of what?â
âOf how you come across. Of the signals youâre sending. Of the fact that youâre at a party with meâwith meâand you spent the last hour hanging off other men and barely looked in my direction.â
The compression in your chest is getting worse. Heavier. Like someoneâs stacking books on your ribcage one at a timeâeach sentence another volume, another weight, another reason you canât get enough air into your lungs to fight properly.
Your eyes burn.
No. Nope. Absolutely not.
You are not going to cry in front of Jason Calloway in a Medusa costume with two pot brownies dissolving in your bloodstream. Thatâs not happening. That is a thing that will not occur.
âI think,â he saysâand thereâs a softness to it now, a careful softness thatâs worse than the accusations because it sounds like kindness, it sounds like concern, it sounds like someone who loves you explaining for the fifteenth time why youâre doing everything wrong, âthat sometimes you donât realize the way you act around men. And I donât think thatâs your fault. I think itâsâa pattern. And I think if you were a little more self-aware about it, a little moreâŚâ
He pauses. Looking for the word.
ââŚmature, youâd...â
You tune out the rest of the sentence.
Because that word.
Mature.
One single, careful, well-chosen, precisely deployed word that lands in the exact center of the thing your parents built inside youâthe architecture of not-enough, the blueprint of every dinner table correction and every lowered voice and every âwhen are you going to grow up and start acting like the person we raised you to beââ
And inside you something bucklesâa load-bearing wall giving way, a structural failure thatâs been building since the shower, since the orange, since circles, since the prayer hands and whatâs going on with himâand you are not going to cry here.
You are not going to cry here, you are not going to cry here, you are notâ
âI need to use the bathroom.â
âY/Nââ
âI need to use the bathroom, Jason.â
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
His expression is doing the thing againâthe hurt, the confusion, the genuine inability to understand why his reasonable words keep producing unreasonable reactionsâand part of you, the part thatâs still rational, knows he doesnât get it.
Knows he thinks heâs being fair.
Knows he genuinely believes that everything he just said came from a place of care and concern and wanting the best for you.
And maybe thatâs the worst part.
That he means it.
That the cage is lined with good intentions and the bars are made of âI just want whatâs best for youâ and the lock is turned by someone who thinks love and management are the same thing.
You grab the door handle. Pull.
âCan we at leastââ
The door closes behind you.
The hallway is empty. The sconce flickers. The fog machineâs output has crept up the stairs and is hanging in thin wisps along the baseboard and you walk through it on legs that donât feel entirely connected to your bodyâone foot, then the other, mechanical, automatic, the way you used to walk from the dining room to your bedroom after the conversations that left you feeling like this, small and wrong and taking up too much space and not the right shape and never, ever, ever enoughâ
The bathroom door.
You push through it. Lock it behind you.
Slide down the door until youâre sitting on cold tile with your knees pulled up and the Medusa skirt bunching around your thighs and the snake cuff digging into your bicep and the gold chains in your hair pressing into the back of your skull against the wood.
The first sob comes out silent.
The second one doesnât.
Itâs ugly. Wrenching. The kind that starts in your stomach and rips upward through your chest like something with claws, and you press your hand over your mouth to contain it because there are thirty people downstairs and the last thingâthe absolute last thing you needâis someone hearing you fall apart in a bathroom at a Halloween party because a boy used the word âmatureâ and your nervous system couldnât tell the difference between him and your mother.
Tears streak through Jiminâs perfect eyeliner, wings dissolving, the careful symmetry ruined, and you think stupidly, absurdly, through the wet gasping wreckage of your breathing, that heâs going to be so disappointed when he sees what you did to his work.
That thought makes you cry harder.
Which makes you laugh.
Which makes you cry again.
You pull your knees tighter. Press your forehead to them. Let the gold chain belt dig into your thighs.
On your wrist, the rain charm catches the fluorescent light.
You donât take it off.
He can taste purple.
Not likeâgrape. Not like candy or medicine or anything thatâs supposed to be purple. Just the color. Just purple, sitting on his tongue like a frequency, and the ceiling is doing something interesting with its textures and Jungkook is pretty sure the decorative cobwebs have been moving for the last ten minutes but in a chill way. A friendly way. Like theyâre also at a party and having a good time.
He shouldnât have eaten that third brownie.
He knows this.
He also shouldnât have taken that last shot of whatever Hobi poured out of a bottle with no labelâa liquid the color of antifreeze that tasted like someone dissolved a green apple Jolly Rancher in paint thinner and then blessed it with a prayer and a middle finger.
But rational decisions have never been his forte and theyâre not going to start now.
Not when the ceiling has this much going on, anyway.
âHoseok deserves jail,â Taehyung mutters next to him.
He says it to the ceiling too. Both of them, heads tipped back against the couch cushions, staring up at the crown molding like it contains the answers to questions neither of them are smart enough to ask right now.
Jungkook chuckles. âFederal.â
âMinimum.â
âConsecutive sentences.â
âNo parole.â
They sit with that for a moment. Satisfied with the verdict.
This lounge is on the far side of the houseâquieter, dimmer, tucked away from the main party like a VIP section nobody asked for. Somebody dragged a floor lamp in here at some point and aimed it at the wall, which means the light is amber and indirect and makes everything look like a memory. Thereâs a smaller couch, an armchair with an afghan thrown over it, and a coffee table covered in jack-o-lanterns that Jungkook carved this morning with a steak knife and what heâd considered, at the time, artistic vision.
He looks at the decorations. The cobwebs he stretched across the doorframe. The battery-operated candles on the mantle. The little plastic spiders he positioned along the bookshelf with deliberate spacing becauseâfilm major.
Composition matters. Even in novelty arachnids.
âYou know what,â he says. âI did a pretty good job with all this.â
He gestures broadly at the room. The gesture is meant to encompass the whole house but his arm is heavier than expected so it mostly encompasses the lamp and half of Taehyungâs face.
Taehyung snorts.
âSure. If you donât count the pumpkins.â
Jungkookâs head rolls sideways on the cushion. âWhatâs wrong with my pumpkins?â
Taehyung stops staring at the ceiling. Lifts his head. Rights himself into something approaching a seated position, which is a productionâbecause Taehyung is currently dressed as Gomez Addams and the costume is committed.
Pinstripe suit. Actual pinstripe, not printed. A burgundy pocket square folded into something that probably has a nameâtriangle? pyramid? fabric origami?âthat matches the deep red of Irikaâs dress because of course it does, because Kim Taehyung looked at his girlfriendâs Morticia costume and said âI will restructure my entire wardrobe around your color paletteâ without a single beat of hesitation. The mustache is drawn on with eyeliner. Thin, precise, curling slightly at the ends. His hair is slicked backâevery strand cemented into place with what smells like an entire can of productâand thereâs a fake rose pinned to his lapel that Jungkook watched him steal from a vase in the entryway and present to Irika on one knee in the living room while she pretended to swoon and Hobi filmed the whole thing for Instagram.
Disgusting. Truly disgusting behavior from a man Jungkook respects and loves.
âAre you kidding me,â Taehyung says.
Jungkook rights himself too. Sits up. Squares his shoulders. The Ghostface robe shifts around him like a bathrobe at a very dramatic hotel.
âThe pumpkins are perfect.â
âTheyâre not perfect. They look stupid.â
âThey donâtââ
âDude.â Taehyung pointsâhazily, finger drifting slightly left of centerâat the jack-o-lantern sitting on the coffee table directly in front of them. âLook at it. Actually look at it.â
Jungkook looks at it.
Itâs⌠okay, the mouth is a little wide.
And the eyes are slightly different sizes, which heâd thought was characterful at the time but might, in the current lighting, read more as neurological event.
And the noseâheâd tried for a triangle, landed on something more rhomboidâ
âIt looks like Willy Wonka,â Taehyung says. âOr some shit.â
âWilly Wonkaâs attractive.â
The words leave his mouth before his brain clears them and he hears them land in the room and thinks, âwell, thatâs a sentence I just said with confidence to another man on a couch.â
Taehyungâs entire head rotates toward him. Slowly. Like a surveillance camera.
âWhat.â
âWhat? He is. Didnât you see that TikTok guy? The one who dressed up as Wonka and got likeâmillions of followers?â
âWhat the fuck is on your For You Page, dude.â
âBro, I swear. He went viral. Hold on.â
Jungkook pulls out his phone. Unlocks it. The screen is brighter than the sun and he squints against it like a vampire encountering daylight for the first timeâwhich, given the costume, feels thematic.
âLook. Wait.â
He opens TikTok. His thumb is slower than usual. The letters in the search bar are behaving strangely.
âHow do you spell Wonka.â
âHow do youâJungkook.â
âNo, I know how, I justâis there an H?â
âThereâs not an H in Wonka. There has never been an H in Wonka. Where would the H go.â
âW-O-N-K-A. Five letters. No H. You went to college.â
âTechnically Iâm still going to collegeââ
âYouââ Taehyung groans, snatching the phone, âgimme the phone.â
Somehow, his friend manages to write with the efficiency of someone who doesnât have three brownies and Hobiâs prison cocktail dissolving his neural pathways.
Two seconds later heâs scrolling through results.
Jungkook, on a sober note, would call that blasphemy.
âThis one?â
He holds the phone up. A guy in a purple velvet coat and a top hat, abs out, doing a grinding motion to some remix of âI wanna love youâ.
âThatâs him! See?â Jungkook takes the phone back. Points at the screen. âTell me thatâs not attractive.â
âIâm not telling you that.â
âWhy not?â
âBecause Iâm not going to sit on this couch, in this suit, and confirm or deny the attractiveness of a TikTok Willy Wonka to you at midnight on Halloween. I have limits. I have a pinstripe situation happening.â Taehyung tugs his lapel. âGomez wouldnât do this.â
âGomez would absolutely do this. Gomez would rate every man in a room if Morticia told him to.â
âThatâsââ Taehyung pauses. Snatches his phone again. Narrows his eyes. âThatâs actually accurate and Iâm mad about it.â
âSo the pumpkin looks like an attractive man. Whatâs the issue.â
âThe issue is that a jack-o-lantern is not supposed to look like an attractive man, Jungkook. Itâs supposed to look scary. Thatâs theâthatâs the whole assignment. Scary face. On a gourd.â
âA gourd?â
âA pumpkin is a gourd.â
âSince when?â
âSinceâbotany? Since agriculture? Since the dawn of gourds?â
âI feel like youâre making that up.â
âGoogle it.â
âYou Google it. You have my phone.â
Taehyung looks down. He does, in fact, still have Jungkookâs phone. He stares at it for a long moment, like he forgot how it got there and is now reconstructing the timeline.
ââŚYour wallpaper is still Griffin,â he says.
âYeah.â
âFrom when he was a kitten.â
âYeah.â
âThatâs cute.â
âI know.â
They look at each other. Two grown men on a couch. One dressed as a fictional serial killer, the other as a fictional husband. Both profoundly, catastrophically, beautifully stoned.
Taehyung hands the phone back.
âYour pumpkins still look stupid.â
âNoted. Rejected. Moving on.â
âThe one in the hallway looks like itâs having an allergic reaction.â
âThat oneâs abstract.â
âItâs abstract in the way that a car accident is abstract.â
Jungkook opens his mouth to argue, but his brain has already lost the threadâgone, dissolved, replaced by the observation that the cobwebs on the ceiling are still moving and heâs kind of into it. Like a mobile. Like a very goth baby mobile.
He tips his head back again. Taehyung follows a beat later.
Ceiling.
Cobwebs.
âHey,â Taehyung says.
âYeah.â
âThe decorations are good.â
âYeah?â
âYeah. Not the pumpkins. Everything else.â
Jungkook grins at the ceiling. âThanks, man.â
âThe pumpkins are, like, honest-to-god dog shit.â
âGot it.â
âBut the rest is solid.â
âAppreciate that.â
They sit with it. Content. The kind of silence that only exists between two people who've known each other long enough that not talking is its own form of conversation.
Somewhere in the house, someone drops a glass. A cheer goes up.
Neither of them moves.
Then Jungkook's thumb finds the silver ring. Starts turning it.
He doesn't notice he's doing it. Never does. It's the kind of habit that lives below the threshold of awarenessâa background process, automatic, the way some people tap their foot or chew their lip. He just spins the ring. Round and round. The pad of his thumb catching the flat edge, pushing, rotating, catching again.
"Jason bothers me."
He says it to the ceiling. Same way he said the thing about the pumpkins. Same way he said Willy Wonka was attractive. Just out there. A sentence released into the room without a permission slip.
Taehyung doesn't move. Doesn't look over.
"You've mentioned."
"No, I meanâ" The ring spins. "He bothers me."
"Yeah. You've mentioned that too." Taehyung shifts on the couch. Gets slightly more upright. The jacket creaks. "Multiple times. Extensively. At length. I believe the phrase 'trust fund guidance counselor' was used. And 'discount therapist with a cologne budget.' And my personal favoriteâ"
"I'm not joking around right now."
Something about the way he says itâthe flatness, the absence of the usual punchline, the punchline that should be there because Jungkook always has a punchline, that's the deal, that's the contract between him and every serious moment he's ever been inâmakes Taehyung's head turn.
Jungkook is still looking at the ceiling. But he's not seeing the cobwebs anymore.
"Something's off about him."
"Off how?"
"I don'tâ" His tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. Searching for the word. The right word. "I don't know. Off. Just off, bro. The way heâ"
He stops. Starts again.
"She used eucalyptus soap."
Taehyung blinks.
"...What?"
"Earlier. The showers. Y/N. She used the eucalyptus soap that was in the stall instead of her own stuff."
Taehyung stares at him. The Gomez mustacheâwhat's left of itâcrinkles with the specific bewilderment of a man who was just having a perfectly good conversation about gourds and is now being asked to care about shower products.
"I'm gonna need, like... significantly more context than that."
"She's vanilla, Tae." Jungkook says it like it's obvious. Like it's a fact of the natural world, on par with gravity or the boiling point of water. "Sheâs vanilla everything. Everything. Soap. Lotion. The stuff in her hair. She's got like six different vanilla products in the shower caddy and she didn't bring any of it. She used the generic eucalyptus shit in the stall and she doesnâtâshe still smells like vanilla underneath because it's basically her, like her actualâ"
âJungkook.â
"âbut it's off. There's thisâthis layer on top of it that isn't her and I'd bet you anythingâanythingâthat he said something. About the vanilla. That he made some comment about it being basic or juvenile or whatever the fuck and she justâadjusted. Without evenâshe probably doesn't even know she did it."
The silence that follows has a specific quality.
âŚThe quality of someone deciding whether to call an ambulance or a therapist.
"Jesus, man. The weed really did a number on you. Youâre having an episode over body wash, are you hearing yourselfâ"
"It's notâ" He swats at Tae. "Itâs not about the body wash. It'sâ" He drags a hand down his face. "Okay, the body wash thing sounds insane. I know it sounds insane. That's the problem. Every individual thing sounds insane if I say it out loud. It's only when you put all of it together that itâ"
He makes a vague, frustrated gesture at the air. Like he's trying to grab the shape of what he means and it keeps slipping.
"She doesn't do her tea thing anymore."
"Her tea thing."
"She used to leave the tea bags in the sink. Every morning. Justâsitting there. On the sink. Drove me insane. I texted her about it. Twice. She left me on read and then told me where I could shove the tea bags. It was a whole thing."
He's talking to the ceiling again. His thumb hasn't stopped.
"And then she starts seeing this guy and the tea bags are gone. Justâpoof. Not in the sink. Not anywhere. And the thing isâI should be happy about that, right? I wanted them gone. But they didn't stop because she decided to stop. They stopped because heâ"
No, but that doesnât sound right. Because he doesnât know for sure, does he?
Did you stop the tea bag situation after Jason?
Was it before him? Was Jason the reason?
He wishes he could trust his memory. Or his own brain.
"Iâm really trying to follow the thread here, Jungkook."
"Itâsâitâs justâthe way she is after she's been with him for a while. Like sheâs been adjusted or something."
Taehyung is quiet for a second. Processing.
Runs a hand across the back of his neck, seemingly choosing words carefully, which is very unlike him.
"Look, man⌠She's a grown woman. People date shitty guys all the time. That's, like... a universal experience. It's not reallyâ"
"I know."
"âyour problem. She's your roommate. You guys argue about milk. It's notâ"
"I know, Tae."
"So then why are youâ" Taehyung's hand comes off his neck. Gestures at all of Jungkook. The ring spinning, the jaw set, the whole rigidness of a man who's clearly been carrying this around for longer than tonight. "Why are you like this about it? Since when do you evenâI thought you guys just coexist. She leaves her shit around, you leave your shit around, Yoongi mediates. That's the dynamic."
The ring stops.
Spins again.
"We're friends."
Taehyung's eyebrows go up. Genuinely up.
"You're friends?"
"I think so. Yeah. I've been trying to convince her of that for like a month and she basically just gave in earlier tonightâanyway, that's not the point, dudeâ"
"No, IâI'm justâsince when? Last I heard she was 'the menace in room three' who used all the hot waterâ"
"She's not a menace, she'sâokay, she is a menace. With the hot water specifically. But that's a separate issue and it has nothing to do withâ"
He's losing the thread. Can feel it unraveling. The way it always does when he tries to explain something that lives in the space between what he sees and what he can proveâthe words come out wrong or come out in the wrong order or come out sounding like a conspiracy theory narrated by a guy who's had three pot brownies and a shot of Hobi's antifreeze, and he knows that, he can hear himself, but the alternative is shutting up and the alternative is worse because shutting up means the thing stays in his chest and eats.
"Okay. Forget the soap. Forget the tea bags. Forget all theâthe individual things, because individually they're all nothing. Right? Each one is nothing."
He sits up. Slightly. Enough that his feet plant on the floor and he's not talking to the ceiling anymore. He's talking to his hands.
"But it's likeâwhen you watch a movie. And you can't point to the one thing that's wrong with it. The lighting's fine, the acting's fine, the script is fine. But you walk out and you feel bad and you don't know why, and then two weeks later at three in the morning you sit up and go 'the pacing'âit was the pacing the whole time, the pacing was off and it made everything else feel wrong even though everything else was technically fine."
Catches his breath.
"Jason is the pacing."
Taehyung opens his mouth. Closes it. Tilts his head.
"That's..." he says slowly, "genuinely one of the most unhinged analogies I've ever heard you make. And I was there for the 'risotto is emotional labor' speech."
"It made sense in contextâ"
"It didn't, but go on."
Jungkook's face is on his hands now, resting his weight on his elbows. The way he does when the frustration of not being able to translate the thing in his body to the thing in the air hits critical mass.
"I'm not saying this right."
"You're really not."
"I justâI see her, Tae. I see her before she goes to his place and I see her when she comes back and she's different. And I can'tâI can't point to the exact frame where it changes. But she's smaller when she comes back. Not likeânot physically. Just... the volume on her goes down. And it comes back up when she's home for a while and then she goes back to him and it goes down again and Iâ"
He stops. Presses his palms flat on his thighs. Pushes down. Grounding.
"Something about him makes my skin crawl and I don't know if that's real or if I'mâ"
ÂŤâŚmaking it up, Jungkook. Youâre seeing things that are not there, baby. Youâre projecting.Âť
"âor if I'm just... seeing shit that isn't there because of my own stuff. I'm aware that's possible. I'm aware I could be the problem here. But every time I try to talk myself out of it something else happensâsomething small, something that doesn't matter by itselfâand the feeling comes back and it'sâit'sâ"
He makes a sound. Not a word. The verbal equivalent of throwing a pen across the room because the sentence won't cooperate.
"I'm really not saying this right."
"Hey." Taehyung's voice has changed. Not all the way. Still casual, still on the couch, still Kim Taehyung at a Halloween party. But the tone is softer. "You don't have to get it perfect, man. Just say the part that matters."
The part that matters.
The ring spins.
"Heâ" he gulps down, the pronoun stumbling over itself, "he reminds me ofâ"
And the sentence stops. Not because he chose to stop it. Because the word that comes next has a weight to itâactual, physical, gravitationalâand the weight wins. Holds it in his chest. Behind the sternum.
In the exact place where things live that he brings to Dr. Liao's office and puts on the table between them and says âI don't know what this is but it won't leave.â
He doesn't finish. Just turns his head. Looks at Taehyung.
The look does what the word won't.
Taehyung, who knows what lives on the other side of sentences Jungkook doesn't finish, nods softly.
"Mia?"
Jungkook takes a couple seconds. But then he nods.
Taehyung sits up. All the way up. Elbows on his knees. The stolen rose on his lapel bends sideways.
"What do you mean he reminds you ofâlike, specifically. What is he doing?"
"It'sâit's just a hunch, man. I don't know him. I've barely talked to him, so for all I know I could be paranoid. I'm aware of that." He sighs. "But something about his presence makes my skin fucking crawl andâwhen I see herâwhen I see her after she's been with him for a while, every time she's..."
Loses it. The sentence. The thread. The bridge between the thing he can feel and the thing he can say.
Starts over.
"I feel like he makes her think she's the problem. Like the way she isâher personality, the way she takes up space, the way she's loud and leaves tea bags everywhere and wears vanilla everythingâlike all of that is this flaw he's generously helping her with. And she justâshe takes it. She adjusts. And she doesn't even know she's adjusting, that's theâ"
His hands are moving now. Not gesturing. Just moving. Restless energy that needs an exit.
"âand I can't say anything because we're barelyâI've been her friend for like five hours, I don't get to walk up and be like 'hey, I think your boyfriend is psychologically dismantling you one tea bag at a time.' That's insane. That'sâ"
"Hey." Taehyung's hand on his knee. Firm. "Slow down. Start from the beginning. What specifically has heâ"
The door to the lounge swings open hard enough to bounce off the wall.
Jimin comes through it like the hallway spat him outâfast, slightly off-balance, costume rumpled. The quill pen is gone from behind his ear. His eyes are wide and scanning the room with the specific urgency of someone who needs something and needed it thirty seconds ago.
"Sorryâsorry, is there water in here?"
Jungkook lifts one hand from the armrest. Swallows. Rubs the back of his neck. Points vaguely at the side table where someone abandoned a cluster of bottles and cups sometime around the second hour of the party.
"Over there."
Doesn't take long to notice Jimin's chest is moving too fast.
"Yo." Sits up.
The weed is still thereâstill fuzzing the edges, still making the room feel like it's wrapped in feltâbut something underneath it is starting to sharpen. An instinct. The one that monitors rooms, reads exits, clocks the difference between someone who's out of breath from running and someone who's out of breath from something worse.
"What's up, Jim?"
Jimin picks up the cup. Puts it down. Picks it up again.
Licks his lips.
"It'sâ"
He says your name.
Everything in Jungkook's nervous system goes from THC-saturated haze to full alert in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
"She'sâ" Jimin swallows. Runs his hand through his hair and the careful side-part collapses, which he doesn't notice, which means whatever this is ranks above vanity. "She's in the bathroom. Crying. And Yeji and Irya are outside the door but she won'tâthey can't get her to come out. I thinkâI think her and Jason had a fight or something."
Jungkook is standing before the sentence ends.
He doesnât remember deciding to stand. His legs just did itâunfolded beneath him, pushed him vertical, and now heâs crossing the room toward Jimin and Taehyung is sitting up behind him making a sound that means âwhatâs happeningâ but Jungkookâs already there, already in front of Jimin, already close enough to see the specific kind of worry on his faceânot the general kind.
âWhat did he say?â
âWhat?â
âWhat the fuck did Jason say to her.â
Jimin blinks. Opens his mouth. Shuts it. Opens it again.
âI donâtâI donât know exactly, she was crying and talking really fast and not making a lot of sense through the door and the music, but she saidââ He stops. Regroups. His fingers are gripping the cup and the plastic crackles under the pressure. âShe said something about feeling trapped. That he was being controlling, or she felt controlled, orâI couldnât hear everything, sheâs high and emotional and Yeji was yelling at someone to turn the music down soââ
Trapped.
The word hits different than the others.
The othersâfight, crying, bathroomâthose are bad, those register, those go into the filing cabinet under urgent and get processed accordingly.
But trapped doesnât file.
Trapped doesnât go into a cabinet.
Trapped goes into his chest.
Right next to the place where a different face livesâa word from a different room, a different year, a different woman, except itâs not different, itâs the same fucking word, the same four walls closing in, the same air running out, the sameâ
ââand so I wanted to grab some water because I thought maybe if she just has some water andâJungkook?â
Heâs already at the door.
âJungkook, waitââ
He doesnât wait. His tongue presses into the inside of his cheekâhard, pressure thatâs keeping something behind his teeth that wants out, something with a shape and a heat to it that he recognizes from a long, long time ago.
Not anger. Anger is manageable. Anger is a thing heâs learned to sit with, to breathe through, to hand to Dr. Liao in pieces and say âI felt this, I didnât act on it, are you proud of me.â
This isnât anger.
This is the thing underneath anger.
The thing that has no name in his vocabulary because heâs never let it stay long enough to need one.
The thing that only shows up when someone he cares about feels trapped.
His jaw clenches. The silver ring bites into his finger where his fist has curled without permission.
He rounds the corner into the hallway and the party noise swells and none of it reaches him.
Footsteps behind him. Fast. The pinstripe suit wasnât built for pursuit but Taehyungâs making it workâlong strides, dress shoes clipping the hardwood, and his voice has lost every trace of boneless ice and Willy Wonka and ceiling cobwebs.
âJungkook.â
Doesnât stop.
âJungkookâwait.â
Doesnât stop.
âWait, man. Think this throughââ
He cuts through the living room like itâs not there.
Beer pong table, fog machine, centurion, bunny, bodies in costumes he registers as shapes and colors and none of them are the shape heâs looking for.
The music is too loud and someoneâs laughing near the speakersâhigh, a sound that scrapes the inside of his skullâand his hands are at his sides and his jaw is locked so tight the pressure reaches his temples.
Trapped.
The word keeps playing. Looped. Skipping like a scratched record.
ÂŤThis is what men do.Âť
Not now. Not fucking now.
He reaches the french doors to the garden. Open. Night air. Cold enough that it should register but doesnât. Patio stones under his boots. String lights overhead making everything amber and warm and the warmth is wrongâeverything about this scene is wrong because it looks like a party and sounds like a party and somewhere upstairs youâre on a bathroom floor and the door is locked and you said trappedâ
âYouâre not doing this.â
Jungkook doesnât turn. Steps off the patio onto the lawn.
âHey. Hey. Iâm talking to you.â
Doesnât turn.
The grass is wet. His boots sink.
None of it registers as information worth processing because the only information that matters right now is the distanceâa hundred feet, closingâand the shape of Jasonâs silhouette against the string lights and the sound the word trapped makes when it loops inside a skull thatâs stopped filtering anything else.
âJungkookâyouâre gonna catch a charge. You understand that? A criminal charge. At a Halloween party. In a costume. Thatâs what youâre walking toward right now. An assault charge in a Ghostface robe. Thatâs the legacy. Thatâs the headline.â
Eighty feet. The fountain is to his left now.
âAnd you know whoâs not catching a charge tonight? Him. You know why? Because he didnât do anything illegal. He was an asshole to someone. Thatâs it. Thatâs all it was. And you canât break someoneâs face for that, Jungkook, notânot in the way that counts, not in the way that a cop is gonna care about when they show up and seeââ
A breath. Not a pauseâa reload. Taehyungâs stride lengthens. Heâs beside him now, not behind, shoes squelching on wet grass.
ââwhen they show up and see you. Standing over him. With blood on your hands. And theyâre gonna look at you and theyâre gonna look at him and who do you thinkââ His voice trips. Catches. Goes harder. âWho do you think gets the benefit of the doubt in that scenario? Huh? You? Asian? With the tattoos and theâand him with the PhD program and the glasses and the fucking vest? You think thatâs a coin flip? You think that goes fifty-fifty?â
âHis parents probably have a lawyer saved in their contacts. You know that, right? People like himâthey donât fight back, they call their dadâs buddy at whatever firm and suddenly itâs not a Halloween party anymore, itâs depositions and court dates and you trying to explain to a judge why youââ Taehyungâs hand cuts through the air. âA judge whoâs gonna see the exact same thing the cops saw. Who gets believed. I shouldnât have to spell this out for you.â
He shouldnât. They both know why.
Theyâve both been in the rooms where it gets spelled out without anyone saying a wordâwhere looking a certain way in a certain zip code means the margin for error shrinks to nothing and the assumption of guilt arrives before the explanation does.
Taehyung knows. Heâs been in those rooms with him.
Same parking lots, same bloody knuckles, same cops who looked at two Asian kids with split lips and didnât ask who started it.
âThis is exactly what heâs not worth. Youâve been saying it for weeks. You said he was a prick, you said he was a snob, you said he gave you bad vibesâgreat, you were right, congratulations, and now what? Now youâre gonna prove it by giving him a reason to press charges? By handing him the one thing he actually needs to make you the problem? Thatâs the play?â
Sixty feet. Jungkook picks up speed.
âBecause thatâs what happens. Thatâs exactly what happens. You know this. I know you know this because we had the same conversation in high school after Joey Cho got expelled for defending himself in a fight he didn't start. Remember that? Remember what his mom said? She said it doesn't matter who started it. It matters who they believe. And they're not gonna believe you. Not over him. Not when he looks like that and you look like this."
A beat.
âYou hit him and heâs the victim, Jungkook. Heâs the guy who got attacked at a party by his girlfriendâs unhinged roommate and he gets to tell that story for the rest of his life and sheââ He stumbles on the word. ââshe becomes the girl it was about. The girl whose psycho roommate couldnât keep his hands to himself. And thatâs his version. Thatâs the version that wins. You get that, right? You get that his version wins?â
Taehyung is still talking and talking and talking and none of the words are landing because words are noise to him right now.
âAre you listening? Can you even hear me right now? Because Iâm talking and youâre walking and Iâm running out of ways to say the same thing which is that youâre about to fuck your entire life up and he gets to watch. He gets to stand there with his busted lip and watch you get put in the back of a car and thatâsââ Taehyungâs voice goes mean with the effort of keeping it whole. âThatâs not justice, man. Thatâs not protecting her. Thatâs not gonna make you feel any better, Jungkook, you know that. You know why you know that.â
Jungkook clicks his tongue and picks up speed.
Taehyung swears under his breath and matches it. âYouâre not hearing me. Youâre notâokay. Okay.â
Taehyung cuts in front of him. Gets there fastâone long diagonal stride and a pivotâand plants himself in the path with his hands on Jungkookâs chest.
âNo.â
Hands. Flat on his sternum. Holding.
âNo. I told you, bro. Youâre not doing this.â
Jungkook tries to step left.
Taehyung shifts left. Blocks it. Doesnât budge.
Tries right.
Same thing. Mirror image. The hands stay on his chest.
âDo not.â Taehyungâs pointing finger finds Jungkookâs chest. âDonât play me right now, Jungkook. Back the fuck up.â
He grabs Taehyungâs wrist and shoves it off his chest. Sidesteps.
Gets two steps.
Taehyung grabs a fistful of the Ghostface robe from behind and hauls him backward.
Jungkookâs balance goesâboots sliding on wet grass, the robe yanking tight across his throatâand the stumble turns into a pivot and he rounds on Taehyung and swats the grip off the fabric, forearm connecting with Taehyungâs wrist hard enough to crack, and Taehyung doesnât let go, just tightens his hold and braces and Jungkook shoves forward into his chest and Taehyung pushes back and for three ugly seconds theyâre tangledâgrunting, grabbing, both of them too angry for technique.
Taehyung gets both hands on the front of the robe and pushesâhard, this time, the full force of his weight behind itâand Jungkookâs back foot slides out and he catches himself and surges forward and Taehyung meets him and pushes again and they break apart.
Three feet of grass between them. Both breathing through their teeth. The pinstripe jacket wrenched sideways on Taehyungâs shoulders, pocket square crushed, and the Ghostface robe twisted half off Jungkookâs frame like someone tried to unwrap him.
âAlright, you know what.â Taehyung spreads his arms.âCome on then. You wanna fight so bad? Fight me. Right here. Letâs go. Iâm right here, Jungkook.â
His chest is heaving. His hands are open. His chin is up in the specific way that means he isnât bluffing and Jungkook knows damn well heâs not bluffing.
âHit me. Come on. Hit me. Get it out. Because I promise youâI promise you on everythingâyouâre not getting within ten feet of that guy tonight. Not while Iâm standing. So either you put me down first or you stand here and breathe like a fucking adult. Those are your options. Two options. Pick one.â
Jungkookâs tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. Copper taste. His whole body is a live wire looking for ground and the ground is just some feet away laughing and Taehyung is in the way.
He takes a step.
Taehyung takes one to match. Closes the gap. Gets in his space.
âIâve had your back in every stupid fight since we were sixteen, dude.â
Quieter now. Which is worse. Taehyung getting quieter means the real thing is coming.
âEvery single one. I was there. So believe me when I tell youâif you try to get past me right now, I will lay you out on this lawn and I will not feel bad about it. Not even a little. Not tomorrow, not next week, not ever. Because the alternative is watching you throw your entire life at some guy whoâs not worth the skin on your knuckles, and Iâm not doing that. Iâm not watching that. Thatâs my line. Youâve found it. Congratulations.â
Jungkookâs chest hurts. It hurts and he wishes he could rip whatâs beating underneath his chest out.
âYouâre better than this.â Taehyungâs throat works. âYou know youâre better than this. So act like it or I swear to god Iâll drop you myself, Jungkook. You know I will.â
The silence feels like the canteen, like sixteen, like bloody knuckles behind a 7-Eleven after someone mocked Jungkookâs mom and Taehyung took care of it.
âI did not spend two years watching you put yourself back together just to let you blow it up tonight. Not over this. Not over him.â His jaw flexes. âYou wanna get to Jason? Youâre going through me. And I donât go down easy. You know that.â
A beat.
âSo help me god, Jungkook, test me and find out.â
âWhatâs happening.â
From the left, from the direction of the garden wall where the smokers are thinning outâ
Yoongi.
âOne of you talk.â He stops. Positions himself at Taehyungâs shoulder. âNow.â
Jungkook is a locked system. Nothingâs coming out of him that isnât breath and body heat.
Yoongi looks at Taehyung.
Taehyung runs both hands through whatâs left of the slicked-back hair. Wreckage. His chest is still heaving but his voice comes out forced-steady, the way it does when heâs physically holding himself together to deliver information that matters.
âJason. The TA. Him and Y/N had a fightâsheâs locked in a bathroom upstairs. Jimin came in, said sheâs crying, said she told him she felt trapped. That he was being controlling.â
The word lands between the three of them.
Trapped.
Yoongiâs gaze tracks to Jungkook. To the fists. The jaw. The set of his shoulders. The readiness.
He looks at this for a long moment.
Then he looks at the direction Jungkookâs body is pointed. At Jason fifty feet away.
Then back at Jungkook.
He steps forward. Even with Taehyung. Shoulder to shoulder.
His hands go into his pockets.
âOkay.â He sighs. âOkay, Jungkook, tell me what happens next. You get past us. Then what. You feel better for ten seconds and then youâre the guy who assaulted someone at a Halloween party and sheâs the girl it was about. That what you want?â
No.
Thatâs not what he wants.
What he wants is to go back in time fifteen minutes and be in whatever room Jason took you to and stand between you and whatever sentences made you say trapped.
What he wants is to have been there.
He wasnât.
âUse your head for a second here, Jungkook.â Yoongi hasnât moved. Hasnât blinked. âCome on.â
Jungkookâs jaw works. The pressure in his chest is unbearableâa full-body hum of something that needs to go somewhere and has nowhere to go because every exit is blocked by friends who are right, and thatâs the worst part, he knows theyâre right, and knowing doesnât do a single fucking thing about the voltage running through his body looking for groundâ
Over Yoongiâs shoulder, past the fountain, Hobi.
Standing near the garden wall. Drink in hand. Mid-conversation with the Mia Wallace girl.
He catches Yoongiâs gaze across the patio and Yoongi does somethingâsmall, barely visible. A head tilt. A jaw set. The kind of signal that exists between people whoâve done this before and have a protocol.
Jungkook knows this and hates it.
Hates it more because Hobiâs smile drops and he knows heâs read the entire scene in the time it takes to set his drink on the wall and say something short to Mia Wallace and start crossing the patio.
He tries to cut between Yoongi and Taehyung.
To no avail.
Because an arm suddenly loops around his shoulders.
âHey!â
The specific weight of Jung Hoseokâs arm, which has the density of someone whoâs been dancing professionally for a decade and casually manhandles grown men like itâs a love language.
âHave you seen the music room?â
Jungkookâs whole body is rigid under the arm.âHoseokâlet go, I swear to godââ
âThe music room.â Hobi doesnât let go. Steers him. Smoothly, like theyâre two friends walking somewhere together, nothing to see here, just guys being guys at a party. âOther side of the house. Past the library. Tessaâs grandfather was apparently some kind of collector.â
Heâs walking Jungkook away from the garden and Jungkook is aware of the maneuver, so he tries to sidestep with all his might because he will not be persuaded this timeâ
âThereâs an electric guitar in there.â
Jungkookâs stride falters.
âIâm serious.â Hobiâs voice drops a half-register. âVintage, I think. Hanging on the wall. Looked expensive.â
Over his shoulder, Hobi makes a gesture. Quick. Two fingers, a direction.
âCome on.â Hobi squeezes his shoulder. âShow me if itâs any good. I canât tell with guitars. They all look the same to me.â
âThey donât allââ Jungkookâs voice comes out scraped. Ruined. He clears his throat. âThey donât all look the same. Thatâs like saying all dance styles look the same.â
âExactly. Terrible. Tragic. I need you to educate me.â
The arm stays around his shoulders. The garden gets smaller behind them. The french doors pass. The hallway opens. The party noise dims.
His hands are still shaking.
Hobi doesnât mention it.
Youâre still hiccuping and you feel so stupid.
Thatâs the worst part. Not the cryingâthe crying has a reason, the crying has a source, the crying is a physiological response to emotional stimulus and you can rationalize it later into something manageable.
But the stupidity of it. The exact specific humiliating stupidity of sitting on a bathroom floor at a party in a costume you felt good in thirty minutes ago, mascara running, eyeliner destroyed, hiccuping like a child who lost her balloon at a county fair because someone said a fucking word.
A word.
It doesnât get more embarrasing than this.
Except it does, because youâve been here before.
Not this bathroom. But this exact posture. This exact tile-against-spine, knees-to-chest, face-in-hands architecture of feminine collapse, because you are apparently a person who processes her worst moments in bathrooms, and thatâsâ
Thatâs a pattern, isnât it?
Sophomore year of high school. Alicia Gutierrezâs house party. You wore the denim skirt youâd been saving for something that mattered and David Morrison kissed Noor Adil in the living room with his hand on the back of her neck, the exact hand that had been on the back of your neck two hours earlier behind the bleachers, and you walked to the bathroom and sat on the floor and cried.
Different tile. Same posture. Same girl.
Everything big happens in a bathroom. Everything that matters, everything that shifts the axis of your stupid little lifeâit all happens against porcelain and tile and horrible lightning.
The day Jungkook propositioned you in 6B. Leaning in the doorframe like he owned the square footage, smelling like rain and bad decisions, saying words that shouldâve made you slam the door but instead made you stand there with wet hair and a racing pulse trying to formulate a comeback while your brain buffered.
The day he mentioned your cologne before Emmaâs birthday. Justâsaid it. Casually. Like noticing what someone smells like is a thing you mention to your roommate while sheâs brushing her teeth.
ÂŤYou changed it.Âť
Two words that sat in the steam of the bathroom for three seconds too long and rearranged something behind your ribs that youâve been pretending didnât happen.
The first time Jimin did your eyeliner, it was in that bathroom too. And today as well, in the bathroom of the suite you might no longer share with Jason, quill pen behind his ear and his careful fingers on your jaw and the question he asked that wasnât really about labels or aisles or boxes on shelves but about whether itâs possible to exist without a name for what you are.
All your big moments happen in bathrooms.
Thereâs something poetic in that, if you ignore the toilet.
The brownies are definitely hitting now. Everything has a shimmer to it. The grout lines between the tiles look deeper than they should.
Also your fingers feel very far away from your body. Like theyâre suggestions. Theoretical fingers.
Great. Youâre having an emotional breakdown while slowly becoming one with the bathroom tile. This is the human experience at its most dignified.
A knock. Soft.
âHey. Itâs me.â
Irya.
Not YejiâIrya, which means Irya got to the door first or elbowed Yeji aside, and thereâs a difference between those two arrivals that matters.
Yeji arrives like a SWAT team. Irya arrives like an EMT.
Both are trying to save you. Only one is going to kick the door down to do it.
âI brought your phone,â Irya says. âYou left it on the loveseat.â
You donât answer.
âYou donât have to open the door. Iâm just going to sit out here, okay? Just me.â
A pause.
Then, farther away, Yejiâs voiceâgritted like it comes between her teeth.
âAnd me. Iâm also here. With knives.â
âShe doesnât have knives,â Irya says.
âI have metaphorical knives. I have the energy of knives.â
âYeji.â
âWhat? Iâm being supportive. Iâm supportively enraged.â
You press your forehead into your knees. Hiccup.
A sound against the door. The soft thud of someone sitting down on the other sideâIrya, you think, based on the gentle way it happens. Yeji sits down the way she does everything: with intent and aggression toward the furniture.
âBabe.â Iryaâs voice is close now. âCan you tell me whatâs happening? Justâwhatever you want. Even if it doesnât make sense.â
âIt doesnât make sense.â
âThatâs okay. Thatâs totally okay. Tell me anyway.â
Something about the way she says thatââtell me anywayââlike your not-making-sense is not a problem to be solved but a thing to be held.
âHe said I should respect myself more.â
Silence.
Then, from further back: âHe said what?â
âYejiââ Irya, steady.
âNo. No, repeat that. He said she should respect herself? Those words? In that order? From his mouth?â
âYeji, hold onââ
âIâm going to kill him. Iâm going to walk downstairs and Iâm going to commit a crime that will be studied in law schoolsââ
âYouâre not killing anyone. Sit down.â
âI wasnât gonna stand upââ
âThatâs only because Iâm holding your wrist down.â
A huff. Yeji sits quieter.
âOkay.â Irya again. Closer. You can hear her shifting, getting comfortable against the door, settling in for however long this takes. âHe said respect yourself. What else?â
You swallow. The hiccups are slowing but your throat is raw and everything tastes like salt and chocolate.
âHe saidâthat I should be more mindful. About how I act around other people. That I was beingââ
You search for the word.
It comes back coated in cedar and bergamot.
âInappropriate.â
âInappropriate how?â
âHe said I was draped all overâthat I was hanging on someone and it looked bad. In front of people. That I need to think about how I come across.â
âDraped,â Yeji repeats from behind Irya. She says it the way youâd say âcockroachâ. âHe described physical affection between friends as draping?â
âAnd that I should have more consideration. And be moreââ
The word.
âMore mature.â
Silence. A long one.
You hear Irya exhale.
âCan I say something?â
You nod.
Then realize she canât see you.
âYeah.â
âIâm not going to tell you heâs wrong about everything. Because that wouldnât be helpful, and I think what you need right now is honesty, not just someone being angry on your behalf.â A beat. âThatâs Yejiâs job.â
âDamn right,â Yeji mutters.
âBut I want you to hear this. The way someone says something matters as much as what they say. And a person who frames their discomfort as your character flawâwho says you need to respect yourself instead of saying I felt uncomfortableâthat person is not having a conversation with you. Theyâre managing you.â
The word cracks something open.
Managing.
Thatâsâ
Thatâs exactly what it felt like. Not a discussion. Not two people navigating something messy and complicated.
A performance review. A parent-teacher conference.
âHereâs what you did wrong, hereâs what you need to fix, hereâs the version of you Iâd prefer to be dating.â
âHeâs notââ You stop. Start again. âHeâs not a bad person.â
âNobody said he was, babe.â
âHeâs notâitâs not like he was mean. He didnât yell. He was calm. He was beingâtotally reasonableââ
âTotally reasonable is how they get you.â Yeji. âTotally reasonable is the whole con. Being calm while you say controlling shit doesnât make it not controlling. It just makes the other person feel crazy for having a reaction.â
You know that. You know that.
Youâve read the articles. Youâve had the conversations.
You just didnât think youâd be sitting on the other side of it with mascara on your chin.
âCan I ask you something?â Irya. Gentle. âAnd you donât have to answer.â
âYeah.â
âWhen he said those thingsâthe maturity thing, the respect thingâdid it feel new? Or did it feel⌠familiar?â
You swallow.
Irya waits. Patient in that way she hasânot passive, not absent, just genuinely unhurried, like sheâd sit outside this door all night if thatâs what it took.
âFamiliar,â you whisper.
âOkay.â Soft. Like she expected that. âOkay, thatâs important. Thatâs really important. Because when something hurts more than it should, itâs usually because itâs landing on something that was already bruised.â
The sob comes before you can stop it. Just one. Hard, sharp, ripped from somewhere below your sternum.
âI know,â Irya says. âI know.â
âItâsâit sounded like my mom.â Youâre saying it before youâve decided to say itâthe words just coming, tumbling out through the crack in the door like water through a broken seal. âThe way he said it. The tone. The calm. She used toâshe used to do this thing where sheâd sit me down and explain, very patiently, why everything I was doing was wrong. Very gently. Very reasonably. And Iâd sit there and justâtake it. Because how do you argue with someone whoâs being nice about it? How do you say stop, youâre hurting me when theyâre smiling?â
âYou canât.â Yeji. Not angry now. Quiet. âYou canât because the smile is the point. The smile is what makes you feel insane.â
âI feel insane,â you say, and it comes out small.
âYouâre not insane.â Irya. Steady as gravity. âYouâre having a very sane reaction to a very specific kind of hurt. And the fact that you can name itâthe fact that you can say this felt like my motherâthatâs not insane. Thatâs the opposite.
You press the heels of your hands into your eyes. Gold shimmer and black liner smear across your skin.
âBabe, please.â Yejiâs voice is closer now. Sheâs moved up. Right beside Irya, if you had to guess. âAt least drink some water. You had Hobiâs drinks and those brownies and you need to hydrate or youâre going to feel even worse.â
âI donât want water.â
âYou say that, butââ
âYeji. Iâm fine.â
âYou are audibly not fine.â
âI am choosing to be not fine in private, which is my right as aââ
âIf you say âas a feministâ Iâm picking this lock.â
Shuffling outside the door. Footsteps, the clipped sound of dress shoes on hardwood.
A male voice: âHey, is sheââ
Yeji is on her feet so fast you hear the combat boots squeak.
âNo.â
âI justââ
âNo. Absolutely not. Turn around.â
âYejiââ Thatâs Irya. Mediating.
âThe last thing she needs right now is another fucking man outside this door.â
âIâm notâIâm just trying toââ
âOh great. Another man whoâs just trying to. Fantastic. Groundbreaking. Never heard that one before.â
âCan you stop for one secondââ
âCan you stop? Can you maybe read the room and understand that a girl whoâs crying because a guy made her feel like shit does not need a different guy showing up toââ
âIâve been where she is.â
That stops Yeji.
Not completelyâyou can feel her resistance from inside the bathroom, can practically hear the argument building behind her teethâbut the sentence cuts through the momentum the way a stick cuts through water. Not by force. By changing direction.
âYeji.â Irya. Quiet. A hand on an arm, you imagine. âLet him.â
A paus, long enough to contain a full conversation between two people who love each other so much they can negotiate in microseconds.
âIf she says go away, you go away,â Yeji says finally.
âYeah. Got it.â
The boots retreat. Not farâyou know Yeji, sheâs pulling back ten feet and maintaining line of sight like a Secret Service agent in Doc Martensâbut far enough.
Then a sound.
A sigh, long and gusty and annoyed, like heâs been personally inconvenienced by the existence of feelings and the floor and gravity and the entire concept of sitting down in a suit.
Then the thud of a body dropping against the other side of the door with the grace of a man who committed to this before he fully thought through the logistics.
âHey.â
Taehyung.
His voice is different than it was ten seconds ago with Yeji. Quieter.
âYou donât have to talk. I justâIâm gonna sit here for a minute. If thatâs okay.â
You donât answer. Your throat is raw from the crying and your sinuses are packed with concrete and the hiccups have slowed but not stopped, punctuating the silence at irregular intervals.
âIâm not gonna ask what happened. You donât have to tell me anything.â
A beat.
âI just know what that door feels like from your side.â
Something in your chest clenches.
âI locked myself in Hobiâs bathroom once.â His voice is steady. Calm. But thereâs a grain to itâsomething rough, something lived-in. âFor like⌠three hours? Maybe four. Hobi sat outside the whole time. Didnât leave. Didnât push. Just sat there.â
You hear him shift his weight.
âI wasâgoing through something. Something bad. And I couldnât breathe and I couldnât think and I felt really, really stupid for not being able to justâhandle it. Because itâs breathing, you know? Youâve been doing it your whole life. How hard can it be.â
A hic escapes your mouth before you can stop it. Loud in the quiet.
âThat was a good one,â he says.
And despite everythingâdespite the mascara and the tile and the word mature still rattling around in your skull like a bullet in a tin canâthe corner of your mouth twitches.
âHobi didnât try to fix it,â Taehyung continues. âHe didnât say the right thing or give me advice or tell me to come out. He just⌠sat there. Told me about this dumb thing that happened at rehearsal. Some dancer who accidentally kicked another dancer in the face during a lift. And I was crying and laughing at the same time and it wasâreally messy. But it helped. Just having someone on the other side of the door who wasnât trying to make it better. Who was just⌠there.â
He pauses.
âSo Iâm just here. Thatâs it. Thatâs the whole pitch.â
You press your lips together. Hard. Because if you open your mouth right now what comes out is going to be uglyânot sarcastic-ugly, not defense-mechanism-ugly, just real ugly, the kind of honest that has no style to it, no wit, just a girl on a floor who doesnât know how to stop feeling too much about everything all the time.
âI donât even know why Iâm crying this hard,â you say.
It comes out broken. Scratchy. Barely above a whisper.
âYou donât have to know why.â
âIt doesnât make any sense. He didnât evenâhe didnât yell. He didnât do anything wrong, technically. He wasââ Hic. âHe was being reasonable. Thatâs the fucked up part. He was being totally calm and rational and saying things that sounded right and I justââ
âSometimes itâs the calm that gets you.â
The sentence stops you.
âThe loud stuffâthe yelling, the throwing thingsâthatâs easy to point at. You can say âthat, right there, thatâs the problem.â But when someoneâs calmâŚâ He exhales. Long. Slow. Like heâs letting something out thatâs been sitting in his lungs for a while. âWhen someoneâs calm and reasonable and says things that sound almost right, it makes you feel crazy for being upset. Like the problem is you. Your reaction. Not what they said.â
Silence.
âThatâs worse,â he says quietly. âThatâs so much worse.â
Your chin is trembling. You clamp your jaw around it.
âTaehyung.â
âYeah?â
âHow did youââ Hic. Fuck. âWhen did it stop? The feeling likeâlike you were too much. And also not enough. At the same time. How did that stop?â
The door is quiet for a long moment. Long enough that you wonder if heâs deciding whether to answer or deciding how to answer, and you know the difference because you live in the gap between those two things.
âIâll let you know when it does.â
Your breath comes out in a rush.
First one since you locked yourself in this room.
âBut it getsâI donât know. Quieter? It doesnât go away. You just get better at hearing other stuff over it. People who actually mean it when they say youâre enough. People who donât need you to be less.â
A thump against the door. Soft. His head, you think. Tipping back against the wood.
âAnd you learn who to listen to. Thatâs the hard part. Because the ones who make you feel small usually sound the most reasonable. Theyâve got the best arguments. The best vocabulary.â A pause. âReal ones donât need a vocabulary. They just show up and sit outside your door at midnight dressed as Gomez Addams and hope it helps.â
That breaks you.
Not the word mature. Not Jasonâs calm reasonable hands folded in prayer. Not even the memories of marble countertops and correctly angled forks.
This. This stupid, quiet, honest thing from a guy you barely know whoâs sitting on a hallway floor in a pinstripe suit because he once locked himself in a bathroom too and somebody sat outside for him.
The sob that comes out is different from the ones before. Softer. Rounder. Less like something being ripped from your chest and more like something being released. A pressure valve opening. Steam instead of shrapnel.
âOkay,â you manage. Watery. Wrecked. âThat wasâyou canât just say stuff like that to someone whoâsââ
âToo late. Already said it. No returns.â
âI hate you.â
âThatâs fine. Iâm very hateable. Ask Jungkook. He has a list.â
You laugh. It comes out wet and awful and it hurts your ribs and itâs the best sound youâve made in an hour.
On the other side of the door, you hear him exhale. Relief. The kind someone makes when they werenât sure it was going to work and then it did.
âFor the record,â he says. âYour eyelinerâs probably ruined.â
âI know.â
âJiminâs going to be devastated.â
âI know.â
âLike, genuinely distraught. He might never recover.â
âPlease stop.â
âIâm just preparing you for the grief.â
You wipe your face with the back of your hand. It comes away black and gold and wet.
âCan you justââ Hiccup. âCan you sit there for one more minute.â
âYeah.â Immediate. âYeah, Iâm here.â
So he sits.
And you sit.
And the door stays between you, and thatâs fine.
Thatâs actually the whole point.
Sometimes the best thing a person can do is be close enough to hear and far enough to not see, and let the wood do the work that words canât.
A minute passes. Maybe two.
The hiccups stop. Your breathing evens out. The brownies are still doing their thing, but the room doesnât feel like itâs shrinking anymore.
It feels like a room. With a floor. And a girl on it who cried the right amount for the right reasons and is probably going to feel embarrassed about this in the morning but right now, in this specific minute, feels something closer to emptied out than broken.
Your hand finds your wrist. The rain charm, cool against your pulse.
You flick it.
Then you stand up.
Your knees protestâstiff, cramped, the tile having done nothing for the cramps that are still low and persistent in your abdomenâand you catch yourself on the sink.
Your reflection in the mirror is a horror show. Mascara tracks. Eyeliner smeared into grey-black smudges beneath your eyes. Gold shimmer streaked across your cheeks where the tears dragged it. The dark berry lipstick is mostly gone, bitten off, leaving just a stain at the edges.
Medusa, post-battle. Snakes wilted.
Whatever.
You unlock the door. Pull it open.
Taehyung looks up at you from the floor.
He looks like a 1920s husband who got left at a train station and decided to wait.
His eyes move across your face. The damage. The evidence.
He doesnât comment on any of it. Just gets up. Unfolds himself from the floor, brushing off the back of his trousers with one hand, and stands there. Not too close. Not too far.
âDo you know where Jungkook is?â comes out of your lips.
âYeah,â he says. âI know where he is.â
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"Youâre baked, bleeding, tipsy, and doing a terrible job pretending Jasonâs words didnât land exactly where your mother left the bruise. Downstairs, Jungkook is discovering that noticing too much is only useful until it makes you want to commit a felony in a Ghostface robe."
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âŞď¸author's note : Okay, hello everyone! Welp. Long time no see, right?Â
I told you I was taking a little hiatus, and apparently I was not joking. Character development for me, honestly. Usually when I say âlittle hiatus,â I mean âI will disappear for three business days, reappear at 4 a.m. with 12k words, and act like that was normal behavior.â This time? No. June grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me through administrative hell.
I already mentioned this in the last chapter of OFL, but for those of you who only read FMU, (obsessed losers. i love you<3) I am extremely overworked this month and basically MIA. Like, spiritually unavailable. Physically present, barely. So, very gently, very lovingly, very âI am kissing your forehead while holding a spray bottleâ:Â
Please donât ask me for updates.
I know it comes from a place of love. I know you guys are obsessed with this story, these characters, and my writing, and I could not be more grateful that you enjoy these two forks being stupid so much. Truly. I would put you all in my pocket and feed you little crumbs if I could. But I am really, really stressed out this month, and I canât deal with the pressure right now. Iâve cried three times this week over paperwork and stress, and I simply cannot add writing expectations to the pile. So please. Iâll kiss all of you on the lips for loving my writing, but do not ask me when the next chapter is dropping. I genuinely donât know. Letâs stay civil, yeah? Mama will be back. Mama is just currently fighting for her life in the paperwork trenches because she has very busy next two years ahead and is working hard for that dream promotion.
In the meantime, I really suggest checking out the rest of my writing if you havenât already! I have a bunch of different stories that share similar DNA with FMU, just in different fonts.
If youâre looking for the same cozy, domestic, slice-of-life vibe as FMU, WGU is childhood best friends to lovers with Hoseok as an ADHD golden retriever overachiever.
If you want spicy, witty banter, 5STF is a rivals-to-lovers street-racing AU set in Tokyo, with Latino Jimin being obsessed with Y/N in a way that is deeply unwell and deeply correct.
If you want contemporary AU plus spicy banter, OFL is enemies to lovers with arrogant soccer player Taehyung, a man who has never been told no in his life, becoming fixated on the one girl who insists on treating him like furniture.
If you want my writing but in a shiny new sci-fi flavor, thereâs 25H, a cyberpunk/superpowers AU where Yoongi controls time and youâve lost your memory seventeen times. Casual. Normal couple stuff.
Thereâs also C:E, set in a dystopian alien semi-military heat-cycle world, with Commander Kim Namjoon being a 100% match to his nemesis. Because why be normal when we can add alien biology and emotional repression to the grocery list?
If you want stalker pathetic subby Taehyung x ballerina flirty dommy Y/N, we have ASW, which is for the mentally ill girlies who looked at âobsessionâ and said, âbut make it poetic.â
And if you havenât read my finished stories yet, KGP and OL are right there waiting for you. Go take a look while Iâm gone. Wander around the Kiki cinematic universe. Touch grass only metaphorically. Enjoy!
Now. As for this chapter.
The first scene comes in strong because Y/N is already in several states that make her extra sensitive. Sheâs on her period. Sheâs baked. Sheâs tipsy. Sheâs overstimulated. Sheâs already emotionally tangled from everything that happened before Jason even opens his mouth. So the word that detonates her is not only the word itself, but everything around it. Please keep that in mind before saying itâs stupid or dramatic, because I promise you itâs not. I have not been building this scene for twenty chapters for you gremlins to gloss over it and go âdamn, all that over one word?â I will appear in your room like sleep paralysis with a tax book and throw it at your head.
Scene two is also extremely important to me because we are seeing Jungkookâs attention to detail. And, as my beloved mod Flo would say, if I hear any of you reducing this to âomg he has romantic feelings,â I will smite you with my powerful writing quill. Or my nails. My nails work too. I donât actually own a writing quill. Point is, yes, Jungkook is protective of Y/N. Yes, there is development. Obviously. I am not writing thirty-three chapters of erotic emotional warfare for the vibes only. But please donât let the romantic subplot cloud your judgment. What happens with Jungkook here is tied to something much rawer and deeper inside him. This hits a core emotional wound. It connects to him, to his mom, to Mia, and to the specific horror of watching someone become smaller inside a relationship. The feeling of being trapped. The feeling of being managed. The feeling of not being able to breathe because someone else has convinced you the cage is care. Ruminate on that, my loves.Â
Also, whatâs a Kiki fic if I donât add social themes and then make everyone suffer through them with pretty prose and emotional damage? Taeâs monologue is not just there for dramatic effect. Itâs not only âbest friend stops best friend from doing something stupid,â though yes, that too. Itâs also there to uncloud Jungkookâs judgment because Jungkook is walking toward a situation where the reality is not in his favor. Asian man in the U.S. against a polite white cis man with academic credibility, glasses, and a vest? Yeah. The odds are not neutral. They are not clean. They are not âwho is morally right wins.â Tae knows that. Jungkook knows that. Yoongi knows that. And I needed that reality to sink in not only for Jungkook, but for you too.
Because what Jason representd doesnât need to be physically violent to win a narrative.
And finally, the last scene. I needed the female solidarity there. I needed Yeji and Irya after the Jason disaster. I needed Y/N to have women outside that door who understand the specific kind of violation that comes from being calmly, reasonably, gently made to feel insane. And I also needed someone who is not Jungkook to talk to her.Because I refuse to cheapen the depth of my side characters for the sake of pushing the romantic plot forward selfishly. FMU is not just about Jungkook and Y/N orbiting each other until one of them combusts. It is also about the people around them. The people who catch them. The people who understand different pieces of them before they can understand themselves. The person who comforts her is exactly the right person. And youâll understand soon why it had to be them.
Enjoy the chapter, my loves. Be patient with me. Be kind to each other. Donât make me tap the sign. Mama will be back. Just busy. Very busy. Horrifically busy. Dream-promotion busy.
Now go read, suffer, theorize responsibly, and behave yourselves.
Or donât.
But if you donât, at least be funny about it. đЎ
The room is smaller than it was this morning.
Which doesnât make sense, architecturally, because rooms donât shrink. Walls donât migrate inward while youâre downstairs eating drugged brownies and letting boys in bath robes corner you against kitchen counters. Thatâs not how buildings work. Thatâs not how physics works. You took a science elective. You passed it. Barely, but the point stands.
And yet.
The blue suite feels different. The ceilingâs lower or the bedâs bigger or the air is thicker or maybeâmaybe itâs just that Jason closed the door behind him with a click instead of letting it drift shut, and the click had a sound to it. A punctuation.
You didnât like it.
You havenât liked any of it walking behind him up the stairs.
He didnât reach for your hand. Didnât put his palm on the small of your back the way he usually does in hallways.
He just walked. And you followed.
And now youâre standing three feet inside the door and heâs by the window and the bed is between you like a negotiating table, and everything was fine earlier. It was fine when you got dressed in this room. It was fine when Irya did your collarbones and Jason called you incredible and held out his hand and you took it.
It was fine twenty minutes ago.
So why does the wallpaper look like itâs breathing?
âŚOkay. That one might actually be the weed.
This was definitely not your best pharmaceutical decision.
Jason turns from the window. Faces you. Brings both hands together in front of his mouthâfingertips touching, pressed to his lips, the prayer gesture. The one people do when theyâre organizing a thought theyâve already finished thinking and are now just choosing the delivery method.
He holds it there.
Drops his hands.
âOkay. So.â
A breath. Through his nose.
âWhatâs going on with him?â
Something catches in your throat. Not a soundâa shape. The shape of a word you werenât ready for, or the shape of being caught, or the shape of every single moment from the last forty-eight hours compressing into a single syllable that sits behind your tongue and refuses to move.
Fuck.
He noticed.
Fuck fuck fuck.
He saw you at the counter. He saw the way you were standingâhow close, how angled, the chocolate on your fingers, the laugh you didnât authorizeâand now heâs standing in this room with the door clicked shut and his hands in that prayer thing and heâs asking, andâ
The shower. The orange. The hallway.
ÂŤCircles, Nix.Âť
The bracelet. The fucking bracelet thatâs still on your wrist pressing the little rain charm into your pulse point.
He knows. He doesnât know how much but he knows something.
Act normal.
You are a normal person who does normal things and has normal friendships with her normal roommate and none of those things involve coming in adjacent shower stalls or the word cookie being used as a double entendre in a kitchen full of witnesses.
âI donât know what you mean.â
Nailed it. Completely nailed it. Meryl Streep would weep. Oscar-worthy. Standing ovation.
Jason looks at you.
âDonât do that.â
Okay. Fuck.
No. Donât be discouraged bitch. Make Meryl proud, come on.
âDo what?â
âThe thing where you act like you donât understand the question.â His voice is level. Measured. Patient in a way that somehow makes it worse. âYou know exactly what I mean. Heâs constantly in your space.â
Okay, Meryl, girl. There was an attempt.
Your fingers find the bracelet.
Automatic. Unconscious. The way your hand goes to a bruise to check if it still hurtsâyou donât decide to do it, you just do, and by the time you realize youâre doing it youâre already pressing the charm into your wrist and looking to the side, away from his face, at the lamp on the nightstand that is doing absolutely nothing wrong and doesnât deserve to be stared at this hard.
âWeâre friends.â You say it to the lamp. âThatâs it.â
âFriends.â
âYeah. Friends. People who talk to each other at parties. Groundbreaking concept.â
âY/N.â
âWhat?â
âCan you look at me?â
You look at him. Force yourself to do itâdrag your gaze from the lamp to his face like itâs a physical act, like your eyes weigh something they didnât weigh ten minutes ago.
Heâs not angry. Thatâs the thing. Heâs not doing the thing youâre braced forâno raised voice, no visible frustration, no clenched jaw or sharp edges.
He looks calm. Concerned. Reasonable.
For some reason, it feels like his most dangerous version.
âIâm not trying to start a fight,â he says. Opens his hands. Palms up. The universal gesture of âI come in peaceâ that people only do when peace is not, in fact, what they came with. âI justâI think itâs worth having a conversation about boundaries.â
âBoundaries.â
âYeah. About whatâs appropriate. In front of other people.â
Something hot flickers in your chest. Not guilt anymore. Something meaner.
âWhat exactly was inappropriate?â
âI didnât say inappropriate. I saidââ
âYou literally just said whatâs appropriate, Jason, which means something was inappropriate, so what was it?â
He takes a breath. The patient one. The one that says âIâm going to let that tone slide because Iâm the mature one here.â
And god, you hate that breath. You hate it the way you hate being corrected by someone whoâs technically right but fundamentally missing the pointâthat specific, grinding frustration of being managed.
âI just donât think itâs a great look,â he says. âHaving another guyâs hands all over you at a party where weâre here together.â
Hands all over you.
Hands all over you?
The kitchen counter flashesâJungkookâs palms flat on either side of your hips, the heat, the proximity, the vanilla bottle sitting there like a prop in a play about your bad decisionsâand your stomach drops because okay, maybe from across the room that did lookâ
âThatâs not what was happening.â
âFrom where I was sittingââ
âThen maybe you were sitting at a bad angle.â
âY/N.â The patient breath again. âIâm not accusing you of anything. Iâm just sayingâas someone who cares about youâI donât think you realize how it looks. To other people.â
His eyes drop. To your wrist.
âAndâI wasnât going to bring this up, but since weâre talking about it.â He gestures. A small tilt of his chin toward your left hand. âThat thing.â
You donât need to look down to know what he means.
âWhat about it?â
âYouâve been wearing it all week. I couldnât help but notice.â His voice is still calm. Still measured. Still wrapped in enough reasonableness that the words almost sound like concern instead of what they are. âAnd I didnât say anything because I didnât want toâbut itâs a bit childish, no? The colors. The beads.â
Yellow. Orange. Red. Little silver letters spelling âRogueâ across.
âItâs a bracelet, Jason.â
âIt says Rogue.â He says it amused in a way thatâs worse than meanâcondescending, like heâs being generous by only finding it slightly embarrassing. âWhat does that even mean?â
âItâs an inside joke.â
âWith who?â
âWithâpeople. Itâs a friendship bracelet. People have those.â
âAt your age?â
The question hangs. Rhetorical. Already answered by the tone he used to ask it.
His eyes move from the bracelet to your hand. To the back of it. To the fleshy part below your thumb whereâ
âAndâis that a bite?â
Your hand snaps behind your body so fast you nearly throw out your shoulder.
Too fast. Way too fast.
The speed of it is its own confessionânobody hides an innocent injury like theyâre palming evidence at a crime sceneâand you watch Jason clock the reaction the way he clocks everything: slow, but sure.
âItâs nothing.â
âItâs a bite mark.â
âItâs not. I just bumped into something.â
âThatâs teeth.â
âIt wasâthe brownie thing. In the kitchen. It was stupid, someone wasâit was a joke.â
âA joke.â Flat. âSomeone bit you. As a joke.â
And the way he says itâsomeoneâmakes it clear he doesnât need you to fill in the name.
His jaw works once. Controlled.
âSo youâre out there getting drunk and high andâwhat, bitten by people at a party? Randomly? While weâre here together?â
âIt wasnâtââ
âThatâs the kind of behavior you think isââ
âIt was a joke, Jason, we were fighting over a brownie and it was dumb and it lasted two secondsââ
âI justââ
He runs a hand through his hair. Looks at you with an expression thatâs trying so hard to be gentle it comes full circle into something sharp.
âThatâs not the girl I know. The beads and the nicknames and theâgetting bitten in kitchens at midnightâitâs not you.â
Not you.
Not the version of you he knows.
Not the version he built in his head from seminar answers and coffee dates and the careful, polished, composed woman who shows up when heâs watching.
The version that wears matching jewelry and speaks in complete sentences and doesnât have an inside joke with her roommate spelled out on her wrist in colored beads like a kid at summer camp.
âMaybe youâve just never known me.â
You say it quiet. Looking right at him.
His mouth opens. Closes.
And for one secondâhalf a secondâsurprise cracks in the diplomacy.
Then the composure reseals. The crack plasters over. The expression returns to its default setting: concerned, measured, slightly wounded.
âI think you should be more mindful. Thatâs all. About how you carry yourself. I think you shouldââ
A pause. Careful. Choosing.
âârespect yourself a little more.â
Respect yourself.
Your mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
âYou deserve better than being someoneâsâI donât knowâphysical prop. Being grabbed and hung on andâitâs not how someone treats a person they respect. And I think you know that.â
The hot thing in your chest is spreading. Climbing up your throat. Making your heartbeat louder in your own ears, which might be the weed or might be fury or might be some volatile combination of both thatâs going to end in either tears or property damage and you genuinely do not know which.
âNobody was grabbing me. Nobody was hanging on me. I was talking to someone. At a party. Like a person. With a social life.â
âYou wereââ
âWhat? Finish that.â
âCan you let me finish a sentence?â
âCan you stop starting sentences that end with me not respecting myself?â
âI just donât think Jimin sees it like that.â
Everything stops.
The room. Your breathing. The weed-warped wallpaper. The hot angry thing in your chest.
All of it hits pause, mid-stride, like someone yanked the needle off a record.
âWhat?â
âI said I donât think Jimin sees it the way you think he does.â
Jimin.
Jimin?
Heâs talking aboutâ
This entireâevery single word of this conversationâthe boundaries, the appropriateness, the respect yourselfâ
âYou think Jimin has feelings for me?â
It comes out flat. Incredulous. Like someone asked you to confirm the sky is blue.
Jasonâs expression doesnât change.
Same steady, reasonable, measured look.
Same concerned furrow between the brows.
Same âIâm saying this because I care about youâ energy pouring off him in waves of cedar and bergamot.
âI think Jimin knows what itâs like to be a guy,â he says, âand have a girl draped all over him.â
Draped.
He said draped.
Like you were fabric. Like you were a decoration. Like the arms you had around Jiminâs shouldersâwarm, platonic, the kind of casual affection you give to someone who just did your eyeliner and trusted you with the shape of his questionsâwere some kind of tactical maneuver. Some calculated display that poor innocent Jimin couldnât possibly interpret as anything other than sexual, because youâre a girl, and heâs a guy, and apparently that equation only has one answer in Jasonâs math.
Your fingernails press half-moons into your palms.
âDraped,â you repeat. Testing the word. Tasting it.
It tastes like your mother.
ÂŤYouâre too much, youâre too loud, youâre taking up space in a way that makes people uncomfortable, and youâd know that if youâd just stop and think about how you look from the outside for once in your life.Âť
You feel the beginning of a compression in your chest.
One that you recognize from a long time ago, from fights in kitchens with marble countertops, from sitting at dining tables where every fork was placed at the correct angle and every word was placed at the correct volume and every version of you that didnât fit the blueprint got folded up and put away.
Your lungs feel smaller.
Thatâs the weed. That has to be the weed.
âJimin is my friend.â You say it slow, clear. âHe did my eyeliner. I hugged him. I hug my friends, Jason. Thatâs a thing people do.â
âIâm not saying you canât have friendsââ
âSee, this is what Iâm talking about.â He gestures at youâat all of you, the sarcasm, the crossed arms, the whole defensive architecture of your posture. âThis. Right here. I try to have an adult conversation and you immediately go toââ
âTo what?â
âTo this. The deflection. The sarcasm. The making me the bad guy for expressing a concern.â
And the fucked up thingâthe really truly fucked up thingâis that heâs not entirely wrong.
You are deflecting. You are being sarcastic. You are making him the bad guy because the alternative is engaging with the actual content of what heâs saying and you canât do that because the actual content requires you to either (a) explain that Jimin is not interested in you because Jimin is currently navigating something about his own identity that is private and sacred and none of Jasonâs goddamn business, or (b) admit that the real problem isnât Jimin at all, itâs the guy in the Ghostface robe who said circles to you across a kitchen like it was a promiseâ
And you canât do either of those things.
Option A outs Jimin. Option B outs you.
So youâre stuck.
Trapped.
Standing in this room thatâs getting smaller with every sentence, defending a position that isnât the real position, fighting a fight that isnât the real fight, and your chest is doing the thing and your hands are doing the thing and the wallpaper is definitely breathing now and you canâtâ
âHe was sitting down,â you say, and your voice is thinner. You can hear it. âI came up behind him and put my arms around him. The same way Iâd hug Yeji. The same way Iâd hug Irya. Are you going to tell me thatâs inappropriate too?â
âYeji and Irya are women.â
âSo?â
âSo itâs different.â
âWhy?â
âBecause it is. Because whether you want to acknowledge it or not, there is a difference between how men and women interpret physical affection, and Iâm not being old-fashioned by pointing that out, Iâm being realistic.â
âYouâre being controlling.â
Jasonâs face does something youâve never seen it do before.
He looks hurt. Real, actual hurt, the kind that flashes across someoneâs face before they can catch it and tuck it behind something more presentable.
âIâm not controlling you,â he says. âIâm asking you to think about how your actions affect the people around you. Thatâs not control. Thatâs consideration.â
Consideration.
Your motherâs favorite word. Your motherâs number-one, gold-standard, go-to weapon for every single time you did something that embarrassed her or surprised her or reminded her that you were a separate person with separate wantsââhave some consideration. Think about someone other than yourself for once.â
You can feel your heartbeat in your fingers, in your wrists, in the base of your throat where the gold chain sits against your skin.
You want to scream that Jimin is already interested in someone else, that possibly he doesnât even like girls.
But you donât.
Because itâs not yours to say. Itâs Jiminâs. It belongs to him the same way the pink nail belongs to him, the same way the question in the bathroom belongs to himââwhat if none of it fits, what if there isnât a word for itââand you donât get to hand that to Jason Calloway like a hall pass just because youâre cornered and scared and your lungs wonât open all the way.
You donât get to sacrifice someone elseâs secret to win your own argument.
So you stand there. Hands shaking. Jaw shut. Pulse hammering against the rain charm on your wrist.
And you have nothing.
No defense that doesnât betray someone.
No explanation that doesnât expose something.
âI shouldnât have to justify hugging my friend,â you say, and it comes out cracked.
âNobodyâs asking you to justify anything. Iâm asking you to be aware.â
âAware of what?â
âOf how you come across. Of the signals youâre sending. Of the fact that youâre at a party with meâwith meâand you spent the last hour hanging off other men and barely looked in my direction.â
The compression in your chest is getting worse. Heavier. Like someoneâs stacking books on your ribcage one at a timeâeach sentence another volume, another weight, another reason you canât get enough air into your lungs to fight properly.
Your eyes burn.
No. Nope. Absolutely not.
You are not going to cry in front of Jason Calloway in a Medusa costume with two pot brownies dissolving in your bloodstream. Thatâs not happening. That is a thing that will not occur.
âI think,â he saysâand thereâs a softness to it now, a careful softness thatâs worse than the accusations because it sounds like kindness, it sounds like concern, it sounds like someone who loves you explaining for the fifteenth time why youâre doing everything wrong, âthat sometimes you donât realize the way you act around men. And I donât think thatâs your fault. I think itâsâa pattern. And I think if you were a little more self-aware about it, a little moreâŚâ
He pauses. Looking for the word.
ââŚmature, youâd...â
You tune out the rest of the sentence.
Because that word.
Mature.
One single, careful, well-chosen, precisely deployed word that lands in the exact center of the thing your parents built inside youâthe architecture of not-enough, the blueprint of every dinner table correction and every lowered voice and every âwhen are you going to grow up and start acting like the person we raised you to beââ
And inside you something bucklesâa load-bearing wall giving way, a structural failure thatâs been building since the shower, since the orange, since circles, since the prayer hands and whatâs going on with himâand you are not going to cry here.
You are not going to cry here, you are not going to cry here, you are notâ
âI need to use the bathroom.â
âY/Nââ
âI need to use the bathroom, Jason.â
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
His expression is doing the thing againâthe hurt, the confusion, the genuine inability to understand why his reasonable words keep producing unreasonable reactionsâand part of you, the part thatâs still rational, knows he doesnât get it.
Knows he thinks heâs being fair.
Knows he genuinely believes that everything he just said came from a place of care and concern and wanting the best for you.
And maybe thatâs the worst part.
That he means it.
That the cage is lined with good intentions and the bars are made of âI just want whatâs best for youâ and the lock is turned by someone who thinks love and management are the same thing.
You grab the door handle. Pull.
âCan we at leastââ
The door closes behind you.
The hallway is empty. The sconce flickers. The fog machineâs output has crept up the stairs and is hanging in thin wisps along the baseboard and you walk through it on legs that donât feel entirely connected to your bodyâone foot, then the other, mechanical, automatic, the way you used to walk from the dining room to your bedroom after the conversations that left you feeling like this, small and wrong and taking up too much space and not the right shape and never, ever, ever enoughâ
The bathroom door.
You push through it. Lock it behind you.
Slide down the door until youâre sitting on cold tile with your knees pulled up and the Medusa skirt bunching around your thighs and the snake cuff digging into your bicep and the gold chains in your hair pressing into the back of your skull against the wood.
The first sob comes out silent.
The second one doesnât.
Itâs ugly. Wrenching. The kind that starts in your stomach and rips upward through your chest like something with claws, and you press your hand over your mouth to contain it because there are thirty people downstairs and the last thingâthe absolute last thing you needâis someone hearing you fall apart in a bathroom at a Halloween party because a boy used the word âmatureâ and your nervous system couldnât tell the difference between him and your mother.
Tears streak through Jiminâs perfect eyeliner, wings dissolving, the careful symmetry ruined, and you think stupidly, absurdly, through the wet gasping wreckage of your breathing, that heâs going to be so disappointed when he sees what you did to his work.
That thought makes you cry harder.
Which makes you laugh.
Which makes you cry again.
You pull your knees tighter. Press your forehead to them. Let the gold chain belt dig into your thighs.
On your wrist, the rain charm catches the fluorescent light.
You donât take it off.
He can taste purple.
Not likeâgrape. Not like candy or medicine or anything thatâs supposed to be purple. Just the color. Just purple, sitting on his tongue like a frequency, and the ceiling is doing something interesting with its textures and Jungkook is pretty sure the decorative cobwebs have been moving for the last ten minutes but in a chill way. A friendly way. Like theyâre also at a party and having a good time.
He shouldnât have eaten that third brownie.
He knows this.
He also shouldnât have taken that last shot of whatever Hobi poured out of a bottle with no labelâa liquid the color of antifreeze that tasted like someone dissolved a green apple Jolly Rancher in paint thinner and then blessed it with a prayer and a middle finger.
But rational decisions have never been his forte and theyâre not going to start now.
Not when the ceiling has this much going on, anyway.
âHoseok deserves jail,â Taehyung mutters next to him.
He says it to the ceiling too. Both of them, heads tipped back against the couch cushions, staring up at the crown molding like it contains the answers to questions neither of them are smart enough to ask right now.
Jungkook chuckles. âFederal.â
âMinimum.â
âConsecutive sentences.â
âNo parole.â
They sit with that for a moment. Satisfied with the verdict.
This lounge is on the far side of the houseâquieter, dimmer, tucked away from the main party like a VIP section nobody asked for. Somebody dragged a floor lamp in here at some point and aimed it at the wall, which means the light is amber and indirect and makes everything look like a memory. Thereâs a smaller couch, an armchair with an afghan thrown over it, and a coffee table covered in jack-o-lanterns that Jungkook carved this morning with a steak knife and what heâd considered, at the time, artistic vision.
He looks at the decorations. The cobwebs he stretched across the doorframe. The battery-operated candles on the mantle. The little plastic spiders he positioned along the bookshelf with deliberate spacing becauseâfilm major.
Composition matters. Even in novelty arachnids.
âYou know what,â he says. âI did a pretty good job with all this.â
He gestures broadly at the room. The gesture is meant to encompass the whole house but his arm is heavier than expected so it mostly encompasses the lamp and half of Taehyungâs face.
Taehyung snorts.
âSure. If you donât count the pumpkins.â
Jungkookâs head rolls sideways on the cushion. âWhatâs wrong with my pumpkins?â
Taehyung stops staring at the ceiling. Lifts his head. Rights himself into something approaching a seated position, which is a productionâbecause Taehyung is currently dressed as Gomez Addams and the costume is committed.
Pinstripe suit. Actual pinstripe, not printed. A burgundy pocket square folded into something that probably has a nameâtriangle? pyramid? fabric origami?âthat matches the deep red of Irikaâs dress because of course it does, because Kim Taehyung looked at his girlfriendâs Morticia costume and said âI will restructure my entire wardrobe around your color paletteâ without a single beat of hesitation. The mustache is drawn on with eyeliner. Thin, precise, curling slightly at the ends. His hair is slicked backâevery strand cemented into place with what smells like an entire can of productâand thereâs a fake rose pinned to his lapel that Jungkook watched him steal from a vase in the entryway and present to Irika on one knee in the living room while she pretended to swoon and Hobi filmed the whole thing for Instagram.
Disgusting. Truly disgusting behavior from a man Jungkook respects and loves.
âAre you kidding me,â Taehyung says.
Jungkook rights himself too. Sits up. Squares his shoulders. The Ghostface robe shifts around him like a bathrobe at a very dramatic hotel.
âThe pumpkins are perfect.â
âTheyâre not perfect. They look stupid.â
âThey donâtââ
âDude.â Taehyung pointsâhazily, finger drifting slightly left of centerâat the jack-o-lantern sitting on the coffee table directly in front of them. âLook at it. Actually look at it.â
Jungkook looks at it.
Itâs⌠okay, the mouth is a little wide.
And the eyes are slightly different sizes, which heâd thought was characterful at the time but might, in the current lighting, read more as neurological event.
And the noseâheâd tried for a triangle, landed on something more rhomboidâ
âIt looks like Willy Wonka,â Taehyung says. âOr some shit.â
âWilly Wonkaâs attractive.â
The words leave his mouth before his brain clears them and he hears them land in the room and thinks, âwell, thatâs a sentence I just said with confidence to another man on a couch.â
Taehyungâs entire head rotates toward him. Slowly. Like a surveillance camera.
âWhat.â
âWhat? He is. Didnât you see that TikTok guy? The one who dressed up as Wonka and got likeâmillions of followers?â
âWhat the fuck is on your For You Page, dude.â
âBro, I swear. He went viral. Hold on.â
Jungkook pulls out his phone. Unlocks it. The screen is brighter than the sun and he squints against it like a vampire encountering daylight for the first timeâwhich, given the costume, feels thematic.
âLook. Wait.â
He opens TikTok. His thumb is slower than usual. The letters in the search bar are behaving strangely.
âHow do you spell Wonka.â
âHow do youâJungkook.â
âNo, I know how, I justâis there an H?â
âThereâs not an H in Wonka. There has never been an H in Wonka. Where would the H go.â
âW-O-N-K-A. Five letters. No H. You went to college.â
âTechnically Iâm still going to collegeââ
âYouââ Taehyung groans, snatching the phone, âgimme the phone.â
Somehow, his friend manages to write with the efficiency of someone who doesnât have three brownies and Hobiâs prison cocktail dissolving his neural pathways.
Two seconds later heâs scrolling through results.
Jungkook, on a sober note, would call that blasphemy.
âThis one?â
He holds the phone up. A guy in a purple velvet coat and a top hat, abs out, doing a grinding motion to some remix of âI wanna love youâ.
âThatâs him! See?â Jungkook takes the phone back. Points at the screen. âTell me thatâs not attractive.â
âIâm not telling you that.â
âWhy not?â
âBecause Iâm not going to sit on this couch, in this suit, and confirm or deny the attractiveness of a TikTok Willy Wonka to you at midnight on Halloween. I have limits. I have a pinstripe situation happening.â Taehyung tugs his lapel. âGomez wouldnât do this.â
âGomez would absolutely do this. Gomez would rate every man in a room if Morticia told him to.â
âThatâsââ Taehyung pauses. Snatches his phone again. Narrows his eyes. âThatâs actually accurate and Iâm mad about it.â
âSo the pumpkin looks like an attractive man. Whatâs the issue.â
âThe issue is that a jack-o-lantern is not supposed to look like an attractive man, Jungkook. Itâs supposed to look scary. Thatâs theâthatâs the whole assignment. Scary face. On a gourd.â
âA gourd?â
âA pumpkin is a gourd.â
âSince when?â
âSinceâbotany? Since agriculture? Since the dawn of gourds?â
âI feel like youâre making that up.â
âGoogle it.â
âYou Google it. You have my phone.â
Taehyung looks down. He does, in fact, still have Jungkookâs phone. He stares at it for a long moment, like he forgot how it got there and is now reconstructing the timeline.
ââŚYour wallpaper is still Griffin,â he says.
âYeah.â
âFrom when he was a kitten.â
âYeah.â
âThatâs cute.â
âI know.â
They look at each other. Two grown men on a couch. One dressed as a fictional serial killer, the other as a fictional husband. Both profoundly, catastrophically, beautifully stoned.
Taehyung hands the phone back.
âYour pumpkins still look stupid.â
âNoted. Rejected. Moving on.â
âThe one in the hallway looks like itâs having an allergic reaction.â
âThat oneâs abstract.â
âItâs abstract in the way that a car accident is abstract.â
Jungkook opens his mouth to argue, but his brain has already lost the threadâgone, dissolved, replaced by the observation that the cobwebs on the ceiling are still moving and heâs kind of into it. Like a mobile. Like a very goth baby mobile.
He tips his head back again. Taehyung follows a beat later.
Ceiling.
Cobwebs.
âHey,â Taehyung says.
âYeah.â
âThe decorations are good.â
âYeah?â
âYeah. Not the pumpkins. Everything else.â
Jungkook grins at the ceiling. âThanks, man.â
âThe pumpkins are, like, honest-to-god dog shit.â
âGot it.â
âBut the rest is solid.â
âAppreciate that.â
They sit with it. Content. The kind of silence that only exists between two people who've known each other long enough that not talking is its own form of conversation.
Somewhere in the house, someone drops a glass. A cheer goes up.
Neither of them moves.
Then Jungkook's thumb finds the silver ring. Starts turning it.
He doesn't notice he's doing it. Never does. It's the kind of habit that lives below the threshold of awarenessâa background process, automatic, the way some people tap their foot or chew their lip. He just spins the ring. Round and round. The pad of his thumb catching the flat edge, pushing, rotating, catching again.
"Jason bothers me."
He says it to the ceiling. Same way he said the thing about the pumpkins. Same way he said Willy Wonka was attractive. Just out there. A sentence released into the room without a permission slip.
Taehyung doesn't move. Doesn't look over.
"You've mentioned."
"No, I meanâ" The ring spins. "He bothers me."
"Yeah. You've mentioned that too." Taehyung shifts on the couch. Gets slightly more upright. The jacket creaks. "Multiple times. Extensively. At length. I believe the phrase 'trust fund guidance counselor' was used. And 'discount therapist with a cologne budget.' And my personal favoriteâ"
"I'm not joking around right now."
Something about the way he says itâthe flatness, the absence of the usual punchline, the punchline that should be there because Jungkook always has a punchline, that's the deal, that's the contract between him and every serious moment he's ever been inâmakes Taehyung's head turn.
Jungkook is still looking at the ceiling. But he's not seeing the cobwebs anymore.
"Something's off about him."
"Off how?"
"I don'tâ" His tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. Searching for the word. The right word. "I don't know. Off. Just off, bro. The way heâ"
He stops. Starts again.
"She used eucalyptus soap."
Taehyung blinks.
"...What?"
"Earlier. The showers. Y/N. She used the eucalyptus soap that was in the stall instead of her own stuff."
Taehyung stares at him. The Gomez mustacheâwhat's left of itâcrinkles with the specific bewilderment of a man who was just having a perfectly good conversation about gourds and is now being asked to care about shower products.
"I'm gonna need, like... significantly more context than that."
"She's vanilla, Tae." Jungkook says it like it's obvious. Like it's a fact of the natural world, on par with gravity or the boiling point of water. "Sheâs vanilla everything. Everything. Soap. Lotion. The stuff in her hair. She's got like six different vanilla products in the shower caddy and she didn't bring any of it. She used the generic eucalyptus shit in the stall and she doesnâtâshe still smells like vanilla underneath because it's basically her, like her actualâ"
âJungkook.â
"âbut it's off. There's thisâthis layer on top of it that isn't her and I'd bet you anythingâanythingâthat he said something. About the vanilla. That he made some comment about it being basic or juvenile or whatever the fuck and she justâadjusted. Without evenâshe probably doesn't even know she did it."
The silence that follows has a specific quality.
âŚThe quality of someone deciding whether to call an ambulance or a therapist.
"Jesus, man. The weed really did a number on you. Youâre having an episode over body wash, are you hearing yourselfâ"
"It's notâ" He swats at Tae. "Itâs not about the body wash. It'sâ" He drags a hand down his face. "Okay, the body wash thing sounds insane. I know it sounds insane. That's the problem. Every individual thing sounds insane if I say it out loud. It's only when you put all of it together that itâ"
He makes a vague, frustrated gesture at the air. Like he's trying to grab the shape of what he means and it keeps slipping.
"She doesn't do her tea thing anymore."
"Her tea thing."
"She used to leave the tea bags in the sink. Every morning. Justâsitting there. On the sink. Drove me insane. I texted her about it. Twice. She left me on read and then told me where I could shove the tea bags. It was a whole thing."
He's talking to the ceiling again. His thumb hasn't stopped.
"And then she starts seeing this guy and the tea bags are gone. Justâpoof. Not in the sink. Not anywhere. And the thing isâI should be happy about that, right? I wanted them gone. But they didn't stop because she decided to stop. They stopped because heâ"
No, but that doesnât sound right. Because he doesnât know for sure, does he?
Did you stop the tea bag situation after Jason?
Was it before him? Was Jason the reason?
He wishes he could trust his memory. Or his own brain.
"Iâm really trying to follow the thread here, Jungkook."
"Itâsâitâs justâthe way she is after she's been with him for a while. Like sheâs been adjusted or something."
Taehyung is quiet for a second. Processing.
Runs a hand across the back of his neck, seemingly choosing words carefully, which is very unlike him.
"Look, man⌠She's a grown woman. People date shitty guys all the time. That's, like... a universal experience. It's not reallyâ"
"I know."
"âyour problem. She's your roommate. You guys argue about milk. It's notâ"
"I know, Tae."
"So then why are youâ" Taehyung's hand comes off his neck. Gestures at all of Jungkook. The ring spinning, the jaw set, the whole rigidness of a man who's clearly been carrying this around for longer than tonight. "Why are you like this about it? Since when do you evenâI thought you guys just coexist. She leaves her shit around, you leave your shit around, Yoongi mediates. That's the dynamic."
The ring stops.
Spins again.
"We're friends."
Taehyung's eyebrows go up. Genuinely up.
"You're friends?"
"I think so. Yeah. I've been trying to convince her of that for like a month and she basically just gave in earlier tonightâanyway, that's not the point, dudeâ"
"No, IâI'm justâsince when? Last I heard she was 'the menace in room three' who used all the hot waterâ"
"She's not a menace, she'sâokay, she is a menace. With the hot water specifically. But that's a separate issue and it has nothing to do withâ"
He's losing the thread. Can feel it unraveling. The way it always does when he tries to explain something that lives in the space between what he sees and what he can proveâthe words come out wrong or come out in the wrong order or come out sounding like a conspiracy theory narrated by a guy who's had three pot brownies and a shot of Hobi's antifreeze, and he knows that, he can hear himself, but the alternative is shutting up and the alternative is worse because shutting up means the thing stays in his chest and eats.
"Okay. Forget the soap. Forget the tea bags. Forget all theâthe individual things, because individually they're all nothing. Right? Each one is nothing."
He sits up. Slightly. Enough that his feet plant on the floor and he's not talking to the ceiling anymore. He's talking to his hands.
"But it's likeâwhen you watch a movie. And you can't point to the one thing that's wrong with it. The lighting's fine, the acting's fine, the script is fine. But you walk out and you feel bad and you don't know why, and then two weeks later at three in the morning you sit up and go 'the pacing'âit was the pacing the whole time, the pacing was off and it made everything else feel wrong even though everything else was technically fine."
Catches his breath.
"Jason is the pacing."
Taehyung opens his mouth. Closes it. Tilts his head.
"That's..." he says slowly, "genuinely one of the most unhinged analogies I've ever heard you make. And I was there for the 'risotto is emotional labor' speech."
"It made sense in contextâ"
"It didn't, but go on."
Jungkook's face is on his hands now, resting his weight on his elbows. The way he does when the frustration of not being able to translate the thing in his body to the thing in the air hits critical mass.
"I'm not saying this right."
"You're really not."
"I justâI see her, Tae. I see her before she goes to his place and I see her when she comes back and she's different. And I can'tâI can't point to the exact frame where it changes. But she's smaller when she comes back. Not likeânot physically. Just... the volume on her goes down. And it comes back up when she's home for a while and then she goes back to him and it goes down again and Iâ"
He stops. Presses his palms flat on his thighs. Pushes down. Grounding.
"Something about him makes my skin crawl and I don't know if that's real or if I'mâ"
ÂŤâŚmaking it up, Jungkook. Youâre seeing things that are not there, baby. Youâre projecting.Âť
"âor if I'm just... seeing shit that isn't there because of my own stuff. I'm aware that's possible. I'm aware I could be the problem here. But every time I try to talk myself out of it something else happensâsomething small, something that doesn't matter by itselfâand the feeling comes back and it'sâit'sâ"
He makes a sound. Not a word. The verbal equivalent of throwing a pen across the room because the sentence won't cooperate.
"I'm really not saying this right."
"Hey." Taehyung's voice has changed. Not all the way. Still casual, still on the couch, still Kim Taehyung at a Halloween party. But the tone is softer. "You don't have to get it perfect, man. Just say the part that matters."
The part that matters.
The ring spins.
"Heâ" he gulps down, the pronoun stumbling over itself, "he reminds me ofâ"
And the sentence stops. Not because he chose to stop it. Because the word that comes next has a weight to itâactual, physical, gravitationalâand the weight wins. Holds it in his chest. Behind the sternum.
In the exact place where things live that he brings to Dr. Liao's office and puts on the table between them and says âI don't know what this is but it won't leave.â
He doesn't finish. Just turns his head. Looks at Taehyung.
The look does what the word won't.
Taehyung, who knows what lives on the other side of sentences Jungkook doesn't finish, nods softly.
"Mia?"
Jungkook takes a couple seconds. But then he nods.
Taehyung sits up. All the way up. Elbows on his knees. The stolen rose on his lapel bends sideways.
"What do you mean he reminds you ofâlike, specifically. What is he doing?"
"It'sâit's just a hunch, man. I don't know him. I've barely talked to him, so for all I know I could be paranoid. I'm aware of that." He sighs. "But something about his presence makes my skin fucking crawl andâwhen I see herâwhen I see her after she's been with him for a while, every time she's..."
Loses it. The sentence. The thread. The bridge between the thing he can feel and the thing he can say.
Starts over.
"I feel like he makes her think she's the problem. Like the way she isâher personality, the way she takes up space, the way she's loud and leaves tea bags everywhere and wears vanilla everythingâlike all of that is this flaw he's generously helping her with. And she justâshe takes it. She adjusts. And she doesn't even know she's adjusting, that's theâ"
His hands are moving now. Not gesturing. Just moving. Restless energy that needs an exit.
"âand I can't say anything because we're barelyâI've been her friend for like five hours, I don't get to walk up and be like 'hey, I think your boyfriend is psychologically dismantling you one tea bag at a time.' That's insane. That'sâ"
"Hey." Taehyung's hand on his knee. Firm. "Slow down. Start from the beginning. What specifically has heâ"
The door to the lounge swings open hard enough to bounce off the wall.
Jimin comes through it like the hallway spat him outâfast, slightly off-balance, costume rumpled. The quill pen is gone from behind his ear. His eyes are wide and scanning the room with the specific urgency of someone who needs something and needed it thirty seconds ago.
"Sorryâsorry, is there water in here?"
Jungkook lifts one hand from the armrest. Swallows. Rubs the back of his neck. Points vaguely at the side table where someone abandoned a cluster of bottles and cups sometime around the second hour of the party.
"Over there."
Doesn't take long to notice Jimin's chest is moving too fast.
"Yo." Sits up.
The weed is still thereâstill fuzzing the edges, still making the room feel like it's wrapped in feltâbut something underneath it is starting to sharpen. An instinct. The one that monitors rooms, reads exits, clocks the difference between someone who's out of breath from running and someone who's out of breath from something worse.
"What's up, Jim?"
Jimin picks up the cup. Puts it down. Picks it up again.
Licks his lips.
"It'sâ"
He says your name.
Everything in Jungkook's nervous system goes from THC-saturated haze to full alert in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
"She'sâ" Jimin swallows. Runs his hand through his hair and the careful side-part collapses, which he doesn't notice, which means whatever this is ranks above vanity. "She's in the bathroom. Crying. And Yeji and Irya are outside the door but she won'tâthey can't get her to come out. I thinkâI think her and Jason had a fight or something."
Jungkook is standing before the sentence ends.
He doesnât remember deciding to stand. His legs just did itâunfolded beneath him, pushed him vertical, and now heâs crossing the room toward Jimin and Taehyung is sitting up behind him making a sound that means âwhatâs happeningâ but Jungkookâs already there, already in front of Jimin, already close enough to see the specific kind of worry on his faceânot the general kind.
âWhat did he say?â
âWhat?â
âWhat the fuck did Jason say to her.â
Jimin blinks. Opens his mouth. Shuts it. Opens it again.
âI donâtâI donât know exactly, she was crying and talking really fast and not making a lot of sense through the door and the music, but she saidââ He stops. Regroups. His fingers are gripping the cup and the plastic crackles under the pressure. âShe said something about feeling trapped. That he was being controlling, or she felt controlled, orâI couldnât hear everything, sheâs high and emotional and Yeji was yelling at someone to turn the music down soââ
Trapped.
The word hits different than the others.
The othersâfight, crying, bathroomâthose are bad, those register, those go into the filing cabinet under urgent and get processed accordingly.
But trapped doesnât file.
Trapped doesnât go into a cabinet.
Trapped goes into his chest.
Right next to the place where a different face livesâa word from a different room, a different year, a different woman, except itâs not different, itâs the same fucking word, the same four walls closing in, the same air running out, the sameâ
ââand so I wanted to grab some water because I thought maybe if she just has some water andâJungkook?â
Heâs already at the door.
âJungkook, waitââ
He doesnât wait. His tongue presses into the inside of his cheekâhard, pressure thatâs keeping something behind his teeth that wants out, something with a shape and a heat to it that he recognizes from a long, long time ago.
Not anger. Anger is manageable. Anger is a thing heâs learned to sit with, to breathe through, to hand to Dr. Liao in pieces and say âI felt this, I didnât act on it, are you proud of me.â
This isnât anger.
This is the thing underneath anger.
The thing that has no name in his vocabulary because heâs never let it stay long enough to need one.
The thing that only shows up when someone he cares about feels trapped.
His jaw clenches. The silver ring bites into his finger where his fist has curled without permission.
He rounds the corner into the hallway and the party noise swells and none of it reaches him.
Footsteps behind him. Fast. The pinstripe suit wasnât built for pursuit but Taehyungâs making it workâlong strides, dress shoes clipping the hardwood, and his voice has lost every trace of boneless ice and Willy Wonka and ceiling cobwebs.
âJungkook.â
Doesnât stop.
âJungkookâwait.â
Doesnât stop.
âWait, man. Think this throughââ
He cuts through the living room like itâs not there.
Beer pong table, fog machine, centurion, bunny, bodies in costumes he registers as shapes and colors and none of them are the shape heâs looking for.
The music is too loud and someoneâs laughing near the speakersâhigh, a sound that scrapes the inside of his skullâand his hands are at his sides and his jaw is locked so tight the pressure reaches his temples.
Trapped.
The word keeps playing. Looped. Skipping like a scratched record.
ÂŤThis is what men do.Âť
Not now. Not fucking now.
He reaches the french doors to the garden. Open. Night air. Cold enough that it should register but doesnât. Patio stones under his boots. String lights overhead making everything amber and warm and the warmth is wrongâeverything about this scene is wrong because it looks like a party and sounds like a party and somewhere upstairs youâre on a bathroom floor and the door is locked and you said trappedâ
âYouâre not doing this.â
Jungkook doesnât turn. Steps off the patio onto the lawn.
âHey. Hey. Iâm talking to you.â
Doesnât turn.
The grass is wet. His boots sink.
None of it registers as information worth processing because the only information that matters right now is the distanceâa hundred feet, closingâand the shape of Jasonâs silhouette against the string lights and the sound the word trapped makes when it loops inside a skull thatâs stopped filtering anything else.
âJungkookâyouâre gonna catch a charge. You understand that? A criminal charge. At a Halloween party. In a costume. Thatâs what youâre walking toward right now. An assault charge in a Ghostface robe. Thatâs the legacy. Thatâs the headline.â
Eighty feet. The fountain is to his left now.
âAnd you know whoâs not catching a charge tonight? Him. You know why? Because he didnât do anything illegal. He was an asshole to someone. Thatâs it. Thatâs all it was. And you canât break someoneâs face for that, Jungkook, notânot in the way that counts, not in the way that a cop is gonna care about when they show up and seeââ
A breath. Not a pauseâa reload. Taehyungâs stride lengthens. Heâs beside him now, not behind, shoes squelching on wet grass.
ââwhen they show up and see you. Standing over him. With blood on your hands. And theyâre gonna look at you and theyâre gonna look at him and who do you thinkââ His voice trips. Catches. Goes harder. âWho do you think gets the benefit of the doubt in that scenario? Huh? You? Asian? With the tattoos and theâand him with the PhD program and the glasses and the fucking vest? You think thatâs a coin flip? You think that goes fifty-fifty?â
âHis parents probably have a lawyer saved in their contacts. You know that, right? People like himâthey donât fight back, they call their dadâs buddy at whatever firm and suddenly itâs not a Halloween party anymore, itâs depositions and court dates and you trying to explain to a judge why youââ Taehyungâs hand cuts through the air. âA judge whoâs gonna see the exact same thing the cops saw. Who gets believed. I shouldnât have to spell this out for you.â
He shouldnât. They both know why.
Theyâve both been in the rooms where it gets spelled out without anyone saying a wordâwhere looking a certain way in a certain zip code means the margin for error shrinks to nothing and the assumption of guilt arrives before the explanation does.
Taehyung knows. Heâs been in those rooms with him.
Same parking lots, same bloody knuckles, same cops who looked at two Asian kids with split lips and didnât ask who started it.
âThis is exactly what heâs not worth. Youâve been saying it for weeks. You said he was a prick, you said he was a snob, you said he gave you bad vibesâgreat, you were right, congratulations, and now what? Now youâre gonna prove it by giving him a reason to press charges? By handing him the one thing he actually needs to make you the problem? Thatâs the play?â
Sixty feet. Jungkook picks up speed.
âBecause thatâs what happens. Thatâs exactly what happens. You know this. I know you know this because we had the same conversation in high school after Joey Cho got expelled for defending himself in a fight he didn't start. Remember that? Remember what his mom said? She said it doesn't matter who started it. It matters who they believe. And they're not gonna believe you. Not over him. Not when he looks like that and you look like this."
A beat.
âYou hit him and heâs the victim, Jungkook. Heâs the guy who got attacked at a party by his girlfriendâs unhinged roommate and he gets to tell that story for the rest of his life and sheââ He stumbles on the word. ââshe becomes the girl it was about. The girl whose psycho roommate couldnât keep his hands to himself. And thatâs his version. Thatâs the version that wins. You get that, right? You get that his version wins?â
Taehyung is still talking and talking and talking and none of the words are landing because words are noise to him right now.
âAre you listening? Can you even hear me right now? Because Iâm talking and youâre walking and Iâm running out of ways to say the same thing which is that youâre about to fuck your entire life up and he gets to watch. He gets to stand there with his busted lip and watch you get put in the back of a car and thatâsââ Taehyungâs voice goes mean with the effort of keeping it whole. âThatâs not justice, man. Thatâs not protecting her. Thatâs not gonna make you feel any better, Jungkook, you know that. You know why you know that.â
Jungkook clicks his tongue and picks up speed.
Taehyung swears under his breath and matches it. âYouâre not hearing me. Youâre notâokay. Okay.â
Taehyung cuts in front of him. Gets there fastâone long diagonal stride and a pivotâand plants himself in the path with his hands on Jungkookâs chest.
âNo.â
Hands. Flat on his sternum. Holding.
âNo. I told you, bro. Youâre not doing this.â
Jungkook tries to step left.
Taehyung shifts left. Blocks it. Doesnât budge.
Tries right.
Same thing. Mirror image. The hands stay on his chest.
âDo not.â Taehyungâs pointing finger finds Jungkookâs chest. âDonât play me right now, Jungkook. Back the fuck up.â
He grabs Taehyungâs wrist and shoves it off his chest. Sidesteps.
Gets two steps.
Taehyung grabs a fistful of the Ghostface robe from behind and hauls him backward.
Jungkookâs balance goesâboots sliding on wet grass, the robe yanking tight across his throatâand the stumble turns into a pivot and he rounds on Taehyung and swats the grip off the fabric, forearm connecting with Taehyungâs wrist hard enough to crack, and Taehyung doesnât let go, just tightens his hold and braces and Jungkook shoves forward into his chest and Taehyung pushes back and for three ugly seconds theyâre tangledâgrunting, grabbing, both of them too angry for technique.
Taehyung gets both hands on the front of the robe and pushesâhard, this time, the full force of his weight behind itâand Jungkookâs back foot slides out and he catches himself and surges forward and Taehyung meets him and pushes again and they break apart.
Three feet of grass between them. Both breathing through their teeth. The pinstripe jacket wrenched sideways on Taehyungâs shoulders, pocket square crushed, and the Ghostface robe twisted half off Jungkookâs frame like someone tried to unwrap him.
âAlright, you know what.â Taehyung spreads his arms.âCome on then. You wanna fight so bad? Fight me. Right here. Letâs go. Iâm right here, Jungkook.â
His chest is heaving. His hands are open. His chin is up in the specific way that means he isnât bluffing and Jungkook knows damn well heâs not bluffing.
âHit me. Come on. Hit me. Get it out. Because I promise youâI promise you on everythingâyouâre not getting within ten feet of that guy tonight. Not while Iâm standing. So either you put me down first or you stand here and breathe like a fucking adult. Those are your options. Two options. Pick one.â
Jungkookâs tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. Copper taste. His whole body is a live wire looking for ground and the ground is just some feet away laughing and Taehyung is in the way.
He takes a step.
Taehyung takes one to match. Closes the gap. Gets in his space.
âIâve had your back in every stupid fight since we were sixteen, dude.â
Quieter now. Which is worse. Taehyung getting quieter means the real thing is coming.
âEvery single one. I was there. So believe me when I tell youâif you try to get past me right now, I will lay you out on this lawn and I will not feel bad about it. Not even a little. Not tomorrow, not next week, not ever. Because the alternative is watching you throw your entire life at some guy whoâs not worth the skin on your knuckles, and Iâm not doing that. Iâm not watching that. Thatâs my line. Youâve found it. Congratulations.â
Jungkookâs chest hurts. It hurts and he wishes he could rip whatâs beating underneath his chest out.
âYouâre better than this.â Taehyungâs throat works. âYou know youâre better than this. So act like it or I swear to god Iâll drop you myself, Jungkook. You know I will.â
The silence feels like the canteen, like sixteen, like bloody knuckles behind a 7-Eleven after someone mocked Jungkookâs mom and Taehyung took care of it.
âI did not spend two years watching you put yourself back together just to let you blow it up tonight. Not over this. Not over him.â His jaw flexes. âYou wanna get to Jason? Youâre going through me. And I donât go down easy. You know that.â
A beat.
âSo help me god, Jungkook, test me and find out.â
âWhatâs happening.â
From the left, from the direction of the garden wall where the smokers are thinning outâ
Yoongi.
âOne of you talk.â He stops. Positions himself at Taehyungâs shoulder. âNow.â
Jungkook is a locked system. Nothingâs coming out of him that isnât breath and body heat.
Yoongi looks at Taehyung.
Taehyung runs both hands through whatâs left of the slicked-back hair. Wreckage. His chest is still heaving but his voice comes out forced-steady, the way it does when heâs physically holding himself together to deliver information that matters.
âJason. The TA. Him and Y/N had a fightâsheâs locked in a bathroom upstairs. Jimin came in, said sheâs crying, said she told him she felt trapped. That he was being controlling.â
The word lands between the three of them.
Trapped.
Yoongiâs gaze tracks to Jungkook. To the fists. The jaw. The set of his shoulders. The readiness.
He looks at this for a long moment.
Then he looks at the direction Jungkookâs body is pointed. At Jason fifty feet away.
Then back at Jungkook.
He steps forward. Even with Taehyung. Shoulder to shoulder.
His hands go into his pockets.
âOkay.â He sighs. âOkay, Jungkook, tell me what happens next. You get past us. Then what. You feel better for ten seconds and then youâre the guy who assaulted someone at a Halloween party and sheâs the girl it was about. That what you want?â
No.
Thatâs not what he wants.
What he wants is to go back in time fifteen minutes and be in whatever room Jason took you to and stand between you and whatever sentences made you say trapped.
What he wants is to have been there.
He wasnât.
âUse your head for a second here, Jungkook.â Yoongi hasnât moved. Hasnât blinked. âCome on.â
Jungkookâs jaw works. The pressure in his chest is unbearableâa full-body hum of something that needs to go somewhere and has nowhere to go because every exit is blocked by friends who are right, and thatâs the worst part, he knows theyâre right, and knowing doesnât do a single fucking thing about the voltage running through his body looking for groundâ
Over Yoongiâs shoulder, past the fountain, Hobi.
Standing near the garden wall. Drink in hand. Mid-conversation with the Mia Wallace girl.
He catches Yoongiâs gaze across the patio and Yoongi does somethingâsmall, barely visible. A head tilt. A jaw set. The kind of signal that exists between people whoâve done this before and have a protocol.
Jungkook knows this and hates it.
Hates it more because Hobiâs smile drops and he knows heâs read the entire scene in the time it takes to set his drink on the wall and say something short to Mia Wallace and start crossing the patio.
He tries to cut between Yoongi and Taehyung.
To no avail.
Because an arm suddenly loops around his shoulders.
âHey!â
The specific weight of Jung Hoseokâs arm, which has the density of someone whoâs been dancing professionally for a decade and casually manhandles grown men like itâs a love language.
âHave you seen the music room?â
Jungkookâs whole body is rigid under the arm.âHoseokâlet go, I swear to godââ
âThe music room.â Hobi doesnât let go. Steers him. Smoothly, like theyâre two friends walking somewhere together, nothing to see here, just guys being guys at a party. âOther side of the house. Past the library. Tessaâs grandfather was apparently some kind of collector.â
Heâs walking Jungkook away from the garden and Jungkook is aware of the maneuver, so he tries to sidestep with all his might because he will not be persuaded this timeâ
âThereâs an electric guitar in there.â
Jungkookâs stride falters.
âIâm serious.â Hobiâs voice drops a half-register. âVintage, I think. Hanging on the wall. Looked expensive.â
Over his shoulder, Hobi makes a gesture. Quick. Two fingers, a direction.
âCome on.â Hobi squeezes his shoulder. âShow me if itâs any good. I canât tell with guitars. They all look the same to me.â
âThey donât allââ Jungkookâs voice comes out scraped. Ruined. He clears his throat. âThey donât all look the same. Thatâs like saying all dance styles look the same.â
âExactly. Terrible. Tragic. I need you to educate me.â
The arm stays around his shoulders. The garden gets smaller behind them. The french doors pass. The hallway opens. The party noise dims.
His hands are still shaking.
Hobi doesnât mention it.
Youâre still hiccuping and you feel so stupid.
Thatâs the worst part. Not the cryingâthe crying has a reason, the crying has a source, the crying is a physiological response to emotional stimulus and you can rationalize it later into something manageable.
But the stupidity of it. The exact specific humiliating stupidity of sitting on a bathroom floor at a party in a costume you felt good in thirty minutes ago, mascara running, eyeliner destroyed, hiccuping like a child who lost her balloon at a county fair because someone said a fucking word.
A word.
It doesnât get more embarrasing than this.
Except it does, because youâve been here before.
Not this bathroom. But this exact posture. This exact tile-against-spine, knees-to-chest, face-in-hands architecture of feminine collapse, because you are apparently a person who processes her worst moments in bathrooms, and thatâsâ
Thatâs a pattern, isnât it?
Sophomore year of high school. Alicia Gutierrezâs house party. You wore the denim skirt youâd been saving for something that mattered and David Morrison kissed Noor Adil in the living room with his hand on the back of her neck, the exact hand that had been on the back of your neck two hours earlier behind the bleachers, and you walked to the bathroom and sat on the floor and cried.
Different tile. Same posture. Same girl.
Everything big happens in a bathroom. Everything that matters, everything that shifts the axis of your stupid little lifeâit all happens against porcelain and tile and horrible lightning.
The day Jungkook propositioned you in 6B. Leaning in the doorframe like he owned the square footage, smelling like rain and bad decisions, saying words that shouldâve made you slam the door but instead made you stand there with wet hair and a racing pulse trying to formulate a comeback while your brain buffered.
The day he mentioned your cologne before Emmaâs birthday. Justâsaid it. Casually. Like noticing what someone smells like is a thing you mention to your roommate while sheâs brushing her teeth.
ÂŤYou changed it.Âť
Two words that sat in the steam of the bathroom for three seconds too long and rearranged something behind your ribs that youâve been pretending didnât happen.
The first time Jimin did your eyeliner, it was in that bathroom too. And today as well, in the bathroom of the suite you might no longer share with Jason, quill pen behind his ear and his careful fingers on your jaw and the question he asked that wasnât really about labels or aisles or boxes on shelves but about whether itâs possible to exist without a name for what you are.
All your big moments happen in bathrooms.
Thereâs something poetic in that, if you ignore the toilet.
The brownies are definitely hitting now. Everything has a shimmer to it. The grout lines between the tiles look deeper than they should.
Also your fingers feel very far away from your body. Like theyâre suggestions. Theoretical fingers.
Great. Youâre having an emotional breakdown while slowly becoming one with the bathroom tile. This is the human experience at its most dignified.
A knock. Soft.
âHey. Itâs me.â
Irya.
Not YejiâIrya, which means Irya got to the door first or elbowed Yeji aside, and thereâs a difference between those two arrivals that matters.
Yeji arrives like a SWAT team. Irya arrives like an EMT.
Both are trying to save you. Only one is going to kick the door down to do it.
âI brought your phone,â Irya says. âYou left it on the loveseat.â
You donât answer.
âYou donât have to open the door. Iâm just going to sit out here, okay? Just me.â
A pause.
Then, farther away, Yejiâs voiceâgritted like it comes between her teeth.
âAnd me. Iâm also here. With knives.â
âShe doesnât have knives,â Irya says.
âI have metaphorical knives. I have the energy of knives.â
âYeji.â
âWhat? Iâm being supportive. Iâm supportively enraged.â
You press your forehead into your knees. Hiccup.
A sound against the door. The soft thud of someone sitting down on the other sideâIrya, you think, based on the gentle way it happens. Yeji sits down the way she does everything: with intent and aggression toward the furniture.
âBabe.â Iryaâs voice is close now. âCan you tell me whatâs happening? Justâwhatever you want. Even if it doesnât make sense.â
âIt doesnât make sense.â
âThatâs okay. Thatâs totally okay. Tell me anyway.â
Something about the way she says thatââtell me anywayââlike your not-making-sense is not a problem to be solved but a thing to be held.
âHe said I should respect myself more.â
Silence.
Then, from further back: âHe said what?â
âYejiââ Irya, steady.
âNo. No, repeat that. He said she should respect herself? Those words? In that order? From his mouth?â
âYeji, hold onââ
âIâm going to kill him. Iâm going to walk downstairs and Iâm going to commit a crime that will be studied in law schoolsââ
âYouâre not killing anyone. Sit down.â
âI wasnât gonna stand upââ
âThatâs only because Iâm holding your wrist down.â
A huff. Yeji sits quieter.
âOkay.â Irya again. Closer. You can hear her shifting, getting comfortable against the door, settling in for however long this takes. âHe said respect yourself. What else?â
You swallow. The hiccups are slowing but your throat is raw and everything tastes like salt and chocolate.
âHe saidâthat I should be more mindful. About how I act around other people. That I was beingââ
You search for the word.
It comes back coated in cedar and bergamot.
âInappropriate.â
âInappropriate how?â
âHe said I was draped all overâthat I was hanging on someone and it looked bad. In front of people. That I need to think about how I come across.â
âDraped,â Yeji repeats from behind Irya. She says it the way youâd say âcockroachâ. âHe described physical affection between friends as draping?â
âAnd that I should have more consideration. And be moreââ
The word.
âMore mature.â
Silence. A long one.
You hear Irya exhale.
âCan I say something?â
You nod.
Then realize she canât see you.
âYeah.â
âIâm not going to tell you heâs wrong about everything. Because that wouldnât be helpful, and I think what you need right now is honesty, not just someone being angry on your behalf.â A beat. âThatâs Yejiâs job.â
âDamn right,â Yeji mutters.
âBut I want you to hear this. The way someone says something matters as much as what they say. And a person who frames their discomfort as your character flawâwho says you need to respect yourself instead of saying I felt uncomfortableâthat person is not having a conversation with you. Theyâre managing you.â
The word cracks something open.
Managing.
Thatâsâ
Thatâs exactly what it felt like. Not a discussion. Not two people navigating something messy and complicated.
A performance review. A parent-teacher conference.
âHereâs what you did wrong, hereâs what you need to fix, hereâs the version of you Iâd prefer to be dating.â
âHeâs notââ You stop. Start again. âHeâs not a bad person.â
âNobody said he was, babe.â
âHeâs notâitâs not like he was mean. He didnât yell. He was calm. He was beingâtotally reasonableââ
âTotally reasonable is how they get you.â Yeji. âTotally reasonable is the whole con. Being calm while you say controlling shit doesnât make it not controlling. It just makes the other person feel crazy for having a reaction.â
You know that. You know that.
Youâve read the articles. Youâve had the conversations.
You just didnât think youâd be sitting on the other side of it with mascara on your chin.
âCan I ask you something?â Irya. Gentle. âAnd you donât have to answer.â
âYeah.â
âWhen he said those thingsâthe maturity thing, the respect thingâdid it feel new? Or did it feel⌠familiar?â
You swallow.
Irya waits. Patient in that way she hasânot passive, not absent, just genuinely unhurried, like sheâd sit outside this door all night if thatâs what it took.
âFamiliar,â you whisper.
âOkay.â Soft. Like she expected that. âOkay, thatâs important. Thatâs really important. Because when something hurts more than it should, itâs usually because itâs landing on something that was already bruised.â
The sob comes before you can stop it. Just one. Hard, sharp, ripped from somewhere below your sternum.
âI know,â Irya says. âI know.â
âItâsâit sounded like my mom.â Youâre saying it before youâve decided to say itâthe words just coming, tumbling out through the crack in the door like water through a broken seal. âThe way he said it. The tone. The calm. She used toâshe used to do this thing where sheâd sit me down and explain, very patiently, why everything I was doing was wrong. Very gently. Very reasonably. And Iâd sit there and justâtake it. Because how do you argue with someone whoâs being nice about it? How do you say stop, youâre hurting me when theyâre smiling?â
âYou canât.â Yeji. Not angry now. Quiet. âYou canât because the smile is the point. The smile is what makes you feel insane.â
âI feel insane,â you say, and it comes out small.
âYouâre not insane.â Irya. Steady as gravity. âYouâre having a very sane reaction to a very specific kind of hurt. And the fact that you can name itâthe fact that you can say this felt like my motherâthatâs not insane. Thatâs the opposite.
You press the heels of your hands into your eyes. Gold shimmer and black liner smear across your skin.
âBabe, please.â Yejiâs voice is closer now. Sheâs moved up. Right beside Irya, if you had to guess. âAt least drink some water. You had Hobiâs drinks and those brownies and you need to hydrate or youâre going to feel even worse.â
âI donât want water.â
âYou say that, butââ
âYeji. Iâm fine.â
âYou are audibly not fine.â
âI am choosing to be not fine in private, which is my right as aââ
âIf you say âas a feministâ Iâm picking this lock.â
Shuffling outside the door. Footsteps, the clipped sound of dress shoes on hardwood.
A male voice: âHey, is sheââ
Yeji is on her feet so fast you hear the combat boots squeak.
âNo.â
âI justââ
âNo. Absolutely not. Turn around.â
âYejiââ Thatâs Irya. Mediating.
âThe last thing she needs right now is another fucking man outside this door.â
âIâm notâIâm just trying toââ
âOh great. Another man whoâs just trying to. Fantastic. Groundbreaking. Never heard that one before.â
âCan you stop for one secondââ
âCan you stop? Can you maybe read the room and understand that a girl whoâs crying because a guy made her feel like shit does not need a different guy showing up toââ
âIâve been where she is.â
That stops Yeji.
Not completelyâyou can feel her resistance from inside the bathroom, can practically hear the argument building behind her teethâbut the sentence cuts through the momentum the way a stick cuts through water. Not by force. By changing direction.
âYeji.â Irya. Quiet. A hand on an arm, you imagine. âLet him.â
A paus, long enough to contain a full conversation between two people who love each other so much they can negotiate in microseconds.
âIf she says go away, you go away,â Yeji says finally.
âYeah. Got it.â
The boots retreat. Not farâyou know Yeji, sheâs pulling back ten feet and maintaining line of sight like a Secret Service agent in Doc Martensâbut far enough.
Then a sound.
A sigh, long and gusty and annoyed, like heâs been personally inconvenienced by the existence of feelings and the floor and gravity and the entire concept of sitting down in a suit.
Then the thud of a body dropping against the other side of the door with the grace of a man who committed to this before he fully thought through the logistics.
âHey.â
Taehyung.
His voice is different than it was ten seconds ago with Yeji. Quieter.
âYou donât have to talk. I justâIâm gonna sit here for a minute. If thatâs okay.â
You donât answer. Your throat is raw from the crying and your sinuses are packed with concrete and the hiccups have slowed but not stopped, punctuating the silence at irregular intervals.
âIâm not gonna ask what happened. You donât have to tell me anything.â
A beat.
âI just know what that door feels like from your side.â
Something in your chest clenches.
âI locked myself in Hobiâs bathroom once.â His voice is steady. Calm. But thereâs a grain to itâsomething rough, something lived-in. âFor like⌠three hours? Maybe four. Hobi sat outside the whole time. Didnât leave. Didnât push. Just sat there.â
You hear him shift his weight.
âI wasâgoing through something. Something bad. And I couldnât breathe and I couldnât think and I felt really, really stupid for not being able to justâhandle it. Because itâs breathing, you know? Youâve been doing it your whole life. How hard can it be.â
A hic escapes your mouth before you can stop it. Loud in the quiet.
âThat was a good one,â he says.
And despite everythingâdespite the mascara and the tile and the word mature still rattling around in your skull like a bullet in a tin canâthe corner of your mouth twitches.
âHobi didnât try to fix it,â Taehyung continues. âHe didnât say the right thing or give me advice or tell me to come out. He just⌠sat there. Told me about this dumb thing that happened at rehearsal. Some dancer who accidentally kicked another dancer in the face during a lift. And I was crying and laughing at the same time and it wasâreally messy. But it helped. Just having someone on the other side of the door who wasnât trying to make it better. Who was just⌠there.â
He pauses.
âSo Iâm just here. Thatâs it. Thatâs the whole pitch.â
You press your lips together. Hard. Because if you open your mouth right now what comes out is going to be uglyânot sarcastic-ugly, not defense-mechanism-ugly, just real ugly, the kind of honest that has no style to it, no wit, just a girl on a floor who doesnât know how to stop feeling too much about everything all the time.
âI donât even know why Iâm crying this hard,â you say.
It comes out broken. Scratchy. Barely above a whisper.
âYou donât have to know why.â
âIt doesnât make any sense. He didnât evenâhe didnât yell. He didnât do anything wrong, technically. He wasââ Hic. âHe was being reasonable. Thatâs the fucked up part. He was being totally calm and rational and saying things that sounded right and I justââ
âSometimes itâs the calm that gets you.â
The sentence stops you.
âThe loud stuffâthe yelling, the throwing thingsâthatâs easy to point at. You can say âthat, right there, thatâs the problem.â But when someoneâs calmâŚâ He exhales. Long. Slow. Like heâs letting something out thatâs been sitting in his lungs for a while. âWhen someoneâs calm and reasonable and says things that sound almost right, it makes you feel crazy for being upset. Like the problem is you. Your reaction. Not what they said.â
Silence.
âThatâs worse,â he says quietly. âThatâs so much worse.â
Your chin is trembling. You clamp your jaw around it.
âTaehyung.â
âYeah?â
âHow did youââ Hic. Fuck. âWhen did it stop? The feeling likeâlike you were too much. And also not enough. At the same time. How did that stop?â
The door is quiet for a long moment. Long enough that you wonder if heâs deciding whether to answer or deciding how to answer, and you know the difference because you live in the gap between those two things.
âIâll let you know when it does.â
Your breath comes out in a rush.
First one since you locked yourself in this room.
âBut it getsâI donât know. Quieter? It doesnât go away. You just get better at hearing other stuff over it. People who actually mean it when they say youâre enough. People who donât need you to be less.â
A thump against the door. Soft. His head, you think. Tipping back against the wood.
âAnd you learn who to listen to. Thatâs the hard part. Because the ones who make you feel small usually sound the most reasonable. Theyâve got the best arguments. The best vocabulary.â A pause. âReal ones donât need a vocabulary. They just show up and sit outside your door at midnight dressed as Gomez Addams and hope it helps.â
That breaks you.
Not the word mature. Not Jasonâs calm reasonable hands folded in prayer. Not even the memories of marble countertops and correctly angled forks.
This. This stupid, quiet, honest thing from a guy you barely know whoâs sitting on a hallway floor in a pinstripe suit because he once locked himself in a bathroom too and somebody sat outside for him.
The sob that comes out is different from the ones before. Softer. Rounder. Less like something being ripped from your chest and more like something being released. A pressure valve opening. Steam instead of shrapnel.
âOkay,â you manage. Watery. Wrecked. âThat wasâyou canât just say stuff like that to someone whoâsââ
âToo late. Already said it. No returns.â
âI hate you.â
âThatâs fine. Iâm very hateable. Ask Jungkook. He has a list.â
You laugh. It comes out wet and awful and it hurts your ribs and itâs the best sound youâve made in an hour.
On the other side of the door, you hear him exhale. Relief. The kind someone makes when they werenât sure it was going to work and then it did.
âFor the record,â he says. âYour eyelinerâs probably ruined.â
âI know.â
âJiminâs going to be devastated.â
âI know.â
âLike, genuinely distraught. He might never recover.â
âPlease stop.â
âIâm just preparing you for the grief.â
You wipe your face with the back of your hand. It comes away black and gold and wet.
âCan you justââ Hiccup. âCan you sit there for one more minute.â
âYeah.â Immediate. âYeah, Iâm here.â
So he sits.
And you sit.
And the door stays between you, and thatâs fine.
Thatâs actually the whole point.
Sometimes the best thing a person can do is be close enough to hear and far enough to not see, and let the wood do the work that words canât.
A minute passes. Maybe two.
The hiccups stop. Your breathing evens out. The brownies are still doing their thing, but the room doesnât feel like itâs shrinking anymore.
It feels like a room. With a floor. And a girl on it who cried the right amount for the right reasons and is probably going to feel embarrassed about this in the morning but right now, in this specific minute, feels something closer to emptied out than broken.
Your hand finds your wrist. The rain charm, cool against your pulse.
You flick it.
Then you stand up.
Your knees protestâstiff, cramped, the tile having done nothing for the cramps that are still low and persistent in your abdomenâand you catch yourself on the sink.
Your reflection in the mirror is a horror show. Mascara tracks. Eyeliner smeared into grey-black smudges beneath your eyes. Gold shimmer streaked across your cheeks where the tears dragged it. The dark berry lipstick is mostly gone, bitten off, leaving just a stain at the edges.
Medusa, post-battle. Snakes wilted.
Whatever.
You unlock the door. Pull it open.
Taehyung looks up at you from the floor.
He looks like a 1920s husband who got left at a train station and decided to wait.
His eyes move across your face. The damage. The evidence.
He doesnât comment on any of it. Just gets up. Unfolds himself from the floor, brushing off the back of his trousers with one hand, and stands there. Not too close. Not too far.
âDo you know where Jungkook is?â comes out of your lips.
âYeah,â he says. âI know where he is.â
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"Youâre baked, bleeding, tipsy, and doing a terrible job pretending Jasonâs words didnât land exactly where your mother left the bruise. Downstairs, Jungkook is discovering that noticing too much is only useful until it makes you want to commit a felony in a Ghostface robe."
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âŞď¸author's note : Okay, hello everyone! Welp. Long time no see, right?Â
I told you I was taking a little hiatus, and apparently I was not joking. Character development for me, honestly. Usually when I say âlittle hiatus,â I mean âI will disappear for three business days, reappear at 4 a.m. with 12k words, and act like that was normal behavior.â This time? No. June grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me through administrative hell.
I already mentioned this in the last chapter of OFL, but for those of you who only read FMU, (obsessed losers. i love you<3) I am extremely overworked this month and basically MIA. Like, spiritually unavailable. Physically present, barely. So, very gently, very lovingly, very âI am kissing your forehead while holding a spray bottleâ:Â
Please donât ask me for updates.
I know it comes from a place of love. I know you guys are obsessed with this story, these characters, and my writing, and I could not be more grateful that you enjoy these two forks being stupid so much. Truly. I would put you all in my pocket and feed you little crumbs if I could. But I am really, really stressed out this month, and I canât deal with the pressure right now. Iâve cried three times this week over paperwork and stress, and I simply cannot add writing expectations to the pile. So please. Iâll kiss all of you on the lips for loving my writing, but do not ask me when the next chapter is dropping. I genuinely donât know. Letâs stay civil, yeah? Mama will be back. Mama is just currently fighting for her life in the paperwork trenches because she has very busy next two years ahead and is working hard for that dream promotion.
In the meantime, I really suggest checking out the rest of my writing if you havenât already! I have a bunch of different stories that share similar DNA with FMU, just in different fonts.
If youâre looking for the same cozy, domestic, slice-of-life vibe as FMU, WGU is childhood best friends to lovers with Hoseok as an ADHD golden retriever overachiever.
If you want spicy, witty banter, 5STF is a rivals-to-lovers street-racing AU set in Tokyo, with Latino Jimin being obsessed with Y/N in a way that is deeply unwell and deeply correct.
If you want contemporary AU plus spicy banter, OFL is enemies to lovers with arrogant soccer player Taehyung, a man who has never been told no in his life, becoming fixated on the one girl who insists on treating him like furniture.
If you want my writing but in a shiny new sci-fi flavor, thereâs 25H, a cyberpunk/superpowers AU where Yoongi controls time and youâve lost your memory seventeen times. Casual. Normal couple stuff.
Thereâs also C:E, set in a dystopian alien semi-military heat-cycle world, with Commander Kim Namjoon being a 100% match to his nemesis. Because why be normal when we can add alien biology and emotional repression to the grocery list?
If you want stalker pathetic subby Taehyung x ballerina flirty dommy Y/N, we have ASW, which is for the mentally ill girlies who looked at âobsessionâ and said, âbut make it poetic.â
And if you havenât read my finished stories yet, KGP and OL are right there waiting for you. Go take a look while Iâm gone. Wander around the Kiki cinematic universe. Touch grass only metaphorically. Enjoy!
Now. As for this chapter.
The first scene comes in strong because Y/N is already in several states that make her extra sensitive. Sheâs on her period. Sheâs baked. Sheâs tipsy. Sheâs overstimulated. Sheâs already emotionally tangled from everything that happened before Jason even opens his mouth. So the word that detonates her is not only the word itself, but everything around it. Please keep that in mind before saying itâs stupid or dramatic, because I promise you itâs not. I have not been building this scene for twenty chapters for you gremlins to gloss over it and go âdamn, all that over one word?â I will appear in your room like sleep paralysis with a tax book and throw it at your head.
Scene two is also extremely important to me because we are seeing Jungkookâs attention to detail. And, as my beloved mod Flo would say, if I hear any of you reducing this to âomg he has romantic feelings,â I will smite you with my powerful writing quill. Or my nails. My nails work too. I donât actually own a writing quill. Point is, yes, Jungkook is protective of Y/N. Yes, there is development. Obviously. I am not writing thirty-three chapters of erotic emotional warfare for the vibes only. But please donât let the romantic subplot cloud your judgment. What happens with Jungkook here is tied to something much rawer and deeper inside him. This hits a core emotional wound. It connects to him, to his mom, to Mia, and to the specific horror of watching someone become smaller inside a relationship. The feeling of being trapped. The feeling of being managed. The feeling of not being able to breathe because someone else has convinced you the cage is care. Ruminate on that, my loves.Â
Also, whatâs a Kiki fic if I donât add social themes and then make everyone suffer through them with pretty prose and emotional damage? Taeâs monologue is not just there for dramatic effect. Itâs not only âbest friend stops best friend from doing something stupid,â though yes, that too. Itâs also there to uncloud Jungkookâs judgment because Jungkook is walking toward a situation where the reality is not in his favor. Asian man in the U.S. against a polite white cis man with academic credibility, glasses, and a vest? Yeah. The odds are not neutral. They are not clean. They are not âwho is morally right wins.â Tae knows that. Jungkook knows that. Yoongi knows that. And I needed that reality to sink in not only for Jungkook, but for you too.
Because what Jason representd doesnât need to be physically violent to win a narrative.
And finally, the last scene. I needed the female solidarity there. I needed Yeji and Irya after the Jason disaster. I needed Y/N to have women outside that door who understand the specific kind of violation that comes from being calmly, reasonably, gently made to feel insane. And I also needed someone who is not Jungkook to talk to her.Because I refuse to cheapen the depth of my side characters for the sake of pushing the romantic plot forward selfishly. FMU is not just about Jungkook and Y/N orbiting each other until one of them combusts. It is also about the people around them. The people who catch them. The people who understand different pieces of them before they can understand themselves. The person who comforts her is exactly the right person. And youâll understand soon why it had to be them.
Enjoy the chapter, my loves. Be patient with me. Be kind to each other. Donât make me tap the sign. Mama will be back. Just busy. Very busy. Horrifically busy. Dream-promotion busy.
Now go read, suffer, theorize responsibly, and behave yourselves.
Or donât.
But if you donât, at least be funny about it. đЎ
The room is smaller than it was this morning.
Which doesnât make sense, architecturally, because rooms donât shrink. Walls donât migrate inward while youâre downstairs eating drugged brownies and letting boys in bath robes corner you against kitchen counters. Thatâs not how buildings work. Thatâs not how physics works. You took a science elective. You passed it. Barely, but the point stands.
And yet.
The blue suite feels different. The ceilingâs lower or the bedâs bigger or the air is thicker or maybeâmaybe itâs just that Jason closed the door behind him with a click instead of letting it drift shut, and the click had a sound to it. A punctuation.
You didnât like it.
You havenât liked any of it walking behind him up the stairs.
He didnât reach for your hand. Didnât put his palm on the small of your back the way he usually does in hallways.
He just walked. And you followed.
And now youâre standing three feet inside the door and heâs by the window and the bed is between you like a negotiating table, and everything was fine earlier. It was fine when you got dressed in this room. It was fine when Irya did your collarbones and Jason called you incredible and held out his hand and you took it.
It was fine twenty minutes ago.
So why does the wallpaper look like itâs breathing?
âŚOkay. That one might actually be the weed.
This was definitely not your best pharmaceutical decision.
Jason turns from the window. Faces you. Brings both hands together in front of his mouthâfingertips touching, pressed to his lips, the prayer gesture. The one people do when theyâre organizing a thought theyâve already finished thinking and are now just choosing the delivery method.
He holds it there.
Drops his hands.
âOkay. So.â
A breath. Through his nose.
âWhatâs going on with him?â
Something catches in your throat. Not a soundâa shape. The shape of a word you werenât ready for, or the shape of being caught, or the shape of every single moment from the last forty-eight hours compressing into a single syllable that sits behind your tongue and refuses to move.
Fuck.
He noticed.
Fuck fuck fuck.
He saw you at the counter. He saw the way you were standingâhow close, how angled, the chocolate on your fingers, the laugh you didnât authorizeâand now heâs standing in this room with the door clicked shut and his hands in that prayer thing and heâs asking, andâ
The shower. The orange. The hallway.
ÂŤCircles, Nix.Âť
The bracelet. The fucking bracelet thatâs still on your wrist pressing the little rain charm into your pulse point.
He knows. He doesnât know how much but he knows something.
Act normal.
You are a normal person who does normal things and has normal friendships with her normal roommate and none of those things involve coming in adjacent shower stalls or the word cookie being used as a double entendre in a kitchen full of witnesses.
âI donât know what you mean.â
Nailed it. Completely nailed it. Meryl Streep would weep. Oscar-worthy. Standing ovation.
Jason looks at you.
âDonât do that.â
Okay. Fuck.
No. Donât be discouraged bitch. Make Meryl proud, come on.
âDo what?â
âThe thing where you act like you donât understand the question.â His voice is level. Measured. Patient in a way that somehow makes it worse. âYou know exactly what I mean. Heâs constantly in your space.â
Okay, Meryl, girl. There was an attempt.
Your fingers find the bracelet.
Automatic. Unconscious. The way your hand goes to a bruise to check if it still hurtsâyou donât decide to do it, you just do, and by the time you realize youâre doing it youâre already pressing the charm into your wrist and looking to the side, away from his face, at the lamp on the nightstand that is doing absolutely nothing wrong and doesnât deserve to be stared at this hard.
âWeâre friends.â You say it to the lamp. âThatâs it.â
âFriends.â
âYeah. Friends. People who talk to each other at parties. Groundbreaking concept.â
âY/N.â
âWhat?â
âCan you look at me?â
You look at him. Force yourself to do itâdrag your gaze from the lamp to his face like itâs a physical act, like your eyes weigh something they didnât weigh ten minutes ago.
Heâs not angry. Thatâs the thing. Heâs not doing the thing youâre braced forâno raised voice, no visible frustration, no clenched jaw or sharp edges.
He looks calm. Concerned. Reasonable.
For some reason, it feels like his most dangerous version.
âIâm not trying to start a fight,â he says. Opens his hands. Palms up. The universal gesture of âI come in peaceâ that people only do when peace is not, in fact, what they came with. âI justâI think itâs worth having a conversation about boundaries.â
âBoundaries.â
âYeah. About whatâs appropriate. In front of other people.â
Something hot flickers in your chest. Not guilt anymore. Something meaner.
âWhat exactly was inappropriate?â
âI didnât say inappropriate. I saidââ
âYou literally just said whatâs appropriate, Jason, which means something was inappropriate, so what was it?â
He takes a breath. The patient one. The one that says âIâm going to let that tone slide because Iâm the mature one here.â
And god, you hate that breath. You hate it the way you hate being corrected by someone whoâs technically right but fundamentally missing the pointâthat specific, grinding frustration of being managed.
âI just donât think itâs a great look,â he says. âHaving another guyâs hands all over you at a party where weâre here together.â
Hands all over you.
Hands all over you?
The kitchen counter flashesâJungkookâs palms flat on either side of your hips, the heat, the proximity, the vanilla bottle sitting there like a prop in a play about your bad decisionsâand your stomach drops because okay, maybe from across the room that did lookâ
âThatâs not what was happening.â
âFrom where I was sittingââ
âThen maybe you were sitting at a bad angle.â
âY/N.â The patient breath again. âIâm not accusing you of anything. Iâm just sayingâas someone who cares about youâI donât think you realize how it looks. To other people.â
His eyes drop. To your wrist.
âAndâI wasnât going to bring this up, but since weâre talking about it.â He gestures. A small tilt of his chin toward your left hand. âThat thing.â
You donât need to look down to know what he means.
âWhat about it?â
âYouâve been wearing it all week. I couldnât help but notice.â His voice is still calm. Still measured. Still wrapped in enough reasonableness that the words almost sound like concern instead of what they are. âAnd I didnât say anything because I didnât want toâbut itâs a bit childish, no? The colors. The beads.â
Yellow. Orange. Red. Little silver letters spelling âRogueâ across.
âItâs a bracelet, Jason.â
âIt says Rogue.â He says it amused in a way thatâs worse than meanâcondescending, like heâs being generous by only finding it slightly embarrassing. âWhat does that even mean?â
âItâs an inside joke.â
âWith who?â
âWithâpeople. Itâs a friendship bracelet. People have those.â
âAt your age?â
The question hangs. Rhetorical. Already answered by the tone he used to ask it.
His eyes move from the bracelet to your hand. To the back of it. To the fleshy part below your thumb whereâ
âAndâis that a bite?â
Your hand snaps behind your body so fast you nearly throw out your shoulder.
Too fast. Way too fast.
The speed of it is its own confessionânobody hides an innocent injury like theyâre palming evidence at a crime sceneâand you watch Jason clock the reaction the way he clocks everything: slow, but sure.
âItâs nothing.â
âItâs a bite mark.â
âItâs not. I just bumped into something.â
âThatâs teeth.â
âIt wasâthe brownie thing. In the kitchen. It was stupid, someone wasâit was a joke.â
âA joke.â Flat. âSomeone bit you. As a joke.â
And the way he says itâsomeoneâmakes it clear he doesnât need you to fill in the name.
His jaw works once. Controlled.
âSo youâre out there getting drunk and high andâwhat, bitten by people at a party? Randomly? While weâre here together?â
âIt wasnâtââ
âThatâs the kind of behavior you think isââ
âIt was a joke, Jason, we were fighting over a brownie and it was dumb and it lasted two secondsââ
âI justââ
He runs a hand through his hair. Looks at you with an expression thatâs trying so hard to be gentle it comes full circle into something sharp.
âThatâs not the girl I know. The beads and the nicknames and theâgetting bitten in kitchens at midnightâitâs not you.â
Not you.
Not the version of you he knows.
Not the version he built in his head from seminar answers and coffee dates and the careful, polished, composed woman who shows up when heâs watching.
The version that wears matching jewelry and speaks in complete sentences and doesnât have an inside joke with her roommate spelled out on her wrist in colored beads like a kid at summer camp.
âMaybe youâve just never known me.â
You say it quiet. Looking right at him.
His mouth opens. Closes.
And for one secondâhalf a secondâsurprise cracks in the diplomacy.
Then the composure reseals. The crack plasters over. The expression returns to its default setting: concerned, measured, slightly wounded.
âI think you should be more mindful. Thatâs all. About how you carry yourself. I think you shouldââ
A pause. Careful. Choosing.
âârespect yourself a little more.â
Respect yourself.
Your mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
âYou deserve better than being someoneâsâI donât knowâphysical prop. Being grabbed and hung on andâitâs not how someone treats a person they respect. And I think you know that.â
The hot thing in your chest is spreading. Climbing up your throat. Making your heartbeat louder in your own ears, which might be the weed or might be fury or might be some volatile combination of both thatâs going to end in either tears or property damage and you genuinely do not know which.
âNobody was grabbing me. Nobody was hanging on me. I was talking to someone. At a party. Like a person. With a social life.â
âYou wereââ
âWhat? Finish that.â
âCan you let me finish a sentence?â
âCan you stop starting sentences that end with me not respecting myself?â
âI just donât think Jimin sees it like that.â
Everything stops.
The room. Your breathing. The weed-warped wallpaper. The hot angry thing in your chest.
All of it hits pause, mid-stride, like someone yanked the needle off a record.
âWhat?â
âI said I donât think Jimin sees it the way you think he does.â
Jimin.
Jimin?
Heâs talking aboutâ
This entireâevery single word of this conversationâthe boundaries, the appropriateness, the respect yourselfâ
âYou think Jimin has feelings for me?â
It comes out flat. Incredulous. Like someone asked you to confirm the sky is blue.
Jasonâs expression doesnât change.
Same steady, reasonable, measured look.
Same concerned furrow between the brows.
Same âIâm saying this because I care about youâ energy pouring off him in waves of cedar and bergamot.
âI think Jimin knows what itâs like to be a guy,â he says, âand have a girl draped all over him.â
Draped.
He said draped.
Like you were fabric. Like you were a decoration. Like the arms you had around Jiminâs shouldersâwarm, platonic, the kind of casual affection you give to someone who just did your eyeliner and trusted you with the shape of his questionsâwere some kind of tactical maneuver. Some calculated display that poor innocent Jimin couldnât possibly interpret as anything other than sexual, because youâre a girl, and heâs a guy, and apparently that equation only has one answer in Jasonâs math.
Your fingernails press half-moons into your palms.
âDraped,â you repeat. Testing the word. Tasting it.
It tastes like your mother.
ÂŤYouâre too much, youâre too loud, youâre taking up space in a way that makes people uncomfortable, and youâd know that if youâd just stop and think about how you look from the outside for once in your life.Âť
You feel the beginning of a compression in your chest.
One that you recognize from a long time ago, from fights in kitchens with marble countertops, from sitting at dining tables where every fork was placed at the correct angle and every word was placed at the correct volume and every version of you that didnât fit the blueprint got folded up and put away.
Your lungs feel smaller.
Thatâs the weed. That has to be the weed.
âJimin is my friend.â You say it slow, clear. âHe did my eyeliner. I hugged him. I hug my friends, Jason. Thatâs a thing people do.â
âIâm not saying you canât have friendsââ
âSee, this is what Iâm talking about.â He gestures at youâat all of you, the sarcasm, the crossed arms, the whole defensive architecture of your posture. âThis. Right here. I try to have an adult conversation and you immediately go toââ
âTo what?â
âTo this. The deflection. The sarcasm. The making me the bad guy for expressing a concern.â
And the fucked up thingâthe really truly fucked up thingâis that heâs not entirely wrong.
You are deflecting. You are being sarcastic. You are making him the bad guy because the alternative is engaging with the actual content of what heâs saying and you canât do that because the actual content requires you to either (a) explain that Jimin is not interested in you because Jimin is currently navigating something about his own identity that is private and sacred and none of Jasonâs goddamn business, or (b) admit that the real problem isnât Jimin at all, itâs the guy in the Ghostface robe who said circles to you across a kitchen like it was a promiseâ
And you canât do either of those things.
Option A outs Jimin. Option B outs you.
So youâre stuck.
Trapped.
Standing in this room thatâs getting smaller with every sentence, defending a position that isnât the real position, fighting a fight that isnât the real fight, and your chest is doing the thing and your hands are doing the thing and the wallpaper is definitely breathing now and you canâtâ
âHe was sitting down,â you say, and your voice is thinner. You can hear it. âI came up behind him and put my arms around him. The same way Iâd hug Yeji. The same way Iâd hug Irya. Are you going to tell me thatâs inappropriate too?â
âYeji and Irya are women.â
âSo?â
âSo itâs different.â
âWhy?â
âBecause it is. Because whether you want to acknowledge it or not, there is a difference between how men and women interpret physical affection, and Iâm not being old-fashioned by pointing that out, Iâm being realistic.â
âYouâre being controlling.â
Jasonâs face does something youâve never seen it do before.
He looks hurt. Real, actual hurt, the kind that flashes across someoneâs face before they can catch it and tuck it behind something more presentable.
âIâm not controlling you,â he says. âIâm asking you to think about how your actions affect the people around you. Thatâs not control. Thatâs consideration.â
Consideration.
Your motherâs favorite word. Your motherâs number-one, gold-standard, go-to weapon for every single time you did something that embarrassed her or surprised her or reminded her that you were a separate person with separate wantsââhave some consideration. Think about someone other than yourself for once.â
You can feel your heartbeat in your fingers, in your wrists, in the base of your throat where the gold chain sits against your skin.
You want to scream that Jimin is already interested in someone else, that possibly he doesnât even like girls.
But you donât.
Because itâs not yours to say. Itâs Jiminâs. It belongs to him the same way the pink nail belongs to him, the same way the question in the bathroom belongs to himââwhat if none of it fits, what if there isnât a word for itââand you donât get to hand that to Jason Calloway like a hall pass just because youâre cornered and scared and your lungs wonât open all the way.
You donât get to sacrifice someone elseâs secret to win your own argument.
So you stand there. Hands shaking. Jaw shut. Pulse hammering against the rain charm on your wrist.
And you have nothing.
No defense that doesnât betray someone.
No explanation that doesnât expose something.
âI shouldnât have to justify hugging my friend,â you say, and it comes out cracked.
âNobodyâs asking you to justify anything. Iâm asking you to be aware.â
âAware of what?â
âOf how you come across. Of the signals youâre sending. Of the fact that youâre at a party with meâwith meâand you spent the last hour hanging off other men and barely looked in my direction.â
The compression in your chest is getting worse. Heavier. Like someoneâs stacking books on your ribcage one at a timeâeach sentence another volume, another weight, another reason you canât get enough air into your lungs to fight properly.
Your eyes burn.
No. Nope. Absolutely not.
You are not going to cry in front of Jason Calloway in a Medusa costume with two pot brownies dissolving in your bloodstream. Thatâs not happening. That is a thing that will not occur.
âI think,â he saysâand thereâs a softness to it now, a careful softness thatâs worse than the accusations because it sounds like kindness, it sounds like concern, it sounds like someone who loves you explaining for the fifteenth time why youâre doing everything wrong, âthat sometimes you donât realize the way you act around men. And I donât think thatâs your fault. I think itâsâa pattern. And I think if you were a little more self-aware about it, a little moreâŚâ
He pauses. Looking for the word.
ââŚmature, youâd...â
You tune out the rest of the sentence.
Because that word.
Mature.
One single, careful, well-chosen, precisely deployed word that lands in the exact center of the thing your parents built inside youâthe architecture of not-enough, the blueprint of every dinner table correction and every lowered voice and every âwhen are you going to grow up and start acting like the person we raised you to beââ
And inside you something bucklesâa load-bearing wall giving way, a structural failure thatâs been building since the shower, since the orange, since circles, since the prayer hands and whatâs going on with himâand you are not going to cry here.
You are not going to cry here, you are not going to cry here, you are notâ
âI need to use the bathroom.â
âY/Nââ
âI need to use the bathroom, Jason.â
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
His expression is doing the thing againâthe hurt, the confusion, the genuine inability to understand why his reasonable words keep producing unreasonable reactionsâand part of you, the part thatâs still rational, knows he doesnât get it.
Knows he thinks heâs being fair.
Knows he genuinely believes that everything he just said came from a place of care and concern and wanting the best for you.
And maybe thatâs the worst part.
That he means it.
That the cage is lined with good intentions and the bars are made of âI just want whatâs best for youâ and the lock is turned by someone who thinks love and management are the same thing.
You grab the door handle. Pull.
âCan we at leastââ
The door closes behind you.
The hallway is empty. The sconce flickers. The fog machineâs output has crept up the stairs and is hanging in thin wisps along the baseboard and you walk through it on legs that donât feel entirely connected to your bodyâone foot, then the other, mechanical, automatic, the way you used to walk from the dining room to your bedroom after the conversations that left you feeling like this, small and wrong and taking up too much space and not the right shape and never, ever, ever enoughâ
The bathroom door.
You push through it. Lock it behind you.
Slide down the door until youâre sitting on cold tile with your knees pulled up and the Medusa skirt bunching around your thighs and the snake cuff digging into your bicep and the gold chains in your hair pressing into the back of your skull against the wood.
The first sob comes out silent.
The second one doesnât.
Itâs ugly. Wrenching. The kind that starts in your stomach and rips upward through your chest like something with claws, and you press your hand over your mouth to contain it because there are thirty people downstairs and the last thingâthe absolute last thing you needâis someone hearing you fall apart in a bathroom at a Halloween party because a boy used the word âmatureâ and your nervous system couldnât tell the difference between him and your mother.
Tears streak through Jiminâs perfect eyeliner, wings dissolving, the careful symmetry ruined, and you think stupidly, absurdly, through the wet gasping wreckage of your breathing, that heâs going to be so disappointed when he sees what you did to his work.
That thought makes you cry harder.
Which makes you laugh.
Which makes you cry again.
You pull your knees tighter. Press your forehead to them. Let the gold chain belt dig into your thighs.
On your wrist, the rain charm catches the fluorescent light.
You donât take it off.
He can taste purple.
Not likeâgrape. Not like candy or medicine or anything thatâs supposed to be purple. Just the color. Just purple, sitting on his tongue like a frequency, and the ceiling is doing something interesting with its textures and Jungkook is pretty sure the decorative cobwebs have been moving for the last ten minutes but in a chill way. A friendly way. Like theyâre also at a party and having a good time.
He shouldnât have eaten that third brownie.
He knows this.
He also shouldnât have taken that last shot of whatever Hobi poured out of a bottle with no labelâa liquid the color of antifreeze that tasted like someone dissolved a green apple Jolly Rancher in paint thinner and then blessed it with a prayer and a middle finger.
But rational decisions have never been his forte and theyâre not going to start now.
Not when the ceiling has this much going on, anyway.
âHoseok deserves jail,â Taehyung mutters next to him.
He says it to the ceiling too. Both of them, heads tipped back against the couch cushions, staring up at the crown molding like it contains the answers to questions neither of them are smart enough to ask right now.
Jungkook chuckles. âFederal.â
âMinimum.â
âConsecutive sentences.â
âNo parole.â
They sit with that for a moment. Satisfied with the verdict.
This lounge is on the far side of the houseâquieter, dimmer, tucked away from the main party like a VIP section nobody asked for. Somebody dragged a floor lamp in here at some point and aimed it at the wall, which means the light is amber and indirect and makes everything look like a memory. Thereâs a smaller couch, an armchair with an afghan thrown over it, and a coffee table covered in jack-o-lanterns that Jungkook carved this morning with a steak knife and what heâd considered, at the time, artistic vision.
He looks at the decorations. The cobwebs he stretched across the doorframe. The battery-operated candles on the mantle. The little plastic spiders he positioned along the bookshelf with deliberate spacing becauseâfilm major.
Composition matters. Even in novelty arachnids.
âYou know what,â he says. âI did a pretty good job with all this.â
He gestures broadly at the room. The gesture is meant to encompass the whole house but his arm is heavier than expected so it mostly encompasses the lamp and half of Taehyungâs face.
Taehyung snorts.
âSure. If you donât count the pumpkins.â
Jungkookâs head rolls sideways on the cushion. âWhatâs wrong with my pumpkins?â
Taehyung stops staring at the ceiling. Lifts his head. Rights himself into something approaching a seated position, which is a productionâbecause Taehyung is currently dressed as Gomez Addams and the costume is committed.
Pinstripe suit. Actual pinstripe, not printed. A burgundy pocket square folded into something that probably has a nameâtriangle? pyramid? fabric origami?âthat matches the deep red of Irikaâs dress because of course it does, because Kim Taehyung looked at his girlfriendâs Morticia costume and said âI will restructure my entire wardrobe around your color paletteâ without a single beat of hesitation. The mustache is drawn on with eyeliner. Thin, precise, curling slightly at the ends. His hair is slicked backâevery strand cemented into place with what smells like an entire can of productâand thereâs a fake rose pinned to his lapel that Jungkook watched him steal from a vase in the entryway and present to Irika on one knee in the living room while she pretended to swoon and Hobi filmed the whole thing for Instagram.
Disgusting. Truly disgusting behavior from a man Jungkook respects and loves.
âAre you kidding me,â Taehyung says.
Jungkook rights himself too. Sits up. Squares his shoulders. The Ghostface robe shifts around him like a bathrobe at a very dramatic hotel.
âThe pumpkins are perfect.â
âTheyâre not perfect. They look stupid.â
âThey donâtââ
âDude.â Taehyung pointsâhazily, finger drifting slightly left of centerâat the jack-o-lantern sitting on the coffee table directly in front of them. âLook at it. Actually look at it.â
Jungkook looks at it.
Itâs⌠okay, the mouth is a little wide.
And the eyes are slightly different sizes, which heâd thought was characterful at the time but might, in the current lighting, read more as neurological event.
And the noseâheâd tried for a triangle, landed on something more rhomboidâ
âIt looks like Willy Wonka,â Taehyung says. âOr some shit.â
âWilly Wonkaâs attractive.â
The words leave his mouth before his brain clears them and he hears them land in the room and thinks, âwell, thatâs a sentence I just said with confidence to another man on a couch.â
Taehyungâs entire head rotates toward him. Slowly. Like a surveillance camera.
âWhat.â
âWhat? He is. Didnât you see that TikTok guy? The one who dressed up as Wonka and got likeâmillions of followers?â
âWhat the fuck is on your For You Page, dude.â
âBro, I swear. He went viral. Hold on.â
Jungkook pulls out his phone. Unlocks it. The screen is brighter than the sun and he squints against it like a vampire encountering daylight for the first timeâwhich, given the costume, feels thematic.
âLook. Wait.â
He opens TikTok. His thumb is slower than usual. The letters in the search bar are behaving strangely.
âHow do you spell Wonka.â
âHow do youâJungkook.â
âNo, I know how, I justâis there an H?â
âThereâs not an H in Wonka. There has never been an H in Wonka. Where would the H go.â
âW-O-N-K-A. Five letters. No H. You went to college.â
âTechnically Iâm still going to collegeââ
âYouââ Taehyung groans, snatching the phone, âgimme the phone.â
Somehow, his friend manages to write with the efficiency of someone who doesnât have three brownies and Hobiâs prison cocktail dissolving his neural pathways.
Two seconds later heâs scrolling through results.
Jungkook, on a sober note, would call that blasphemy.
âThis one?â
He holds the phone up. A guy in a purple velvet coat and a top hat, abs out, doing a grinding motion to some remix of âI wanna love youâ.
âThatâs him! See?â Jungkook takes the phone back. Points at the screen. âTell me thatâs not attractive.â
âIâm not telling you that.â
âWhy not?â
âBecause Iâm not going to sit on this couch, in this suit, and confirm or deny the attractiveness of a TikTok Willy Wonka to you at midnight on Halloween. I have limits. I have a pinstripe situation happening.â Taehyung tugs his lapel. âGomez wouldnât do this.â
âGomez would absolutely do this. Gomez would rate every man in a room if Morticia told him to.â
âThatâsââ Taehyung pauses. Snatches his phone again. Narrows his eyes. âThatâs actually accurate and Iâm mad about it.â
âSo the pumpkin looks like an attractive man. Whatâs the issue.â
âThe issue is that a jack-o-lantern is not supposed to look like an attractive man, Jungkook. Itâs supposed to look scary. Thatâs theâthatâs the whole assignment. Scary face. On a gourd.â
âA gourd?â
âA pumpkin is a gourd.â
âSince when?â
âSinceâbotany? Since agriculture? Since the dawn of gourds?â
âI feel like youâre making that up.â
âGoogle it.â
âYou Google it. You have my phone.â
Taehyung looks down. He does, in fact, still have Jungkookâs phone. He stares at it for a long moment, like he forgot how it got there and is now reconstructing the timeline.
ââŚYour wallpaper is still Griffin,â he says.
âYeah.â
âFrom when he was a kitten.â
âYeah.â
âThatâs cute.â
âI know.â
They look at each other. Two grown men on a couch. One dressed as a fictional serial killer, the other as a fictional husband. Both profoundly, catastrophically, beautifully stoned.
Taehyung hands the phone back.
âYour pumpkins still look stupid.â
âNoted. Rejected. Moving on.â
âThe one in the hallway looks like itâs having an allergic reaction.â
âThat oneâs abstract.â
âItâs abstract in the way that a car accident is abstract.â
Jungkook opens his mouth to argue, but his brain has already lost the threadâgone, dissolved, replaced by the observation that the cobwebs on the ceiling are still moving and heâs kind of into it. Like a mobile. Like a very goth baby mobile.
He tips his head back again. Taehyung follows a beat later.
Ceiling.
Cobwebs.
âHey,â Taehyung says.
âYeah.â
âThe decorations are good.â
âYeah?â
âYeah. Not the pumpkins. Everything else.â
Jungkook grins at the ceiling. âThanks, man.â
âThe pumpkins are, like, honest-to-god dog shit.â
âGot it.â
âBut the rest is solid.â
âAppreciate that.â
They sit with it. Content. The kind of silence that only exists between two people who've known each other long enough that not talking is its own form of conversation.
Somewhere in the house, someone drops a glass. A cheer goes up.
Neither of them moves.
Then Jungkook's thumb finds the silver ring. Starts turning it.
He doesn't notice he's doing it. Never does. It's the kind of habit that lives below the threshold of awarenessâa background process, automatic, the way some people tap their foot or chew their lip. He just spins the ring. Round and round. The pad of his thumb catching the flat edge, pushing, rotating, catching again.
"Jason bothers me."
He says it to the ceiling. Same way he said the thing about the pumpkins. Same way he said Willy Wonka was attractive. Just out there. A sentence released into the room without a permission slip.
Taehyung doesn't move. Doesn't look over.
"You've mentioned."
"No, I meanâ" The ring spins. "He bothers me."
"Yeah. You've mentioned that too." Taehyung shifts on the couch. Gets slightly more upright. The jacket creaks. "Multiple times. Extensively. At length. I believe the phrase 'trust fund guidance counselor' was used. And 'discount therapist with a cologne budget.' And my personal favoriteâ"
"I'm not joking around right now."
Something about the way he says itâthe flatness, the absence of the usual punchline, the punchline that should be there because Jungkook always has a punchline, that's the deal, that's the contract between him and every serious moment he's ever been inâmakes Taehyung's head turn.
Jungkook is still looking at the ceiling. But he's not seeing the cobwebs anymore.
"Something's off about him."
"Off how?"
"I don'tâ" His tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. Searching for the word. The right word. "I don't know. Off. Just off, bro. The way heâ"
He stops. Starts again.
"She used eucalyptus soap."
Taehyung blinks.
"...What?"
"Earlier. The showers. Y/N. She used the eucalyptus soap that was in the stall instead of her own stuff."
Taehyung stares at him. The Gomez mustacheâwhat's left of itâcrinkles with the specific bewilderment of a man who was just having a perfectly good conversation about gourds and is now being asked to care about shower products.
"I'm gonna need, like... significantly more context than that."
"She's vanilla, Tae." Jungkook says it like it's obvious. Like it's a fact of the natural world, on par with gravity or the boiling point of water. "Sheâs vanilla everything. Everything. Soap. Lotion. The stuff in her hair. She's got like six different vanilla products in the shower caddy and she didn't bring any of it. She used the generic eucalyptus shit in the stall and she doesnâtâshe still smells like vanilla underneath because it's basically her, like her actualâ"
âJungkook.â
"âbut it's off. There's thisâthis layer on top of it that isn't her and I'd bet you anythingâanythingâthat he said something. About the vanilla. That he made some comment about it being basic or juvenile or whatever the fuck and she justâadjusted. Without evenâshe probably doesn't even know she did it."
The silence that follows has a specific quality.
âŚThe quality of someone deciding whether to call an ambulance or a therapist.
"Jesus, man. The weed really did a number on you. Youâre having an episode over body wash, are you hearing yourselfâ"
"It's notâ" He swats at Tae. "Itâs not about the body wash. It'sâ" He drags a hand down his face. "Okay, the body wash thing sounds insane. I know it sounds insane. That's the problem. Every individual thing sounds insane if I say it out loud. It's only when you put all of it together that itâ"
He makes a vague, frustrated gesture at the air. Like he's trying to grab the shape of what he means and it keeps slipping.
"She doesn't do her tea thing anymore."
"Her tea thing."
"She used to leave the tea bags in the sink. Every morning. Justâsitting there. On the sink. Drove me insane. I texted her about it. Twice. She left me on read and then told me where I could shove the tea bags. It was a whole thing."
He's talking to the ceiling again. His thumb hasn't stopped.
"And then she starts seeing this guy and the tea bags are gone. Justâpoof. Not in the sink. Not anywhere. And the thing isâI should be happy about that, right? I wanted them gone. But they didn't stop because she decided to stop. They stopped because heâ"
No, but that doesnât sound right. Because he doesnât know for sure, does he?
Did you stop the tea bag situation after Jason?
Was it before him? Was Jason the reason?
He wishes he could trust his memory. Or his own brain.
"Iâm really trying to follow the thread here, Jungkook."
"Itâsâitâs justâthe way she is after she's been with him for a while. Like sheâs been adjusted or something."
Taehyung is quiet for a second. Processing.
Runs a hand across the back of his neck, seemingly choosing words carefully, which is very unlike him.
"Look, man⌠She's a grown woman. People date shitty guys all the time. That's, like... a universal experience. It's not reallyâ"
"I know."
"âyour problem. She's your roommate. You guys argue about milk. It's notâ"
"I know, Tae."
"So then why are youâ" Taehyung's hand comes off his neck. Gestures at all of Jungkook. The ring spinning, the jaw set, the whole rigidness of a man who's clearly been carrying this around for longer than tonight. "Why are you like this about it? Since when do you evenâI thought you guys just coexist. She leaves her shit around, you leave your shit around, Yoongi mediates. That's the dynamic."
The ring stops.
Spins again.
"We're friends."
Taehyung's eyebrows go up. Genuinely up.
"You're friends?"
"I think so. Yeah. I've been trying to convince her of that for like a month and she basically just gave in earlier tonightâanyway, that's not the point, dudeâ"
"No, IâI'm justâsince when? Last I heard she was 'the menace in room three' who used all the hot waterâ"
"She's not a menace, she'sâokay, she is a menace. With the hot water specifically. But that's a separate issue and it has nothing to do withâ"
He's losing the thread. Can feel it unraveling. The way it always does when he tries to explain something that lives in the space between what he sees and what he can proveâthe words come out wrong or come out in the wrong order or come out sounding like a conspiracy theory narrated by a guy who's had three pot brownies and a shot of Hobi's antifreeze, and he knows that, he can hear himself, but the alternative is shutting up and the alternative is worse because shutting up means the thing stays in his chest and eats.
"Okay. Forget the soap. Forget the tea bags. Forget all theâthe individual things, because individually they're all nothing. Right? Each one is nothing."
He sits up. Slightly. Enough that his feet plant on the floor and he's not talking to the ceiling anymore. He's talking to his hands.
"But it's likeâwhen you watch a movie. And you can't point to the one thing that's wrong with it. The lighting's fine, the acting's fine, the script is fine. But you walk out and you feel bad and you don't know why, and then two weeks later at three in the morning you sit up and go 'the pacing'âit was the pacing the whole time, the pacing was off and it made everything else feel wrong even though everything else was technically fine."
Catches his breath.
"Jason is the pacing."
Taehyung opens his mouth. Closes it. Tilts his head.
"That's..." he says slowly, "genuinely one of the most unhinged analogies I've ever heard you make. And I was there for the 'risotto is emotional labor' speech."
"It made sense in contextâ"
"It didn't, but go on."
Jungkook's face is on his hands now, resting his weight on his elbows. The way he does when the frustration of not being able to translate the thing in his body to the thing in the air hits critical mass.
"I'm not saying this right."
"You're really not."
"I justâI see her, Tae. I see her before she goes to his place and I see her when she comes back and she's different. And I can'tâI can't point to the exact frame where it changes. But she's smaller when she comes back. Not likeânot physically. Just... the volume on her goes down. And it comes back up when she's home for a while and then she goes back to him and it goes down again and Iâ"
He stops. Presses his palms flat on his thighs. Pushes down. Grounding.
"Something about him makes my skin crawl and I don't know if that's real or if I'mâ"
ÂŤâŚmaking it up, Jungkook. Youâre seeing things that are not there, baby. Youâre projecting.Âť
"âor if I'm just... seeing shit that isn't there because of my own stuff. I'm aware that's possible. I'm aware I could be the problem here. But every time I try to talk myself out of it something else happensâsomething small, something that doesn't matter by itselfâand the feeling comes back and it'sâit'sâ"
He makes a sound. Not a word. The verbal equivalent of throwing a pen across the room because the sentence won't cooperate.
"I'm really not saying this right."
"Hey." Taehyung's voice has changed. Not all the way. Still casual, still on the couch, still Kim Taehyung at a Halloween party. But the tone is softer. "You don't have to get it perfect, man. Just say the part that matters."
The part that matters.
The ring spins.
"Heâ" he gulps down, the pronoun stumbling over itself, "he reminds me ofâ"
And the sentence stops. Not because he chose to stop it. Because the word that comes next has a weight to itâactual, physical, gravitationalâand the weight wins. Holds it in his chest. Behind the sternum.
In the exact place where things live that he brings to Dr. Liao's office and puts on the table between them and says âI don't know what this is but it won't leave.â
He doesn't finish. Just turns his head. Looks at Taehyung.
The look does what the word won't.
Taehyung, who knows what lives on the other side of sentences Jungkook doesn't finish, nods softly.
"Mia?"
Jungkook takes a couple seconds. But then he nods.
Taehyung sits up. All the way up. Elbows on his knees. The stolen rose on his lapel bends sideways.
"What do you mean he reminds you ofâlike, specifically. What is he doing?"
"It'sâit's just a hunch, man. I don't know him. I've barely talked to him, so for all I know I could be paranoid. I'm aware of that." He sighs. "But something about his presence makes my skin fucking crawl andâwhen I see herâwhen I see her after she's been with him for a while, every time she's..."
Loses it. The sentence. The thread. The bridge between the thing he can feel and the thing he can say.
Starts over.
"I feel like he makes her think she's the problem. Like the way she isâher personality, the way she takes up space, the way she's loud and leaves tea bags everywhere and wears vanilla everythingâlike all of that is this flaw he's generously helping her with. And she justâshe takes it. She adjusts. And she doesn't even know she's adjusting, that's theâ"
His hands are moving now. Not gesturing. Just moving. Restless energy that needs an exit.
"âand I can't say anything because we're barelyâI've been her friend for like five hours, I don't get to walk up and be like 'hey, I think your boyfriend is psychologically dismantling you one tea bag at a time.' That's insane. That'sâ"
"Hey." Taehyung's hand on his knee. Firm. "Slow down. Start from the beginning. What specifically has heâ"
The door to the lounge swings open hard enough to bounce off the wall.
Jimin comes through it like the hallway spat him outâfast, slightly off-balance, costume rumpled. The quill pen is gone from behind his ear. His eyes are wide and scanning the room with the specific urgency of someone who needs something and needed it thirty seconds ago.
"Sorryâsorry, is there water in here?"
Jungkook lifts one hand from the armrest. Swallows. Rubs the back of his neck. Points vaguely at the side table where someone abandoned a cluster of bottles and cups sometime around the second hour of the party.
"Over there."
Doesn't take long to notice Jimin's chest is moving too fast.
"Yo." Sits up.
The weed is still thereâstill fuzzing the edges, still making the room feel like it's wrapped in feltâbut something underneath it is starting to sharpen. An instinct. The one that monitors rooms, reads exits, clocks the difference between someone who's out of breath from running and someone who's out of breath from something worse.
"What's up, Jim?"
Jimin picks up the cup. Puts it down. Picks it up again.
Licks his lips.
"It'sâ"
He says your name.
Everything in Jungkook's nervous system goes from THC-saturated haze to full alert in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
"She'sâ" Jimin swallows. Runs his hand through his hair and the careful side-part collapses, which he doesn't notice, which means whatever this is ranks above vanity. "She's in the bathroom. Crying. And Yeji and Irya are outside the door but she won'tâthey can't get her to come out. I thinkâI think her and Jason had a fight or something."
Jungkook is standing before the sentence ends.
He doesnât remember deciding to stand. His legs just did itâunfolded beneath him, pushed him vertical, and now heâs crossing the room toward Jimin and Taehyung is sitting up behind him making a sound that means âwhatâs happeningâ but Jungkookâs already there, already in front of Jimin, already close enough to see the specific kind of worry on his faceânot the general kind.
âWhat did he say?â
âWhat?â
âWhat the fuck did Jason say to her.â
Jimin blinks. Opens his mouth. Shuts it. Opens it again.
âI donâtâI donât know exactly, she was crying and talking really fast and not making a lot of sense through the door and the music, but she saidââ He stops. Regroups. His fingers are gripping the cup and the plastic crackles under the pressure. âShe said something about feeling trapped. That he was being controlling, or she felt controlled, orâI couldnât hear everything, sheâs high and emotional and Yeji was yelling at someone to turn the music down soââ
Trapped.
The word hits different than the others.
The othersâfight, crying, bathroomâthose are bad, those register, those go into the filing cabinet under urgent and get processed accordingly.
But trapped doesnât file.
Trapped doesnât go into a cabinet.
Trapped goes into his chest.
Right next to the place where a different face livesâa word from a different room, a different year, a different woman, except itâs not different, itâs the same fucking word, the same four walls closing in, the same air running out, the sameâ
ââand so I wanted to grab some water because I thought maybe if she just has some water andâJungkook?â
Heâs already at the door.
âJungkook, waitââ
He doesnât wait. His tongue presses into the inside of his cheekâhard, pressure thatâs keeping something behind his teeth that wants out, something with a shape and a heat to it that he recognizes from a long, long time ago.
Not anger. Anger is manageable. Anger is a thing heâs learned to sit with, to breathe through, to hand to Dr. Liao in pieces and say âI felt this, I didnât act on it, are you proud of me.â
This isnât anger.
This is the thing underneath anger.
The thing that has no name in his vocabulary because heâs never let it stay long enough to need one.
The thing that only shows up when someone he cares about feels trapped.
His jaw clenches. The silver ring bites into his finger where his fist has curled without permission.
He rounds the corner into the hallway and the party noise swells and none of it reaches him.
Footsteps behind him. Fast. The pinstripe suit wasnât built for pursuit but Taehyungâs making it workâlong strides, dress shoes clipping the hardwood, and his voice has lost every trace of boneless ice and Willy Wonka and ceiling cobwebs.
âJungkook.â
Doesnât stop.
âJungkookâwait.â
Doesnât stop.
âWait, man. Think this throughââ
He cuts through the living room like itâs not there.
Beer pong table, fog machine, centurion, bunny, bodies in costumes he registers as shapes and colors and none of them are the shape heâs looking for.
The music is too loud and someoneâs laughing near the speakersâhigh, a sound that scrapes the inside of his skullâand his hands are at his sides and his jaw is locked so tight the pressure reaches his temples.
Trapped.
The word keeps playing. Looped. Skipping like a scratched record.
ÂŤThis is what men do.Âť
Not now. Not fucking now.
He reaches the french doors to the garden. Open. Night air. Cold enough that it should register but doesnât. Patio stones under his boots. String lights overhead making everything amber and warm and the warmth is wrongâeverything about this scene is wrong because it looks like a party and sounds like a party and somewhere upstairs youâre on a bathroom floor and the door is locked and you said trappedâ
âYouâre not doing this.â
Jungkook doesnât turn. Steps off the patio onto the lawn.
âHey. Hey. Iâm talking to you.â
Doesnât turn.
The grass is wet. His boots sink.
None of it registers as information worth processing because the only information that matters right now is the distanceâa hundred feet, closingâand the shape of Jasonâs silhouette against the string lights and the sound the word trapped makes when it loops inside a skull thatâs stopped filtering anything else.
âJungkookâyouâre gonna catch a charge. You understand that? A criminal charge. At a Halloween party. In a costume. Thatâs what youâre walking toward right now. An assault charge in a Ghostface robe. Thatâs the legacy. Thatâs the headline.â
Eighty feet. The fountain is to his left now.
âAnd you know whoâs not catching a charge tonight? Him. You know why? Because he didnât do anything illegal. He was an asshole to someone. Thatâs it. Thatâs all it was. And you canât break someoneâs face for that, Jungkook, notânot in the way that counts, not in the way that a cop is gonna care about when they show up and seeââ
A breath. Not a pauseâa reload. Taehyungâs stride lengthens. Heâs beside him now, not behind, shoes squelching on wet grass.
ââwhen they show up and see you. Standing over him. With blood on your hands. And theyâre gonna look at you and theyâre gonna look at him and who do you thinkââ His voice trips. Catches. Goes harder. âWho do you think gets the benefit of the doubt in that scenario? Huh? You? Asian? With the tattoos and theâand him with the PhD program and the glasses and the fucking vest? You think thatâs a coin flip? You think that goes fifty-fifty?â
âHis parents probably have a lawyer saved in their contacts. You know that, right? People like himâthey donât fight back, they call their dadâs buddy at whatever firm and suddenly itâs not a Halloween party anymore, itâs depositions and court dates and you trying to explain to a judge why youââ Taehyungâs hand cuts through the air. âA judge whoâs gonna see the exact same thing the cops saw. Who gets believed. I shouldnât have to spell this out for you.â
He shouldnât. They both know why.
Theyâve both been in the rooms where it gets spelled out without anyone saying a wordâwhere looking a certain way in a certain zip code means the margin for error shrinks to nothing and the assumption of guilt arrives before the explanation does.
Taehyung knows. Heâs been in those rooms with him.
Same parking lots, same bloody knuckles, same cops who looked at two Asian kids with split lips and didnât ask who started it.
âThis is exactly what heâs not worth. Youâve been saying it for weeks. You said he was a prick, you said he was a snob, you said he gave you bad vibesâgreat, you were right, congratulations, and now what? Now youâre gonna prove it by giving him a reason to press charges? By handing him the one thing he actually needs to make you the problem? Thatâs the play?â
Sixty feet. Jungkook picks up speed.
âBecause thatâs what happens. Thatâs exactly what happens. You know this. I know you know this because we had the same conversation in high school after Joey Cho got expelled for defending himself in a fight he didn't start. Remember that? Remember what his mom said? She said it doesn't matter who started it. It matters who they believe. And they're not gonna believe you. Not over him. Not when he looks like that and you look like this."
A beat.
âYou hit him and heâs the victim, Jungkook. Heâs the guy who got attacked at a party by his girlfriendâs unhinged roommate and he gets to tell that story for the rest of his life and sheââ He stumbles on the word. ââshe becomes the girl it was about. The girl whose psycho roommate couldnât keep his hands to himself. And thatâs his version. Thatâs the version that wins. You get that, right? You get that his version wins?â
Taehyung is still talking and talking and talking and none of the words are landing because words are noise to him right now.
âAre you listening? Can you even hear me right now? Because Iâm talking and youâre walking and Iâm running out of ways to say the same thing which is that youâre about to fuck your entire life up and he gets to watch. He gets to stand there with his busted lip and watch you get put in the back of a car and thatâsââ Taehyungâs voice goes mean with the effort of keeping it whole. âThatâs not justice, man. Thatâs not protecting her. Thatâs not gonna make you feel any better, Jungkook, you know that. You know why you know that.â
Jungkook clicks his tongue and picks up speed.
Taehyung swears under his breath and matches it. âYouâre not hearing me. Youâre notâokay. Okay.â
Taehyung cuts in front of him. Gets there fastâone long diagonal stride and a pivotâand plants himself in the path with his hands on Jungkookâs chest.
âNo.â
Hands. Flat on his sternum. Holding.
âNo. I told you, bro. Youâre not doing this.â
Jungkook tries to step left.
Taehyung shifts left. Blocks it. Doesnât budge.
Tries right.
Same thing. Mirror image. The hands stay on his chest.
âDo not.â Taehyungâs pointing finger finds Jungkookâs chest. âDonât play me right now, Jungkook. Back the fuck up.â
He grabs Taehyungâs wrist and shoves it off his chest. Sidesteps.
Gets two steps.
Taehyung grabs a fistful of the Ghostface robe from behind and hauls him backward.
Jungkookâs balance goesâboots sliding on wet grass, the robe yanking tight across his throatâand the stumble turns into a pivot and he rounds on Taehyung and swats the grip off the fabric, forearm connecting with Taehyungâs wrist hard enough to crack, and Taehyung doesnât let go, just tightens his hold and braces and Jungkook shoves forward into his chest and Taehyung pushes back and for three ugly seconds theyâre tangledâgrunting, grabbing, both of them too angry for technique.
Taehyung gets both hands on the front of the robe and pushesâhard, this time, the full force of his weight behind itâand Jungkookâs back foot slides out and he catches himself and surges forward and Taehyung meets him and pushes again and they break apart.
Three feet of grass between them. Both breathing through their teeth. The pinstripe jacket wrenched sideways on Taehyungâs shoulders, pocket square crushed, and the Ghostface robe twisted half off Jungkookâs frame like someone tried to unwrap him.
âAlright, you know what.â Taehyung spreads his arms.âCome on then. You wanna fight so bad? Fight me. Right here. Letâs go. Iâm right here, Jungkook.â
His chest is heaving. His hands are open. His chin is up in the specific way that means he isnât bluffing and Jungkook knows damn well heâs not bluffing.
âHit me. Come on. Hit me. Get it out. Because I promise youâI promise you on everythingâyouâre not getting within ten feet of that guy tonight. Not while Iâm standing. So either you put me down first or you stand here and breathe like a fucking adult. Those are your options. Two options. Pick one.â
Jungkookâs tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. Copper taste. His whole body is a live wire looking for ground and the ground is just some feet away laughing and Taehyung is in the way.
He takes a step.
Taehyung takes one to match. Closes the gap. Gets in his space.
âIâve had your back in every stupid fight since we were sixteen, dude.â
Quieter now. Which is worse. Taehyung getting quieter means the real thing is coming.
âEvery single one. I was there. So believe me when I tell youâif you try to get past me right now, I will lay you out on this lawn and I will not feel bad about it. Not even a little. Not tomorrow, not next week, not ever. Because the alternative is watching you throw your entire life at some guy whoâs not worth the skin on your knuckles, and Iâm not doing that. Iâm not watching that. Thatâs my line. Youâve found it. Congratulations.â
Jungkookâs chest hurts. It hurts and he wishes he could rip whatâs beating underneath his chest out.
âYouâre better than this.â Taehyungâs throat works. âYou know youâre better than this. So act like it or I swear to god Iâll drop you myself, Jungkook. You know I will.â
The silence feels like the canteen, like sixteen, like bloody knuckles behind a 7-Eleven after someone mocked Jungkookâs mom and Taehyung took care of it.
âI did not spend ten months watching you put yourself back together just to let you blow it up tonight. Not over this. Not over him.â His jaw flexes. âYou wanna get to Jason? Youâre going through me. And I donât go down easy. You know that.â
A beat.
âSo help me god, Jungkook, test me and find out.â
âWhatâs happening.â
From the left, from the direction of the garden wall where the smokers are thinning outâ
Yoongi.
âOne of you talk.â He stops. Positions himself at Taehyungâs shoulder. âNow.â
Jungkook is a locked system. Nothingâs coming out of him that isnât breath and body heat.
Yoongi looks at Taehyung.
Taehyung runs both hands through whatâs left of the slicked-back hair. Wreckage. His chest is still heaving but his voice comes out forced-steady, the way it does when heâs physically holding himself together to deliver information that matters.
âJason. The TA. Him and Y/N had a fightâsheâs locked in a bathroom upstairs. Jimin came in, said sheâs crying, said she told him she felt trapped. That he was being controlling.â
The word lands between the three of them.
Trapped.
Yoongiâs gaze tracks to Jungkook. To the fists. The jaw. The set of his shoulders. The readiness.
He looks at this for a long moment.
Then he looks at the direction Jungkookâs body is pointed. At Jason fifty feet away.
Then back at Jungkook.
He steps forward. Even with Taehyung. Shoulder to shoulder.
His hands go into his pockets.
âOkay.â He sighs. âOkay, Jungkook, tell me what happens next. You get past us. Then what. You feel better for ten seconds and then youâre the guy who assaulted someone at a Halloween party and sheâs the girl it was about. That what you want?â
No.
Thatâs not what he wants.
What he wants is to go back in time fifteen minutes and be in whatever room Jason took you to and stand between you and whatever sentences made you say trapped.
What he wants is to have been there.
He wasnât.
âUse your head for a second here, Jungkook.â Yoongi hasnât moved. Hasnât blinked. âCome on.â
Jungkookâs jaw works. The pressure in his chest is unbearableâa full-body hum of something that needs to go somewhere and has nowhere to go because every exit is blocked by friends who are right, and thatâs the worst part, he knows theyâre right, and knowing doesnât do a single fucking thing about the voltage running through his body looking for groundâ
Over Yoongiâs shoulder, past the fountain, Hobi.
Standing near the garden wall. Drink in hand. Mid-conversation with the Mia Wallace girl.
He catches Yoongiâs gaze across the patio and Yoongi does somethingâsmall, barely visible. A head tilt. A jaw set. The kind of signal that exists between people whoâve done this before and have a protocol.
Jungkook knows this and hates it.
Hates it more because Hobiâs smile drops and he knows heâs read the entire scene in the time it takes to set his drink on the wall and say something short to Mia Wallace and start crossing the patio.
He tries to cut between Yoongi and Taehyung.
To no avail.
Because an arm suddenly loops around his shoulders.
âHey!â
The specific weight of Jung Hoseokâs arm, which has the density of someone whoâs been dancing professionally for a decade and casually manhandles grown men like itâs a love language.
âHave you seen the music room?â
Jungkookâs whole body is rigid under the arm.âHoseokâlet go, I swear to godââ
âThe music room.â Hobi doesnât let go. Steers him. Smoothly, like theyâre two friends walking somewhere together, nothing to see here, just guys being guys at a party. âOther side of the house. Past the library. Tessaâs grandfather was apparently some kind of collector.â
Heâs walking Jungkook away from the garden and Jungkook is aware of the maneuver, so he tries to sidestep with all his might because he will not be persuaded this timeâ
âThereâs an electric guitar in there.â
Jungkookâs stride falters.
âIâm serious.â Hobiâs voice drops a half-register. âVintage, I think. Hanging on the wall. Looked expensive.â
Over his shoulder, Hobi makes a gesture. Quick. Two fingers, a direction.
âCome on.â Hobi squeezes his shoulder. âShow me if itâs any good. I canât tell with guitars. They all look the same to me.â
âThey donât allââ Jungkookâs voice comes out scraped. Ruined. He clears his throat. âThey donât all look the same. Thatâs like saying all dance styles look the same.â
âExactly. Terrible. Tragic. I need you to educate me.â
The arm stays around his shoulders. The garden gets smaller behind them. The french doors pass. The hallway opens. The party noise dims.
His hands are still shaking.
Hobi doesnât mention it.
Youâre still hiccuping and you feel so stupid.
Thatâs the worst part. Not the cryingâthe crying has a reason, the crying has a source, the crying is a physiological response to emotional stimulus and you can rationalize it later into something manageable.
But the stupidity of it. The exact specific humiliating stupidity of sitting on a bathroom floor at a party in a costume you felt good in thirty minutes ago, mascara running, eyeliner destroyed, hiccuping like a child who lost her balloon at a county fair because someone said a fucking word.
A word.
It doesnât get more embarrasing than this.
Except it does, because youâve been here before.
Not this bathroom. But this exact posture. This exact tile-against-spine, knees-to-chest, face-in-hands architecture of feminine collapse, because you are apparently a person who processes her worst moments in bathrooms, and thatâsâ
Thatâs a pattern, isnât it?
Sophomore year of high school. Alicia Gutierrezâs house party. You wore the denim skirt youâd been saving for something that mattered and David Morrison kissed Noor Adil in the living room with his hand on the back of her neck, the exact hand that had been on the back of your neck two hours earlier behind the bleachers, and you walked to the bathroom and sat on the floor and cried.
Different tile. Same posture. Same girl.
Everything big happens in a bathroom. Everything that matters, everything that shifts the axis of your stupid little lifeâit all happens against porcelain and tile and horrible lightning.
The day Jungkook propositioned you in 6B. Leaning in the doorframe like he owned the square footage, smelling like rain and bad decisions, saying words that shouldâve made you slam the door but instead made you stand there with wet hair and a racing pulse trying to formulate a comeback while your brain buffered.
The day he mentioned your cologne before Emmaâs birthday. Justâsaid it. Casually. Like noticing what someone smells like is a thing you mention to your roommate while sheâs brushing her teeth.
ÂŤYou changed it.Âť
Two words that sat in the steam of the bathroom for three seconds too long and rearranged something behind your ribs that youâve been pretending didnât happen.
The first time Jimin did your eyeliner, it was in that bathroom too. And today as well, in the bathroom of the suite you might no longer share with Jason, quill pen behind his ear and his careful fingers on your jaw and the question he asked that wasnât really about labels or aisles or boxes on shelves but about whether itâs possible to exist without a name for what you are.
All your big moments happen in bathrooms.
Thereâs something poetic in that, if you ignore the toilet.
The brownies are definitely hitting now. Everything has a shimmer to it. The grout lines between the tiles look deeper than they should.
Also your fingers feel very far away from your body. Like theyâre suggestions. Theoretical fingers.
Great. Youâre having an emotional breakdown while slowly becoming one with the bathroom tile. This is the human experience at its most dignified.
A knock. Soft.
âHey. Itâs me.â
Irya.
Not YejiâIrya, which means Irya got to the door first or elbowed Yeji aside, and thereâs a difference between those two arrivals that matters.
Yeji arrives like a SWAT team. Irya arrives like an EMT.
Both are trying to save you. Only one is going to kick the door down to do it.
âI brought your phone,â Irya says. âYou left it on the loveseat.â
You donât answer.
âYou donât have to open the door. Iâm just going to sit out here, okay? Just me.â
A pause.
Then, farther away, Yejiâs voiceâgritted like it comes between her teeth.
âAnd me. Iâm also here. With knives.â
âShe doesnât have knives,â Irya says.
âI have metaphorical knives. I have the energy of knives.â
âYeji.â
âWhat? Iâm being supportive. Iâm supportively enraged.â
You press your forehead into your knees. Hiccup.
A sound against the door. The soft thud of someone sitting down on the other sideâIrya, you think, based on the gentle way it happens. Yeji sits down the way she does everything: with intent and aggression toward the furniture.
âBabe.â Iryaâs voice is close now. âCan you tell me whatâs happening? Justâwhatever you want. Even if it doesnât make sense.â
âIt doesnât make sense.â
âThatâs okay. Thatâs totally okay. Tell me anyway.â
Something about the way she says thatââtell me anywayââlike your not-making-sense is not a problem to be solved but a thing to be held.
âHe said I should respect myself more.â
Silence.
Then, from further back: âHe said what?â
âYejiââ Irya, steady.
âNo. No, repeat that. He said she should respect herself? Those words? In that order? From his mouth?â
âYeji, hold onââ
âIâm going to kill him. Iâm going to walk downstairs and Iâm going to commit a crime that will be studied in law schoolsââ
âYouâre not killing anyone. Sit down.â
âI wasnât gonna stand upââ
âThatâs only because Iâm holding your wrist down.â
A huff. Yeji sits quieter.
âOkay.â Irya again. Closer. You can hear her shifting, getting comfortable against the door, settling in for however long this takes. âHe said respect yourself. What else?â
You swallow. The hiccups are slowing but your throat is raw and everything tastes like salt and chocolate.
âHe saidâthat I should be more mindful. About how I act around other people. That I was beingââ
You search for the word.
It comes back coated in cedar and bergamot.
âInappropriate.â
âInappropriate how?â
âHe said I was draped all overâthat I was hanging on someone and it looked bad. In front of people. That I need to think about how I come across.â
âDraped,â Yeji repeats from behind Irya. She says it the way youâd say âcockroachâ. âHe described physical affection between friends as draping?â
âAnd that I should have more consideration. And be moreââ
The word.
âMore mature.â
Silence. A long one.
You hear Irya exhale.
âCan I say something?â
You nod.
Then realize she canât see you.
âYeah.â
âIâm not going to tell you heâs wrong about everything. Because that wouldnât be helpful, and I think what you need right now is honesty, not just someone being angry on your behalf.â A beat. âThatâs Yejiâs job.â
âDamn right,â Yeji mutters.
âBut I want you to hear this. The way someone says something matters as much as what they say. And a person who frames their discomfort as your character flawâwho says you need to respect yourself instead of saying I felt uncomfortableâthat person is not having a conversation with you. Theyâre managing you.â
The word cracks something open.
Managing.
Thatâsâ
Thatâs exactly what it felt like. Not a discussion. Not two people navigating something messy and complicated.
A performance review. A parent-teacher conference.
âHereâs what you did wrong, hereâs what you need to fix, hereâs the version of you Iâd prefer to be dating.â
âHeâs notââ You stop. Start again. âHeâs not a bad person.â
âNobody said he was, babe.â
âHeâs notâitâs not like he was mean. He didnât yell. He was calm. He was beingâtotally reasonableââ
âTotally reasonable is how they get you.â Yeji. âTotally reasonable is the whole con. Being calm while you say controlling shit doesnât make it not controlling. It just makes the other person feel crazy for having a reaction.â
You know that. You know that.
Youâve read the articles. Youâve had the conversations.
You just didnât think youâd be sitting on the other side of it with mascara on your chin.
âCan I ask you something?â Irya. Gentle. âAnd you donât have to answer.â
âYeah.â
âWhen he said those thingsâthe maturity thing, the respect thingâdid it feel new? Or did it feel⌠familiar?â
You swallow.
Irya waits. Patient in that way she hasânot passive, not absent, just genuinely unhurried, like sheâd sit outside this door all night if thatâs what it took.
âFamiliar,â you whisper.
âOkay.â Soft. Like she expected that. âOkay, thatâs important. Thatâs really important. Because when something hurts more than it should, itâs usually because itâs landing on something that was already bruised.â
The sob comes before you can stop it. Just one. Hard, sharp, ripped from somewhere below your sternum.
âI know,â Irya says. âI know.â
âItâsâit sounded like my mom.â Youâre saying it before youâve decided to say itâthe words just coming, tumbling out through the crack in the door like water through a broken seal. âThe way he said it. The tone. The calm. She used toâshe used to do this thing where sheâd sit me down and explain, very patiently, why everything I was doing was wrong. Very gently. Very reasonably. And Iâd sit there and justâtake it. Because how do you argue with someone whoâs being nice about it? How do you say stop, youâre hurting me when theyâre smiling?â
âYou canât.â Yeji. Not angry now. Quiet. âYou canât because the smile is the point. The smile is what makes you feel insane.â
âI feel insane,â you say, and it comes out small.
âYouâre not insane.â Irya. Steady as gravity. âYouâre having a very sane reaction to a very specific kind of hurt. And the fact that you can name itâthe fact that you can say this felt like my motherâthatâs not insane. Thatâs the opposite.
You press the heels of your hands into your eyes. Gold shimmer and black liner smear across your skin.
âBabe, please.â Yejiâs voice is closer now. Sheâs moved up. Right beside Irya, if you had to guess. âAt least drink some water. You had Hobiâs drinks and those brownies and you need to hydrate or youâre going to feel even worse.â
âI donât want water.â
âYou say that, butââ
âYeji. Iâm fine.â
âYou are audibly not fine.â
âI am choosing to be not fine in private, which is my right as aââ
âIf you say âas a feministâ Iâm picking this lock.â
Shuffling outside the door. Footsteps, the clipped sound of dress shoes on hardwood.
A male voice: âHey, is sheââ
Yeji is on her feet so fast you hear the combat boots squeak.
âNo.â
âI justââ
âNo. Absolutely not. Turn around.â
âYejiââ Thatâs Irya. Mediating.
âThe last thing she needs right now is another fucking man outside this door.â
âIâm notâIâm just trying toââ
âOh great. Another man whoâs just trying to. Fantastic. Groundbreaking. Never heard that one before.â
âCan you stop for one secondââ
âCan you stop? Can you maybe read the room and understand that a girl whoâs crying because a guy made her feel like shit does not need a different guy showing up toââ
âIâve been where she is.â
That stops Yeji.
Not completelyâyou can feel her resistance from inside the bathroom, can practically hear the argument building behind her teethâbut the sentence cuts through the momentum the way a stick cuts through water. Not by force. By changing direction.
âYeji.â Irya. Quiet. A hand on an arm, you imagine. âLet him.â
A paus, long enough to contain a full conversation between two people who love each other so much they can negotiate in microseconds.
âIf she says go away, you go away,â Yeji says finally.
âYeah. Got it.â
The boots retreat. Not farâyou know Yeji, sheâs pulling back ten feet and maintaining line of sight like a Secret Service agent in Doc Martensâbut far enough.
Then a sound.
A sigh, long and gusty and annoyed, like heâs been personally inconvenienced by the existence of feelings and the floor and gravity and the entire concept of sitting down in a suit.
Then the thud of a body dropping against the other side of the door with the grace of a man who committed to this before he fully thought through the logistics.
âHey.â
Taehyung.
His voice is different than it was ten seconds ago with Yeji. Quieter.
âYou donât have to talk. I justâIâm gonna sit here for a minute. If thatâs okay.â
You donât answer. Your throat is raw from the crying and your sinuses are packed with concrete and the hiccups have slowed but not stopped, punctuating the silence at irregular intervals.
âIâm not gonna ask what happened. You donât have to tell me anything.â
A beat.
âI just know what that door feels like from your side.â
Something in your chest clenches.
âI locked myself in Hobiâs bathroom once.â His voice is steady. Calm. But thereâs a grain to itâsomething rough, something lived-in. âFor like⌠three hours? Maybe four. Hobi sat outside the whole time. Didnât leave. Didnât push. Just sat there.â
You hear him shift his weight.
âI wasâgoing through something. Something bad. And I couldnât breathe and I couldnât think and I felt really, really stupid for not being able to justâhandle it. Because itâs breathing, you know? Youâve been doing it your whole life. How hard can it be.â
A hic escapes your mouth before you can stop it. Loud in the quiet.
âThat was a good one,â he says.
And despite everythingâdespite the mascara and the tile and the word mature still rattling around in your skull like a bullet in a tin canâthe corner of your mouth twitches.
âHobi didnât try to fix it,â Taehyung continues. âHe didnât say the right thing or give me advice or tell me to come out. He just⌠sat there. Told me about this dumb thing that happened at rehearsal. Some dancer who accidentally kicked another dancer in the face during a lift. And I was crying and laughing at the same time and it wasâreally messy. But it helped. Just having someone on the other side of the door who wasnât trying to make it better. Who was just⌠there.â
He pauses.
âSo Iâm just here. Thatâs it. Thatâs the whole pitch.â
You press your lips together. Hard. Because if you open your mouth right now what comes out is going to be uglyânot sarcastic-ugly, not defense-mechanism-ugly, just real ugly, the kind of honest that has no style to it, no wit, just a girl on a floor who doesnât know how to stop feeling too much about everything all the time.
âI donât even know why Iâm crying this hard,â you say.
It comes out broken. Scratchy. Barely above a whisper.
âYou donât have to know why.â
âIt doesnât make any sense. He didnât evenâhe didnât yell. He didnât do anything wrong, technically. He wasââ Hic. âHe was being reasonable. Thatâs the fucked up part. He was being totally calm and rational and saying things that sounded right and I justââ
âSometimes itâs the calm that gets you.â
The sentence stops you.
âThe loud stuffâthe yelling, the throwing thingsâthatâs easy to point at. You can say âthat, right there, thatâs the problem.â But when someoneâs calmâŚâ He exhales. Long. Slow. Like heâs letting something out thatâs been sitting in his lungs for a while. âWhen someoneâs calm and reasonable and says things that sound almost right, it makes you feel crazy for being upset. Like the problem is you. Your reaction. Not what they said.â
Silence.
âThatâs worse,â he says quietly. âThatâs so much worse.â
Your chin is trembling. You clamp your jaw around it.
âTaehyung.â
âYeah?â
âHow did youââ Hic. Fuck. âWhen did it stop? The feeling likeâlike you were too much. And also not enough. At the same time. How did that stop?â
The door is quiet for a long moment. Long enough that you wonder if heâs deciding whether to answer or deciding how to answer, and you know the difference because you live in the gap between those two things.
âIâll let you know when it does.â
Your breath comes out in a rush.
First one since you locked yourself in this room.
âBut it getsâI donât know. Quieter? It doesnât go away. You just get better at hearing other stuff over it. People who actually mean it when they say youâre enough. People who donât need you to be less.â
A thump against the door. Soft. His head, you think. Tipping back against the wood.
âAnd you learn who to listen to. Thatâs the hard part. Because the ones who make you feel small usually sound the most reasonable. Theyâve got the best arguments. The best vocabulary.â A pause. âReal ones donât need a vocabulary. They just show up and sit outside your door at midnight dressed as Gomez Addams and hope it helps.â
That breaks you.
Not the word mature. Not Jasonâs calm reasonable hands folded in prayer. Not even the memories of marble countertops and correctly angled forks.
This. This stupid, quiet, honest thing from a guy you barely know whoâs sitting on a hallway floor in a pinstripe suit because he once locked himself in a bathroom too and somebody sat outside for him.
The sob that comes out is different from the ones before. Softer. Rounder. Less like something being ripped from your chest and more like something being released. A pressure valve opening. Steam instead of shrapnel.
âOkay,â you manage. Watery. Wrecked. âThat wasâyou canât just say stuff like that to someone whoâsââ
âToo late. Already said it. No returns.â
âI hate you.â
âThatâs fine. Iâm very hateable. Ask Jungkook. He has a list.â
You laugh. It comes out wet and awful and it hurts your ribs and itâs the best sound youâve made in an hour.
On the other side of the door, you hear him exhale. Relief. The kind someone makes when they werenât sure it was going to work and then it did.
âFor the record,â he says. âYour eyelinerâs probably ruined.â
âI know.â
âJiminâs going to be devastated.â
âI know.â
âLike, genuinely distraught. He might never recover.â
âPlease stop.â
âIâm just preparing you for the grief.â
You wipe your face with the back of your hand. It comes away black and gold and wet.
âCan you justââ Hiccup. âCan you sit there for one more minute.â
âYeah.â Immediate. âYeah, Iâm here.â
So he sits.
And you sit.
And the door stays between you, and thatâs fine.
Thatâs actually the whole point.
Sometimes the best thing a person can do is be close enough to hear and far enough to not see, and let the wood do the work that words canât.
A minute passes. Maybe two.
The hiccups stop. Your breathing evens out. The brownies are still doing their thing, but the room doesnât feel like itâs shrinking anymore.
It feels like a room. With a floor. And a girl on it who cried the right amount for the right reasons and is probably going to feel embarrassed about this in the morning but right now, in this specific minute, feels something closer to emptied out than broken.
Your hand finds your wrist. The rain charm, cool against your pulse.
You flick it.
Then you stand up.
Your knees protestâstiff, cramped, the tile having done nothing for the cramps that are still low and persistent in your abdomenâand you catch yourself on the sink.
Your reflection in the mirror is a horror show. Mascara tracks. Eyeliner smeared into grey-black smudges beneath your eyes. Gold shimmer streaked across your cheeks where the tears dragged it. The dark berry lipstick is mostly gone, bitten off, leaving just a stain at the edges.
Medusa, post-battle. Snakes wilted.
Whatever.
You unlock the door. Pull it open.
Taehyung looks up at you from the floor.
He looks like a 1920s husband who got left at a train station and decided to wait.
His eyes move across your face. The damage. The evidence.
He doesnât comment on any of it. Just gets up. Unfolds himself from the floor, brushing off the back of his trousers with one hand, and stands there. Not too close. Not too far.
âDo you know where Jungkook is?â comes out of your lips.
âYeah,â he says. âI know where he is.â
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if you liked this chapter, please consider buying me a coffee!! âĄ'â¸â¸'âĄ
â§ main story â§ wc: 13.7k â§ pairing: jungkook x f!reader â§ rating: 18+.
â§ genre: roommates/e2l, fwb, fuck buddies, VERY slow burn, smut
đ rundown ;
âIf you could curse one day of your life, it would be the day you met him. Because himâheâs fucked up fucking for you, forever.â
"Something's off about him."
"Off how?"
"I don'tâ" His tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. Searching for the word. The right word. "I don't know. Off. Just off, bro. The way heâ"
He stops. Starts again.
"She used eucalyptus soap."
Taehyung blinks.
"...What?"
"Earlier. The showers. Y/N. She used the eucalyptus soap that was in the stall instead of her own stuff."
Taehyung stares at him. The Gomez mustacheâwhat's left of itâcrinkles with the specific bewilderment of a man who was just having a perfectly good conversation about gourds and is now being asked to care about shower products.
"I'm gonna need, like... significantly more context than that."
"She's vanilla, Tae." Jungkook says it like it's obvious. Like it's a fact of the natural world, on par with gravity or the boiling point of water. "Sheâs vanilla everything. Everything. Soap. Lotion. The stuff in her hair. She's got like six different vanilla products in the shower caddy and she didn't bring any of it. She used the generic eucalyptus shit in the stall and she doesnâtâshe still smells like vanilla underneath because it's basically her, like her actualâ"
âJungkook.â
"âbut it's off. There's thisâthis layer on top of it that isn't her and I'd bet you anythingâanythingâthat he said something. About the vanilla. That he made some comment about it being basic or juvenile or whatever the fuck and she justâadjusted. Without evenâshe probably doesn't even know she did it."
The silence that follows has a specific quality.
âŚThe quality of someone deciding whether to call an ambulance or a therapist.
"Jesus, man. The weed really did a number on you. Youâre having an episode over body wash, are you hearing yourselfâ"
"It's notâ" He swats at Tae. "Itâs not about the body wash. It'sâ" He drags a hand down his face. "Okay, the body wash thing sounds insane. I know it sounds insane. That's the problem. Every individual thing sounds insane if I say it out loud. It's only when you put all of it together that itâ"
He makes a vague, frustrated gesture at the air. Like he's trying to grab the shape of what he means and it keeps slipping.
"She doesn't do her tea thing anymore."
"Her tea thing."
"She used to leave the tea bags in the sink. Every morning. Justâsitting there. On the sink. Drove me insane. I texted her about it. Twice. She left me on read and then told me where I could shove the tea bags. It was a whole thing."
He's talking to the ceiling again. His thumb hasn't stopped.
"And then she starts seeing this guy and the tea bags are gone. Justâpoof. Not in the sink. Not anywhere. And the thing isâI should be happy about that, right? I wanted them gone. But they didn't stop because she decided to stop. They stopped because heâ"
No, but that doesnât sound right. Because he doesnât know for sure, does he?
Did you stop the tea bag situation after Jason?
Was it before him? Was Jason the reason?
He wishes he could trust his memory. Or his own brain.
"Iâm really trying to follow the thread here, Jungkook."
â Coming: soon. <3
Early access (read now) on Ko-fi <3
Donât forget to vote âď¸ last chapter on wattpad!
â§ main story â§ wc: 14,8k â§ pairing: jimin x f!reader â§ rating: 18+
â§ genre: latino!jimin, tokyo drift AU, street racing, rivals to lovers
đŚ rundown ;
"They say, in racing, everything gets decided the five seconds before the light turns green."
"Ready?" he murmurs.
"Jimin."
"Yeah?"
"Put it in"
His exhale shakes against your mouth.
âYeah,â he breathes. âYeah, okayââ
He pushes in, inch by inch, the stretch of him filling you in a way that makes your mouth fall open and your nails find his shoulders and your brain go completely, catastrophically blank.
Becauseâ
Oh.
Oh, thatâsâ
Youâve had sex before. Youâve had sex plenty of times. With Rei, in nice beds with nice sheets, and it was fine. It was always fine. Comfortable. Familiar.
This isnât that.
This is your legs tightening around his hips, pulling him deeper because your body wants more before your brain has finished processing enough.
He bottoms out.
Stills.
His forehead drops against yours. His breath comes in ragged bursts against your lips. His arms are shaking where they brace against the hoodâthat same tremor from before, except now heâs inside you and you can feel it everywhere.
âTight,â he manages. âHachiâyouâreâfuckââ
You clench around him. Not on purpose. Involuntary. Your walls fluttering in these small, rhythmic contractions that you canât control and didnât know your body did.
His hips jerk. Forward. Half an inch deeper that shouldnât be possible and a sound punches out of your chestâ
âAhââ
High. Thin. Needy in a way that makes your face burn because who made that noise. That wasnât you. You donât make noises like that. Youâve never made noises like that in your life. With Rei you were quiet. Controlled. Occasionally a soft exhale or a practiced moan timed to his rhythm because thatâs what you were supposed to do, wasnât it? Make the right sounds at the right times. Perform.
This isnât performing.
This is your body making sounds without your permission because Park Jimin is inside you and your nervous system has apparently been asleep for years and just woke up screaming.
He starts to move, slow at first. Long pulls that drag the length of him against your wallsâout until just the tip remains, then back in, deep, bottoming out with a controlled roll of his hips that makes the 86âs suspension creak beneath you.
âYou feelââ His voice is wrecked. Shattered at the seams. ââHachi, you feel increĂbleââ
He thrusts again. Deeper. The angle shifts and the head of his cock drags against something inside you that makes your legs lock tight around his waist.
âOhâoh godââ
Too loud. Way too loud.
Your hand flies to your own mouthâ
He catches your wrist. Pulls it away.
âDonât.â His eyes find yours. Dark, focused, that laser-lock intensity he gets behind the wheel. âI told you. I want to hear you.â
âIâm beingânnhâloudââ
âGood.â He thrusts. âBe loud.â
âPeople willâahââ
âNobodyâs coming back here, Hachi.â
Another thrust. Harder. Your back slides against the hood and he pulls you back by the hips, flush against him.
âAnd even if they didââ His mouth finds your ear. ââyouâd still be making those sounds. Porque me encantan.â (Because I love them.)
â Coming: When we hit the WP vote goal. <3
Donât forget to vote âď¸ last chapter on wattpad!
Early access (read now) available on Ko-fi.
I got my BA degree yesterday! Can i get a wgu snipped? (Begging on my knees)
First of all, BA DEGREE????? HELLO????? Look at you being educated, powerful, employable, terrifying to the weak, etc.
Congratulations, baby. That is actually huge, and I hope youâre very, very proud of yourself because degrees are not for the weak. They are psychological warfare with citations. As a reward, you may have one tiny WGU crumb. Ott has lost custody of his motor skills. ( ˜°ă °) !!
Here. Your graduation gift. Please frame it next to the diploma. One says you survived academia. The other says Hoseok did not survive one pair of bare thighs. Equivalent achievements, honestly.
You open the bathroom door.
Hoseokâs crouched by the coffee table, wiping up the ramen spill with paper towels. Heâs got three stacked in each hand, scrubbing at the table surface with way more focus than the task requires.
âOtt.â
He doesnât look up. âYep.â
âCan you lend me some pants? Pyjama ones or whatever.â
He looks up.
His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
His eyes land on your face. Drop. Snap back up. Drop againâto the hoodie, to where it ends at your thighs, to your bare legsâand then heâs staring at the coffee table like it holds the secrets of the universe.
âYep,â he says again. Higher pitched this time. âYep, yeah, sure, one secââ
He stands. Trips over absolutely nothing. Catches himself on the back of the couch. Doesnât look at you as he disappears into his bedroom.
pairing: taehyung x f!reader | rating: 18+ | wc: 9,2k | warnings: here
genre : football AU, arrogant!tae, e2l, smut, unimpressed!reader
"smile for the camera"
"Team photo day was supposed to be six hours of smiling politely and surviving Real Madridâs collective ego problem. Unfortunately, Kim Taehyung has decided your boundaries are a group project, and he is failing with enthusiasm."
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âŚauthor's note : Hi, my loves! Okay, quick note before anything: Iâd like to gently, lovingly, dramatically remind everyone that I am currently on hiatus, and this month is looking absolutely disgusting for me work-wise. Like. Horrible. Evil. Designed by Satanâs accountant. I want to cry every day and I wish I were exaggerating for comedic purposes, but unfortunately, this is one of those rare occasions where the clown nose is off and I am merely a woman drowning in tax hell.
So please, donât expect steady updates. Please donât expect updates at all, honestly. I canât deal with more pressure right now, so while I love you all, and I would kiss every single one of you on the lips in gratitude, I am begging you to be kind and merciful to your dear dictator over here. Please donât ask me when the next chapter is dropping. I genuinely donât know. I am barely breathing. I am filing taxes at 1 a.m. on a Saturday. This is my glamorous author life.
As for FMU, I know I said Iâd try to post chapters 33â35 in June, but I had to rewrite chapter 34, which means chapter 35 also has to be rewritten because apparently my brain chose violence and continuity matters or whatever. Rude. So Iâm no longer confident Iâll be able to pull all three off. Please expect chapter 33 in June. I donât know about 34 and 35 yet. Iâll do my best, but my best is currently being held together by sheer force of will and the snippets of BTS concerts I catch on Twitter.
Now that the personal suffering section is out of the way, letâs get to this chapter.
So! This chapter is very much about cementing Taehyungâs personality, his dynamic with Y/N, and the main trouble, disease, plague, and dynamite explosion of this relationship: Taehyung cannot take no for an answer. He is pushy. He is annoying. He is toxic. He hears boundaries and goes, âInteresting. What if I made that worse?â because he is a deeply unserious man with an ego the size of the Santiago BernabĂŠu and the emotional regulation of fucking potato. This is the blueprint. This is not an accident. This is not me forgetting to make him behave. He is behaving exactly how he is supposed to behave at this point in the story.
So if youâre expecting him to not piss you off, or if youâre expecting to have no mixed feelings about him, or if youâre expecting their sexual tension and future smut scenes to be clean, morally comfortable, perfectly respectful little HR-approved interactions⌠babygirl, Iâll see you on your way out. I love you. Take snacks for the road. This is not that story. I tagged this as dubcon very purposely, and I want everyone to be painfully aware of what that means. Taehyung is going to be toxic. Taehyung is going to be pushy. Taehyung is going to make you want to smack him with a clipboard and then, tragically, perhaps understand why Y/N has not yet filed a restraining order with decorative stickers on it.
And because apparently I canât rest at night without making this disclaimer every 3 business days: I do not condone this behavior in real life!!! Fiction is not reality. Kiki writing a man being pushy does not mean Kiki thinks men should be pushy. Kiki writing a toxic dynamic does not mean Kiki is standing outside your house with a little pamphlet titled âWhy Red Flags Are Actually Sexy.â In real life, if a man behaved like this, Iâd tell you to run, block, document everything, and maybe carry a brick in your tote bag for spiritual support. But fiction is a controlled environment. Itâs tagged, framed, and has narrative context. You have access to things you would never have in real life: inner thoughts, psychological motivations, consequences, authorial intent, pacing, symbolism, and the ability to close the tab the second something stops being enjoyable. Thatâs why you can enjoy a dark or messy dynamic in fiction while knowing you would recoil from it in real life. There is nothing wrong with you for finding it hot here. There is also nothing wrong with you if you donât. Thatâs the whole point of tags. They are there so everyone can curate their own little emotional survival bunker.
In OFL, Taehyung is safe because he exists inside a closed fictional system where his toxicity is being examined, not excused. The story knows heâs a problem. Y/N knows heâs a problem. I know heâs a problem. The man himself may not know heâs a problem because self-awareness has not yet been installed in his software, but thatâs why weâre here. Character development must start somewhere, and unfortunately, his starting point is âCoke Zero with abs and audacity.â
So read him deeply. Read him thoroughly. Ask yourself why he thrives so much off attention. Ask yourself why Y/Nâs resistance makes him worse instead of making him back off. Ask yourself why being ignored feels unbearable to him. Ask yourself why he escalates when he feels dismissed. This man is not just horny. He is psychologically unwell with a Nike contract.
Anyway. I lost the thread of where I was going with this because I started yapping and then remembered I have actual government-adjacent work waiting for me like the worldâs least sexy jumpscare. Enjoy the chapter, my loves. Be kind to me, be kind to each other, respect the tags, and please pray for me while I return to tax hell at 1 a.m. on a Saturday.
Yes, this is my life. No, I am not okay. â¤ď¸ď¸
Team photo day is not, technically, a humanitarian crisis.
You know this. Intellectually. In the same way you know that traffic jams arenât actually designed to ruin your life and that the universe doesnât have a personal vendetta against you specifically.
And yet.
Here you are.
Seven forty-three in the morning, standing in front of your wardrobe, staring at nothing, eating pikotas out of the bag because you forgot to eat an actual breakfast and this is fine. This is completely fine. Youâre fine.
You are not fine.
Photo day at Valdebebas means the entire Real Madrid roster in one building for six consecutive hours while photographers and club PR staff run around like badly caffeinated border collies trying to herd twenty-two professional athletes who have, collectively, the attention span of a fly.Â
It means chaos. It means noise. It means approximately forty-seven different egos ricocheting off the same walls.
And it means him.
You should be in university right now. You would be in university right now if the universe had any sense of justice or basic narrative fairness, but instead youâre standing here in your bedroom at seven forty-three in the morning because your dad got a text last weekâlast week, youâd been living in blessed ignorance for seven whole daysâthat said all staff families invited for unity shots.
You remember reading it over his shoulder.
You remember the exact quality of silence that followed.
Your dadâs face did this thing it does sometimesâthat small, private kind of hopeful. Like heâd been handed something unexpected and was trying not to show how much he wanted it.Â
He didnât say anything.Â
Just set his phone down and went back to his coffee and was very, very carefully not looking at you.
And that was it.
That was the whole argument.
His stupid hopeful face.
You hate that face. You love that face. You would walk into a burning building for that face, which is essentially what youâre doing right now, except the building is Valdebebas and the fire is Kim Taehyungâs continued existence in your general vicinity.
You pull on a jacket. Check your phone. Ignore the three texts from Sofia, one of which is just a photo of her crying because dinosaurs went extinct that she sent at midnight for reasons you canât fully parse.
Thirty minutes later youâre in the car, your dad driving, and heâs telling you about some new taping technique he learned at a conference in Valencia and youâre nodding in the right places and looking out the window and thinking, with great specificity, about all the things Taehyung could theoretically have come down with in the last seven days that would justify his absence today.
The list is not short.
Food poisoning, obviously. Pulled hamstring. Mysterious rash. Some dignity-adjacent incident at one of those Marbella villas that requires him to stay indoors and reconsider his choices for a minimum of six to eight weeks. A sudden onset of good judgment. A personality transplant. An inconvenient restraining order from a woman with better self-preservation instincts than you.
Youâd take any of it.
Youâd honestly take all of it.
Your dad turns into the Valdebebas entrance and waves at the security booth, and the gate opens, and the facility swallows you like it always doesâthis sprawling, impeccable machine of professional football; clean lines and manicured grass and the kind of quiet institutional money thatâs visible in every single surface.
You hate how impressive it is.
Youâve spent most of your life in training facilities and you still canât do itâcanât fully make yourself unimpressed by places like this.Â
Barçaâs was better. Obviously.
But Valdebebas has its own kind of weight. The kind that comes from decades of titles and the particular arrogance of an institution that has never once doubted its own importance.
Your dad parks. Gets out. Straightens his jacket with that small professional pride he always has walking into work, this guy who spent twenty years at Barça and is somehow still excited to show up.
You follow him inside.
The main building is already busy in that specific controlled-chaos way that happens when a large number of people have been told to be somewhere at the same time. Staff in lanyards. Photographers setting up rigs. A PA with a clipboard and the haunted expression of someone who has already been on shift for two hours longer than the day technically started. Players filtering in by twos and threes, some in full kit, some mid-conversation, some still wearing the slightly glazed look of people who were definitely not in bed at a reasonable hour last night.
You recognize most of them by now.
Thatâs what happens when your dad works here. You learn faces, positions, which ones are approachable and which ones have a thirty-meter exclusion radius of ego that you should respect for your own wellbeing.
You already know which one falls in the second category.
Your dad spots someone from medical across the lobby and says something about finding you in ten minutes and then heâs gone, absorbed into the professional ecosystem, and you are standing alone in the main corridor with your tote bag and your pikotas and your complete lack of enthusiasm.
Right.
Elevator. Floor three. Find somewhere quiet and get through the next six hours without doing anything youâll need to explain to HR.
The elevator banks are at the end of the corridor, past the trophy casesâwhich, fine, are impressive, youâre not dead, you can acknowledge thatâand you walk toward them, hands in your jacket pockets, looking at your phone because looking at your phone is a universal signal that you do not want to be talked to and most adults in professional environments respect this.
You press the call button and wait. Check your messages. Sofiaâs meme is a photo of a man walking directly into a lake with the caption âme, going to anything I said I wouldnât go to.â You send back a thumbs up. Sheâll understand.
The elevator dings.
The doors open.
You step in without looking up, reaching for the button panel, and then you register the presence of another body already inside the elevator and your eyes lift on reflexâ
Kim Taehyung.
In full kit, looking like he walked out of a shoot that hasnât happened yet. Hair done. Chain sitting right. That specific quality of effortless that takes an annoying amount of effort. Holding a Coke Zero like itâs a prop.Â
And smirking.
That smirk.
The one that says âwell, well, look at this,â like your presence here is a delightful twist of fate rather than a logistical inevitability that youâve been dreading for seven days.
You stare at him.
He stares back.
The elevator doors slide closed behind you.
Right.
So. Thatâs where you are.
Trapped in an elevator with Kim Taehyung at seven fifty-eight in the morning before youâve had coffee, and the universe is clearly operating at full capacity today, fully committed to its bit, no notes.
You turn back to the panel. Press three. Face forward.
âGominola.â
He says it like heâs greeting an old friend. Like this is pleasant. Like you didnât spend seven days quietly hoping heâd contract something non-life-threatening but career-interruptive.
You face the doors.
âDonât talk to me.â
He doesnât respond.
Good. Excellent. Signs of personal growth, possibly.
Three seconds of silence.
âWonder if theyâre doing individual shirtless shots this year,â he says, conversationally, out loud. Into the air. âThe club kept that one from two seasons ago for like eighteen months, whichâI mean. Can you blame them.â
You stare at the doors.
âI said donât talk to me.â
âIâm not talking to you.â Completely unbothered. âIâm talking to myself.â
You have no response to that. Not because you donât have oneâyou have severalâbut because giving him one proves heâs talking to you, which he technically isnât, and he knows that, and heâs enjoying this.
He suddenly leans in, and your hand moves without fully consulting your brain.
It lands flat on his stomachâreflexive, stopping himâand the contact registers immediately. Cotton kit. Solid under your palm. Warm in a way thatâs distinctly inconvenient.
He goes still.
âMhm?â
One syllable. Pointed. Like heâs giving you time to prepare yourself.
âI was just going to press the button. You missed it.â
You turn your head just enough to glance at the panel.
Floor three.
Not lit.
You couldâve sworn you had pressed it?
He reaches past you with his free hand and presses 3.
The button lights up. Small. Red. Humiliating.
âThere,â he murmurs. âProud of us.â
You go to pull your hand back, but his fingers close around your wrist before you can, tight enough to keep your palm where it is, still flattened against his stomach through the thin training top, like this was all your idea and heâs simply honoring the decision.
You look down at his hand on your wrist.
Then up at him.
Then back at his hand, because maybe visual confirmation will make this feel less insane.Â
It does not.
âLet go.â
He doesnât.
Instead he turns just enough to lean his other forearmâthe one holding the Coke Zeroâagainst the wall beside your head, easy as anything, trapping space down to something stupidly narrow.Â
His chain catches the overhead light. So do his piercings. Of course they do. Every part of this man behaves like itâs in a campaign.
Heâs annoyingly close. You can smell the citrusy scent of his, landing somewhere behind your ribs, where it has no business being.Â
âWhat?â he says, glancing down at your hand on his abs and then back up. âSurprised?â
You blink at him.
He tilts his head, smugness in HD.
âThought youâd already seen them.â His mouth twitches. âIn your dadâs office. In the pool.â
âYeah,â you say. âAnd theyâre not impressive.â
There it is.
That reaction.
Tiny. Immediate. His teeth catch his lower lip and his whole expression shifts in a way that should probably be illegal before eight in the morning.Â
Not offended. Worse. Delighted.Â
Like you just tossed a match at a man made entirely of lighter fluid and ego.
âTheyâre not?â His voice drops a fraction. âYouâve spent an awful lot of time looking at them.â
You stare at him.
Do men like this come factory defective or is it environmental?
âDo you wake up and decide âyes, today I will be delusional,ââ you ask, âor does it come naturally to you?â
His thumb strokes once over the inside of your wrist.
Your pulse, because your body is a traitor with no loyalty to the cause, kicks directly against it.
He notices. Obviously.
âBit of both,â he says. âDepends how much attention I get before breakfast.â
âIncredible.â
âThank you.â
âThat wasnât a compliment.â
âEverything you say to me is a compliment.âÂ
He leans a fraction closer and the citrus hits harderânot cologne, not product, just him, that sharp clean lemon scent that clings to his skin like it was engineered in a lab specifically to piss you off.Â
âEven the insults. Especially the insults.â
Your jaw tightens. âYou need medication.â
âProbably.â Heâs not even pretending to disagree. âBut right now Iâm in an elevator with the prettiest girl in the building and sheâs touching my abs, so. Priorities.â
You ignore the prettiest girl part. You ignore it completely. You file it in the trash folder of your brain where all of his compliments go, the one labeled âperformative bullshitâdo not engage.â
âMaybe if you drank less soda youâd have something worth looking at, Coke.â
His eyebrows go up.
âOh.â He leans in a touch more, pleased in a deeply irritating way. âI got promoted?â
You frown. âHm?â
âFrom Coke-boy to Coke.â His mouth curves. âWow. Weâre stripping me of gender now? Iâm just an object now. A concept. A beverage.â
You deadpan at him. "If you want, I can make it simpler."
"Please do."
You hold his gaze when you say it. "Zero."
That really does something. Not visibly, not in any way a normal person would catch, but you're not a normal person when it comes to him. Unfortunately. Â
The tiny flare in his eyes. The way his tongue presses once against the inside of his cheek. The little almost-smile he has to bite back because apparently being insulted is his favorite hobby after staring at himself in reflective surfaces.
Seriously. Medical journals should be lining up outside his house.
âZero,â he repeats.
âMhm.â
âBecause of the drink?â he asks.
âPartly.â
âAnd the other part?â
You hold his gaze. âUse your imagination.â
âOh, I do.â His voice goes rough around the edges. âConstantly, actually.â
You ignore that with the dignity of a woman refusing to acknowledge a public indecency.
âIt suits you,â you say. âCoke Zero. Zero nutritional value. Zero restraint. Zero redeeming qualities.â
He almost laughs. You can see him trying not to.
Instead he says, quietly amused, âZero? Seriously, Gomi? Thatâs mean.â
âYou sound insulted.â
âI am.â
Heâs not.
He's absolutely not.
That's not what insulted looks like. That's what horny looks like, and you know the difference, and he knows you know the difference, and the whole thing is deeply, profoundly stupid.
His grip on your wrist shifts.
Your handâstill on his stomach, still pressed against that warm cottonâstarts to move. Downward. Slow.
"Really, genuinely insulted."
Lower.
Past the hem of his kit. Past the elastic.
"Keep moving that hand," you say, very calm, very level, "and see what happens."
He goes still.
Then his eyes drop.
To your mouth.
"You know that makes me wanna do it more, right?"
He says it like he's sharing a fun fact. Like this is trivia night and he's contributing.
"So being pushy is your whole thing," you say. "Good to know. Something you should probably discuss with a psychologist."
"Psychologists are fake."
"That's notâ"
"Made up. Whole field. Scam."
"You can't justâ"
"Moving on."
Suddenly his grip on your wrist tightens and he pulls your palm down and presses it flat against his crotchâ
And he's hard.
Fully hard. Zero ambiguity about what you're feelingâthe thick, obvious shape of his cock straining against fabric, hot under your palm, and your brain processes this information in approximately point-three seconds before your body reacts on pure animal instinct.
You yank your hand back like you've touched a burner.
And shove him.
Both palms, flat against his chest, hard enough that he staggers backward two full steps, his shoulder blades hitting the elevator wall with a thud that makes the Coke Zero slosh in the can.
"Are you insane?"
Your voice comes out sharper than you intended. Pitched higher. Not flusteredâyou do not get flusteredâbut something adjacent to it that you refuse to name and will be taking to your grave.
Taehyung doesn't look sorry.
Taehyung looks like Christmas came early and brought him personally wrapped gifts.
He's laughing. This low, rough chuckle that sounds like it's being dragged out of him against his better judgmentâif he had better judgment, which he doesn't, which has been firmly established.
"What?" He's still grinning, rubbing the spot on his chest where you shoved him with his free hand, not remotely bothered. "You've felt it against your pussy once already. Figured we were past the formalities."
Your mouth opens.
Closes.
Opens again.
Nothing comes out.
Because what do you say to that?
What is the appropriate verbal response to a man referencing the time he ground his erection against you in your father's treatment room while you're trapped in a moving elevator in a professional football facility at eight in the morning?!
Emily Post didn't write a chapter on this.
The elevator dings.
Floor three.
The doors slide open and reality floods back inâfluorescent lighting, corridor noise, the distant sound of someone yelling about lighting setupsâand you stand there, pulse hammering, while the world outside the elevator continues to exist as if the last ninety seconds didn't just happen.
Taehyung straightens up. Adjusts his kit. Takes a sip of his Coke Zero with the calm of a man who did not just place your hand on his dick in a shared vertical transit space.
He steps out.
Pauses.
Turns.
And throws you the V sign.
Two fingers. Lazy. That same gesture from the party, the one that started all of this, and his tongue presses against the inside of his cheek as he does it, and his eyes hold yours for exactly long enough to make his point before he turns and walks down the corridor like nothing happened.
You stare at the closed doors.
Blink once.
Twice.
"What the fuck," you say, to no one, in an empty elevator, at eight in the morning.
Your hand smells like his kit.
You wipe it on your jacket.
It doesn't help.
Youâve been here eleven minutes.Â
You know this because youâve been counting, the way you count everything when youâre stuck somewhere you donât want to beâminutes, ceiling tiles, the number of times the PR coordinator says âteamâ (four so far).
Youâre keeping a tally in the margin of your notebook next to your actual notes, which are sparse and getting sparser because this whole thing is a glorified logistics briefing disguised as a team bonding exercise and you are not on this team.
Youâre the physioâs daughter.
Youâre here because âstaff families invited for unity shotsâ apparently translates to âsit in a room for an hour while someone explains lighting arrangements like itâs a NATO summit.â
There are about fifteen people in here. Players scattered across the sectional couches and chairs, a few WAGs, some PR staff, two photographers who keep checking their light meters like nervous pilots.Â
Your dadâs somewhere on the other side of the room talking to the head coachâs assistant about rotator cuff protocols, because he is constitutionally incapable of not working even when heâs technically off-duty.
Youâve got a seat at the end of the long couch, notebook open, pen moving, foot tapping a rhythm against the floor thatâs half concentration and half residual irritation from the elevator incident that you are not thinking about.
You are not thinking about it.
You are taking notes.
Professional, organized, here-for-her-dad notes about photo scheduling and where staff families are supposed to stand during the group shots andâ
A body drops onto the couch next to you.
Not across the room, where there are at least four empty seats. Not on the chair by the window, which is free and far away and wouldâve been the choice of any person with functioning spatial awareness and a basic respect for personal boundaries.
Next to you.
Right next to you.
His thigh settles approximately two millimeters from yours.Â
You donât look up.
Donât react.
Just keep writing.
The PR coordinator is explaining something about backdrop options for the individual portraitsâwhite versus grey, apparently this is a debate that requires committee inputâand you are focused on that. Entirely focused. One hundred percent of your attention on backdrop discourse.
Something crinkles.
You glance sidewaysâreflex, not choiceâand watch Taehyung reach into the pocket of his training jacket and pull out a small bag of pikotas.
Your pikotas.
Not your literal pikotas. But your candy. Your thing. The sour-sweet cherry gummies that you keep in your tote and your nightstand and your jacket pockets because theyâre yours, theyâve been yours since you were twelve, and now this man is sitting next to you in a professional meeting eating them like theyâre his.
He pops one into his mouth. Chews. Doesnât look at you.
âWhere did you get those.â
It comes out before you can help it. Flat, but with an edge of genuine confusion, because pikotas arenât exactly standard vending machine fare and youâve never once seen them in the Valdebebas canteen.
He finally glances at you. Chewing. Taking his time about it. Extracting every possible second of enjoyment from both the candy and your face.
âYouâd be surprised,â he says, âthe kind of contacts Madrid players have.â
âContacts.â
âMm.â Another pikota. He makes a small show of examining the bag, turning it over like heâs reading the nutritional information. âSmuggling around kidsâ candy. Whole underground network. Very serious operation.â
âMust be one hell of a job. Your braincells survive the mission?â
âIâm a man of many talents, Gomi.â He sucks the sugar off his thumb. Casual. Not looking at you. âSome of them are even legal.â
âName one.â
âI just located and acquired your favorite candy within a fifteen-kilometer radius of a high-security football facility using nothing but my charm and a phone call.â He tilts the bag toward you. Offering. âThatâs basically espionage.â
âThatâs basically sad.â
âAnd yet.â He pulls the bag back, pops another one, and faces forward again. âYouâre still talking to me about it.â
You turn back to your notebook.
Write nothing.
The meeting continues. Backdrop: grey wins. Schedule: roster goes first, staff families after lunch. Individual shots: alphabetical by surname, so Taehyungâs somewhere in the middle, which means heâll be hanging around the facility for hours with nothing to do, which means heâll be hanging around you for hours with nothing to do, which means today is going to be the longest day of your life and you havenât even had coffee yet.
His knee taps yours.
Light. Brief. Could be accidental.
You shift your leg away.
Thirty seconds pass.
Tap.
You clench your jaw. Move your leg again.
Twenty seconds.
Tap.
This time it lingersâhis knee pressing against the side of yours, holding contact for a full beat before pulling back.
You stare at your notebook. The words on the page have stopped meaning anything. Youâre looking at your own handwriting and seeing hieroglyphics because your entire cognitive capacity has been rerouted to the single point of contact where his knee keeps finding yours like a homing missile with a personal grudge.
Tap.
Is he braindead?
Tap.
Is he actually, clinically, medically braindead? Because thatâs the only explanation. Some kind of neurological event has occurred and the part of his brain responsible for reading social cues and understanding the concept of âstopâ has been permanently deactivated.
Tap.
You could choke him. Right here. In this room. In front of fifteen people and a PR coordinator and two photographers. You could put your hands around his throat and squeeze and youâd feel nothingâno guilt, no remorse, just the deep, abiding satisfaction of a woman who has reached her absolute limit with a man who thinks his proximity is a gift.
Tap.
Who does he think he is? Genuinely. Is this the approach? Touch the girl, annoy the girl, be so relentlessly, suffocatingly present that eventually she breaks from sheer exhaustion? Is this what works on other women? Does he tap their knees in meetings and they justâwhat? Swoon? Melt? Decide that yes, being subtly harassed during a photo day logistics briefing is the romantic overture theyâve been waiting for?
Tap.
God. God, Kim Taehyung is a test. A full-blown, divinely orchestrated trial of patience. God really said âmen are insufferable and hereâs one to prove it. Hereâs the thesis statement with abs and a Coke Zero habit and zeroâliterally zeroâunderstanding of the word no.â
What did you do in your previous life?Â
It mustâve been bad. You mustâve burned down a convent or kicked a dog or committed some deeply specific sin that the universe decided could only be atoned for through repeated, sustained exposure to this manâs right kneecap.
Tap.
Karma. Thatâs what this is. Cosmic, targeted, inescapable karma.
Tap.
Fucking stupid attention-seekingâ
âStop.â
You say it through your teeth. Quiet. Just for him.
He doesnât stop.
Tap.
His face is pointed at the front of the room. Attentive. Invested. Like heâs absorbing every single word about photo resolution requirements and has never been more intellectually stimulated.
Tap.
Fine.
You swing your knee sideways and crack it into his.
Hard.
Not a tap. Not a nudge. A full, mean, retaliatory strike that connects with the side of his kneecap with enough force that his whole leg jolts.
He snorts.
Tries to cover itâbadlyâpressing his fist against his mouth, shoulders shaking, this strangled sound escaping through his fingers thatâs somewhere between a laugh and a cough.
Heads turn. Half the room glances over.
Taehyung clears his throat, fist still against his mouth, and nods at nobody in particular.Â
âSorry. Cough. Just aââ He thumps his chest once. ââtickle in the throat. Carry on.â
The PR coordinator blinks, adjusts her glasses, and continues talking about file format preferences.
Heads turn back.
You want to dissolve into the couch cushions and cease to exist.
Heâs eating another pikota. Chewing with that self-satisfied rhythm of a man who just won a round and knows it.
Silence.
Blessed, temporary silence.
Forty-five seconds of peace in which you try to re-engage with the meeting, try to remember why youâre here, try to reconnect with the version of yourself that walked into this building this morning with functional blood pressure and the will to live.
Then he starts bouncing his knee.
Not the tapping. The bouncing. That full-leg rhythmic jitter that some people do when theyâre restless, except heâs doing it at a frequency that vibrates through the couch cushion and directly into your thigh and itâs like sitting next to a human jackhammer.
Your pen stops moving.
You look at his leg.
Look at him.
Heâs staring straight ahead. Chewing a pikota. Bouncing. Completely at peace with himself and the chaos heâs introducing into your nervous system.
You donât think about it.
Your hand drops to his thigh and you dig your nails in.
Four fingers and a thumb, pressing into the muscle hard enough to anchor his leg to the couch and stop the vibration dead.
The effect is immediate.
His breath catchesâaudible, quick, a sound that has no business existing in a meeting roomâand his head tips back. His arms go up, stretching overhead, spine arching slightly, and the groan that comes out of him is disguised as a stretch noise but itâs not a stretch noise and you know itâs not a stretch noise and he knows you know.
Every single head in the room turns again.
âJustââ His voice is rougher than it should be. He rolls his shoulders, committing to the bit. âTight. From training. Sorry.â
The PR coordinator looks like sheâs reconsidering her career choices.
You remove your hand from his thigh like itâs radioactive.
He looks at you.
That grin.
That absolute shit-eating, fully unrepentant, âI-just-made-a-noise-in-a-meeting-room-because-you-hurt-me-and-I-liked-itâ grin.
Your face is hot. Your ears are hot. Your entire body has decided to betray you by turning the exact shade of the pikotas he keeps eating, and you grip your pen so hard the plastic creaks.
He pops another pikota into his mouth.
Winks.
You are going to kill him. You are going to kill him and plead temporary insanity and every woman on the jury will acquit you.
The meeting wraps up approximately nine years later.
People start standing, gathering bags, fragmenting into side conversations. The PR coordinator distributes printed schedules. Someone mentions lunch. Normal, functional, human behavior happening all around you while you sit rigid on the couch thinking about the thirty-six different ways you could commit a crime and get away with it.
Taehyung shifts next to you. Doesnât stand. Tilts his body toward yours, dropping his voice low enough that the words are just for you.
âIâm gonna be honest with you, Gomi.â Barely above a breath. âI didnât hear a single word of that briefing.â
You stare at him.
âI have zero idea whatâs happening for the photos. No clue. None. My entire blood supply wasââ He makes a vague gesture downward. ââelsewhere. The whole time.â
âThat sounds like a you problem.â
âIt is a me problem.â He nods. Solemn. Completely unbothered. âA really pressing me problem.â
âThen go figure it out.â
âI was hoping my favorite physioâs daughter would brief me.â
âBriefly:Â no.â
âGomiââ
You stand up. Grab your bag. Your schedule. The remains of your composure, which are admittedly scattered across the floor of this briefing room like debris.
âYour mess. Your cleanup. Iâm not your personal assistant.â
âYouâre really gonna leave me here?â He tips his head back against the couch, looking up at you with an expression of a kicked puppy. âConfused and alone?â
âThriving and unbothered, actually.â
Youâve taken exactly two steps toward the door when Namjoon appears.
Heâs holding a coffeeâactual coffee, from the good machine on the second floorâand heâs got that easy, slightly disheveled energy he always has, glasses slightly askew, turtleneck doing its turtleneck thing.Â
He smiles when he sees you.
âHey. How wasââ
âDonât ask.â
âThat bad?â
âWorse.â
He chuckles, and youâre about to ask him if he wants to grab food after the family shots whenâ
âIs that your boyfriend?â
You stop walking.
Turn around slowly.
Taehyungâs still on the couch, sprawled, one arm stretched across the backrest, looking at Namjoon with an expression thatâs technically neutral and functionally anything but.
You open your mouth to tell him thatâs none of his business, that he doesnât get to ask you that, that the concept of your personal life should be as inaccessible to him as basic human decency apparently isâ
âAnd what if I am?â
Namjoonâs voice. Calm. Even. Standing right beside you with his coffee and his turtleneck and an expression youâve never seen on him beforeâsteady and unbothered and looking directly at Taehyung like heâs got all day.
Taehyung simply looks at Namjoon from the couch, that sprawled-out posture, and thereâs a beatâtwo, three secondsâwhere they just hold each otherâs gaze. Weighing. Measuring.
Then Taehyung raises both hands. Palms out. That universal gesture of surrender that means nothing when it comes from him.
âMy bad, dude.â Easy. Disarming. A smile that shows too many teeth. âDidnât know.â
Namjoon doesnât respond. Just holds the look for another second. Then turns to you.
âReady?â
You pick up your tote strap, adjust it on your shoulder. âLetâs go.â
You make it three steps toward the door.
âYo, dude!â
Both hands cupped around his mouth. Full volume. The kind of voice projection you use in stadiums, not conference rooms.
You both half turn, looking over shoulders.
âYou better watch her.â
The smile that follows is the kind that could mean anything and definitely means something, and you grab Namjoonâs arm and pull him through the door before your face can give him any reaction at all.
The photo shoot is a circus and no one brought a tent.
Youâre watching from behind the lighting rigs, tucked into one of those folding chairs they set up for families and staff, doing an excellent impression of someone who belongs here while internally calculating how many minutes until you can leave.
The roster shots are happening on the main pitch backdropâthat massive club crest banner theyâve rolled out like a red carpet for egosâand the photographer, a tiny woman with a headset, is trying to organize twenty-two professional athletes into neat rows.
Itâs going about as well as youâd expect.
âMarco. MarcoâI need you in the second row.â
âThe second row?â Marco says it like she just asked him to stand in the car park. âBro, my jawline doesnât hit right from the second row. Thereâs a shadow thing. Itâs an Italian bone structure issue.â
âItâs a height issue,â the photographer says flatly. âYouâre five-eleven. Second row.â
âFive-eleven and three quartersââ
âSecond row, Mr. Santelli.â
Leo, whoâs already been placed in the second row, looks unreasonably pleased about this development. âWelcome to my world.â
âShut up, Leo.â
âIâm just sayingââ
âI said shut up.â
âThe second rowâs not that badââ
âLeo, if you finish that sentence, I will tell Sofia what you said about her cooking last Tuesday.â
Leo shuts up.
The photographer repositions. Adjusts angles. Asks the first row to square their shoulders. Asks the third row to stop slouching. Asks Gabriel to pleaseâpleaseâtake the AirPods out.
âSorry, sorryââ Gabriel yanks them out, grinning that impossible grin that makes everyone forgive him immediately. âI was listening to something.â
âDuring the team photo?â
âIt was a good song.â He says it like thatâs a perfectly valid excuse.Â
To be fair, for Gabriel, it probably is.
Sergio, standing front and center because heâs the captain and thatâs his spot and nobody has ever once questioned this, pinches the bridge of his nose.
âCan we justââ He gestures at the group with the resigned authority of a man whoâs done this forty times and it never gets easier. âCan we just take the photo. Please. One photo. Without anyone talking.â
âBold of you to assume we know how to be quiet,â Marco says.
âIâm not assuming. Iâm begging.â
âThatâs sad, captain.â
âYour existence is sad, Marco. Smile.â
The photographer counts down. Three, twoâ
Taehyung bumps Marcoâs shoulder. Hard enough to knock him sideways half a step.
Marco bumps him back.
Taehyung catches himself on Leo, who wasnât involved but is now stumbling into MatĂas, who turns around with the expression of a man contemplating violence.
âÂĄEh!â MatĂas shoves Leo back upright. âÂżQuĂŠ coĂąo hacĂŠis?â (What the fuck are you doing?)
âIt wasnât meââ
âItâs never youââ
âCan we PLEASEââ The photographerâs voice has reached a frequency that could shatter crystal. ââtake ONE photo where EVERYONE is looking at the camera and NOBODY is assaulting each other?â
Silence.
Twenty-two players stare forward.
Click.
âThank god,â the photographer mutters.
âThatâs gonna be a good one,â Marco announces to nobody. âI felt it in my bones.â
âYou felt my elbow in your bones,â Taehyung says.
âSame thing.â
The photographer waves them off for a break while she checks the shots, and the formation dissolves immediately into chaosâplayers scattering, grabbing water, checking phones.
Leo drifts toward Marco and Taehyung like a satellite pulled by gravity, and within thirty seconds theyâre clustered near the lighting rig to your left, close enough that you can hear every word whether you want to or not.
You do not want to.
You hear them anyway.
ââIâm just saying, the grey backdrop washes me out,â Marcoâs saying, scrolling through his phone. âThey shouldâve gone with black. Black makes everyone look ten percent hotter. Thatâs science.â
âThatâs not science,â Leo says.
âIt is. I read it somewhere.â
âYou donât read.â
âI read captions, Leo. Captions count.â
Taehyungâs leaning against the rig, arms crossed, looking bored in the way he always looks bored when heâs actually paying attention to everything. His eyes drift across the roomâcasual, unhurriedâand you know the exact moment they land on you because you feel it the way you feel a change in air pressure.
You donât look up.
Keep reading your schedule.
âAlright, individual portraits next!â The photographerâs assistantâthe PA with the clipboard and the thousand-yard stareâstarts calling names. âAlphabetical by surname. Weâre starting withââ
âExcuse me.â Xaviâs voice cuts through the noise. Not loud. Never loud. Just that specific frequency that makes every player in a thirty-meter radius instinctively straighten up. âBefore individualsâcan we address the team photo situation?â
Heâs looking at the Chaos Coalition.
All three of them.
That look. Youâve seen your dad give itâthe one that doesnât need words because the disappointment is doing all the heavy lifting.
âThe team photo,â Xavi repeats, âis the image the club uses for the entire season. It goes on the website. On posters. On merchandise. And you threeââ He gestures with a water bottle. ââturned it into a playground fight.â
âIt was a nudge,â Marco says.
âIt was unprofessional.â
âXaviââ
âThis represents the club.â Xaviâs voice doesnât rise. It doesnât need to. Heâs got that Andalusian calm that makes everything sound both reasonable and devastating. âThe club that pays your salaries. That gave you a platform. The least you can do is stand still for eight seconds.â
Silence.
Marco blinks.
Leo stares at his shoes.
Taehyung tongues the inside of his cheek, jaw shifting, not saying a word.
Xavi holds the look for another two secondsâjust to make sure it landsâthen nods once and walks back toward the photographer, water bottle in hand, posture perfect, the absolute picture of professionalism.
The moment his back is turned, all three of them huddle closer.
âLook at him,â Marco mutters, barely moving his lips. âBeing all⌠Xavi-like.â
âI mean,â Leo whispers back, âhe is Xavi.â
âYes but when I say Xavi-like I mean it as an insult, Leo. Focus.â
âRight. Sorry.â
Taehyung glances over his shoulderâchecks Xaviâs positionâthen turns back. âDid you hear him? âThe club that pays your salaries.â Like I donât know who pays my salary. Iâm very aware of who pays my salary. My salary is excellent.â
âIâm so done with the salary lecture.â Marco shakes his head, solemn. âTop three worst moves. Right behind the âyou represent something bigger than yourselvesâ speech.â
âOh god,â Leo groans. âThat oneâs the worst.â
âItâs so bad.â
ââSomething bigger than yourselves,ââ Taehyung mimics, dropping his voice into Xaviâs measured cadence, chin lifted, an invisible water bottle in hand. ââEvery action you take reflects on this institution.ââ
Marco snorts. Covers his mouth.
ââThe crest on your chest isnât decoration,ââ Marco adds, doing his own Xavi impressionâslower, one hand pressed to his heart. ââItâs a responsibility. A privilege. Aâââ
âââa legacy,ââ Leo finishes, and all three of them mouth the word at the same time, like theyâve heard it four hundred times, which they probably have.
âAt least the salary oneâs short,â Taehyung concedes. âIn, out, done. The âbigger than yourselvesâ thing? That oneâs got layers. He builds to it. Thereâs a crescendo.â
âThereâs eye contact,â Marco adds, haunted. âHe makes eye contact with every single person in the room.â
âIndividually.â
âIndividually.â
âSeriously, heâs all likeââ Marco straightens up slightly, adjusts an imaginary collar. ââLook at me. Iâm Xavi. Iâm morally superior because Iâve been in a relationship with someone who actually loves me for eight years and we just got engaged and Iâve never once thought about another woman because Iâm built differentâââ
âThat one feels personal,â Leo says.
âIt is personal.â Marco frowns. âImagine being in love with the same person. Forever. Voluntarily.â
He shudders. Full body. Like the concept of monogamy is a physical affliction.
âSome people like that,â Leo says, carefully.
âSome people like eating plain rice, Leo. Doesnât make it a personality.â
Taehyung snorts.
âLike, bro, the wedding?â Marco continues, eyes widening. âHave you seen the Pinterest board? Elena showed Isabella. There are mood boards. Plural. One for table settings. One for flowers. One forâget thisânapkin folds.â
âNapkin folds,â Taehyung repeats.
âSpecific napkin folds. There are apparently seven kinds and Elena has opinions about all of them.â
âAnd the water bottle thing too,â Leo mutters. âLike even his hydration is morally superior.â
âFor real,â Taehyung says. âItâs like watching a documentary about discipline.â
âHeâd make a great priest,â Leo offers.
âHeâd make a great principal.â
âHeâd make a great my-dad-when-I-got-bad-gradesââ
Xavi looks over from across the room. Just a glance. Just a flicker of those dark eyes in their direction, chin lifting slightly, the way a lion turns its head when it hears rustling in the grass.
All three of them snap forward simultaneously.
Marco grabs his water bottle and drinks with aggressive innocence. Leo suddenly finds the ceiling fascinating. Taehyung pulls out his phone and stares at a blank screen with the focus of a man reading breaking news.
Nobody speaks.
Nobody breathes.
Xavi holds the look for three full seconds.
Then turns back to his conversation with Rafael.
Marco exhales through his teeth. âClose one.â
âHeâs got eyes everywhere,â Leo whispers. âItâs like he can hear us thinking.â
âItâs the goalkeeper training,â Taehyung says, still fake-scrolling. âPeripheral vision. They see everything.â
âWe should spread out,â Leo suggests. âLook natural.â
âWe are naturalââ
âWe look like weâre planning a heistââ
âOkay, next please!â The photographerâs voice cuts across the room.Â
Alexandre peels himself off the wall with the enthusiasm of a man walking to his own execution, and the room reshuffles again.
Youâve been watching all of this.
You didnât mean to, but itâs impossibleâgenuinely, physically impossibleânot to watch three grown men who earn more in a week than most people earn in a year act like twelve-year-olds who got told off by a substitute teacher.
The Xavi impression was good, though.
Youâre not going to admit that to anyone.
The next hour passes in a blur of flash photography and fragile egos. Players cycle through individual shotsâsome take thirty seconds, some take fifteen minutes because they keep asking to see the screen and requesting different angles. Marco insists on a reshoot because his âjawline wasnât catching the light.â Taehyung, predictably, nails his in one take and walks away like he couldnât care less.Â
You saw him check the preview screen twice, though.Â
He cared.
Your dad appears around noon, coffee in hand, looking pleased in that quiet way he gets when work is going well.
âFotos de familia ahora, cariĂąo.â (Family photos now, sweetheart.) He squeezes your shoulder. âSolo un par. RĂĄpido.â (Just a couple. Quick.)
You close your notebook. Stand. Smooth down your jacket.
This is the part youâve been dreading. Not the photos themselvesâyou can survive standing next to your dad and smiling for a camera. Youâve done it a thousand times, at a thousand Barça events, in a thousand corridors that smelled like medical tape and belonging.
Itâs the context.
Staff families means youâre part of the Madrid machine now. Officially. Documented. Filed away in some PR folder as evidence of team unity and institutional warmth.
The photographerâs set up a new backdropâwarmer lighting, softer focus, the kind of setup designed to make everyone look approachable and human. Staff members are filing in with partners, kids, the occasional bemused-looking teenager who clearly got dragged here against their will.
You know the feeling.
Your dad steers you toward the cluster forming near the backdrop, his hand on your shoulder, already talking to one of the assistant coaches about someoneâs hamstring.
The photographerâs assistant is arranging people into loose groupings. Staff on the left. Families on the right. Players who are part of the âunity shotsâ scattered in between for that curated weâre-all-one-big-family aesthetic that clubs love and nobody believes.
You end up near the edge of the group. Reasonable. Safe. Far enough from the center that youâre visible but not prominent. Your dadâs beside you, already in position, radiating that calm professional warmth that makes everyone around him stand a little straighter.
This is fine.
You adjust your jacket. Fix your hair. Prepare the faceâneutral, pleasant, the expression of a person who is here by choice and not because her fatherâs career depends on institutional goodwill.
And thenâsomeone stepping into the space to your left where nobody was standing three seconds ago.
You feel it before you register it.Â
That faint edge of citrus that your nose has started recognizing against your will.
His hand touches your lower back.
Light. Brief. Fingertips pressing through the fabric of your jacket, just below your shoulder blade, the kind of contact that could be dismissed as guidance. Positioning. Moving you into frame the way anyone might move anyone during a group photo.
Except his fingers linger.
One beat too long.
Two.
His palm flattens. Settles against the curve of your spine.
And stays.
âChin up, Gomi,â he murmurs, voice low enough that only you hear it. âYou look like youâre at a funeral.â
You donât turn your head. Donât look at him. Just face the camera with your expression locked in place and your back burning where his hand sits.
The photographer raises her camera.
âEveryoneâsmile!â
You do.
Itâs late when the whole nightmare is finally over.Â
The light through the hallway is going amber, that low-angle afternoon thing that happens when a dayâs been going on too long and the building itself seems tired of hosting people.Â
Most of the photo shoot chaos has been packed up. The photographer left an hour ago. Staff families filtered out after that, then the WAGs, then the players in staggered groupsâsome to the gym, some to their cars, some to whatever shiny nightlife commitment makes them feel alive after eight hours of being professionally agreeable.
Youâre still here because your dadâs still here. Because your dad is always still here, because JesĂşs does not leave a facility until every piece of equipment is accounted for and every clipboard is initialed and every surface has been wiped down to his personal standard of medical-grade cleanliness.
Which means youâre in the closet.
Not metaphorically. Literally in the storage room off the main physio corridor, reaching for the electrode cables your dad asked you to grab from the top shelf because they migrated during the chaos of today and now theyâre wedged behind a box of resistance bands that someone shoved up there with the spatial awareness of a drunk giraffe.
Your fingers graze the edge of the box. Miss the cables by about four centimeters.
You stretch higher. Your jacket rides up. Your shoulder protests.
Seriously. This shelf is just unreasonably placed, designed by someone who assumed that everyone who uses this room is three meters tall and plays professional football.
You stretch again. Fingertips brush plastic. Almostâ
A hand reaches past you.
Long arm. Over your shoulder. Fingers closing around the cable bundle and pulling it down with zero effort, like the shelf is at eye level and not somewhere near the ceiling.
The smell hits you before the identity does.
Lemons.
That specific scent that isnât cologne, isnât soap, isnât anything you can pin to a productâitâs just Kim Taehyung. The way his skin smells after a full day. Bright and tangy and warm in a way that makes your throat do something inconvenient.
He always smells like lemons, doesnât he?
Youâre not a citrus girl. Never have been. You donât squeeze lemon into your water or order limoncello or buy those yellow cleaning products that smell like summer kitchens.
But right now, standing in a storage closet with his arm still extended past your head and his chest approximately four inches from your back, the lemon thing isâ
Present.
Very present.
He drops the cables into your hand.
âHere.â
You take them. Step sideways, putting distance between you and whatever just happened in your olfactory system.
âThanks.â
He shrugs. Moves back. Leans against the opposite shelf with that particular brand of engineered casualness that he doesâarms folded, one ankle crossed over the other, like he ended up here by accident and not because he walked into a storage closet that he has absolutely no reason to be in.
You look at him.
He looks at you.
The silence sits there for a second, the same way that happens at the end of a very long day when everyoneâs used up all their performance energy and thereâs nothing left but the actual person underneath.
âYou look tired,â he says.
âWow.â You donât miss a beat. âCharming.â
âI meanââ He pauses. His jaw works slightly, like heâs chewing on the next word before releasing it. âThis kind of day is exhausting. The performing.â
You donât respond immediately.
Because thatâsâ
Thatâs not a line.Â
Thatâs not a setup for something.Â
Thereâs no smirk chasing the sentence, no innuendo tucked into the pause, no gleam in his eye that says gotcha.Â
Heâs just standing there, looking at you, and his voice sounds different. Flatter. Stripped of the usual coating.
Tired, actually.
He looks tired too. Not the kind of tired that makes people uglyâbecause the universe wouldnât grant you that mercyâbut the kind that shows in the looseness of his posture.Â
The way his shoulders sit lower than usual.Â
The faint shadow under his eyes that his bone structure almost hides but not quite.
âYouâd know,â you say. Quieter than you intended.
âYeah.â He holds your gaze. âI would.â
Something passes between you. Brief. Unnamed. The kind of thing that happens when two people who spend all their time performing accidentally stop at the same time and realize theyâre both just standing there without a script.
Thenâ
âSo you perform too.â
His mouth shifts. Not a grin. Something smaller. More knowing.
âThought you were above that.â
The sincerity evaporates like a puddle in July.
âMeaning?â Your defenses snap back online. Immediate. Automatic.
âMeaningââ He tilts his head, that half-interested expression settling over his features. ââI put my hand on your back during the photos. Right there. Full palm.â He makes a vague gesture. âAnd you just⌠stood there.â
âBecause we were being photographed.â
âBecause you were performing.â He says it like heâs delighted by the discovery. âAfter the meetingâafter theââÂ
He mimes clawing fingers.
Nails digging into a thigh.Â
Your nails. His thigh.Â
ââthat whole thing, I was expecting you to turn around and stomp on my foot. Elbow to the ribs. Something.â
âI didnât want to cause a scene.â
âYou always want to cause a scene. You charged fifteen grand to my card at a party.â
âThat was different.â
âHow?â
âThat was revenge. The photo was just logistics.â
âLogistics.â He repeats the word like itâs amusing. Like itâs a candy heâs rolling around his mouth. âRight. My hand on your back was logistics.â
âIt was.â
âAnd you letting it stay there?â
âTolerance.â
âTolerance,â he echoes. His eyes narrow. âSee, Gomi, I donât buy that.â
âI donât care what you buy.â
âBecause I thinkââ He pushes off the shelf. Doesnât step closer. Just shifts his weight forward in a way that makes the room feel smaller. ââyou liked it.â
âI tolerated it.â
âYou tolerated my hand on your back but tried to puncture my femoral artery with your fingernails forty-five minutes earlier?â
âYes.â
âThose are mixed signals.â
âThose are boundaries. One was a briefing room where you were being insufferable. The other was a photo where pulling away wouldâve looked weird.â
âMm.â Heâs almost smiling now. Containing it. Barely. âSo you didnât pull away because of optics.â
âCorrect.â
âNot because my hand felt good.â
âYour hand felt like a hand. Congratulations on having one.â
He bites back whateverâs threatening to break across his face.Â
You can see itâthe way his jaw locks, the way his cheek hollows slightly with the effort of not grinning.
âOkay,â he says. âFair. But the nails thing.â
âWhat about it.â
âI liked that.â
You stare at him. âYou liked that you almost got caught making sex noises in a briefing.â
âI liked the nails thing, Gomgom.â
No lead-up. No cushioning.Â
He just drops it into the air between you like itâs a reasonable contribution to a conversation between two people standing in a storage closet.
âGood for you.â
âI meanâIâm used to scratches.â He tilts his head, rolling one shoulder back like heâs remembering something specific, something physical. âMy backâs basically a canvas at this point. Comes with the territory.â
âDisgusting.â
âSo like, not news.â He doesnât even register the insult. Just keeps going, the way a train keeps going when someone throws a pebble at it. âGirls scratch. It happens. Standard operating procedure. But youââÂ
He points at you. One finger.Â
"âyou scratched me like you were actually trying to get to the bone.â
âBecause I was trying to get to the bone.â
ââand that was so hot, Gomi.â His voice drops, rough, as if the memoryâs doing something to him in real time. âLike, fuck. Thatâs all I could think about for the rest of that meeting.â
âExplains why you got nothing out of it.â
âExactly! See?â He spreads his hands. Beaming. âWe get each other.â
âWe absolutely do not get each other.â
âYouâre right.â He nods, solemn, like heâs reconsidering his position and arriving at a new conclusion. âI think we should get to know each other. In my room. My bed, specifically. So you can add those scratches to my back. For real this time.â
There it is.
The proposition. Delivered with all the subtlety of a billboard on the M-30 and twice the confidence.
In a normal settingâon a normal dayâwith a normal amount of patience left in your reserves, youâd say âI donât want to knowâ or âwhat the fuck is wrong with youâ or even a mere âboy, whateverâ and walk out and that would be the end of it. Clean exit. Dignity intact. The mature response of a woman who does not engage with men who proposition her in storage closets after photo days.
But itâs not a normal day.
And Taehyung is not a normal person.Â
And itâs been a twelve-hour day of performing and tolerating and sitting next to his stupid bouncing knee and feeling his stupid hand on your stupid back and smelling his stupid lemon smell and you are fed up.Â
Past fed up. Beyond it.Â
Somewhere in the territory where irritation curdles into recklessness and your mouth stops consulting your brain before opening.
âYou wouldnât last long enough,â you say, âto get me to scratch you.â
The room goes very still.
Taehyungâs face does something youâve never seen it do.
It goes blank.
Completely, totally blankâevery expression wiped clean for a full second, like his operating system just crashed and is rebooting.Â
His mouth is slightly open.Â
His eyes are fixed on you with the intensity of a man who just heard something in a language he didnât know he spoke.
Then the reboot completes.
And the grin that spreads across his face is predatory.
Not his usual smirk. Not the cocky, performative thing he wears like a uniform.Â
This oneâs slower. Meaner. All teeth and something behind the teeth that makes the air in the closet feel like it dropped ten degrees and heated up simultaneously.
âWanna bet?â
Two words, low enough that you feel them more than hear them.Â
His tongue presses against the inside of his cheek, and his whole posture shiftsâpushing off the shelf, not moving toward you but orienting toward you, his body language suddenly very awake for a man who looked exhausted thirty seconds ago.
Something about the way he says it sounds like a door opening onto a room you shouldnât walk into.
You step back.
âIâm leaving.â
âGomiââ
âGoodbye.âÂ
You tuck the cables under your arm, grip the shelf with your free hand for balance as you step around himâgiving him the widest possible berth in a closet that doesnât offer much berth to giveâand head for the door, flipping him off.Â
âOi!â
His voice bounces off the corridor walls, too loud, too pleased.
âThatâs the first time youâve flipped me off!â
You keep walking.
âThatâs a milestone, Gomi! We should mark the date!â
You round the corner.
His voice follows, fading but warm.
âIâm putting it in my calendar!â
The lemon smell stays on the cables the whole walk back.
You donât notice.
You absolutely, categorically donât notice.
if you liked this chapter, please consider buying me a coffee!! âĽ'ďť'âĽ
pairing: taehyung x f!reader | rating: 18+ | wc: 9,2k | warnings: here
genre : football AU, arrogant!tae, e2l, smut, unimpressed!reader
"smile for the camera"
"Team photo day was supposed to be six hours of smiling politely and surviving Real Madridâs collective ego problem. Unfortunately, Kim Taehyung has decided your boundaries are a group project, and he is failing with enthusiasm."
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âŚauthor's note : Hi, my loves! Okay, quick note before anything: Iâd like to gently, lovingly, dramatically remind everyone that I am currently on hiatus, and this month is looking absolutely disgusting for me work-wise. Like. Horrible. Evil. Designed by Satanâs accountant. I want to cry every day and I wish I were exaggerating for comedic purposes, but unfortunately, this is one of those rare occasions where the clown nose is off and I am merely a woman drowning in tax hell.
So please, donât expect steady updates. Please donât expect updates at all, honestly. I canât deal with more pressure right now, so while I love you all, and I would kiss every single one of you on the lips in gratitude, I am begging you to be kind and merciful to your dear dictator over here. Please donât ask me when the next chapter is dropping. I genuinely donât know. I am barely breathing. I am filing taxes at 1 a.m. on a Saturday. This is my glamorous author life.
As for FMU, I know I said Iâd try to post chapters 33â35 in June, but I had to rewrite chapter 34, which means chapter 35 also has to be rewritten because apparently my brain chose violence and continuity matters or whatever. Rude. So Iâm no longer confident Iâll be able to pull all three off. Please expect chapter 33 in June. I donât know about 34 and 35 yet. Iâll do my best, but my best is currently being held together by sheer force of will and the snippets of BTS concerts I catch on Twitter.
Now that the personal suffering section is out of the way, letâs get to this chapter.
So! This chapter is very much about cementing Taehyungâs personality, his dynamic with Y/N, and the main trouble, disease, plague, and dynamite explosion of this relationship: Taehyung cannot take no for an answer. He is pushy. He is annoying. He is toxic. He hears boundaries and goes, âInteresting. What if I made that worse?â because he is a deeply unserious man with an ego the size of the Santiago BernabĂŠu and the emotional regulation of fucking potato. This is the blueprint. This is not an accident. This is not me forgetting to make him behave. He is behaving exactly how he is supposed to behave at this point in the story.
So if youâre expecting him to not piss you off, or if youâre expecting to have no mixed feelings about him, or if youâre expecting their sexual tension and future smut scenes to be clean, morally comfortable, perfectly respectful little HR-approved interactions⌠babygirl, Iâll see you on your way out. I love you. Take snacks for the road. This is not that story. I tagged this as dubcon very purposely, and I want everyone to be painfully aware of what that means. Taehyung is going to be toxic. Taehyung is going to be pushy. Taehyung is going to make you want to smack him with a clipboard and then, tragically, perhaps understand why Y/N has not yet filed a restraining order with decorative stickers on it.
And because apparently I canât rest at night without making this disclaimer every 3 business days: I do not condone this behavior in real life!!! Fiction is not reality. Kiki writing a man being pushy does not mean Kiki thinks men should be pushy. Kiki writing a toxic dynamic does not mean Kiki is standing outside your house with a little pamphlet titled âWhy Red Flags Are Actually Sexy.â In real life, if a man behaved like this, Iâd tell you to run, block, document everything, and maybe carry a brick in your tote bag for spiritual support. But fiction is a controlled environment. Itâs tagged, framed, and has narrative context. You have access to things you would never have in real life: inner thoughts, psychological motivations, consequences, authorial intent, pacing, symbolism, and the ability to close the tab the second something stops being enjoyable. Thatâs why you can enjoy a dark or messy dynamic in fiction while knowing you would recoil from it in real life. There is nothing wrong with you for finding it hot here. There is also nothing wrong with you if you donât. Thatâs the whole point of tags. They are there so everyone can curate their own little emotional survival bunker.
In OFL, Taehyung is safe because he exists inside a closed fictional system where his toxicity is being examined, not excused. The story knows heâs a problem. Y/N knows heâs a problem. I know heâs a problem. The man himself may not know heâs a problem because self-awareness has not yet been installed in his software, but thatâs why weâre here. Character development must start somewhere, and unfortunately, his starting point is âCoke Zero with abs and audacity.â
So read him deeply. Read him thoroughly. Ask yourself why he thrives so much off attention. Ask yourself why Y/Nâs resistance makes him worse instead of making him back off. Ask yourself why being ignored feels unbearable to him. Ask yourself why he escalates when he feels dismissed. This man is not just horny. He is psychologically unwell with a Nike contract.
Anyway. I lost the thread of where I was going with this because I started yapping and then remembered I have actual government-adjacent work waiting for me like the worldâs least sexy jumpscare. Enjoy the chapter, my loves. Be kind to me, be kind to each other, respect the tags, and please pray for me while I return to tax hell at 1 a.m. on a Saturday.
Yes, this is my life. No, I am not okay. â¤ď¸ď¸
Team photo day is not, technically, a humanitarian crisis.
You know this. Intellectually. In the same way you know that traffic jams arenât actually designed to ruin your life and that the universe doesnât have a personal vendetta against you specifically.
And yet.
Here you are.
Seven forty-three in the morning, standing in front of your wardrobe, staring at nothing, eating pikotas out of the bag because you forgot to eat an actual breakfast and this is fine. This is completely fine. Youâre fine.
You are not fine.
Photo day at Valdebebas means the entire Real Madrid roster in one building for six consecutive hours while photographers and club PR staff run around like badly caffeinated border collies trying to herd twenty-two professional athletes who have, collectively, the attention span of a fly.Â
It means chaos. It means noise. It means approximately forty-seven different egos ricocheting off the same walls.
And it means him.
You should be in university right now. You would be in university right now if the universe had any sense of justice or basic narrative fairness, but instead youâre standing here in your bedroom at seven forty-three in the morning because your dad got a text last weekâlast week, youâd been living in blessed ignorance for seven whole daysâthat said all staff families invited for unity shots.
You remember reading it over his shoulder.
You remember the exact quality of silence that followed.
Your dadâs face did this thing it does sometimesâthat small, private kind of hopeful. Like heâd been handed something unexpected and was trying not to show how much he wanted it.Â
He didnât say anything.Â
Just set his phone down and went back to his coffee and was very, very carefully not looking at you.
And that was it.
That was the whole argument.
His stupid hopeful face.
You hate that face. You love that face. You would walk into a burning building for that face, which is essentially what youâre doing right now, except the building is Valdebebas and the fire is Kim Taehyungâs continued existence in your general vicinity.
You pull on a jacket. Check your phone. Ignore the three texts from Sofia, one of which is just a photo of her crying because dinosaurs went extinct that she sent at midnight for reasons you canât fully parse.
Thirty minutes later youâre in the car, your dad driving, and heâs telling you about some new taping technique he learned at a conference in Valencia and youâre nodding in the right places and looking out the window and thinking, with great specificity, about all the things Taehyung could theoretically have come down with in the last seven days that would justify his absence today.
The list is not short.
Food poisoning, obviously. Pulled hamstring. Mysterious rash. Some dignity-adjacent incident at one of those Marbella villas that requires him to stay indoors and reconsider his choices for a minimum of six to eight weeks. A sudden onset of good judgment. A personality transplant. An inconvenient restraining order from a woman with better self-preservation instincts than you.
Youâd take any of it.
Youâd honestly take all of it.
Your dad turns into the Valdebebas entrance and waves at the security booth, and the gate opens, and the facility swallows you like it always doesâthis sprawling, impeccable machine of professional football; clean lines and manicured grass and the kind of quiet institutional money thatâs visible in every single surface.
You hate how impressive it is.
Youâve spent most of your life in training facilities and you still canât do itâcanât fully make yourself unimpressed by places like this.Â
Barçaâs was better. Obviously.
But Valdebebas has its own kind of weight. The kind that comes from decades of titles and the particular arrogance of an institution that has never once doubted its own importance.
Your dad parks. Gets out. Straightens his jacket with that small professional pride he always has walking into work, this guy who spent twenty years at Barça and is somehow still excited to show up.
You follow him inside.
The main building is already busy in that specific controlled-chaos way that happens when a large number of people have been told to be somewhere at the same time. Staff in lanyards. Photographers setting up rigs. A PA with a clipboard and the haunted expression of someone who has already been on shift for two hours longer than the day technically started. Players filtering in by twos and threes, some in full kit, some mid-conversation, some still wearing the slightly glazed look of people who were definitely not in bed at a reasonable hour last night.
You recognize most of them by now.
Thatâs what happens when your dad works here. You learn faces, positions, which ones are approachable and which ones have a thirty-meter exclusion radius of ego that you should respect for your own wellbeing.
You already know which one falls in the second category.
Your dad spots someone from medical across the lobby and says something about finding you in ten minutes and then heâs gone, absorbed into the professional ecosystem, and you are standing alone in the main corridor with your tote bag and your pikotas and your complete lack of enthusiasm.
Right.
Elevator. Floor three. Find somewhere quiet and get through the next six hours without doing anything youâll need to explain to HR.
The elevator banks are at the end of the corridor, past the trophy casesâwhich, fine, are impressive, youâre not dead, you can acknowledge thatâand you walk toward them, hands in your jacket pockets, looking at your phone because looking at your phone is a universal signal that you do not want to be talked to and most adults in professional environments respect this.
You press the call button and wait. Check your messages. Sofiaâs meme is a photo of a man walking directly into a lake with the caption âme, going to anything I said I wouldnât go to.â You send back a thumbs up. Sheâll understand.
The elevator dings.
The doors open.
You step in without looking up, reaching for the button panel, and then you register the presence of another body already inside the elevator and your eyes lift on reflexâ
Kim Taehyung.
In full kit, looking like he walked out of a shoot that hasnât happened yet. Hair done. Chain sitting right. That specific quality of effortless that takes an annoying amount of effort. Holding a Coke Zero like itâs a prop.Â
And smirking.
That smirk.
The one that says âwell, well, look at this,â like your presence here is a delightful twist of fate rather than a logistical inevitability that youâve been dreading for seven days.
You stare at him.
He stares back.
The elevator doors slide closed behind you.
Right.
So. Thatâs where you are.
Trapped in an elevator with Kim Taehyung at seven fifty-eight in the morning before youâve had coffee, and the universe is clearly operating at full capacity today, fully committed to its bit, no notes.
You turn back to the panel. Press three. Face forward.
âGominola.â
He says it like heâs greeting an old friend. Like this is pleasant. Like you didnât spend seven days quietly hoping heâd contract something non-life-threatening but career-interruptive.
You face the doors.
âDonât talk to me.â
He doesnât respond.
Good. Excellent. Signs of personal growth, possibly.
Three seconds of silence.
âWonder if theyâre doing individual shirtless shots this year,â he says, conversationally, out loud. Into the air. âThe club kept that one from two seasons ago for like eighteen months, whichâI mean. Can you blame them.â
You stare at the doors.
âI said donât talk to me.â
âIâm not talking to you.â Completely unbothered. âIâm talking to myself.â
You have no response to that. Not because you donât have oneâyou have severalâbut because giving him one proves heâs talking to you, which he technically isnât, and he knows that, and heâs enjoying this.
He suddenly leans in, and your hand moves without fully consulting your brain.
It lands flat on his stomachâreflexive, stopping himâand the contact registers immediately. Cotton kit. Solid under your palm. Warm in a way thatâs distinctly inconvenient.
He goes still.
âMhm?â
One syllable. Pointed. Like heâs giving you time to prepare yourself.
âI was just going to press the button. You missed it.â
You turn your head just enough to glance at the panel.
Floor three.
Not lit.
You couldâve sworn you had pressed it?
He reaches past you with his free hand and presses 3.
The button lights up. Small. Red. Humiliating.
âThere,â he murmurs. âProud of us.â
You go to pull your hand back, but his fingers close around your wrist before you can, tight enough to keep your palm where it is, still flattened against his stomach through the thin training top, like this was all your idea and heâs simply honoring the decision.
You look down at his hand on your wrist.
Then up at him.
Then back at his hand, because maybe visual confirmation will make this feel less insane.Â
It does not.
âLet go.â
He doesnât.
Instead he turns just enough to lean his other forearmâthe one holding the Coke Zeroâagainst the wall beside your head, easy as anything, trapping space down to something stupidly narrow.Â
His chain catches the overhead light. So do his piercings. Of course they do. Every part of this man behaves like itâs in a campaign.
Heâs annoyingly close. You can smell the citrusy scent of his, landing somewhere behind your ribs, where it has no business being.Â
âWhat?â he says, glancing down at your hand on his abs and then back up. âSurprised?â
You blink at him.
He tilts his head, smugness in HD.
âThought youâd already seen them.â His mouth twitches. âIn your dadâs office. In the pool.â
âYeah,â you say. âAnd theyâre not impressive.â
There it is.
That reaction.
Tiny. Immediate. His teeth catch his lower lip and his whole expression shifts in a way that should probably be illegal before eight in the morning.Â
Not offended. Worse. Delighted.Â
Like you just tossed a match at a man made entirely of lighter fluid and ego.
âTheyâre not?â His voice drops a fraction. âYouâve spent an awful lot of time looking at them.â
You stare at him.
Do men like this come factory defective or is it environmental?
âDo you wake up and decide âyes, today I will be delusional,ââ you ask, âor does it come naturally to you?â
His thumb strokes once over the inside of your wrist.
Your pulse, because your body is a traitor with no loyalty to the cause, kicks directly against it.
He notices. Obviously.
âBit of both,â he says. âDepends how much attention I get before breakfast.â
âIncredible.â
âThank you.â
âThat wasnât a compliment.â
âEverything you say to me is a compliment.âÂ
He leans a fraction closer and the citrus hits harderânot cologne, not product, just him, that sharp clean lemon scent that clings to his skin like it was engineered in a lab specifically to piss you off.Â
âEven the insults. Especially the insults.â
Your jaw tightens. âYou need medication.â
âProbably.â Heâs not even pretending to disagree. âBut right now Iâm in an elevator with the prettiest girl in the building and sheâs touching my abs, so. Priorities.â
You ignore the prettiest girl part. You ignore it completely. You file it in the trash folder of your brain where all of his compliments go, the one labeled âperformative bullshitâdo not engage.â
âMaybe if you drank less soda youâd have something worth looking at, Coke.â
His eyebrows go up.
âOh.â He leans in a touch more, pleased in a deeply irritating way. âI got promoted?â
You frown. âHm?â
âFrom Coke-boy to Coke.â His mouth curves. âWow. Weâre stripping me of gender now? Iâm just an object now. A concept. A beverage.â
You deadpan at him. "If you want, I can make it simpler."
"Please do."
You hold his gaze when you say it. "Zero."
That really does something. Not visibly, not in any way a normal person would catch, but you're not a normal person when it comes to him. Unfortunately. Â
The tiny flare in his eyes. The way his tongue presses once against the inside of his cheek. The little almost-smile he has to bite back because apparently being insulted is his favorite hobby after staring at himself in reflective surfaces.
Seriously. Medical journals should be lining up outside his house.
âZero,â he repeats.
âMhm.â
âBecause of the drink?â he asks.
âPartly.â
âAnd the other part?â
You hold his gaze. âUse your imagination.â
âOh, I do.â His voice goes rough around the edges. âConstantly, actually.â
You ignore that with the dignity of a woman refusing to acknowledge a public indecency.
âIt suits you,â you say. âCoke Zero. Zero nutritional value. Zero restraint. Zero redeeming qualities.â
He almost laughs. You can see him trying not to.
Instead he says, quietly amused, âZero? Seriously, Gomi? Thatâs mean.â
âYou sound insulted.â
âI am.â
Heâs not.
He's absolutely not.
That's not what insulted looks like. That's what horny looks like, and you know the difference, and he knows you know the difference, and the whole thing is deeply, profoundly stupid.
His grip on your wrist shifts.
Your handâstill on his stomach, still pressed against that warm cottonâstarts to move. Downward. Slow.
"Really, genuinely insulted."
Lower.
Past the hem of his kit. Past the elastic.
"Keep moving that hand," you say, very calm, very level, "and see what happens."
He goes still.
Then his eyes drop.
To your mouth.
"You know that makes me wanna do it more, right?"
He says it like he's sharing a fun fact. Like this is trivia night and he's contributing.
"So being pushy is your whole thing," you say. "Good to know. Something you should probably discuss with a psychologist."
"Psychologists are fake."
"That's notâ"
"Made up. Whole field. Scam."
"You can't justâ"
"Moving on."
Suddenly his grip on your wrist tightens and he pulls your palm down and presses it flat against his crotchâ
And he's hard.
Fully hard. Zero ambiguity about what you're feelingâthe thick, obvious shape of his cock straining against fabric, hot under your palm, and your brain processes this information in approximately point-three seconds before your body reacts on pure animal instinct.
You yank your hand back like you've touched a burner.
And shove him.
Both palms, flat against his chest, hard enough that he staggers backward two full steps, his shoulder blades hitting the elevator wall with a thud that makes the Coke Zero slosh in the can.
"Are you insane?"
Your voice comes out sharper than you intended. Pitched higher. Not flusteredâyou do not get flusteredâbut something adjacent to it that you refuse to name and will be taking to your grave.
Taehyung doesn't look sorry.
Taehyung looks like Christmas came early and brought him personally wrapped gifts.
He's laughing. This low, rough chuckle that sounds like it's being dragged out of him against his better judgmentâif he had better judgment, which he doesn't, which has been firmly established.
"What?" He's still grinning, rubbing the spot on his chest where you shoved him with his free hand, not remotely bothered. "You've felt it against your pussy once already. Figured we were past the formalities."
Your mouth opens.
Closes.
Opens again.
Nothing comes out.
Because what do you say to that?
What is the appropriate verbal response to a man referencing the time he ground his erection against you in your father's treatment room while you're trapped in a moving elevator in a professional football facility at eight in the morning?!
Emily Post didn't write a chapter on this.
The elevator dings.
Floor three.
The doors slide open and reality floods back inâfluorescent lighting, corridor noise, the distant sound of someone yelling about lighting setupsâand you stand there, pulse hammering, while the world outside the elevator continues to exist as if the last ninety seconds didn't just happen.
Taehyung straightens up. Adjusts his kit. Takes a sip of his Coke Zero with the calm of a man who did not just place your hand on his dick in a shared vertical transit space.
He steps out.
Pauses.
Turns.
And throws you the V sign.
Two fingers. Lazy. That same gesture from the party, the one that started all of this, and his tongue presses against the inside of his cheek as he does it, and his eyes hold yours for exactly long enough to make his point before he turns and walks down the corridor like nothing happened.
You stare at the closed doors.
Blink once.
Twice.
"What the fuck," you say, to no one, in an empty elevator, at eight in the morning.
Your hand smells like his kit.
You wipe it on your jacket.
It doesn't help.
Youâve been here eleven minutes.Â
You know this because youâve been counting, the way you count everything when youâre stuck somewhere you donât want to beâminutes, ceiling tiles, the number of times the PR coordinator says âteamâ (four so far).
Youâre keeping a tally in the margin of your notebook next to your actual notes, which are sparse and getting sparser because this whole thing is a glorified logistics briefing disguised as a team bonding exercise and you are not on this team.
Youâre the physioâs daughter.
Youâre here because âstaff families invited for unity shotsâ apparently translates to âsit in a room for an hour while someone explains lighting arrangements like itâs a NATO summit.â
There are about fifteen people in here. Players scattered across the sectional couches and chairs, a few WAGs, some PR staff, two photographers who keep checking their light meters like nervous pilots.Â
Your dadâs somewhere on the other side of the room talking to the head coachâs assistant about rotator cuff protocols, because he is constitutionally incapable of not working even when heâs technically off-duty.
Youâve got a seat at the end of the long couch, notebook open, pen moving, foot tapping a rhythm against the floor thatâs half concentration and half residual irritation from the elevator incident that you are not thinking about.
You are not thinking about it.
You are taking notes.
Professional, organized, here-for-her-dad notes about photo scheduling and where staff families are supposed to stand during the group shots andâ
A body drops onto the couch next to you.
Not across the room, where there are at least four empty seats. Not on the chair by the window, which is free and far away and wouldâve been the choice of any person with functioning spatial awareness and a basic respect for personal boundaries.
Next to you.
Right next to you.
His thigh settles approximately two millimeters from yours.Â
You donât look up.
Donât react.
Just keep writing.
The PR coordinator is explaining something about backdrop options for the individual portraitsâwhite versus grey, apparently this is a debate that requires committee inputâand you are focused on that. Entirely focused. One hundred percent of your attention on backdrop discourse.
Something crinkles.
You glance sidewaysâreflex, not choiceâand watch Taehyung reach into the pocket of his training jacket and pull out a small bag of pikotas.
Your pikotas.
Not your literal pikotas. But your candy. Your thing. The sour-sweet cherry gummies that you keep in your tote and your nightstand and your jacket pockets because theyâre yours, theyâve been yours since you were twelve, and now this man is sitting next to you in a professional meeting eating them like theyâre his.
He pops one into his mouth. Chews. Doesnât look at you.
âWhere did you get those.â
It comes out before you can help it. Flat, but with an edge of genuine confusion, because pikotas arenât exactly standard vending machine fare and youâve never once seen them in the Valdebebas canteen.
He finally glances at you. Chewing. Taking his time about it. Extracting every possible second of enjoyment from both the candy and your face.
âYouâd be surprised,â he says, âthe kind of contacts Madrid players have.â
âContacts.â
âMm.â Another pikota. He makes a small show of examining the bag, turning it over like heâs reading the nutritional information. âSmuggling around kidsâ candy. Whole underground network. Very serious operation.â
âMust be one hell of a job. Your braincells survive the mission?â
âIâm a man of many talents, Gomi.â He sucks the sugar off his thumb. Casual. Not looking at you. âSome of them are even legal.â
âName one.â
âI just located and acquired your favorite candy within a fifteen-kilometer radius of a high-security football facility using nothing but my charm and a phone call.â He tilts the bag toward you. Offering. âThatâs basically espionage.â
âThatâs basically sad.â
âAnd yet.â He pulls the bag back, pops another one, and faces forward again. âYouâre still talking to me about it.â
You turn back to your notebook.
Write nothing.
The meeting continues. Backdrop: grey wins. Schedule: roster goes first, staff families after lunch. Individual shots: alphabetical by surname, so Taehyungâs somewhere in the middle, which means heâll be hanging around the facility for hours with nothing to do, which means heâll be hanging around you for hours with nothing to do, which means today is going to be the longest day of your life and you havenât even had coffee yet.
His knee taps yours.
Light. Brief. Could be accidental.
You shift your leg away.
Thirty seconds pass.
Tap.
You clench your jaw. Move your leg again.
Twenty seconds.
Tap.
This time it lingersâhis knee pressing against the side of yours, holding contact for a full beat before pulling back.
You stare at your notebook. The words on the page have stopped meaning anything. Youâre looking at your own handwriting and seeing hieroglyphics because your entire cognitive capacity has been rerouted to the single point of contact where his knee keeps finding yours like a homing missile with a personal grudge.
Tap.
Is he braindead?
Tap.
Is he actually, clinically, medically braindead? Because thatâs the only explanation. Some kind of neurological event has occurred and the part of his brain responsible for reading social cues and understanding the concept of âstopâ has been permanently deactivated.
Tap.
You could choke him. Right here. In this room. In front of fifteen people and a PR coordinator and two photographers. You could put your hands around his throat and squeeze and youâd feel nothingâno guilt, no remorse, just the deep, abiding satisfaction of a woman who has reached her absolute limit with a man who thinks his proximity is a gift.
Tap.
Who does he think he is? Genuinely. Is this the approach? Touch the girl, annoy the girl, be so relentlessly, suffocatingly present that eventually she breaks from sheer exhaustion? Is this what works on other women? Does he tap their knees in meetings and they justâwhat? Swoon? Melt? Decide that yes, being subtly harassed during a photo day logistics briefing is the romantic overture theyâve been waiting for?
Tap.
God. God, Kim Taehyung is a test. A full-blown, divinely orchestrated trial of patience. God really said âmen are insufferable and hereâs one to prove it. Hereâs the thesis statement with abs and a Coke Zero habit and zeroâliterally zeroâunderstanding of the word no.â
What did you do in your previous life?Â
It mustâve been bad. You mustâve burned down a convent or kicked a dog or committed some deeply specific sin that the universe decided could only be atoned for through repeated, sustained exposure to this manâs right kneecap.
Tap.
Karma. Thatâs what this is. Cosmic, targeted, inescapable karma.
Tap.
Fucking stupid attention-seekingâ
âStop.â
You say it through your teeth. Quiet. Just for him.
He doesnât stop.
Tap.
His face is pointed at the front of the room. Attentive. Invested. Like heâs absorbing every single word about photo resolution requirements and has never been more intellectually stimulated.
Tap.
Fine.
You swing your knee sideways and crack it into his.
Hard.
Not a tap. Not a nudge. A full, mean, retaliatory strike that connects with the side of his kneecap with enough force that his whole leg jolts.
He snorts.
Tries to cover itâbadlyâpressing his fist against his mouth, shoulders shaking, this strangled sound escaping through his fingers thatâs somewhere between a laugh and a cough.
Heads turn. Half the room glances over.
Taehyung clears his throat, fist still against his mouth, and nods at nobody in particular.Â
âSorry. Cough. Just aââ He thumps his chest once. ââtickle in the throat. Carry on.â
The PR coordinator blinks, adjusts her glasses, and continues talking about file format preferences.
Heads turn back.
You want to dissolve into the couch cushions and cease to exist.
Heâs eating another pikota. Chewing with that self-satisfied rhythm of a man who just won a round and knows it.
Silence.
Blessed, temporary silence.
Forty-five seconds of peace in which you try to re-engage with the meeting, try to remember why youâre here, try to reconnect with the version of yourself that walked into this building this morning with functional blood pressure and the will to live.
Then he starts bouncing his knee.
Not the tapping. The bouncing. That full-leg rhythmic jitter that some people do when theyâre restless, except heâs doing it at a frequency that vibrates through the couch cushion and directly into your thigh and itâs like sitting next to a human jackhammer.
Your pen stops moving.
You look at his leg.
Look at him.
Heâs staring straight ahead. Chewing a pikota. Bouncing. Completely at peace with himself and the chaos heâs introducing into your nervous system.
You donât think about it.
Your hand drops to his thigh and you dig your nails in.
Four fingers and a thumb, pressing into the muscle hard enough to anchor his leg to the couch and stop the vibration dead.
The effect is immediate.
His breath catchesâaudible, quick, a sound that has no business existing in a meeting roomâand his head tips back. His arms go up, stretching overhead, spine arching slightly, and the groan that comes out of him is disguised as a stretch noise but itâs not a stretch noise and you know itâs not a stretch noise and he knows you know.
Every single head in the room turns again.
âJustââ His voice is rougher than it should be. He rolls his shoulders, committing to the bit. âTight. From training. Sorry.â
The PR coordinator looks like sheâs reconsidering her career choices.
You remove your hand from his thigh like itâs radioactive.
He looks at you.
That grin.
That absolute shit-eating, fully unrepentant, âI-just-made-a-noise-in-a-meeting-room-because-you-hurt-me-and-I-liked-itâ grin.
Your face is hot. Your ears are hot. Your entire body has decided to betray you by turning the exact shade of the pikotas he keeps eating, and you grip your pen so hard the plastic creaks.
He pops another pikota into his mouth.
Winks.
You are going to kill him. You are going to kill him and plead temporary insanity and every woman on the jury will acquit you.
The meeting wraps up approximately nine years later.
People start standing, gathering bags, fragmenting into side conversations. The PR coordinator distributes printed schedules. Someone mentions lunch. Normal, functional, human behavior happening all around you while you sit rigid on the couch thinking about the thirty-six different ways you could commit a crime and get away with it.
Taehyung shifts next to you. Doesnât stand. Tilts his body toward yours, dropping his voice low enough that the words are just for you.
âIâm gonna be honest with you, Gomi.â Barely above a breath. âI didnât hear a single word of that briefing.â
You stare at him.
âI have zero idea whatâs happening for the photos. No clue. None. My entire blood supply wasââ He makes a vague gesture downward. ââelsewhere. The whole time.â
âThat sounds like a you problem.â
âIt is a me problem.â He nods. Solemn. Completely unbothered. âA really pressing me problem.â
âThen go figure it out.â
âI was hoping my favorite physioâs daughter would brief me.â
âBriefly:Â no.â
âGomiââ
You stand up. Grab your bag. Your schedule. The remains of your composure, which are admittedly scattered across the floor of this briefing room like debris.
âYour mess. Your cleanup. Iâm not your personal assistant.â
âYouâre really gonna leave me here?â He tips his head back against the couch, looking up at you with an expression of a kicked puppy. âConfused and alone?â
âThriving and unbothered, actually.â
Youâve taken exactly two steps toward the door when Namjoon appears.
Heâs holding a coffeeâactual coffee, from the good machine on the second floorâand heâs got that easy, slightly disheveled energy he always has, glasses slightly askew, turtleneck doing its turtleneck thing.Â
He smiles when he sees you.
âHey. How wasââ
âDonât ask.â
âThat bad?â
âWorse.â
He chuckles, and youâre about to ask him if he wants to grab food after the family shots whenâ
âIs that your boyfriend?â
You stop walking.
Turn around slowly.
Taehyungâs still on the couch, sprawled, one arm stretched across the backrest, looking at Namjoon with an expression thatâs technically neutral and functionally anything but.
You open your mouth to tell him thatâs none of his business, that he doesnât get to ask you that, that the concept of your personal life should be as inaccessible to him as basic human decency apparently isâ
âAnd what if I am?â
Namjoonâs voice. Calm. Even. Standing right beside you with his coffee and his turtleneck and an expression youâve never seen on him beforeâsteady and unbothered and looking directly at Taehyung like heâs got all day.
Taehyung simply looks at Namjoon from the couch, that sprawled-out posture, and thereâs a beatâtwo, three secondsâwhere they just hold each otherâs gaze. Weighing. Measuring.
Then Taehyung raises both hands. Palms out. That universal gesture of surrender that means nothing when it comes from him.
âMy bad, dude.â Easy. Disarming. A smile that shows too many teeth. âDidnât know.â
Namjoon doesnât respond. Just holds the look for another second. Then turns to you.
âReady?â
You pick up your tote strap, adjust it on your shoulder. âLetâs go.â
You make it three steps toward the door.
âYo, dude!â
Both hands cupped around his mouth. Full volume. The kind of voice projection you use in stadiums, not conference rooms.
You both half turn, looking over shoulders.
âYou better watch her.â
The smile that follows is the kind that could mean anything and definitely means something, and you grab Namjoonâs arm and pull him through the door before your face can give him any reaction at all.
The photo shoot is a circus and no one brought a tent.
Youâre watching from behind the lighting rigs, tucked into one of those folding chairs they set up for families and staff, doing an excellent impression of someone who belongs here while internally calculating how many minutes until you can leave.
The roster shots are happening on the main pitch backdropâthat massive club crest banner theyâve rolled out like a red carpet for egosâand the photographer, a tiny woman with a headset, is trying to organize twenty-two professional athletes into neat rows.
Itâs going about as well as youâd expect.
âMarco. MarcoâI need you in the second row.â
âThe second row?â Marco says it like she just asked him to stand in the car park. âBro, my jawline doesnât hit right from the second row. Thereâs a shadow thing. Itâs an Italian bone structure issue.â
âItâs a height issue,â the photographer says flatly. âYouâre five-eleven. Second row.â
âFive-eleven and three quartersââ
âSecond row, Mr. Santelli.â
Leo, whoâs already been placed in the second row, looks unreasonably pleased about this development. âWelcome to my world.â
âShut up, Leo.â
âIâm just sayingââ
âI said shut up.â
âThe second rowâs not that badââ
âLeo, if you finish that sentence, I will tell Sofia what you said about her cooking last Tuesday.â
Leo shuts up.
The photographer repositions. Adjusts angles. Asks the first row to square their shoulders. Asks the third row to stop slouching. Asks Gabriel to pleaseâpleaseâtake the AirPods out.
âSorry, sorryââ Gabriel yanks them out, grinning that impossible grin that makes everyone forgive him immediately. âI was listening to something.â
âDuring the team photo?â
âIt was a good song.â He says it like thatâs a perfectly valid excuse.Â
To be fair, for Gabriel, it probably is.
Sergio, standing front and center because heâs the captain and thatâs his spot and nobody has ever once questioned this, pinches the bridge of his nose.
âCan we justââ He gestures at the group with the resigned authority of a man whoâs done this forty times and it never gets easier. âCan we just take the photo. Please. One photo. Without anyone talking.â
âBold of you to assume we know how to be quiet,â Marco says.
âIâm not assuming. Iâm begging.â
âThatâs sad, captain.â
âYour existence is sad, Marco. Smile.â
The photographer counts down. Three, twoâ
Taehyung bumps Marcoâs shoulder. Hard enough to knock him sideways half a step.
Marco bumps him back.
Taehyung catches himself on Leo, who wasnât involved but is now stumbling into MatĂas, who turns around with the expression of a man contemplating violence.
âÂĄEh!â MatĂas shoves Leo back upright. âÂżQuĂŠ coĂąo hacĂŠis?â (What the fuck are you doing?)
âIt wasnât meââ
âItâs never youââ
âCan we PLEASEââ The photographerâs voice has reached a frequency that could shatter crystal. ââtake ONE photo where EVERYONE is looking at the camera and NOBODY is assaulting each other?â
Silence.
Twenty-two players stare forward.
Click.
âThank god,â the photographer mutters.
âThatâs gonna be a good one,â Marco announces to nobody. âI felt it in my bones.â
âYou felt my elbow in your bones,â Taehyung says.
âSame thing.â
The photographer waves them off for a break while she checks the shots, and the formation dissolves immediately into chaosâplayers scattering, grabbing water, checking phones.
Leo drifts toward Marco and Taehyung like a satellite pulled by gravity, and within thirty seconds theyâre clustered near the lighting rig to your left, close enough that you can hear every word whether you want to or not.
You do not want to.
You hear them anyway.
ââIâm just saying, the grey backdrop washes me out,â Marcoâs saying, scrolling through his phone. âThey shouldâve gone with black. Black makes everyone look ten percent hotter. Thatâs science.â
âThatâs not science,â Leo says.
âIt is. I read it somewhere.â
âYou donât read.â
âI read captions, Leo. Captions count.â
Taehyungâs leaning against the rig, arms crossed, looking bored in the way he always looks bored when heâs actually paying attention to everything. His eyes drift across the roomâcasual, unhurriedâand you know the exact moment they land on you because you feel it the way you feel a change in air pressure.
You donât look up.
Keep reading your schedule.
âAlright, individual portraits next!â The photographerâs assistantâthe PA with the clipboard and the thousand-yard stareâstarts calling names. âAlphabetical by surname. Weâre starting withââ
âExcuse me.â Xaviâs voice cuts through the noise. Not loud. Never loud. Just that specific frequency that makes every player in a thirty-meter radius instinctively straighten up. âBefore individualsâcan we address the team photo situation?â
Heâs looking at the Chaos Coalition.
All three of them.
That look. Youâve seen your dad give itâthe one that doesnât need words because the disappointment is doing all the heavy lifting.
âThe team photo,â Xavi repeats, âis the image the club uses for the entire season. It goes on the website. On posters. On merchandise. And you threeââ He gestures with a water bottle. ââturned it into a playground fight.â
âIt was a nudge,â Marco says.
âIt was unprofessional.â
âXaviââ
âThis represents the club.â Xaviâs voice doesnât rise. It doesnât need to. Heâs got that Andalusian calm that makes everything sound both reasonable and devastating. âThe club that pays your salaries. That gave you a platform. The least you can do is stand still for eight seconds.â
Silence.
Marco blinks.
Leo stares at his shoes.
Taehyung tongues the inside of his cheek, jaw shifting, not saying a word.
Xavi holds the look for another two secondsâjust to make sure it landsâthen nods once and walks back toward the photographer, water bottle in hand, posture perfect, the absolute picture of professionalism.
The moment his back is turned, all three of them huddle closer.
âLook at him,â Marco mutters, barely moving his lips. âBeing all⌠Xavi-like.â
âI mean,â Leo whispers back, âhe is Xavi.â
âYes but when I say Xavi-like I mean it as an insult, Leo. Focus.â
âRight. Sorry.â
Taehyung glances over his shoulderâchecks Xaviâs positionâthen turns back. âDid you hear him? âThe club that pays your salaries.â Like I donât know who pays my salary. Iâm very aware of who pays my salary. My salary is excellent.â
âIâm so done with the salary lecture.â Marco shakes his head, solemn. âTop three worst moves. Right behind the âyou represent something bigger than yourselvesâ speech.â
âOh god,â Leo groans. âThat oneâs the worst.â
âItâs so bad.â
ââSomething bigger than yourselves,ââ Taehyung mimics, dropping his voice into Xaviâs measured cadence, chin lifted, an invisible water bottle in hand. ââEvery action you take reflects on this institution.ââ
Marco snorts. Covers his mouth.
ââThe crest on your chest isnât decoration,ââ Marco adds, doing his own Xavi impressionâslower, one hand pressed to his heart. ââItâs a responsibility. A privilege. Aâââ
âââa legacy,ââ Leo finishes, and all three of them mouth the word at the same time, like theyâve heard it four hundred times, which they probably have.
âAt least the salary oneâs short,â Taehyung concedes. âIn, out, done. The âbigger than yourselvesâ thing? That oneâs got layers. He builds to it. Thereâs a crescendo.â
âThereâs eye contact,â Marco adds, haunted. âHe makes eye contact with every single person in the room.â
âIndividually.â
âIndividually.â
âSeriously, heâs all likeââ Marco straightens up slightly, adjusts an imaginary collar. ââLook at me. Iâm Xavi. Iâm morally superior because Iâve been in a relationship with someone who actually loves me for eight years and we just got engaged and Iâve never once thought about another woman because Iâm built differentâââ
âThat one feels personal,â Leo says.
âIt is personal.â Marco frowns. âImagine being in love with the same person. Forever. Voluntarily.â
He shudders. Full body. Like the concept of monogamy is a physical affliction.
âSome people like that,â Leo says, carefully.
âSome people like eating plain rice, Leo. Doesnât make it a personality.â
Taehyung snorts.
âLike, bro, the wedding?â Marco continues, eyes widening. âHave you seen the Pinterest board? Elena showed Isabella. There are mood boards. Plural. One for table settings. One for flowers. One forâget thisânapkin folds.â
âNapkin folds,â Taehyung repeats.
âSpecific napkin folds. There are apparently seven kinds and Elena has opinions about all of them.â
âAnd the water bottle thing too,â Leo mutters. âLike even his hydration is morally superior.â
âFor real,â Taehyung says. âItâs like watching a documentary about discipline.â
âHeâd make a great priest,â Leo offers.
âHeâd make a great principal.â
âHeâd make a great my-dad-when-I-got-bad-gradesââ
Xavi looks over from across the room. Just a glance. Just a flicker of those dark eyes in their direction, chin lifting slightly, the way a lion turns its head when it hears rustling in the grass.
All three of them snap forward simultaneously.
Marco grabs his water bottle and drinks with aggressive innocence. Leo suddenly finds the ceiling fascinating. Taehyung pulls out his phone and stares at a blank screen with the focus of a man reading breaking news.
Nobody speaks.
Nobody breathes.
Xavi holds the look for three full seconds.
Then turns back to his conversation with Rafael.
Marco exhales through his teeth. âClose one.â
âHeâs got eyes everywhere,â Leo whispers. âItâs like he can hear us thinking.â
âItâs the goalkeeper training,â Taehyung says, still fake-scrolling. âPeripheral vision. They see everything.â
âWe should spread out,â Leo suggests. âLook natural.â
âWe are naturalââ
âWe look like weâre planning a heistââ
âOkay, next please!â The photographerâs voice cuts across the room.Â
Alexandre peels himself off the wall with the enthusiasm of a man walking to his own execution, and the room reshuffles again.
Youâve been watching all of this.
You didnât mean to, but itâs impossibleâgenuinely, physically impossibleânot to watch three grown men who earn more in a week than most people earn in a year act like twelve-year-olds who got told off by a substitute teacher.
The Xavi impression was good, though.
Youâre not going to admit that to anyone.
The next hour passes in a blur of flash photography and fragile egos. Players cycle through individual shotsâsome take thirty seconds, some take fifteen minutes because they keep asking to see the screen and requesting different angles. Marco insists on a reshoot because his âjawline wasnât catching the light.â Taehyung, predictably, nails his in one take and walks away like he couldnât care less.Â
You saw him check the preview screen twice, though.Â
He cared.
Your dad appears around noon, coffee in hand, looking pleased in that quiet way he gets when work is going well.
âFotos de familia ahora, cariĂąo.â (Family photos now, sweetheart.) He squeezes your shoulder. âSolo un par. RĂĄpido.â (Just a couple. Quick.)
You close your notebook. Stand. Smooth down your jacket.
This is the part youâve been dreading. Not the photos themselvesâyou can survive standing next to your dad and smiling for a camera. Youâve done it a thousand times, at a thousand Barça events, in a thousand corridors that smelled like medical tape and belonging.
Itâs the context.
Staff families means youâre part of the Madrid machine now. Officially. Documented. Filed away in some PR folder as evidence of team unity and institutional warmth.
The photographerâs set up a new backdropâwarmer lighting, softer focus, the kind of setup designed to make everyone look approachable and human. Staff members are filing in with partners, kids, the occasional bemused-looking teenager who clearly got dragged here against their will.
You know the feeling.
Your dad steers you toward the cluster forming near the backdrop, his hand on your shoulder, already talking to one of the assistant coaches about someoneâs hamstring.
The photographerâs assistant is arranging people into loose groupings. Staff on the left. Families on the right. Players who are part of the âunity shotsâ scattered in between for that curated weâre-all-one-big-family aesthetic that clubs love and nobody believes.
You end up near the edge of the group. Reasonable. Safe. Far enough from the center that youâre visible but not prominent. Your dadâs beside you, already in position, radiating that calm professional warmth that makes everyone around him stand a little straighter.
This is fine.
You adjust your jacket. Fix your hair. Prepare the faceâneutral, pleasant, the expression of a person who is here by choice and not because her fatherâs career depends on institutional goodwill.
And thenâsomeone stepping into the space to your left where nobody was standing three seconds ago.
You feel it before you register it.Â
That faint edge of citrus that your nose has started recognizing against your will.
His hand touches your lower back.
Light. Brief. Fingertips pressing through the fabric of your jacket, just below your shoulder blade, the kind of contact that could be dismissed as guidance. Positioning. Moving you into frame the way anyone might move anyone during a group photo.
Except his fingers linger.
One beat too long.
Two.
His palm flattens. Settles against the curve of your spine.
And stays.
âChin up, Gomi,â he murmurs, voice low enough that only you hear it. âYou look like youâre at a funeral.â
You donât turn your head. Donât look at him. Just face the camera with your expression locked in place and your back burning where his hand sits.
The photographer raises her camera.
âEveryoneâsmile!â
You do.
Itâs late when the whole nightmare is finally over.Â
The light through the hallway is going amber, that low-angle afternoon thing that happens when a dayâs been going on too long and the building itself seems tired of hosting people.Â
Most of the photo shoot chaos has been packed up. The photographer left an hour ago. Staff families filtered out after that, then the WAGs, then the players in staggered groupsâsome to the gym, some to their cars, some to whatever shiny nightlife commitment makes them feel alive after eight hours of being professionally agreeable.
Youâre still here because your dadâs still here. Because your dad is always still here, because JesĂşs does not leave a facility until every piece of equipment is accounted for and every clipboard is initialed and every surface has been wiped down to his personal standard of medical-grade cleanliness.
Which means youâre in the closet.
Not metaphorically. Literally in the storage room off the main physio corridor, reaching for the electrode cables your dad asked you to grab from the top shelf because they migrated during the chaos of today and now theyâre wedged behind a box of resistance bands that someone shoved up there with the spatial awareness of a drunk giraffe.
Your fingers graze the edge of the box. Miss the cables by about four centimeters.
You stretch higher. Your jacket rides up. Your shoulder protests.
Seriously. This shelf is just unreasonably placed, designed by someone who assumed that everyone who uses this room is three meters tall and plays professional football.
You stretch again. Fingertips brush plastic. Almostâ
A hand reaches past you.
Long arm. Over your shoulder. Fingers closing around the cable bundle and pulling it down with zero effort, like the shelf is at eye level and not somewhere near the ceiling.
The smell hits you before the identity does.
Lemons.
That specific scent that isnât cologne, isnât soap, isnât anything you can pin to a productâitâs just Kim Taehyung. The way his skin smells after a full day. Bright and tangy and warm in a way that makes your throat do something inconvenient.
He always smells like lemons, doesnât he?
Youâre not a citrus girl. Never have been. You donât squeeze lemon into your water or order limoncello or buy those yellow cleaning products that smell like summer kitchens.
But right now, standing in a storage closet with his arm still extended past your head and his chest approximately four inches from your back, the lemon thing isâ
Present.
Very present.
He drops the cables into your hand.
âHere.â
You take them. Step sideways, putting distance between you and whatever just happened in your olfactory system.
âThanks.â
He shrugs. Moves back. Leans against the opposite shelf with that particular brand of engineered casualness that he doesâarms folded, one ankle crossed over the other, like he ended up here by accident and not because he walked into a storage closet that he has absolutely no reason to be in.
You look at him.
He looks at you.
The silence sits there for a second, the same way that happens at the end of a very long day when everyoneâs used up all their performance energy and thereâs nothing left but the actual person underneath.
âYou look tired,â he says.
âWow.â You donât miss a beat. âCharming.â
âI meanââ He pauses. His jaw works slightly, like heâs chewing on the next word before releasing it. âThis kind of day is exhausting. The performing.â
You donât respond immediately.
Because thatâsâ
Thatâs not a line.Â
Thatâs not a setup for something.Â
Thereâs no smirk chasing the sentence, no innuendo tucked into the pause, no gleam in his eye that says gotcha.Â
Heâs just standing there, looking at you, and his voice sounds different. Flatter. Stripped of the usual coating.
Tired, actually.
He looks tired too. Not the kind of tired that makes people uglyâbecause the universe wouldnât grant you that mercyâbut the kind that shows in the looseness of his posture.Â
The way his shoulders sit lower than usual.Â
The faint shadow under his eyes that his bone structure almost hides but not quite.
âYouâd know,â you say. Quieter than you intended.
âYeah.â He holds your gaze. âI would.â
Something passes between you. Brief. Unnamed. The kind of thing that happens when two people who spend all their time performing accidentally stop at the same time and realize theyâre both just standing there without a script.
Thenâ
âSo you perform too.â
His mouth shifts. Not a grin. Something smaller. More knowing.
âThought you were above that.â
The sincerity evaporates like a puddle in July.
âMeaning?â Your defenses snap back online. Immediate. Automatic.
âMeaningââ He tilts his head, that half-interested expression settling over his features. ââI put my hand on your back during the photos. Right there. Full palm.â He makes a vague gesture. âAnd you just⌠stood there.â
âBecause we were being photographed.â
âBecause you were performing.â He says it like heâs delighted by the discovery. âAfter the meetingâafter theââÂ
He mimes clawing fingers.
Nails digging into a thigh.Â
Your nails. His thigh.Â
ââthat whole thing, I was expecting you to turn around and stomp on my foot. Elbow to the ribs. Something.â
âI didnât want to cause a scene.â
âYou always want to cause a scene. You charged fifteen grand to my card at a party.â
âThat was different.â
âHow?â
âThat was revenge. The photo was just logistics.â
âLogistics.â He repeats the word like itâs amusing. Like itâs a candy heâs rolling around his mouth. âRight. My hand on your back was logistics.â
âIt was.â
âAnd you letting it stay there?â
âTolerance.â
âTolerance,â he echoes. His eyes narrow. âSee, Gomi, I donât buy that.â
âI donât care what you buy.â
âBecause I thinkââ He pushes off the shelf. Doesnât step closer. Just shifts his weight forward in a way that makes the room feel smaller. ââyou liked it.â
âI tolerated it.â
âYou tolerated my hand on your back but tried to puncture my femoral artery with your fingernails forty-five minutes earlier?â
âYes.â
âThose are mixed signals.â
âThose are boundaries. One was a briefing room where you were being insufferable. The other was a photo where pulling away wouldâve looked weird.â
âMm.â Heâs almost smiling now. Containing it. Barely. âSo you didnât pull away because of optics.â
âCorrect.â
âNot because my hand felt good.â
âYour hand felt like a hand. Congratulations on having one.â
He bites back whateverâs threatening to break across his face.Â
You can see itâthe way his jaw locks, the way his cheek hollows slightly with the effort of not grinning.
âOkay,â he says. âFair. But the nails thing.â
âWhat about it.â
âI liked that.â
You stare at him. âYou liked that you almost got caught making sex noises in a briefing.â
âI liked the nails thing, Gomgom.â
No lead-up. No cushioning.Â
He just drops it into the air between you like itâs a reasonable contribution to a conversation between two people standing in a storage closet.
âGood for you.â
âI meanâIâm used to scratches.â He tilts his head, rolling one shoulder back like heâs remembering something specific, something physical. âMy backâs basically a canvas at this point. Comes with the territory.â
âDisgusting.â
âSo like, not news.â He doesnât even register the insult. Just keeps going, the way a train keeps going when someone throws a pebble at it. âGirls scratch. It happens. Standard operating procedure. But youââÂ
He points at you. One finger.Â
"âyou scratched me like you were actually trying to get to the bone.â
âBecause I was trying to get to the bone.â
ââand that was so hot, Gomi.â His voice drops, rough, as if the memoryâs doing something to him in real time. âLike, fuck. Thatâs all I could think about for the rest of that meeting.â
âExplains why you got nothing out of it.â
âExactly! See?â He spreads his hands. Beaming. âWe get each other.â
âWe absolutely do not get each other.â
âYouâre right.â He nods, solemn, like heâs reconsidering his position and arriving at a new conclusion. âI think we should get to know each other. In my room. My bed, specifically. So you can add those scratches to my back. For real this time.â
There it is.
The proposition. Delivered with all the subtlety of a billboard on the M-30 and twice the confidence.
In a normal settingâon a normal dayâwith a normal amount of patience left in your reserves, youâd say âI donât want to knowâ or âwhat the fuck is wrong with youâ or even a mere âboy, whateverâ and walk out and that would be the end of it. Clean exit. Dignity intact. The mature response of a woman who does not engage with men who proposition her in storage closets after photo days.
But itâs not a normal day.
And Taehyung is not a normal person.Â
And itâs been a twelve-hour day of performing and tolerating and sitting next to his stupid bouncing knee and feeling his stupid hand on your stupid back and smelling his stupid lemon smell and you are fed up.Â
Past fed up. Beyond it.Â
Somewhere in the territory where irritation curdles into recklessness and your mouth stops consulting your brain before opening.
âYou wouldnât last long enough,â you say, âto get me to scratch you.â
The room goes very still.
Taehyungâs face does something youâve never seen it do.
It goes blank.
Completely, totally blankâevery expression wiped clean for a full second, like his operating system just crashed and is rebooting.Â
His mouth is slightly open.Â
His eyes are fixed on you with the intensity of a man who just heard something in a language he didnât know he spoke.
Then the reboot completes.
And the grin that spreads across his face is predatory.
Not his usual smirk. Not the cocky, performative thing he wears like a uniform.Â
This oneâs slower. Meaner. All teeth and something behind the teeth that makes the air in the closet feel like it dropped ten degrees and heated up simultaneously.
âWanna bet?â
Two words, low enough that you feel them more than hear them.Â
His tongue presses against the inside of his cheek, and his whole posture shiftsâpushing off the shelf, not moving toward you but orienting toward you, his body language suddenly very awake for a man who looked exhausted thirty seconds ago.
Something about the way he says it sounds like a door opening onto a room you shouldnât walk into.
You step back.
âIâm leaving.â
âGomiââ
âGoodbye.âÂ
You tuck the cables under your arm, grip the shelf with your free hand for balance as you step around himâgiving him the widest possible berth in a closet that doesnât offer much berth to giveâand head for the door, flipping him off.Â
âOi!â
His voice bounces off the corridor walls, too loud, too pleased.
âThatâs the first time youâve flipped me off!â
You keep walking.
âThatâs a milestone, Gomi! We should mark the date!â
You round the corner.
His voice follows, fading but warm.
âIâm putting it in my calendar!â
The lemon smell stays on the cables the whole walk back.
You donât notice.
You absolutely, categorically donât notice.
if you liked this chapter, please consider buying me a coffee!! âĽ'ďť'âĽ
â§ main story â§ wc: 9,2k â§ pairing: taehyung x f!reader â§ rating: 18+
â§ genre: football AU, arrogant!tae, smut, slow burn, enemies to lovers
â˝ď¸ rundown ;
"You don't flirt back. You don't fold. And Taehyung is running out of rules left to break."
âYou sound insulted.â
âI am.â
Heâs not.
He's absolutely not.
That's not what insulted looks like. That's what horny looks like, and you know the difference, and he knows you know the difference, and the whole thing is deeply, profoundly stupid.
His grip on your wrist shifts.
Your handâstill on his stomach, still pressed against that warm cottonâstarts to move. Downward. Slow.
"Really, genuinely insulted."
Lower.
Past the hem of his kit. Past the elastic.
"Keep moving that hand," you say, very calm, very level, "and see what happens."
He goes still.
Then his eyes drop.
To your mouth.
"You know that makes me wanna do it more, right?"
He says it like he's sharing a fun fact. Like this is trivia night and he's contributing.
"So being pushy is your whole thing," you say. "Good to know. Something you should probably discuss with a psychologist."
"Psychologists are fake."
"That's notâ"
"Made up. Whole field. Scam."
"You can't justâ"
"Moving on."
Suddenly his grip on your wrist tightens and he pulls your palm down and presses it flat against his crotchâ
And he's hard.
Fully hard. Zero ambiguity about what you're feelingâthe thick, obvious shape of his cock straining against fabric, hot under your palm, and your brain processes this information in approximately point-three seconds before your body reacts on pure animal instinct.
You yank your hand back like you've touched a burner.
â§ main story â§ wc: 13.7k â§ pairing: jungkook x f!reader â§ rating: 18+.
â§ genre: roommates/e2l, fwb, fuck buddies, VERY slow burn, smut
đ rundown ;
âIf you could curse one day of your life, it would be the day you met him. Because himâheâs fucked up fucking for you, forever.â
"Something's off about him."
"Off how?"
"I don'tâ" His tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek. Searching for the word. The right word. "I don't know. Off. Just off, bro. The way heâ"
He stops. Starts again.
"She used eucalyptus soap."
Taehyung blinks.
"...What?"
"Earlier. The showers. Y/N. She used the eucalyptus soap that was in the stall instead of her own stuff."
Taehyung stares at him. The Gomez mustacheâwhat's left of itâcrinkles with the specific bewilderment of a man who was just having a perfectly good conversation about gourds and is now being asked to care about shower products.
"I'm gonna need, like... significantly more context than that."
"She's vanilla, Tae." Jungkook says it like it's obvious. Like it's a fact of the natural world, on par with gravity or the boiling point of water. "Sheâs vanilla everything. Everything. Soap. Lotion. The stuff in her hair. She's got like six different vanilla products in the shower caddy and she didn't bring any of it. She used the generic eucalyptus shit in the stall and she doesnâtâshe still smells like vanilla underneath because it's basically her, like her actualâ"
âJungkook.â
"âbut it's off. There's thisâthis layer on top of it that isn't her and I'd bet you anythingâanythingâthat he said something. About the vanilla. That he made some comment about it being basic or juvenile or whatever the fuck and she justâadjusted. Without evenâshe probably doesn't even know she did it."
The silence that follows has a specific quality.
âŚThe quality of someone deciding whether to call an ambulance or a therapist.
"Jesus, man. The weed really did a number on you. Youâre having an episode over body wash, are you hearing yourselfâ"
"It's notâ" He swats at Tae. "Itâs not about the body wash. It'sâ" He drags a hand down his face. "Okay, the body wash thing sounds insane. I know it sounds insane. That's the problem. Every individual thing sounds insane if I say it out loud. It's only when you put all of it together that itâ"
He makes a vague, frustrated gesture at the air. Like he's trying to grab the shape of what he means and it keeps slipping.
"She doesn't do her tea thing anymore."
"Her tea thing."
"She used to leave the tea bags in the sink. Every morning. Justâsitting there. On the sink. Drove me insane. I texted her about it. Twice. She left me on read and then told me where I could shove the tea bags. It was a whole thing."
He's talking to the ceiling again. His thumb hasn't stopped.
"And then she starts seeing this guy and the tea bags are gone. Justâpoof. Not in the sink. Not anywhere. And the thing isâI should be happy about that, right? I wanted them gone. But they didn't stop because she decided to stop. They stopped because heâ"
No, but that doesnât sound right. Because he doesnât know for sure, does he?
Did you stop the tea bag situation after Jason?
Was it before him? Was Jason the reason?
He wishes he could trust his memory. Or his own brain.
"Iâm really trying to follow the thread here, Jungkook."
â Coming: soon. <3
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