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[bighitfics]

WITH OR WITHOUT YOU ── 004, JJK.

summary: “your boyfriend has been worried sick,” the nurse explained warmly. “he’s been pacing back and forth through the corridor this entire time. I think he asked me the same question at least twenty times.” she let out a small amused laugh while adjusting the blanket over me slightly. “I had to reassure the poor guy over and over that I was here with you before he finally agreed to grab a sandwich from the café downstairs. It’s almost midnight now, after all.”

genre : slow burn, childhood acquaintances to lovers, angst, smut, mutual pining, age-gap.

pairing : older jungkook x younger female oc.

warning : oc our self deprication and avoidant final boss but she finally stands on business, yearner jungkook has been activated guys there’s no going back from this point on (he’s just going crazy atp), our broski jungkook graduated from bridgerton yearning school, triple the tension from part two, three and throw it all in part four, explicit content — sexual tension, passionate make out, neck kisses, they're both TOUCH starved, vague wet dreams, feral jungkook.

WITH OR WITHOUT YOU MASTERLIST.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

The sound reached me before anything else.

For another minute, there was nothing but faint shuffling somewhere nearby, the noise blending into the heavy brume clouding my mind. Gradually, my hazy consciousness began catching up to the unfamiliar chemical like scent lingering in the air.

I exhaled weakly, my entire body feeling unbearably heavy, like two mattresses had been dumped over me, pressing me deeper into exhaustion.

I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids refused to cooperate.

After a few seconds, I forced them open anyway, immediately hissing at the blinding white lights above me.

That was when I felt it.

The faint sensation of something cold and wet against my hand.

Then a pressure around my knuckles.

I tried to move instinctively, but even lifting my arm felt impossibly difficult. A groan escaped my lips as a sharp sting pulsed through my vein.

Fuck, what was happening to me?

It's way too chilly.

Why do my eyes burn so badly?

Why is it so tough to open my eyes?

My thoughts burst out in frenzied panic, I was alarmed yet I couldn't even act on it.

I slowly turned my head to the side, squinting slightly, and as my eyes gradually adjusted to the harsh brightness, a woman came into view.

She wore a nurse uniform, and though a little slow I could finally process the state I was in.

She was carefully tearing open a bandage before placing it over the cannula attached to my hand. The pain wasn't excruciating but it wasn't faint either.

“Please don’t open your palm completely, keep your hand in a loose fist,” her husky voice advised gently, showing me a small visual demonstration with her own hand, a practiced smile resting on her small face.

“I was getting worried because you’d been unconscious for more than five hours now. Your blood pressure dropped to forty, and you had a pretty severe case of dehydration. You might also want to get checked for jaundice later,” she explained slowly, adjusting the IV line slightly. “It’s become really common lately because of the insane humid weather, but thankfully you were brought here just on time, so there’s no need to worry. You’ll be perfectly fine.”

She spoke gently, probably trying to reassure me, while I could only offer her a tight, forced smile in return.

Yesterday’s events flashed through my head in a blur. I remembered feeling heavy headed the entire day, but I brushed it off, thinking it was just another migraine caused by my horrible sleeping schedule. We had seventeen bridal dress orders lined up, and the entire day had been chaos from the very beginning.

Running between tailors, matching fabrics, comparing different shades of white under proper lighting because apparently ivory and soft ivory were two completely different things to brides, reviewing pearl detailing, checking lace samples, making sure the embroidery placements aligned perfectly with the designs I had sketched out earlier, and on top of that, I had to repeatedly explain every tiny detail to the tailors like the fitting, the corset structure, the sleeves, the beadwork, because one small mistake could ruin an entire dress.

Not to mention dealing with customers.

One bride wanted softer lace.

Another changed her neckline design three times. 

Someone else suddenly decided she hated floral embroidery after approving it two weeks ago. 

I was so consumed with work that I barely noticed how unbearable the headache had become. 

I even skipped lunch.

By the time I got home, my entire body felt weak and painfully drained mostly mentally.

I barely managed to change into my night pajamas before the hunger hit me all at once, so painfully intense it felt like my own stomach was about to consume itself.

But the second I stood up, my head spun violently.

I remember stumbling slightly before collapsing right back down on my couch, my body started burning feverishly hot while my head pounded so badly it felt unbearable.

My thoughts paused briefly before another memory flashed through my mind.

I saw a car.

I could faintly remember a tattooed hand cupping my chin gently.

And worry filled eyes.

Jungkook. 

Somehow, he was the last thing my mind held onto before everything went dark.

I inhaled sharply.

But… how was that even possible?

My apartment door had been locked.

Only my family knew the password.

Confusion slowly crept deeper into my chest as I stared blankly ahead.

I had way too many questions.

“Nurse, who br—” My voice cracked midway through the sentence before I could even finish properly.

I immediately looked away, clearing my throat in embarrassment at how painfully dry it sounded.

The kind woman softened instantly.

She bent down toward the small stroller beside her, pulling out a bottle of orange juice before carefully placing the straw inside. Then she held it up toward me.

I drank without hesitation.

My eyes fluttered shut the second the cold, sweet sour liquid hit my tongue, soothing the unbearable dryness in my throat almost instantly.

I ended up finishing the entire thing within seconds.

God bless this angel of a nurse. 

“What were you saying?” she asked politely, tossing the empty juice can into the dustbin nearby.

“Wh-who’s here with me?” I asked quietly, hating how weak my voice still sounded, silently wishing the last memory I had before losing consciousness had just been another one of my longterm delusions.

The nurse’s smile widened softly as she tucked an annoyingly loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Your boyfriend has been worried sick,” she said warmly. “He’s been pacing back and forth through the corridor this entire time. I think he asked me the same question at least twenty times.” She let out a small amused laugh while adjusting the blanket over me slightly. “I had to reassure the poor guy over and over that I was here with you before he finally agreed to grab a sandwich from the café downstairs. It’s almost midnight now, after all.”

Wait… did she just say boyfriend?!

I exhaled heavily, so it really was him.

I blinked at the nurse in confusion, utterly baffled as to what exactly gave off that impression between us.

I could only let out a chuckle mockingly, shaking my head. Even the idea of it was bizzare now because it’s never going to happen.

“He’s not my...” 

Ironically, the door opened right as the word “…boyfriend” left my mouth in the quietest mutter possible. It seemed like she didn’t hear me, too busy scribbling something down on the report card clipped to her clipboard.

I heard his footsteps before I saw him.

With his ebony hair grown a little longer than I remembered, falling slightly into his eyes, Jeon Jungkook stood at the doorstep frozen for a second, those stupidly expressive eyes widening the moment they landed on me, like relief and disbelief hit him at the same time. 

He strode inside in all his glory while I fidgeted with my fingers, swiftly looking away before his eyes could meet mine. Instead, I stared aimlessly outside the large glass window. 

The nurse cleared her throat, excusing herself but not before saying, “You should be relieved, Mister Jeon. She’s awake and doing well, but make sure she doesn’t eat anything fried or spicy within the next twenty four hours.” she instructed firmly. 

Rather than being worried of my critical condition, I was more distressed with the idea of the nurse declaring me as his girlfriend.

Thankfully the angels from heaven were on my side today.

I think I would’ve died on the spot from pure cringe if she had.

“Noted. Thank you for taking care of my friend, Daniela,” he replied appreciatively.

Keeping my head turned away, deliberately ignoring his presence, I looked straight at Daniela instead, feeling his eyes on the side of my face. “How long will this take?” I asked impatiently.

“It should take around 4 to 5 hours maximum. If you need to use the restroom, just ring this bell. If I’m nearby or any other nurse on patrol, we’ll help you.” The nurse gestured towards the small bell placed beside the bed before turning towards Jungkook. “And if none of us are around, Mister Jeon can take you. Just be careful with your injected hand, and the IV fluid attached to the stand.”

“Sure, thanks once again.” She nodded and left, while I leaned back into the pillow with a huff.

So I have to be in this room with him for like… what, five hours?

What in oblivion is this.

Not my mom, nor the aunty who comes to clean my house every week, but I wake up to see Jungkook out of all these people randomly appear like some kind of guardian angel.

Whoever sent him, may their side of the pillow never stay cold.

I closed my eyes, trying to steady the chaos in my head, trying to make sense of everything still buzzing under my skin.

But then there was barely there thud beside my bed. Then a few soft shuffling noises. I opened my eyes slowly. And I already knew before I even looked that he sat beside me on a stool. After a few anxious moments of self-inflicting, the urge and curiosity to know got the better of me.

“How did you even get to me?” I queried, my gaze flickering up to him, almost accusatory. 

He stared at me with a slightly perplexed expression.

The bright hospital light reflected against his tan skin, almost creating a faint golden outline around him. If I wasn’t so uncomfortable and starving, I probably would’ve kept staring longer than necessary, just thinking about how devastatingly good he looked even right now.

“That…” He blinked a few times before rubbing the back of his neck. “Minha Aunty called me while I was on the way to work.” He paused briefly before continuing again, almost rambling now. “She sounded really panicked and said you weren’t answering her calls since morning, and I don’t know, I just…” He exhaled quietly through his nose, shaking his head. “I got so worried.”

“She’s probably panicking now that I’m in the hospital, she does know, right?”

“Of course, I informed her the moment we came in here.”

 I nodded slowly pinching the bridge of my nose, yes you were here and it was the issue, Jungkook.

The molten embarrassment from earlier had barely begun settling when another wave of discomfort crashed over me.

“My phone…” I muttered with a groan, sinking deeper into the pillow. “Ugh, it’s back home.”

“Why? Do you wanna talk to Minha Aunty?” he asked immediately, already reaching into his pocket before I could even answer. “Here, use mine.”

My eyes unwillingly dropped to his tattooed hand as he pulled out his navy blue iPhone and handed it over to me.

God.

Even his hands looked annoyingly attractive. I took the phone carefully, avoiding brushing my fingers against his. The last thing I needed right now was another reason for my brain to malfunction.

The call connected after a few rings.

I expected my panicking mother, dramatically crying when she heard my voice.

Instead I got—

“Do you even understand how irresponsible you are?” my mother’s voice erupted through the speaker so loudly I nearly flinched. “No proper sleep schedule, barely eating vegetables, surviving on coffee and instant noodles like some raccoon living behind a convenience store, what exactly did you think was going to happen?”

I immediately lowered the volume, mortification creeping up my neck.

The last thing I needed was for him to hear this.

I peeked up briefly.

Jungkook pretended not to listen dusting the nonexistent dirt from his pants, but the slight twitch near his mouth told me he definitely heard at least half of it.

How wonderful!

“Oh god…” I sighed tiredly, rubbing my forehead. “Can you not start right now?”

“No, because this is the time! Do you see how your body is literally giving up on you, ____!?”

I let her ramble. Because truthfully, part of me deserved it. No maybe all of me did.

Still, being lectured like a child in front of Jungkook felt like psychological warfare. I stared blankly at the IV bag hanging beside me while she continued listing every bad habit I’d accumulated over the years.

Then suddenly in the midst of her venting an idea hit me.

“Ma, can you call Mari?” I interrupted quickly. “Tell her to come stay here for the night, I’m sure Jungkook is tired and should go back home.”

I didn’t look at him immediately, but I felt it. 

That tiny shift in his movements, because from my peripheral vision I could see his hands clasping together.

“She was actually the first person I called,” my mother replied. “She didn’t pick up.”

“What? Call her again then,” I huffed. “Or text her. Tell her to come.”

“She’ll just go to your house in the morning when you’re discharged,” my mother said. “It’s already one in the morning. Besides…” she paused briefly. “Jungkookie is already there, it’s best he stays with you.”

My body went rigid instantly, I tightened my hold on the phone trying to control the frustration surging out of me.

Something faint flickered across his face for half a second. It wasn’t anger, not exactly, but something close to displeasure.

“…Okay, I’ll call you later.” I muttered under my breath with a huff.

Great!

 There was no way I was surviving five whole hours trapped in a hospital room alone with Jeon Jungkook.

I handed his phone back quietly, avoiding his eyes once again.

As if reading every thought running through my head, he cleared his throat awkwardly. Jungkook slipped his phone back into his pocket before leaning back slightly in the chair beside my bed, exhaustion practically dripping off him now that the panic from earlier had settled. That was when I properly noticed it.

 …The matching gym set from his own company, PrimeForm Studios, clung to him like a second skin, stretching taut across broad shoulders and biceps that looked moments away from bulging through the sleeves. Even exhaustion couldn’t dull how unfairly attractive he looked even in this state. But the slight slump in his posture and the faint shadows beneath his eyes did. These were tiny things no one else would probably notice, yet I did instantly, and my poor, pathetic heart still carrying every leftover feeling for him ached at the sight.

I sat with it for another minute, letting the thought sit heavy in my chest, before I finally leaned forward.

My fingers tightened slightly around the hospital blanket. “Jungkook…” I mumbled.

He immediately looked up at the sound of my voice, almost too quickly. “Yeah?”

“You should leave now.” I proposed. 

He waved his hands dismissively as if I said something foul and just stared at me with a flat expression. 

If I said I wanted him to leave it would be a lie, I wanted him to stay, but I needed a break, a rest, from the thoughts of him, from feeling the hurt when he’s near, him staying here would only make resting harder for me.

Trying to mask the growing restlessness, I tried to reason.

“There are nurses here anyway, and it’s only five hours, I can manage on my own.“

“I’m not leaving you alone in a hospital at one in the morning, ____.”

I exhaled sharply through my nose.

“I’m not a kid, Jungkook.”

His gaze flicked to mine.

“I didn’t say you were. But you literally passed out in your apartment not many hours ago,” he added with conviction.

“And now I’m in a hospital. Clearly, things are under control.” My reply seemed to disturb him because I swear I saw his jaw tightening slightly before easing his expressions into a composed one, but his voice stayed annoyingly calm.

“I mean… it’s Sunday anyway,” he slid in before I could make a comeback. 

“I don’t really have anything urgent tomorrow, so, it’s fine. I want to stay.”

He had that irritating look of quiet satisfaction, like he already knew this was going to end in his favour.

I opened my mouth again, ready to argue—

And before I could, there was a knock at the door.

This time a different nurse stepped in with a tray of food, and I even forgot what I wanted to say, my stomach chose that exact moment to growl loudly, and I acted indifferent to conceal the growing embarrassment, yet I could feel my face heating up like a volcano. Instead of giving me space like a normal human being, he immediately stood up to adjust the tray table closer toward me before I could even move properly.

“I can do it myself,” I grumbled.

Ignoring me entirely, he inserted the straw into the orange juice bottle before placing it carefully beside my plate. “Yeah, I know,” he replied absentmindedly, like my protests barely registered in that thick brain of his anymore.

The nurse placed a pack of tissues on the small table, handed my medicines over to Jungkook, and quietly left the room.

I focused entirely on my food after that.

It was chicken corn soup with warm bread, and honestly, it looked way too appetising for hospital food. Or maybe I was simply too hungry to care either way.

The rich smell alone made my painfully empty stomach twist. Jungkook shifted slightly beside me the moment he noticed my trembling hands wrapping around the spoon.

I had seriously underestimated my condition because even lifting the stupid thing felt like a month’s worth of labor, but obstinately, I tightened my fingers around the cold steel anyway, refusing to let him notice just how weak I actually felt.

“You need help?” he asked cautiously.

“I can eat by myself,” I replied sharply, shooting him a clear don’t even try me look.

His lips pressed together instantly.

Then he nodded once, almost hesitant, and leaned back into the chair again.

But his eyes didn’t stop gazing at me.

I tore a small piece of bread slowly, suddenly hyper-aware of his gaze lingering over every movement I made. 

It wasn’t intense or creepy.

But he was still staring.

And suddenly, my mother’s rage baiting comments echoed inside my head.

Your chewing makes me want to send you to an etiquette class.

Close your mouth when you chew, dear.

Why are you so loud when eating?

I hated how quickly those words crawled back into my brain.

Because after a certain point, once I became too aware of myself, even the food started tasting unpleasant.

Unaware of my inner turmoil, Jungkook kept zoning in on the way I was eating, the way my fingers trembled slightly every now and then, the way I kept readjusting myself because of the stupid cannula attached to my hand.

Could he give me a little break?

Goddamn it.

After a few awkward seconds, I finally glanced up at him with annoyance plastered all over my face.

“…Can you please stop staring?” I said flatly. “I know I look horrible. You don’t have to make it so obvious.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly, almost caught off guard. “You don’t look horrible, not at all.”• he replied softly.

He looked away briefly, his body shaking, clearly trying and failing to stifle a laugh.

“You look like a stoat.” A chuckle managed to escape him afterward.

I blinked at him in disbelief.

Did this man just call me a fucking…..stoat? 

Wasn’t that some kind of a rodent?

Or a damn ferret?

Whatever it was, I was pretty sure it wasn’t a compliment by any means.

Who does he think of himself? As if he was Henry Cavill!

I scoffed under my breath and aggressively tore another piece of bread, silently cursing my mother for calling Jungkook out of all the people living nearby me.

After I finished eating, I had to suffer through him hovering close again.

He gathered my medicines carefully before handing them over one by one, then poured water into a glass and held it out toward me because apparently I was incapable of doing anything myself tonight.

And do you know what’s the worst part?

He was so unbelievably patient about it. When I coughed midway through swallowing the pills, he immediately held the glass closer for me, helping me drink properly, he was so naturally gentle that despite my irritation, something warm and fuzzy kept blooming inside my chest.

He even stepped outside afterward to give me privacy while the nurse helped me use the washroom.

She washed my face gently with cold water, helped fix my tangled hair before loosely braiding it back for me.

By the time I finally settled back into bed, it was already past two in the morning.

I laid down carefully, overly paranoid about the cannula in my hand, before slowly closing my eyes. I wasn’t even sleepy, but my eyes felt unnecessarily heavy.

A few moments later, the door opened and shut again with the faintest thud possible. It was so quiet it felt eerie, because at one point I could only hear my own breath.

I could tell it was him the moment the strong smell of cigarettes hit my nostrils.

Most of the bright hospital lights had been dimmed now, shadows stretching softly across the walls.

I held my breath instinctively when I felt him move closer to the bed. Then the blanket shifted slightly as he carefully pulled it higher over my shoulder, probably noticing how much I kept shivering around because of the cold.

The chair screeched softly against the floor before he sat back down beside me with a tired yawn loud enough for me to hear. A few seconds later, he began humming some unfamiliar tune under his breath before he eventually stopped and sighed. And then the room was swallowed by silence one again. I had no idea how much time passed after that.

Probably minutes, hours or maybe both. I didn’t know how long he stayed awake, or I pretended to be deep in sleep. 

I felt on edge, growing increasingly impatient to open my eyes because the curiosity was genuinely going to murder me.

Until…

I heard soft snores.

I slowly peeked one eye open before carefully opening both.

It was a devastating sight.

Jungkook had somehow fallen asleep on that tiny hospital chair, his giant body barely even fitting into it properly. His head tilted awkwardly to the side, neck bent in a way that would definitely leave him sore in the morning. His arms stayed loosely crossed over his chest, I guess the exhaustion finally won against whatever stubborn determination had kept him awake this whole time. And without even realizing it, the reserved, and indifferent mask I had been forcing onto myself ever since waking up in this hospital bed quietly cracked apart right there. 

I couldn’t stop the smile that slowly took over my face, even though my chest tightened simultaneously.

How could something so soft sting this much?

My eyes burned not long after, tears slowly gathering before I could stop them, finally letting all the suppressed feelings leak out of me.

Throughout the night, I only looked at him.

My eyes never strayed away, silently tracing every inch of his face.

The quiet rise and fall of his chest.

The exhaustion still lingering across his sleeping features.

And the cute little pout his lips formed as soft snores escaped him every now and then.

I wanted to etch this version of him into my memory forever before dawn arrived, and we went back to becoming strangers knotted together only by a forgotten friendship once again. I kept staring or you could say ogling, unable to look away, needing just a little more time because what were the chances of ever seeing him like this again, in the same room as me, so quietly asleep?

Eventually, my own eyes began growing heavier.

And right before sleep fully pulled me under, I could feel something rough but warm wrap gently around my cold IV injected hand, holding it firmly in place, but I had crossed the border to dreamland, yet my subconscious was yet to shut down.

My lips curled slightly before I could stop them and then I finally succumbed to sleep.

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The same nurse who gave me food yesterday came in quietly, checking the IV one last time before removing it with careful hands and putting a small bandage over the spot. She helped me change back into the clothes I wore yesterday, wished me a fast recovery, and left shortly after.

I sat there with my bare feet hanging off the bed, realizing I seriously needed to get a pedicure again because my feet looked dull and rough as hell.

Ah fuck. 

I should probably call the nurse.

I obviously didn’t come here on my own feet, and I needed another pair of those hospital cloth slippers anyway because I accidentally soaked the ones they gave me in the washroom earlier. There was a knock on the door before it opened, and Jungkook strolled in shortly after, looking annoyingly awake for someone who barely slept the entire night.

No traces of tiredness from yesterday remained in his eyes.

He stood by the bed with a paper cup of black coffee in his hand, blowing on it lightly before taking a slow sip, as though he had already been awake for hours.

“Oh…there’s another thing.”

He reached into a shopping bag before fishing out a cute pair of polka dot sandals.

…Did he buy those for me?

“Here,” he said, stepping closer. “I bought these sandals for you. I didn’t know if your shoe size was still 36 though, so I got them in size 38 instead.…”

He sounded oddly sheepish toward the end.

Could he stop being so…ugh….so him?

I only sat there stunned before immediately jerking away when he suddenly knelt down in front of me. I gasped softly the moment his warm hands touched my freezing feet.

What was his damn deal? 

“God,” he muttered, mostly to himself at this point. “They’re so cold, did you give your feet an ice bath?”

The ability to speak was genuinely taken away from me. He carefully slipped the sandals onto my feet one by one. They were way bigger than my actual size but I couldn’t deny the fact that him buying those for me without even asking ignited an unnamed feeling inside my chest.

Then he slowly stood back up again, giving me a soft smile that immediately sent my mind into complete disarray. “I spoke to Minha Aunty,” he said. “She told me your friend Mari’s already at your home. Just let me go fetch your reports and then drop you off.” And when I tried to stand up properly, he was already there again, his warm hand firm against my back to steady me. I gulped quietly, trying not to make a big deal out of the mindless, innocent touch when my entire body seemed painfully aware of it.

I was more than stable enough to handle my shit by myself, but that clearly didn’t matter to him because I could tell just from his body language that was annoyingly certain about one thing. He is going to drop me home one way or another and he won’t take no for an answer. So instead of wasting my remaining energy I kept my mouth zipped, though I was certain that my expressions gave away the turmoil inside my head.

Before we left, he didn’t forget to tip the two nurses either. By the wide grins they both gave us, I could already tell he had tipped more than necessary.

And I mentally noted to pay him back all the money.

And somehow despite it being the last thing I wanted, I ended up in Jeon Jungkook’s black Mercedes anyway. 

Because the lesser I resisted, the faster it would get over. In the car it felt too quiet forbthe first few minutes, while I just stared at the passing skyscrapers of shopping malls, arcades, restyling, pastry shops, the plant shops, pharmacies. 

Then it didn’t stay quiet for long.

I could feel him glancing at me in every red light stop. He cleared his throat. “How are you feeling now?” he asked again, like the answer might change in the span of thirty seconds.

I sighed under my breath.

“Way better than yesterday.”

“Are you hungry? Wanna eat something?”

“I’ll be home in a few minutes, I’ll make something later.” Another red light stopped the car.

From the corner of my eye, I watched Jungkook reach behind toward the backseat without saying anything. A faint crease appeared between my brows as he pulled out a neatly packed bibimbap container before handing it over to me. The bibimbap packet lay in lap.

I froze slightly. It was oddly specific. The exact convenience store bibimbap I always bought ever since I was a highschooler. Before I could even process that, he reached behind again and handed me the same orange juice bottle from last night. I tried not to notice how his silver watch rested against the veins of his hand as he passed it to me. Then he pulled out another orange juice to drink it himself. That made me finally turn around fully towards the backseat, and my eyes almost popped out at the view. There were massive shopping bags. A huge fruit basket. And various flavours of oats packet everywhere. Did this man decided that he wants too bless a family of 5 in need? With the amount of grocery sitting in the backseat it looked like he was about to go giveaway free groceries.

“Did you empty the entire grocery store?” I stared at him in disbelief. 

“Don’t exaggerate, It’s not even that much,” he exclaimed casually, eyes still focused on the road now that the signal had turned green again. “I brought these for you.”

I blinked, my mouth agape.

“There are fruits, juices, oats—”

“Jungkook, it is thoughtful of you,” I cut him off. “but I can’t take it.”

He ignored that completely.

I took a look at the backseat again before looking at him.

“…I won’t even be able to eat half of it.”

He didn’t even look embarrassed.

I have the appetite of a gold fish, with only eating meal once a day.

All of this food will only go to waste.

“You have iron deficiency and dehydration,” he replied matter-of-factly. “You need to eat healthy foods.”

“How do you know that I don’t eat healthily?”

That finally made him glance at me briefly.

Like he was seconds away from arguing again.

But I spoke first.

“How much was all of this?”

I saw him tensing slightly. 

“Come on, I only bought a few stuff, not a whole mansion.”

“That’s not the point—”

“Then what is the point?” His voice stayed calm, but I could hear the vexation slipping underneath it. 

“I’ll pay you back right now. It isn’t a simple meal you bought me, if it was, I wouldn’t have even mentioned it. Asan is an expensive hospital,” I stated, the agitation evident in my voice. “And it was a private cabin too. How much did it cost? The IV? All those medicines? Everything! Just tell me the amount so I can pay you back.”

He ran a hand across his jaw and I couldn’t help my eyes from straying to his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

He stayed mute for a second, eyes fixed on the road ahead before he exhaled softly through his nose.

“Why are you acting like this?” he husked, and a  hot, suffocating pressure built in my chest, I glared at him. “Acting like what?”

“You know what I’m trying to say, ____.” From his voice alone I could tell he was trying arduously to keep it neutral.

I shook my head and shot out. “No, I don’t. Can’t you be a little more clear?” 

He slapped his hand roughly against the steering wheel once

“You keep talking to me like we haven’t been friends ever since you were a teenager and I a struggling first year uni student juggling two part time jobs.” That one sentence hit so hard it almost knocked the air out of my lungs.

But I refused to let it show through my expressions, because we weren’t friends anymore, we haven’t been for a long time.

I kept staring outside the window with my arms crossed tight, like it would stop the loud pounding of my heart.

What else was I supposed to do?

I couldn’t act like I didn’t completely humiliate myself infront of him, like he didn’t date another woman while I sat there grieving a one sided relationship he never partook in. I would be a hypocrite if I blame him for not feeling the same way, because how could one reciprocate a love that had never been professed before?

Yet I couldn’t stop myself from hurting and feeling two-timed. Was it casual when he sent me letters while he was serving in the military? Was it casual when he transferred his military salary to me for four straight months even when I kept begging him to stop? Was it casual when a cake arrived on my 21st birthday with no explanation? Was it casual when he carved out his limited time to call me, to check on me, like I was still part of his world even when he barely had one of his own in the military? Was it casual when he said he thought of me during his hardest days, when he was scared during missions our funny memories gave him peace? 

Did he do that for just anyone?

And if not…

Then what was I to him?

I think it was my conscience’s fault for still longing for him fully knowing he was committed to another woman.

He didn’t say anything else after seeing my lack of response.

The engine lowered into a quiet hum before fading completely, leaving only the distant sound of morning traffic and birds somewhere near the trees. The car rolled slowly into a side lane beside a small park, my apartment complex stood just a short one minute walk away.

“These days I don’t really understand you,” he said finally.

I stayed silent wanting to know what he has to say.

“What?”

But his eyes didn’t meet mine.

But his eyes didn’t meet mine.

They stayed forward, fixed on nothing in particular through the windshield, like looking at me directly would make whatever he was feeling harder to contain.

“First you send a text, then you delete it before I have the chance to see it,” he said, quieter this time.

My stomach dropped.

It was a small, delayed reaction, like my body understood before my mind could even comprehend.

He finally turned slightly in his seat then, not fully facing me, but enough that I could see the tension in his expression now. The tiredness. The frustration layered under something sharper.

“Then you suddenly block me on every social media, then you unblock me again.”

“And ever since then you’ve been treating me like I’m your enemy.”

I swallowed against the sudden tightness in my throat.

Huh?

What is he even saying?

My brain… genuinely lagged.

Like the words weren’t processing correctly.

Because I saw the seen sign.

I saw it.

I remembered staring at that tiny word for hours until my vision blurred, remembered the humiliation clawing through me afterward, the panic, the regret, the spiraling shame that followed after convincing myself he had read every single word.

His voice tightened at the end, barely restrained now. “I don’t know what went wrong,” he said quietly, exhaustion laced through his voice. “I only found out later that the persom I don’t even wanna mention, apparently deleted it before I could even see it.”

“For months I wasn’t aware that you texted me.”

Jungkook fastened his seat belt again before turning fully toward me this time, a strange intensity taking over his features, it was something fiercer.

His left hand came up to rest against his chest like he needed me to understand the sincerity behind his words.

“I don’t care what anyone says,” he said firmly. “And even if I did see it, I wouldn’t still believe anything until I heard it from you, ____.” His brows furrowed slightly, eyes locked onto mine with an honesty that almost made me look away. “I’ll only buy what you say, because I trust you. I need you to know that.”

I only stared at him in astonishment. My brain had been rotting in the gutter for so long, tangled in shame and humiliation and assumptions, that it genuinely struggled to process anything anymore. If he didn’t see it…

Then probably his ex girlfriend did.

A sick feeling twisted inside my stomach. It was too much for me to take right now. I needed to process it alone.

I didn’t know if I wanted to cry from relief, guilt, fear, regret, rage or if I wanted to slam the car door shut, run upstairs to my apartment and scream until my throat gave out. I had suffered through this unbearable mental burden for months.

Months of believing he knew.

Months of replaying that humiliation over and over until it hollowed me out from the inside.

And now suddenly I get to know that he didn’t even read it.

I couldn’t do this anymore.

But this was the last step I had to make, the perfect opportunity to slip in a story convincing enough to erase any lingering doubt from his mind once and for all. 

Maybe then I’d finally be released from this endless misery festering inside me, and finally sleep peacefully again instead of seeing him in every nightmare that jolted me awake in the middle of the night.

“It was meant for someone else,” I admitted quietly, forcing the words out before I could stop myself. “When I sent you that text…” My voice shook slightly. “I was drunk out of my wits, I don’t even remember who I sent it to.” I swallowed harshly, fingers tightening around themselves in my lap.

The silence afterward felt catastrophic. 

I felt nauseous instantly.

Like I had physically thrown something irreversible between us.

“When I woke up, I panicked and deleted it,” I said quickly, my breath catching halfway through the sentence. “And then I realized I sent the same text to, like… four other people too.”

A strained laugh slipped out before I quickly smoothed my expression over again, rushing out my next lie before I could overthink it.

“I somehow sent it to everyone except the person it was actually meant for.”

Jungkook didn’t interrupt me once.

The morning light filtered faintly through the windshield, pale shadows stretched across his face while he sat there quietly absorbing every word, and for the first time since this conversation started, he looked lighter, like something that had been weighing on him for months had finally loosened slightly from around his chest. 

Yet there was still something unreadable lingering in his eyes now, something deeper sitting quietly underneath the assurance, and somehow that uncertainty made my stomach twist even more. 

Why do I keep hyper analysing everything about him? I grunted internally.

Taking the silence as my cue to escape, I quickly told him to just stay inside the car, even though his stubborn ass argued a few times about walking me all the way to my apartment before he finally stopped resisting after taking one proper look at my face, the exhaustion written all over it was impossible to miss. His eyes narrowed slightly at me afterward, not exactly angry, but frustrated in that restrained way people always got whenever they clearly wanted to say more but forced themselves not to.

Before he could say something that would make this conversation even harder to survive.

I barely even remembered opening the car door afterward.

The cold morning air hit my face immediately as I stepped out, my legs still weak from the hospital but moving too fast anyway, almost desperate to escape before my composure cracked in front of him again.

Right before entering the apartment complex, I don’t know what possessed me to glance back.

Only his eyes were visible through the half-shut black tinted window, still watching me.

My chest tightened painfully at the sight.

Like my body had been holding them back through pure force this entire time and finally gave up.

The tears kept falling endlessly as I somehow forced myself through the hallway and toward my apartment, my vision so blurred I could barely even see properly anymore. I stood in front of the entrance for a few embarrassing seconds, fingers trembling violently while trying to type in the passcode, messing it up twice because I couldn’t stop crying long enough to focus. The moment the door unlocked, I practically stumbled inside.

Everything after that happened in a blur.

I barely even managed to kick the door shut behind me before my legs gave out completely and I collapsed against the sofa, my body hitting the cushions limply as loud, crushing sobs ripped out of me so violently it physically hurt. My chest ached horribly, breaths breaking unevenly between each cry while tears soaked into the fabric beneath my face.

And now suddenly none of it even made sense anymore.

I sobbed harder.

It wad the kind of heartache that leaves your body shaking uncontrollably, ugly and breathless and impossible to stop once it starts.

I didn’t even notice the panicked figure rushing toward me until I suddenly felt warmth engulf me from behind, familiar arms wrapping around my trembling body tightly.

“____? Oh my god—bub, what happened?”

Mari’s voice sounded distant and muffled.

Like I was hearing it underwater.

And the moment I felt her holding me, and pressing kisses against my temple.

The walls that I had built crumbled completely.

I closed my eyes and sobbed harder into the couch, I kept on sobbing until it hollowed me out from the inside.

═════𑁍ࠬܓ═══════𑁍ࠬܓ═══════𑁍ࠬܓ

It was 5pm in the afternoon.

The warm amora of lavender tea hung in the air.

The two women sat side by side.

But you also felt a sense of liberation because Mari didn’t leave you instead she held you throughout your emotional eruption, listening to every painful cry, every sobbing description until you fell asleep.

She was your anchor. Your red bloodshot eyes stared into the monotone painted wall ahead of her. Her face was swollen, her nose red from cleaning the snot repeatedly, her throat felt sore but more than that it was her heart that was sore. Mari, sat beside you, her head resting on her knuckles as she stared at her absentminded best friend. 

“The tea’s gonna get cold.” Mari pouted, playing with a strand of your hair.

“Chestnut brown really suits you, it makes your face look so much more radiant and your eyes stand out more too,” she complimented.

You felt a little guilty for not being able to reflect her cherry mood today, but could you really blame yourself? It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet, and your body had already gone through what felt like twenty panic episodes back to back. So pardon you for feeling as though every last bit of life had been drained out of you.

“My eyes are black, Mari.” You boredly replied to her.

Mari rolled her eyes.

“Okay, I give up bruh, it’s not gonna work on you, but I don’t know if you’re ready to hear what I have to say either.” She implored.

You finally looked at her, prepared to finally enough to share it with her. Mari is the only the person who has known about your deep rooted feelings for Jungkook. Out of every person in your life, even your mom, she was the one person who knew every little detail of your life.

Mari, albeit a little too blunt sometimes, wasn’t someone who would fabricate and filter her opinion just to preserve someone’s comfort or keep the peace. Whether you liked it or not, she always had a clear-cut opinion on things and she never hesitated to voice it.

And she was the perfect person to seek advice from.

“No. That’s the last thing I’d want you to do Mari.” 

“I want you to tell me the truth.”  Now I was the eager one, I put my hands above hers, slightly squeezing it and bopping my head up and down, indicating her to speak.

Mari sighed, her shoulders dropping slightly as if she had been holding all of it in for too long and only now letting it breathe out.

“Almost eight years ago when you first admitted to me about crushing on Jungkook after I basically put you on gun point,” she began, leaning back into the couch before slowly shifting forward again like the memory itself was pulling her in, “I honestly found it adorable how you’d crashout every time you shared a moment with him and then excitedly tell me over sleepovers.”

“It was harmless back then, you were a fifteen year old kid.” She adds on.

Then her expression changed subtly, from something softer to sharper.

“I never told you this… but I did start noticing, a little too late, how much it was slowly beginning to affect your life to the point where it was becoming self destructive. Your mood started depending on your interactions with him.” She looked at you with a pitiful smile. “You’ve always put him in this golden category, like he’s some unreachable dream. And I understand it, he’s all macho and cool, he’s super kind, hardworking, and he’s always been so sweet with you. Though I can’t lie, I do have to say that some of his actions were misleading at times…”

Her voice trailed for a second as she shifted fully upright, turning her body toward you now, her hands coming up as if she needed them to properly hold her thoughts in place.

A fiery look in her eyes.

“But ____ you seem to forget who you actually are. You were the most popular girl of our school, you used to get scouted by agents of big entertainment agencies randomly, when we’d go out to group study at the cafe near Seokchon Lake, or at those arcades we used to go to. It would happen so frequently.  From juniors to seniors you had everyone crushing at you.”

Then she dramatically put her hands on her mouth, making an equally dramatic noise of disapproval.

“I still can’t get over the Nam Joo Hyuk thing.” she exaggerated.

“I was furious when you turned down a date with THE Nam Joo Hyuk,” she groaned dramatically, throwing her hands up. “And Jungkook had literally gone into the military like five months before that. ____ , what do you mean you turned down the ‘Korean Adonis’ for a guy who wasn’t even your man just so you could act like his sad, depressed military wife?”

Mari sighed like she was recounting the most tragic story of her life before continuing, eyes widening for emphasis. “Like actually, what do you mean you turned down Nam Joo Hyuk? Do you even realize how insanely popular he is now? His fan following is insane. He’s literally one of the highest paid actors in South Korea.”

You rolled your eyes internally.

Sure, Nam Joo-hyuk was objectively good-looking, but he was nowhere near your ideal type. And the arrogance in the way he’d asked for your number, as if there was absolutely no possibility you’d say no, was irksome. Maybe if he was a little mo-

You stopped yourself before your brain escalated back to the same decade old description of a specific person.

Mari’s hand dropped back to her lap with a frustrated slap against her thigh.

“I stayed silent because I thought you and Jungkook had some sort of secret situationship going on,” she added, leaning back again, still watching you closely, “but then my assumptions were proven wrong when he spawned with a girlfriend right after his military discharge.”

“Now he never cared enough to reach out until you two were forced to be in the same place. I’m not saying it’s his fault… because bubs, that’s what life is about. People….drift away.”

Her voice dipped slightly, becoming quieter now as she stared down at her own hands for a second.

“You remember when Seokjin and I used to date,? We used to spend almost half of the day together for seven years, and now we don’t even wish each other on New Years or let alone birthdays.” Her fingers curled slightly.

“Do you know why it never affected me?” She questioned, gently before answering herself.

“It’s because my joy never depended on Seokjin. I was happy in my own skin, so fulfilled within myself that even when we broke up, I got back up on my feet faster, because my life went on, be it with or without him.”

“The reason why you’re so disturbed and torn apart by his absence is probably because there was a time when you used to be a part of his everyday life, but the military broke that seesaw. And I think deep down, it was needed…”

“____ , I think you’re more in love with the idea of him than the reality of him.” Her eyes were unflinching.

“Because you two have only seen each other within a box, that couldn’t go beyond a boundary but have you ever experienced him outside of who he showed you he is? Do you know anything about his work? How he is with his friends?”

The room felt awfully quieter with the truth out open.

“He only knows you as the teenage high school junior he tutored and adored like a little sister, he remembers you in your fuzzy socks and oversized pink hoodies but does he know the woman you are now?” Her eyes softened, like she almost regretted how honest she was being. “I know it’ll always leave a void in your heart,” she said finally, voice quieter now, almost careful, as if she was placing the words down gently instead of throwing them. “But I pray that someday you get over the fantasy of it. I know you will.” She looked at you with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

This probably is the most you’ve heard Mari speak in one breath. You realized many occasions stopped her from saying all these things to your face, but you couldn’t be anything but glad that she did. You needed to get slapped in the face.

It was almost horrifying how well she observed your feelings for Jungkook, but it was Mari after all.

Hearing your situation, your life through her lense changed the trajectory of your perspective  as well and it was like a cold bucket of water was thrown at your face.

You pondered for a few minutes, while Mari’s gazed stayed on you. “You cannot expect a man to remain the same after military. It changes them a lot, especially a man you haven’t really personally known-” Before Mari could continue, you leaned forward and pulled her into a tight hug, your movement slightly shaky but firm. She froze for a fraction of a second before instantly wrapping her arms around you too, one hand pressing firmly against your back, the other gently rubbing slow, grounding circles. “You’re right.” You softly admitted.

For the first time in years, today you gave yourself the time to think of an alternative scenario, in a way you haven’t before, in a way that made the pang in your chest hurt a little less. While you breathed out, your chin rested on her shoulder.

“Mari…didn’t you say that you were gonna host a get together soon?”

She pulled back, her forehead creasing.

“Yes, why are you asking me this out of the blue.”

In his twenty-nine years of life, Jeon Jungkook had signed contracts worth millions without blinking twice.

He had built three brands from scratch, negotiated with investors twice his age, replied to life changing business emails while eating cold takeout at three in the morning, approved campaigns, closed deals and transferred amounts of money that would make most people nauseous. He did all of that without hesitation, because he’s always intentional when it came to his business. Yet somehow one single text message had him erasing and rewriting the same sentence in different ways for the ninth fucking time today.

Currently it was 3PM, he was in his office branch in Yeouido District, on the eighth floor of the towering glass building.Jungkook leaned back against his leather office chair with a livid exhale, dragging a hand down his face before staring back down at his phone again.His employees continued discussing projected launch numbers for the new gym supplement line somewhere across the long conference table, their voices kept overlapping with presentation slides flipping quietly in the background, Jungkook had been focused in the beginning but for the past sixteen minutes, his mind had gone completely blank.

This was messing with him because he rarely checked his phone during meetings.

But the second the screen lit up beside his laptop earlier, with the one name he hadn’t expected to see, his entire train of thought derailed so badly he almost stumbled over his own words mid-l presentation and had to glance twice just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

You [3:40 PM]:

Hey, it’s been a while.

You [ 3:41 PM]:

I’ve been wanting to reach out to you… I got caught up with work so I’m late.

It had been three weeks since he last heard from you. 

Three weeks since you adamantly got out of his car that morning looking exhausted enough to collapse right there, refusing to even take the groceries he bought for you despite the argument it caused.

He remembered sitting there afterward in annoyance while staring at the untouched fruit baskets and grocery bags occupying his entire backseat.

Eventually he gave all of it to his security guard when he reached home. The old man nearly cried seeing the amount of imported strawberries alone. Jungkook sighed again before glancing back at the popped up text in his notification bar.

He typed a sentence, then deleted.

It looked too blunt.

He typed again, shaking his head because it was getting too long, 

He deleted it again.

His thumb hovered over the keyboard while the faint sound of his employees laughing as they left the office somewhere outside the conference room echoed through the glass walls of his office.

Jungkook [3:57 PM]:

No worries…. How are you? How’s your health now?

He realised that he was taking too long to reply, when your reply came instantly.

You [3:58 PM] 

I’m doing a lot better than the last time we saw each other :)

You [3:58 PM]

Btw are you free today?

He leaned back slightly against his chair before replying, his index finger rubbing against his jaw, absentmindedly.

Jungkook [4:05 PM]:

Today? Yeah, I get off work within 5pm.

You [4:07 PM]:

Great then, I’m hosting a get together party with my best friend, I was wondering if you could come and join me.

That was a whiplash from the way you had been avoiding him like the plague..not wanting to 

Jungkook [4:07 PM]:

A gathering party? Where is it?

The typing bubble appear almost immediately.

You [4:10 PM]:

It’s located in Itaewon, it’s called Yact Core.

Jungkook pondered for a few seconds, eyes narrowing slightly while trying to remember if he had heard of the place before. His fingers moved over the keyboard slowly, typing out a response before pausing midway, because your next text came in before he could even hit send.

You [4:14 PM]:

So are you coming or not, Oppa?

His phone slipped right out of his hand.

The loud thud against the wooden floor made him curse under his breath immediately as he bent down too fast to grab it, nearly hitting his knee against the desk in the process.

“Ugh...” He grunted at the shot of pain that went through his knee.

“What on earth…” he muttered under his breath, heat rushing unexpectedly to the back of his neck.

Oppa? Never in your life have you called him that, ever, even when you were talking about him to someone else. It was only a honorific that he never cared for even though you were almost eight years younger than him.

Usually, in any other circumstance, Jungkook was strict about addressing elders properly with honorifics. Maybe it was the Korean in him, maybe it was just the way he had been raised. Yet somehow, when it came to you, he never corrected it. If anything, he found it stupidly sweet.

The way you called him “Kook” so naturally, like the nickname belonged to you and you alone and the most embarrassing part was that it kind of did.

Because nobody else called him ‘Kook’ besides you.

This sudden friendliness of yours made him wonder if you somewhere hit your head and had a loss of memory? Lately he had been so used to the distant attitude you maintained with him, after everything that happened recently, after months of avoidance, seeing a snippet of your sweet, old version suddenly appear on his screen again felt absurdly more intimate than it should’ve.

His heartbeat quickened annoyingly fast while he unlocked the phone again, rereading the text twice before forcing himself to type something back normally.

Jungkook [4:15 PM]:

Yeah, I’ll come for sure.

Your reply came less than ten seconds later.

You [4:15 PM]:

I’ll be waiting hehe 😛

Jungkook stared at the conversation for another embarrassing amount of time before abruptly locking his phone and tossing it onto the table like it had burned his hand. He pressed the heel of his palm against his eyes for a second. No, he really needs to stop drinking caffeine in the morning on an empty stomach. This is why he's been feeling so weird.

“Yo Boss! A sublime day, isn't it?" Gwanshik’s chirpy voice echoed through the office suddenly.

“Indeed, Gwanshik.” Jungkook muttered.

His head jerked up almost instantly only to find his assistant standing by the doorway holding a thick black file against his chest, brows raised suspiciously.

“Wait, why are you so red?”

Jungkook scoffed immediately, straightening himself in the chair. “I-I’m not red.”

“You absolutely are.” Gwanshik snorted, walking further inside. “Your ears too.”

“Did you listen to the new album by that boygroup CORTIS? They have a song called ‘RedRed’. So you lying to my face, that’s red’red~” Gwangshik singsang giggling like an imbecile.

Whatever.

Jungkook only coughed, reaching out for the file the second Gwanshik handed it over.

“Samples for the new starter pack campaign,” Gwanshik explained while Jungkook flipped the file open a little too rapidly, very obviously trying to redirect the conversation before the older man could tease him any further. “The new employees suggested going for a more raw gym aesthetic this time instead of those overly edited luxury concepts,” he continued, leaning against the desk casually. “And honestly? I agree. You probably will too once you see their vision.”

Jungkook hummed scatterbrained, with his eyes scanning through the printed sample photographs spread across the pages. There were at least twelve varieties of samples of shaker concepts, gym bag layouts, compression wear samples, and minimalistic black packaging. On other days this was the kind of thing he’d immediately hyperfocus on.

But today?

His mind kept drifting back toward his phone sitting face down beside him.

Gwanshik caught onto Jungkook’s lack of attention instantly, because it wasn’t common at all.

A grin slowly spread across his face.

“…Ahhh,” he dragged out knowingly.

Jungkook already sighed in annoyance before the other guy could even continue.

“Is it a woman?.”

Jungkook’s eyes narrowed. 

“No.” 

“You got rejected?”

“No.”

“Then it’s worse.” Gwanshik nodded seriously thinking. “You like her.”

Jungkook almost choked on absolutely nothing.

“It’s not even close to that,” he shot back angrily, face heating all over again while Gwanshik burst out laughing right in front of him.

“Ehhhh sure, I’ll take my leave since nothing’s getting into your head right now anyway.” He taunted before turning toward the door. “I’ll just email you the documents. You can always check them later.” And with that, he walked out singing some painfully cringe love song lyric, clearly far too entertained by Jungkook’s misery.

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ────

Jungkook arrived at the location you shared a little later than he originally planned.

The car door shut behind him with a quiet click, and for a moment he just stood there outside the venue, taking in the building like he was trying to recalibrate what kind of night this was supposed to be.

He had expected loud music, disco balls and, shouting, something club themed, because that was the definition of a party he and his friends did when they were at this age. Instead, the moment he stepped inside, the atmosphere was completely unanticipated. Soft jazz wrapped around the space like a warm haze, low enough to feel like background breathing rather than music. Somewhere further inside, a faint track of Luis Miguel played. The lighting was warm gold, spilling gently over marble flooring and glass decor. People stood in small clusters instead of crowds, talking, laughing, posing occasionally for pictures. He didn’t wear any suit like every other man here, but rather a black Calvin Klein jacket, with matching black jeans, it didn’t exactly blend into the crowd. In the midst of his eyes scanning the room looking for a certain five foot something woman, someone tapped him on the shoulders, when he turned around his eyebrows lifted in recognition. Mari stood there, a tight smile resting on her lips.

“What are you doing here all on your own?” she asked lightly over the music. “____ didn’t see you yet?”

Jungkook gave a small smile, slipping one hand inside the pocket of his jacket. “I just got here.”

“Oh.” Mari nodded once before glancing toward the crowd behind her. “Well… she’s been excited about tonight after all the storm she went through.”

What is that supposed to mean?

Before he could respond, Mari stepped aside slightly, motioning vaguely toward the deeper part of the lounge. “She’s probably somewhere there with our friends. I need to save my drunk boyfriend before he embarrasses himself infront of strangers.”

Jungkook let out a quiet chuckle. “Another babysitting duty I see.”

“Unfortunately.” She stated.

“Good seeing you though,” she added more genuinely this time.

“You too.”

And then she disappeared somewhere into the crowd.

Jungkook walked further inside, eventually rounding into a quieter area near the open space of the lounge, unlike the entrance area the atmosphere here felt even calmer somehow, he could hear a saxophone playing and faint laughter and chatter somewhere. And then he saw you.

Just the back of your head, at first.

You were standing near one of the lounge tables, surrounded by a loose circle of people, a few men and women gathered comfortably around the dimly lit space with drinks resting lazily in their hands. A tall South Asian guy dressed in a fitted brown shirt and black pants stood in the middle of telling some dramatic story, his hands moving animatedly while everyone leaned in with amused expressions.

You were listening too.

Then the South Asian guy said something that made the entire group erupt into laughter in unison, your head tipped back briefly as you laughed, your hand instinctively coming down to smack the arm of the lean man standing beside you while he groaned dramatically at the hit, making everyone laugh even harder. Your chestnut hair fell down your back in a long straight flow, catching the warm yellow lights every time you moved. You wore an ocean blue bodycon dress that looked like it had been stitched specifically to fit your body. Beside you a shorter redhead woman in a hot pink dress, leaned to whisper something in your ear. And almost immediately —

Your head turned slightly, your gaze absentmindedly drifting across the other tables first, barely paying attention to anything you were looking at.

Then your eyes landed on him.

And kept moving.

For half a second Jungkook genuinely thought you hadn’t recognized him.

Before your head snapped back toward him almost instantly. Jungkook’s lungs forgot what they were doing for exactly one second as a wide smile slowly pulled onto your lips. He stared back. It took him a minute too long to realize his mouth had parted slightly. He closed it. And smoothed his expression. Something strange sat in his chest, it was a feeling he could describe as closest to discomfort. You lifted your hand slightly from around your wine glass before motioning him over with two small curls of your fingers and Jungkook began making his way towards you, with his eyes not leaving you for once. He almost forgot there were other people around until one of your friends suddenly looked between the two of you and asked “Wait… isn’t that your University classmate?”

Then your voice reached him properly for the first time that night. “No.” You exclaimed with a chuckle.

“Kids, I have to introduce you all to someone.” You announced loud enough to capture everyone's attention.

He could feel multiple eyes on him the moment you said that. “This is Jungkook. “You glanced at him, smile still sitting warmly on your face. “A close friend of mine.”

“Ah, you came just at the right time.” the redhead said briefly looking at him then teasingly bumping her shoulder with yours.

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ────

It didn’t take long before all of you migrated toward one of the lounge sections of the venue, the large velvet couches quickly filling with half finished drinks, scattered phones, and overlapping conversations.

 To Jungkook’s surprise, your friends were actually really welcoming to him. 

They asked him about his work almost immediately, curiosity lighting up their expressions the moment he briefly mentioned his gym brand.

“No way, that’s actually sick.” The South Asian guy who's name he later got to know was Ishaan Khatter, a well-known A-list actor working in Bollywood, exclaimed in astonishment.

“Wait, so you own multiple branches?” the blonde Korean-Canadian friend of yours, Bently Kim, impatiently asked.

“Isn’t that insanely stressful?” Sonjin who he remembers used to live in his neighbourhood years ago, queried.

They asked questions enthusiastically, leaning forward while he answered, occasionally throwing in their own opinions about fitness trends and gym culture as if they’d known him for longer than thirty minutes. Amidst the overlapping conversations and soft clinking of glasses around the table, Jungkook slowly realized your body had been turned toward him for the last ten minutes, your thighs brushing against his. Not fully though just slightly. Enough that every time someone else spoke, your eyes still drifted back to him in between.

“You seem to blend quite well with my friends,” you said finally, a sly grin pulling at those glossy pink lips.

Jungkook looked at your side from his beer immediately. The warm lighting softened your features, made your skin glow faintly golden, and for some reason he found himself staring at your mouth for half a second too long before forcing his gaze away.

“I’m a gen-z too, it’s not that hard to blend in.” he said softly his dark eyes borong into yours.

You laughed softly at that, leaning your chin against your palm while still maintaining the eye lock, expectedly he was the first to break it off.

Good God.

He only drank a little of the white beer one of your friends had poured for him earlier, barely enough to even qualify as drinking, but somehow his head still felt warm and strangely hazy. 

He needed to finish at least one bottle of Budweiser to get properly drunk.

He definitely wasn’t drunk.

Probably… a little off balance.

And he hated how aware he was of it.

Before he could say anything else, your friends suddenly erupted into loud complaints over taking pictures.

“Girls get up RIGHT NOW before the makeup starts melting off.” One of your girlfriend's beseeched.

You groaned dramatically as one of your friend grabbed your arm and the other one grabbed your wrist.

“Hey! Sajal, at least let me take my purse—” you whined.

“Oh, just leave it here, the boys can watch over our precious purses,” she said, waving it off casually. “Come on!” Jungkook watched you get dragged away.

He couldn't remember the last time he’s seen you as radiant as you were in this very moment. Tonight, you were beyond his limited knowledge of you. It feels like he’s getting to see you in a different light than he had all those years ago.

It was like he was meeting the same person, but again for the first time, like déjà vu.

Swaying softly with every step, camera flashes briefly illuminated your face again and again, catching the confidence in your expression as it flickered under the light.

Your friends and you got occupied making TikToks. Until a slower track slid in, almost sensual in the way it filled the space. You swayed your hips and danced to the rhythm, your movements syncing with the beat in an effortless, teasing flow. Your hands traced over your own arms, sliding down, then drifting to your hips as you kept moving, completely lost in the music, your friends circled you, laughing, filming, but his attention stayed fixed where it shouldn’t have.

Then you turned around.

Your eyes locked with his in a matter of seconds, like you already knew he would be looking.

A devilish smirk pulled up on your pouty lips.

Your hands danced over your body again, palms dragging across your chest, then down to your hips, slow and deliberate, like you were fully aware of being watched.

He should’ve looked away, he knew he should’ve.

Yet, he didn’t because he couldn’t.

You kept moving with the music in a torturously slow pace., your focus never fully leaving him even as you rejoined your friends’ rhythm.

Jungkook felt his throat go dry.

He turned away like someone threw acid in his eyes and hastily chugged down his entire drink in one go.

His heart was pulsing hard inside his chest, loud enough that it felt impossible to ignore.

It’s disorienting, the way you feel both known and unfamiliar at the same time, like everyone else already knew something about you he was only discovering now.

The realization unsettled him more than it should have.

Because when had that happened?

There was no denying that you had become this alluring woman people naturally gravitated towards.

Yet whatever he was feeling was not appropriate.

What would you even think of him if you knew the things his mind kept drifting towards.

A strange restlessness settled under his skin soon after.

The music suddenly felt louder indoors.

This space feeling congested now.

He exhaled quietly and leaned back against the couch for a moment before eventually deciding to step outside for air.

It wasn’t because he disliked your friends company or anything, they were a bunch of good hearted kids, well except one of them a little too self ware, one acting like all the negative things only happen to them, another one with the self confidence of the Burj Khalifa, when he sat with them he remembered how he had already passed this phase in life.

Nowadays, rather than being out till 3 AM, clubbing, and drinking with friends just to escape the mental torture that university midterms brought, those years are over, now he cares more about being in bed by 11 PM. He still goes to clubs every now and then, but only if the food is good.

There was only so much conversation he could maintain with guys nearly eight years younger than him before every discussion somehow turned into them asking him for life advice.

And his battery was already beginning to drain, his brain needed a little rest.

He eventually stepped toward the open space of the rooftop balcony, the cool night air immediately brushing against his overheated skin. From up there, the city stretched endlessly beneath him, streams of headlights moving through the roads below while distant traffic echoed faintly into the quiet. For a few seconds, Jungkook just stood there silently taking it in the skyline, the cold air, the temporary silence away from the music and laughter inside. 

He slipped a hand into the pocket of his jacket out of pure habit before groaning quietly under his breath when his fingers came up empty. Right. He left the packet of cigarette at home. “Fuck,” he muttered tiredly to himself. Usually he’d smoke whenever his head got too crowded like this, whenever his thoughts started overlapping too loudly to sort through properly. And seems like tonight he has no other choice but to let his mind keep making noises.

Jungkook leaned both forearms against the railing instead, head tilting back slightly as he shut his eyes for a moment. The metal felt cold beneath his skin, grounding him enough to stop the strange restlessness sitting inside his chest from plummeting any further. At least that was the plan.

But every time he closed his eyes, he kept seeing…

 A certain smile from across the lounge.

Pink glossy lips.

The way their dress embraced the curve of their body when they walked away with their friends. The way their hands traced their torso as they danced while looking at him.

Jungkook ran a hand across his bottom lip.

This was ridiculous!

Jungkook wasn’t even sure when exactly he’d started feeling like this around you.

Maybe it was the alcohol slowly settling into his system.

This fuckass bone chilling cold was supposed to help clear his head to some extent, make every thought inside his head blank. That had been the entire point of stepping out onto the balcony for a minute to pull himself together, to remember how he was supposed to act around you.

He’d known you for what, eight to nine years now? Ten? Between these years it came easy and natural for him to be around you as a….friend, a tutor, a well wisher, an acquaintance.

Jungkook felt even more aware of you now that it was him with his pondering alone, the quiet had stripped away the one buffer keeping him from paying too much attention.

He’d known you….eversice you were fourteen, still sleeping with your seven-year-old plushies, he’d seen you cry after your cousins teased you about the demon from hellfire coming for you when you refused to eat your vegetables.

He'd known you when you were seventeen and crying over a mysterious boy who’s identity stayed hidden to this day. He'd been the only person besides your parents to be present at your high school graduation. He was there during your bob haircut era. He knew the sound of your laughter before it even left your lungs, knew exactly which of his jokes would work and which ones would earn him a shove on the shoulder. To him you had always been a sister like friend, that’s what he’s been saying to everyone, to himself.

That was the box you and him had always existed in.

And for the first time that box seemed to shook like a falling stack of cards.

Somewhere in the middle of his thoughts, the sound of the balcony door sliding open behind him snapped him back to reality. “There you are…” Your voice wrapped around him softly as he heard your heels clicking lightly against the balcony floor while the dim light spilling from inside traced softly along your figure. He didn’t turn around instead he looked down at the buzzing street as if it had acquired his complete interest.

From his peripheral vision, he could see your silhouette stepping beside him now, the wind pushing your hair gently over one shoulder as you leaned the back of your body against the railing instead of looking down at the street below. Jungkook kept his eyes lowered for a moment before finally forcing himself to look at your face. You were staring at the wooden door with a distant look. “You disappeared,” you murmured, stopping beside him against the railing. “I thought my friends scared you away.”

“Nothing like that, I just needed a little air,” he breathed, his thumb rubbing slowly against the cold metal railing.

You hummed, standing near enough for him to smell the faint sweetness of your perfume.

“You clean up well today,” you compliment him, your tone carrying a teasing hint.

Jungkook swerved toward your form now, leaning the weight of his body sideways with one arm resting against the railing, and you turned sideways too with the side of your body leaned against the railing wall, because of your much shorter height.

This way he could see you properly now.

A lopsided smile rested on your lips, your eyes were red around the rims while the cold painted your cheeks and nose pink.

“Really?”

“I like this jacket on you,” you clarified casually, eyes slowly tracing over his jacket again.

His throat tightened slightly.

“It makes you look buffer.”

He looked away, appearing a little flustered.

“Why did you want to meet up?” he asked with a restrained voice.

“Just…wanted to see how you’re doing and properly thank you.” Your voice sounded softer now.

And before he could say something, your palm landed lightly against the center of his chest.

The second your hand settled against his chest, Jungkook felt his pulse shift noticeably beneath it.

Your fingers moved against his jacket once… then again… gliding lazily over his chest.

“You don’t really have to thank me for that,” you whispered even though it was just you and him in this open space.

Jungkook forced himself to think about literally anything else. The unopened file Gwanshik had handed him earlier. The thirty pages waiting on his desk.

Tomorrow’s schedule.

Anything.

But with your hand slowly moving against the center of his chest, it was becoming impossible to focus on a single coherent thought.

That possibility made heat rush violently into his bloodstream.

His body locked up almost instantly. His senses kept hyper focusing. On the warmth of your palm, thr soft drag of your nails against the fabric, the way your body leaned just slightly closer every time you spoke.

Jungkook tried to look at the closed entrace door, and the thin glass window where he could see movements of people. It didn’t help one bit, because deep down a dangerous part of him didn’t want you to stop.

“It’s been long since we’ve hung out, the last time we saw each other was before the end of my first semester.”

“Yeah….”

“You’re awfully silent. Are you okay?”

Your fingers slowly smoothed over the front of his jacket again before lightly pinching the collar between them. “I’m fine.” he reasoned, while you pursed your lips not convinced at all.

The violent wind pushed your hair across your face again and it was like Jungkook’s body had a mind of its own, reacting before he could properly think it through. His fingertips grazed softly against your cheek while he tucked the strands behind your ear, A few strands had stuck lightly against the gloss on your lips, and you blinked slightly when his fingers brushed them away.

The second his skin came in contact with yours the coquettish expression on your face faltered slightly.

That heavy silence where both people suddenly become too aware of each other.

His hand lingered for a fraction too long near your face before slowly dropping again. This was getting precarious. Jungkook knew that much.

The space that was big enough to fit in hundreds of people suddenly felt too small, your body was too close to the point he could feel the warts radiating off you, your eyes too focused on him in a way that made his rationality keep slipping out of his grasp.

He should’ve stepped back already.

Should’ve moved your hand off his chest.

Should’ve stopped touching you the second his fingers brushed your cheek.

Instead he was still standing here staring at you like he’d forgotten about time itself.

And the unexplainable part was that you didn’t seem unaffected either, but rather inviting.

Your eyes kept dropping to his mouth.

So did his.

Jungkook swallowed hard, taking in a deep breath and exhaling through his his nostrils.

Don’t do this. He begged his subconscious.

She doesn't know what she's doing. She's a little drunk and you're standing too close and this is nothing. You've known her for over a decade. You used to tutor her. Get it together, you bastard.

The thought came too late, became irrelevant just as rapidly, because the second your eyes shifted from his mouth to his eyes, you and him both stepped closer again, he had exactly one second to think about consequences before you whispered his name in the quietest tone. “Jungkook.”

After that, everything in his head seemed to blur together.

Your noses brushed softly once, then again, neither of you properly pulling away.

His lips hovered inches from yours while the cold night air wrapped around you both uselessly, your breathing turning uneven in the small space between you.

You were even more close now. So close that he couldn’t properly see your eyes anymore, only feel the hot puffy breaths against his mouth while the cold night air moved around you both uselessly.

The three of you were now sprawled around the living room while Jinu and Samuel watched some aggressive football match like their lives depended on it. You tried sitting through the first fifteen minutes, genuinely tried, but you didn’t understand a single thing happening on the screen besides grown men aggressively chasing a ball while commentators screamed like war had broken out.

His thoughts stopped eventually.

He leaned down.

The moment he felt the sensation of yours lips on his, he shuddered. He paused for a brief moment, before he couldn’t wait anymore and embraced your warm mouth around his.

At first it was only the slow press of lips, warm and unhurried, his mouth catching yours carefully like he was still holding himself back.

Your lips barely moved against his at first, warm and tentative, both of you kissing each other like neither of you fully understood what was happening yet, but the affect of it was more intense than it would’ve been with a stranger.

Then your hands slid upward from his chest, one settling around the side of his neck while the other disappeared into the hair at the back of his head, nails scratching lightly against his scalp.

Jungkook felt that final wall inside him give way almost instantly.

He groaned against your mouth before his motionless arms moved to wrap around your waist, pushing you into him. The movement made your body stumble lightly against his and the airy sound you made nearly destroyed whatever self control he still had left.

You shivered when the firm muscles of his abdomen pressed against the exposed skin of your waist. The kiss deepened without warning after that. His mouth moved against yours with a kind of restrained desperation now, like he’d spent the entire night holding himself back only to lose the ability to do it anymore.

One gruff hand stayed firm against your waist while the other slid upward to cup your jaw, thumb pressing lightly beneath your cheekbone as he angled your face toward him more. And when his palm slipped lower for a second, brushing against the exposed skin of your back beneath the fabric, both of you visibly shuddered at the same time. Your fingers tightened against him immediately causing Jungkook to press his lips on you harder, with more fervour.

When the realization that this was actually happening, and he had let his frenzied thoughts loose, finally hit him all at once.

And then in a flash—

Jungkook pulled back with a quiet pop breaking between your lips, breathing unevenly as he stared at you with wide eyes. He looked at you in horror. “I’m so sorry,” he gasped immediately, voice rough from kissing you. “____, fuck! What did I just do? You-you I-We’re not in our senses right now, I shouldn’t have done that, not when yo- you’re tipsy.” His grip loosened from your waist as he forced himself to take a few steps back, brows tightening like it physically hurt him to put distance between you. You only stared at him with a hazy expression, your own breaths coming out in uneven, heavy puffs.

“No,” you panted, before shaking your head. Your slightly trembling hands found him again before he could retreat any further, fingers curling tightly into the front of his jacket as you pulled him back toward you. “Don’t say that.” You exhaled, one hand moving comfortingly over his shoulders. Jungkook’s chest rose and fell sharply, as he bended down to match your height, his brows furrowed with conflict glimmering in his clear orbs. His large hand moved to rest on top of yours.

You got on your tiptoes, nuzzling the tip of your nose against his as you stepped closer, the warmth of your breath mixing with his.

“I’ve never been more conscious of my senses,” you whispered softly against his lips. “I know what I’m doing, Jungkook.”

His eyes shut briefly.

He knew it was fruitless to resist, he should’ve known the moment you looked at him that he was bound to accept defeat in this battle.

“Are you sure?”

His voice wavered when he asked you that, a final, trembling thread of restraint snapping as he searched your face for any sign of hesitation.

The moment he felt your head nodding against his forehead, his mouth crashed into yours again. There was no gentleness in the collision. It was a crash, a collision of teeth and tongue, a desperate claim. He groaned into the kiss, a sound of pure, unadulterated relief. Jungkook’s morality, and values could come and fuck him up later, he was more greedy. One strong arm snaked around your back, fingers tracing every soft ridge of your spine until he reached the nape of your neck to cup it firmly.

Somewhere between uneven breaths and tangled hands, Jungkook backed you against the railing without thinking. You gasped into his mouth, and he took the opportunity to slide his tongue deep inside. He pushed you harder against the cold metal, his hands shifting from your neck to tangle in your soft, silky locks, pulling your head back to expose the line of your throat. Your tongues intertwined in a hungry, wet dance; he could taste the lingering sweetness of red wine on your. The hand that had been on your hip slid down, palms molding to the curve of your bottom, gripping you tightly as he pulled your lower body flush against him.

You leaned even closer, your chest pressed tightly against his, feeling the frantic thrum of his heart mirroring your own.

You let out a low, broken whimper as he nipped sharply at your bottom lip, the sting sending a jolt of electricity through you.

His soft lips finally detached from yours, but only to trail a path of soft, chaste pecks down the sensitive column of your throat.

You tilted your head to the side, giving him full access, one hand wrapping around the hard swell of his bicep while the other clung to his shoulder.

In the middle of the hot, consuming exchange, the balcony door slid open. A stranger stepped out, phone in one hand, lighter in the other.

They paused immediately and turned around in a haste.

“…Oh.” The man let out an exclamation, his eyes moving between you both with immediate understanding.

The sound cut straight through the moment.

You shrank back instantly, the sudden distance feeling like a physical blow.

It was as if he’d been snapped out of a trance, ripped violently from a headspace he shouldn't have been in. His breath came in ragged, uneven heaves that mirrored the turmoil in his eyes.

The haze vanished, replaced by a sudden, jarring awareness of their surroundings, the sheer recklessness of what he had just been doing to you.

The stranger muttered something awkward, something about needing a smoke, and immediately turned away, suddenly very interested in leaving.

The sound of retreating footsteps echoed in the silence that followed, leaving a thick, charged tension in the air. Jungkook remained frozen, his fingers twitching as if fighting the urge to drag you back against him. The conflict was written all over his face: the lingering, carnal greed battling with the sudden return of his conscience. He looked at you, his eyes dark and dilated, the ghost of that desperation still flickering in his gaze. He was breathless, flushed, and utterly undone, caught in the suffocating space between the man who wanted to do more and the man who knew he should stop.

"I think I should leave now," you suddenly declared, your voice steady, almost airy.

You smoothed your dress down with a slow, deliberate motion, the fabric gliding over skin before bending slightly to pick up your purse he hadn’t even noticed lying near the railing, pulling your phone out to check the time with the nonchalant energy of someone who had not just turned his entire understanding of your relationship upside down. "It's almost eleven, I have a morning class." Jungkook didn't move, his body locked in a state of high alert, the air around him still thick with the scent of your perfume and the ghost of your lips.

“I’ll see you around, Kook,” you added, casting one last look over your shoulder. You gave him a dark, mischievous smile, your lips now red, swollen, and puffier from the violence of his kisses.

He only looked at you with a puzzled expression, his brain struggling to process the sudden shift. Jungkook hated how different the old nickname suddenly felt after tonight. He watched you turn and glide back through the door, watched the yellow light and the noise of the party swallow you back up without a second glance.

Jungkook remained alone in the cold, his hands hanging uselessly at his sides, his fingers still tingling from the feel of your hair. The silence of the night rushed in to fill the space you had left behind, leaving him with the crushing realization that while he was drowning in the aftermath, you had already stepped back into the light, leaving him shattered and wanting more.

His pulse hammered in his throat, a frantic rhythm that refused to slow down even as the wind chilled the sweat on his skin. He said nothing. There was nothing to say, honestly.

He stood there in that spot you left him for another 10 minutes before he went straight to the parking lot.

He speed through the roads, don’t ask him how he just did somehow. Because all he could feel were your soft petal lips on his.

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ────

It was exactly 12:03 AM.

The first thing he did when he got home was finally kick his shoes off.

He staggered into his restroom, his finger barely clicking the lights on as he walked toward the sink.

There was a rush of adrenaline, but also a strange weakness beneath it that stole away his ability to feel fully stable.

He felt some sort of high from it.

It was some unnamed awakening of emotions he wasn’t even aware could exist in this equation until now.

The mirror was an immediate reminder of the incident that had occurred. His lips were swollen, his chin and the sides of his mouth still glistening faintly with the remnants of your lip gloss. Jungkook stared at himself for a second before running his thumb slowly across his lips, wiping it off, then he bent down abruptly, splashing water all over his face in the most aggressive manner possible. Water dripped from his jaw onto the sink while he stayed there gripping the marble edge for a second longer than necessary, breathing unevenly.

After that, he only vaguely remembered stumbling toward bed and collapsing into the sheets, twisting and rotating restlessly beneath them for what felt like hours.

Then sleep or something close to it finally took him.

The next time he awakens in a dream.

You were there in that, still adorning that same blue dress.

You crawled slowly across the mattress toward his sprawled form, the fabric hugging your body every time you moved while your luscious hair fell over one shoulder. Jungkook tried to move toward you instinctively, but the second he did, his body locked up completely, he tried to call for you, but couldn’t, it felt like some cruel invisible force had pinned him down, like he’d been forbidden from touching you entirely. Forced to sit there and watch you approach him without being able to do anything about it.

You climbed onto his lap now, straddling him with slow, deliberate grace, that same cheeky smirk resting on your lips.

A strained groan escaped him as his arms shook reaching upward, desperate to feel the silk of your skin beneath his palms, desperate to grip your waist and pull you down until there was no space left between you both. His fingertips hovered mere millimeters from your hip—

And right before he could feel the silken skin beneath his hands, the world vanished.

The sensation hit like freefall.

A violent plunge straight into nothingness.

Jungkook’s eyes shot open violently, a sharp ragged gasp tearing from his chest as he jolted upright in bed. His heart hammered frantically against his ribs while the room around him slowly came back into focus.

His arm reached beside him instinctively and touched nothing except cold empty sheets.

He paused there for a moment, chest heaving while the phantom feeling of you still lingered against his skin like heat that refused to leave.

Slowly, Jungkook blinked toward the digital clock resting beside the bed, it read 4:20 AM.

A long shaky breath escaped him before he sank back against the pillows, staring blankly at the ceiling above him.

He reached for his phone.

4:24 AM.

Of course there were no texts. It was four in the morning and you were asleep somewhere across the city and you had walked away from him smiling like the night had cost you absolutely nothing, like you had simply experimented something and found it interesting and moved on, and here he was lying fully clothed in the dark of his bedroom with a racing pulse and the ghost of a dream he was going to spend the rest of the night trying to forget and the rest of his life failing to.

He mindlessly scrolled through YouTube shorts for a minute and then he opened instagram, his fingers typed your name as if it was automatic to do so, he clicked your Instagram account.

A new post sat at the top of your profile.

You were posing in that blue dress at some earlier point in the night before he had arrived, before any of it, you were laughing at something off-camera, one hand raised, the yellow light of the venue catching the curve of your face.

He stared at that picture for an alarming amount of time, until the screen dimmed. And when he realised, he locked the phone and dropped it onto the mattress and turned onto his side, staring at the far wall of his bedroom and understood, with the particular clarity that only comes in the morning in the aftermath of something you can’t take back, that he was in serious trouble.

His chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with wanting and everything to do with recognition.

Sleep never properly returned after that.

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ────

⤷ ᴊᴜɴɢᴋᴏᴏᴋ'ꜱ ᴘᴏᴠ ⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆

I was back in the gym by 6AM the next morning like the night before hadn’t been a tug of war in my mind, like I hadn’t lain awake until sunrise with my phone face down beside me and my own ceiling for company. I ran four kilometres more than my usual, weirdly I didn’t notice until I checked the treadmill display and even then didn’t stop untill I almost blacked out from the ferocious running. I reminded myself that a company wouldn’t run with wobbly legs, not when I had a brand new launch to finalise.

I cursed out loud as I remembered that two brand deals sat in my inbox, waiting for my confirmation.

If it wasn’t for Gwanshik’s voice mail I would’ve missed today’s meeting. The table had samples spread across it, matte boards, fabric swatches, digital mockups cycling on the screen at the front of the room. My creative director was talking through the options with the specific enthusiasm of someone who had prepared extensively and expected me to share it. I had already decided on a brown palette long before this launch was finalized. It was grounded, masculine, and fit the brand perfectly, everything I’d argued for in those preliminary meetings two weeks ago. And then I glanced over the blue samples in the corner of the spread.

“I want to revisit the colour direction.”

“The palette?”

“The blue samples.” He tapped a finger against the corner of the spread. “Have the team build a few concepts around those instead. I’d like to see what we can do with them.”

My creative director paused mid-sentence.

“Sorry?”

“Blue is more eye-soothing.” I tapped the sample board once without looking up. “Let’s go with the blue colour palette.”

A brief silence settled over the table.

“Sir,” Mister Gong began carefully, “we already started the process after you approved the brown palette last week.”

“I changed my mind, Mister Gong,” I stated simply.

He stared at me for a minute.

“You spent two weeks convincing everyone brown was the right direction.”

“And now I think blue is.”

His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. For a second, he looked like he wanted to launch the sample board at my head. Instead, he forced a tight smile and gave a short nod.

“Understood.”

I stared at the sample for another second before looking back at my laptop. I wasn’t even particularly fond of blue, but lately, it was starting to look like a pretty colour.

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ────

The first week passed by.

I religiously contributed to my work.

I ate at reasonable hours and slept at unreasonable ones.

I checked my phone a deeply unnecessary number of times per day.

From KakaoTalk to Instagram then back to KakaoTalk.

The conversation thread between us sitting there exactly as I had left it, my last message, a week old now, still unanswered, the small indicator beside it telling me absolutely nothing useful.

My notifications filled with everyone on this damn earth except the one person I needed answers from.

By the second week, I had expected something, anything. Instead, I found myself staring at the same message I’d sent days ago.

You reached home? On delivered.

It was a weak excuse for a conversation starter, embarrassingly so, but it had been the only reason I could think of to text her. Now it just sat there, unanswered, mocking me every time I opened the chat.

My KakaoTalk had forty three unread messages by Friday.I had read exactly one of them.

Everyone texted me, my business partner, my gym trainer, my brother, my mother, and even separate brand reps.

Everytime the phone would buzz my stomach would do something humiliating twist before my eyes even reached the screen and then it would be anyone.

Anyone at all.

By the time the third week rolled around I had lost my ability to sleep.

First it was just later at night, one, then two, then three in the morning staring at the plain ceiling of my apartment and my brain refusing to downshift into anything useful.

I started going to the gym at 4:00 AM instead of 6:00 AM. The punching bag took the brunt of my frustration all week. By the end of it, even my trainer had started calling me out.

At some point during the fourth week.

The shower had become a problem.

I had always been disciplined about that kind of thing. For years, desire had been nothing more than pressure and distance, a vague humming in the background of my life that I could easily tune out. But lately, the discipline had fractured.

Now, I would stand there in the rising steam, closing my eyes to find peace, only for the specificity to arrive without invitation. It wasn’t vague neither was it abstract. It was her, particularly and precisely. In vivid details that my waking mind had not consciously constructed, but that my sleeping mind had apparently been building for weeks, she would appear. I could almost feel the ghost of her touch on my skin, the imagined scent of her hair mixing with the humidity of the bathroom. I would snap my eyes open and stare hard at the white tile, breathing through the rush of heat in my gut, trying to think about literally anything else. Brand campaigns or something as irrelevant as supplement formulations.

I would cling to those mundane thoughts like a lifeline.

It worked for approximately five seconds.

Then, the image of me and her in those dreams would flood back in, leaving me breathless and aching in the silence of the room.

I had started taking colder showers, hoping the shock of the ice water would kill the fire in my blood.

But that didn’t work either. They were just colder, and as I stood there shivering, the mental image of her warmth only became more intoxicating.

I had spent the entire month fighting a war against my own mind, trying to freeze out a hunger that was only growing stronger.

On the fifth week I had drafted texts that I was never gonna send.

Hey. Delete.

I’ve been thinking— Delete.

Are you— Delete.

Never mind. Delete.

The delete button and I had become intimately acquainted over the past month. I would type something, stare at it for a moment, and promptly decide it revealed too much or the wrong thing or something I hadn’t yet decided whether I was ready to even admit myself, and then I’d delete it and put the phone down and last approximately less than a hour before the cycle restarted.

I made up my mind on the sixth week.

I was going to call her, because she obviously wouldn’t.

That was it.

I had arrived at it the way you arrive at something after fighting it for six weeks, not gracefully, not with any of the composure I would’ve preferred, but with the particular surrender of a man who had simply run out of other options.I was going to call her and sound normal and it was going to be fine because I was a normal person having a normal phone call.

I sat in my office chair for eleven minutes after making this decision without calling.

The sky outside my window had gone the heavy grey-green colour it went before rain.

The city below moved in its usual indifferent way. My phone sat on the desk in front of me.

My hands sat beside the phone.

I picked it up.

Put it down then picked it up again.

My thumb hovered over her contact.

You are a grown man.

Call her.

A voice in my head yelled.

I pressed dial before I could talk myself out of it a fourth time.

The line connected.

Rang. One.

I straightened slightly in the chair.

Two. Three.

My thumb pressed unnecessarily hard against the phone like applying more pressure would somehow make her answer faster.

Four. Five.

My knee started moving under the desk.

I stopped it.

It started again.

Six. Seven. Eight.

Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.

Nine. Ten.

The line went to voicemail.

Her honeyed voice, asking me to leave a message.

I hung up with a frown.

I couldn’t have articulated a single thing I would’ve said if she had answered anyway.

I sat there with the dead call still glowing on my screen while the city outside turned darker beneath the storm clouds gathering over Seoul. The first sounds of rain finally started hitting against the windows behind me in soft scattered taps .And somehow that sound pissed me off more.

I slammed the phone against the desk harder than I intended before leaning back into my chair and dragging a hand over my face tiredly.

Goddamnit!

I was a grown functioning adult!

Not some teenager crashing out because the popular girl didn’t answer his call.

Yet somehow that wasn’t far from the truth.

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ────

He left the office around 8:30 PM.

The building lobby was quiet at that hour, the security officer nodded at him as he passed while the automatic doors slid open, letting in the delightful smell of rain. He headed toward the underground parking and swung a leg over his motorcycle, the metal still faintly warm beneath his hands from sitting indoors all day. The engine rumbled alive underneath him a second later as he pulled out onto the main road.

His office sat obnoxiously far from his house because the land he had originally wanted, the perfect location barely fifteen minutes from his place had already been bought out by some old investor before he could secure it. He remembered being irrationally pissed about it for weeks when eventually he had no choice but to settle for the current building instead, it wasn’t that bad except by the time work ended, he was usually exhausted out of his fucking mind.

That’s the only downside.

The city blurred around him as he rode through it, headlights smearing against wet asphalt, neon signs reflecting across puddles, traffic slowed near the overpass and he eased the bike to a stop alongside the line of cars, gloved fingers tapping once against the handle absentmindedly.

Cold wind pushed against his helmet while rows of red brake lights stretched endlessly ahead of him, reflecting across the wet asphalt in long distorted streaks. With the current situation he already knew his apartment was still another thirty six minutes away at best. His shoulders ached, while his mind crowded with restless thoughts, and in that moment, all he wanted was the serenity of his home, to collapse onto his bed, watch anime or some Netflix show and sit alone in silence for the rest of the night drinking whiskey to let loose, even though that silence had started feeling a little too lonely, lately. Traffic had slowed to an unbearable crawl near the overpass by the time his phone buzzed inside his jacket pocket. And his chest reacted before his brain did. That same sharp pathetic leap happened instantly, violent enough that he was genuinely beginning to get irritated at himself for it. He pulled the phone out quickly, already looking at the screen before the name fully registered.

Only to sigh once he heard the voice.

What was he expecting in the first place?

It was his younger brother, Jinu.

“What.” Jungkook answered listlessly.

“YO BROO!!” his brother’s voice blasted through enthusiastically, loud enough that Jungkook had to pull the phone slightly away to protect his eardrum. “Mom and Dad aren’t coming home tonight, come over right now, let’s order some food and play Xbox later.” Jungkook snorted quietly, eyes still fixed on the endless line of cars ahead. “You call me like I’m one of your little friends .”

“You are too old for that, unc.”

Jungkook rolled his eyes then playfully stating. “Alright then, I’m hanging up.”

“Okay wait, wait—” He could practically hear Jinu panicking through the phone. “Where are you right now?”He glanced briefly at the overhead signs before answering flatly, “Already passed Goyang like twenty minutes ago.”

“The traffic’s fucking endless,” he grunted, pissed beyond.

“See this is what happens when you decide to build offices on the other side of the country.”

“The land near my house was already bought,” he muttered tiredly. “I didn’t exactly have options.”

“I called since you’re usually done with work around this time.” Jinu explained.

Jungkook sighed quietly, slowing the motorcycle slightly as the line of cars ahead stopped once again. “Why? What happened to your friends? Tell them to sleep over.”

“Nah, Yoojun’s out with his girlfriend,” Jinu said dismissively. “And Kinseom’s busy crying over his midterms or something.” Jungkook hummed absentmindedly at that. “Knowing you, you’re not cooking anything, order some good stuff, not that cheap ramen you always eat and then cry about your diarrhoea, I’m sending you money.”

“See? This is why you’re my favorite sibling.”

“You only have one.”

“Shut up.” A faint laugh almost left Jungkook before Jinu spoke again.

“Also…can you send a bit more than $200? I only have $160 right now, and I need to order for three people.”

Jungkook’s brows furrowed slightly beneath the helmet. “You got company at home?”

“Mm.”

“Who?” Jungkook queried.

There was rustling on Jinu’s side, voices moving faintly somewhere behind him before he spoke again, completely unaware of the effect his next words were about to have on his poor brother.

“____ and Samuel are here.”

Jungkook’s grip tightened unconsciously around the handle.

Jinu kept talking absentmindedly. “Minha aunty sent over kimchi and those pickled radishes you like, so they came by to drop it off and I may or may not have hold them hostage.”

Jungkook’s expression stayed completely blank.

“Oh,” he answered in an even tone, a little too even.

“Yeah,” Jinu continued. “Me and Samuel are watching football, and I didn’t want ____ to feel left out, so I figured I’d call you to keep her company.”

“How long are they staying?”

The question left his mouth before he could stop it.

Jinu paused briefly this time, as if he noticed the shift in his brother’s voice. “I dunno…” he wondered slowly. “They literally just got here.”

Jungkook’s pulse stumbled for a second. “Hello? The signal’s bad, can you hear me? Hyung?” Jinu yelled before the line went off.

Before his brain fully caught up, the traffic ahead loosened slightly and he abruptly twisted the handle hard enough for the motorcycle to surge forward between lanes, then cut across and made a sharp U-turn.

A car honked instantly.

Some irritated old man shouted a curse at him from somewhere behind.

He barely heard it.

It happened on a random Saturday.

Every year, your mother made a huge batch of kimchi, spending nearly a full week preparing enough to last the year. As always, she carefully set aside portions for your aunts, your grandmother, and her closest friends. This year was no different.

She had practically begged you to accompany Samuel because his only condition to your mother was that he wasn’t going alone. So eventually you were bound to tag along, because apparently, that little shit had told her he felt “awkward” showing up by himself and would only go if you came too as if he hasn’t known them since he was diaper years old.

The Jeon residence looked even more beautiful at night, especially beneath the rain. It didn’t feel like one of those aggressively modern mansions built only to show off wealth. Instead, stepping through the gates felt strangely nostalgic, like walking straight into a warm 90s Japanese home from an old film.

The interior was breathtaking.

Rich oak floors creaked softly beneath your shoes while warm ambient lighting cast honey-colored shadows across the walls. Wooden beams stretched across the ceiling, large indoor plants occupied nearly every corner, and low furniture sat scattered around the living room beside stacked books, ceramic vases, framed paintings, and old vinyl records displayed elegantly.

Even the rain tapping softly against the windows somehow made it feel warmer.

Objectively, you loved it.

It reminded you of being little again, standing awkwardly beside your mother while Minha Aunty hosted dinners here years ago, back when the adults laughed loudly over tea and dinner spread while you and the boys ran around the house without care. That specific memory hit you unexpectedly as you stood there now years later, dripping rainwater onto the entrance floor while the familiar warmth of the house wrapped around you all over again. And for a fleeting second, you caught yourself thinking that one day, when you finally built a life of your own, you wanted a home that looked exactly like this, but the thing about homes were that they went beyond the exterior and decor.

By the time you and Samuel entered at the Jeon residence it had only been a little past 9:40, only to find out Hanmi Aunty had gone over to her nephew’s house and wouldn’t be back till late. Jinu, despite being two years older than you, had always been one of your easier friends to be around, you wouldn't exactly say you and Jinu were close in a way 'we're each others ride or die' type of way but more in a 'I'm always cheering for you, from far away.’ type of way. He is intellectual, quick-witted, surprisingly mature when it came to business despite his unserious personality. You honestly would’ve dropped the kimchi off and left Samuel with him before heading home yourself, but Jinu kept dragging you back into conversations about startups, investments, branding strategies, wanting advice because he apparently had been wanting to start his own business too.

When he casually mentioned Jungkook a few times throughout the evening, it took genuine effort to keep your face neutral.

You, Jinu, and Samuel were currently sprawled across the couch in the living room.

The rain had finally eased to a drizzle, pattering softly against the windowpane.

You were still reeling from that night at the gathering party.

The memory of his eyes, heavy lidded and intense, his strong gaze… the way he had held you, kissed you, the way he looked like a sad little kicked puppy once you retreated.

You couldn’t deny the strange sense of rush you felt after that night.. But you also could not act like he hadn’t consumed your mind ever since.

It was even worse than the dreams.

Then it was only imaginary. Now, the reality of what you had initiated gripped you.

Now you knew.

Now you knew the way his breathing had changed against your mouth, the way his body reacted to your touch, the way he looked at you when he stopped thinking and simply felt.

It had wrapped around your mind ever since.

And maybe that was why you took a step back afterwards. Because you had already done the hardest part. You had shown him through a charged glance, a deliberate proximity that he wasn’t just some “older brother” figure in your life. You had broken the socially expected dynamic. You had freed him from that cage, or so you told yourself. That balcony had changed something permanently between you both, and Jungkook had no other option but to admit it. Now, you just wanted to sit back and let him take the remaining few steps. You wanted to take a little time and see if he would risk it, if he would call or make the efforts. Because you knew if you were the one constantly making all the calls, there would be an imbalance, with one falling harder, hurting harder, wanting more while one remained safely undecided.

So you built the wall back up. You took advantage of your busy schedule, your midterms just so you can easily ignore his texts and stare unnecessarily long at his missed call today before locking your phone again.

Truthfully, your heart had leaped the second you recognized his number.

But you ignored it anyway.

A cruel little part of you enjoyed it.

Enjoyed pushing his buttons.

You wanted to push him to his limits.

The apartment was filled with nothing except the noise of the television, Samuel and Jinu yelling every few seconds, and the occasional aroma of kimchi and ramen seasoning lingering from the kitchen while you all still argued over what to order for dinner.

Out of boredom, you picked up your phone and lazily scrolled through your socials instead. Then suddenly in the thick silence—

The doorbell rang.

All three of you looked toward the entrance in unison.

Jinu squinted at the door. Two rings, close together, impatient. He unfolded himself from the floor with a groan and padded toward the entrance, his socked feet quiet on the floor, his broad shoulders blocking the doorway entirely as he pulled it open.

You weren’t looking at first.

“Now, now, now, look who’s where?” Jinu chanted.

Putting your phone aside, you looked in front of you to see Samuel grinning ear to ear, because from where he was sitting he could see who it was. Now you were interested to see who the person was. Then something shifted in Jinu’s posture, a small surprised sound left him, a laugh caught in his throat. And your eyes moved before you told them to. Jinu’s back was still blocking most of the doorway. And then he stepped aside. You felt the surprise move across your face before you could catch it. Jungkook stood at the threshold, rain damp and breathing slightly harder than usual, like he had ran a marathon before getting here, his hair was wet, dark strands pushed back from his forehead, the white t-shirt clung to him, rain-soaked at the shoulders, the fabric pulling taut across his chest and abdomen. A black motorcycle helmet was cradled between his arm and his body, tucked against his bicep. His eyes moved across the room. Swept once, nodding ar Sameul happily. And then when they found you, he held your gaze for one long, unhurried moment. Then he stepped inside and set the helmet down by the door.

He reached up and pushed his damp hair back from his forehead with one hand, the movement made the sleeves of his shirt ride up, revealing the lower edges of the intricate tattoos that you knew snaked up his arms before disappearing under the fabric. You tilted your head as you looked at him. While Jinu leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, “I’m wondering why you’re here all of a sudden when you already reached your home.” His eyes were bright with it. “What happened to ‘I’m already near home, call your little friends.’ huh?”

He did a deeply unflattering impression of Jungkook’s lower register that made Samuel snort from the living room floor.

Was Jungkook’s only reply. “Get me a towel.” as he was taking off his shoes.

Jinu finally pushed off the doorframe with a playful scoff and turned back toward the living room with his hands in his hoodie pocket. “How’s it going, hyung?”

Samuel paused the TV and asked. “Good, good.” Jungkook smiled as he moved toward the living room. He rounded the couch, looking for somewhere to sit. His eyes passed over the available space and landed, briefly and inevitably, on the floor beside you before moving away again. Instead, he dropped onto the couch opposite you and leaned back.

Running a hand through his still-damp hair, he barely had time to settle before he jerked in surprise as Jinu threw a towel at him out of nowhere. Jungkook tsked in annoyance while Jinu laughed.

“Dry yourself before you catch a cold.” Jungkook muttered something under his breath and began drying his arms, neck, face, and hair. “The rain got worse, and I realized my house was farther away. The safest option was to just make a U-turn and come here,” he explained simply. Jinu stared at him for a long moment. “Uh-huh.”

“It did get worse. I’m just wondering how we’re gonna leave, noona,” Samuel said worriedly, gesturing toward the rain-streaked window.

You shrugged. “I don’t think it’s stopping anytime soon.”

“Man, I’m gonna get bored out of my mind,” Samuel complained. Jinu stood infront of Sameul with a knowing expression.

“Not a chance. We can play on my PlayStation. It’s been forever since I’ve played.” Jinu boasted.

Samuel immediately sat up like he won the lottery. “Jinu hyung, that’s a great idea.”

The two boys high-fived each other, watching them, it was hard to believe Jinu was almost five years older than her little brother.

“Okay, wait. Let me go set it up then. My bedroom’s right next to the corridor.”

As Jinu got to his feet, Samuel’s attention shifted to the man sitting motionless.

“Jungkook hyung, join us too.”

While he only shook his head, a small apologetic smile appearing on his face. “Next time. I’m too tired today. You two go play.” The younger brothers of the duo disappeared up the corner into the bedroom. For approximately 40 seconds the silence was complete. Then from behind the door, there was an immediate sound of a game starting up.

The living room stayed quiet.

The rain against the windows filled the space between, you kept your eyes on the dark screen of the television that no one had bothered to turn off properly, a screensaver moving slowly across it, and you were aware, acutely, precisely aware of him on the couch to your opposite.

You could feel him looking.

You didn’t turn to confirm it.

You didn’t need to. It was the same way you had always been able to feel it, that specific quality of his attention, the weight of it, except now it had a different texture than it used to.

A few seconds passed.

Then you turned your head and looked directly back at him. He didn’t look away.

This was new. The old Jungkook, the oh so composed, careful, and categorising one would have shifted his gaze by now, redirected smoothly, given them both the exit of plausible deniability. This one just looked back at you with his dark eyes and his still damp hair and that unreadable expression he’d been wearing since he walked through the door, unhurried and completely unashamed about it.

You didn’t shy away either, reeling in the elongated eye contact. Something catastrophic had apparently occurred in the game as Samuel’s voice rose above it in protest. You broke the eye contact first, not from nerves, but deliberately, on your own terms and leaned forward toward the low table. Jinu had left snacks out, a small bowl of strawberries and a generous jar of Nutella sitting beside you like an offering. Your hands moved towards the bowl to pick out the largest strawberry you could find and dipping it leisurely into the Nutella. His eyes had followed your hands without him meaning to, you could see it, the way his gaze had tracked movement and was now zeroed in on your mouth as you brought the strawberry to your lips. You took a slow and easy bite.

Keeping his gaze the entire time like you weren’t clocking every micro-expression moving across his face. You lowered the strawberry from your mouth and then, with a careful, unhurried motion, brought it back up and licked the Nutella clean from the side of it, your eyes sliding back to his as you did it. Ignoring the knot in your stomach you stood up slowly and sauntered towards him. Jungkook’s hands settled tightly on his knees. You stopped in front of his spread legs, too close for the living room of his parents’ house, with his brother twelve feet away behind a door that was very much unlocked. As you leaned down slightly, his eyes dropped without permission, sliding past your neckline to the soft swell of your cleavage. And for some reason, a shiver ran through you.

His gaze lingered for half a second more before dragging itself upward again, back to your face, your eyes and your mouth.

“It’s so good,” you hummed delightfully, holding up the strawberry between your fingers. “Would you like some?” The question was innocent but the smile that accompanied it wasn’t.

There was a small smear of Nutella at the corner of your mouth.You weren’t doing anything. You were just standing there looking down at him with that mischievous expression of yours.

His throat bobbed while he licked his lips.

You held the bitten end of the strawberry out toward him, your slender fingers streaked with Nutella. It dangled above him like a forbidden fruit, your wrist level with his mouth, and for one second he just looked at it.He brought his hand up and losed it over yours. He felt it immediately, the faint tremor running through your fingers beneath his palm, his thumb rested over your knuckles. He took the strawberry into his mouth gradually.

And then, without fully deciding to, let his tongue drag across your index finger where the Nutella had gathered, he watched your face while he did it. You held your breath. The sweet taste lingered on his tongue. He kept his hand over yours for longer than necessary, and in that suspended second, something in him strained against doing something unfathomable right then and there. From your expression, he could tell you weren’t thinking any differently. “I-” he got cut off as the door to Jinu’s bedroom swung open.

“Guys, we’re ordering pizza.” Jinu stood in the doorway, phone in hand, blissfully unaware.

Both pairs of eyes darted toward the doorway while you snatched your hand back, while Jungkook sat up straighter against the couch cushions. Jinu looked between the two of you once with eyes that were perhaps not quite as oblivious as they appeared, then glanced back down at his phone. “Samuel suggested the one with extra, olives, and tandoori chicken from PizzaHi is their bestselling. Anyone have objections?”

“No.” both of you said at the same time.

“Cool, we’re joining you in a minute.” Jinu turned and disappeared back into the hallway, already talking to Samuel, the door swinging halfway shut behind him. The living room exhaled. You moved to the other side of the table without comment, casually eating another strawberry, biting your lips to hold back a smile and putting a socially reasonable amount of distance from him. While Jungkook’s attention snagged on you at the same time…..his pulse did whatever it wanted without his permission.

At the table, it was only Jinu and Samuel talking now, fully absorbed in their games, the two of them going back and forth about PlayStation games, some heated debate about GTA versus God of War that had been ongoing since approximately 2019, Jinu slammed his hand on the table at some point passionately declaring his high scores and kills, something you didn’t fully follow. It felt like there was something looped around your throat all through dinner, some invisible, tightening thing, and underneath all of it was a want so embarrassingly simple it made your jaw clench. It was easier to avoid him then pretend like there’s nothing going between you two.

That is a dangerous thing, the two of you sitting in all that noise and somehow being the stillest points in the room. Your confidence felt slightly misplaced after that, like it had slipped out of your hands without asking.Because you couldn’t stop thinking about earlier.The way his tongue had brushed your finger. You’d built yourself a little rule over the course of the meal: look at Jinu, look at your plate, laugh when Samuel said something, sip your drink slowly. Do not look left. Do not look across. Do not. Let him make the next move. Jungkook murmured something about changing his clothes and left the table before the rest of you, he disappeared down the hallway toward his old bedroom, the one that still had his things in it. You took another bite of your delicious pizza, your eyes fixed on the corridor he disappeared into. You stood up too, offering to help clean, to wash the dishes, anything to move your hands, but Jinu refused “Don’t even think about it,” he declared as if offended, already stacking plates. “You’re my guest.” By the time the table cleared, the rain had stopped. Everything outside looked washed clean and still. “Samie.” You tapped your brother’s chin. “It’s past eleven.”

“Noona.” Samuel caught your hand before you could pull it back, and when you looked at him he had the eyes out. The full ones. The ones he’d been deploying on you since he was seven years old and they still worked, infuriatingly, every single time. “I’m gonna stay over actually. We’ll play games, I’ll go home tomorrow morning.” You shook your head. “AND,” he said, louder, cutting off whatever you were about to say, straightening up like he’d just played his final card, “I already told mom. So

you don’t even have to worry about it.”

“You already—” You stared at him. “When did you—”

And then Jinu’s hand landed on top of you

“Let the poor guy stay, it’s gonna be a fun match.” he said, and his voice had gone a little softer, a little less loud than his usual. “Besides, I know for a fact Jungkook hyung’s gonna disappear sooner or later. Mom and Dad are on vacation, so I’ve got the whole house to myself.” You looked at Jinu then at Samuel, who was still holding your hand and looking at you with a hopeful expression. The argument dissolved somewhere in your chest before it could make it to your mouth, it was unlike him to want to stay over, and you didn’t wanna kill his fun.

“Fine, I’ll uber alone.” you said.

Samuel made a noise like he’d won a championship.

You reached for your purse, the skirt of your black polka-dot midi dress brushing lightly against your legs. Your hair hung loose down your back, the styled front pieces framing your face, with Jinu and Samuel trailing after you toward the entrance.

Jinu held the door open while you crouched down to slip your ballet flats on.

You flashed him a small smile in thanks. As you opened the Uber app, your expression immediately soured. It said ‘No cars available.’

You refreshed once, but it didn’t change anything. It was understandable, considering the weather. The rain had stopped, but the storm had kept most drivers off the road. You leaned back against the doorframe with an annoyed sigh. “What?” Samuel asked, reading your face instantly. “There aren’t any Ubers available.”“Seriously?” Jinu shook his head. “That sucks.”“It’s fine,” you said, already pulling up Maps.

“There’s a bus stop nearby, I’ll just take that.” You hummed. “Are you sure, noona?” Samuel’s voice shifted into that tone, the worried one tgat he pretended he didn’t have. “Yes, of course. I can manage by my—” A deeper voice cut through.

“I’m about to leave too.” You looked up. Jungkook was standing in the doorway now, changed, black tee, fitted, grey trousers, hair dried and falling naturally. His eyes found yours and stayed there. “Can I drop you off?” Jungkook was standing in the doorway now, changed, black tee, fitted, grey trousers, hair dried.

You felt your hands move on their own, sliding behind your back, fingers clasping together. “If it doesn’t bother you too much,” you said, “then yes.” Something softened at the corner of his mouth. “Never a bother.” he said simply. You turned to wave at Jinu and ruffled Samuel’s hair messily and stepped out onto the porch. The wood was damp under your flats.

Jungkook followed, falling into step just behind you, and the door clicked shut at your backs.

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ────

His motorcycle sat at the curb, black and low beneath the glow of the streetlights, the chrome catching flashes of yellow every time a car passed. Without a word, Jungkook silently held the helmet out to you, the visor clicked shut. Jungkook swung a leg over first, settling into place while you stood beside it a second longer, suddenly aware that getting on meant surrendering every last bit of distance the two of you still had between you. You climbed on behind him.

The seat was smaller than you’d expected. Your knees brushed his sides. Your chest nearly against his back. Nowhere for your hands to go except around his waist, so that’s where they went, and the moment your arms wrapped around him you felt his whole body tensing.

His black tee was warm beneath your palms, stretched across the width of his shoulders, and then the engine turned over and the motorcycle hummed alive beneath you both and Jungkook pulled away from the curb and there was nothing to do but hold on.

The city was unusually quiet tonight. Most of the roads were nearly empty, slick from the earlier rain, streetlights reflecting across the asphalt in long ribbons of gold. At first you sat stiffly behind him, then gradually, minute by minute, the tension left your shoulders. The cool wind brushed against your cheeks.

And somewhere between one traffic light and the next, you began to stop cataloguing every point of contact between your body and his. The motorcycle slowed to a stop at a red light. Jungkook’s hands dropped from the throttle briefly, flexing once before settling back onto the handlebars. His forearm brushed against yours, yet neither of you moved away. The light stayed red, the city humming quietly around you.

And without over thinking about it, you rested your chin against his shoulder. For a second you wondered if he would tense. If he would say something. If he would shift away. But he didn’t. When the lights turned green. The engine surged forward. And you stayed exactly where you were, eyes closed, the wind cool against your face, the city coming apart into streaks of light and shadow around you. The familiar streets of your neighborhood appeared slowly, then all at once. The motorcycle slowed, turned, stopped in front of your complex.

The engine went quiet, the sudden stillness felt enormous. His shoulders rose and fell with one slow breath. Your hands were still loosely around his waist, and you were still aware of every point where your body met his.

⤷ THIRD PERSON POV ⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆

She stepped off the bike with a stiffness that felt unnatural, her body betraying her with every shift of weight. She paused, biting down hard on her lower lip, a frantic, unspoken question forming in the silence of her mind.

Say something.

Stop me.

She looked at him, waiting.

But he barely looked at her.

“I’m gonna go then, thanks for the ride.” She muttered. Jungkook’s gaze was fixed forward, his hands gripped the handlebars tightly, so tightly that his knuckles bleached white, tendons straining against the skin. She could see the veins protruding in his neck, thick and pulsing, and his jaw was clenched so tight a muscle jumped rhythmically beneath the skin. He looked like a man holding back a tsunami, or perhaps a man who had simply decided the dam wasn’t worth breaking.

The silence hit her harder than she expected. Because he looked so tense, like there were a hundred things trapped behind his teeth.

And yet he forced himself to stay quiet, and only nodded once.

Fine. If he wants to be adamant then let him be. Her frustration flared up, shielding the bruise forming on her heart. If he didn’t think she was worthy enough to risk it all, if he couldn’t summon the courage to take what was already there, then he wasn’t the guy for her anyway.

Why was she doing this again? Putting all her validation onto him? Dumping it all on him? She vowed to not let herself fall into this loophole again, not after the physical, internal and mental damage she had to endure.

From that day in the balcony till today, she had been the one making the first move. As a woman, she had initiated way too much for a man who couldn’t even bid her goodbye properly. She wouldn’t do it again.

Not ever. That was the determination that gripped her until the door to her house closed.

The lock clicked with finality. She put her forehead on the door.

Leaned against it.

And breathed heavily.

Her knees were wobbly, as if the entire weight of what had happened today was rushing in on her at full force. She was exhausted, from wanting him, from wondering, from waiting for someone else to decide whether she was worth the risk.

The adrenaline crash left her hollow, shaking.

She could feel the wetness pooling between her legs, a heavy, throbbing evidence of her body’s traitorous response. Instinctively her legs clenched together.

Fuck. Just because of a damn bike ride? What was wrong with her? Was she that sexually deprived? Her vibrator worked more than enough. It worked enough to keep her pleased and content for weeks, it was efficient and detached. It didn’t ask questions. It didn’t make her feel vulnerable. It didn’t leave her wondering if she was too much or not enough. But this…This raw, chaotic need for him, for his acknowledgment, was a hunger no machine could satisfy especially after knowing the way his lips felt on her. Her throat felt dry, parched from holding her breath. She pushed off the door, her legs trembling as she started to walk towards her refrigerator.

She’d barely made it to the kitchen and as she grabbed the bottle, twisted the cap—

The doorbell rang. She set the bottle down slowly, brows pulling together.

It had to be Miss Pinky. No one else made sense at this hour. Her neighbor had a sixth sense for her arrivals, always seemed to catch her coming through the front door, she had a habit of surprising her with something wrapped in foil or stacked on a plate, a dessert she’d made too much of, or sometimes a request for one of hers. Miss Pinky was an angelic woman but with a terrible sense of timing.

She smoothed her expression into something presentable as she crossed to the door.

Wearing a smile she swung it open.

The smile dropped instantly because instead of a small, pale, grey haired woman there stood a man with fiery eyes.

Jeon Jungkook was right infront of her door. His chest heaving rapidly, his face damp with sweat, his eyes burning with something she had never quite seen in them before.

“What are you—” “I thought you—” she couldn’t even finish the sentence because he stepped forward. “Sorry,” he said, and his voice was low and unsteady in a way that made her go completely still. “But today — you’ll listen to me, ____.”

She stood frozen in the doorway, caught completely off guard by the sight in front of her.

“I can’t keep doing this.” He said it like it had been sitting at the back of his throat for weeks, like it came out because he simply couldn’t hold it anymore. His eyes were almost feverish

“I’ve spent the past month trying not to think too much about our kiss, thinking it was only a tipsy mistake.” He snickered.

“It didn’t work instead it was all I could think about.” His hand came up and pushed through his hair, gripping it briefly at the root before dropping back to his side. He looked like standing still was taking considerable effort.

“And I’ve realised—” he stopped. Pressed his lips together then he begin again. “I don’t know how to stop.” She said nothing. She was afraid if she made a single sound he’d remember where he was and pull it all back. His eyes didn’t waver from hers. Not once. “I can’t be near you without losing my head a little.” A short exhale left him, almost humorless, like he found himself faintly ridiculous. “And I can’t be away from you without it being worse.”

Silence pressed in before he spoke again.

“I’d be lying if I said I still think of you the way I used to.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what to do with that. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with that for five weeks.” And here she drowned in doubts, thinking he was just continuing with his life, wondering that he probably despised her, or was absolutely terrified by their kiss, and she forcefully convinced her conscience that it was for ‘the better’ but hearing his side of the story, changed the whole story. “I’m not asking you for anything you don’t want, neither am I gonna push you to reciprocate to me or do anything you’re uncomfortable with.” His voice dipped, the feverish edge giving way to something quieter and almost fragile underneath. “But also I keep fearing if something happens between us the next time, I won’t be able to hold back, and might end up pushing you far away.”

She opened her mouth but nothing came out except for air. He kept going. Like he couldn’t stop now, like the dam had broken and there was no use in holding back. “I know you’re probably regretting it.” He took an unsteady breath. “I’m way older, I probably look insane right now, showing up here like this, I probably come across as some creepy guy who doesn’t know when to take a hint.” he explained, his eyes moved over her face briefly, almost pained. “And you’re so beautiful, ____.” The words escaped him before he could stop them. “You probably have a lot of options. Guys your age lining up to take you out on dates and—” He shook his head.

“You probably think I’m some cheap, lustful guy who got the wrong idea and is now becoming desperate. He laughed once, humorlessly, dragging a hand across his face.

“Can you please just tell me what to do?” His voice cracked slightly on the last word. “Because I can’t keep doing this.” His eyes don’t fully meet hers; they land near her shoulder, then slip away “Please.”

A faint tremor in his fingers when he tries to keep them still “Tell me to leave and I will.” His voice flattens slightly, as if he’s trying to detach from what he’s saying

“Tell me you don’t want this and I’ll disappear.” His gaze drops again, longer this time, avoiding her entirely “You won’t have to see my fa—.” Before he could finish that sentence, She grabbed him by the collar, both hands twisting into his shirt, pulling him down to her, pressing her mouth to his and cutting off every last word still trying to crawl out of him. Jungkook went completely still, definitely not because he didn’t want it, but because he couldn’t quite believe it.

His forehead creased.

He stayed still for another minute, his lips pliant against her moving ones. Then not being able to take it anymore, he kissed her back. His hand found her jaw carefully, like he still wasn’t entirely convinced she was real, and she felt him exhale against her mouth, a shaky, disbelieving sound that made something inside her chest ache. And then something in him just collapsed. His hands came up to wrap around her waist, urgent and unsteady, and he kissed her back with everything he’d spent five weeks swallowing down.

Every fucking bit of it. Every looked away glance, every room he’d quietly left, every time he held back, every night he’d stared at the ceiling trying to think about literally anything else. The tension that had been simmering between them for days finally snapped, exploding into a kiss that felt less like a greeting and more like a collision. It was desperate and hungry, their mouths colliding with a force that left them both breathless.

With a low, guttural groan, he guided her backward, his movements urgent yet focused, until her back hit the wall with a dull thud. The impact sent a nearby vase sliding off a side table, shattering on the floor in a spray of porcelain and water, but neither of them gave a fuck. The sound was nothing compared to the roar of blood in their ears.

It wasn't a gentle kiss at all, that kiss on the balcony was a child’s play. He devoured her, his lips bruising hers with a desperate, starving force. His tongue forced its way inside, sweeping through her mouth with a greedy hunger, tangling with hers in a wet, frantic dance. He tasted her. the sweet, heady flavor of her mouth and the sound he made was a deep, needy moan that vibrated against her lips. He sucked on her tongue, pulling it into his mouth as if he were trying to drink her dry, their saliva slicking their lips as they breathed each other's air in ragged, desperate gasps.

Jungkook paused for a second, breaking the kiss just enough to press his forehead against hers. His dark eyes were blown wide, searching hers with a look of absolute, shimmering hunger. He watched her pupils dilate and her lips part, wet, swollen, and glistening, his eyes moved over her face, studying her reaction as if he were memorizing every inch of her pleasure.

Then, his hands moved.

He slid them down her body, his palms searing through the thin fabric of her clothes, leaving trails of fire in their wake. He didn't stop until he reached her bare thighs, he captured the tender skin in a firm grip. He hooked his hands under her, lifting her legs and hauling her hips flush against him.

wiwi's note can wait! it was getting a little hot in there aye ;) i had to take a moment for myself cause i was suddenly missing my nonexistent boyfriend.

besties its finally here! THANK YOU FOR BEING SO PATIENT OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE ITS FINALLY HERE and i was able to make it through, i know it’s a little imperfect and there will be a little typos but I’ll edit it later again. PLEASE none of you dare leave without a reblog, a comment and a reaction photo! so much more is on the way! i can't wait to post part five.

[junkookloverinfinity]

Ok so I had to give my opinions and omg I’m not lying BEST FF I HAVE EVER READ ,luv luv luv how they went from yn hating him at the beginning of the chapter to eating eo at the end and like it wasn’t fast paced at all ,everything that needed to happen in this chapter happened and what else can I say than it was perfection,I honestly loved the 3 pov’s like it really gave depth and allowed me to see y/n and junkook from all possible angles ,lowkey junkook should treat her as the princesss she is in the next chapter ,I love you so much wiwi thank you for this amazing surprise this day couldn’t have been better I promise to read this story again more than 20x I need it permanently engraved in my bones

How I zoomed when I first saw you posted wowy pt4

My reaction during the entire chapter like that was ART

How the smut got me reactin

FINALLY I LOVE YOU WIWI WILL BE WAITING EAGERLY FOR PART 5 ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️💜💜💜💜💜💕💕💕💕💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💋💋💋💋

[bighitfics]

WITH OR WITHOUT YOU ── 004, JJK.

summary: “your boyfriend has been worried sick,” the nurse explained warmly. “he’s been pacing back and forth through the corridor this entire time. I think he asked me the same question at least twenty times.” she let out a small amused laugh while adjusting the blanket over me slightly. “I had to reassure the poor guy over and over that I was here with you before he finally agreed to grab a sandwich from the café downstairs. It’s almost midnight now, after all.”

genre : slow burn, childhood acquaintances to lovers, angst, smut, mutual pining, age-gap.

pairing : older jungkook x younger female oc.

warning : oc our self deprication final boss but she finally stands on business, yearner jungkook, SO MUCH TENSION, (he’s just going crazy atp), bro graduated from bridgerton yearning school, triple the tension from part two, three and throw it in part four, explicit content (making out, neck kisses, they're both TOUCH starved, vague wet dreams) feral jungkook, seducing.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

The sound reached me before anything else.

For another minute, there was nothing but faint shuffling somewhere nearby, the noise blending into the heavy brume clouding my mind. Gradually, my hazy consciousness began catching up to the unfamiliar chemical like scent lingering in the air.

I exhaled weakly, my entire body feeling unbearably heavy, like two mattresses had been dumped over me, pressing me deeper into exhaustion.

I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids refused to cooperate.

After a few seconds, I forced them open anyway, immediately hissing at the blinding white lights above me.

That was when I felt it.

The faint sensation of something cold and wet against my hand.

Then a pressure around my knuckles.

I tried to move instinctively, but even lifting my arm felt impossibly difficult. A groan escaped my lips as a sharp sting pulsed through my vein.

Fuck, what was happening to me?

It's way too chilly.

Why do my eyes burn so badly?

Why is it so tough to open my eyes?

My thoughts burst out in frenzied panic, I was alarmed yet I couldn't even act on it.

I slowly turned my head to the side, squinting slightly, and as my eyes gradually adjusted to the harsh brightness, a woman came into view.

She wore a nurse uniform, and though a little slow I could finally process the state I was in.

She was carefully tearing open a bandage before placing it over the cannula attached to my hand. The pain wasn't excruciating but it wasn't faint either.

“Please don’t open your palm completely, keep your hand in a loose fist,” her husky voice advised gently, showing me a small visual demonstration with her own hand, a practiced smile resting on her small face.

“I was getting worried because you’d been unconscious for more than five hours now. Your blood pressure dropped to forty, and you had a pretty severe case of dehydration. You might also want to get checked for jaundice later,” she explained slowly, adjusting the IV line slightly. “It’s become really common lately because of the insane humid weather, but thankfully you were brought here just on time, so there’s no need to worry. You’ll be perfectly fine.”

She spoke gently, probably trying to reassure me, while I could only offer her a tight, forced smile in return.

Yesterday’s events flashed through my head in a blur. I remembered feeling heavy headed the entire day, but I brushed it off, thinking it was just another migraine caused by my horrible sleeping schedule. We had seventeen bridal dress orders lined up, and the entire day had been chaos from the very beginning.

Running between tailors, matching fabrics, comparing different shades of white under proper lighting because apparently ivory and soft ivory were two completely different things to brides, reviewing pearl detailing, checking lace samples, making sure the embroidery placements aligned perfectly with the designs I had sketched out earlier, and on top of that, I had to repeatedly explain every tiny detail to the tailors like the fitting, the corset structure, the sleeves, the beadwork, because one small mistake could ruin an entire dress.

Not to mention dealing with customers.

One bride wanted softer lace.

Another changed her neckline design three times. 

Someone else suddenly decided she hated floral embroidery after approving it two weeks ago. 

I was so consumed with work that I barely noticed how unbearable the headache had become. 

I even skipped lunch.

By the time I got home, my entire body felt weak and painfully drained mostly mentally.

I barely managed to change into my night pajamas before the hunger hit me all at once, so painfully intense it felt like my own stomach was about to consume itself.

But the second I stood up, my head spun violently.

I remember stumbling slightly before collapsing right back down on my couch, my body started burning feverishly hot while my head pounded so badly it felt unbearable.

My thoughts paused briefly before another memory flashed through my mind.

I saw a car.

I could faintly remember a tattooed hand cupping my chin gently.

And worry filled eyes.

Jungkook. 

Somehow, he was the last thing my mind held onto before everything went dark.

I inhaled sharply.

But… how was that even possible?

My apartment door had been locked.

Only my family knew the password.

Confusion slowly crept deeper into my chest as I stared blankly ahead.

I had way too many questions.

“Nurse, who br—” My voice cracked midway through the sentence before I could even finish properly.

I immediately looked away, clearing my throat in embarrassment at how painfully dry it sounded.

The kind woman softened instantly.

She bent down toward the small stroller beside her, pulling out a bottle of orange juice before carefully placing the straw inside. Then she held it up toward me.

I drank without hesitation.

My eyes fluttered shut the second the cold, sweet sour liquid hit my tongue, soothing the unbearable dryness in my throat almost instantly.

I ended up finishing the entire thing within seconds.

God bless this angel of a nurse. 

“What were you saying?” she asked politely, tossing the empty juice can into the dustbin nearby.

“Wh-who’s here with me?” I asked quietly, hating how weak my voice still sounded, silently wishing the last memory I had before losing consciousness had just been another one of my longterm delusions.

The nurse’s smile widened softly as she tucked an annoyingly loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Your boyfriend has been worried sick,” she said warmly. “He’s been pacing back and forth through the corridor this entire time. I think he asked me the same question at least twenty times.” She let out a small amused laugh while adjusting the blanket over me slightly. “I had to reassure the poor guy over and over that I was here with you before he finally agreed to grab a sandwich from the café downstairs. It’s almost midnight now, after all.”

Wait… did she just say boyfriend?!

I exhaled heavily, so it really was him.

I blinked at the nurse in confusion, utterly baffled as to what exactly gave off that impression between us.

I could only let out a chuckle mockingly, shaking my head. Even the idea of it was bizzare now because it’s never going to happen.

“He’s not my...” 

Ironically, the door opened right as the word “…boyfriend” left my mouth in the quietest mutter possible. It seemed like she didn’t hear me, too busy scribbling something down on the report card clipped to her clipboard.

I heard his footsteps before I saw him.

With his ebony hair grown a little longer than I remembered, falling slightly into his eyes, Jeon Jungkook stood at the doorstep frozen for a second, those stupidly expressive eyes widening the moment they landed on me, like relief and disbelief hit him at the same time. 

He strode inside in all his glory while I fidgeted with my fingers, swiftly looking away before his eyes could meet mine. Instead, I stared aimlessly outside the large glass window. 

The nurse cleared her throat, excusing herself but not before saying, “You should be relieved, Mister Jeon. She’s awake and doing well, but make sure she doesn’t eat anything fried or spicy within the next twenty four hours.” she instructed firmly. 

Rather than being worried of my critical condition, I was more distressed with the idea of the nurse declaring me as his girlfriend.

Thankfully the angels from heaven were on my side today.

I think I would’ve died on the spot from pure cringe if she had.

“Noted. Thank you for taking care of my friend, Daniela,” he replied appreciatively.

Keeping my head turned away, deliberately ignoring his presence, I looked straight at Daniela instead, feeling his eyes on the side of my face. “How long will this take?” I asked impatiently.

“It should take around 4 to 5 hours maximum. If you need to use the restroom, just ring this bell. If I’m nearby or any other nurse on patrol, we’ll help you.” The nurse gestured towards the small bell placed beside the bed before turning towards Jungkook. “And if none of us are around, Mister Jeon can take you. Just be careful with your injected hand, and the IV fluid attached to the stand.”

“Sure, thanks once again.” She nodded and left, while I leaned back into the pillow with a huff.

So I have to be in this room with him for like… what, five hours?

What in oblivion is this.

Not my mom, nor the aunty who comes to clean my house every week, but I wake up to see Jungkook out of all these people randomly appear like some kind of guardian angel.

Whoever sent him, may their side of the pillow never stay cold.

I closed my eyes, trying to steady the chaos in my head, trying to make sense of everything still buzzing under my skin.

But then there was barely there thud beside my bed. Then a few soft shuffling noises. I opened my eyes slowly. And I already knew before I even looked that he sat beside me on a stool. After a few anxious moments of self-inflicting, the urge and curiosity to know got the better of me.

“How did you even get to me?” I queried, my gaze flickering up to him, almost accusatory. 

He stared at me with a slightly perplexed expression.

The bright hospital light reflected against his tan skin, almost creating a faint golden outline around him. If I wasn’t so uncomfortable and starving, I probably would’ve kept staring longer than necessary, just thinking about how devastatingly good he looked even right now.

“That…” He blinked a few times before rubbing the back of his neck. “Minha Aunty called me while I was on the way to work.” He paused briefly before continuing again, almost rambling now. “She sounded really panicked and said you weren’t answering her calls since morning, and I don’t know, I just…” He exhaled quietly through his nose, shaking his head. “I got so worried.”

“She’s probably panicking now that I’m in the hospital, she does know, right?”

“Of course, I informed her the moment we came in here.”

 I nodded slowly pinching the bridge of my nose, yes you were here and it was the issue, Jungkook.

The molten embarrassment from earlier had barely begun settling when another wave of discomfort crashed over me.

“My phone…” I muttered with a groan, sinking deeper into the pillow. “Ugh, it’s back home.”

“Why? Do you wanna talk to Minha Aunty?” he asked immediately, already reaching into his pocket before I could even answer. “Here, use mine.”

My eyes unwillingly dropped to his tattooed hand as he pulled out his navy blue iPhone and handed it over to me.

God.

Even his hands looked annoyingly attractive. I took the phone carefully, avoiding brushing my fingers against his. The last thing I needed right now was another reason for my brain to malfunction.

The call connected after a few rings.

I expected my panicking mother, dramatically crying when she heard my voice.

Instead I got—

“Do you even understand how irresponsible you are?” my mother’s voice erupted through the speaker so loudly I nearly flinched. “No proper sleep schedule, barely eating vegetables, surviving on coffee and instant noodles like some raccoon living behind a convenience store, what exactly did you think was going to happen?”

I immediately lowered the volume, mortification creeping up my neck.

The last thing I needed was for him to hear this.

I peeked up briefly.

Jungkook pretended not to listen dusting the nonexistent dirt from his pants, but the slight twitch near his mouth told me he definitely heard at least half of it.

How wonderful!

“Oh god…” I sighed tiredly, rubbing my forehead. “Can you not start right now?”

“No, because this is the time! Do you see how your body is literally giving up on you, ____!?”

I let her ramble. Because truthfully, part of me deserved it. No maybe all of me did.

Still, being lectured like a child in front of Jungkook felt like psychological warfare. I stared blankly at the IV bag hanging beside me while she continued listing every bad habit I’d accumulated over the years.

Then suddenly in the midst of her venting an idea hit me.

“Ma, can you call Mari?” I interrupted quickly. “Tell her to come stay here for the night, I’m sure Jungkook is tired and should go back home.”

I didn’t look at him immediately, but I felt it. 

That tiny shift in his movements, because from my peripheral vision I could see his hands clasping together.

“She was actually the first person I called,” my mother replied. “She didn’t pick up.”

“What? Call her again then,” I huffed. “Or text her. Tell her to come.”

“She’ll just go to your house in the morning when you’re discharged,” my mother said. “It’s already one in the morning. Besides…” she paused briefly. “Jungkookie is already there, it’s best he stays with you.”

My body went rigid instantly, I tightened my hold on the phone trying to control the frustration surging out of me.

Something faint flickered across his face for half a second. It wasn’t anger, not exactly, but something close to displeasure.

“…Okay, I’ll call you later.” I muttered under my breath with a huff.

Great!

 There was no way I was surviving five whole hours trapped in a hospital room alone with Jeon Jungkook.

I handed his phone back quietly, avoiding his eyes once again.

As if reading every thought running through my head, he cleared his throat awkwardly. Jungkook slipped his phone back into his pocket before leaning back slightly in the chair beside my bed, exhaustion practically dripping off him now that the panic from earlier had settled. That was when I properly noticed it.

 …The matching gym set from his own company, PrimeForm Studios, clung to him like a second skin, stretching taut across broad shoulders and biceps that looked moments away from bulging through the sleeves. Even exhaustion couldn’t dull how unfairly attractive he looked even in this state. But the slight slump in his posture and the faint shadows beneath his eyes did. These were tiny things no one else would probably notice, yet I did instantly, and my poor, pathetic heart still carrying every leftover feeling for him ached at the sight.

I sat with it for another minute, letting the thought sit heavy in my chest, before I finally leaned forward.

My fingers tightened slightly around the hospital blanket. “Jungkook…” I mumbled.

He immediately looked up at the sound of my voice, almost too quickly. “Yeah?”

“You should leave now.” I proposed. 

He waved his hands dismissively as if I said something foul and just stared at me with a flat expression. 

If I said I wanted him to leave it would be a lie, I wanted him to stay, but I needed a break, a rest, from the thoughts of him, from feeling the hurt when he’s near, him staying here would only make resting harder for me.

Trying to mask the growing restlessness, I tried to reason.

“There are nurses here anyway, and it’s only five hours, I can manage on my own.“

“I’m not leaving you alone in a hospital at one in the morning, ____.”

I exhaled sharply through my nose.

“I’m not a kid, Jungkook.”

His gaze flicked to mine.

“I didn’t say you were. But you literally passed out in your apartment not many hours ago,” he added with conviction.

“And now I’m in a hospital. Clearly, things are under control.” My reply seemed to disturb him because I swear I saw his jaw tightening slightly before easing his expressions into a composed one, but his voice stayed annoyingly calm.

“I mean… it’s Sunday anyway,” he slid in before I could make a comeback. 

“I don’t really have anything urgent tomorrow, so, it’s fine. I want to stay.”

He had that irritating look of quiet satisfaction, like he already knew this was going to end in his favour.

I opened my mouth again, ready to argue—

And before I could, there was a knock at the door.

This time a different nurse stepped in with a tray of food, and I even forgot what I wanted to say, my stomach chose that exact moment to growl loudly, and I acted indifferent to conceal the growing embarrassment, yet I could feel my face heating up like a volcano. Instead of giving me space like a normal human being, he immediately stood up to adjust the tray table closer toward me before I could even move properly.

“I can do it myself,” I grumbled.

Ignoring me entirely, he inserted the straw into the orange juice bottle before placing it carefully beside my plate. “Yeah, I know,” he replied absentmindedly, like my protests barely registered in that thick brain of his anymore.

The nurse placed a pack of tissues on the small table, handed my medicines over to Jungkook, and quietly left the room.

I focused entirely on my food after that.

It was chicken corn soup with warm bread, and honestly, it looked way too appetising for hospital food. Or maybe I was simply too hungry to care either way.

The rich smell alone made my painfully empty stomach twist. Jungkook shifted slightly beside me the moment he noticed my trembling hands wrapping around the spoon.

I had seriously underestimated my condition because even lifting the stupid thing felt like a month’s worth of labor, but obstinately, I tightened my fingers around the cold steel anyway, refusing to let him notice just how weak I actually felt.

“You need help?” he asked cautiously.

“I can eat by myself,” I replied sharply, shooting him a clear don’t even try me look.

His lips pressed together instantly.

Then he nodded once, almost hesitant, and leaned back into the chair again.

But his eyes didn’t stop gazing at me.

I tore a small piece of bread slowly, suddenly hyper-aware of his gaze lingering over every movement I made. 

It wasn’t intense or creepy.

But he was still staring.

And suddenly, my mother’s rage baiting comments echoed inside my head.

Your chewing makes me want to send you to an etiquette class.

Close your mouth when you chew, dear.

Why are you so loud when eating?

I hated how quickly those words crawled back into my brain.

Because after a certain point, once I became too aware of myself, even the food started tasting unpleasant.

Unaware of my inner turmoil, Jungkook kept zoning in on the way I was eating, the way my fingers trembled slightly every now and then, the way I kept readjusting myself because of the stupid cannula attached to my hand.

Could he give me a little break?

Goddamn it.

After a few awkward seconds, I finally glanced up at him with annoyance plastered all over my face.

“…Can you please stop staring?” I said flatly. “I know I look horrible. You don’t have to make it so obvious.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly, almost caught off guard. “You don’t look horrible, not at all.”• he replied softly.

He looked away briefly, his body shaking, clearly trying and failing to stifle a laugh.

“You look like a stoat.” A chuckle managed to escape him afterward.

I blinked at him in disbelief.

Did this man just call me a fucking…..stoat? 

Wasn’t that some kind of a rodent?

Or a damn ferret?

Whatever it was, I was pretty sure it wasn’t a compliment by any means.

Who does he think of himself? As if he was Henry Cavill!

I scoffed under my breath and aggressively tore another piece of bread, silently cursing my mother for calling Jungkook out of all the people living nearby me.

After I finished eating, I had to suffer through him hovering close again.

He gathered my medicines carefully before handing them over one by one, then poured water into a glass and held it out toward me because apparently I was incapable of doing anything myself tonight.

And do you know what’s the worst part?

He was so unbelievably patient about it. When I coughed midway through swallowing the pills, he immediately held the glass closer for me, helping me drink properly, he was so naturally gentle that despite my irritation, something warm and fuzzy kept blooming inside my chest.

He even stepped outside afterward to give me privacy while the nurse helped me use the washroom.

She washed my face gently with cold water, helped fix my tangled hair before loosely braiding it back for me.

By the time I finally settled back into bed, it was already past two in the morning.

I laid down carefully, overly paranoid about the cannula in my hand, before slowly closing my eyes. I wasn’t even sleepy, but my eyes felt unnecessarily heavy.

A few moments later, the door opened and shut again with the faintest thud possible. It was so quiet it felt eerie, because at one point I could only hear my own breath.

I could tell it was him the moment the strong smell of cigarettes hit my nostrils.

Most of the bright hospital lights had been dimmed now, shadows stretching softly across the walls.

I held my breath instinctively when I felt him move closer to the bed. Then the blanket shifted slightly as he carefully pulled it higher over my shoulder, probably noticing how much I kept shivering around because of the cold.

The chair screeched softly against the floor before he sat back down beside me with a tired yawn loud enough for me to hear. A few seconds later, he began humming some unfamiliar tune under his breath before he eventually stopped and sighed. And then the room was swallowed by silence one again. I had no idea how much time passed after that.

Probably minutes, hours or maybe both. I didn’t know how long he stayed awake, or I pretended to be deep in sleep. 

I felt on edge, growing increasingly impatient to open my eyes because the curiosity was genuinely going to murder me.

Until…

I heard soft snores.

I slowly peeked one eye open before carefully opening both.

It was a devastating sight.

Jungkook had somehow fallen asleep on that tiny hospital chair, his giant body barely even fitting into it properly. His head tilted awkwardly to the side, neck bent in a way that would definitely leave him sore in the morning. His arms stayed loosely crossed over his chest, I guess the exhaustion finally won against whatever stubborn determination had kept him awake this whole time. And without even realizing it, the reserved, and indifferent mask I had been forcing onto myself ever since waking up in this hospital bed quietly cracked apart right there. 

I couldn’t stop the smile that slowly took over my face, even though my chest tightened simultaneously.

How could something so soft sting this much?

My eyes burned not long after, tears slowly gathering before I could stop them, finally letting all the suppressed feelings leak out of me.

Throughout the night, I only looked at him.

My eyes never strayed away, silently tracing every inch of his face.

The quiet rise and fall of his chest.

The exhaustion still lingering across his sleeping features.

And the cute little pout his lips formed as soft snores escaped him every now and then.

I wanted to etch this version of him into my memory forever before dawn arrived, and we went back to becoming strangers knotted together only by a forgotten friendship once again. I kept staring or you could say ogling, unable to look away, needing just a little more time because what were the chances of ever seeing him like this again, in the same room as me, so quietly asleep?

Eventually, my own eyes began growing heavier.

And right before sleep fully pulled me under, I could feel something rough but warm wrap gently around my cold IV injected hand, holding it firmly in place, but I had crossed the border to dreamland, yet my subconscious was yet to shut down.

My lips curled slightly before I could stop them and then I finally succumbed to sleep.

═════𑁍ࠬܓ═══════𑁍ࠬܓ═══════𑁍ࠬܓ

The same nurse who gave me food yesterday came in quietly, checking the IV one last time before removing it with careful hands and putting a small bandage over the spot. She helped me change back into the clothes I wore yesterday, wished me a fast recovery, and left shortly after.

I sat there with my bare feet hanging off the bed, realizing I seriously needed to get a pedicure again because my feet looked dull and rough as hell.

Ah fuck. 

I should probably call the nurse.

I obviously didn’t come here on my own feet, and I needed another pair of those hospital cloth slippers anyway because I accidentally soaked the ones they gave me in the washroom earlier. There was a knock on the door before it opened, and Jungkook strolled in shortly after, looking annoyingly awake for someone who barely slept the entire night.

No traces of tiredness from yesterday remained in his eyes.

He stood by the bed with a paper cup of black coffee in his hand, blowing on it lightly before taking a slow sip, as though he had already been awake for hours.

“Oh…there’s another thing.”

He reached into a shopping bag before fishing out a cute pair of polka dot sandals.

…Did he buy those for me?

“Here,” he said, stepping closer. “I bought these sandals for you. I didn’t know if your shoe size was still 36 though, so I got them in size 38 instead.…”

He sounded oddly sheepish toward the end.

Could he stop being so…ugh….so him?

I only sat there stunned before immediately jerking away when he suddenly knelt down in front of me. I gasped softly the moment his warm hands touched my freezing feet.

What was his damn deal? 

“God,” he muttered, mostly to himself at this point. “They’re so cold, did you give your feet an ice bath?”

The ability to speak was genuinely taken away from me. He carefully slipped the sandals onto my feet one by one. They were way bigger than my actual size but I couldn’t deny the fact that him buying those for me without even asking ignited an unnamed feeling inside my chest.

Then he slowly stood back up again, giving me a soft smile that immediately sent my mind into complete disarray. “I spoke to Minha Aunty,” he said. “She told me your friend Mari’s already at your home. Just let me go fetch your reports and then drop you off.” And when I tried to stand up properly, he was already there again, his warm hand firm against my back to steady me. I gulped quietly, trying not to make a big deal out of the mindless, innocent touch when my entire body seemed painfully aware of it.

I was more than stable enough to handle my shit by myself, but that clearly didn’t matter to him because I could tell just from his body language that was annoyingly certain about one thing. He is going to drop me home one way or another and he won’t take no for an answer. So instead of wasting my remaining energy I kept my mouth zipped, though I was certain that my expressions gave away the turmoil inside my head.

Before we left, he didn’t forget to tip the two nurses either. By the wide grins they both gave us, I could already tell he had tipped more than necessary.

And I mentally noted to pay him back all the money.

And somehow despite it being the last thing I wanted, I ended up in Jeon Jungkook’s black Mercedes anyway. 

Because the lesser I resisted, the faster it would get over. In the car it felt too quiet forbthe first few minutes, while I just stared at the passing skyscrapers of shopping malls, arcades, restyling, pastry shops, the plant shops, pharmacies. 

Then it didn’t stay quiet for long.

I could feel him glancing at me in every red light stop. He cleared his throat. “How are you feeling now?” he asked again, like the answer might change in the span of thirty seconds.

I sighed under my breath.

“Way better than yesterday.”

“Are you hungry? Wanna eat something?”

“I’ll be home in a few minutes, I’ll make something later.” Another red light stopped the car.

From the corner of my eye, I watched Jungkook reach behind toward the backseat without saying anything. A faint crease appeared between my brows as he pulled out a neatly packed bibimbap container before handing it over to me. The bibimbap packet lay in lap.

I froze slightly. It was oddly specific. The exact convenience store bibimbap I always bought ever since I was a highschooler. Before I could even process that, he reached behind again and handed me the same orange juice bottle from last night. I tried not to notice how his silver watch rested against the veins of his hand as he passed it to me. Then he pulled out another orange juice to drink it himself. That made me finally turn around fully towards the backseat, and my eyes almost popped out at the view. There were massive shopping bags. A huge fruit basket. And various flavours of oats packet everywhere. Did this man decided that he wants too bless a family of 5 in need? With the amount of grocery sitting in the backseat it looked like he was about to go giveaway free groceries.

“Did you empty the entire grocery store?” I stared at him in disbelief. 

“Don’t exaggerate, It’s not even that much,” he exclaimed casually, eyes still focused on the road now that the signal had turned green again. “I brought these for you.”

I blinked, my mouth agape.

“There are fruits, juices, oats—”

“Jungkook, it is thoughtful of you,” I cut him off. “but I can’t take it.”

He ignored that completely.

I took a look at the backseat again before looking at him.

“…I won’t even be able to eat half of it.”

He didn’t even look embarrassed.

I have the appetite of a gold fish, with only eating meal once a day.

All of this food will only go to waste.

“You have iron deficiency and dehydration,” he replied matter-of-factly. “You need to eat healthy foods.”

“How do you know that I don’t eat healthily?”

That finally made him glance at me briefly.

Like he was seconds away from arguing again.

But I spoke first.

“How much was all of this?”

I saw him tensing slightly. 

“Come on, I only bought a few stuff, not a whole mansion.”

“That’s not the point—”

“Then what is the point?” His voice stayed calm, but I could hear the vexation slipping underneath it. 

“I’ll pay you back right now. It isn’t a simple meal you bought me, if it was, I wouldn’t have even mentioned it. Asan is an expensive hospital,” I stated, the agitation evident in my voice. “And it was a private cabin too. How much did it cost? The IV? All those medicines? Everything! Just tell me the amount so I can pay you back.”

He ran a hand across his jaw and I couldn’t help my eyes from straying to his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

He stayed mute for a second, eyes fixed on the road ahead before he exhaled softly through his nose.

“Why are you acting like this?” he husked, and a  hot, suffocating pressure built in my chest, I glared at him. “Acting like what?”

“You know what I’m trying to say, ____.” From his voice alone I could tell he was trying arduously to keep it neutral.

I shook my head and shot out. “No, I don’t. Can’t you be a little more clear?” 

He slapped his hand roughly against the steering wheel once

“You keep talking to me like we haven’t been friends ever since you were a teenager and I a struggling first year uni student juggling two part time jobs.” That one sentence hit so hard it almost knocked the air out of my lungs.

But I refused to let it show through my expressions, because we weren’t friends anymore, we haven’t been for a long time.

I kept staring outside the window with my arms crossed tight, like it would stop the loud pounding of my heart.

What else was I supposed to do?

I couldn’t act like I didn’t completely humiliate myself infront of him, like he didn’t date another woman while I sat there grieving a one sided relationship he never partook in. I would be a hypocrite if I blame him for not feeling the same way, because how could one reciprocate a love that had never been professed before?

Yet I couldn’t stop myself from hurting and feeling two-timed. Was it casual when he sent me letters while he was serving in the military? Was it casual when he transferred his military salary to me for four straight months even when I kept begging him to stop? Was it casual when a cake arrived on my 21st birthday with no explanation? Was it casual when he carved out his limited time to call me, to check on me, like I was still part of his world even when he barely had one of his own in the military? Was it casual when he said he thought of me during his hardest days, when he was scared during missions our funny memories gave him peace? 

Did he do that for just anyone?

And if not…

Then what was I to him?

I think it was my conscience’s fault for still longing for him fully knowing he was committed to another woman.

He didn’t say anything else after seeing my lack of response.

The engine lowered into a quiet hum before fading completely, leaving only the distant sound of morning traffic and birds somewhere near the trees. The car rolled slowly into a side lane beside a small park, my apartment complex stood just a short one minute walk away.

“These days I don’t really understand you,” he said finally.

I stayed silent wanting to know what he has to say.

“What?”

But his eyes didn’t meet mine.

But his eyes didn’t meet mine.

They stayed forward, fixed on nothing in particular through the windshield, like looking at me directly would make whatever he was feeling harder to contain.

“First you send a text, then you delete it before I have the chance to see it,” he said, quieter this time.

My stomach dropped.

It was a small, delayed reaction, like my body understood before my mind could even comprehend.

He finally turned slightly in his seat then, not fully facing me, but enough that I could see the tension in his expression now. The tiredness. The frustration layered under something sharper.

“Then you suddenly block me on every social media, then you unblock me again.”

“And ever since then you’ve been treating me like I’m your enemy.”

I swallowed against the sudden tightness in my throat.

Huh?

What is he even saying?

My brain… genuinely lagged.

Like the words weren’t processing correctly.

Because I saw the seen sign.

I saw it.

I remembered staring at that tiny word for hours until my vision blurred, remembered the humiliation clawing through me afterward, the panic, the regret, the spiraling shame that followed after convincing myself he had read every single word.

His voice tightened at the end, barely restrained now. “I don’t know what went wrong,” he said quietly, exhaustion laced through his voice. “I only found out later that the persom I don’t even wanna mention, apparently deleted it before I could even see it.”

“For months I wasn’t aware that you texted me.”

Jungkook fastened his seat belt again before turning fully toward me this time, a strange intensity taking over his features, it was something fiercer.

His left hand came up to rest against his chest like he needed me to understand the sincerity behind his words.

“I don’t care what anyone says,” he said firmly. “And even if I did see it, I wouldn’t still believe anything until I heard it from you, ____.” His brows furrowed slightly, eyes locked onto mine with an honesty that almost made me look away. “I’ll only buy what you say, because I trust you. I need you to know that.”

I only stared at him in astonishment. My brain had been rotting in the gutter for so long, tangled in shame and humiliation and assumptions, that it genuinely struggled to process anything anymore. If he didn’t see it…

Then probably his ex girlfriend did.

A sick feeling twisted inside my stomach. It was too much for me to take right now. I needed to process it alone.

I didn’t know if I wanted to cry from relief, guilt, fear, regret, rage or if I wanted to slam the car door shut, run upstairs to my apartment and scream until my throat gave out. I had suffered through this unbearable mental burden for months.

Months of believing he knew.

Months of replaying that humiliation over and over until it hollowed me out from the inside.

And now suddenly I get to know that he didn’t even read it.

I couldn’t do this anymore.

But this was the last step I had to make, the perfect opportunity to slip in a story convincing enough to erase any lingering doubt from his mind once and for all. 

Maybe then I’d finally be released from this endless misery festering inside me, and finally sleep peacefully again instead of seeing him in every nightmare that jolted me awake in the middle of the night.

“It was meant for someone else,” I admitted quietly, forcing the words out before I could stop myself. “When I sent you that text…” My voice shook slightly. “I was drunk out of my wits, I don’t even remember who I sent it to.” I swallowed harshly, fingers tightening around themselves in my lap.

The silence afterward felt catastrophic. 

I felt nauseous instantly.

Like I had physically thrown something irreversible between us.

“When I woke up, I panicked and deleted it,” I said quickly, my breath catching halfway through the sentence. “And then I realized I sent the same text to, like… four other people too.”

A strained laugh slipped out before I quickly smoothed my expression over again, rushing out my next lie before I could overthink it.

“I somehow sent it to everyone except the person it was actually meant for.”

Jungkook didn’t interrupt me once.

The morning light filtered faintly through the windshield, pale shadows stretched across his face while he sat there quietly absorbing every word, and for the first time since this conversation started, he looked lighter, like something that had been weighing on him for months had finally loosened slightly from around his chest. 

Yet there was still something unreadable lingering in his eyes now, something deeper sitting quietly underneath the assurance, and somehow that uncertainty made my stomach twist even more. 

Why do I keep hyper analysing everything about him? I grunted internally.

Taking the silence as my cue to escape, I quickly told him to just stay inside the car, even though his stubborn ass argued a few times about walking me all the way to my apartment before he finally stopped resisting after taking one proper look at my face, the exhaustion written all over it was impossible to miss. His eyes narrowed slightly at me afterward, not exactly angry, but frustrated in that restrained way people always got whenever they clearly wanted to say more but forced themselves not to.

Before he could say something that would make this conversation even harder to survive.

I barely even remembered opening the car door afterward.

The cold morning air hit my face immediately as I stepped out, my legs still weak from the hospital but moving too fast anyway, almost desperate to escape before my composure cracked in front of him again.

Right before entering the apartment complex, I don’t know what possessed me to glance back.

Only his eyes were visible through the half-shut black tinted window, still watching me.

My chest tightened painfully at the sight.

Like my body had been holding them back through pure force this entire time and finally gave up.

The tears kept falling endlessly as I somehow forced myself through the hallway and toward my apartment, my vision so blurred I could barely even see properly anymore. I stood in front of the entrance for a few embarrassing seconds, fingers trembling violently while trying to type in the passcode, messing it up twice because I couldn’t stop crying long enough to focus. The moment the door unlocked, I practically stumbled inside.

Everything after that happened in a blur.

I barely even managed to kick the door shut behind me before my legs gave out completely and I collapsed against the sofa, my body hitting the cushions limply as loud, crushing sobs ripped out of me so violently it physically hurt. My chest ached horribly, breaths breaking unevenly between each cry while tears soaked into the fabric beneath my face.

And now suddenly none of it even made sense anymore.

I sobbed harder.

It wad the kind of heartache that leaves your body shaking uncontrollably, ugly and breathless and impossible to stop once it starts.

I didn’t even notice the panicked figure rushing toward me until I suddenly felt warmth engulf me from behind, familiar arms wrapping around my trembling body tightly.

“____? Oh my god—bub, what happened?”

Mari’s voice sounded distant and muffled.

Like I was hearing it underwater.

And the moment I felt her holding me, and pressing kisses against my temple.

The walls that I had built crumbled completely.

I closed my eyes and sobbed harder into the couch, I kept on sobbing until it hollowed me out from the inside.

═════𑁍ࠬܓ═══════𑁍ࠬܓ═══════𑁍ࠬܓ

It was 5pm in the afternoon.

The warm amora of lavender tea hung in the air.

The two women sat side by side.

But you also felt a sense of liberation because Mari didn’t leave you instead she held you throughout your emotional eruption, listening to every painful cry, every sobbing description until you fell asleep.

She was your anchor. Your red bloodshot eyes stared into the monotone painted wall ahead of her. Her face was swollen, her nose red from cleaning the snot repeatedly, her throat felt sore but more than that it was her heart that was sore. Mari, sat beside you, her head resting on her knuckles as she stared at her absentminded best friend. 

“The tea’s gonna get cold.” Mari pouted, playing with a strand of your hair.

“Chestnut brown really suits you, it makes your face look so much more radiant and your eyes stand out more too,” she complimented.

You felt a little guilty for not being able to reflect her cherry mood today, but could you really blame yourself? It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet, and your body had already gone through what felt like twenty panic episodes back to back. So pardon you for feeling as though every last bit of life had been drained out of you.

“My eyes are black, Mari.” You boredly replied to her.

Mari rolled her eyes.

“Okay, I give up bruh, it’s not gonna work on you, but I don’t know if you’re ready to hear what I have to say either.” She implored.

You finally looked at her, prepared to finally enough to share it with her. Mari is the only the person who has known about your deep rooted feelings for Jungkook. Out of every person in your life, even your mom, she was the one person who knew every little detail of your life.

Mari, albeit a little too blunt sometimes, wasn’t someone who would fabricate and filter her opinion just to preserve someone’s comfort or keep the peace. Whether you liked it or not, she always had a clear-cut opinion on things and she never hesitated to voice it.

And she was the perfect person to seek advice from.

“No. That’s the last thing I’d want you to do Mari.” 

“I want you to tell me the truth.”  Now I was the eager one, I put my hands above hers, slightly squeezing it and bopping my head up and down, indicating her to speak.

Mari sighed, her shoulders dropping slightly as if she had been holding all of it in for too long and only now letting it breathe out.

“Almost eight years ago when you first admitted to me about crushing on Jungkook after I basically put you on gun point,” she began, leaning back into the couch before slowly shifting forward again like the memory itself was pulling her in, “I honestly found it adorable how you’d crashout every time you shared a moment with him and then excitedly tell me over sleepovers.”

“It was harmless back then, you were a fifteen year old kid.” She adds on.

Then her expression changed subtly, from something softer to sharper.

“I never told you this… but I did start noticing, a little too late, how much it was slowly beginning to affect your life to the point where it was becoming self destructive. Your mood started depending on your interactions with him.” She looked at you with a pitiful smile. “You’ve always put him in this golden category, like he’s some unreachable dream. And I understand it, he’s all macho and cool, he’s super kind, hardworking, and he’s always been so sweet with you. Though I can’t lie, I do have to say that some of his actions were misleading at times…”

Her voice trailed for a second as she shifted fully upright, turning her body toward you now, her hands coming up as if she needed them to properly hold her thoughts in place.

A fiery look in her eyes.

“But ____ you seem to forget who you actually are. You were the most popular girl of our school, you used to get scouted by agents of big entertainment agencies randomly, when we’d go out to group study at the cafe near Seokchon Lake, or at those arcades we used to go to. It would happen so frequently.  From juniors to seniors you had everyone crushing at you.”

Then she dramatically put her hands on her mouth, making an equally dramatic noise of disapproval.

“I still can’t get over the Nam Joo Hyuk thing.” she exaggerated.

“I was furious when you turned down a date with THE Nam Joo Hyuk,” she groaned dramatically, throwing her hands up. “And Jungkook had literally gone into the military like five months before that. ____ , what do you mean you turned down the ‘Korean Adonis’ for a guy who wasn’t even your man just so you could act like his sad, depressed military wife?”

Mari sighed like she was recounting the most tragic story of her life before continuing, eyes widening for emphasis. “Like actually, what do you mean you turned down Nam Joo Hyuk? Do you even realize how insanely popular he is now? His fan following is insane. He’s literally one of the highest paid actors in South Korea.”

You rolled your eyes internally.

Sure, Nam Joo-hyuk was objectively good-looking, but he was nowhere near your ideal type. And the arrogance in the way he’d asked for your number, as if there was absolutely no possibility you’d say no, was irksome. Maybe if he was a little mo-

You stopped yourself before your brain escalated back to the same decade old description of a specific person.

Mari’s hand dropped back to her lap with a frustrated slap against her thigh.

“I stayed silent because I thought you and Jungkook had some sort of secret situationship going on,” she added, leaning back again, still watching you closely, “but then my assumptions were proven wrong when he spawned with a girlfriend right after his military discharge.”

“Now he never cared enough to reach out until you two were forced to be in the same place. I’m not saying it’s his fault… because bubs, that’s what life is about. People….drift away.”

Her voice dipped slightly, becoming quieter now as she stared down at her own hands for a second.

“You remember when Seokjin and I used to date,? We used to spend almost half of the day together for seven years, and now we don’t even wish each other on New Years or let alone birthdays.” Her fingers curled slightly.

“Do you know why it never affected me?” She questioned, gently before answering herself.

“It’s because my joy never depended on Seokjin. I was happy in my own skin, so fulfilled within myself that even when we broke up, I got back up on my feet faster, because my life went on, be it with or without him.”

“The reason why you’re so disturbed and torn apart by his absence is probably because there was a time when you used to be a part of his everyday life, but the military broke that seesaw. And I think deep down, it was needed…”

“____ , I think you’re more in love with the idea of him than the reality of him.” Her eyes were unflinching.

“Because you two have only seen each other within a box, that couldn’t go beyond a boundary but have you ever experienced him outside of who he showed you he is? Do you know anything about his work? How he is with his friends?”

The room felt awfully quieter with the truth out open.

“He only knows you as the teenage high school junior he tutored and adored like a little sister, he remembers you in your fuzzy socks and oversized pink hoodies but does he know the woman you are now?” Her eyes softened, like she almost regretted how honest she was being. “I know it’ll always leave a void in your heart,” she said finally, voice quieter now, almost careful, as if she was placing the words down gently instead of throwing them. “But I pray that someday you get over the fantasy of it. I know you will.” She looked at you with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

This probably is the most you’ve heard Mari speak in one breath. You realized many occasions stopped her from saying all these things to your face, but you couldn’t be anything but glad that she did. You needed to get slapped in the face.

It was almost horrifying how well she observed your feelings for Jungkook, but it was Mari after all.

Hearing your situation, your life through her lense changed the trajectory of your perspective  as well and it was like a cold bucket of water was thrown at your face.

You pondered for a few minutes, while Mari’s gazed stayed on you. “You cannot expect a man to remain the same after military. It changes them a lot, especially a man you haven’t really personally known-” Before Mari could continue, you leaned forward and pulled her into a tight hug, your movement slightly shaky but firm. She froze for a fraction of a second before instantly wrapping her arms around you too, one hand pressing firmly against your back, the other gently rubbing slow, grounding circles. “You’re right.” You softly admitted.

For the first time in years, today you gave yourself the time to think of an alternative scenario, in a way you haven’t before, in a way that made the pang in your chest hurt a little less. While you breathed out, your chin rested on her shoulder.

“Mari…didn’t you say that you were gonna host a get together soon?”

She pulled back, her forehead creasing.

“Yes, why are you asking me this out of the blue.”

In his twenty-nine years of life, Jeon Jungkook had signed contracts worth millions without blinking twice.

He had built three brands from scratch, negotiated with investors twice his age, replied to life changing business emails while eating cold takeout at three in the morning, approved campaigns, closed deals and transferred amounts of money that would make most people nauseous. He did all of that without hesitation, because he’s always intentional when it came to his business. Yet somehow one single text message had him erasing and rewriting the same sentence in different ways for the ninth fucking time today.

Currently it was 3PM, he was in his office branch in Yeouido District, on the eighth floor of the towering glass building.Jungkook leaned back against his leather office chair with a livid exhale, dragging a hand down his face before staring back down at his phone again.His employees continued discussing projected launch numbers for the new gym supplement line somewhere across the long conference table, their voices kept overlapping with presentation slides flipping quietly in the background, Jungkook had been focused in the beginning but for the past sixteen minutes, his mind had gone completely blank.

This was messing with him because he rarely checked his phone during meetings.

But the second the screen lit up beside his laptop earlier, with the one name he hadn’t expected to see, his entire train of thought derailed so badly he almost stumbled over his own words mid-l presentation and had to glance twice just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

You [3:40 PM]:

Hey, it’s been a while.

You [ 3:41 PM]:

I’ve been wanting to reach out to you… I got caught up with work so I’m late.

It had been three weeks since he last heard from you. 

Three weeks since you adamantly got out of his car that morning looking exhausted enough to collapse right there, refusing to even take the groceries he bought for you despite the argument it caused.

He remembered sitting there afterward in annoyance while staring at the untouched fruit baskets and grocery bags occupying his entire backseat.

Eventually he gave all of it to his security guard when he reached home. The old man nearly cried seeing the amount of imported strawberries alone. Jungkook sighed again before glancing back at the popped up text in his notification bar.

He typed a sentence, then deleted.

It looked too blunt.

He typed again, shaking his head because it was getting too long, 

He deleted it again.

His thumb hovered over the keyboard while the faint sound of his employees laughing as they left the office somewhere outside the conference room echoed through the glass walls of his office.

Jungkook [3:57 PM]:

No worries…. How are you? How’s your health now?

He realised that he was taking too long to reply, when your reply came instantly.

You [3:58 PM] 

I’m doing a lot better than the last time we saw each other :)

You [3:58 PM]

Btw are you free today?

He leaned back slightly against his chair before replying, his index finger rubbing against his jaw, absentmindedly.

Jungkook [4:05 PM]:

Today? Yeah, I get off work within 5pm.

You [4:07 PM]:

Great then, I’m hosting a get together party with my best friend, I was wondering if you could come and join me.

That was a whiplash from the way you had been avoiding him like the plague..not wanting to 

Jungkook [4:07 PM]:

A gathering party? Where is it?

The typing bubble appear almost immediately.

You [4:10 PM]:

It’s located in Itaewon, it’s called Yact Core.

Jungkook pondered for a few seconds, eyes narrowing slightly while trying to remember if he had heard of the place before. His fingers moved over the keyboard slowly, typing out a response before pausing midway, because your next text came in before he could even hit send.

You [4:14 PM]:

So are you coming or not, Oppa?

His phone slipped right out of his hand.

The loud thud against the wooden floor made him curse under his breath immediately as he bent down too fast to grab it, nearly hitting his knee against the desk in the process.

“Ugh...” He grunted at the shot of pain that went through his knee.

“What on earth…” he muttered under his breath, heat rushing unexpectedly to the back of his neck.

Oppa? Never in your life have you called him that, ever, even when you were talking about him to someone else. It was only a honorific that he never cared for even though you were almost eight years younger than him.

Usually, in any other circumstance, Jungkook was strict about addressing elders properly with honorifics. Maybe it was the Korean in him, maybe it was just the way he had been raised. Yet somehow, when it came to you, he never corrected it. If anything, he found it stupidly sweet.

The way you called him “Kook” so naturally, like the nickname belonged to you and you alone and the most embarrassing part was that it kind of did.

Because nobody else called him ‘Kook’ besides you.

This sudden friendliness of yours made him wonder if you somewhere hit your head and had a loss of memory? Lately he had been so used to the distant attitude you maintained with him, after everything that happened recently, after months of avoidance, seeing a snippet of your sweet, old version suddenly appear on his screen again felt absurdly more intimate than it should’ve.

His heartbeat quickened annoyingly fast while he unlocked the phone again, rereading the text twice before forcing himself to type something back normally.

Jungkook [4:15 PM]:

Yeah, I’ll come for sure.

Your reply came less than ten seconds later.

You [4:15 PM]:

I’ll be waiting hehe 😛

Jungkook stared at the conversation for another embarrassing amount of time before abruptly locking his phone and tossing it onto the table like it had burned his hand. He pressed the heel of his palm against his eyes for a second. No, he really needs to stop drinking caffeine in the morning on an empty stomach. This is why he's been feeling so weird.

“Yo Boss! A sublime day, isn't it?" Gwanshik’s chirpy voice echoed through the office suddenly.

“Indeed, Gwanshik.” Jungkook muttered.

His head jerked up almost instantly only to find his assistant standing by the doorway holding a thick black file against his chest, brows raised suspiciously.

“Wait, why are you so red?”

Jungkook scoffed immediately, straightening himself in the chair. “I-I’m not red.”

“You absolutely are.” Gwanshik snorted, walking further inside. “Your ears too.”

“Did you listen to the new album by that boygroup CORTIS? They have a song called ‘RedRed’. So you lying to my face, that’s red’red~” Gwangshik singsang giggling like an imbecile.

Whatever.

Jungkook only coughed, reaching out for the file the second Gwanshik handed it over.

“Samples for the new starter pack campaign,” Gwanshik explained while Jungkook flipped the file open a little too rapidly, very obviously trying to redirect the conversation before the older man could tease him any further. “The new employees suggested going for a more raw gym aesthetic this time instead of those overly edited luxury concepts,” he continued, leaning against the desk casually. “And honestly? I agree. You probably will too once you see their vision.”

Jungkook hummed scatterbrained, with his eyes scanning through the printed sample photographs spread across the pages. There were at least twelve varieties of samples of shaker concepts, gym bag layouts, compression wear samples, and minimalistic black packaging. On other days this was the kind of thing he’d immediately hyperfocus on.

But today?

His mind kept drifting back toward his phone sitting face down beside him.

Gwanshik caught onto Jungkook’s lack of attention instantly, because it wasn’t common at all.

A grin slowly spread across his face.

“…Ahhh,” he dragged out knowingly.

Jungkook already sighed in annoyance before the other guy could even continue.

“Is it a woman?.”

Jungkook’s eyes narrowed. 

“No.” 

“You got rejected?”

“No.”

“Then it’s worse.” Gwanshik nodded seriously thinking. “You like her.”

Jungkook almost choked on absolutely nothing.

“It’s not even close to that,” he shot back angrily, face heating all over again while Gwanshik burst out laughing right in front of him.

“Ehhhh sure, I’ll take my leave since nothing’s getting into your head right now anyway.” He taunted before turning toward the door. “I’ll just email you the documents. You can always check them later.” And with that, he walked out singing some painfully cringe love song lyric, clearly far too entertained by Jungkook’s misery.

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ────

Jungkook arrived at the location you shared a little later than he originally planned.

The car door shut behind him with a quiet click, and for a moment he just stood there outside the venue, taking in the building like he was trying to recalibrate what kind of night this was supposed to be.

He had expected loud music, disco balls and, shouting, something club themed, because that was the definition of a party he and his friends did when they were at this age. Instead, the moment he stepped inside, the atmosphere was completely unanticipated. Soft jazz wrapped around the space like a warm haze, low enough to feel like background breathing rather than music. Somewhere further inside, a faint track of Luis Miguel played. The lighting was warm gold, spilling gently over marble flooring and glass decor. People stood in small clusters instead of crowds, talking, laughing, posing occasionally for pictures. He didn’t wear any suit like every other man here, but rather a black Calvin Klein jacket, with matching black jeans, it didn’t exactly blend into the crowd. In the midst of his eyes scanning the room looking for a certain five foot something woman, someone tapped him on the shoulders, when he turned around his eyebrows lifted in recognition. Mari stood there, a tight smile resting on her lips.

“What are you doing here all on your own?” she asked lightly over the music. “____ didn’t see you yet?”

Jungkook gave a small smile, slipping one hand inside the pocket of his jacket. “I just got here.”

“Oh.” Mari nodded once before glancing toward the crowd behind her. “Well… she’s been excited about tonight after all the storm she went through.”

What is that supposed to mean?

Before he could respond, Mari stepped aside slightly, motioning vaguely toward the deeper part of the lounge. “She’s probably somewhere there with our friends. I need to save my drunk boyfriend before he embarrasses himself infront of strangers.”

Jungkook let out a quiet chuckle. “Another babysitting duty I see.”

“Unfortunately.” She stated.

“Good seeing you though,” she added more genuinely this time.

“You too.”

And then she disappeared somewhere into the crowd.

Jungkook walked further inside, eventually rounding into a quieter area near the open space of the lounge, unlike the entrance area the atmosphere here felt even calmer somehow, he could hear a saxophone playing and faint laughter and chatter somewhere. And then he saw you.

Just the back of your head, at first.

You were standing near one of the lounge tables, surrounded by a loose circle of people, a few men and women gathered comfortably around the dimly lit space with drinks resting lazily in their hands. A tall South Asian guy dressed in a fitted brown shirt and black pants stood in the middle of telling some dramatic story, his hands moving animatedly while everyone leaned in with amused expressions.

You were listening too.

Then the South Asian guy said something that made the entire group erupt into laughter in unison, your head tipped back briefly as you laughed, your hand instinctively coming down to smack the arm of the lean man standing beside you while he groaned dramatically at the hit, making everyone laugh even harder. Your chestnut hair fell down your back in a long straight flow, catching the warm yellow lights every time you moved. You wore an ocean blue bodycon dress that looked like it had been stitched specifically to fit your body. Beside you a shorter redhead woman in a hot pink dress, leaned to whisper something in your ear. And almost immediately —

Your head turned slightly, your gaze absentmindedly drifting across the other tables first, barely paying attention to anything you were looking at.

Then your eyes landed on him.

And kept moving.

For half a second Jungkook genuinely thought you hadn’t recognized him.

Before your head snapped back toward him almost instantly. Jungkook’s lungs forgot what they were doing for exactly one second as a wide smile slowly pulled onto your lips. He stared back. It took him a minute too long to realize his mouth had parted slightly. He closed it. And smoothed his expression. Something strange sat in his chest, it was a feeling he could describe as closest to discomfort. You lifted your hand slightly from around your wine glass before motioning him over with two small curls of your fingers and Jungkook began making his way towards you, with his eyes not leaving you for once. He almost forgot there were other people around until one of your friends suddenly looked between the two of you and asked “Wait… isn’t that your University classmate?”

Then your voice reached him properly for the first time that night. “No.” You exclaimed with a chuckle.

“Kids, I have to introduce you all to someone.” You announced loud enough to capture everyone's attention.

He could feel multiple eyes on him the moment you said that. “This is Jungkook. “You glanced at him, smile still sitting warmly on your face. “A close friend of mine.”

“Ah, you came just at the right time.” the redhead said briefly looking at him then teasingly bumping her shoulder with yours.

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ────

It didn’t take long before all of you migrated toward one of the lounge sections of the venue, the large velvet couches quickly filling with half finished drinks, scattered phones, and overlapping conversations.

 To Jungkook’s surprise, your friends were actually really welcoming to him. 

They asked him about his work almost immediately, curiosity lighting up their expressions the moment he briefly mentioned his gym brand.

“No way, that’s actually sick.” The South Asian guy who's name he later got to know was Ishaan Khatter, a well-known A-list actor working in Bollywood, exclaimed in astonishment.

“Wait, so you own multiple branches?” the blonde Korean-Canadian friend of yours, Bently Kim, impatiently asked.

“Isn’t that insanely stressful?” Sonjin who he remembers used to live in his neighbourhood years ago, queried.

They asked questions enthusiastically, leaning forward while he answered, occasionally throwing in their own opinions about fitness trends and gym culture as if they’d known him for longer than thirty minutes. Amidst the overlapping conversations and soft clinking of glasses around the table, Jungkook slowly realized your body had been turned toward him for the last ten minutes, your thighs brushing against his. Not fully though just slightly. Enough that every time someone else spoke, your eyes still drifted back to him in between.

“You seem to blend quite well with my friends,” you said finally, a sly grin pulling at those glossy pink lips.

Jungkook looked at your side from his beer immediately. The warm lighting softened your features, made your skin glow faintly golden, and for some reason he found himself staring at your mouth for half a second too long before forcing his gaze away.

“I’m a gen-z too, it’s not that hard to blend in.” he said softly his dark eyes borong into yours.

You laughed softly at that, leaning your chin against your palm while still maintaining the eye lock, expectedly he was the first to break it off.

Good God.

He only drank a little of the white beer one of your friends had poured for him earlier, barely enough to even qualify as drinking, but somehow his head still felt warm and strangely hazy. 

He needed to finish at least one bottle of Budweiser to get properly drunk.

He definitely wasn’t drunk.

Probably… a little off balance.

And he hated how aware he was of it.

Before he could say anything else, your friends suddenly erupted into loud complaints over taking pictures.

“Girls get up RIGHT NOW before the makeup starts melting off.” One of your girlfriend's beseeched.

You groaned dramatically as one of your friend grabbed your arm and the other one grabbed your wrist.

“Hey! Sajal, at least let me take my purse—” you whined.

“Oh, just leave it here, the boys can watch over our precious purses,” she said, waving it off casually. “Come on!” Jungkook watched you get dragged away.

He couldn't remember the last time he’s seen you as radiant as you were in this very moment. Tonight, you were beyond his limited knowledge of you. It feels like he’s getting to see you in a different light than he had all those years ago.

It was like he was meeting the same person, but again for the first time, like déjà vu.

Swaying softly with every step, camera flashes briefly illuminated your face again and again, catching the confidence in your expression as it flickered under the light.

Your friends and you got occupied making TikToks. Until a slower track slid in, almost sensual in the way it filled the space. You swayed your hips and danced to the rhythm, your movements syncing with the beat in an effortless, teasing flow. Your hands traced over your own arms, sliding down, then drifting to your hips as you kept moving, completely lost in the music, your friends circled you, laughing, filming, but his attention stayed fixed where it shouldn’t have.

Then you turned around.

Your eyes locked with his in a matter of seconds, like you already knew he would be looking.

A devilish smirk pulled up on your pouty lips.

Your hands danced over your body again, palms dragging across your chest, then down to your hips, slow and deliberate, like you were fully aware of being watched.

He should’ve looked away, he knew he should’ve.

Yet, he didn’t because he couldn’t.

You kept moving with the music in a torturously slow pace., your focus never fully leaving him even as you rejoined your friends’ rhythm.

Jungkook felt his throat go dry.

He turned away like someone threw acid in his eyes and hastily chugged down his entire drink in one go.

His heart was pulsing hard inside his chest, loud enough that it felt impossible to ignore.

It’s disorienting, the way you feel both known and unfamiliar at the same time, like everyone else already knew something about you he was only discovering now.

The realization unsettled him more than it should have.

Because when had that happened?

There was no denying that you had become this alluring woman people naturally gravitated towards.

Yet whatever he was feeling was not appropriate.

What would you even think of him if you knew the things his mind kept drifting towards.

A strange restlessness settled under his skin soon after.

The music suddenly felt louder indoors.

This space feeling congested now.

He exhaled quietly and leaned back against the couch for a moment before eventually deciding to step outside for air.

It wasn’t because he disliked your friends company or anything, they were a bunch of good hearted kids, well except one of them a little too self ware, one acting like all the negative things only happen to them, another one with the self confidence of the Burj Khalifa, when he sat with them he remembered how he had already passed this phase in life.

Nowadays, rather than being out till 3 AM, clubbing, and drinking with friends just to escape the mental torture that university midterms brought, those years are over, now he cares more about being in bed by 11 PM. He still goes to clubs every now and then, but only if the food is good.

There was only so much conversation he could maintain with guys nearly eight years younger than him before every discussion somehow turned into them asking him for life advice.

And his battery was already beginning to drain, his brain needed a little rest.

He eventually stepped toward the open space of the rooftop balcony, the cool night air immediately brushing against his overheated skin. From up there, the city stretched endlessly beneath him, streams of headlights moving through the roads below while distant traffic echoed faintly into the quiet. For a few seconds, Jungkook just stood there silently taking it in the skyline, the cold air, the temporary silence away from the music and laughter inside. 

He slipped a hand into the pocket of his jacket out of pure habit before groaning quietly under his breath when his fingers came up empty. Right. He left the packet of cigarette at home. “Fuck,” he muttered tiredly to himself. Usually he’d smoke whenever his head got too crowded like this, whenever his thoughts started overlapping too loudly to sort through properly. And seems like tonight he has no other choice but to let his mind keep making noises.

Jungkook leaned both forearms against the railing instead, head tilting back slightly as he shut his eyes for a moment. The metal felt cold beneath his skin, grounding him enough to stop the strange restlessness sitting inside his chest from plummeting any further. At least that was the plan.

But every time he closed his eyes, he kept seeing…

 A certain smile from across the lounge.

Pink glossy lips.

The way their dress embraced the curve of their body when they walked away with their friends. The way their hands traced their torso as they danced while looking at him.

Jungkook ran a hand across his bottom lip.

This was ridiculous!

Jungkook wasn’t even sure when exactly he’d started feeling like this around you.

Maybe it was the alcohol slowly settling into his system.

This fuckass bone chilling cold was supposed to help clear his head to some extent, make every thought inside his head blank. That had been the entire point of stepping out onto the balcony for a minute to pull himself together, to remember how he was supposed to act around you.

He’d known you for what, eight to nine years now? Ten? Between these years it came easy and natural for him to be around you as a….friend, a tutor, a well wisher, an acquaintance.

Jungkook felt even more aware of you now that it was him with his pondering alone, the quiet had stripped away the one buffer keeping him from paying too much attention.

He’d known you….eversice you were fourteen, still sleeping with your seven-year-old plushies, he’d seen you cry after your cousins teased you about the demon from hellfire coming for you when you refused to eat your vegetables.

He'd known you when you were seventeen and crying over a mysterious boy who’s identity stayed hidden to this day. He'd been the only person besides your parents to be present at your high school graduation. He was there during your bob haircut era. He knew the sound of your laughter before it even left your lungs, knew exactly which of his jokes would work and which ones would earn him a shove on the shoulder. To him you had always been a sister like friend, that’s what he’s been saying to everyone, to himself.

That was the box you and him had always existed in.

And for the first time that box seemed to shook like a falling stack of cards.

Somewhere in the middle of his thoughts, the sound of the balcony door sliding open behind him snapped him back to reality. “There you are…” Your voice wrapped around him softly as he heard your heels clicking lightly against the balcony floor while the dim light spilling from inside traced softly along your figure. He didn’t turn around instead he looked down at the buzzing street as if it had acquired his complete interest.

From his peripheral vision, he could see your silhouette stepping beside him now, the wind pushing your hair gently over one shoulder as you leaned the back of your body against the railing instead of looking down at the street below. Jungkook kept his eyes lowered for a moment before finally forcing himself to look at your face. You were staring at the wooden door with a distant look. “You disappeared,” you murmured, stopping beside him against the railing. “I thought my friends scared you away.”

“Nothing like that, I just needed a little air,” he breathed, his thumb rubbing slowly against the cold metal railing.

You hummed, standing near enough for him to smell the faint sweetness of your perfume.

“You clean up well today,” you compliment him, your tone carrying a teasing hint.

Jungkook swerved toward your form now, leaning the weight of his body sideways with one arm resting against the railing, and you turned sideways too with the side of your body leaned against the railing wall, because of your much shorter height.

This way he could see you properly now.

A lopsided smile rested on your lips, your eyes were red around the rims while the cold painted your cheeks and nose pink.

“Really?”

“I like this jacket on you,” you clarified casually, eyes slowly tracing over his jacket again.

His throat tightened slightly.

“It makes you look buffer.”

He looked away, appearing a little flustered.

“Why did you want to meet up?” he asked with a restrained voice.

“Just…wanted to see how you’re doing and properly thank you.” Your voice sounded softer now.

And before he could say something, your palm landed lightly against the center of his chest.

The second your hand settled against his chest, Jungkook felt his pulse shift noticeably beneath it.

Your fingers moved against his jacket once… then again… gliding lazily over his chest.

“You don’t really have to thank me for that,” you whispered even though it was just you and him in this open space.

Jungkook forced himself to think about literally anything else. The unopened file Gwanshik had handed him earlier. The thirty pages waiting on his desk.

Tomorrow’s schedule.

Anything.

But with your hand slowly moving against the center of his chest, it was becoming impossible to focus on a single coherent thought.

That possibility made heat rush violently into his bloodstream.

His body locked up almost instantly. His senses kept hyper focusing. On the warmth of your palm, thr soft drag of your nails against the fabric, the way your body leaned just slightly closer every time you spoke.

Jungkook tried to look at the closed entrace door, and the thin glass window where he could see movements of people. It didn’t help one bit, because deep down a dangerous part of him didn’t want you to stop.

“It’s been long since we’ve hung out, the last time we saw each other was before the end of my first semester.”

“Yeah….”

“You’re awfully silent. Are you okay?”

Your fingers slowly smoothed over the front of his jacket again before lightly pinching the collar between them. “I’m fine.” he reasoned, while you pursed your lips not convinced at all.

The violent wind pushed your hair across your face again and it was like Jungkook’s body had a mind of its own, reacting before he could properly think it through. His fingertips grazed softly against your cheek while he tucked the strands behind your ear, A few strands had stuck lightly against the gloss on your lips, and you blinked slightly when his fingers brushed them away.

The second his skin came in contact with yours the coquettish expression on your face faltered slightly.

That heavy silence where both people suddenly become too aware of each other.

His hand lingered for a fraction too long near your face before slowly dropping again. This was getting precarious. Jungkook knew that much.

The space that was big enough to fit in hundreds of people suddenly felt too small, your body was too close to the point he could feel the warts radiating off you, your eyes too focused on him in a way that made his rationality keep slipping out of his grasp.

He should’ve stepped back already.

Should’ve moved your hand off his chest.

Should’ve stopped touching you the second his fingers brushed your cheek.

Instead he was still standing here staring at you like he’d forgotten about time itself.

And the unexplainable part was that you didn’t seem unaffected either, but rather inviting.

Your eyes kept dropping to his mouth.

So did his.

Jungkook swallowed hard, taking in a deep breath and exhaling through his his nostrils.

Don’t do this. He begged his subconscious.

She doesn't know what she's doing. She's a little drunk and you're standing too close and this is nothing. You've known her for over a decade. You used to tutor her. Get it together, you bastard.

The thought came too late, became irrelevant just as rapidly, because the second your eyes shifted from his mouth to his eyes, you and him both stepped closer again, he had exactly one second to think about consequences before you whispered his name in the quietest tone. “Jungkook.”

After that, everything in his head seemed to blur together.

Your noses brushed softly once, then again, neither of you properly pulling away.

His lips hovered inches from yours while the cold night air wrapped around you both uselessly, your breathing turning uneven in the small space between you.

You were even more close now. So close that he couldn’t properly see your eyes anymore, only feel the hot puffy breaths against his mouth while the cold night air moved around you both uselessly.

The three of you were now sprawled around the living room while Jinu and Samuel watched some aggressive football match like their lives depended on it. You tried sitting through the first fifteen minutes, genuinely tried, but you didn’t understand a single thing happening on the screen besides grown men aggressively chasing a ball while commentators screamed like war had broken out.

His thoughts stopped eventually.

He leaned down.

The moment he felt the sensation of yours lips on his, he shuddered. He paused for a brief moment, before he couldn’t wait anymore and embraced your warm mouth around his.

At first it was only the slow press of lips, warm and unhurried, his mouth catching yours carefully like he was still holding himself back.

Your lips barely moved against his at first, warm and tentative, both of you kissing each other like neither of you fully understood what was happening yet, but the affect of it was more intense than it would’ve been with a stranger.

Then your hands slid upward from his chest, one settling around the side of his neck while the other disappeared into the hair at the back of his head, nails scratching lightly against his scalp.

Jungkook felt that final wall inside him give way almost instantly.

He groaned against your mouth before his motionless arms moved to wrap around your waist, pushing you into him. The movement made your body stumble lightly against his and the airy sound you made nearly destroyed whatever self control he still had left.

You shivered when the firm muscles of his abdomen pressed against the exposed skin of your waist. The kiss deepened without warning after that. His mouth moved against yours with a kind of restrained desperation now, like he’d spent the entire night holding himself back only to lose the ability to do it anymore. One gruff hand stayed firm against your waist while the other slid upward to cup your jaw, thumb pressing lightly beneath your cheekbone as he angled your face toward him more. And when his palm slipped lower for a second, brushing against the exposed skin of your back beneath the fabric, both of you visibly shuddered at the same time. Your fingers tightened against him immediately causing Jungkook to press his lips on you harder, with more fervour.

When the realization that this was actually happening, and he had let his frenzied thoughts loose, finally hit him all at once.

And then in a flash—

Jungkook pulled back with a quiet pop breaking between your lips, breathing unevenly as he stared at you with wide eyes. He looked at you in horror. “I’m so sorry,” he gasped immediately, voice rough from kissing you. “____, fuck! What did I just do? You-you I-We’re not in our senses right now, I shouldn’t have done that, not when yo- you’re tipsy.” His grip loosened from your waist as he forced himself to take a few steps back, brows tightening like it physically hurt him to put distance between you. You only stared at him with a hazy expression, your own breaths coming out in uneven, heavy puffs. “No,” you panted, before shaking your head. Your slightly trembling hands found him again before he could retreat any further, fingers curling tightly into the front of his jacket as you pulled him back toward you. “Don’t say that.” You exhaled, one hand moving comfortingly over his shoulders. Jungkook’s chest rose and fell sharply, as he bended down to match your height, his brows furrowed with conflict glimmering in his clear orbs. His large hand moved to rest on top of yours.

You got on your tiptoes, nuzzling the tip of your nose against his as you stepped closer, the warmth of your breath mixing with his.

“I’ve never been more conscious of my senses,” you whispered softly against his lips. “I know what I’m doing, Jungkook.”

His eyes shut briefly.

He knew it was fruitless to resist, he should’ve known the moment you looked at him that he was bound to accept defeat in this battle.

“Are you sure?”

His voice wavered when he asked you that, a final, trembling thread of restraint snapping as he searched your face for any sign of hesitation.

The moment he felt your head nodding against his forehead, his mouth crashed into yours again. There was no gentleness in the collision. It was a crash, a collision of teeth and tongue, a desperate claim. He groaned into the kiss, a sound of pure, unadulterated relief. Jungkook’s morality, and values could come and fuck him up later, he was more greedy. One strong arm snaked around your back, fingers tracing every soft ridge of your spine until he reached the nape of your neck to cup it firmly.

Somewhere between uneven breaths and tangled hands, Jungkook backed you against the railing without thinking. You gasped into his mouth, and he took the opportunity to slide his tongue deep inside. He pushed you harder against the cold metal, his hands shifting from your neck to tangle in your soft, silky locks, pulling your head back to expose the line of your throat. Your tongues intertwined in a hungry, wet dance; he could taste the lingering sweetness of red wine on your. The hand that had been on your hip slid down, palms molding to the curve of your bottom, gripping you tightly as he pulled your lower body flush against him.

You leaned even closer, your chest pressed tightly against his, feeling the frantic thrum of his heart mirroring your own.

You let out a low, broken whimper as he nipped sharply at your bottom lip, the sting sending a jolt of electricity through you.

His soft lips finally detached from yours, but only to trail a path of soft, chaste pecks down the sensitive column of your throat.

You tilted your head to the side, giving him full access, one hand wrapping around the hard swell of his bicep while the other clung to his shoulder.

In the middle of the hot, consuming exchange, the balcony door slid open. A stranger stepped out, phone in one hand, lighter in the other.

They paused immediately and turned around in a haste.

“…Oh.” The man let out an exclamation, his eyes moving between you both with immediate understanding.

The sound cut straight through the moment.

You shrank back instantly, the sudden distance feeling like a physical blow.

It was as if he’d been snapped out of a trance, ripped violently from a headspace he shouldn't have been in. His breath came in ragged, uneven heaves that mirrored the turmoil in his eyes.

The haze vanished, replaced by a sudden, jarring awareness of their surroundings, the sheer recklessness of what he had just been doing to you.

The stranger muttered something awkward, something about needing a smoke, and immediately turned away, suddenly very interested in leaving.

The sound of retreating footsteps echoed in the silence that followed, leaving a thick, charged tension in the air. Jungkook remained frozen, his fingers twitching as if fighting the urge to drag you back against him. The conflict was written all over his face: the lingering, carnal greed battling with the sudden return of his conscience. He looked at you, his eyes dark and dilated, the ghost of that desperation still flickering in his gaze. He was breathless, flushed, and utterly undone, caught in the suffocating space between the man who wanted to do more and the man who knew he should stop.

"I think I should leave now," you suddenly declared, your voice steady, almost airy.

You smoothed your dress down with a slow, deliberate motion, the fabric gliding over skin before bending slightly to pick up your purse he hadn’t even noticed lying near the railing, pulling your phone out to check the time with the nonchalant energy of someone who had not just turned his entire understanding of your relationship upside down. "It's almost eleven, I have a morning class." Jungkook didn't move, his body locked in a state of high alert, the air around him still thick with the scent of your perfume and the ghost of your lips.

“I’ll see you around, Kook,” you added, casting one last look over your shoulder. You gave him a dark, mischievous smile, your lips now red, swollen, and puffier from the violence of his kisses.

He only looked at you with a puzzled expression, his brain struggling to process the sudden shift. Jungkook hated how different the old nickname suddenly felt after tonight. He watched you turn and glide back through the door, watched the yellow light and the noise of the party swallow you back up without a second glance.

Jungkook remained alone in the cold, his hands hanging uselessly at his sides, his fingers still tingling from the feel of your hair. The silence of the night rushed in to fill the space you had left behind, leaving him with the crushing realization that while he was drowning in the aftermath, you had already stepped back into the light, leaving him shattered and wanting more.

His pulse hammered in his throat, a frantic rhythm that refused to slow down even as the wind chilled the sweat on his skin. He said nothing. There was nothing to say, honestly.

He stood there in that spot you left him for another 10 minutes before he went straight to the parking lot.

He speed through the roads, don’t ask him how he just did somehow. Because all he could feel were your soft petal lips on his.

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ────

It was exactly 12:03 AM.

The first thing he did when he got home was finally kick his shoes off.

He staggered into his restroom, his finger barely clicking the lights on as he walked toward the sink.

There was a rush of adrenaline, but also a strange weakness beneath it that stole away his ability to feel fully stable.

He felt some sort of high from it.

It was some unnamed awakening of emotions he wasn’t even aware could exist in this equation until now.

The mirror was an immediate reminder of the incident that had occurred. His lips were swollen, his chin and the sides of his mouth still glistening faintly with the remnants of your lip gloss. Jungkook stared at himself for a second before running his thumb slowly across his lips, wiping it off, then he bent down abruptly, splashing water all over his face in the most aggressive manner possible. Water dripped from his jaw onto the sink while he stayed there gripping the marble edge for a second longer than necessary, breathing unevenly.

After that, he only vaguely remembered stumbling toward bed and collapsing into the sheets, twisting and rotating restlessly beneath them for what felt like hours.

Then sleep or something close to it finally took him.

The next time he awakens in a dream.

You were there in that, still adorning that same blue dress.

You crawled slowly across the mattress toward his sprawled form, the fabric hugging your body every time you moved while your luscious hair fell over one shoulder. Jungkook tried to move toward you instinctively, but the second he did, his body locked up completely, he tried to call for you, but couldn’t, it felt like some cruel invisible force had pinned him down, like he’d been forbidden from touching you entirely. Forced to sit there and watch you approach him without being able to do anything about it.

You climbed onto his lap now, straddling him with slow, deliberate grace, that same cheeky smirk resting on your lips.

A strained groan escaped him as his arms shook reaching upward, desperate to feel the silk of your skin beneath his palms, desperate to grip your waist and pull you down until there was no space left between you both. His fingertips hovered mere millimeters from your hip—

And right before he could feel the silken skin beneath his hands, the world vanished.

The sensation hit like freefall.

A violent plunge straight into nothingness.

Jungkook’s eyes shot open violently, a sharp ragged gasp tearing from his chest as he jolted upright in bed. His heart hammered frantically against his ribs while the room around him slowly came back into focus.

His arm reached beside him instinctively and touched nothing except cold empty sheets.

He paused there for a moment, chest heaving while the phantom feeling of you still lingered against his skin like heat that refused to leave.

Slowly, Jungkook blinked toward the digital clock resting beside the bed, it read 4:20 AM.

A long shaky breath escaped him before he sank back against the pillows, staring blankly at the ceiling above him.

He reached for his phone.

4:24 AM.

Of course there were no texts. It was four in the morning and you were asleep somewhere across the city and you had walked away from him smiling like the night had cost you absolutely nothing, like you had simply experimented something and found it interesting and moved on, and here he was lying fully clothed in the dark of his bedroom with a racing pulse and the ghost of a dream he was going to spend the rest of the night trying to forget and the rest of his life failing to.

He mindlessly scrolled through YouTube shorts for a minute and then he opened instagram, his fingers typed your name as if it was automatic to do so, he clicked your Instagram account.

A new post sat at the top of your profile.

You were posing in that blue dress at some earlier point in the night before he had arrived, before any of it, you were laughing at something off-camera, one hand raised, the yellow light of the venue catching the curve of your face.

He stared at that picture for an alarming amount of time, until the screen dimmed. And when he realised, he locked the phone and dropped it onto the mattress and turned onto his side, staring at the far wall of his bedroom and understood, with the particular clarity that only comes in the morning in the aftermath of something you can’t take back, that he was in serious trouble.

His chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with wanting and everything to do with recognition.

Sleep never properly returned after that.

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ────

⤷ ᴊᴜɴɢᴋᴏᴏᴋ'ꜱ ᴘᴏᴠ ⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆

I was back in the gym by 6AM the next morning like the night before hadn’t been a tug of war in my mind, like I hadn’t lain awake until sunrise with my phone face down beside me and my own ceiling for company. I ran four kilometres more than my usual, weirdly I didn’t notice until I checked the treadmill display and even then didn’t stop untill I almost blacked out from the ferocious running. I reminded myself that a company wouldn’t run with wobbly legs, not when I had a brand new launch to finalise.

I cursed out loud as I remembered that two brand deals sat in my inbox, waiting for my confirmation.

If it wasn’t for Gwanshik’s voice mail I would’ve missed today’s meeting. The table had samples spread across it, matte boards, fabric swatches, digital mockups cycling on the screen at the front of the room. My creative director was talking through the options with the specific enthusiasm of someone who had prepared extensively and expected me to share it. I had already decided on a brown palette long before this launch was finalized. It was grounded, masculine, and fit the brand perfectly, everything I’d argued for in those preliminary meetings two weeks ago. And then I glanced over the blue samples in the corner of the spread.

“I want to revisit the colour direction.”

“The palette?”

“The blue samples.” He tapped a finger against the corner of the spread. “Have the team build a few concepts around those instead. I’d like to see what we can do with them.”

My creative director paused mid-sentence.

“Sorry?”

“Blue is more eye-soothing.” I tapped the sample board once without looking up. “Let’s go with the blue colour palette.”

A brief silence settled over the table.

“Sir,” Mister Gong began carefully, “we already started the process after you approved the brown palette last week.”

“I changed my mind, Mister Gong,” I stated simply.

He stared at me for a minute.

“You spent two weeks convincing everyone brown was the right direction.”

“And now I think blue is.”

His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. For a second, he looked like he wanted to launch the sample board at my head. Instead, he forced a tight smile and gave a short nod.

“Understood.”

I stared at the sample for another second before looking back at my laptop. I wasn’t even particularly fond of blue, but lately, it was starting to look like a pretty colour.

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ────

The first week passed by.

I religiously contributed to my work.

I ate at reasonable hours and slept at unreasonable ones.

I checked my phone a deeply unnecessary number of times per day.

From KakaoTalk to Instagram then back to KakaoTalk.

The conversation thread between us sitting there exactly as I had left it, my last message, a week old now, still unanswered, the small indicator beside it telling me absolutely nothing useful.

My notifications filled with everyone on this damn earth except the one person I needed answers from.

By the second week, I had expected something, anything. Instead, I found myself staring at the same message I’d sent days ago.

You reached home? On delivered.

It was a weak excuse for a conversation starter, embarrassingly so, but it had been the only reason I could think of to text her. Now it just sat there, unanswered, mocking me every time I opened the chat.

My KakaoTalk had forty three unread messages by Friday.I had read exactly one of them.

Everyone texted me, my business partner, my gym trainer, my brother, my mother, and even separate brand reps.

Everytime the phone would buzz my stomach would do something humiliating twist before my eyes even reached the screen and then it would be anyone.

Anyone at all.

By the time the third week rolled around I had lost my ability to sleep.

First it was just later at night, one, then two, then three in the morning staring at the plain ceiling of my apartment and my brain refusing to downshift into anything useful.

I started going to the gym at 4:00 AM instead of 6:00 AM. The punching bag took the brunt of my frustration all week. By the end of it, even my trainer had started calling me out.

At some point during the fourth week.

The shower had become a problem.

I had always been disciplined about that kind of thing. For years, desire had been nothing more than pressure and distance, a vague humming in the background of my life that I could easily tune out. But lately, the discipline had fractured.

Now, I would stand there in the rising steam, closing my eyes to find peace, only for the specificity to arrive without invitation. It wasn’t vague neither was it abstract. It was her, particularly and precisely. In vivid details that my waking mind had not consciously constructed, but that my sleeping mind had apparently been building for weeks, she would appear. I could almost feel the ghost of her touch on my skin, the imagined scent of her hair mixing with the humidity of the bathroom. I would snap my eyes open and stare hard at the white tile, breathing through the rush of heat in my gut, trying to think about literally anything else. Brand campaigns or something as irrelevant as supplement formulations.

I would cling to those mundane thoughts like a lifeline.

It worked for approximately five seconds.

Then, the image of me and her in those dreams would flood back in, leaving me breathless and aching in the silence of the room.

I had started taking colder showers, hoping the shock of the ice water would kill the fire in my blood.

But that didn’t work either. They were just colder, and as I stood there shivering, the mental image of her warmth only became more intoxicating.

I had spent the entire month fighting a war against my own mind, trying to freeze out a hunger that was only growing stronger.

On the fifth week I had drafted texts that I was never gonna send.

Hey. Delete.

I’ve been thinking— Delete.

Are you— Delete.

Never mind. Delete.

The delete button and I had become intimately acquainted over the past month. I would type something, stare at it for a moment, and promptly decide it revealed too much or the wrong thing or something I hadn’t yet decided whether I was ready to even admit myself, and then I’d delete it and put the phone down and last approximately less than a hour before the cycle restarted.

I made up my mind on the sixth week.

I was going to call her, because she obviously wouldn’t.

That was it.

I had arrived at it the way you arrive at something after fighting it for six weeks, not gracefully, not with any of the composure I would’ve preferred, but with the particular surrender of a man who had simply run out of other options.I was going to call her and sound normal and it was going to be fine because I was a normal person having a normal phone call.

I sat in my office chair for eleven minutes after making this decision without calling.

The sky outside my window had gone the heavy grey-green colour it went before rain.

The city below moved in its usual indifferent way. My phone sat on the desk in front of me.

My hands sat beside the phone.

I picked it up.

Put it down then picked it up again.

My thumb hovered over her contact.

You are a grown man.

Call her.

A voice in my head yelled.

I pressed dial before I could talk myself out of it a fourth time.

The line connected.

Rang. One.

I straightened slightly in the chair.

Two. Three.

My thumb pressed unnecessarily hard against the phone like applying more pressure would somehow make her answer faster.

Four. Five.

My knee started moving under the desk.

I stopped it.

It started again.

Six. Seven. Eight.

Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.

Nine. Ten.

The line went to voicemail.

Her honeyed voice, asking me to leave a message.

I hung up with a frown.

I couldn’t have articulated a single thing I would’ve said if she had answered anyway.

I sat there with the dead call still glowing on my screen while the city outside turned darker beneath the storm clouds gathering over Seoul. The first sounds of rain finally started hitting against the windows behind me in soft scattered taps .And somehow that sound pissed me off more.

I slammed the phone against the desk harder than I intended before leaning back into my chair and dragging a hand over my face tiredly.

Goddamnit!

I was a grown functioning adult!

Not some teenager crashing out because the popular girl didn’t answer his call.

Yet somehow that wasn’t far from the truth.

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ────

He left the office around 8:30 PM.

The building lobby was quiet at that hour, the security officer nodded at him as he passed while the automatic doors slid open, letting in the delightful smell of rain. He headed toward the underground parking and swung a leg over his motorcycle, the metal still faintly warm beneath his hands from sitting indoors all day. The engine rumbled alive underneath him a second later as he pulled out onto the main road.

His office sat obnoxiously far from his house because the land he had originally wanted, the perfect location barely fifteen minutes from his place had already been bought out by some old investor before he could secure it. He remembered being irrationally pissed about it for weeks when eventually he had no choice but to settle for the current building instead, it wasn’t that bad except by the time work ended, he was usually exhausted out of his fucking mind.

That’s the only downside.

The city blurred around him as he rode through it, headlights smearing against wet asphalt, neon signs reflecting across puddles, traffic slowed near the overpass and he eased the bike to a stop alongside the line of cars, gloved fingers tapping once against the handle absentmindedly.

Cold wind pushed against his helmet while rows of red brake lights stretched endlessly ahead of him, reflecting across the wet asphalt in long distorted streaks. With the current situation he already knew his apartment was still another thirty six minutes away at best. His shoulders ached, while his mind crowded with restless thoughts, and in that moment, all he wanted was the serenity of his home, to collapse onto his bed, watch anime or some Netflix show and sit alone in silence for the rest of the night drinking whiskey to let loose, even though that silence had started feeling a little too lonely, lately. Traffic had slowed to an unbearable crawl near the overpass by the time his phone buzzed inside his jacket pocket. And his chest reacted before his brain did. That same sharp pathetic leap happened instantly, violent enough that he was genuinely beginning to get irritated at himself for it. He pulled the phone out quickly, already looking at the screen before the name fully registered.

Only to sigh once he heard the voice.

What was he expecting in the first place?

It was his younger brother, Jinu.

“What.” Jungkook answered listlessly.

“YO BROO!!” his brother’s voice blasted through enthusiastically, loud enough that Jungkook had to pull the phone slightly away to protect his eardrum. “Mom and Dad aren’t coming home tonight, come over right now, let’s order some food and play Xbox later.” Jungkook snorted quietly, eyes still fixed on the endless line of cars ahead. “You call me like I’m one of your little friends .”

“You are too old for that, unc.”

Jungkook rolled his eyes then playfully stating. “Alright then, I’m hanging up.”

“Okay wait, wait—” He could practically hear Jinu panicking through the phone. “Where are you right now?”He glanced briefly at the overhead signs before answering flatly, “Already passed Goyang like twenty minutes ago.”

“The traffic’s fucking endless,” he grunted, pissed beyond.

“See this is what happens when you decide to build offices on the other side of the country.”

“The land near my house was already bought,” he muttered tiredly. “I didn’t exactly have options.”

“I called since you’re usually done with work around this time.” Jinu explained.

Jungkook sighed quietly, slowing the motorcycle slightly as the line of cars ahead stopped once again. “Why? What happened to your friends? Tell them to sleep over.”

“Nah, Yoojun’s out with his girlfriend,” Jinu said dismissively. “And Kinseom’s busy crying over his midterms or something.” Jungkook hummed absentmindedly at that. “Knowing you, you’re not cooking anything, order some good stuff, not that cheap ramen you always eat and then cry about your diarrhoea, I’m sending you money.”

“See? This is why you’re my favorite sibling.”

“You only have one.”

“Shut up.” A faint laugh almost left Jungkook before Jinu spoke again.

“Also…can you send a bit more than $200? I only have $160 right now, and I need to order for three people.”

Jungkook’s brows furrowed slightly beneath the helmet. “You got company at home?”

“Mm.”

“Who?” Jungkook queried.

There was rustling on Jinu’s side, voices moving faintly somewhere behind him before he spoke again, completely unaware of the effect his next words were about to have on his poor brother.

“____ and Samuel are here.”

Jungkook’s grip tightened unconsciously around the handle.

Jinu kept talking absentmindedly. “Minha aunty sent over kimchi and those pickled radishes you like, so they came by to drop it off and I may or may not have hold them hostage.”

Jungkook’s expression stayed completely blank.

“Oh,” he answered in an even tone, a little too even.

“Yeah,” Jinu continued. “Me and Samuel are watching football, and I didn’t want ____ to feel left out, so I figured I’d call you to keep her company.”

“How long are they staying?”

The question left his mouth before he could stop it.

Jinu paused briefly this time, as if he noticed the shift in his brother’s voice. “I dunno…” he wondered slowly. “They literally just got here.”

Jungkook’s pulse stumbled for a second. “Hello? The signal’s bad, can you hear me? Hyung?” Jinu yelled before the line went off.

Before his brain fully caught up, the traffic ahead loosened slightly and he abruptly twisted the handle hard enough for the motorcycle to surge forward between lanes, then cut across and made a sharp U-turn.

A car honked instantly.

Some irritated old man shouted a curse at him from somewhere behind.

He barely heard it.

It happened on a random Saturday.

Every year, your mother made a huge batch of kimchi, spending nearly a full week preparing enough to last the year. As always, she carefully set aside portions for your aunts, your grandmother, and her closest friends. This year was no different.

She had practically begged you to accompany Samuel because his only condition to your mother was that he wasn’t going alone. So eventually you were bound to tag along, because apparently, that little shit had told her he felt “awkward” showing up by himself and would only go if you came too as if he hasn’t known them since he was diaper years old.

The Jeon residence looked even more beautiful at night, especially beneath the rain. It didn’t feel like one of those aggressively modern mansions built only to show off wealth. Instead, stepping through the gates felt strangely nostalgic, like walking straight into a warm 90s Japanese home from an old film.

The interior was breathtaking.

Rich oak floors creaked softly beneath your shoes while warm ambient lighting cast honey-colored shadows across the walls. Wooden beams stretched across the ceiling, large indoor plants occupied nearly every corner, and low furniture sat scattered around the living room beside stacked books, ceramic vases, framed paintings, and old vinyl records displayed elegantly.

Even the rain tapping softly against the windows somehow made it feel warmer.

Objectively, you loved it.

It reminded you of being little again, standing awkwardly beside your mother while Minha Aunty hosted dinners here years ago, back when the adults laughed loudly over tea and dinner spread while you and the boys ran around the house without care. That specific memory hit you unexpectedly as you stood there now years later, dripping rainwater onto the entrance floor while the familiar warmth of the house wrapped around you all over again. And for a fleeting second, you caught yourself thinking that one day, when you finally built a life of your own, you wanted a home that looked exactly like this, but the thing about homes were that they went beyond the exterior and decor.

By the time you and Samuel entered at the Jeon residence it had only been a little past 9:40, only to find out Hanmi Aunty had gone over to her nephew’s house and wouldn’t be back till late. Jinu, despite being two years older than you, had always been one of your easier friends to be around, you wouldn't exactly say you and Jinu were close in a way 'we're each others ride or die' type of way but more in a 'I'm always cheering for you, from far away.’ type of way. He is intellectual, quick-witted, surprisingly mature when it came to business despite his unserious personality. You honestly would’ve dropped the kimchi off and left Samuel with him before heading home yourself, but Jinu kept dragging you back into conversations about startups, investments, branding strategies, wanting advice because he apparently had been wanting to start his own business too.

When he casually mentioned Jungkook a few times throughout the evening, it took genuine effort to keep your face neutral.

You, Jinu, and Samuel were currently sprawled across the couch in the living room.

The rain had finally eased to a drizzle, pattering softly against the windowpane.

You were still reeling from that night at the gathering party.

The memory of his eyes, heavy lidded and intense, his strong gaze… the way he had held you, kissed you, the way he looked like a sad little kicked puppy once you retreated.

You couldn’t deny the strange sense of rush you felt after that night.. But you also could not act like he hadn’t consumed your mind ever since.

It was even worse than the dreams.

Then it was only imaginary. Now, the reality of what you had initiated gripped you.

Now you knew.

Now you knew the way his breathing had changed against your mouth, the way his body reacted to your touch, the way he looked at you when he stopped thinking and simply felt.

It had wrapped around your mind ever since.

And maybe that was why you took a step back afterwards. Because you had already done the hardest part. You had shown him through a charged glance, a deliberate proximity that he wasn’t just some “older brother” figure in your life. You had broken the socially expected dynamic. You had freed him from that cage, or so you told yourself. That balcony had changed something permanently between you both, and Jungkook had no other option but to admit it. Now, you just wanted to sit back and let him take the remaining few steps. You wanted to take a little time and see if he would risk it, if he would call or make the efforts. Because you knew if you were the one constantly making all the calls, there would be an imbalance, with one falling harder, hurting harder, wanting more while one remained safely undecided.

So you built the wall back up. You took advantage of your busy schedule, your midterms just so you can easily ignore his texts and stare unnecessarily long at his missed call today before locking your phone again.

Truthfully, your heart had leaped the second you recognized his number.

But you ignored it anyway.

A cruel little part of you enjoyed it.

Enjoyed pushing his buttons.

You wanted to push him to his limits.

The apartment was filled with nothing except the noise of the television, Samuel and Jinu yelling every few seconds, and the occasional aroma of kimchi and ramen seasoning lingering from the kitchen while you all still argued over what to order for dinner.

Out of boredom, you picked up your phone and lazily scrolled through your socials instead. Then suddenly in the thick silence—

The doorbell rang.

All three of you looked toward the entrance in unison.

Jinu squinted at the door. Two rings, close together, impatient. He unfolded himself from the floor with a groan and padded toward the entrance, his socked feet quiet on the floor, his broad shoulders blocking the doorway entirely as he pulled it open.

You weren’t looking at first.

“Now, now, now, look who’s where?” Jinu chanted.

Putting your phone aside, you looked in front of you to see Samuel grinning ear to ear, because from where he was sitting he could see who it was. Now you were interested to see who the person was. Then something shifted in Jinu’s posture, a small surprised sound left him, a laugh caught in his throat. And your eyes moved before you told them to. Jinu’s back was still blocking most of the doorway. And then he stepped aside. You felt the surprise move across your face before you could catch it. Jungkook stood at the threshold, rain damp and breathing slightly harder than usual, like he had ran a marathon before getting here, his hair was wet, dark strands pushed back from his forehead, the white t-shirt clung to him, rain-soaked at the shoulders, the fabric pulling taut across his chest and abdomen. A black motorcycle helmet was cradled between his arm and his body, tucked against his bicep. His eyes moved across the room. Swept once, nodding ar Sameul happily. And then when they found you, he held your gaze for one long, unhurried moment. Then he stepped inside and set the helmet down by the door.

He reached up and pushed his damp hair back from his forehead with one hand, the movement made the sleeves of his shirt ride up, revealing the lower edges of the intricate tattoos that you knew snaked up his arms before disappearing under the fabric. You tilted your head as you looked at him. While Jinu leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, “I’m wondering why you’re here all of a sudden when you already reached your home.” His eyes were bright with it. “What happened to ‘I’m already near home, call your little friends.’ huh?”

He did a deeply unflattering impression of Jungkook’s lower register that made Samuel snort from the living room floor.

Was Jungkook’s only reply. “Get me a towel.” as he was taking off his shoes.

Jinu finally pushed off the doorframe with a playful scoff and turned back toward the living room with his hands in his hoodie pocket. “How’s it going, hyung?”

Samuel paused the TV and asked. “Good, good.” Jungkook smiled as he moved toward the living room. He rounded the couch, looking for somewhere to sit. His eyes passed over the available space and landed, briefly and inevitably, on the floor beside you before moving away again. Instead, he dropped onto the couch opposite you and leaned back.

Running a hand through his still-damp hair, he barely had time to settle before he jerked in surprise as Jinu threw a towel at him out of nowhere. Jungkook tsked in annoyance while Jinu laughed.

“Dry yourself before you catch a cold.” Jungkook muttered something under his breath and began drying his arms, neck, face, and hair. “The rain got worse, and I realized my house was farther away. The safest option was to just make a U-turn and come here,” he explained simply. Jinu stared at him for a long moment. “Uh-huh.”

“It did get worse. I’m just wondering how we’re gonna leave, noona,” Samuel said worriedly, gesturing toward the rain-streaked window.

You shrugged. “I don’t think it’s stopping anytime soon.”

“Man, I’m gonna get bored out of my mind,” Samuel complained. Jinu stood infront of Sameul with a knowing expression.

“Not a chance. We can play on my PlayStation. It’s been forever since I’ve played.” Jinu boasted.

Samuel immediately sat up like he won the lottery. “Jinu hyung, that’s a great idea.”

The two boys high-fived each other, watching them, it was hard to believe Jinu was almost five years older than her little brother.

“Okay, wait. Let me go set it up then. My bedroom’s right next to the corridor.”

As Jinu got to his feet, Samuel’s attention shifted to the man sitting motionless.

“Jungkook hyung, join us too.”

While he only shook his head, a small apologetic smile appearing on his face. “Next time. I’m too tired today. You two go play.” The younger brothers of the duo disappeared up the corner into the bedroom. For approximately 40 seconds the silence was complete. Then from behind the door, there was an immediate sound of a game starting up.

The living room stayed quiet.

The rain against the windows filled the space between, you kept your eyes on the dark screen of the television that no one had bothered to turn off properly, a screensaver moving slowly across it, and you were aware, acutely, precisely aware of him on the couch to your opposite.

You could feel him looking.

You didn’t turn to confirm it.

You didn’t need to. It was the same way you had always been able to feel it, that specific quality of his attention, the weight of it, except now it had a different texture than it used to.

A few seconds passed.

Then you turned your head and looked directly back at him. He didn’t look away.

This was new. The old Jungkook, the oh so composed, careful, and categorising one would have shifted his gaze by now, redirected smoothly, given them both the exit of plausible deniability. This one just looked back at you with his dark eyes and his still damp hair and that unreadable expression he’d been wearing since he walked through the door, unhurried and completely unashamed about it.

You didn’t shy away either, reeling in the elongated eye contact. Something catastrophic had apparently occurred in the game as Samuel’s voice rose above it in protest. You broke the eye contact first, not from nerves, but deliberately, on your own terms and leaned forward toward the low table. Jinu had left snacks out, a small bowl of strawberries and a generous jar of Nutella sitting beside you like an offering. Your hands moved towards the bowl to pick out the largest strawberry you could find and dipping it leisurely into the Nutella. His eyes had followed your hands without him meaning to, you could see it, the way his gaze had tracked movement and was now zeroed in on your mouth as you brought the strawberry to your lips. You took a slow and easy bite.

Keeping his gaze the entire time like you weren’t clocking every micro-expression moving across his face. You lowered the strawberry from your mouth and then, with a careful, unhurried motion, brought it back up and licked the Nutella clean from the side of it, your eyes sliding back to his as you did it. Ignoring the knot in your stomach you stood up slowly and sauntered towards him. Jungkook’s hands settled tightly on his knees. You stopped in front of his spread legs, too close for the living room of his parents’ house, with his brother twelve feet away behind a door that was very much unlocked. As you leaned down slightly, his eyes dropped without permission, sliding past your neckline to the soft swell of your cleavage. And for some reason, a shiver ran through you.

His gaze lingered for half a second more before dragging itself upward again, back to your face, your eyes and your mouth.

“It’s so good,” you hummed delightfully, holding up the strawberry between your fingers. “Would you like some?” The question was innocent but the smile that accompanied it wasn’t.

There was a small smear of Nutella at the corner of your mouth.You weren’t doing anything. You were just standing there looking down at him with that mischievous expression of yours.

His throat bobbed while he licked his lips.

You held the bitten end of the strawberry out toward him, your slender fingers streaked with Nutella. It dangled above him like a forbidden fruit, your wrist level with his mouth, and for one second he just looked at it.He brought his hand up and losed it over yours. He felt it immediately, the faint tremor running through your fingers beneath his palm, his thumb rested over your knuckles. He took the strawberry into his mouth gradually.

And then, without fully deciding to, let his tongue drag across your index finger where the Nutella had gathered, he watched your face while he did it. You held your breath. The sweet taste lingered on his tongue. He kept his hand over yours for longer than necessary, and in that suspended second, something in him strained against doing something unfathomable right then and there. From your expression, he could tell you weren’t thinking any differently. “I-” he got cut off as the door to Jinu’s bedroom swung open.

“Guys, we’re ordering pizza.” Jinu stood in the doorway, phone in hand, blissfully unaware.

Both pairs of eyes darted toward the doorway while you snatched your hand back, while Jungkook sat up straighter against the couch cushions. Jinu looked between the two of you once with eyes that were perhaps not quite as oblivious as they appeared, then glanced back down at his phone. “Samuel suggested the one with extra, olives, and tandoori chicken from PizzaHi is their bestselling. Anyone have objections?”

“No.” both of you said at the same time.

“Cool, we’re joining you in a minute.” Jinu turned and disappeared back into the hallway, already talking to Samuel, the door swinging halfway shut behind him. The living room exhaled. You moved to the other side of the table without comment, casually eating another strawberry, biting your lips to hold back a smile and putting a socially reasonable amount of distance from him. While Jungkook’s attention snagged on you at the same time…..his pulse did whatever it wanted without his permission.

At the table, it was only Jinu and Samuel talking now, fully absorbed in their games, the two of them going back and forth about PlayStation games, some heated debate about GTA versus God of War that had been ongoing since approximately 2019, Jinu slammed his hand on the table at some point passionately declaring his high scores and kills, something you didn’t fully follow. It felt like there was something looped around your throat all through dinner, some invisible, tightening thing, and underneath all of it was a want so embarrassingly simple it made your jaw clench. It was easier to avoid him then pretend like there’s nothing going between you two.

That is a dangerous thing, the two of you sitting in all that noise and somehow being the stillest points in the room. Your confidence felt slightly misplaced after that, like it had slipped out of your hands without asking.Because you couldn’t stop thinking about earlier.The way his tongue had brushed your finger. You’d built yourself a little rule over the course of the meal: look at Jinu, look at your plate, laugh when Samuel said something, sip your drink slowly. Do not look left. Do not look across. Do not. Let him make the next move. Jungkook murmured something about changing his clothes and left the table before the rest of you, he disappeared down the hallway toward his old bedroom, the one that still had his things in it. You took another bite of your delicious pizza, your eyes fixed on the corridor he disappeared into. You stood up too, offering to help clean, to wash the dishes, anything to move your hands, but Jinu refused “Don’t even think about it,” he declared as if offended, already stacking plates. “You’re my guest.” By the time the table cleared, the rain had stopped. Everything outside looked washed clean and still. “Samie.” You tapped your brother’s chin. “It’s past eleven.”

“Noona.” Samuel caught your hand before you could pull it back, and when you looked at him he had the eyes out. The full ones. The ones he’d been deploying on you since he was seven years old and they still worked, infuriatingly, every single time. “I’m gonna stay over actually. We’ll play games, I’ll go home tomorrow morning.” You shook your head. “AND,” he said, louder, cutting off whatever you were about to say, straightening up like he’d just played his final card, “I already told mom. So

you don’t even have to worry about it.”

“You already—” You stared at him. “When did you—”

And then Jinu’s hand landed on top of you

“Let the poor guy stay, it’s gonna be a fun match.” he said, and his voice had gone a little softer, a little less loud than his usual. “Besides, I know for a fact Jungkook hyung’s gonna disappear sooner or later. Mom and Dad are on vacation, so I’ve got the whole house to myself.” You looked at Jinu then at Samuel, who was still holding your hand and looking at you with a hopeful expression. The argument dissolved somewhere in your chest before it could make it to your mouth, it was unlike him to want to stay over, and you didn’t wanna kill his fun.

“Fine, I’ll uber alone.” you said.

Samuel made a noise like he’d won a championship.

You reached for your purse, the skirt of your black polka-dot midi dress brushing lightly against your legs. Your hair hung loose down your back, the styled front pieces framing your face, with Jinu and Samuel trailing after you toward the entrance.

Jinu held the door open while you crouched down to slip your ballet flats on.

You flashed him a small smile in thanks. As you opened the Uber app, your expression immediately soured. It said ‘No cars available.’

You refreshed once, but it didn’t change anything. It was understandable, considering the weather. The rain had stopped, but the storm had kept most drivers off the road. You leaned back against the doorframe with an annoyed sigh. “What?” Samuel asked, reading your face instantly. “There aren’t any Ubers available.”“Seriously?” Jinu shook his head. “That sucks.”“It’s fine,” you said, already pulling up Maps.

“There’s a bus stop nearby, I’ll just take that.” You hummed. “Are you sure, noona?” Samuel’s voice shifted into that tone, the worried one tgat he pretended he didn’t have. “Yes, of course. I can manage by my—” A deeper voice cut through.

“I’m about to leave too.” You looked up. Jungkook was standing in the doorway now, changed, black tee, fitted, grey trousers, hair dried and falling naturally. His eyes found yours and stayed there. “Can I drop you off?” Jungkook was standing in the doorway now, changed, black tee, fitted, grey trousers, hair dried.

You felt your hands move on their own, sliding behind your back, fingers clasping together. “If it doesn’t bother you too much,” you said, “then yes.” Something softened at the corner of his mouth. “Never a bother.” he said simply. You turned to wave at Jinu and ruffled Samuel’s hair messily and stepped out onto the porch. The wood was damp under your flats.

Jungkook followed, falling into step just behind you, and the door clicked shut at your backs.

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ────

His motorcycle sat at the curb, black and low beneath the glow of the streetlights, the chrome catching flashes of yellow every time a car passed. Without a word, Jungkook silently held the helmet out to you, the visor clicked shut. Jungkook swung a leg over first, settling into place while you stood beside it a second longer, suddenly aware that getting on meant surrendering every last bit of distance the two of you still had between you. You climbed on behind him.

The seat was smaller than you’d expected. Your knees brushed his sides. Your chest nearly against his back. Nowhere for your hands to go except around his waist, so that’s where they went, and the moment your arms wrapped around him you felt his whole body tensing.

His black tee was warm beneath your palms, stretched across the width of his shoulders, and then the engine turned over and the motorcycle hummed alive beneath you both and Jungkook pulled away from the curb and there was nothing to do but hold on.

The city was unusually quiet tonight. Most of the roads were nearly empty, slick from the earlier rain, streetlights reflecting across the asphalt in long ribbons of gold. At first you sat stiffly behind him, then gradually, minute by minute, the tension left your shoulders. The cool wind brushed against your cheeks.

And somewhere between one traffic light and the next, you began to stop cataloguing every point of contact between your body and his. The motorcycle slowed to a stop at a red light. Jungkook’s hands dropped from the throttle briefly, flexing once before settling back onto the handlebars. His forearm brushed against yours, yet neither of you moved away. The light stayed red, the city humming quietly around you.

And without over thinking about it, you rested your chin against his shoulder. For a second you wondered if he would tense. If he would say something. If he would shift away. But he didn’t. When the lights turned green. The engine surged forward. And you stayed exactly where you were, eyes closed, the wind cool against your face, the city coming apart into streaks of light and shadow around you. The familiar streets of your neighborhood appeared slowly, then all at once. The motorcycle slowed, turned, stopped in front of your complex.

The engine went quiet, the sudden stillness felt enormous. His shoulders rose and fell with one slow breath. Your hands were still loosely around his waist, and you were still aware of every point where your body met his.

⤷ THIRD PERSON POV ⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆

She stepped off the bike with a stiffness that felt unnatural, her body betraying her with every shift of weight. She paused, biting down hard on her lower lip, a frantic, unspoken question forming in the silence of her mind.

Say something.

Stop me.

She looked at him, waiting.

But he barely looked at her.

“I’m gonna go then, thanks for the ride.” She muttered. Jungkook’s gaze was fixed forward, his hands gripped the handlebars tightly, the knuckles bleached white, tendons straining against the skin. She could see the veins protruding in his neck, thick and pulsing, and his jaw was clenched so tight a muscle jumped rhythmically beneath the skin. He looked like a man holding back a tsunami, or perhaps a man who had simply decided the dam wasn’t worth breaking. The silence hit her harder than she expected. Because he looked so tense, like there were a hundred things trapped behind his teeth.

And yet he forced himself to stay quiet, and only nodded once.

Fine. If he wants to be adamant then let him be. Her frustration flared up, shielding the bruise forming on her heart. If he didn’t think she was worthy enough to risk it all, if he couldn’t summon the courage to take what was already there, then he wasn’t the guy for her anyway.

Why was she doing this again? Putting all her validation onto him? Dumping it all on him?

From that day in the balcony till today, she had been the one making the first move. As a woman, she had initiated way too much for a man who couldn’t even bid her goodbye properly. She wouldn’t do it again.

Not ever. That was the determination that gripped her until the door to her house closed.

The lock clicked with finality. She put her forehead on the door.

Leaned against it.

And breathed heavily.

Her knees were wobbly, as if the entire weight of what had happened today was rushing in on her at full force. She was exhausted, from wanting him, from wondering, from waiting for someone else to decide whether she was worth the risk.

The adrenaline crash left her hollow, shaking.

She could feel the wetness pooling between her legs, a heavy, throbbing evidence of her body’s traitorous response. Instinctively her legs clenched together.

Fuck. Just because of a damn bike ride? What was wrong with her? Was she that sexually deprived? Her vibrator worked more than enough. It worked enough to keep her pleased and content for weeks, it was efficient and detached. It didn’t ask questions. It didn’t make her feel vulnerable. It didn’t leave her wondering if she was too much or not enough. But this…This raw, chaotic need for him, for his acknowledgment, was a hunger no machine could satisfy especially after knowing the way his lips felt on her. Her throat felt dry, parched from holding her breath. She pushed off the door, her legs trembling as she started to walk towards her refrigerator.

She’d barely made it to the kitchen and as she grabbed the bottle, twisted the cap—

The doorbell rang. She set the bottle down slowly, brows pulling together.

It had to be Miss Pinky. No one else made sense at this hour. Her neighbor had a sixth sense for her arrivals, always seemed to catch her coming through the front door, she had a habit of surprising her with something wrapped in foil or stacked on a plate, a dessert she’d made too much of, or sometimes a request for one of hers. Miss Pinky was an angelic woman but with a terrible sense of timing.

She smoothed her expression into something presentable as she crossed to the door.

Wearing a smile she swung it open.

The smile dropped instantly because instead of a small, pale, grey haired woman there stood a man with fiery eyes.

Jeon Jungkook was right infront of her door. His chest heaving rapidly, his face damp with sweat, his eyes burning with something she had never quite seen in them before.

“What are you—” “I thought you—” she couldn’t even finish the sentence because he stepped forward. “Sorry,” he said, and his voice was low and unsteady in a way that made her go completely still. “But today — you’ll listen to me, ____.”

She stood frozen in the doorway, caught completely off guard by the sight in front of her.

“I can’t keep doing this.” He said it like it had been sitting at the back of his throat for weeks, like it came out because he simply couldn’t hold it anymore. His eyes were almost feverish

“I’ve spent the past month trying not to think too much about our kiss, thinking it was only a tipsy mistake.” He snickered.

“It didn’t work instead it was all I could think about.” His hand came up and pushed through his hair, gripping it briefly at the root before dropping back to his side. He looked like standing still was taking considerable effort.

“And I’ve realised—” he stopped. Pressed his lips together then he begin again. “I don’t know how to stop.” She said nothing. She was afraid if she made a single sound he’d remember where he was and pull it all back. His eyes didn’t waver from hers. Not once. “I can’t be near you without losing my head a little.” A short exhale left him, almost humorless, like he found himself faintly ridiculous. “And I can’t be away from you without it being worse.”

Silence pressed in before he spoke again.

“I’d be lying if I said I still think of you the way I used to.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what to do with that. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with that for five weeks.” And here she drowned in doubts, thinking he was just continuing with his life, wondering that he probably despised her, or was absolutely terrified by their kiss, and she forcefully convinced her conscience that it was for ‘the better’ but hearing his side of the story, changed the whole story. “I’m not asking you for anything you don’t want, neither am I gonna push you to reciprocate to me or do anything you’re uncomfortable with.” His voice dipped, the feverish edge giving way to something quieter and almost fragile underneath. “But also I keep fearing if something happens between us the next time, I won’t be able to hold back, and might end up pushing you far away.”

She opened her mouth but nothing came out except for air. He kept going. Like he couldn’t stop now, like the dam had broken and there was no use in holding back. “I know you’re probably regretting it.” He took an unsteady breath. “I’m way older, I probably look insane right now, showing up here like this, I probably come across as some creepy guy who doesn’t know when to take a hint.” he explained, his eyes moved over her face briefly, almost pained. “And you’re so beautiful, ____.” The words escaped him before he could stop them. “You probably have a lot of options. Guys your age lining up to take you out on dates and—” He shook his head.

“You probably think I’m some cheap, lustful guy who got the wrong idea and is now becoming desperate. He laughed once, humorlessly, dragging a hand across his face.

“Can you please just tell me what to do?” His voice cracked slightly on the last word. “Because I can’t keep doing this.” His eyes don’t fully meet hers; they land near her shoulder, then slip away “Please.”

A faint tremor in his fingers when he tries to keep them still “Tell me to leave and I will.” His voice flattens slightly, as if he’s trying to detach from what he’s saying

“Tell me you don’t want this and I’ll disappear.” His gaze drops again, longer this time, avoiding her entirely “You won’t have to see my fa—.” Before he could finish that sentence, She grabbed him by the collar, both hands twisting into his shirt, pulling him down to her, pressing her mouth to his and cutting off every last word still trying to crawl out of him. Jungkook went completely still, definitely not because he didn’t want it, but because he couldn’t quite believe it.

His forehead creased.

He stayed still for another minute, his lips pliant against her moving ones. Then not being able to take it anymore, he kissed her back. His hand found her jaw carefully, like he still wasn’t entirely convinced she was real, and she felt him exhale against her mouth, a shaky, disbelieving sound that made something inside her chest ache. And then something in him just collapsed. His hands came up to wrap around her waist, urgent and unsteady, and he kissed her back with everything he’d spent five weeks swallowing down.

Every fucking bit of it. Every looked away glance, every room he’d quietly left, every time he held back, every night he’d stared at the ceiling trying to think about literally anything else. The tension that had been simmering between them for days finally snapped, exploding into a kiss that felt less like a greeting and more like a collision. It was desperate and hungry, their mouths colliding with a force that left them both breathless.

With a low, guttural groan, he guided her backward, his movements urgent yet focused, until her back hit the wall with a dull thud. The impact sent a nearby vase sliding off a side table, shattering on the floor in a spray of porcelain and water, but neither of them gave a fuck. The sound was nothing compared to the roar of blood in their ears.

It wasn't a gentle kiss at all, that kiss on the balcony was a child’s play. He devoured her, his lips bruising hers with a desperate, starving force. His tongue forced its way inside, sweeping through her mouth with a greedy hunger, tangling with hers in a wet, frantic dance. He tasted her. the sweet, heady flavor of her mouth and the sound he made was a deep, needy moan that vibrated against her lips. He sucked on her tongue, pulling it into his mouth as if he were trying to drink her dry, their saliva slicking their lips as they breathed each other's air in ragged, desperate gasps.

Jungkook paused for a second, breaking the kiss just enough to press his forehead against hers. His dark eyes were blown wide, searching hers with a look of absolute, shimmering hunger. He watched her pupils dilate and her lips part, wet, swollen, and glistening, his eyes moved over her face, studying her reaction as if he were memorizing every inch of her pleasure.

Then, his hands moved.

He slid them down her body, his palms searing through the thin fabric of her clothes, leaving trails of fire in their wake. He didn't stop until he reached her bare thighs, he captured the tender skin in a firm grip. He hooked his hands under her, lifting her legs and hauling her hips flush against him.

wiwi's note can wait! it was getting a little hot in there aye ;) i had to take a moment for myself cause i was suddenly missing my nonexistent boyfriend.

besties its finally here! THANK YOU FOR BEING SO PATIENT OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE ITS FINALLY HERE and i was able to make it through, i know it’s a little imperfect and there will be a little typos but I’ll edit it later again. PLEASE none of you dare leave without a reblog, a comment and a reaction photo! so much more is on the way! i can't wait to post part five.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[xxboomiex]

FERAL THINGS DON'T BELONG INSIDE II PART 14 [IN PROGRESS] Bunny Hybrid! Jungkook

Parts: P1 | P2 I P3 | P4 | P5 | P6 | P7 | P8 | P9 | P10 | P11 | P12 | P13 | P14 |

DESCRIPTION:

You never planned on taking in a hybrid. Especially not one like him.

You offer him food. A place to stay. Rules.

He offers you obedience. Tension. Trouble.

Because hybrids like him don't know how to exist without earning their place and you're about to learn that kindness, to someone like Jungkook, can feel just as dangerous as cruelty.

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

: : pairing: Bunny Hybrid! Jungkook x reader

: : genre: Hybrid AU, Angst-driven Romance

: : warnings: alcohol use, drug use, mutual pining, violence mentions of abuse, cursing, fluff, angst, smut, jealousy, emotional trauma, hurt/comfort, dehumanisation themes

: : word count: chapter: 10.3k | Total: 96,6 k [for now]

ao3 link: Link

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

A/N: if you're here for emotional damage, slow-burn tension and a little bit of chaos-then yeah. let's go this fic is messy in all the ways: hurt, comfort, trust issues, anc a hybrid who doesn't really know how to be safe even when he finally is.

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

Part 14

The heavy thud of your heart against your ribs is loud, pulsing in a frantic, suffocating rhythm that feels completely off-beat. Even more disjointed and wild than the chaotic saxophone solo that had filled the bar just an hour ago.

Every instinct screams at you that you are running out of seconds, hovering on the absolute edge of being revealed to whatever looming authority is getting closer and closer just on the other side of the boxes.

You have to act quickly. You push yourself away from Jungkook’s trembling body, giving him one desperate, intense look that tells him everything he needs to know: Stay down, don't move, and don't make a single sound, or everything is over.

Steeling your shattered nerves, you slowly emerge from behind the tall stacked boxes, raising a hand to shield your eyes as the blinding flashlight beam is instantly shoved directly into your face.

"Step out where I can see your hands!" the voice orders, sharp and echoing against the masonry.

As you comply, holding your trembling hands up in the cool air, the figure apparently realizes you're just a lone, disheveled civilian rather than a threat. The harsh beam is quickly lowered to the ground, casting a dim, ambient glow over the scene that leaves Jungkook’s dark corner safely swallowed by the shadows.

You blink through the burning white spots in your vision and register two police officers standing before you in full uniform. The taller one, who still has a silver whistle clamped between his teeth, spits it out, letting it dangle against his tactical vest.

"Apologies for the scare, ma'am," he says, his voice dropping to a calmer, professional register as he adjusts his heavy belt. "I'm Junior Officer Kim Namjoon, and this is my partner, Officer Kim Seokjin."

The older officer, Seokjin, steps forward, his expression deadly serious as he shines his light in a slow, sweeping perimeter around you. The light dances dangerously close to the cardboard wreckage.

"We're currently pursuing two cat hybrids who just barged into and robbed a supermarket down few blocks. Our scanners didn't pick up any chip signatures, which means they're either unregistered strays or someone illegally clipped their trackers. Did you happen to see two individuals running past this alleyway just now?"

Your stomach twists into a tight knot. Even though those hybrids broke the law, you know exactly what happens to unregistered strays caught by the system. The cold containment cells, the forced registration, or worse. And with Jungkook hidden right behind you, your protective instincts toward his kind flare sharply.

You swallow hard, forcing an awkward, hopefully convincing smile onto your lips. "Oh... no, officers. I haven't seen anyone. I've just been... right here."

Officer Namjoon raises a sharp, skeptical eyebrow. His eyes scan your deeply flushed face, the fine sheen of nervous sweat on your skin, and the messy, slightly wrinkled state of your clothes. "Right here? It's well past midnight. What exactly are you doing crouching behind a pile of cardboard boxes in a dark alleyway?"

Your mind scrambles in absolute, blinding panic. You obviously can't say you're helping a bunny hybrid through a sudden heat cycle, so you blurt out the first humiliating lie your brain can formulate.

"I was... peeing," you choke out, your face burning with a completely different kind of blistering heat now. You shift your weight awkwardly from one foot to the other, crossing your legs tightly for theatrical effect. "I just finished my shift at the bar down the street and I have a really, really weak bladder. I couldn't make it home. I'm so sorry, I know it's public indecency, I just... I really couldn't hold it."

Beside Namjoon, Officer Seokjin turns his head sharply to the side. His shoulders give a sudden, violent shake as he desperately tries not to laugh, but his front teeth betray him, biting down hard on his lower lip in a futile attempt to keep his composure. Officer Namjoon shoots him a thoroughly exasperated look and throws a sharp, warning elbow straight into Seokjin’s ribs. It’s too late, though. The older officer lets out a quiet, high-pitched laugh that sounds remarkably like someone frantically wiping down a wet windshield.

You stare at him, mortified, the humiliation radiating off you in waves. You internally curse whatever universal force always manages to drop you into the most agonizing situations imaginable. Yet, beneath the burning shame, a cold sense of relief washes through you. It is a thousand times better for them to think you are just a girl with a weak bladder caught with her pants down than to discover you were frantically jacking off a hybrid on a pile of boxes.

Realizing he has completely broken professional protocol, Officer Seokjin suddenly erupts into a series of loud, incredibly forced coughs, hacking into his fist as if he can somehow convince you that the ridiculous noise was just a medical emergency rather than pure amusement. He thumps his chest a few times, clearing his throat aggressively until his face is nearly as red as yours. Finally, he straightens his posture, throws his shoulders back, and forces his features into a rigid, perfectly straight expression. He adjusts his collar and clears his throat one last time. 

"Sorry," Seokjin says, his voice now entirely flat and professional, though his eyes still dance with a lingering, mirthful glint. "Something caught in my throat. "

Officer Namjoon lets out a long, heavy sigh that screams of a man who has had to apologize for his partner more than once during their shift. He turns his attention back to you, the flashlight beam remaining safely anchored to your shoes.

"Right. Well," Namjoon continues, trying to salvage the authority of the situation. "Public urination aside, you need to head straight home. We are under strict orders to round up any strays before the night is out. The full moon is tomorrow, and hybrids tend to go into sudden, unmedicated cycles around this time. They can be incredibly dangerous."

Your stomach drops as your mind flashes to Jungkook shivering right behind the boxes.

"Dangerous?" you ask, trying to sound casually curious rather than terrified, but your voice comes out tight, perhaps a bit too breathless. "How do you mean?"

Namjoon sighs, shifting his weight. "Every hybrid handles it differently. You could run into a naturally gentle one, but some of them don't live through heats easily. Without suppressants, the fever strips away their restraint. They can become highly aggressive, unpredictable, and dangerous. But above all, they get fiercely possessive. If they lock onto someone they consider a mate, or if they're just driven mad by the heat, they completely lose their minds. Their primal instincts take over, and they won't hold back."

"Oh..." you breathe, the syllable feeling heavy and hollow in your mouth. Your spine tingles with a sudden spike of anxiety as his words echo in your head.

"So," Namjoon wraps up, clipping his flashlight to his belt but leaving the ambient light tracking the floor. "Get out of the dark, go home. If you perhaps see a hybrid on your way or through a window, whatever, you call us immediately. Understand?"

​Before you can even nod, officer Seokjin steps in, waving his hand dismissively between them. "Hey! Stob it! Don't stress her out like that," he barks, his tone shifting back into that light, reprimanding nag. "She already told you she has a weak bladder. You're going to scare the poor girl so much she'll have an accident right here on the pavement."

Namjoon rolls his eyes, a faint pinch of irritation settling between his brows. "I'm just saying. As a municipal police officer, I am doing my job, yes? It's better to be safe."

"Yeah, yeah." Seokjin scoffs playfully, raising a heavy hand and heartily clapping Namjoon twice on the back, effectively shoving the younger officer a half-step forward toward the street. "Come on, let's get back to the perimeter before the Captain realizes we lost the trail."

You clear your throat awkwardly, eager to get them moving before Jungkook makes a sound. "Um, yes. Thank you, officers. I'm just going to... finish up," you mutter, gesturing down toward your skirt to imply your interrupted bathroom break.

Officee Namjoon’s face instantly morphs into an expression of intense, deeply flustered awkwardness. He clears his throat, shifting his eyes anywhere but at you. "Right. Yeah. Uh... suit yourself. Just be quick about it."

​Beside him, Officer Seokjin doesn't look bothered at all. Instead, he flashes you a overly dramatic, encouraging thumbs-up, his handsome face splitting into a wide grin as if he's personally cheering on your endeavor.

You nod quickly, backing deeper into the shadows of the alleyway, keeping your legs stiffly crossed for the performance until their heavy combat boots finally turn the corner and fade onto the main street. You wait, holding your breath in the dead silence, until the distant echo of their footsteps completely vanishes into the night.

The moment they are out of sight, the adrenaline drains from your system, leaving you trembling. You whip around and scramble back behind the stacked cardboard boxes, your heart in your throat.

Jungkook is curled into a tight ball, his head hanging low between his bent knees, his arms wrapped securely over them as if he were trying to occupy as little space as possible. He is dead silent, shivering so violently that the fabric of his heavy blouse rustles against the brick wall.

 "Jungkook?" you whisper frantically, dropping to your knees right in front of him. You place your hands on his shoulders, shaking him gently. "Hey, look at me."

He lifts his head slowly, his movements sluggish and heavy. The beanie has slipped slightly, revealing the damp, sweat-matted fringe of his dark hair. His eyes are glassier than before, completely dilated and unfocused as he fights through the haze of the fever.

"Are they gone?" he breathes out, his voice a cracked, fragile whisper.

"Yes, they left. They're gone, you're safe," you reassure him, the relief washing over you so intensely it makes you dizzy.

​Jungkook lets out a shaky breath. A faint, boyish pout touches his lips despite the fever racking his body. "I wanted to go out," he confesses in a small, strained murmur, his long fingers tightly clutching the fabric of his pants. "I wanted to help you... but I stayed right here. I didn't make a single sound. I was good, right?"

A wave of fierce affection swells in your chest. "You were." You soothe, your voice thick with emotion as you lean into the narrow space between his legs, wrapping your arms tightly around his neck. "I'm so proud of you, Bun. You did so well."

Jungkook lets out a ragged, trembling exhale, his arms instantly coming up to lock around your waist. He pulls you flush against his burning chest, squeezing you so hard it almost takes your breath away. Kneeling there in the dirt, buried in his embrace, you close your eyes and just breathe. As your mind flashes back to the two policemen, you offer a silent prayer of thanks that you ran into Officers Namjoon and Seokjin, instead of some grumpy, by-the-book hardasses who would have searched the alley with a K-9 unit.

Jungkook buries his face into the crook of your neck, his hot nose nuzzling deeply into your hair, inhaling your scent like it’s oxygen. 

​A sad, bittersweet smile touches your lips, your heart bleeding for him. Holding him like this—a so-called feral animal who could easily kill you, yet chooses to be entirely defenseless and submissive in your arms—you just can't comprehend the absolute cruelty of the world. How could anyone ever look at him and choose to hurt him? How could his previous owners abandon this poor, sweet bunny to the horrors of cages and dark streets?

​The fierce, maternal, and romantic protectiveness swelling in your chest is overwhelming. Crouched together in this cramped, filthy alley behind a fortress of discarded cardboard boxes, you realize you are ready to devote your entire life to keeping him safe from the dark.

​"Y/N..." A low whimper leaves his throat, his body suddenly stiffening against yours. "Can we... can we please go home? I think I'm gonna die. It hurts so bad."

​The word die triggers an instant, chaotic panic in your brain. The reality of his heat slams back into you full-force, and you abruptly break the hug, scrambling backward to stand up. Your mind starts racing at a million miles an hour, and before you can stop yourself, you start frantically yapping, the words spilling out of your mouth in a nervous rush.

​"Right! Yes, home, we need to go home right now. Oh my god, okay, can you walk? We have to be so careful because if the police are still patrolling the streets, we can't get caught, and I don't know if I can carry you if you collapse—"

​"Y/n." Jungkook cuts you off, his voice dropping an octave. He forces himself to his feet, using the rough brick wall to steady his trembling weight as his tall frame looms over you in the dark. A low, ragged growl hitches in his chest before he places a heavy, burning palm flat against your lower back, firmly pushing you forward and making you stumble a few steps toward the entrance of the passage. "Go. Just walk."

​You swallow hard and immediately start moving, not daring to argue with the primal tone in his voice. As you step out of the shadows, you can hear his heavy, ragged breathing right behind your shoulder. He is moving with a rigid, unnatural stiffness, his fists clenched so hard his knuckles are white. You can tell by the sheer tension radiating off his body that he is barely, barely holding himself together.

As you step out of the alley, the walk home isn't long at all. Just a few blocks under the dim glow of the streetlamps. You glance back at Jungkook a few times as you walk, noticing that he seems to calm down a little. He keeps his face strictly locked on the ground, his eyes fixed on the pavement as if focusing entirely on just putting one foot in front of the other. 

A dull sadness spreads through you as you watch him. It must be completely, utterly exhausting to be trapped in this state, fighting your own biology every single second. But despite everything the officers just said about hybrids losing their minds and becoming dangerous, you realize something deep down: you trust Jungkook. You know with absolute certainty that no matter how intense, primal, or bad this heat gets for him, he would never do anything to hurt you.

Your eyes briefly drift to the side as you pass that dark, miserable alleyway. It’s the exact spot where you met Jungkook for the first time. Where he had desperately cornered you under the dim streetlight, as he pleaded to offer himself just to earn enough to survive. It feels like an entire lifetime has passed since that night.

Before you can dwell on the thought, a sudden, sharp gust of wind sweeps down the street, blowing your hair directly into your face and whipping your clothes forward. Right behind you, Jungkook lets out a deeply annoyed, frustrated sound. You don't even have time to turn around and see what's wrong before his shadow cuts past you, his long strides easily blocking your path.

"What—" you start, but the word catches in your throat as Jungkook smoothly spins around on his heel.

Instead of stopping, he begins walking completely backward. He looks utterly ridiculous but impossibly endearing, moving in reverse with a strange, heavy-footed clumsiness, his glazed yes locked directly onto you as he matches your pace without missing a beat.

"—are you doing?" you finish, staring at him in utter bewilderment.

"Your scent," Jungkook murmurs quietly, his voice a low rumble that trembles with the effort of keeping his composure. "The wind is blowing it away to the front. When I walk behind you, I can't smell you anymore." He looks almost pained by the admission, as his primal instincts demand your scent to keep him grounded.

You look at him, a soft snort escaping you as a wave of affection cuts through your anxiety. Even in the middle of a terrifying heat cycle, his possessive hybrid traits are almost painfully sweet.

Noticing your reaction, Jungkook pouts his bottom lip, defensively stuffing his trembling hands into the single pouch pocket in the front of his hoodie.

"What?"

You shake your head, a genuine giggle bubbling up past your lips. 

"Nothing," you say, trying to hide your smile. "But you shouldn't walk backward like that, Jungkook. You're going to walk straight into a lamp post. Watch your steps."

Jungkook only tilts his head slightly, his dark, dilated eyes softening for a fleeting second. "I don't want to watch my steps. I want to watch you."

Your heart skips a beat, your cheeks burning with a fresh wave of warmth. "Stop," you mutter, a little flustered as you quickly point past his shoulder. "Look, we're here. It's our building."

Jungkook turns around to face forward again, but the second he completes the turn, he stops dead in his tracks. His entire body goes instantly rigid, the soft demeanor from a second ago completely evaporating.

Surprised by his sudden freeze, you walk over to his side and peer past his broad shoulder to see what caught his attention.

A yellow cab is idling by the curb right outside your building. The door swings open, and Greg stumbles out onto the pavement. He is swaying heavily on his feet, looking thoroughly disheveled, adjusting his wrinkled jacket. Even from across the short distance of the asphalt, the harsh glare of the streetlamp reveals the interior of the cab with painful clarity. Inside, a woman is leaning against the leather seats, her lips painted a stark, dark red as she blows Greg a sloppy, drunken kiss. It is most definitely not his wife, Krissy. You already sense that the night won’t end well for Greg if Krissy ever finds out about this.

The yellow cab suddenly screeches away from the curb, leaving Greg standing entirely alone on the dark pavement. He takes a shaky breath, turning around to head inside the building, but as his eyes lazily sweep across the empty street, they lock directly onto you.

Greg goes deathly pale, his jaw practically dropping. His eyes are glued to the silhouette looming beside you. The memory of their last encounter hangs heavily in the air, a silent, violent reminder of the time Jungkook had nearly beaten Greg into the staircase wall. Seeing the aggressive stranger again, makes the older man’s knees visibly shake.

Then Greg’s drunk stare tears away from Jungkook for a second, darting down your body until it lands directly on your exposed legs. The exact moment his sleazy stare begins to track higher toward the hitched-up hem of your skirt, Jungkook snaps. He immediately steps to the side, his body completely swallows your view, blocking you from Greg’s line of sight entirely. He lets out a low, quiet, warning groan; a dark, defensive sound vibrating deep within his chest that makes your heart skip a beat.

​Surprised by the sudden movement, you instinctively try to step to the left to see what’s happening, but Jungkook moves instantly with you, mirroring your steps with terrifying speed. He remains a solid, unyielding wall between you and the neighbor's sight

"Jungkook, what are you doing? Move," you hiss in a frantic whisper, nudging his lower back.

"No," he mutters with a dark finality that sends a shiver straight down your spine.

"He's just our neighbor, Jungkook, come on. Let's just go inside," you urge, tugging at the heavy fabric of his hoodie. "Move aside."

"I said no, Y/N," He doesn't budge an inch, his back flexing beneath his clothes. Even with his long ears pinned flat under his beanie, his posture is rigid and impossibly dominant, the fiercely territorial instincts of his heat burning right through him. "I don’t want him looking at you."

You let out a long, defeated sigh. Your legs are aching from the high heels, your wrist is sore, and you are far too exhausted to argue with an obsessive hybrid mid-heat in the middle of the street. Giving up for a moment, you lean forward and rest your forehead flat against the solid expanse of his back.

"Fine," you mumble against the cotton of his hoodie. "Just... tell me when he goes into the building."

"Mmh."

You stand there in the quiet shadow of his frame, the chilly night air brushing against your bare legs while Jungkook shields you from the rest of the world. It feels like a lifetime passes. Your internal clock ticks away, and after what feels like at least five agonizing minutes of standing perfectly still in street, you finally nudge him again.

"Is he gone yet?"

"No." 

Your eyes snap open, and you pull your forehead away from his back. "What do you mean, no?" you ask, a flare of genuine irritation hitting you. "Come on, how long does simply going through a door take? We can't just stand here for the rest of the night, Jungkook. What the hell is he doing? Let me see."

​You place your palms flat against his spine and shove, trying to push him aside to get a clear view, but it's like trying to move a brick wall; he stands perfectly stubborn, rooted to the pavement as if he has literally grown straight into the road. You are genuinely surprised by where this sudden, immovable energy is coming from. Just a few minutes ago, he was a helpless, shivering mess in a dark corner, begging for your help. Now, even with his body visibly trembling under the grueling strain of his heat and a raging fever, his sheer presence is entirely unyielding

"Jungkook, seriously, let me see!" you insist, swatting at his arm.

He lets out a small, frustrated huff, clearly torn between his manic urge to hide you and his instinct to obey your commands. Finally, with a tense, reluctant shift of his shoulder, he creates a tiny, narrow gap for you right beneath his armpit. You quickly lean in, peering through the small space to see across the street. Your brow furrows in utter confusion.

Greg hasn’t moved at all. He is still standing completely frozen on the pavement by the doors, his keys dangling uselessly from his trembling fingers. He looks utterly paralyzed with fear, staring wide-eyed at Jungkook’s towering, hooded figure. You glance up at the side of Jungkook’s jaw, realizing that while your bunny might look sweet and helpless on the backroom sofa, to Greg, he is a terrifyingly volatile person who once nearly cracked his spine—and right now, Jungkook is looking at him like he wants to finish the job.

But when Greg spots you peeking at him, his hands slowly rise into the air, palms out in a placating, drunken gesture. His knees wobble as he takes a cautious, stumbling step off the curb, moving directly across the asphalt toward the two of you.

​The moment Greg's foot hits the street, Jungkook triggers entirely into alert mode. A sharp tremor ripples through his massive frame as he takes a heavy step backward to maintain the distance, his back bumping hard against your chest. The contact is scorching, a stark reminder of the fever raging under his skin, but his muscles remain locked as hard as iron.

​"Miss Y/N..." Greg calls out, his slurred voice strained as he stops a few yards away. "I... I can help you."

​You are completely thrown off balance, totally not knowing what is going on. Driven by sheer confusion, your head emerges from behind Jungkook's side, your eyes wide. "What?" you echo blankly.

​The second your face is visible, Jungkook’s arm shoots up, his hand coming right into your face as he shifts his weight, firmly pushing you back behind the safety of his torso. 

​Greg freezes in his tracks. He casts a panicked, darting look up toward the dark windows of the apartment complex, clearly terrified of waking his wife up. When he speaks again, it is a loud, frantic whisper, hissed across the empty street.

"Krissy told me! She told me she hears things... that you're in an abusive relationship!" Greg wags a trembling, accusatory finger at Jungkook's hooded silhouette. "Look at him! He's keeping you hostage behind him right now! I—I will help you. Just run over here!

​You are now utterly panicked. The absurdity of the situation hits you, but the danger hits you harder. This can end very badly, very quickly.

You know exactly how dangerous this specific cocktail of circumstances is: Jungkook is deep in a unhinged, instinct-driven heat cycle, his protective radar turned up to a deadly maximum, while Greg is thoroughly drunk, unpredictable, and fricking stupid.

Realizing you have to take control before blood stains the asphalt, you lock your eyes on the back of Jungkook's neck and use the only weapon you have left.

"Jungkook. Enough. Drop it—Now. " you command, your voice dropping into a stern, authoritative tone that brooks absolutely no argument.

Jungkook's head whips around to face you, his wide, dark eyes filled with sheer surprise and the wounded shock of being scolded. The hard-wired, submissive obedience to your voice slams directly into his instincts, violently crossing wires with his protective rage.

He still looks terribly unwell; the fever is raging under his skin, sweat slicking his jawline as his breathing comes in shallow, ragged puffs. But beneath the fog of his heat, a sharp memory cuts through. He knows you have limits. He remembers the cold weight of your last silence treatment, and the terrifying prospect of you shutting him out again leaves him absolutely paralyzed. The fight drains from his posture instantly, leaving him standing trembling, entirely anchored to your command.

Seizing the fleeting window of absolute compliance, you step out from behind his shadow, finally coming to his side so Greg can see you clearly. You glare across the short distance, your face flushed with a mix of fury and adrenaline.

"Mr.Greg, you and your wife are completely in the wrong." you snap, your voice echoing sharply in the street. "There is absolutely nothing abusive going on here. Jungkook and I are in a completely healthy relationship, and it shouldn't be any of your business! You need to turn around, go inside your apartment, and mind your own business, will you?"

Greg blinks, his drunken brain struggling to keep up as his savior complex deflates. "But—but Miss Y/N, look at him—"

"I said shut it, Greg!" you cut him off, completely done with the conversation.

Turning your back on the neighbor, you let out a sharp breath. "Come on," you mutter, reaching out to take Jungkook by his hand, wrapping your fingers firmly around his wrist to guide him forward.

But the moment you pull him, his frame sways unsteadily. You look up at him, and the anger drains from your chest, replaced by an instant spike of dread. The fierce, territorial flush that had painted his face a moment ago is entirely gone. Jungkook is completely pale, his skin a ghostly, sickly white, and his eyes look entirely blank. Before you can even take a step, his knees buckle.

​"Jungkook!" you gasp, throwing your weight forward as his massive frame topples directly into you.

​You catch him blindly, your arms wrapping around his torso in a clumsy hug as his head lolls heavily against your shoulder. The sheer momentum of his dead weight nearly knocks you clean off your feet; your high heels skid against the asphalt, and your spine arches uncomfortably under the sudden, crushing pressure. Now that he has been living under your roof and eating proper meals, his frame is definitely healthier and heavier than when you first found him—a fact your aching muscles are acutely aware of right now as you struggle to stay upright.

​Across the street, Greg’s jaw drops, his thick monobrow twisting high up on his forehead in absolute panic. His drunken savior complex instantly morphs into terror. He looks at you struggling to hold up the unconscious boy, his hands flying to his hair.

​"Oh god—oh heavens, did I—did I do that? Is he dead? Miss Y/N, I didn't touch him, I swear!" Greg stammer, his voice cracking into a frantic whisper as he recoils against the lamp post. He is completely convinced his confrontation just triggered a medical emergency.

"Mr. Greg, shut up and help me!" you yell, your voice strained to its absolute limit as Jungkook's body begins to slide heavily down your front. "He's sick! Catch his other side before we both fall!"

The urgency in your voice finally pierces through Greg's drunken stupor. Forgetting his fear, he stumbles across the remaining stretch of the road, his boots scuffing loudly as he skids to a halt beside you. He hooks his arms under Jungkook’s opposite shoulder, groaning under the unexpected mass.

"Mon Dieu, he's like a sack of concrete," Greg wheezes, his face flushing red as he helps you hoist Jungkook's limp body back up. "And he's... He’s boiling!"

"I know! Just hold him!" you snap, gritting your teeth as you shift your grip around Jungkook’s waist.

Together, the two of you form a clumsy, straining tripod, dragging Jungkook across the pavement. It is a chaotic, agonizingly slow march. Greg is panting heavily, his slurred murmurs of apology cutting through the quiet night air as he helps you navigate through the buildings door.

Going up is pure agony. Jungkook’s feet are uselessly petting and thudding against the steps, a heavy dead weight you have to physically hoist up with every stride. You are struggling miserably in your high heels, your ankles wobbling dangerously. To make matters worse, Jungkook’s beanie-covered head keeps lolling to the side, his forehead bumping heavily against your temple with every stupid step you take.

Then, right as you manage to drag him halfway up to the first landing, the light timer clicks, and pitch darkness swallows the stairwell.

Greg curses under his breath. Pinned beneath Jungkook’s massive arm and unable to free his hands, he frantically blindly leans his head toward the wall. "Hold on, I'll get the light switch with my forehead—"

​He thrusts his head forward in the dark. You hear the dull thud of his skull smacking against the wall, then another, and just when you think he’s finally got it, instead of the lights turning on, his forehead smacks hard into a small, protruding button. A loud, piercing DING DONG! echoes violently through the narrow stairwell.

​You both freeze. He didn't hit the light switch; he just aggressively buzzed the doorbell to his own apartment.

​Oh my fucking god, not this, you think.

"Run!" Greg panics, his drunken voice cracking as he tries to violently shove Jungkook's weight upward. "Miss Y/N, run! She's gonna kill me!"

But you can't run. As the two of you try to scramble blindly up the next flight of stairs, your heel catches on a concrete edge, causing you to stumble. Before you can even recover your footing, the apartment door flies open, the bright yellow light from inside flooding the hallway.

​There stands Krissy.

She has oversized pink plastic rollers pinned tightly into her hair, and she is wearing a satin nightgown that is entirely too short, riding up her thighs. To make things worse, the strap has slipped completely off her shoulder, leaving one boob perilously close to spilling out into the open air. ​She stops dead in her tracks, her gaze snapping from you, then to the unconscious Jungkook, and finally to her sweaty, drunk husband.

"Greg?!" she shrieks, her eyes bulging out of her head. "What the hell are you—"

​"Go back to sleep, Krissy! I'm... I'm doing community service! I'm helping the neighbors!" Greg slurs loudly, his face flushing bright red as he desperately tries to push forward, dragging Jungkook up the next step.

​You don't say a word, using the sudden light to practically haul the bunny up by his waist, your muscles burning with pure exhaustion. You just want to get to your door.

But Krissy isn't having it. She steps out of the apartment barefoot, stomping right onto the dirty concrete landing and following you guys up the stairs.

​"Helping?! At this hour?!" she barks, her voice echoing through the stairwell. "Where the hell have you been, Greg?! Look at you, you're a mess! You've been gone for hours!"

​"Krissy, please, not right now—"

​​"Don't 'Krissy' me! Did you cheat on me with that bitch again?!" she roars, pointing a manicured finger straight at him. "I swear to God, Greg, if I smell her cheap perfume on you, even on your little pinky toe, one more time, I will literally cut your balls off while you sleep!"

​Your brain flashes back to the image of Greg stumbling out of a yellow cab with some random woman still inside, looking very thoroughly occupied before he noticed you. A petty part of you wants to open your mouth and drop that radioactive bomb right into the middle of their marriage, but you are far too exhausted to get dragged into their toxic household drama. 

​The loud, shrill screeching of Krissy's voice pierces right through the heavy fog in Jungkook's brain. A low, irritated huff rumbles deep within his chest, and his long bunny ears twitch weakly under his beanie against your shoulder. His eyelids flutter, the sheer volume of the neighborhood drama finally dragging him back into consciousness. He lets out a tattered, feverish groan, his body tightening instinctively as he tries to lean his massive weight into you, a subtle, needy whine cutting through his breath.

By the time you finally reach the top landing right outside your apartment door, Jungkook’s eyes flutter all the way open. The feverish crimson blush begins painting itself across his nose and cheeks once again, glowing under the dim hallway light. His head bobs weakly, his dazed eyes tracking from your face over to Greg, who is still sweating and panting beneath his right arm.

The moment Jungkook processes the strange man touching him, his instincts flare violently. Wanting nothing more than to get away from the drunk neighbour, he begins to thrash, trying to shove Greg away.

"Whoa—hey! JohnGok, I just want to help—" Greg stammers, completely mangling the name.

But Jungkook cuts him off entirely. With a sudden, raw burst of fever-fueled strength, Jungkook yanks his arm off Greg’s neck. Before anyone can react, he plants his large palm flat against Greg’s face and shoves hard. Greg lets out a yelp, stumbling backward on the top step. He loses his footing completely and tumbles right down into Krissy, who was marching up behind him.

The two of them go down in a chaotic, tangled heap on the concrete floor of the landing. In the collision, Krissy's loose satin strap gives out completely, leaving one boob fully exposed out to the world.

"Oh my god!" you gasp. Acting on pure instinct, you slap your hand over Jungkook’s eyes, slamming his face against your shoulder so he won't see the disaster. "I'm so sorry! Thank you so much for the help!"

You frantically fumble in your pocket with your free hand, jamming the key into your lock and twisting it open. Jungkook's arm links instinctively with yours, his breathing coming in heavy, ragged puffs as a wave of nausea washes over his flushed face from the sudden exertion.

The moment the door clicks open, you push his staggering frame into the safety of the entryway. Giving one last, horrified look over your shoulder at your screaming neighbors still tangled on the floor, you slam the door shut and lock it securely from the inside. The moment the deadbolt clicks into place, the screaming outside instantly muffles, but the crisis inside your apartment is only just beginning.

Jungkook is completely dynamic, his body sagging so heavily against you that he is practically a human wreck. His state is getting worse and worse by the second. You weren't prepared for any of this; you don't have hybrid suppressants, you don't have heavy-duty fever reducers, and you have absolutely no idea how to handle a hybrid in the dead-peak of a frantic heat cycle.

Panic rising in your throat, you wrap your arm around his waist and haul him through the darkness of your home, dragging him straight into the small bathroom. You flick the switch, and the harsh mirror light overhead, the small bulb above flickers to life with a buzzing hum; stuttering, dim, and dying. 

​"Let's cool you down, okay? Just hold on," you murmur, your own chest heaving as you look at Jungkook.

He is panting openly now, his jaw slack and his lips parted as shallow, ragged gasps scratch at his throat. His dark eyes are glazed over, completely unfocused, yet they track your silhouette with an agonizingly desperate compliance. He looks so small despite his size, completely broken by the hormonal storm raging through his veins, silently begging you to tell him what to do.

​You slide the glass door of the shower stall open. "Get in. Sit down."

He obeys instantly. Even though he doesn't even have the strength to stand; the moment his boots cross the threshold, his knees give out entirely. He slides miserably down the slick tiles, his back scraping against the wall until he sits flat on the floor of the stall, his long legs bent awkwardly in the cramped space.

You don't even care that you're still wearing your high heels. You step right into the cramped cabin with him, the glass door swinging shut behind you, sealing the two of you into the tight, claustrophobic shower cabin.

Reaching out, you gently tug the beanie off his head, then carefully unwrap the tight headband meant to keep his ears pinned down. It had already slipped miserably during the chaos, bending his cartilage uncomfortably. The moment his long, velvet bunny ears are freed, they instantly drop, falling heavy and exhausted against the sides of his face. Jungkook lets out a shattered groan, his eyelids slamming shut as his head lolls back heavily against the cold tiled wall, his hands resting uselessly against his thighs.

​"Kook, we need to get this off," you strain, tugging frantically at the hem of his oversized, sweat-soaked hoodie.

​You try to bunch the fabric up, but it’s no use. He is a too weak to lift his arms or help you slide the heavy cotton over his broad shoulders. The tight space makes it impossible to get the leverage you need. Giving up, you let the fabric drop, your breath hitching as you reach for the chrome shower head instead. You twist the handle, turning on the water to a steady, cool mist. You test it briefly with your fingers before directing the spray right at him, the cool water immediately hitting his burning neck and soaking into his clothes.

​Jungkook shivers violently at the sudden shock, a pitiful whine catching in his throat. You quickly hook the shower head onto the mount on the wall so it continuously streams down over him, freeing up your hands. You crouch down on your knees right in front of him on the wet floor, your heart hammering against your ribs. His eyes are rolled back slightly, his head drifting dead to the side as if he’s about to pass out all over again.

​"Hey—no, no. Stay with me, Jungkook," you panic.

Desperate to keep him conscious, you reach out toward his throat, your fingers wrapping firmly around his neck to hold his head steady. A deep, trembling moan rumbles from the very bottom of his chest, vibrating directly against your palm.

​You look at him, for a moment startled by the sheer intensity of the sound. But then, completely captivated, you find yourself wanting to see if this extreme reaction is truly yours to command. You squeeze his throat a little harder, tightening your grip around his neck. Jungkook lets out a ragged, breathless pant, his head dropping back again as his expression melts into pure, dazed pleasure

​The vulnerability of it sends a strange, electric thrill straight down your spine. Utterly mesmerized, you begin to slide your fingers slowly up and down his neck, teasing the sensitive skin over his windpipe and tracing the hammering pulse beneath his jaw

Jungkook squirms helplessly against the wet tiles, his thighs twitching as a low, broken whimper leaves his lips. You have never seen anything like this. Never realized just how impossibly sensitive his body could be under the influence of his heat. The fire radiating from his skin is intoxicating, but you sharply snap back to reality when his wet hand suddenly flies up and grips your wrist.

 You look down, your eyes locking onto his. Jungkook is panting heavily now, his chest heaving under the drenched hoodie, his pupils completely blown out into wide, dark pools of liquid heat. His head tilts slightly to the side, his lips parted as he stares at you with a raw, intense focus that makes your heart skip a beat.

"What... the fuck... Y/N..." he breathes.

"Sorry," you whisper quietly, the word barely slipping past your lips as you quickly loosen your grip on his throat, feeling a sudden flush of heat creep up your own neck at being caught taking advantage of his delirious state.

​But the moment your hand falls away, Jungkook’s expression darkens. A flash of raw, feverish irritation crosses his features. His bunny ears twitch aggressively against the wall, dropping low and pinning back in a universal sign of hybrid frustration. He didn't want you to stop; he is irritated that you were playing with his head when he is already burning alive.

​"Are you just messing with me?" he rasps out, his voice cracking with a painful edge. He looks so lost, a shivering mess pinned under the cool spray, yet his gaze holds a heavy accusation that immediately makes your stomach drop with guilt. "You tease me like this when I’m already dying for you.... when I need you so much it hurts. Are you not going to take care of me properly Y/N?"

​You are about to apologize again, when his hand shoots up to the back of your head. His fingers weave deeply into your hair, gripping the strands tightly. You let out a sharp yelp of surprise as he firmly tugs your head down, forcing your face inches from his. His gaze drops, locking onto your lips with a feral hunger.

​His thumb brushes the back of your scalp, right over the spot where you had a nasty wound not long ago. He pauses for a fraction of a second, his touch lingering to confirm what his sharp senses already knew—the wound is fully healed, the skin smooth beneath his palm. Satisfied that he won't hurt you, his grip tightens again.

​He leans up, his lips crashing into yours with a desperate intensity. The sheer force of the kiss pulls you forward, dragging your knees across the wet tile until he yanks you completely against his chest, pulling you right into the center of the steady, cold water stream with him. ​The icy mist instantly drenches your clothes, plastering your hair to your face, but you barely feel the chill. Jungkook's mouth is a scorching furnace against yours, his tongue sliding hungrily past your teeth as he claims you, completely erasing the boundaries of the small bathroom.

​As the kiss binds you together under the freezing downpour, Jungkook lets out a fractured, tattered sound into your mouth. A quiet sob of relief and desperation. He needs you closer, impossibly closer, his hands sliding down to your waist to hoist you up and settle you firmly over his lap. As you shift against him on the slick tile, the sudden, distinct heat of his bulge presses tightly against you, the raw, biological reality of his heat state sending a shiver straight down your spine.

​Gasping for air, you disconnect from his lips, your hands coming up to cradle his burning face. You look down at his dark eyes, your heart shattering at the absolute torment written across his features.

​"Tell me what to do," you breathe out, voice laced with panic and a desperate need to help him. "Tell me what you need, Jungkook."

"You," he croaks out.

Before you can even process the word, he leans back against the wet wall, consciously creating a sudden, agonizing pocket of space between your chests as you sit straddling his lap. The sudden loss of contact makes your hands drop loosely from his flushed cheeks, your palms coming to rest against his hard-lined stomach. From his position tilted slightly downward against the wall, Jungkook looks up at you through the dark, dripping strands of his bangs. Pupils tracking the water as it streams down your neck, rendering your soaked white shirt completely transparent against your skin.

"Strip," he commands, his voice a low vibration that leaves no room for argument.

​You look down at him, completely captivated by the authority rolling off him, and you move to do as he pleases. But the freezing water is blurring your vision, your hair is plastered across your face, and your hands are shaking violently from the mix of adrenaline and desire. Your fingers stumble clumsily over the top buttons of your shirt, your gaze dropping down as you try to force your numb fingertips to work.

​Jungkook lets out a annoyed huff at your slow pace. Watching you struggle through the haze of his heat is a torture he cannot endure for another second. Before your finger can slip a third time, his hand flies up, fisting the damp fabric in his grip, effortlessly ripping the shirt wide open. The plastic buttons pop and scatter, bouncing off the wet tiles and raining onto the floor of the stall with a sharp, chaotic clatter.

You gasp, shocked by the sudden exposure. "Kook, that was my work shirt..." You breathe out, but he couldn't care less about the fabric. 

​Jungkook doesn't have the time or the sanity for your slowness; the fever burning in his blood is a physical agony, a roaring fire telling him that if he doesn't claim you right now, he is going to lose his mind. He lunges forward, his mouth crashing onto yours again with a feral intensity.

You give in entirely. Your arms wrap around his neck, anchoring you to him as the cold water continues to pelt your bare skin, but you don't think about the mess or the water bills now. Nothing matters in this room except him.

Jungkook's hands dive down, gripping your hips and squeezing your backside through your soaked skirt. He yanks you flush against him, forcing your hips to move in a tight, heavy rhythm right against his clothed length. The friction through the material of his pants is agonizingly good, the pressure making him even more eager, his breath coming in ragged, desperate hitches against your tongue.

His hands dictate the movement, helping you set a fast, desperate pace as he repeatedly pushes you down against him. The phantom sensation of it alone is so intense that you feel completely dizzy, almost salivating just from the overwhelming promise of what is to come. The pleasure is infectious; your own body reacts completely on its own now, desperate to close the final barrier between you.

Your hands slide down between your bodies, fingers fumbling blindly with the zipper of his pants as your head tilts down to see through the streaming water. Jungkook is distinctly unhappy the moment your lips leave his; he wants total, sensory-consuming contact, and the loss of your mouth makes him whine aggressively.

You try to lean back just an inch to see properly, determined to free his pulsing heat from the restricting fabric, but Jungkook is too quick, too starved. He surges upward, his mouth connecting fiercely with your jaw. He bites down, his sharp teeth catching and pulling at the sensitive skin of your neck in a marking grip.

"Wait, Kook, let me—" you try to gasp out, but you are cut off as his mouth slides down to your pulse point, sucking violently against your neck. You yelp, head spinning from the sheer intensity of the sensation, but you force your hands to keep moving, finally reaching inside his briefs to wrap your slick palms around his pulsing cock.

Jungkook lets out a shattered moan into your skin. Using the sudden wave of his pleasure to your advantage, your other hand flies up to his chest, pushing him violently back against the wall to give yourself room. Your bitten neck stings sharply against the cool air, but you straighten up anyway, diving your hand under the bunched fabric of your skirt to hook your fingers into your underwear, shoving the wet lace aside with a single, urgent sweep.

Hovering directly over him, with his dark, waiting eyes locked onto yours, you slowly sink down his pulsing length. Jungkook’s hands instantly slam back onto your hips, his knuckles turning white as he catches his breath, his whole body shuddering as he is buried completely inside you

You start moving. Your high-heel boots slip slightly against the slick porcelain, giving off a sharp, echoing squeak against the tiles with every frantic motion as you kneel up and down on his lap. Your hands fly to his trembling shoulders to steady yourself, your torn shirt hanging open and completely exposing your chest, your breasts bouncing heavy in your soaked bra with every relentless stride.

The feeling of him inside you is entirely consuming. A sinfully perfect, thick stretching that hits every raw nerve ending, making your vision blur with a white-hot rush of euphoria. Unable to handle the overwhelming intensity of the friction, you throw your head back, a loud moan tearing from your throat.

From below, Jungkook looks up at you, his heavy-lidded eyes filling with an absolute, reverent adoration at the sight. Your jaw is completely exposed to him, painted in a brutal collar of his own fresh hickeys and purple bite marks, your wet hair dripping streams of water down your collarbone. His palms slide down your hips, fingers digging bruisingly deep into your bare thighs, squeezing the flesh as you try your best to keep up the punishing rhythm.

You force your eyes open, looking down to meet his gaze, and find him staring back with a dark, unhinged hunger. He bites down hard on his own lower lip to suppress a groan, his sharp fangs tearing a clean line into the flesh. A small bead of dark crimson blood wells up, contrasting sharply against his pale skin before the running water can wash it away. Driven by a sudden, protective instinct, you reach down and gently wipe the blood away with the pad of your thumb.

​"I told you to stop doing that." you scold him breathlessly, your voice shaking as your thumb smears the crimson across his wet lip. You are genuinely worried, the sight of his self-inflicted pain cutting through the thick fog of your own arousal. "You are hurting yourself."

​"I'm fine," he pants out. 

A sudden, heavy shudder vibrates straight through you, pressing hard against your lower belly as he twitches deep inside you. The intense pulsing makes your breath catch, his body completely running on instinct while his eyes remain glazed over.

​"You're not fine," you argue, a desperate gasp slipping from your lips as you try to support yourself against his broad shoulders. "You're bleeding."

​He doesn't answer. Instead, he shifts his weight under you, his hand digging into the flesh of your thighs to anchor you, as his other palm guides your waist, forcing your hips to drop down at a sharper angle. The heavy adjustment makes you grind right against that exact, agonizingly perfect spot deep inside you, the sudden, overwhelming friction causing a sharp gasp to tear from your throat. The intensity of the pleasure catches him off guard. Before he can stop himself, his jaw snaps shut and his fangs sink unconsciously right back into his bleeding lower lip, tearing the wound a little deeper as he groans.

​"Jungkook! I just said stop!" you cry out, swatting weakly at his chest, your heart hammering against your ribs. "You're going to make it worse—"

​"Okay," he rasps out blindly, his grip tightening firmly on your waist as he helps guide your hips into another punishing, deep grind that forces your head to tilt back. "Okay. Yeah."​

​"Don't just say 'okay' like you're listening to me when you're clearly not!" you pant, your chest heaving as you fight through the residual waves of pleasure. Once your vision clears, your fingers dig into his wet hair to force his face up so he has to look at you. "You need to promise me you'll stop—"

"​Okay," he repeats, the syllable short and entirely dismissive. Even as you bounce weakly over him, your exhausted muscles completely giving out, his dark pupils remain locked onto your mouth while his hands grip your waist, taking over your failing rhythm to force your pelvis down against his with a heavy, wet slap. He is clearly only saying it to hush you up, his mind completely hijacked by the primal need to finish.

​"Kook, I'm serious—"

​"Shut up," he suddenly growls. His hand flies up to the back of your neck, his fingers fisting into your soaked hair to pull your head down ruthlessly. "Just kiss me."

The metallic taste of his blood explodes on your tongue, mingling with the cold water of the shower and the slick friction of your mouths. Your movements slow down out of sheer exhaustion. He is buried so deeply that every downward slide hits you until the very end, bottoming out against your core. You try your absolute best to keep the pace, but the physical toll of his heat is catching up to you; your knees are burning, your muscles are trembling on the verge of collapse, and a desperate shortness of breath leaves you panting weakly against his lips.

Jungkook’s protective, dominant instincts flare. He doesn't let you exhaust yourself. His hands instantly taking full control of the rhythm. With a eager growl, he begins pounding your hips down onto him, launching into a pace so terrifyingly fast and deep that you almost scream, the sound catching as a breathless gasp in your throat. He pulls your upper body flush against his chest, forcing your chin to rest over his head. With every powerful, upward thrust of his hips, your body jolts, your jaw slightly hitting the top of his head with a rhythmic, bruising friction as he buries his face directly into your throat.

The pleasure is so sharp, so violently intense, that it crosses the line into something painfully good, making your vision blur around the edges as if you are on the very precipice of passing out. But Jungkook is utterly relentless. The fever driving his body forward knows no mercy. He keeps slamming up into you, burying himself to the hilt over and over again, completely ignoring the way your body suddenly locks up as you fracture into your first orgasm. Even as your core spasms around him, milking him ruthlessly, he doesn't pause. He drives right through your climax, forcing you up and down until your nerve endings short-circuit, instantly dragging you toward the terrifying brink of a second, even deeper one.

By the time the second wave crashes over you, you are left completely weightless and drained of all energy, a panting, trembling mess entirely sustained by his iron grip. Your head lolls, your throat dry as you swallow hard, desperately trying to find your bearings through the cold stream. Realizing you can't survive this pace for much longer, you weakly bring your hands down, grabbing at his wrists where they are locked onto your hips, trying to force his pelvis to ease up. 

"Koo...slow down," you whimper against his wet skin, your voice entirely ruined. "It's too much."

But it’s no use. In response to your plea, he delivers a thrust so punishingly deep that it feels as though he’s touching your very soul. The sudden, bruising impact knocks the breath right out of you, causing you to instinctively throw your hand forward, slamming your palm against the wet tile wall behind his head just to keep from collapsing entirely.

Chasing the elusive high of his release, Jungkook buries his face into your shoulder, his sharp teeth biting down hard into the meat of your skin to anchor himself. His infamous hybrid stamina is on full display now; unhinged, boundless, and fueled by a terrifying, primal endurance that doesn't care about fatigue.

Sweat mixes with the rushing shower water, pouring off his temples as the scorching fever of his heat radiates against your skin like an open furnace. He is entirely possessed by the need to find his own orgasm, driving into you with a rhythmic, mechanical force that feels like it will never end.

You mumble something incoherent into the space between you, your brain completely fried, barely alive under the sheer weight of his dominance.

Hearing your broken murmur, a flicker of his conscious devotion bleeds through the feral haze. He pulls back just enough to look at you, his dark eyes wild and swimming with dark, feverish lust, yet burning with an intense love.

"I'm sorry, Im sorry," he pants out. "I'm so sorry, baby... just hold on a little more for me. Let me finish. Please."

The raw, submissive desperation mixed with his absolute physical control makes something snap inside you. Gathering the absolute last remnants of your strength, you do it for him. You hook your legs tighter on the sides of his tighs, forcing your burning knees to move again, tilting your pelvis to meet his heavy upward grinds, desperately trying to make this quicker for both of your sakes.

The friction is blinding. The heat state is contagious, and before you can even register the buildup, the sheer intensity burns through you for the final time. You scream into the damp air of the bathroom as you cum, your walls clenching around him in a tight, desperate vice that finally sends Jungkook over the edge. He lets out a loud, unraveled roar, his head snapping back against the tiles as his body goes entirely rigid.

Even as his release hits, his instincts are fiercely protective. Knowing he shouldn't knot you or fill you completely while his heat state is this volatile, Jungkook uses his final burst of strength to grip your waist. With a rough, heavy heave, he pushes you up and away from his lap, letting your body slide down onto the slick, wet tiles of the shower floor beside him.

The moment his pulsing length snaps free from your body, he grips himself, his knuckles white as he finally releases. A heavy, thick torrent of his spent heat paints the wet porcelain and your trembling thighs, splashing under the relentless stream of the shower. Jungkook slumps forward, his chest heaving violently as the running water washes the evidence away, leaving both of you tangled, exhausted, and utterly consumed in the quiet aftermath of the storm.

With the very last remnants of your strength, you weakly reach your arm upward toward the metal tap. Your fingers are numb and trembling so hard you can barely get a grip, but you manage to twist the handle, finally turning the water off. The sudden silence in the bathroom is deafening, broken only by the heavy, synchronized sound of your ragged breathing and the slow drip of the shower head.

You let your head dive back against the cold wall, staring blankly ahead as your vision slowly stops swimming. After a long moment, you shift your gaze downward to look at Jungkook. His eyes are squeezed tightly shut, his long eyelashes wet and heavy against his flushed cheeks, his chest still rising and falling in shallow, exhausted hitches.

"Is it...better now...?" you ask, your voice nothing more than a breathless, dry whisper that scratches at the back of your throat.

Jungkook’s eyelids flutter open slowly. His dark pupils are no longer completely blown out with that feral madness; instead, they are soft, glassy, and heavy with an unbearable fatigue. He swallows hard, his prominent Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he takes you in.He nods once, a slow, tight movement.

 "Mmh—Thank you," he rasps out.

Without another word, he weakly reaches out with one hand. His fingers hook around your waist and gently pull you forward until you collapse against him. You don't have the strength to resist, nor do you want to. Your body gives in completely, your cheek coming to rest directly against his chest. The thick, soaked material of his heavy hoodie presses cold against your ear. 

You close your eyes, tuning out the rest of the world as you listen to the frantic, heavy thudding of his heart gradually beginning to slow down to a steady, rhythmic pace.

Neither of you moves. Neither of you speaks. You are both simply too exhausted, completely drained of life and energy, content to just sit tangled together on the wet floor of the stall as the last remnants of water swirl silently down the drain.

PREVIOUS NEXT

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Another A/N: i promised a new chapter sooo here it is <3 sorry if there are any mistakes btw i didn’t have much time to properly check everything before uploading

also kinda freaking out because we’re getting close to 100k words already ??? i genuinely never planned for this story to get this long 😶‍🌫️

there’s still a few things i wanna include before ending it though, so i think there’ll be a few more chapters!! i’m mostly just going with whatever my brain comes up with at this point.

also wanna know what you guys think of the story so far... like does it feel too dragged out or are you still enjoying the pacing?? And honestly im still figuring out how I feel bout writing smut scenes... they seem awkard when I reread them + I feel like such a freak lol

Ok wow I have to stop yapping sorryyy anyways thank u sm for reading ♡ mwah ♡♡

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Tag list: @lolfccfvvvvbbbb @achbbys000 @reicoolboy @junglekookz @ttipa @strawberryberrygirl @kyljjk @viillamilla @junkookloverinfinity @hellomate1234 @lindsayjoy444 @canarystwin, @svnk1ssd @sleepyeclipes @doublebunv @lunaryoongie @mochiminiee @aestheticalime @namroo @lostinjk @celliez @twilightsparklingwater @uhmsothisiscrazy @joonmonjagi @stardust-n-raindrops (if you wanna be tagged, just let me know 💌)

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

this and also there’s something very beautiful about watching in progress fics grow. shout out to in progress fics <3

[inkedwithcharm]

Hi, lovelies! I’m currently open for BTS fic commissions—short stories, long series, any genre. BTS is the only fandom I write for because they’re the characters and voices I know best and can write with my whole heart.

I’m humbly asking for support right now because I’m trying my best to save up for my son’s tuition. I recently had to tell him that he might not be able to attend school this year because we’re struggling financially, and seeing how sad he looked honestly broke my heart. He’s such a good student, and as his mom, I just want to do everything I can to make a way for him.

So if you’ve ever wanted to commission a fic from me, or if you know any online writing jobs/opportunities I could apply for, please let me know. Any support would truly mean so much to me.

[forgetful-nerd]

Spelling mistakes? I guarantee neither of us saw those at 3:00 AM Monday Morning.

[gabrielislovegabrielislife]

Me checking on one of my beloved ao3 fics that hasn't been updated since 2017

[xxboomiex]

FERAL THINGS DON'T BELONG INSIDE II PART 9 [IN PROGRESS] Bunny Hybrid! Jungkook

Parts: P1 l | P2 I P3 | P4 | P5 | P6 | P7 | P8 | P9 |

DESCRIPTION:

You never planned on taking in a hybrid. Especially not one like him.

You offer him food. A place to stay. Rules.

He offers you obedience. Tension. Trouble.

Because hybrids like him don't know how to exist without earning their place and you're about to learn that kindness, to someone like Jungkook, can feel just as dangerous as cruelty.

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: : pairing: Bunny Hybrid! Jungkook x reader

: : genre: Hybrid AU, Angst-driven Romance

: : warnings: alcohol use, drug use, mutual pining, violence mentions of abuse, cursing, fluff, angst, smut, jealousy, emotional trauma, hurt/comfort, dehumanisation themes.

: : word count: 50,651 [for now]

ao3 link: Link

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A/N: if you're here for emotional damage, slow-burn tension and a little bit of chaos-then yeah. let's go this fic is messy in all the ways: hurt, comfort, trust issues, anc a hybrid who doesn't really know how to be safe even when he finally is.

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PART 9

The bathroom light feels too bright for this hour.

It makes everything look harsher than it is. The chipped edge of the sink, the water stains near the drain, the tiles laid unevenly along the floor.

Your hand looks wrecked.

The skin around the deep scratches is swollen, angry red fading into ugly purple bruising. Dried blood still clings to the edges where the paramedics didn’t quite clean everything. Every small movement sends sharp stings up your arm, but you keep working in quiet determination, teeth clenched, trying not to hiss every time the antiseptic wipe touches raw flesh. 

You sit on the bathroom floor, the chill of the floor seeping into your legs, medic tools scattered loosely around you.

Jungkook sits on the floor beside you, back pressed against the wall, knees drawn tightly to his chest with his head buried between them. He refused to leave you alone. The moment you stepped into the bathroom, he followed like a shadow, sliding down onto the cold tiles without a word. He hasn’t moved since.

You can hear the way his breathing changes every time you press on the wound; small, pained inhales like he’s the one being hurt. His bunny ears twitch and flatten against his hair with every sting you feel. It’s like he’s experiencing it with you. Like your pain is somehow transferring straight into his body.

You sigh, long and tired. Your hands still for a moment as you stare at the top of his head, fingers hovering where you’d just been working.

 “...Kook”

You stretch your free hand toward him, aiming for the messy dark strands of his hair, wanting to offer even the smallest comfort. But before your fingers can sink into the soft locks, his voice comes out muffled and hoarse:

“Don’t touch me.”

You stop. Your hand freezes mid-air, hovering just inches from his head. For a moment you just stare at him, not sure if you heard right. After a painful second, you pull your hand back and return to bandaging your wrist in heavy silence. The only sounds are the soft tear of medical tape and the faint hum of the bathroom light.

You finish wrapping the fresh gauze, securing it tightly, then speak again, voice low and tired. "So now you won’t even look at me because I’m hurt?”

Jungkook doesn’t move at first. The words hang between you. For a long moment there’s nothing. But you feel the subtle shift in his attention. One ear twitches, faint and uncertain.

Then, slowly, he lifts his head.

Not all the way. First just his eyes peeking over his knees. Big, dark, guilty. Then his nose. Then the slightest pout, lips pressed together.

You stare at him for a second, the tension in your chest easing despite yourself.

“There you are,” you murmur.

His ears twitch at your voice. He looks away, embarrassed. “You can pat me now,” he mumbles, gaze turned so far to the side it almost seems like he’s talking to the laundry machine instead of you.

A laugh escapes you. Soft and disbelieving, the first real one since the tunnel. 

"Should I?” you ask teasingly.

He nods immediately, still pouting, eyes flicking up at you through his lashes. You crouch a little and reach out again, this time slower, giving him the chance to refuse. He doesn’t. 

Your fingers slide into his hair and he melts immediately. Shoulders dropping, breath leaving him in a shaky exhale. You pat him gently, smoothing the mess of his fringe, and he leans into your hand like he’s been starving for it. Your thumb brushes over the base of one ear as he sneaks another glance at your freshly bandaged wrist, expression tightening with quiet distress.

“You know this doesn’t even hurt that bad, right?” you say, voice light. Just a little lie. It hurts like hell.

“I don’t like it,” he mutters.

You can’t help thinking he’s been through worse than this.

You’ve seen it: His body. The scars. The old marks that don’t match the fresh injuries. The stitched wound under his ribs. The bruises in places that make your stomach turn if you think about them too long. Some of those scars must carry meanings you don’t even want to imagine. Different pains. Different kinds of hurt.

Yet he’s here, acting like your small wrist scratch is the end of the world. Like it’s unbearable.

You tilt your head, studying him more closely under the warm bathroom light. He actually came out of tonight’s fight with almost no new wounds. Just a few fresh bruises blooming across his cheek and shoulders. The stitched gash under his ribs had reopened slightly and needed cleaning, but nothing serious. The blood that had been smeared across his face and hands… most of it hadn’t even been his. Which it terrifying.

Was that his life until now? Fights. Fear. Drawing blood. Hate. Misery. Running. Getting cornered.

You keep your hand in his hair and ask before you can overthink it. “Can you tell me about your past?”

Jungkook goes still.

His ears twitch again, then flatten slightly. His gaze drops to the tiles between his feet, as if the patterns there are safer than your face.

Then comes silence again. Long enough that you regret asking.

You swallow, “I mean… if you don’t want me to know, that’s okay. It’s not my business.” Your voice comes out quieter this time, careful. You know you’re stepping around something fragile.

The words settle between you. For a second, you think that’s it. You’ve pushed too far. He’s already retreating somewhere you can’t follow. This is the moment he’ll lock himself away forever and you’ll never hear him speak to you again.

“I want you to know.” It’s so soft you almost miss it.

Your breath catches before you can stop it. Fingers tightening slightly in his hair.

He doesn’t look up.

“But…” His voice falters. You see the way his throat moves, the hesitation catching there. His fingers tighten around his own sleeves. “I don’t want to tell you.”

You nod slowly. Your throat tightens, forcing you to gulp before you speak.

“It’s okay,” you say gently and careful not to push. Your hand moves again, stroking through his hair one last time, slower this time. Grounding. “You don’t have to tell me then.”

He finally looks up, eyes shining with something uncertain. Relief, maybe. Or guilt that you didn’t push.

Your hand lingers in his hair for just a second longer, then slowly slips away. You clear your throat quietly and shift your attention elsewhere, reaching for the scattered supplies around you. You gather everything with careful, practiced movements, placing it all back into your first aid kit one piece at a time. The soft rustle of plastic and fabric fills the space where words don’t. When you’re done, you zip it closed and set it aside before forcing yourself to stand.

Your vision tilts for a second, the room dipping slightly as a wave of dizziness rolls through you. You steady yourself with a small inhale, pressing your lips together as you wait for it to pass. Your hand lifts instinctively, fingers brushing the back of your head where the plaster sits, covering the tender spot beneath. It still aches but you ignore it. You’ve felt worse.

“Let’s go to sleep, huh?” you say, as you move to put the kit back into the cabinet.

The moment the words leave your mouth, Jungkook scrambles to his feet with surprising speed, nearly bumping into you in his haste. His ears are perked up now, eyes wide and hopeful despite the exhaustion weighing on him.

“Can you sleep in the bed tonight?” he asks, voice small.

You pause, looking at him. “We agreed you’re sleeping in the bed until you recover.”

“I will,” he says quickly, almost desperately. His fingers twitch at his sides like he wants to reach for you but doesn’t dare. “I just… I want you next to me.”

The quiet vulnerability in his voice fills the small bathroom. You look at his tired face, at the way his ears droop slightly as he waits for your answer, and feel something soft and fierce settle deep inside your chest.

“Alright,” You give in.

His entire face sparks up. Eyes widening, ears lifting. For a second, he just looks at you like he doesn’t fully believe what he’s hearing

“But only this time,” you add quickly, before he can start vibrating out of his skin. 

Jungkook nods immediately, almost eagerly. Like he’ll take any condition you attach, just to keep the yes.

You step out of the bathroom first. Your apartment is quiet. Everything looks normal again, which feels wrong after what happened today. You do a quick round like your brain won’t let you stop: check the front door lock, the chain, the window latch. You switch off the lights one by one, leaving the apartment in dim pockets of darkness.

You can feel Jungkook’s eyes burning into your back the entire time. He lingers by the bedroom door, half leaning against the frame, shoulders tense.

You glance at him from the corner of your eye.

His anticipation is palpable. He bites the side of his cheek, a nervous habit you’ve recently noticed. His tail bumps softly against the doorframe behind him. He’s in the new shorts and hoodie now. They fit better than anything he’s worn since you met him. Earlier you’d already cut and stitched little openings so his tail can move without tearing fabric.

“You can go lie down,” you tell him. “I’ll be in a minute.”

Jungkook’s head tilts. His eyes sharpen with immediate concern. “But you’re not going anywhere?”

“I’m not,” you promise, trying not to sound annoyed even though the question hits that soft bruise in you. How hard he must've been trained to expect abandonment? “I just have to brush my teeth.”

“Oh.” He nods, but he still hesitates like “teeth” is a suspicious excuse. After a long second, he gives you one last look memorizing you, then slips into the bedroom.

You exhale slowly.

Back in the bathroom, you turn the faucet on and stare at your reflection while you brush. Your hair is a mess, falling unevenly around your face. You pause for a second, toothbrush still in your hand, then tilt your head slightly, trying to catch a better angle in the mirror. Somewhere in the mess of it, the bandage should be there. You try to spot it properly, but it’s too far back, too buried under your hair to see clearly from this angle.

You reach for your phone charging on the counter. The screen is cracked, but at least it still works. You glance quickly at the message you sent to Marcus asking for tomorrow off, explaining you got sick and apologising for texting so late.

Thankfully there is a reply.

Marcus: alr. get better. next week will be busy.

A wave of relief washes over you. At least you won’t have to drag yourself to work tomorrow.

When you finally step into the bedroom, the first thing you notice is the dim glow of the small night lamp on the bedside table, casting a warm, golden pool of light across the sheets. Then there is Jungkook–Sitting neatly on the verge of the bed, hands resting on his thighs, looking unsure what to do with himself. The moment you walk in, he stands up quickly, ears perking.

“I didn’t know which side you want,” he says quietly.

You blink, caught off guard by how seriously he is. “I’m good with both.”

 He nods, shifting his weight. “…Okay.” 

Since he’s standing there awkwardly on the right side of the bed, you move around to the left and slip beneath the covers, hoping the quiet cue is enough. The sheets are cool at first, then warm as your body sinks into them. You lie flat on your back, staring at the ceiling, feeling your bones finally remember they’re allowed to be tired. 

Jungkook hesitates for only a second before climbing in on the other side. He lies down carefully, mirroring you by lying flat on his back, scooting closer in tiny increments, but stopping just short of touching. You can feel the heat of him beside you anyway, close enough that the space between your arms feels charged.

It's awkard. You won’t lie. It really is.

This feels intimate and it’s almost stupid, considering everything you’ve already shared. The closeness, the way you’ve tasted each other, touched, comforted, even crossed lines that should’ve made this easier.

But it doesn’t. This is different.This is quiet. Vulnerable in a way that leaves no room to hide. Just existing beside each other, aware of every breath, every shift, every inch of space. Sharing a bed feels like something else entirely. It's an act of trust.

You don’t know how to act. Whether to turn toward him or stay perfectly still. The silence stretches, broken only by the faint hum of the city outside and the soft rustle of fabric every time one of you breathes.

“I’ll switch the light off,” you say eventually.

"Okay,” 

Of course the lamp switch is on his side.

You lift your upper body and lean over him carefully, trying not to fall off the bed. Your hair brushes your cheek; the bedsheets slide a little.

You reach toward the lamp cord.

Under you, you feel Jungkook go rigid. His fists clamp on the bedsheet, knuckles whitening. His breath stops so suddenly you can almost hear the silence it leaves behind. 

You pause with the cord in your hand. For some reason, you want to look at him one last time today. So you turn your head slightly. His gaze is already on you. Wide. Soft in a way that almost doesn’t feel real under the low light. His pupils are blown slightly, dark and glossy with exhaustion, reflecting just enough light to make them shine. He doesn’t look away. Doesn’t even blink.

His lip catches between his teeth, and he might not even realize he’s doing it. For a second, you’re sure he’s going to split it open again if he presses any harder.

“Goodnight,” you murmur softly.

Then you flick the switch.

Darkness drops over the room, sudden and complete, swallowing everything except for the faint, silvery glow of the city that slips through the gap in the curtains. It paints the ceiling in pale, ghostly strokes.

You ease back to your side of the mattress, turning onto your side so you’re facing the wall. You pull the bedsheets higher, tucking it under your chin, and try to force your body to relax. 

Behind you, you hear Jungkook’s breath start again. It’s shaky, quiet, like he had been holding it the entire time you were leaning over him. You close your eyes. Your head still hurts, a dull, persistent throb at the back of your skull where it had met the tunnel wall.  You try really hard to fall asleep, to let exhaustion pull you under before your brain can start overthinking (which has always been your worst habit). 

You focus on your breathing. In. Out. In. Out. 

The painkillers are finally kicking in, making your limbs feel heavy and numb. Sleep begins to creep over you, dragging your thoughts down into softness.

Until a shift behind you disrupts everything.

Jungkook moves. Once. Twice. Three times. Restless, small adjustments like he can’t find a comfortable position. The mattress dips and rises with every motion. His elbow brushes against your back once, then again, warm through the thin fabric of your shirt. You squeeze your eyes tighter, pretending not to notice, trying to will yourself back toward sleep. 

“Y/N…” His voice is barely a whisper, soft and uncertain in the dark.

You decide not to answer. You really want him to rest. You’re afraid that if you respond, he’ll keep talking, keep worrying, and neither of you will get any sleep. So you stay perfectly still, breathing slow, pretending to already be gone. 

But he doesn’t move away. Instead, his body shifts closer. You feel the mattress dip as he props himself up slightly, hovering over you. His breath ghosts across the sensitive skin of your neck, warm and unsteady, sending a trail of goosebumps racing down your spine.

“Are you asleep?” he whispers, so close that his lips nearly brush your ear. 

You sigh, giving up. “Yes,” you murmur, voice heavy with exhaustion. “Go to sleep, Kook.”

There’s a pause. 

He doesn’t move. He just stays there, hovering, breathing against your neck. You press your face deeper into the pillow, trying to hide from the tension thickening in the air.

Then he shifts again. His chin comes to rest carefully in the crook of your neck and shoulder. The contact is gentle, but it’s intimate in a way that makes your chest tighten. The closeness is overwhelming. His chest almost touching your back, the faint scent of his own warm skin surrounding you.

“Y/N…” His voice rumbles low against your skin, vulnerable, the sound vibrating through your shoulder.

You open your eyes but don’t move. His warmth is oddly comforting, like a weighted blanket you didn’t know you needed. 

“Yes?” you whisper. “What is it?”

For a long moment he stays quiet. Then his hand moves slowely and comes to rest on your hip. His fingers curl gently into the fabric of your shirt, gripping it like an anchor. You feel his cheek press more firmly against your jaw.

“I was so scared…” The words are barely spoken, fragile in the dark.

You shift a little, eyebrows scrunching as you tilt your face slightly toward him, trying to understand better. The movement makes his grip on your shirt tighten. 

“When they hurt you…” His voice cracks. “I was so scared.”

Your heart skips hard in your chest. You know exactly what moment he’s talking about: The tunnel, the moment the hybrids claws caught your wrist, the way you hit the wall. The memories flash behind your eyes in the darkness.

“I wanted to run to you,” he continues, voice trembling. “But I couldn't. They held me back. I saw you on the ground... I thought that was it. That I lost you.” 

His fingers twist harder into your shirt. His face presses closer, lips brushing your neck as he speaks.

“And then when you ran away... I thought you left me. That you finally hated me. Realized what I really am.”

You listen in complete silence, barely breathing. This is the most honest he has ever been with you. The words pour out of him like he’s been holding them inside for years, not hours. You don’t interrupt. You let him speak, even as your own chest tightens with every confession.

“Then you came back,” he whispers, voice breaking. “You came back for me, even after everything. But I had to leave you there. I was so afraid it would happen again. So I decided to leave you." 

The words hit you so hard you can’t stay still anymore.

You turn.

You twist in the bed, forcing him to lift his head. The covers tangle around your legs as you sit up. Jungkook freezes, startled by how suddenly you moved, as if he expected you to stay quiet and accept his logic. 

You’re inches away now.

Close enough to see the shine in his eyes. Close enough to see his ears sit lower than before. Close enough to feel his breath on your lips.

“But you didn’t really leave,” you say. “You followed me.” 

Jungkook’s lashes flutter. He nods once, almost ashamed. “…Because I’m selfish,” 

You blink. “What do you mean?” 

His eyes drop to your mouth, then to your hands. He can’t hold your gaze while he confesses. His fingers twist the fabric of the sheets until it wrinkles.

“I should’ve let you go,” he murmurs. “Let you go home and live your life without me.” A pause. “But I didn’t. I waited for you in the dark.” Your chest squeezes. “I told myself that I would just make sure you were safe. Just watch. Make sure you got home.” He swallows hard. His ears twitch, then droop again. “But…” His voice breaks on the word.

The apartment is so quiet you can hear your own heartbeat. You know he hears it too. Moonlight seeps through the edges of the room, tracing the outline of Jungkook’s face in a faint, almost unreal silver. It catches on the curve of his cheekbone, softens the shadow under his eyes, makes him look even more distant and close at the same time.

He lifts his eyes to yours again, slowely. “I couldn’t let you go,” The sentence lands with weight. Not dramatic, not pretty, just the truth dragged out of him. “How could I live without you?” Your breath catches. He leans closer by a fraction, the movement hesitant and needy at the same time, like he’s afraid you’ll recoil but he can’t stop himself.

“I wanted you to hate me,” he admits, eyes shining. “If you hated me, it would be easier. I prayed you would leave and you would be safe and I could just disappear.” His voice drops lower “But you didn’t.” His gaze flicks to your bandaged wrist like it’s a bruise on his soul. “You searched for me—You didn’t leave me.”

He shifts even closer. You can see the tremble in his lower lip. “So I made a promise,” he whispers. His hand finally finds yours, fingers curling around your knuckles. “I’m all yours.” Your stomach flips. “Tell me and I will die for you,” 

The words are terrifying. Not because you doubt him. It's because you don’t. You believe him completely and that’s what scares you. That kind of devotion can get him killed. Used. Broken.

 “No,” you whisper, voice shaking but firm in a way that matters. Your other hand lifts, finding his face, cupping his cheek and forcing him to look at you properly. “I don’t want you dying for me.” Your thumb brushes under his eye, catching the faint tremble there. “I want you here. With me.”

A pause. Your forehead almost touches his. “So if you’re mine,” you murmur against his lips, “then you don’t get to disappear. If you’re mine, then you stay.” 

His lips brush over yours, trembling, barely there. He knows he isn’t allowed any further. He is waiting for you to either accept him completely or shatter him into pieces. The tension is unbearable, thick and alive in the dark room. You can feel every shaky exhale against your mouth, every tiny tremor running through his body as he holds himself back.

Your hand slides to the back of his neck, fingers threading into his hair as you close the distance between you. Your lips meet in a soft, unhurried kiss, molding together with a tenderness that steals your breath. He kisses you back just as gently, like he’s afraid anything more might break the moment. There’s a careful devotion in the way he moves, restrained but unmistakably drawn to you, as if he’s memorizing the shape of you through the kiss itself. You've been kissed before, but never like this, with the quiet desperation of someone baring their soul.

A tiny, broken whimper escapes him, swallowed into the press of your mouths, and it ignites something deep inside you. You realize, with a strange kind of clarity, right there in the middle of the dark, that this isn’t just a kiss. It’s Jungkook choosing you. Choosing to stay. Choosing not to run, not to disappear, not to tear himself away even when everything in him tells him to.

Choosing to belong.

No matter how scared he is or how deeply he still believes he doesn’t deserve it. He’s giving it to you anyway. Every fractured piece of himself—body, soul, scars, loyalty, all of it—laid bare in the quiet of your room, in the way he presses closer like he has nowhere else left to go.

Between the gentle presses of your lips, his whisper ghosts against you.

“Don't you think I’m selfish, Y/N?”

You pull back just enough to breathe, your forehead resting against his. You shake your head slowly, eyes locked on his in the faint silver light. “No,” you whisper back immediately. “No.” 

Because you don’t see selfishness when you look at him.

All you see is someone who tried to leave even when it tore him apart. Just to keep you safe. Someone who convinced himself he was the danger, that the best thing he could do was disappear into the night like a stray no one would miss.

That isn’t selfish. That’s someone who would rather break himself in half than risk being the reason you hurt.

You look at him like this for a long time. His eyes are glassy, wide, and so unbearably sad that something inside your chest cracks open and bleeds. Those big, dark doe eyes that have followed you since the moment you found him make you want to give him the entire world. Not just safety. Not just a bed and new clothes. You want to give him peace. Belonging. The kind of love that doesn’t come with conditions or collars or fear of abandonment.

You lean in and press a gentle peck to the corner of his lip.

Something inside you decides, that if words don’t reach him, you will speak in the language his body understands. You’ve spent days trying to make him feel human. Trying to pull him into your rules, your version of normal, your safe little boundaries so he wouldn’t get hurt or seen as less. You thought that was kindness. You thought that was progress.

But right now?

Right now it isn’t about changing him.

It’s about wanting him. Letting him feel it, deep in his bones. Letting him be Jungkook, ears, tail, trembling devotion, instinctive submission, all that, and making sure he knows, without any doubt, that he isn’t simply tolerated. He is wanted.

Your lips trail lightly to his cheek, a soft press that lingers, then down to his jaw. He tilts his head instinctively, baring the line of his throat, eyes fluttering shut as you graze your teeth there in light, teasing bite. A moan rips from him, low and throaty, his bunny ears twitching forward then flattening in bliss.

But before you can make your way back to his lips, his eyes snap open, dark and feral. His hand shoots up, fingers wrapping around your neck, not crushing, but firm, possessive. You let out a sharp noise, half gasp, half moan, as his other palm presses flat against your back, hauling you closer until your chests crush together. The hold on your throat tightens just enough to make your pulse thunder under his thumb, but the air still slips through.

“I could kill you right now, Y/N,” he breathes, voice rough at the edges, something instinctive slipping through the cracks of his control. His teeth catch faintly in the low light as his lips hover just above yours, close enough that every word brushes against your mouth.

It isn’t a threat. It’s a test. A fragile, dangerous way of asking what he doesn’t know how to say plainly. Do you trust me? Or am I too feral, too animal for you? His gaze holds yours, unblinking, searching. And yet, even like this, with his hand around your neck, there’s something almost painfully innocent about him.

“I know,” you whisper, unflinching, eyes locked on his.

He nods once, his fingers flex, squeezing a fraction harder. Testing. Pleading. Trust this. Trust me.  Then Slowly, his hand eases away from your neck, it slides down, finding your arm, then your back, pulling you in with quiet insistence.

He shifts you carefully, guiding you until you’re sitting on his lap. His mouth finds your neck almost immediately. Rushed kisses first. Then slower ones, lingering where his hand had been moments ago. Your breath catches, but you don’t pull away. Instead, your arms slide around his neck, holding him there, steadying him as much as he’s holding you. Your chin rests lightly against the top of his head, grounding both of you in the same breath, the same space.

“Promise me.”

You tilt your head slightly, brushing your fingers through his hair. “Promise what?”

He answers with another kiss to your neck. Then another, slower this time, like he’s gathering courage from each one. “That you won’t go near other hybrids,” he murmurs

 “Okay,” you whisper. “I promise.” 

Jungkook’s lips brush along your jaw, slow, tentative kisses that trail upward, warm and careful. His hands stay at your back. 

“They’re dangerous,” he mumbles against your skin, voice low and rough. “Not all of them… but Lio and his pack are.” His lips pause just below your ear. “They seek revenge. They hate humans.”

 You feel the words settle cold in your stomach.  “Revenge?” you ask, tilting your head slightly. “Is that why they attacked you?” 

Jungkook goes still. His lips hover over your jaw, breath warm against your skin. For a long moment he doesn’t move, like he’s deciding whether he should tell you. Then he gently pushes back, shifting his body so he can look up at you properly. You tilt with him, now looking down at him from above. His hand stays on your back, thumb rubbing slow circles on your bare skin as if he needs the contact to stay steady.

“It was because of her,” he says after a long pause. You wait, giving him space. “Lio… he had an owner first,” Jungkook continues, voice quiet. “She didn’t want him anymore,” he says. “So she threw him out. Onto the streets.” Jungkook’s ears droop slightly. “Then she bought me. I took his place.” 

“She was… good to me,” he says after a beat, and your heart does a strange, awful twist at the word good. “I had my own room in the basement. Altough she locked me there. She beat me. Punished me.” He pauses, throat working. His gaze stays on your face, watching carefully for recoil. “She touched me wherever she wanted.”

The room goes very still. You can feel your own breath catch in your chest, sharp and shallow. The thought of anyone putting hands on him like he didn’t get a choice makes your stomach turn hard enough to hurt.

But Jungkook keeps speaking, because once he starts, the truth seems to spill out of him with no way to stop it. “But it was okay,” he admits, voice cracking just slightly. “I would rather be abused than abandoned.”

Your chest draws tight, breath turning shallow.

“I thought I loved her,” he whispers. “Because she kept me. I had a home... I kept living thinking I was hers forever." Jungkook’s fingers tighten on your back for a second before loosening again. “But then she got bored. So she threw me away too.”

You press your palm gently to Jungkook’s forehead, brushing his damp hair out of his eyes with your thumb. The moment your skin touches his, you feel the heat radiating from him. He’s burning up.

“You don’t have to tell me all of it,” you whisper, voice soft but steady. “I know it’s hard.”

Jungkook’s eyes flutter at your touch, but he doesn’t stop. Once he started, it seems like the words won’t let him rest until they’re all out.

“Lio found me. He took me into his pack.” His thumb keeps rubbing slow, absent circles against your back. “They wanted revenge. On humans. On everyone. They said humans are monsters… and monsters deserve to be hurt before they hurt us.”

His ears flatten slightly at the memory, and his gaze drifts somewhere past your shoulder.

“But it was too much for me,” he admits, voice dropping lower. “I didn’t like people much… but I didn’t want to hurt them either.” He swallows hard. “So I left. Now they think I betrayed them by leaving. They think I’m trying to live like a human. That I’m pretending to be something I’m not.” 

You lean down slowly, pressing your forehead back against his, letting your noses brush.

“Then they’re wrong,” you whisper softly, your lips barely grazing his. “You didn’t betray anyone… you just chose yourself.”

His eyes searches your face, something uneasy flickering there. “you’re not afraid?” he asks quietly. “They could find us again… They could hurt you.”

You shake your head. “No,” you breathe, steady. “And even if they do… If i have to fight them with you, then i will.”

Something in him softens, the tension in his shoulders loosening as if it’s finally allowed to slip away. Relief washes over his features, quiet but unmistakable. His forehead presses more firmly against yours, heat radiating from his skin, almost feverish.

His eyes drop to your lips.

And the next thing you know, he leans in again with a quiet exhale through his nose. You tilt back slightly under the weight of him, of the kiss, of how completely he’s leaning into you. Your lips meet in the quiet, soft and unhurried, the sound of it barely there.

You let him taste you for a second. Just a second.  

Then you pull back gently, your hand coming up to rest against his cheek. “Hey…” your voice softens, thumb brushing over warm skin. “let’s rest, okay?” you murmur. “you’re burning up… i don’t want you getting sick.”

He exhales quietly, like he wants to protest, but doesn’t. Instead, he just nods faintly, his grip loosening enough to let you shift. You slide off his lap carefully, guiding him down with you. The bed dips softly under your weight as you settle back, the room falling into a quieter kind of stillness.

For a moment, he just lies there, watching you.

“…Will you hold me?” he asks, voice low.

“Of course,” you whisper.

You move closer, turning onto your side and pulling him in with you, fitting against his back. Your arm slips around his waist, hand resting lightly over his stomach as you press into his warmth. He shifts instinctively, easing back into you, his body relaxing the second you’re there.

His ears droop slightly, then settle.

The tension slowly drains out of him, piece by piece, until his breathing evens out, steady, brushing against the quiet of the room.

You stay like that, holding him close, your cheek resting near his shoulder.

And somewhere between one breath and the next, you both fall asleep, him anchored in your arms, and you wrapped around him, wishing with everything in you that nothing ever comes for him again.

PREVIOUS NEXT

Tags list: @lolfccfvvvvbbbb @achbbys000 @reicoolboy @junglekookz @ttipa @strawberryberrygirl @kyljjk @viillamilla @junkookloverinfinity (if you wanna be tagged, just let me know 💌)

[junkookloverinfinity]

Love love love so much

[joonam]

Lowkey feel like junkook will fall first but y/n will deny his feelings thinking he only wants to go back to kratos 🙈

oohh, if this happens I feel like demon!jk wouldn't take the rejection well. his ego is too big, I can already imagine him going, "you are rejecting me?"

[joonam]

omg no sad endings pls🤧🤧🤧🥹 i want a happy ending 🧘‍♀️🙏

dw this series wasn't written with angst in mind or at least not too much of it..

[xxboomiex]

FERAL THINGS DON'T BELONG INSIDE II PART 8 [IN PROGRESS] Bunny Hybrid! Jungkook

Parts: P1 | P2 I P3 | P4 | P5 | P6 | P7 | P8 |

DESCRIPTION:

You never planned on taking in a hybrid. Especially not one like him.

You offer him food. A place to stay. Rules.

He offers you obedience. Tension. Trouble.

Because hybrids like him don't know how to exist without earning their place and you're about to learn that kindness, to someone like Jungkook, can feel just as dangerous as cruelty.

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: : pairing: Bunny Hybrid! Jungkook x reader

: : genre: Hybrid AU, Angst-driven Romance

: : warnings: alcohol use, drug use, mutual pining, violence mentions of abuse, cursing, fluff, angst, smut, jealousy, emotional trauma, hurt/comfort, dehumanisation themes.

: : word count: 44,843 [for now]

ao3 link: Link

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

A/N: if you're here for emotional damage, slow-burn tension and a little bit of chaos-then yeah. let's go this fic is messy in all the ways: hurt, comfort, trust issues, anc a hybrid who doesn't really know how to be safe even when he finally is.

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

PART 8

Light feels your vision. It sweeps from left to right in a slow, blinding arc, then reverses from right to left, almost hypnotic in its rhythm. Like you’re watching a lighthouse from the inside of your skull. Your eyes try to follow it even though it makes your head throb.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

When it finally turns off, you blink rapidly, lashes sticking for a second, but the light doesn’t leave. It stays behind your eyelids in streaks and afterimages, pale strikes floating across your sight whenever you move your gaze. 

The bald paramedic in front of you clicks off the small flashlight completely and slips it into the breast pocket of his uniform. His movements are calm and measured, the way someone learns to be after years of dealing with shock and trauma. 

He studies your face with quiet professionalism. “Any dizziness?” he asks, voice low and even. “Nausea? Ringing in your ears?” 

You shake your head no. 

Even though the world is absolutely tilting.

Even though your stomach keeps rolling like it’s trying to climb out of your throat. 

But you swear to yourself those are just symptoms of stress. Not the aftermath of that close, romantic head-to-wall moment you had back there in the tunnel when you got shoved and stumbled and the concrete kissed your skull hard enough to make your vision sparkle. That was nothing. That was fine. You’re fine.

The ambulance around you hums softly, vibrating under your feet. You’re sitting on the narrow bed they have in here, paper crinkling beneath you every time you move. Everything smells like disinfectant, plastic and clean latex. 

A woman in uniform stands to the side, tidying up the supplies she used on you. She snaps a drawer shut, tosses used gauze into a red biohazard bag, peels tape from her gloves with quick, efficient motions like you’re just another task in a long shift.

Your wrist is wrapped now. The scratch there burns in hot lines, snug under white bandage. When you flex your fingers, you feel the pull of tape and dried blood. Pain blooms at the back of your head. You didn’t even know it was injured until they told you, until the woman parted your hair and her expression tightened in that “oh, there it is” way. Apparently you were bleeding back there. Thank God your hair didn’t stay on the tunnel wall. 

The EMT man watches you, eyes flicking over your face like he’s checking for cracks.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asks again, not unkind. “You’re really pale."

You straighten your spine like posture can fix everything; blood loss, shock, heartbreak, the fact you’re pretty sure your soul is still somewhere in that dark passage cave.

“Yes,” you say, too bright, forcing a smile. “I’m feeling fantastic.”

He just looks at you. Not buying it. Not arguing either. He exhales through his nose and makes another note on his clipboard, the pen scratching loudly in the quiet ambulance. 

He doesn’t really have a say unless you pass out.

And you’re not going to pass out. You refuse. Not here. Not now.

You had already spoken with the police before they let the paramedics near you. It was a quick, numb interview right outside the tunnel while the cruisers lights still painted everything in sickening pulses.

You remember their questions like camera flashes:

"What happened?"

"Were you alone?"

"Did you see their faces?"

“You are sure they weren’t hybrids?”

Because they had a report, they said. Hybrids had been seen around this area at the same time. So they came.

“They were human. I’d know those stupid animals if I saw them." You’d said, injecting just the right amount of disgust into your voice. You hated yourself for it. But it worked.

You told them you were coming back from shopping, happy and tired, with your new earnings and then some teenagers jumped you. Tried to steal your purse. You fought like crazy. You couldn’t see well in the dark. It happened fast.

You’d even added a few extra details: How one of them was kind of chunky and tried to pin you down, how they shouted normal teenage insults instead of growls. The claw marks on your wrist? You claimed you couldn’t identify the weapon in the dark. Maybe a jagged piece of metal. Maybe a broken bottle. Who could say?

The police swallowed it like a cheap snack.

Because why would you lie?

Why would someone protect feral animals?

No one does that. Hybrids aren’t in “our league.”

So they believed you. Took your statement, nodded sympathetically, and moved on. And now you sit in the ambulance, the clean white light buzzing overhead.

The EMT watches you for another second, then nods like he’s reached a conclusion.

“Okay then,” he says and rises to his feet with a soft creak of his knees. “Since you’re not reporting dizziness or nausea, your vitals are stable, you’re speaking normally, pulse has straightened out, and your injuries have been treated… if you want to leave, you’ll need to sign that you’re refusing further transport and leaving voluntarily.”

He holds out a clipboard and a pen. Your hand shakes only a little as you scratch your name across the line. The ink feels final.

The woman beside him gives you one last once-over, her expression unreadable, before she finishes sealing the biohazard bag with a sharp zip.

“They can give you a ride home,” the paramedic offers, nodding toward the front of the ambulance where the driver waits. “It’s no trouble.”

“No, no,” you say quickly, already sliding off the gurney. Your legs feel unsteady, but you lock your knees. “I live just two alleys down." You lie. "There’s really no need. Besides… I could use the fresh air.”

He studies you again, but he doesn’t argue. “Alright. Watch out then. The ones who tried to rob you are probably long gone by now, but you never know what might be waiting around the next corner. Stay safe."

You manage a small nod. “Thank you. I will.”

The woman helps you down the narrow metal steps, her grip steady on your elbow. The night air hits you the moment the ambulance doors open fully. 

“This is yours,” She says, passing you your shopping bag. You clutch it instantly, knuckles whitening around the handles.

You step away from the ambulance.

It’s parked only a few meters from the tunnel entrance, lights still on, engine humming. A police car rolls away at the end of the street, tires whispering over the pavement. The last of the blue-red glow fades with it, leaving the alley in its usual dimness. 

The ambulance stays for a moment longer. Doors shutting, muffled voices inside. Then the engine revs and it pulls off too, taillights shrinking until they’re gone.

And suddenly, it’s just you.

And the tunnel.

You stare into the darkness and your stomach twists.

You don’t care if those hybrids are still around. You don’t care if they’d kill you, laugh at you, rob you, whatever. 

You need to find Jungkook.

(Because if you don’t, you’ll lose your mind. You’ll worry yourself to death. You’ll go grey at twenty-something and people will tell you stress is bad like you didn’t already know.)

You step into the tunnel.

Your footsteps echo immediately, sharp and lonely. Water splashes under your shoes where puddles have collected in shallow dips. The cracked screen of your phone casts a weak, trembling beam ahead. The glass is spiderwebbed from when it hit the ground earlier, but the flashlight still works and that’s all that matters.

The tunnel is empty. No silhouettes. No laughter. No scraping metal. 

It should be reassuring. It isn’t.

Where would that stupid bunny go?

Is he safe now? Is he bleeding somewhere in an even darker corner of the city? Did the pack catch him? The questions loop endlessly in your head, louder than your echoing footsteps.

When you finally emerge from the other end of the tunnel, the exhaustion slams into you like a physical force. It’s as if every last drop of energy has been drained from your body all at once.

You could pass out right here. You could just slide down next to the wall and sleep on the ground beside the rotten banana peel you almost stepped in, face turned to concrete, shopping bag as a pillow and let the world deal with itself for once. You don’t, obviously. But you want to.

You switch your flashlight off because there are streetlamps here, flickering faintly, throwing sickly pools of light that don’t reach the deeper shadows. 

You lift your gaze. The buildings on either side are sleeping. Every window black, curtains drawn. Earlier, when the sirens came, there were faces at the glass. People hungry for spectacle. People watching from safety like it was a show.

Now there’s nothing. No silhouettes in windows. No movement.

The scene is over. The entertainment has ended. The city has gone back to pretending it doesn’t know what happens in its shadows. You swallow hard, adjust your grip on the shopping bag, and keep walking. The night feels heavier now. Colder.

Your feet carry you further down the empty streets, past rows of sleeping apartment blocks and flickering streetlights that buzz like dying insects. Every alleyway, every shadowed corner, every abandoned lot. You search them all. The shopping bag bounces against your thigh with every step. Your head throbs in time with your heartbeat. 

“Jungkook?” you call out, voice hoarse and small in the vast silence. 

It echoes off brick walls and disappears into the dark.

It’s risky, calling him like that. You know it. You know better than to announce names into alleys where anything can be listening. You could be calling out something you don’t want. But you can’t care at this point. 

But there is no answer. Not a single one.

Even though you swear you feel like someone is watching. Like you are not entirely alone. The sensation crawls over your skin, prickling at the back of your neck.

You force a shaky breath.

It’s probably just your damaged brain. Stress. Shock. Adrenaline hangover. That’s what you tell yourself as you round another alley, passing the tattoo shop with its sign turned off and its windows black. One street ends in a dead end, and you curse under your breath, turning sharply and retracing your steps. The echoes of your boots make it sound like someone is following you.

Your lips tremble, you taste nausea every time you swallow, your head is latterly killing you. But you keep going anyway. You will search the whole town if you have to.  

You pause only for a second to dig another painkiller from the bottom of your bag and swallow it dry, even though the paramedics had already stuffed you full of medicine in the ambulance. The pill sticks halfway down, burning

A few steps later, you stop dead in your tracks.

You squint, eyes straining against the weak streetlight. Something dark lies on the dirty ground near the curb. 

Heart stuttering, you move closer. 

It is what you thought it was. 

The beanie. The same black beanie Jungkook wore earlier today to hide his ears. You crouch down, fingers shaking as you pick it up. Dust and grime cling to the fabric. You brush it off gently, then clutch it tightly in your fist, looking around wildly.

“Jungkook!” you call again, louder this time, desperation cracking your voice. “Jungkook, where are you?”

You don’t know if it’s a real sound or just the wind, but something pulls you forward. You start walking toward it, legs moving almost on their own. 

“Jungkook, is this you? Please... let's go home…”

Your voice breaks. You feel so helpless. You don’t even know if you’re talking to him or to some rat scurrying through trash. All you know is that you want to be home—safe, warm, with Jungkook beside you where he belongs.

Then you hear footsteps.

You spin around. No one is there. The street stretches empty behind you, shadows long and distorted under the failing lamps. But in the corner of your eye, you catch a reflection in one of the darkened shop windows: a dark flash of fabric, a silhouette that looks painfully familiar. You turn sharply and run after it.

“Wait! Stop!”

The figure slips around the corner. You follow without thinking, breath coming faster now. The building it leads you to looks like it belongs in a horror movie: an abandoned one, clearly gutted by fire years ago and never touched again. No door remains. Just a gaping black entrance framed by charred brick. The upper windows are shattered, glass teeth still clinging to the frames. The whole structure seems to lean inward, as if it might collapse onto you at any second.

You clench your fists around the beanie and the shopping bag, steeling yourself, and step inside.

The interior is worse than you imagined. Empty rooms stretch ahead, cracked tiles crunch under your shoes, the walls are black with soot, streaked with water damage and mold that crawls upward in ugly patterns. Dust hangs thick in the air, catching in your throat. Everything feels unstable, like one wrong step could bring the ceiling down on your head. This place feels like a grave.

You make careful steps, trying not to stumble on debris, shoulders tense. Your breath sounds too loud in the quiet.

Then—somewhere deeper inside—you hear a Crunch. The unmistakable sound of glass underfoot.

Your body goes numb.

You freeze, every muscle tightening as your brain screams at you that you shouldn’t be here. That you’re injured. Alone. Stupid.

But your feet move again anyway because your heart is louder than your fear.

There are several connected rooms, each one more decayed than the last. You curse under your breath as you turn your phone’s flashlight back on, only for it to flicker weakly and die. For a second, you just stare at it, disbelieving. You press the button again. And again. Like you can force it back to life.

Nothing.

The screen stays black. Dead.

Of course it is. You had, what—five percent left?

Your stomach twists with fresh panic. It's dark here. Only weak light leaks through a grimy window somewhere, a faint glow that barely reaches into the corridors.

And then you hear it. The sound that turns your blood into ice: A long, dragging sound. Metal scraping along the floor.

Your mind flashes back to the tunnel. To the wolf hybrid, metal rod, that deliberate scrape meant to terrify.

You swallow a whimper.

It’s getting closer.

You rush forward into the next room, shoulders brushing against the sooty walls, breath shuddering violently. And your soul drops out of your body.

No exit.

It is a dead end. The far wall is completely blocked by fallen debris and charred beams. The only thing in the space is an old, moldy mattress slumped in the corner. A single dirty window high on the wall lets in a sliver of sickly streetlight, making the room slightly brighter but no less terrifying.

“Get out.” The voice comes from directly behind you.

You turn around so sharply your head spins. You stumble backward deeper into the room, fingers tightening around the beanie in your hand until the fabric strains. Your eyes meet dark pupils glowing faintly in the weak light. Jungkook.

He approaches slowly, one deliberate step at a time. The metal pipe hangs loosely from his right hand, dragging lazily across the floor with that horrible scraping sound. His hood is down now, bunny ears standing free. His cheeks are smeared with dirt and what looks like dried blood. His hair is a wild mess, strands falling into his cold eyes. 

Your breath hitches. The relief floods through you. He’s alive. He’s here.

But something is different: The way he looks so strange. The way his face is blank in a way that doesn’t match his trembling hands. You can’t tell what’s going on behind those dark pupils. 

He looks nothing like the soft boy from the mall, from the fitting room, from the bench by the fountain.

“Jungkook... I thought you—” You start, voice trembling.

“It's not safe here, y/n,” he cuts in, flat and hollow. “Go home.”

Your brows knit together, confusion cutting through. “What about you? Aren’t you coming with me?”

He hesitates.

Just for a second—but it’s there.

His gaze drops, flickering to something on the ground in front of you. A loose stone, a broken piece of tile. There’s a small pause as he stares at it.

Then the metal pipe shifts in his grip and scrapes across the floor in a slow, lazy sweep, like it’s being drawn rather than swung. It catches the tile and nudges it loose. The fragment skitters across the ground, sliding until it bumps your leg and taps against the front of your shoe.

“No,” His voice is low, final

“What?” you breathe. “Why not?”

You take a step toward him without thinking, but he lifts the pipe between you. The metal tip presses into your stomach. Not enough to hurt, but enough to stop you. Enough to say: Don’t come any closer.

You stare at him, puzzled and hurt and terrified all at once.

“Stop this, Kook,” you whisper, voice shaking. “It’s late… you need to rest. Just—come home with me, okay? We can talk there."

His expression twitches. Something tight pulling across his face. He exhales through his nose, almost like a snort, but there’s no humour in it. None at all. Without warning, he throws the pipe to the ground. The metal slams against the floor with a violent clang that ricochets violently through the blackened walls like a gunshot. You flinch startled, shoulders jerking up, breath catching mid-throat.

You’re thrown off by the way he holds himself. So unapproachable, so rigid, like he doesn’t want you anywhere near him.

It doesn’t make sense.

He didn’t leave. He followed you. He stayed close. You’re sure of it. Just a few steps behind the whole time. So why is he acting like this?

His gaze travels slowly over your entire body. When it lands on your bandaged wrist, you instinctively hide it behind your back. You shift under his stare without meaning to. Weight moving from one foot to the other, shoulders drawing in slightly as if that alone could make you less exposed.

His eyes find yours again.

And something changes.

He shifts, then takes a step that isn’t toward you, but sideways. Circling. Slow. Measured. Like he’s mapping you out, keeping distance while still refusing to look away. His movement is careful, controlled, but there’s something restless underneath it, like he can’t decide whether to approach or retreat.

Your feet adjust on instinct, turning your body to track him. You refuse to let him circle behind you. The two of you move in this strange, silent dance amid the ashes and ruin, unable to break eye contact, as if looking away might make one of you disappear.

“Don’t you hate me already?" he asks, voice raw. “Don’t you fucking despise me?”

“What are you saying?” You mumble, surprised by how small your own voice sounds in the charred room.

He keeps circling, one more step, tiles cracking faintly beneath him. Then he stops so abruptly, it looks like something yanked him by the spine.

“You’re hurt,” he says.

He doesn’t look at you when he says it. His head dips, hair falling forward into his eyes, and the shadow of the ruined room eats most of his expression. 

“It’s all because of me,” His voice drops even lower, barely more than a broken rasp. “You were so good to me and all I do is bring you suffering.”

A wave of realization splashes over you. So this is the case, you think: He’s trying to push you away because he thinks he’s a threat. Because those hybrids planted the idea in him and it found fertile ground.

“That’s not true,” you say quickly, too desperate.

You don’t know how to get into his head. You don’t know what’s happening inside him. You just know something is wrong, and he’s trying to cut himself out of your life like he’s doing you a favor.

“You would leave me someday,” he continues. The words fall heavy between you. Then he lifts his face, catching the pale stroke of streetlight from the window. You see the way his jaw tightens like he’s forcing the words out before they can choke him. His eyes are wet, glassy, reflecting the faint glow like fractured glass.

“You would realize I’m not worth it,” he whispers. “Realize I’m a disgusting creature… taking up space.”

“Jungkook—” you start, but your throat tightens so violently it feels like you’re about to cry. The words die on your tongue, lodged behind the burning pressure building behind your eyes.

He growls, but it’s not something that scares you anymore. It’s a sound almost sad. Helpless. It comes out more like a broken whine.

Just go… please Y/N.” He looks like a puppy now. Ears drooping, shoulders curled inward, eyes wide and pleading. 

Your chest caves.

The sight of him like that—begging you to abandon him first—crushes something in you. You blink hard, but it doesn’t stop the tear that escapes anyway, hot on your cheek.

“No,” you choke out. “No, I’m not going anywhere without you,” you say, each word sharper with emotion. “I’ll stay here and rot away if that’s what it takes to make you come with me… but I refuse to let you scare me off.”

Few more tears fall involuntarily down your cheeks. You don’t even feel them at first. Not until the cool air stings the wet trails they leave behind.

Jungkook’s eyes widen.

He looks startled, like a deer caught in sudden, blinding light. His ears twitch sharply upward, then flatten completely against his messy hair, trembling, betraying him in a way his face is trying desperately not to.

“Y/N—”

“Please,” you cut in, voice collapsing into soft sobs.“Please, no — you’re making me sad. Stop resisting and just come back to me.”

He goes still. He studies your wet face like crying is something he never expected to cause. Like the sight of your tears is more painful to him than any wound the pack could have given him in that tunnel. His lips part, but no sound comes out at first. Only a shaky exhale that fogs slightly in the cold air between you.

Then, slowly, he takes a step forward.

The broken tile cracks under his shoe. His drooped ears quiver as he searches your face, looking for any hint that you might still push him away.

“So...you still want me?” 

“Of course,” you answer immediately. “Would I be here if I didn’t?”

Something shifts in his expression. You recognize it instantly. There he is. Your bunny. The soft one you knew. The dangerous, feral mask he wore when he first stepped into this room cracks and falls away, revealing the trembling boy underneath. 

He isn’t dangerous.

He’s just lost. Just hurt. Just terrified of being left. 

The sight of him like this twists your heart violently in your chest, so tight you almost can’t breathe.

"And you won’t replace me?” His voice is so quiet it barely reaches you. 

The question is so fragile it feels like if you answer wrong, he’ll shatter.

You look at him as he moves fully in front of you. You have to tilt your head up to meet his gaze properly in the ruined dark, your throat tight, your body trembling with exhaustion and emotion. His breath fans warm across your tear-streaked cheeks.

“I would never replace you,” you say, and the words come out like a vow.

You mean it with every fractured piece of yourself.

How could you ever replace those sad doe eyes? That trembling, fragile hope flickering behind wet lashes? How could you be indifferent to the way he tries so hard to be good, to be wanted–when he doesn’t know he already is?

Jungkook’s breath stutters. He looks like a lost puppy who’s been kicked too many times and can’t believe someone is still kneeling down with an open hand. He takes another step forward, then another, crowding into your space like he’s terrified you’ll disappear if he doesn’t keep you in reach.

There’s barely any space left between you now. Nothing but air and the faint tremble of your breath, but he still doesn’t stop. Each time he moves forward, you take small steps back instinctively, overwhelmed by the intensity rolling off him in waves. He keeps coming, eyes glassy, ears twitching with every tiny sound you make.

“You really mean it?” he murmurs,voice thick with disbelief. His chest bumps lightly against yours. “Even after tonight? 

“Yes,” you breathe.

His face tightens like he’s swallowing something sharp.

Then he moves toward you again. Faster this time. So sudden that you almost squeak in surprise, the sound catching in your throat. There’s a desperate urgency in the way he closes the distance now, like the weight of your words has finally snapped whatever fragile restraint he had left.

You retreat without thinking. Another step. Your heel catches on something behind you and your balance vanishes. You fall backward with a startled gasp, hands flying out to catch yourself.The beanie slips from your head mid-motion, and the shopping bag jerks free from your grip, its contents shifting as it hits somewhere beside you.

You land on the old mattress.

The landing is softer than you expected,  

the ripped, foam-spilling surface giving way beneath you with a puff of dust. You push yourself upright quickly, breath uneven. Few srands of your hair cling to your damp cheek as you look up—

Jungkook looks down at you, curiosity flickering across his face for a brief moment, eyes wide, ears tilted forward like he’s trying to understand how you ended up there, on that disgusting mattress, because of him.

Then he kneels down in front of you slowly, lowering himself like he’s approaching something sacred. His ears tremble, then angle forward again, focused entirely on you.

His hands hover for a second, unsure where he’s allowed to touch.

You push yourself up straighter on the mattress, the foam compressing wetly beneath your palms, one sleeve riding up just enough for the bandage to show again.

His gaze drops instantly.

It lands on your wrist. On the bandage where a faint stain of red is seeping through the white gauze. Before you can hide it, before you can even think, he reaches out. His fingers close gently around your hand.

He turns your wrist slightly, tilting it toward the faint light so he can examine the wrap. The pressure stings sharply where the claw marks underneath are still raw, but you let him. You don’t flinch. You don’t pull away.

You swallow hard. “...Jungkook?"

He doesn’t answer. He lowers his head and he presses his lips to the bandage. A soft, trembling kiss. The contact is barely there, but it hits you like a weight. Your throat tightens, tears gathering again, because the gesture isn’t romantic the way it would be in another story.

It’s apology. It’s guilt.

It’s him trying to undo the world with his mouth because he doesn’t know any other way.

His breath shakes against your wrist.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into the bandage, voice muffled. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

"Stop apologizing,” you whisper, voice breaking. "It wasn’t your fault.”

He lifts his head just enough to look at you, eyes wet and desperate. His fingers tighten around your hand for a brief moment, then loosen again, scared of holding too tight.

“I don’t deserve you.” The words hang in the dusty air between you, heavy with self-loathing.

Jungkook’s ears press flat against his head as he continues, voice dropping into something raw and almost feral.

“I won’t let them touch you again. I promise.” His eyes darken, there is a dangerous flicker behind the tears. “I will protect you. I will tear them down with my teeth for you.”

The promise is violent and gentle all at once. The soft bunny and the cornered animal merging into one being kneeling in front of you on a filthy mattress in a burned-out building.

You nod slowly. “Okay,” you whisper, voice fragile but steady. “It’s okay.”

"I will bite their heads off." He adds and there's no humor in it

You look deep into his eyes until the rest of the room blurs into nothing. You can tell how sincere he is. How devoted in a way that feels almost dangerous, not because it threatens you, but because it threatens him. Because once Jungkook gives you his heart, he doesn’t seem to know how to take it back.

Like a dog.

The kind that, even if you beat him, scream at him, push him away, would still crawl back with his head low and his tail trying to wag anyway, just to prove he can be good enough to stay. That’s who he is. Someone who makes people feel loved even if he only gets it once in his lifetime. 

Your throat tightens. You lift your free hand slowly, hesitating at first, then reach toward him; his messy hair, the dirt and blood smudged on his cheekbone. Your fingers brush his face.

Jungkook flinches, barely, then melts. He leans into your touch like your palm is the only safe thing left in the world. He nuzzles into it, eyes fluttering shut for a second, ears easing from that tense, flattened position into something softer. 

And then he leans forward fully, collapsing into you. His forehead presses into your shoulder. His breath shudders out, hot against your neck. His arms hovering like he still isn’t sure he’s allowed, before they wrap around your waist with a careful, desperate strength. 

You don’t hesitate this time. You bring both arms around him and hold him tight. Not gentle. Not distant. Tight like you mean it. Like you’re anchoring him here, in your world, where he’s alive and wanted and not alone in some abandoned building with a pipe at his feet. 

His body trembles once, and you feel it through your chest. He clings to you, head buried against your shoulder, and for a moment he’s not the feral thing they tried to call him. He’s just Jungkook. Just a boy who ran until he couldn’t, who fought until he was empty, and who still came back to you anyway. You press your cheek to his hair and whisper into the mess of it, voice shaking but sure.

“I’ve got you.”

PREVIOUS NEXT

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Author note: HIIII ♡ Couldn’t sleep again so i decided to be productive and treat you with another chapter instead ♡♡

Hope you enjoyed it 💕 let me know what you think, seriously. It keeps me going more than you know.

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Tags: @lolfccfvvvvbbbb, @achbbys000, @reicoolboy , @junglekookz, @ttipa @strawberryberrygirl, @kyljjk, @viillamilla (if you wanna be tagged, just let me know 💌)

[bighitfics]

stop and wait a sec

when you look at me like that, my darlin', what did you expect? — 505 Artic Monkeys.

[bighitfics]

his look of love gonna go crayyyzy

[bighitfics]

girl what happened to sending asks, re blogging? and leaving comments? 😕

[xxboomiex]

FERAL THINGS DON'T BELONG INSIDE II PART 7 [IN PROGRESS] Bunny Hybrid! Jungkook

Parts: P1 | P2 I P3 | P4 | P5 | P6 | P7 |

DESCRIPTION:

You never planned on taking in a hybrid. Especially not one like him.

You offer him food. A place to stay. Rules.

He offers you obedience. Tension. Trouble.

Because hybrids like him don't know how to exist without earning their place and you're about to learn that kindness, to someone like Jungkook, can feel just as dangerous as cruelty.

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: : pairing: Bunny Hybrid! Jungkook x reader

: : genre: Hybrid AU, Angst-driven Romance

: : warnings: alcohol use, drug use, mutual pining, violence mentions of abuse, cursing, fluff, angst, smut, jealousy, emotional trauma, hurt/comfort, dehumanisation themes.

: : word count: 39,475 [for now]

ao3 link: Link

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A/N: if you're here for emotional damage, slow-burn tension and a little bit of chaos-then yeah. let's go this fic is messy in all the ways: hurt, comfort, trust issues, and a hybrid who doesn't really know how to be safe even when he finally is.

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Part 7

This is it. This is the end

You’re going to die in a nasty, dark tunnel that smells like wet concrete, ammonia, and unlocks memories you didn’t ask for: Like that time devil little Miss Betty peed all over the hospital bed and rolled in it while you were still a help volunteer. (Not good memories...If anyone couldn’t tell.)

The footsteps get louder. No rush, no hesitation. Just the steady certainty of people who know you can’t go anywhere.

There is no escape. They’re coming from both sides now. Some from the direction you came, others closing in from deeper in the tunnel. Your heart is pounding so violently it feels like it might fly straight out of your chest any second. 

Jungkook is right in front of you, body shielding yours, his grip still firm as he tilts his head slightly. Listening. Tracking.

The silhouettes begin to emerge from the darkness ahead. First just shadows, shapeless and menacing against the faint glow leaking from the tunnel’s distant ends.

One of them drags something long and metallic along the concrete floor. The scraping sound is deliberate, slow, like a predator sharpening its claws. The sound slithers through the tunnel and crawls into your spine.

You count them frantically in your head:

Four silhouettes bleeding out from the left passage. 

Three more from the right, moving slower, almost lazy. 

Seven in total. 

Your mind does a desperate, broken calculation: two people (one of them still healing, still not fully strong) against seven terrifying unknowns. The math doesn’t add up. No good outcome found. Your internal calculator is clearly broken, glitching on panic and the overwhelming smell of Betty’s nightmare piss. 

A male voice cuts through the dark from the left. A low, rough laugh follows it, bouncing off the tunnel walls until it feels like it’s coming from everywhere at once.

You tilt your head a fraction toward it, but Jungkook’s thumb presses harder into your cheek, warning you to stay still. Your fingers instinctively grab his wrist, tugging weakly, silently begging him to loosen the iron grip over your mouth.

“Well, well.” Another laugh stacks on top of it. “Look who the fuck we got here.”

All the footsteps stop at once, maybe ten feet away. You still can’t see their faces clearly. Just outlines in the near-blackness, but the pause feels calculated. Predatory. Like they’re savoring the moment. 

The voice continues, delighted. “You thought we wouldn’t recognize you in this shitty human disguise, Jungkook?” The metal rod scrapes again, slow, taunting. “Thought you’d pass through without saying hi?” A low chuckle ripples through the group. “That’s not how you treat family, man.”

Jungkook growls. The sound rumbles deep from his chest, vibrating against your body where he’s still pressed flush to you, a raw, animalistic noise you’ve never heard from him before. It’s not loud, but it’s powerful enough that your skin prickles.

His hand leaves your mouth.

Cold air hits your lips. You gulp a breath like you’ve been underwater.

Jungkook takes one small step back, not fully separating from you but turning just enough to face the one who spoke. His posture changes completely. The timid boy from the mall is gone.

You try to push yourself off the clammy wall, legs shaking, but Jungkook reacts instantly. His palm slams against your collarbone, shoving you back with surprising strength. Your back hits the concrete again and your breath stutters. The message is clear: Stay.

Jungkook’s eyes flick right, then left, tracking both sides like a hunted thing that refuses to become prey.

On the right, one of the figures moves, creeping forward like they’re approaching something that might bolt.

“Back the fuck off,” Jungkook snaps.

It’s the first time you’ve heard him curse like that. The sound is so different. So sharp. For a second you forget to be afraid of the strangers and feel afraid for him

Then they laugh. Not startled. Not intimidated.

Amused.

“Aww,” Another voice says. “Listen to him. Like he’s got teeth now.”

Then even different voice cuts in from the right. “He does.” A pause. “Just not for us.”

The metal rod scrapes again. Closer this time.

“I see you don’t wanna share,” someone says, and you can hear the grin in the words. “That’s unfortunate.”

“Yeah,” the previous one adds, voice dripping with mock sympathy. “Real unfortunate. You know how it looks, right?” He clicks his tongue. “One of ours… holding hands with a human. Shopping. Eating. Playing house.”

Jungkook’s jaw tightens visibly even in the dimness. The hand on your collarbone shifts, fingers curling and flexing against the fabric of your jacket like he’s holding himself back from acting on pure instinct. Every muscle in him coiled, restrained, barely contained.

“Traitor,” somebody spits from the left. “Trying to fit in with them.”

“Didn’t you fucking learn already?” The deep voice presses, suddenly sharper under the humor. “They don’t care about you. They never will. You think this one’s different?"

The right-side figure takes another slow step, and you can feel Jungkook’s body tense, his palm still pinning you protectively to the wall. 

“They’ll act nice,” The deep voice continues, “Until someone tells them what you are.” A chuckle. “Then watch how fast they call security. Watch how fast they start talking about rules.”

Your throat tightens because it’s not entirely wrong. Because you’ve already made him hide. You have given him rules. Told him when to stay small, when to disappear, when to cover what he is–so the world doesn't react the way you’are being warned it will. You hate them for being right about anything.

Jungkook’s head turns slightly, just enough that you can see the edge of his profile. His breath is controlled, but his anger is a living thing.

“Shut up,” he says, low.

The voice laughs again, delighted. “Oh, he’s mad.”

"Jungkook,” A younger voice calls, almost gentle now, as if offering him an easier option. “Come back. You can stop pretending.”

You swallow hard. Pretending.

Your phone is still pressed to your chest. The light is still blocked. All you have are voices and shadows.

Your fingers tremble.

And then, because your brain is sick of not knowing, sick of being blind in the dark, your thumb slides.

The flashlight flares back on.

White light blasts outward, bouncing off the tunnel walls, cutting sharp angles through the darkness.

For a heartbeat, everyone freezes.

And you see them.

Not humans. Hybrids. Seven of them

It hits you in a rush of details your mind tries to categorize all at once. Various ears twitching atop their heads, tails flicking with agitation behind them. 

There is a wolf hybrids with sharp, predatory glares and scarred muzzles. A couple of big cat types, muscles coiled like they’re ready to pounce. One with long, ragged fox ears pierced with metal studs. Their eyes reflect the flashlight beam in an eerie, animalistic glow. 

They’re young. Most of them. Teens, early twenties, maybe. Street-worn clothes, restless bodies, that particular posture of people who move in packs because being alone is dangerous.

They’re looking at you like you’re the strange thing here.

Like you don’t belong.

Jungkook jerks his head slightly at the light, not startled, more annoyed. His palm presses harder against your collarbone, not painful but urgent.

“Turn it off,” he hisses without looking back.

But you don't.

Because it's too late anyway.

They’ve seen you. They’ve seen him. They've seen the shopping bag hanging from your fingers.

They’ve probably seen it long before the light ever reached them. In this kind of darkness, this half-lit tunnel where human eyes fail, hybrids don’t struggle the same way. Their vision cuts through it. Better edges. Better contrast. Enough to pick out movement, shape, intention.

The flashlight didn’t reveal you to them.

It just confirmed what they were already watching.

The wolf grins wide, eyes glinting. “There she is.” His gaze crawls over you, slow and invasive. “The human.”

A cat hybrid on the right snorts. “Cute.”

“Don’t,” Jungkook warns, voice turning even darker.

The wolf hybrid shift. The metal rod taps the ground once—clink—like punctuation. “Relax,” He says and steps into the light just enough for you to catch the shape of his ears and the calm cruelty in his expression. “We’re not here for her.”

A pause.

“We’re here for you.”

You gulp. Every instinct in your body screams that whatever happens next won't be a conversation.

They start moving in. Not rushing. Just closing the distance like a net tightening. Boots scuffing through grit and shallow puddles. 

Jungkook shifts his weight forward, his hand drops from your body, placing himself fully between you and them. His shoulders lift with a breath that looks controlled but loaded. “Then let's take this somewhere else,” he says, voice low and hard. He jerks his head toward you without looking back. “Let her leave.”

The wolf hybrid at the front; tall, broad-shouldered, with scarred gray ears flicked forward in aggression, lets out a harsh snort. 

“What?” he drawls. His ears twitch, and his lips curl with something that isn’t quite a smile. “You scared your little human will see what you really are?” He steps closer, and the light catches his eyes “That you’re not a fluffy mascot—That you’re a feral fucking thing?” He tilts his head, lips pulling back to reveal sharp canines that glint in the weak light. “Let her watch.” 

Jungkook’s steps forward toward the wolf. The movement is protective, furious, but it leaves you exposed against the clammy wall. 

Your hands start shaking so badly your phone beam wobbles across the walls, across their faces, across their reflective eyes. The shopping bag slips from your numb fingers and hits the ground with a dull thud, new clothes spilling partially onto the dirty floor.

You’re scared to death; genuinely, bone-deep terrified that they’re going to tear him apart right in front of you. The thought of those claws and that metal rod meeting his still-healing body makes your vision tunnel. 

“Stop!” you blurt, voice cracking with fear. You don’t even recognize your own tone “I’m—I’m going to call the police!” The threat sounds pathetic the second it leaves your mouth, and their reaction confirms it. 

Not a single one of them flinches. A few of them actually grin, like you’ve said something cute. 

You take a step and grab Jungkook’s arm with both hands, clinging to him, trying to pull him back. Your chin bumps his shoulder as you press close, like if you hold on hard enough you can keep him from stepping into whatever this is.

He doesn’t look at you. His gaze stays on the wolf hybrid. 

“This is between us,” Jungkook says, voice edged like glass. “Let her go, Lio.” 

So that’s him. Lio. The wolf hybrid tilts his head slowly, ears angling forward. When your trembling flashlight lands on him, he squints against the beam, one eye narrowing into a slit. The light shows the shape of his jaw and the faint scar near his brow. 

"You heard him?” Lio's gaze slides to you, his voice lazy, like he’s bored of you already. “Go away, human.” 

Your chest heaves once, stunned. You look up at Jungkook like you’ve misheard—like surely he isn’t going to agree with that. Your mouth opens and the words come out before you can stop them.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Jungkook’s expression tightens immediately, something sharp and pained flashing across his face—almost anger, but directed inward more than at you, like your refusal is the one thing he can’t afford right now or like your stubbornness is a threat all on its own. 

He rips his arm free from your grip.

Before you can protest, his palm lands on your shoulder and he pushes you toward the other side of the tunnel.You stumble, the beam of your phone jumps wildly. Your heart is in your throat.

 “Go,” Jungkook snaps. 

Three hybrids stand there, blocking that path. When Jungkook speaks, they move. They separate, making a narrow gap for you to pass through. Their eyes follow you with predatory focus, ears angled forward like they’re waiting for any excuse to pounce.

This is insane. Completely, horrifyingly insane.

Everything inside you screams that this is a trap, that if you step through, the tunnel will swallow you and you’ll never reach him again. Because leaving means abandoning him. Leaving means he’ll be alone with them. The thought lands like a punch to the lungs. Your eyes sting instantly, tears gathering before you can stop them. They blur the edges of your vision, turning the flashlight’s beam into watery streaks of light.

You look back over your shoulder, legs refusing to carry you any farther.

“...Jungkook,” you plea, voice breaking on his name. It echoes softly down the tunnel, small and helpless against the oppressive dark.

Jungkook doesn’t turn to look at you. His shoulders remain rigid, facing the pack that once called him family. The flashlight in your shaking hand illuminates the back of his hooded head, the new clothes you bought him now scattered at your feet like meaningless scraps.

"Get the hell out of here." The fox hybrid snarls and you barely register the movement that follows—Before you can even gasp, his hand shoots out, fingers tangling brutally into your hair. He yanks your head back, and a sharp pain flares at your scalp, forcing a choked yelp from your throat.

"Don't fucking touch her" Jungkook’s voice rips through the tunnel.

The world becomes a blur of motion. Adrenaline, sharp and stinging, surges through you. Your hand moves on its own; a frantic, desperate arc that connects with the fox hybrid’s cheek in a resounding slap.

The shock on his face lasts only a second before his expression curdles into pure malice. He snatches your wrist, his claws unsheathing like switchblades. You hiss in agony as he rakes them across your skin, carving deep, burning furrows just above your joint. Blood, hot and fast, begins to bloom against your skin.

Then, the true violence begins.

Through the chaos, you see the flash of a metal pipe. It swings, catching Jungkook across the shoulder with a sickening thud. He staggers, his knees buckling for a split second, but he doesn't go down. He lunges back, a snarl ripping from his throat, but they are swarming him. Four against one.

The fox hybrid gives you one final, violent shove. Your body slams into the cold stone wall with a force that knocks the wind entirely out of your lungs. Your head knocks against the brick a second later as you slump to the floor, your spine screaming in protest.

Your phone slips from your hand and clatters across the tunnel floor, the flashlight still on. It comes to a stop a few feet away, casting your shadow long and distorted in the dark.

For a terrifying moment, the world goes black. Then everything fractures into light: small, scattered flashes behind your eyes, like the world is breaking apart at the edges.

Sound fades. Distance disappears.

You’re aware only of your own shallow heartbeat and the rough cold of stone against your spine.

Then slowly, painfully, it starts to come back.

You sit there, gasping for air that won't come, watching through blurred vision as the pack converges on Jungkook. They aren't even looking at you anymore. To them, you’re just a broken human. A pathetic piece of trash.

Jungkook moves. It’s fast. Too fast for you to fully track. One second he’s there, braced, and the next he’s already lunging. His shoulder slams into one of them, sending the figure staggering back with a sharp grunt. He twists, ducks another swing, you hear the metal pipe whistle through the air where his head had been a split second ago, and he drives his elbow into someone’s ribs hard enough to make them fold.

For a moment, it almost looks like he can handle it.

But there are too many of them.

They close in again immediately, tighter this time. One grabs at his jacket, another swings low. Jungkook jerks back but not fast enough. The metal connects again with a dull, sickening sound that echoes down the tunnel.

Your stomach flips.

He stumbles. Just for a second—but it’s enough.

They press in harder, cutting off every direction, forcing him to keep turning, keep blocking, keep moving. There’s no space. No escape. Every move he makes is reaction, not offense now. Survival, not fighting.

And he’s already hurt. You can see it in the way his movements start to slow, in the slight hitch when he shifts his weight, in how he’s breathing. He can’t keep this up. Not against all of them.

Run. Your mind whispers through the ringing in your ears. Run and find help or he’s going to die here.

You scramble to your feet, your head spinning so violently the tunnel seems to tilt. You stumble toward the exit, your breath coming in jagged, sobbing hitches. 

You burst out of the tunnel’s mouth into the freezing night, your voice tearing out of your throat.

"HELP! SOMEONE HELP!"

The alley feels like a dead end the world forgot. A wasteland of shadows and overflowing dumpsters. No footsteps, no voices, nothing human left out here with you. Just the distant, muffled violence bleeding through the tunnel behind you, distorted and wrong, like it’s happening inside your skull instead of somewhere real. 

You spin around, looking at the mouth of the tunnel where the sounds of the struggle are muffled and horrific. A thought lands too sharply to ignore: He’s still in there. They’re still in there. And whatever is happening inside that darkness is something you can’t stop.

They are going to kill him. They are going to tear him apart in the dark.

Then, you hear it.

For a second you think it’s your brain making things up. But it’s real.

A siren.

The low, rising wail cuts through, slipping past stone and shadow like it was always meant to find you here. Then another joins it. And another. The sound stacks on itself until it becomes impossible to locate a single source, just the overwhelming presence of it, approaching from somewhere you can’t see yet.

A cruiser follows, its sharp chirp-chirp bouncing off the tunnel walls.

The noise grows, as it travels through the underground space, echoing in fractured loops that make it feel closer than it should be. Closer than it feels safe for it to be.

And then you understand.

It’s not coming from inside the tunnel.

It’s coming from the other side.

You squint your eyes. The far end of the tunnel starts to pulse. Blue. Red.

The colors splash faintly along the walls, distant but unmistakable, crawling closer in rhythmic flashes. The puddles on the floor catch it and throw it back, turning the tunnel into a flickering, broken mirror.

A shout erupts from inside.

“Shit! The cops!”

Everything shifts at once.

The shadows scatter like startled animals. Feet slap against wet concrete. Bodies move fast and silent. Someone curses again. The scrape of metal pipe changes into the sharper clink of it being lifted to run with.

Panic overrides your pain: You don’t think about your wrist. You don’t think about the pounding in your head. You don’t even think about how your chest is still heaving from the fear that almost swallowed you whole.

You just move.

You dive back into the tunnel.

Your aching body moves through a kaleidoscope of half-seen faces and tails and eyes that catch the light for a split second before disappearing again.

You stumble into someone. A cat hybrid, judging by the ears that jerk when your shoulder collides with his. He grunts, stumbling back, startled, and you push past him without stopping.

A megaphone booms from somewhere outside, the sound so loud it vibrates in your bones.

“POLICE! STAY WHERE YOU ARE!”

No one stays where they are.

The pack is already vanishing. They run like they’ve done this a hundred times. In seconds, they’re gone, swallowed somewhere deeper in the maze of alleys and dead spaces that stretch far beyond this shitty tunnel, places you wouldn’t even know how to find, let alone survive in.

And then you see him.

In the center of the passage, caught in the flickering blue and red strobe bleeding in from the far end, Jungkook is struggling to rise from the ground. He’s on one knee, then both hands, hood fallen forward and completely covering his face.

You reach him, your hands diving into his hoodie to haul him up. "Jungkook! You have to get up! You have to go!"

He lifts his head just enough for you to catch a glimpse of those wide doe eyes beneath the shadow of his hood. They’re dark, glassy, filled with a heartbreaking storm of terror and exhaustion.

"Run! Go!" You hiss, shoving him toward the shadows of the opposite exit. "Don't let them see you! Just go!"

You know the law. If the police catch him here–an unregistered hybrid, caught in a gang fight, "in the wild"—they won't ask questions. They’ll see a stray. They’ll see a threat.

He hesitates for half a heartbeat. His hand shoots out, cold fingers brushing desperately against yours one last time, like he’s trying to memorize the feeling.

Then with one final, pained look that sears itself into your memory, he turns and vanishes into the darkness just as the first tactical flashlight sweeps the area.

You drop to your knees, your fingers scrabbling for your cracked phone and the bag of clothes. You barely have them in your grip when two officers burst into the tunnel, their heavy boots splashing through the water.

"Hands up! Don't move!"

The blinding glare of their high-powered lights hits your face, making you squint. You look back toward the shadows where Jungkook disappeared. There is nothing there. Only cold air and stone.

One of the officers reaches you, his hand firm on your shoulder. "Miss? Miss, are you alright?" 

It’s only then, as the adrenaline begins to ebb away, that you realize you are shaking uncontrollably. Your face is soaked, your chest aching with the force of your sobs. The blood from your wrist has smeared across your sleeve.

"What happened here?" the officer asks, his voice softening as he sees your injuries. "Were you attacked? Where did they go?"

You look up at him.

The lights from outside paint his uniform in shifting colors, making him look unreal. Your vision is blurred with tears, and his face swims in and out of focus.

Words don’t come.

Because what are you supposed to say?

That a pack of hybrids cornered you? That your Jungkook, even though he isn’t yours, was here one second ago and gone the next?

That you just shoved someone the whole world would call a “stray” into the dark to save him from the people who are supposed to protect you?

Your throat closes.

You glance back toward the shadows where Jungkook disappeared.

There’s nothing there. Just cold air. Wet concrete. The empty space where he was supposed to be.

And it hurts so sharply you can barely breathe.

“I…” you try, voice cracking into nothing.

“Hey. Okay. It’s okay.” The officer steadies you by the shoulder. “We’re going to get you out of here, alright?”

Out.

The word echoes strangely in your head.

Out of the tunnel. Out of the dark. Out of this moment.

But not back to before.

You let them pull you to your feet. Your legs don’t feel like yours anymore; weak, distant, like they might give out if you think about them too much.

A few more officers rush past you, boots pounding against the concrete as they push deeper into the passage, flashlights cutting sharp, blinding paths through the dark. Their voices filling the space with urgent echo.

Something in you just sinks. All you can do is stand there, barely holding yourself together, and pray they don’t find him.

PREVIOUS NEXT

Tags: @lolfccfvvvvbbbb @achbbys000 @reicoolboy @junglekookz (if you wanna be tagged, just let me know 💌)

[xxboomiex]

FERAL THINGS DON'T BELONG INSIDE II PART 6 [IN PROGRESS] Bunny Hybrid! Jungkook

Parts: P1 | P2 I P3 | P4 | P5 | P6 |

DESCRIPTION:

You never planned on taking in a hybrid. Especially not one like him.

You offer him food. A place to stay. Rules.

He offers you obedience. Tension. Trouble.

Because hybrids like him don't know how to exist without earning their place and you're about to learn that kindness, to someone like Jungkook, can feel just as dangerous as cruelty.

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: : pairing: Bunny Hybrid! Jungkook x reader

: : genre: Hybrid AU, Angst-driven Romance

: : warnings: alcohol use, drug use, mutual pining, violence mentions of abuse, cursing, fluff, angst, smut, jealousy, emotional trauma, hurt/comfort, dehumanisation themes

: : word count: 35,658 [for now]

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

ao3 link: Link

A/N: if you're here for emotional damage, slow-burn tension and a little bit of chaos-then yeah. let's go this fic is messy in all the ways: hurt, comfort, trust issues, anc a hybrid who doesn't really know how to be safe even when he finally is.

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Part 6

 “Next stop is: Lotus Street.” 

The automated voice crackles through the bus speakers, slightly disorted, and it pulls your attention from the window. You lift your head, eyes drifting toward the front display. Two stops left.

It’s been two days. It still feels weird how fast life can tilt into something new, like you didn’t even get a warning. You got off work at six pm today. Your body already halfway shut down by the time you clocked out. Your feet ache, your shoulders ache, and all you want is your bed and silence.

But you promised Jungkook you’d buy him clothes.

So here you are: On a bus, in the evening, heading toward the mall, instead of lying face down on the couch.

You’re sitting almost in the back. Far enough that no one really pays attention, close enough that you can still see the doors if anything goes wrong. Jungkook sits beside the window, posture careful, like he’s trying to take up as little space as possible even though there’s room. His shoulder pressed against the glass, watching the city blur past in streaks of light. He’s wearing a beanie pulled low over his head, and on top of it he has a hood up too for double coverage. It hides the shape of his bunny ears, keeps them pressed down and out of sight. 

You'd sat him down before going out feeling like the world's biggest hypocrite after everything you'd said about hybrids being human-beings too. About cruelty and dignity and you are a person, not property. And then you had to say: But some people are cruel. And the rules are the rules, no matter how stupid they are. No stray hybrids allowed in stores, “for customer comfort,” like hybrids are dirty or dangerous or less than people.

You hate it. You hate that you have to be part of it tonight, stuffing him into layers and hats like he’s something that needs to be hidden. Just for a little while. Just while we shop.

He'd nodded. Understanding. Like it was the most natural thing in the world to fold yourself up small enough to fit into someone else's prejudice. Like he was used to making himself invisible.

You'd wanted to say fuck it, let them stare, but you also didn't want to get him thrown out. Or worse— Taken.

But he took it easy. Like he’s used to bending himself into whatever shape makes other people comfortable.

Living with him this past few days hasn’t been as bad as you expected. There’s still so much to fix, so much you don’t know. And he still slips sometimes, trying to do things for you like you’re his owner; standing too quickly when you move, offering to carry things you didn’t ask him to, watching your face like he’s waiting for commands. But at least now he eats. Properly. Not like he thinks his hunger is something he has to apologize for, he watches TV, he sleeps comfortably, too. Actually sleeps, not half-awake and tense like he expects someone to grab him.

And his wounds are healing—The worst of the bruises on his face have faded into that ugly yellow that means they’re finally leaving. You covered the leftovers with concealer before you left. Up close you could still see the shadows, but from a distance? He just looked like a normal boy. A very pretty one, actually. The kind of face that would probably stop people in the mall if they looked too long.

You glance down at your hands, the overtime pay from the last few weeks sitting heavy in your bank account. Thank God for those extra hours. Without them you wouldn’t have been able to buy him anything. Now you could actually get him clothes that fit; hoodies, shirts, maybe even some proper shoes that weren’t falling apart. Something that made him feel like the clothes were his.

The bus slows again. One more stop.

Jungkook shifts beside you, the hood moving slightly as his ears try to adjust underneath. His gaze flicks from the window to your face, those big doe eyes soft and uncertain, like he’s still waiting for you to change your mind about all of this.

You turn to look at him fully. For a moment, the two of you just look at each other. Your tired eyes meeting his wide, gentle ones. The uncertainty in his expression pulls at something in your chest.

“Everything okay?” you ask quietly, voice low enough that only he can hear over the rumble of the bus.

He blinks slowly, then glances down for a second before answering. “My ears… are a little uncomfortable,” he admits, like he expects to be scolded for it.

You frown. “Do you want me to fix the hat?”

His eyes widen a fraction. “It’s okay,” he says quickly. “I can—”

“Hold still,” you cut in, not harsh, just firm.

Before he can protest again, you lean closer and lift your hands. Your fingers slip under the edge of the beanie carefully, finding the base of his ears beneath the fabric. The moment your fingertips brush them, they twitch. A quick, instinctive movement that makes you pause for half a second.

Jungkook goes quiet.

You adjust the beanie gently, easing the pressure, coaxing his ears into a more natural fold under the hood so they’re not bent awkwardly. They keep twitching under your fingers, reacting to every small shift, and you try not to think about how warm they are. How soft.

Jungkook looks straight into your eyes the entire time, his gaze wide and unguarded.

You stay focused on the fabric instead.

“Is it better?” you ask once you pull your hands back.

He blinks, then nods slowly. “I think so.”

The bus slows again, brakes sighing. The speaker crackles faintly, and the display shifts. This is it.

You straighten. “It’s our stop.”

You stand first, gently pulling Jungkook up with you by the sleeve of his hoodie. The two of you shuffle off the bus and step into the cool evening air. 

From the bus stop, the mall is only a short crosswalk away. Every store window across the street blaze with bright lights, cutting through the darkness that has already settled over the city. The weather is a little chilly. Enough to make your breath fog slightly. The sidewalks are still packed. People stream in every direction: tired office workers heading home with loosened ties and slumped shoulders, families on late-night shopping trips, teenagers laughing in clusters, and couples wandering with takeout bags. 

The glow of streetlamps and neon signs reflect off the pavement, turning the whole scene into a living constellation of movement. 

You glance sideways at Jungkook. His hood is still pulled up tight, beanie securely hiding his ears, tail tucked safely away. Even so, the sheer number of people seem to make his shoulders tense. 

“Okay,” you said quietly, nodding toward the crosswalk. “Act cool. Just… blend in.”

He looks at you, eyes wide under the shadow of his hood.

You exhale and hold your hand out. “Take my hand. And stay close, okay?

Jungkook’s hand lifts halfway, fingers hovering just above yours, before he pulls it back like he’s touched a hot stove. You stare at him, surprised.

“But you said no touching,” he murmurs, voice barely audible over the passing cars.

“Huh?”

He shifts his weight, ears no doubt twitching nervously beneath the fabric. “Boundaries.”

It clicks instantly. He’s referring to the awkward little rules you laid out earlier. Heat creeps up your face. You glance around quickly to make sure no one’s listening, then step closer, lowering your voice.

“I meant things that are… intimate. Like—in a romantic way. We’re just holding hands like friends. It’s different.”

Jungkook watches you carefully, processing every word.

“I mean...we don’t have to hold hands,” you add quickly, suddenly embarrassed. Your gaze drops to the sidewalk. “Just stay next to me—”

“No,” he says softly, cutting you off. “I want to hold your hand.”

You look at him, caught off guard by how certain he sounds. But before you can respond, another bus hisses to a stop right beside you. A flood of people pours out onto the already crowded sidewalk. Voices overlapping, bodies brushing past in a sudden surge.

Jungkook’s eyes dart to them, panic flashing across his face. His body shifts closer to yours without thinking, instincts screaming at him to find cover, to find safety.

Without hesitation, you grab his hand.

His fingers are freezing, next-level Antarctica cold compared to your own, which already feel chilled from the evening air. The contrast makes your chest tighten. How long has he been this cold and not said anything?

You don’t waste time. You grip his hand firmly and weave through the crowd with purpose, pulling him along until the press of bodies thins out.

The automatic doors of the mall whoosh open, and a wall of artificial, too-bright light crashes over you. It drills into your already tired eyes, sending a dull throb through your temples. The contrast from the dark, chilly street outside is almost violent.

Jungkook’s hand tightens around yours like his life depends on it, fingers locked so tightly you can feel the faint tremor running through them. He stays glued to your side, hood up, beanie secure, every inch of him trying to disappear even as the bright lights expose you both.

At ground level, the mall feels half-asleep. A few cafés have already dimmed their signs and pulled metal grates halfway down, chairs stacked neatly on tables like skeletons. Further in, most of the glow comes from late-night grocery stores and drugstores, their harsh white lighting spilling over endless shelves of snacks and toiletries.

Jungkook’s nose scrunches almost immediately.It’s quick, instinctive and so expressive it almost makes you smile.

You do smile, actually, before you can stop yourself. “What?”

“There are… a lot of scents here,” he says softly, brows drawn as if he’s trying to sort them.

“Yeah,” you reply. “At least we came in the evening. During the day that Papito restaurant is open—” you tilt your head toward the food court “—and it smells like hell here.”

He tilts his head. “Really?”

“Yeah,” you say, deadpan. “Trust me. We’re lucky today.”

You guide him toward the escalators. The mechanical stairs hum steadily as they carry you upward. Jungkook looks a little dazed, eyes wide as he watches the steps appear and disappear, but he doesn’t spiral the way you thought he might. His shoulders are still tight, but he isn’t panicking. He’s calm. Just...tense.

The store you’re aiming for sits on the left side of the upper level. You head there, passing a bored-looking security guard who straightens slightly at the sight of you. His eyes rake over you both, clearly checking for anything suspicious, before he decides you’re harmless and looks away. You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

The store itself isn’t luxury, but it’s a definite step up from the second-hand shops you usually haunt. Everything here is new. Clean. Hopefully scent-free. The space is huge, spread across two levels with wide aisles and soft, muted lighting that doesn’t stab at your eyes like the main mall does. Gentle pop music hums quietly in the background.

You grab a plastic basket from the stack by the entrance, the handle cool under your fingers.

When you glance at Jungkook, your stomach dips. He looks pale beneath the concealer you dabbed over his fading bruises, those big doe eyes taking in the rows of clothing like they might bite him.

You reach the men’s section and try to gently slip your hand from his so he can browse freely, but he squeezes tighter, refusing to let go. His eyes flick to yours, uncertain.

“You can go ahead and look for something for yourself,” you tell him softly.

He blinks. “Like what?”

“I don’t know… a hoodie, a jacket, shorts… underwear. Whatever you need.”

He stares at the store like it’s a place he’s not allowed to want anything from. Then he looks back at you, voice quieter. “You’re really going to spend your money on me?”

“Yes,” you say without hesitation. “Don’t worry about it. I was going to ask Marcus for an advance this weekend anyway.” You gesture around. “Take a look.”

He starts walking slowly, still holding your hand, gently pulling you along with him. The store is quiet, only a few people scattered between the aisles.

A girl around your age glances over at you both more than once. For a split second you wonder if the two of you look suspicious, but then it clicks: It’s probably Jungkook. Even with the hood and beanie, his face is striking. Those soft features and wide eyes that seem to catch the light just right. Maybe he’s exactly her type. 

Jungkook pauses at a rack and lifts a white t-shirt with bold black graffiti-style dice printed across the back. He holds it up uncertainly, glancing at you like he’s waiting for permission.

 “You like it?” You ask, already reaching out to take it from his hands. 

He shrugs, but you drop it into the basket anyway. The small smile that flickers across his face makes the overtime hours feel worth every aching muscle. 

Over the next few minutes he picks out two more t-shirts, then two pairs of comfortable shorts. 

When you reach the hoodie section, his pace slows. Then he stops completely.

His grip tightens again, fingers going stiff around yours. His gaze is fixed on something down the aisle, so focused it makes your skin prickle.

You follow his line of sight.

A well-dressed woman is browsing a few racks away. In her hand is a leash. On the other end is another girl with a collar around her neck: pink, studded with sparkly stones, a bow at the front like it’s meant to be cute. Cat ears peek from her hair. She walks half a step behind the woman like it’s the most normal thing in the world. She is a cat hybrid.

Jungkook doesn’t blink. He watches their steps like he’s counting them.

You squeeze his hand, trying to pull his attention back to you. “This is the only way hybrids can enter public spaces legally,” you say softly, trying to explain without sounding condescending. “Otherwise it’s too risky. People get scared, stores have rules—”

“I know,” he cuts in, voice low and flat. He still hasn’t looked away from the cat hybrid. “I walked with my previous owner like that too.” His tone is gloomy, carrying a hint of deep-seated sadness you don’t quite understand. It catches you off guard.

“I’m sorry,” you say, because you can’t imagine him like that—collared, tethered, displayed—and not feel sick.

He finally turns to you, genuinely confused. “Why?”

The question throws you. You look at him, brows furrowed.

“It’s something to be proud of,” he continues, defensive now, ears no doubt pinned beneath the beanie. “It shows you’re owned. Wanted. You’re better than the strays on the street. You have respect.”

You don’t know what to say. The casual certainty in his voice makes you feel nauses, guilty in a way that settles heavy in your ribs. You swallow hard.

You speak before you can overthink it, voice dropping to a raw whisper. “Do I make you feel unwanted?”

Your mind drifting to the way you’d hurried him across the street earlier, all covered up, hidden, like a secret instead of a person. The contrast with the confident cat hybrid stings even more now. You watch her for a moment: posture straightened, chin high, radiating a strange kind of pride on her leash. Jungkook must feel like shit standing here next to that image, bundled in your old hoodie and beanie like he’s something to be ashamed of.

Jungkook’s eyes shift to yours, but he doesn’t answer. Not right away. He looks back at the clothes on the rack instead, like he’d rather focus on fabric than your face. His fingers rub lightly at your knuckles.

Then he murmurs, barely audible, “It’s okay. I know you want good.”

The words hit you harder than they should. Because he’s excusing you. Because he’s making it easier for you to not feel like you’ve done something wrong. 

He reaches out with his free hand and pulls a soft black hoodie from the rack, holding it up for your approval before placing it carefully into the basket. His eyes meet yours again, expectant, waiting.

You swallow, forcing the lump in your throat down. “Jungkook,” you say quietly, making him meet your eyes. “You are wanted. Okay?"

He nods, small and automatic.

“I’m serious.” Your grip tightens around his cold hand. “I really care about you. And I don’t want you to feel otherwise.”

For a second his expression wavers, something fragile passing behind his eyes. His gaze flicks down, then back up, pupils wide in the store’s gentle lighting. “Okay.” 

Your face warms with sudden awkwardness. This is too serious of a topic for the middle of a hoodie aisle. You clear your throat, shifting the basket in your hands like it suddenly weighs a ton. “Um. Let’s go try these on.”

Jungkook nods again. You sigh through your nose and turn toward the fitting rooms, already thinking about how you’ll have to come back to that conversation someday. No matter how hard you try to make things better for him; giving him space, buying him clothes, reassuring him, he still carries the scars of his old life like invisible chains. It feels like nothing is ever quite right, no matter how carefully you step. 

The changing rooms are to the right. A whole row of them, identical little stalls with curtains instead of doors. Some curtains are drawn. You can see shoes and ankles beneath, hear muffled chatter, the rustle of hangers, fabric sliding over skin. 

You steer Jungkook to the very last stall at the end, furthest from the main aisle, furthest from wandering eyes. Thankfully, the one beside it is empty. You finally manage to slip your hand out of his grip. The sudden absence of his freezing fingers feels strangely lonely. You push the basket into his arms instead.

 “Go on,” you say, keeping your voice light. “Try these. See if they fit.”

He stands there, basket clutched to his chest, looking between you and the small, mirrored cubicle like it might swallow him. The overhead lights cast gentle shadows across his face, highlighting the sharp line of his jaw.

“I’ll be right here,” you ensure him.“I’m not going anywhere. If you need a different size, tell me and I’ll go grab it.” 

He hesitates long enough that you have to fight the urge to overexplain. So you just smile and give him a careful push between the shoulder blades. "Go, go.”

He steps inside. You pull the thick curtain shut behind him with a metallic swish of rings against the rod, sealing him in.

For a moment there’s only silence. Then his soft voice filters through the fabric.

“Y/N…”

“Yes?” you answer immediately, leaning a little closer.

He doesn’t reply. The silence stretches.

"I’m here,” you reassure, even though he didn’t ask. 

Your brain already knows exactly what he’s afraid of— That you’ll disappear the second he can’t see you.Inside, you hear a faint shuffle. A hanger clinks against the metal hook.

Time stretches. It feels like twenty minutes, though it’s probably less. You press your back to the wall opposite the stall, arms folded loosely, eyes tracking the floor. Fabric rustles on the other side of the curtain in soft, nervous bursts. A little further down, a man leans against the wall too, scrolling on his phone with the dead-eyed patience of someone waiting for a partner to decide whether the hundredth outfit is “the one.”

Suddenly the curtain shifts.

Jungkook’s face emerges first, followed by his bare bunny ears, soft and twitching freely in the open air, completely exposed.

You gasp, panic spiking hot through your veins. Your eyes dart toward the waiting man further down. Did he see? 

Heart hammering, you don’t think. You step forward, hands landing on Jungkook’s shoulders as you push him back into the stall and dive in after him, yanking the curtain shut behind you both. You stumble slightly, gripping his arms on both sides to steady yourself. The stall is small. Too small for two people. 

"Jungkook! You can’t show yourself like that,” you whisper-yell, voice tight with adrenaline. 

Jungkook’s ears flatten slightly, guilt flashing over his face. He bows his head. “I’m sorry,” He breathes, and his fingers clutch at the front of your jacket, squeezing like it’s a lifeline. 

You straighten up, forcing your breathing to even out, hands leaving his sides. You tuck a stray piece of hair behind your ear. “Do you need anything?” you ask trying to sound normal, trying to pretend your heart isn’t trying to climb out of your throat. 

He doesn’t answer the question. Instead, his voice turns small. “I thought you were gone.”

Your chest tightens. “I told you I would wait, didn’t I?” 

He nods once, not meeting your eyes. Then, barely above a whisper: “Can you stay here?”

You open your mouth to refuse. To say it’s not a good idea, that people will think something, that this is a fitting room stall and —

“Please,” he adds quickly, desperation cutting through the word.

And that’s it. You agree. Of course you do. Because you have this weakness when it comes to him. He could ask you to watch him hang from the ceiling and you’d probably do it if you thought it would make him feel safe. If it would make him trust you.

 You swallow. “Okay. I’ll stay.” 

Relief loosens his shoulders so fast it’s almost visible. You shuffle toward the far corner, pressing yourself into it, trying to make your presence smaller. Trying to make it less obvious, if anyone happens to glance under the curtain and sees two pairs of feet. Your pulse is loud in your ears.

Jungkook turns toward the mirror mounted to the wall. He smooths his hands down the front of the black hoodie, testing the fit, then pulls the hood up. Then he pulls the hood up over his head, the fabric framing his face in soft shadows. He meets your eyes in the reflection.

You offer an awkward smile and a nod. “It looks good.”

“It does?” His voice is so hopeful it hurts.

“Yes. Is it comfortable?”

He rolls his shoulders experimentally. “It is.”

“Okay… it’s yours then.”

His eyes sparkle. Something bright behind his eyes— tiny, but unmistakable.

The next thing you know, he’s reaching back, fingers hooking at the nape of the hoodie, and in one smooth motion he pulls it up and over his head. The fabric lifts, exposing the lean lines of his torso all at once. You swallow hard, forcing your gaze down to the floor, the curtain, anywhere but the sudden stretch of bare skin.

He drapes the hoodie carefully over the little padded stool where the basket sits. Your eyes flick up despite yourself. The wound under his ribs looks better. He’s healing. He even looks a little healthier than when you first found him, though he’s still far too skinny, ribs faintly visible beneath smooth skin. 

His bunny ears perk up fully now that he’s relaxed. He turns his head toward you, eyes narrowing with focus the way an animal listens.

“Y/N,” he says. “Your heart is beating really fast.”

Heat rushes to your face. “Is it?” you squeak, hating how weak it sounds. 

He starts approaching you in the tiny space, head tilted with genuine concern. “Are you okay?”

 “I’m fine,” you say automatically.

You try to melt backward into the wall, but there’s nowhere left to go. He stops right in front of you, searching your face with those endless doe eyes. He watches your face like he’s trying to read your thoughts, like he’s searching for the exact emotion you’re trying to hide. Your pulse skyrockets. When he leans in closer. Close enough that his breath fans across your skin, your own breath hitches sharply. 

Your eyes flutter closed on instinct as he nuzzles his nose gently against yours. The gesture is so oddly soothing, so tender, that the panic ebbs into something warmer, dizzier, affectionate in a way that doesn’t feel human, and yet doesn’t feel wrong. You open your eyes again.

Jungkook’s dark fringe falls across your forehead. He rests his own forehead fully against yours, staring straight into your eyes from only inches away.

“Y/N…” He breathes.

 “Hm?” you manage, voice barely there.

 His gaze dips to your mouth for half a second, then back to your eyes. “Thank you."

"For what?"

"For taking care of me.” 

Your throat tightens. You tilt your head back a little just to breathe. “Of course,” you whisper. “We’re in this together. Remember?” 

His eyes soften. His nose drags lightly along your cheek as he pulls away, and the brief touch leaves warmth behind. “...Boundaries,” he murmurs, like he’s reminding himself.

You nod quickly, pulling in a breath. “Yes. Boundaries.” 

He nods back. And then he just… turns. 

You stand there for a second, stunned, while he goes back to the chair and starts changing into his old clothes again, like nothing just happened. Like he didn’t just knock the air out of your lungs.

You force yourself to breathe normally. One inhale. One exhale. When he’s done, he adjusts the beanie, then the hood, tugging both low until his ears are safely hidden again. 

You clear your throat. “You ready?” 

He looks up, eyes calm. You don’t even wait for his response. You hook your fingers around the curtain edge and pull it open. Cooler air from the hallway hits you. Sound rushes back in footsteps, chatter, the squeak of a hanger on metal, someone laughing too loudly.

You step out first and Jungkook follows immediately, glued so close behind you he’s practically using your back as cover. Your face is still hot. You keep your eyes forward, but of course you make eye contact with a store worker right as you exit.

The worker’s expression is neutral in that trained way retail workers have, but you feel like they can see straight through you anyway: your flushed cheeks or the fact there were clearly two people in that stall. You curse in your head and lift your chin like you don’t care. Whatever. At this point, you’ve already dragged your life into a ditch. You can handle a stranger’s mild judgment.

Then you feel fingers sliding into yours again. You glance down, surprised, and see Jungkook’s hand linking with yours like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like he’s decided it’s allowed now. You swallow and let him. 

You head for the cash registers. The line is short. The cashier barely looks at you beyond the usual customer-service glance, scanning tags and folding the clothes into a bag with quick, practiced motions. The total pops up and your stomach tightens out of habit, but when you tap your card, it goes through. It fits in your finances. You exhale through your nose in relief. 

Bag in your free hand, Jungkook’s cold fingers in the other, you start to leave the store. 

That’s when you notice them. 

The woman from earlier is in line behind you now, still holding that ugly sparkly leash. The cat hybrid girl stands beside her, posture straight, chin slightly raised. Her ears flinch visibly, swiveling in your direction.You feel your skin go tight. She senses him, you realize with a jolt. She definitely does. Her big eyes widen in surprise, mouth parting slightly as she stares straight at Jungkook, taking in his hidden form like she can see right through the beanie and hood. The woman holding her leash doesn’t notice a thing, scrolling on her phone with bored detachment.

Jungkook’s gaze flicks to her for only a second, before he moves first, pulling you gently but firmly out of the store ahead of them. You give the cat hybrid one last lingering look over your shoulder as you let yourself be tugged along.

 “Jungkook,” you manage, breathless as you exit into the mall corridor, “slow down—please.” 

He hesitates, then finally reduces his pace. His grip loosens a fraction, though he doesn’t let go. You keep walking until you’re out of the brightest part of the mall, until the air feels less suffocating. And then you head toward the exit. The automatic doors whoosh open again and the night air hits you like a reset. Your cheeks sting, but it’s a relief. 

Outside, near the entrance, a man sits with a guitar. His case is open on the ground in front of him, a few bills and coins scattered inside. His fingers move with easy confidence, and the music threads through the noise of people coming and going. It’s beautiful. You slow without meaning to. Jungkook matches you immediately, eyes flicking toward the sound.

You reach into your pocket, fingers brushing over a crumpled bill. There’s a brief pause, just a second of hesitation, before you drop it into the open guitar case. It lands with a soft flutter among the others.The guitarist glances up, offering you a grateful nod, a small dip of his head, his hands never missing a beat

Jungkook stares at you like he didn’t know people did that. His doe eyes reflecting the warm glow of the streetlights. Then his nose twitches, nostrils flaring subtly as he catches a new scent on the wind. You follow his gaze and spot the hot dog stand nearby, its bright red sign flickering. A giant inflatable hot dog balloon bobs cheerfully above it, clearly brand new, the plastic still shiny and the stand sporting fresh banners announcing its grand opening.

 You look back at Jungkook. “Are you hungry?”

He shakes his head quickly. Way too defensively. “I’m not."

But you know better. It’s there in the way his eyes dart toward the stand, in the faint swallow that bobs in his throat. 

“You don’t have to lie,” you say softly, tugging his hand. “Come on.” 

He doesn’t argue. He just follows. The vendor is friendly under the stand’s warm lights, and you order two hot dogs with all the simple toppings they offer.

The paper wrappers are warm against your palms as you carry them away, the savory smell of grilled sausage and onions rising in fragrant curls.

You lead Jungkook to a nearby bench beside the dragon fountain, its stone creature spouting arcs of illuminated water that sparkle under colored lights. A large tree arches overhead, its leaves rustling softly in the chilly breeze. The air nips at your cheeks and nose, but the food radiates heat, chasing away the worst of the cold as you settle onto the wooden slats.

You sit arm to arm, shoulders brushing with every small movement. Jungkook’s thigh presses lightly against yours, a solid, grounding presence. The fountain gurgles peacefully while the guitarist’s music drifts over from across the plaza.

You unwrap your hot dog and take a bite, savoring the simple comfort. Jungkook does the same beside you, eating slowly at first, then with quiet focus. Steam rises between you both in the cool night air, and for a few precious minutes, everything feels almost normal. Like two people sharing a late meal under the stars.

It feels peaceful like this. Almost.

Then you remember you’re you, and you can’t eat anything handheld without turning it into a minor disaster. 

The first sign is the onion. A slick little piece slides out from the bun, drops straight onto your jacket, and sticks there like it’s claiming territory. You freeze, staring at it as if looking long enough will rewind time. It doesn’t. You pinch it between two fingers, flick it away… and watch it plop onto the ground by your shoe. Now it’s just lying there on the pavement, staring up at you like a murder evidence.

You huff under your breath and take another bite, trying to be more careful, but the sauce has other plans. A strand of hair slips forward—again—and catches in the ketchup—again—and you pull it back with an annoyed little jerk, only to realize you’ve probably just smeared it further. You can feel it. Sticky and Embarrassing.

When you glance sideways, Jungkook has stopped chewing. He’s staring at your mouth with that quiet, intent focus he has when something catches his attention. His gaze doesn’t flicker away out of politeness the way most people’s would. It lands, studies, decides. 

You swallow. “What?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. His eyes shift to the corner of your mouth and your stomach flips with a weird, sudden self-consciousness. You reach up reflexively, wiping at your lips with the back of your hand. Jungkook’s brows knit, like your movement didn’t fix it. Then he lifts his hand. The motion is slow enough that you could stop him. You don’t. Maybe because you’re tired. Maybe because you don’t want to make him feel like he did something wrong. Maybe because part of you is curious in the most inconvenient way. 

His thumb brushes your bottom lip gently, precise, wiping away whatever’s there. You go still. Before you can even process that he touched you, he brings his thumb to his mouth and licks it clean. A simple, instinctive gesture. Like tasting the sauce. Like it means nothing. But it makes your face heat anyway.

 “Jungkook,” you start, voice coming out softer than you mean it to. He just looks at you, innocent and calm, like he’s genuinely confused why your heartbeat suddenly sounds louder in your own ears. 

You clear your throat, turn your attention aggressively back to your hot dog, and take another bite, more careful this time, even though the damage to your dignity is already done. 

When the food is gone and the wrappers are tossed into a nearby bin, you check your phone. The screen lights up your face in harsh blue-white.

“Shit—we missed the bus.”

Your thumb moves quickly, opening the route, zooming in, scanning. Jungkook leans slightly, watching your screen with quiet curiosity.

“Wait,” you mutter, more to yourself, then glance at him. “If we’re quick, we can still catch it at the next stop.”

You’re already grabbing the shopping bag.

“Come on, we have to run or we’ll miss it. I’m not waiting another forty minutes out here.”

Jungkook blinks at your sudden burst of energy but follows without protest, though his steps are reluctant at first.

You rush him across the plaza, sneakers slapping against the pavement, the cool air stinging your cheeks and making your eyes water. The guitarist’s music fades behind you as you cut away from the main paths, heading toward the shortcut. It’s faster. It has to be. But the moment you tug him into the narrow alley between two closed storefronts, dread coils in your stomach.

The alley quickly swallows the city lights. The walls close in, brick and concrete stained with years of grime and faded graffiti that looks almost menacing in the dark. The air grows heavier, damp and metallic, carrying the faint rot of garbage left too long and the sharp tang of urine from whoever uses these shadows as shelter. Your breath fogs in front of you. The temperature seems to drop another few degrees the deeper you go, the chilly evening turning into something sharper, more hostile. 

Up ahead, the alley feeds into the long tunnel. An old pedestrian underpass. It's completely dark.

You hate this route.

But the alternative is missing the bus and waiting in the cold for the next one, with Jungkook exposed in public longer than necessary.

“Don’t go there,” Jungkook says suddenly behind you, voice low and tight.

You stop mid-step, turning back. He hasn’t followed you all the way in. He’s still at the entrance of the tunnel, half in the open street light, half swallowed by shadow. 

You, on the other hand, are already a few steps inside. The light behind you feels far away now, stretched thin, like it’s being left behind.

“We have to,” you insist, breath uneven from the pace and the rising pressure in your chest. “We’re running late. The next bus is forever from now, and I’m exhausted, Jungkook. It’ll be fine. It’s just a tunnel.”

You start walking again before you can second-guess yourself. 

Your fingers dig into your jacket pocket and pull out your phone. The screen’s blue glare momentarily blinds you before you activate the flashlight. A weak, trembling beam slices into the darkness, illuminating patches of cracked concrete walls layered with decades of graffiti.

Water drips steadily from somewhere overhead, each plink echoing like a metronome in the hollow space. The floor is uneven under your sneakers, littered with grit, crumpled wrappers, and the occasional crunch of broken glass.

Relief floods through you when you hear Jungkook’s footsteps fall in behind yours. First hesitant, then quicker, like he can’t stand being separated even by a few feet. The sound of his breathing joins the echo chamber, shallow and alert. You glance back over your shoulder, the flashlight beam swinging wildly with the motion and casting long, distorted shadows that dance across the walls.

He’s right there.

His hand shoots forward and grabs the back of your jacket, bunching the fabric tightly between his fingers. He follows like that, glued to you, tethered by that desperate grip as if letting go might mean losing you forever in the dark. The contact is grounding and unsettling all at once. You can feel the faint tremor traveling through his arm and into yours. His bunny instincts must be screaming at him right now, ears pinned flat and trembling beneath the beanie and hood.

The tunnel isn’t a straight path. It twists like it was built to confuse, with sharp, blind corners that force you to slow down. The walls narrow and widen unpredictably, pressing in on you one moment and then opening just enough to tease relief before the next bend. 

You take the next left turn.

The beam swings around the corner, illuminating another stretch of damp concrete. And that’s when you hear it.

Footsteps.

Not Jungkook’s.

These are heavier. Multiple sets. Deliberate and unhurried, scraping against the grit with purpose. Low voices murmur beneath them, distorted by the tunnel’s acoustics into something menacing. One of them lets out a rough laugh that bounces off the walls and crawls straight down your spine.

Your heart slams against your ribs.

Before you can even turn or speak, Jungkook moves.

He shoves you hard into the corner where the tunnel bends, slamming your back against the clammy, ice-cold wall. The impact knocks the air from your lungs. His hand slaps over your mouth at the exact instant a startled squeak escapes you, muffling the sound completely. 

His frame presses flush against yours in the narrow space, shielding you entirely. Your phone is still lit, the beam spilling straight ahead like a beacon.

Jungkook forces your wrist inward, guiding the phone down against your chest until the light is blocked by your jacket and your arms. The tunnel plunges into deeper darkness, only a thin glow leaking out around your fingers.

Your heart is pounding so loudly you’re sure whoever it is can hear it.

His breath comes fast and hot against your ear, heart pounding so violently you can feel it through both layers of clothing. His hand stays firm over your mouth, not bruising but unyielding, thumb pressed to your cheek in what might be an attempt to steady you or himself.

“They are here.”

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Another author's note: Thank you guys for waiting for this chapter 💓💓 I love you 💓💓 Sorry if it was boring... 💓💓

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Tags: @lolfccfvvvvbbbb, @achbbys000 , @reicoolboy, @junglekookz (if you wanna be tagged, just let me know 💌)

[inkedwithcharm]

It is that time again, ARMY! 💜

The 52nd American Music Awards are here, and our boys have been nominated! It’s time to show them how much they deserve this recognition.

Here is everything you need to know to get your votes in today.

How to Vote for BTS

You have two ways to vote every single day. Make sure you use both to maximize our impact!

1. Website Voting

• Go to: vote.theamas.com

• Sign in: You will need a valid Google or Facebook account.

• Find the BTS categories, use the + or - buttons to allocate your votes, and click "VOTE!"

• You can submit up to 30 votes per category, per day.

2. Instagram Voting

• Head over to the official @AMAs Instagram page.

• Look for the pinned "VOTE HERE" posts for each category.

• Comment using the specific hashtags below.

• Important: Only one hashtag per comment! If you put multiple in one comment, it won't count. Ensure your profile is set to public!

• You can submit up to 30 votes per category, per day.

Key Reminders

• Keep an eye out for "Turbo Days" when votes are doubled! The next one is coming up on Tuesday, April 21st. Mark your calendars!

• You can vote every single day until the deadline on May 8th at 11:59 AM PT.

• Consistency is key! Even if you can't do all 60 votes (30 on site + 30 on IG) every day, every single vote helps BTS break those records.

Let's do this for them! 💜