amy/amara @maladaptivejeon - Tumblr Blog

𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿(𝕡𝕥. 𝕠𝕟𝕖)

series masterlist - part one || part two || part three || part four || part five || part six || part seven

summary: lawyer!au where burned out attorney Jeon Jungkook starts his own barely-functioning firm and accidentally hires an even bigger problem themes: oh brother, fastest slow burn imaginable; unhinged workplace dynamics; “what is wrong with you” x “no seriously, what is wrong with you” energy; chaotic coworker ensemble; blurred professional/personal boundaries; power imbalances; questionable coping mechanisms; dark humor; emotional repression series warnings: mdni! explicit content, workplace power dynamics, toxic coping mechanisms, degradation/humiliation themes, dom/sub undertones, restraint/bondage (handcuffs etc), threesome-ish situations, feetplay, s*xual tension tied to control/instability, messy consent-adjacent dynamics, s*bstance use, dark themes intertwined with s*xual content wc: ~20k/~70k (series total) a/n: first time posting my work publicly, hope you enjoy! (edited) ~ Part One ~

Jungkook knows a genius wasted. He should, being one himself.

He also knows, intimately, that it doesn’t equate to being unemployable. Au contraire, he thinks he hit the jackpot when she walks into his office for an interview.

She's not perfect by any means: her resume reads like a fidget board. There is too much experience, too fast, all over the place, but she excels in whatever she tries her hand in. She just has to move off of things rather quickly it seems.

He could work with that.

“Well, Ms. Y/L/N, what a time you’ve had since graduation…” He drifts off, eyes catching a random line in the interests section, eyes narrowing in slight disbelief, “... You’re fluent in Aramaic?”

“Uhhuh.”

“Isn’t that a dead language?”

“Yeah, officially.”

He nods, as if to convince himself that he could work with that.

“Okay, well…” he continues to nod while straightening out on his chair, still skimming the lines of the stuffed resume in front of him, the paper feeling rather dense in his hands.

“People usually ask questions about the legal experience…” she suggests, voice similarly drifting off. She hasn’t said much since she stepped in for the interview, and he’s partially realizing that that might be his fault, but her cold, monotone voice doesn't exactly exude excitement for the position. It's a bit unnatural in such a people pleasing world.

Refreshing... But unnatural.

“Right, well, you have extensive trial experience. Complex civil. Exactly what I’m looking for.”

“Really? Exactly what you’re looking for?”

“You sound surprised." Jungkook laughs before her straight face makes him sober up a bit. "That’s a bit concerning.” It’s Jungkook’s turn to be monotone, straight forward.

But she doesn’t really seem to care. She stretches her lips into a small frown and shrugs her shoulders.

“Not everyone’s cup of tea, that’s all. People prefer someone in one area. I mean, I even have criminal cases on there. You haven’t asked about that by the way.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Do you want me to?”

She shrugs again.

“Whatever. People usually do. Then, they end the interview.”

Whatever?

End the interview?!

His hands flatten on the desk as he looks back down at the resume, face comically low to inspect it.

With some perspiration, he rereads the line: “Successfully defended against a potential death penalty verdict.”

“Uh…”

“Yeah, you probably know the case. I’d prefer not to share names. You can google it though.”

“Is this the one with the…”

“Yeah…”

“... 10 sets of toes in the back of the Wendy’s promotional food truck?”

“... that’s the one.”

He puffs out his cheeks, presses his palms against his temples for a second before slamming his hands down decisively.

She jolts a bit, lips pulled into a little grimace.

He doesn’t exactly seem to be her cup of tea, either. Despite her disordered practice, he can tell that there is an order to everything else in her life. Her outfit is perfectly steamed and pressed. Her hair is perfectly pinned back in a half updo, not a strand out of place. Her nails are manicured. Her heels are freshly polished.

He must look like a nightmarish storm of uncertainty to her - his suit is slightly crumpled, it’s his third day rewearing it because who cares? It’s not like anyone’s around to judge his attire, and he hasn’t had a court appearance in forever.

But this is exactly what he needs - a legal genius who is willing to take a pay cut and a hit to their prestige because they can’t socially cut it at other firms. He needs order, he needs desperation. He thinks he’s found it.

“You’re hired.”

She stares at him mid blink. He stares back, the smile on his face dropping.

“You have to make an offer first… I'll be hired if I accept.”

“Right…”

“Mhm…”

“I’m trying.”

He really was, but he was incredibly out of his element. He never ever came even remotely close to the idea of running his own firm. Why would he have any need to? He was one of the best litigators in the city at one of the top firms, making millions, living the fast life - until the stress induced grand mal seizure. Then, the suicide attempt. Then, the getting chased out by people he called friends.

Then, the New York Times article exposing his firm, which he couldn’t turn down - not the chance to talk shit, and not to play a part in burning that place down. He took the chance, reveled in it, and went on a six month press junket preaching about the importance of mental health in the legal world.

It did obviously and inevitably kind of ruin his reputation in certain circles, but in others he became a hero. And he liked it. He liked taking the underdog cases, bringing big wins, and making the impossible happen - that’s the only thing he ever liked about this job.

He didn’t need a firm to do it - so many people believed in him.

And yet here he was. Couldn’t even hold it together for an interview.

“I’m really, really trying,” he whimpered with his head in his hands, exasperated as can be.

She chuckled. He heard the ring of it - a stark contrast to the cold, unassuming voice from before.

He kept his gaze buried, but he pictured a bright, angelic smile - messianic almost. She was here to save him and that laugh was heaven’s bells ringing.

“Okay, fine, I accept.”

He ripped his hands down and stared at her with the widest smile he had managed in the last two years.

He knew - he just knew - when he met a genius wasted. The resume was odd, for sure. But there was a story.

High achieving burnt out kid with too many interests, too many hobbies - more likely undiagnosed ADHD. Naturally ends up at some big shot firm but her personality doesn’t cut it. So, she hops from firm to firm, from case to case, and ends up here because something is clearly wrong with her.

I mean, it’s the elephant in the room.

She’s weird with eye contact - not necessarily bad at it, but not exactly appropriate about it.

She stares off in the middle of someone speaking, stares directly at them when they’re not paying attention, unabashed.

She’s cold, doesn’t seem to have much of a humor, nor much patience - clearly wouldn’t thrive at any team work.

So, this is her last hope - the smallest firm she can get to that still has SOME prestige. Jungkook can credit himself with that much, at least - he has SOME prestige. He was an amazing attorney before all of the shenanigans. He was bound to be the youngest partner at his old firm.

When he finally looks at her, he smiles a little wider because her smile is just as messianic as he expected.

“I can’t pay as much as the last place, probably, but -”

“That’s fine. I don’t do this for the money.”

He blinks - once, twice - then nods, to himself mostly.

“Okay, interesting -”

“Not independently wealthy, I’m just okay with less. Sorry, I’m not great at expressing myself.”

He’s shocked to see a bit of color dip into her cheeks, but the small little gesture makes his heart pound for a second. Hey, maybe her personality isn’t so bad after all. First step is always recognizing the error, and she at the very least seems aware of how off putting she is.

This will be fine. This will be great.

And it is.

To a certain extent.

The first few months are… clumsy.

The office is silly to say the least - it’s huge, filled with tons of offices, with only Jungkook and Y/N to fill it.

And Y/N thinks it wise to pick the one farthest away from Jungkook.

“I assume the secretary and the paralegal sit close by you. That would be too much noise for me.”

Jungkook stares back at her with wide saucer eyes.

She sighs back.

“You haven’t hired…”

“I haven’t hired any…”

“Yet…”

She doesn't say much, but within the week, she has two former colleagues join Jungkook’s sinking ship.

To Jungkook’s absolute delight and surprise, they were nothing like Y/N. They didn’t possess even an ounce of her antisocial tendencies - they were some of the most extraverted, well-socialized people he had ever met. High achieving too!

The secretary, Park Jimin, was from Y/N’s first firm - an extremely talented, well connected gay man who only had a two year associate's degree, but it wasn’t his scholarly achievements that got him to where he was. He had followed Y/N to every position after she left that first firm. He seemed to get things done, whatever you asked for - nothing was impossible. He knew all the hostesses in town and could book a client dinner at the hottest table at a second’s notice. He had the ear of every dry cleaner in the city, and could get a suit pressed in under fifteen minutes if need be. He answered all calls, and diverted any that Jungkook didn’t want.

Jungkook didn’t even have to say anything. He’d just shoot a glance over at Jimin’s cubicle when his ears picked up on an octave that he didn’t want to listen to. Jimin would nod understandingly, roll his eyes a bit, before telling the other person on the line that whoops, you just missed him.

When Y/N brought him on, she very gently but matter of fact told him: “You’ll have to pay him well, but he’ll be worth it. He’s three assistants in one.”

“So, do I have to pay him like he’s three assistants in one?”

She walked away, that was a yes.

The paralegal was a certified genius, and Jungkook had no idea why he wasn’t a lawyer. Kim Namjoon answered him when asked: “I’m obviously saving money to go to law school. Who would want to be a paralegal their entire life?”

Jungkook, with his hands in his pockets, hovering over the man’s desk, oblivious to the fact that he didn’t really like distractions or small talk, kept prodding.

“Y/N said you’ve done this for like 10 years, how haven’t you saved up yet?”

Namjoon met Jungkook’s genuinely curious eyes with red anger.

“Have you heard of bills?”

“Y/N said you had a pokemon card problem.”

The man would purse his lips, slam some papers down on his desk before getting up, muttering something about getting discovery to Y/N, and then he’d march down the long hall to her office, faithfully, every time.

Every time Jungkook pissed him off, he did this, and Jungkook knew for a fact that he was just going in there to talk shit about him.

Jimin did the same thing, frequently. It was particularly noticeable because on the three occasions that Jungkook tried to dress a little more casual in the office, he was met with a flabbergasted if not disgusted Jimin, who was in Y/N’s office within minutes of the day’s first greeting.

Jungkook had to learn to stop taking wardrobe risks if he wanted to maintain his ego.

But he kind of liked it. The ostracization, the undeserved efficiency of his employees- it really made him feel like an actual boss: an incompetent man with the necessary resources to start a business, hovering over the most competent, talented individuals money could buy.

Jungkook had also never been the odd guy out, anywhere! He didn’t just blend in or enjoy general societal acceptance. No, he was the life of the party - usually, everyone wanted to be his friend, to be around him, but these people could not be bothered.

They treated him like this overbearing alien, and it really made Jungkook feel like he’d made it. That’s exactly how he used to feel about his old partners.

Getting used to Y/N wasn’t hard, either. She got her work done, and she did it well. She was on top of her cases, didn’t need much assistance, and generated enough of her own clients so that Jungkook didn’t have to constantly throw work her way, not that he minded.

He liked calling her into his office, watching her drag her pretty heels down the hall, glaring at him the whole journey down, and then she’d unwillingly plop down on the guest chair with her notepad, and let him babble on about some new exciting case or client and talk about all of the amazing, sneaky, conniving ways they were going to win this one.

She’d zone out after two minutes, staring up at the ceiling tiles. He didn’t mind - he could stare at her more openly, comfortably when she wasn’t staring back with those razor sharp irises.

So, the trial run was perfect, ideal. They settled a couple of big cases, pocketed some handsome earnings, and Y/N managed to bring some of her oddball clients in, so there was money to be had from there, too.

Y/N was in his office when he pitched the idea, held hostage in the armchair.

“We should probably, ya know, celebrate this with the team. Maybe hand out some bonuses, have a little firm outing…”

She stared right at him, he diverted his gaze back down to his papers.

“Okay…”

“Okay?”

“Do you need any input from me?”

“Well, should we?”

She shook her head.

“You’ll mess with Jimin’s hookup schedule, and Namjoon’s girlfriend hates when he goes to after work events.”

“You know what,” he said, drawing a line for the first time since he had hired her, “you’re right. I don’t need your input…”

“I never said you didn’t need it, I asked if you needed it…”

“... And I think it’s about time we had a little firm dinner. Get to know each other a little better. I didn’t even know Namjoon had a girlfriend!”

She groaned, the tips of her ears going a little red. A rare moment of human emotion from her.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Jungkook didn’t have to because contrary to Y/N’s assertions, Jimin couldn’t be more excited.

“Oh my god, I know JUST the spot! Get ready to spend big, Mr. Jeon. Get ready.”

Namjoon was in the same boat.

“God, it would be nice to get away from the old lady for a night. I suggest steak!”

“No steak! We’re going to a cocktail lounge.” Jimin chimed in. Namjoon nodded along, so did Jungkook.

Jungkook felt so accomplished telling Y/N this in her office, who looked like she had received a draft notice - two weeks away from war.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she reminded him, not breaking eye contact with her computer screen. He shrugged his shoulders and walked out with a shit eating grin, high fiveing Namjoon and Jimin (who notably grimaced and hesitated and reached for the hand sanitizer bottle after) on his way back to his office.

And the cocktail lounge was something out of the city’s wildest dreams. A rooftop situation with a freestanding pool out by the deck, everything covered in neon lights, and there were women and men hanging from rings suspended in the ceiling, dancing around the apparatuses to melancholic, sexy jazz.

“Great find, Jimin - you’re getting me a reservation here for my next date.” Jungkook praised, slapping a hand down onto his shoulder. Jimin immediately recoiled down to soften the hit and leaned away from his touch, dusting the spot on his sweater where there was unfortunate contact.

“Not in my job description.” He quipped back before standing in front of the trio - Y/N, miserable, Jungkook, glowing, Namjoon, already with a drink in hand.

“They were passing them around.” He defended when Jimin complained about him starting early.

“No fret, gents, tonight goes on the company’s amex, and we pay no mind to it. Drink and eat to your heart’s content!”

Jeers sounded from Jimin and Namjoon, and Y/N obviously brewed with some distaste for being the odd one out, for once, in this group.

Jungkook tried not to rub it into her face so much, but he revered the positive attention that Namjoon and Jimin were giving him with each round of drinks.

“... and then, she took the coffee mug in her hand - piping hot, mind you - and dumped it on the senior associate’s head…” Jimin had been filling the night with Y/N’s old firm histories, mostly because Jungkook asked, but also because there was nothing else interesting to talk about.

“All because he said your shirt was obnoxious?” Jungkook questioned, so incredibly entrenched in this story.

“It’s the way he said it - it felt homophobic.” Namjoon explained, contributing to the stories only as needed to increase the dramatic effect.

Y/N, the subject of the stories, was dead silent, slumped in the booth with her arms crossed, her heels off (which Jungkook only noticed because he was sitting right next to her, but it was pretty inconspicuous), babysitting a 40 dollar glass of wine as the boys moved onto their fifth round of liquor filled drinks.

She adjusted her feet a little, wiggling her stocking clad toes. Jungkook wasn’t sure if it was the drinks, or something else, but he found it distracting. Every time her legs fidgeted, his gaze was on them. Smooth, sheer black stockings, his favorite - not a scratch or a loose string anywhere on them.

She always wore sheer black stockings - not exactly an office taboo, but definitely on the risque side of things. Most people went for nude ones.

Why does Jungkook know so much about stockings?

Who cares! Jimin is onto the next story, and another round of drinks are being ordered, and Jungkook is getting laughs out of everyone with his little jokes and comebacks, and he almost feels like he’s back in his first year associate days, where he would charm everyone around him into giving him whatever he wants.

Except he didn’t want anything right now. He didn’t need a promotion. He wasn’t trying to kiss ass to get on a case. He wasn’t trying to network, no, there was nothing transactional about this.

And maybe it was just the attention that he had wanted all along because despite not exactly needing anything from her (other than for her to never, ever quit this job), he hated that Y/N wasn’t paying attention to him.

He also hated that other people were, in fact, paying attention to Y/N. Almost every single 20-something that walked into the lounge, took a second to look her over in her little matching suit - a skirt and jacket set. She seemed to prefer skirts.

He wasn’t sure what he hated about their gazes exactly, but he certainly didn’t love it. Maybe because he wasn’t receiving the same attention from the women at the bar, not that there were many of them to begin with. He could wrestle with that distaste later. For now, he focused on bonding with Jimin and Namjoon over her Y/N's antisocial antics.

“So, did they fire her after that?” he asked, eyes wide and ears listening intently.

Y/N scoffed, the most noise she’d made all night. She then took an actual healthy sip of the red wine in her hand.

“As if,” Jimin confirmed, laying a hand on her stocking clad thigh. Her skirt had ridden up. Jungkook stared. “They fired him. Then, Y/N quit because she felt like that was unfair.”

“Huh?” Jungkook struggled to follow.

“That’s exactly what I said.”

“I did what I did so that they would fire me. I was disgusted when they didn’t.”

Jungkook stared at the side of her face in utter confusion, trying to follow the logic.

“He was being homophobic?” He asked, again, to see if he had understood the dilemma.

“Yes, yes, but the principle there being, can’t the guy be passively rude to a gay person without having hot coffee dumped on him and then getting fired for it?” Namjoon tried to explain.

“Sure, sure, but why is the…” Jungkook waved his hands around as he tried to put together his question “principle, or whatever, being perpetrated by the very woman that dumped the coffee on him? Shouldn’t she just have not dumped the coffee on him?”

“Well, no, you see,” Jimin took up the mic to further explain the situation, “Y/N’s morality changes from individual to organized entity. So, there are things individuals can do - like throw coffee at someone who insults their friend -”

Y/N scoffed again, but Jimin ignored her.

“ - but a workplace shouldn’t do that. Workplaces shouldn’t throw scalding liquid on you for having different opinions, or just a general dislike for someone.”

Y/N nodded, she approved.

“Does she like… lecture you guys on this stuff?” he asked, looking around the booth. “Is this what you guys do when you meet in her office?!”

“I guess,” Namjoon pondered, looking over at Y/N who looked like she was on the verge of sleep. “I guess it’s something that was built over time. She’s a little peculiar, so you have to try and understand her if you want to stand her.”

“And if you’re her assistant or paralegal, you don’t have a choice.” Jimin added.

“So, over time, through little explanations here and there, we built, what we like to call, our Y/N handbook.” Namjoon proudly announced.

Y/N made the most noise she’s made all evening when she finally huffed out and slammed the wine glass down on the little table in front of their booth.

“Enough! Stop talking about me!”

Just in time for her sudden animation, one of those 20-somethings with a wandering eye stopped by the table, hip leaning to one side, and words a little slurred, he said directly to Y/N:

“S-sorry to bother, really don’t mean to disrupt, but my friend was wondering if he could get you a drink. He thinks you look -”

Before the young chap could finish that thought, Y/N had already lifted the wine glass back off the table, stood on her bare feet and splashed the liquid remaining in it directly at the poor kid.

He stood there stunned, and so did Jungkook, feeling some of the wine land directly on his cheek. He walked away within a millisecond, muttering something about crazy bitch, and who could blame him!?

Y/N, unphased, put her shoes back, grabbed her purse, and looked back at the trio - Jimin and Namjoon sitting there, looking apologetic for their overlord’s unforgiving nature, and Jungkook, in awe, fear and query.

“Two hours are up. I’m going home.”

“Let me call a cab.” Jungkook offered.

“She prefers the subway!” Namjoon and Jimin chimed at the same time before falling into a fit of laughter.

She made her escape in that noise, not looking back.

—

The first real hiccup was four months in.

Jungkook had a panic attack at the office.

He was in the middle of holding Y/N hostage for a new case, rambling on and on about how you guys would try to go about it this way and that way, when he got a call.

Her name flashed across the screen. A Caller ID he hadn’t seen in years at that point.

When Jungkook said that he was betrayed by everyone after that suicide attempt, he really meant everyone. That included his ex-fiance of two years, who not only fed as many rumors about the situation as possible within the firm, but then also used that as leverage to leave him for one of the partners that had fired him. Kicked him out of the apartment via a letter. Stole all of his friends away from him.

Thinking about her, made him think about the firm, which makes him think about the very, very public seizure he had in the middle of a meeting, which then makes him think about the subsequent weeks where he tried..

It’s enough. It’s enough to cut off his airway and to cloud his judgment with terror. His whole body suddenly, mid speech to Y/N, shuts down. His eyes go wide, his mouth shuts, and his whole face grows red. He feels his neck fatten at his collar.

“Uhh.. do you want to take that?” Y/N offers, but he can barely hear it as he heaves a breath in, hands baring against the desk, trying to cool his palms down on the surface. “Uh - okay - is everything okay?”

She asks, but there is no concern in her voice, just an impatience and a desire to remove herself from the situation.

Usually, people panic, crowd around him, immediately try to touch him, or just express some kind of inadequate concern like: “Oh god, is he okay?? Is that normal?? How sad… What a young, broken man…”

The absence of any human concern within his immediate proximity is somewhat alleviating on the situation, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s heaving for air.

“I’m just going to assume that it’s not,” she declares, closing the notebook in front of her before looking over her shoulder, getting ready to yell Jimin’s name to assign him to whatever this dilemma was.

But Jungkook basically leaps over the desk to slam a hand down on her mouth, shaking his head helplessly.

“D-Don’t want -” he hiccups, drops back into his seat when he realizes she won’t yell, but he can’t explain himself, and he knows that there is no point in seeking mercy from this woman.

But, to his shock, it’s there.

She just slowly nods, which he kind of makes out through his internal chaos, and gets up to inconspicuously close the door. Jimin and Namjoon don’t seem to stir much. She gets back to the desk, and stands by his chair, squatting in front of him.

“Got it. They won’t know.” She whispers, a hand resting on his knee as she looks up at him.

His chest softens a bit.

“What do you need?” She asks, face flat - no smile, no frown. No judgment.

Jungkook thinks back to the months he spent at his parents’ house after everything went down. How he slept in their bed, his mother holding her grown son through nightmares through the night, as his father harassed the best psychiatrists in the state for an opening to take his son. To fix him.

He just shakes his head, unsure of how to ask for that. His eyes start to tear up - he has yet to get over the feeling of there not being enough air in his lungs.

“I’m serious, Mr. Jeon. Anything. I will only offer this once.”

Nothing nada. He just hugs his arms around himself, exhales out a loud breath through his mouth, stammers on the inhale.

“If there is nothing I can do, I’m just going to go back to my office.”

He can’t respond, he just closes his eyes, tries the breath thing again.

“Why are you hugging yourself?”

The chaos stops at her observation. His eyes snap up, but the millisecond of relief is instantly gone. He just shakes his head.

“H-hold -” he can’t get it out. Shakes his head again. “Just tight-”

She nods, sits down on the floor, legs crossed since this is one of the rare days where she wore pants. She then pats her knee.

“Come on.”

He stares at her hand, confused.

“Come down,” she insists, grabbing his arm and dragging him down to the floor.

Jungkook is positive that Namjoon and Jimin can at the very least see his head get dragged below the frosted glass of his office walls.

They can’t possibly think that anything appropriate is going on.

“W-what-” he tries to mutter out, but she just taps her knee again.

“Lay,” she instructs, and by god, he does.

By god, he lays his head down on her knee, closes his eyes, and doesn’t question it when her hand starts stroking his hair.

Then, she hums.

A soft little melody, no words, but reminiscent of a lullaby.

In no time, his breathing is back to normal. His world stops collapsing, and at the slightest sign of betterment, Y/N goes to leave, but he grabs her by the wrist, drags her hand through his hair again to signify not yet.

She doesn’t say anything. Keeps petting his hair for another five minutes before he sits up in front of her, cheeks flushed, and skin a little less pale.

“You do not mention this to Jimin and Namjoon.” He states.

She nods.

“Fine by me.”

“You do not mention this to anyone.”

“Fine.”

Silence.

“Can I leave?”

He nods, by god, does he nod…

—

The second hiccup is their first trial together. It’s a week long affair in the state capitol, and Jimin accidentally books only one room for them at the hotel.

Y/N has a conniption at the welcome desk.

“This is UNACCEPTABLE -”

“I’m sorry ma’am but all I have is the presidential suite, and we can book that one for you, but,” the poor clerk glances over at Jungkook, who is trying to shake his head NO at the guy as inconspicuously as he can from behind Y/N’s gaze, “once again, that would be a total cost of 35k, which is an additional 28k to your original booking.”

Y/N immediately snaps her gaze back to Jungkook and catches him in a head shake.

His face immediately cowers, and his features beg for mercy as her eyes boil over with anger.

“Y/N, I still have a mortgage on my very expensive downtown ocean view condo -“

“Fine!” She seethes before turning back over to the clerk, who is almost pleased to see her back down. “Fine, just - two beds please?”

There is no softness in her voice when she says please and Jungkook’s hand slams over his eyes in frustration when the clerk’s smile grows even wider because well, that can’t be good.

“So, unfortunately, the room you booked is a single bed-“

Jungkook blacks out the rest of that conversation and leaves himself with the memory of gratitude that Y/N and him were somehow able to make it out of that lobby without her committing murder.

Then, the elevator dinged onto their floor, and they found their room, and opened the door to see something one could only describe as matchbox.

“7k for 5 days for THIS?” She screeched and Jungkook just sighed as he dragged the luggage and the briefcases into the room.

“At least there is a pool - we can use it on the recess day.” Jungkook suggested, eyes catching sight of the blue water outside of the window.

Wrong, so wrong.

Glares, no - daggers shot in his direction.

“We are regrouping on the recess day. We will be busy.”

“I mean, it’s a pro bono case, we’re doing the best we can, I’m sure we can take like AN HOUR -“

She held up her hand, eyes closed.

They had driven here together, so he was more than well aware that she had already hit her tolerance on him, and OBVIOUSLY the room situation wasn’t helping.

“There is press on this case. If we lose-“

“We’re not going to lose-“

“- which we will if we go to the pool-“

“Just because we go to the pool for ONE hour.”

“- That is the dumbest idea ever.”

Uhhhh.

Jungkook dropped the last bag he had dragged over from the cramped entry way, trying to clear their way for an exit in case a fire breaks out (or Y/N tries to strangle him in his sleep). He drops it a little rougher than the rest before he drops that goofy, apologetic look on his face along with it at the mention of the word dumb.

Y/N doesn't necessarily look scared - like a cat mid hiss - but is clearly trying to mask some sudden worry at Jungkook's attitude switch. She tries to cower it behind some of her natural, cold prowess, but he sees the goosebumps that run up her arms as Jungkook drops the overly polite act that he’s put up since she’s met him.

In the absence of that forgiving stare, he wears one that he hadn’t shown Y/N before - one that he hadn’t shown anyone before becoming a tyrannical senior associate at his last firm.

To be clear, Jungkook didn’t get to where he got to with just charm and jokes.

Firm culture is ruthless, and you have to be clear about your place in the hierarchy - when necessary.

Sure, he had reformed his harsher ways, but this was a step too far and it warranted this response. Even Y/N seemed to realize this, with the tiniest emblem of shame tinted in the fall of her brows.

“Do you want to apologize for that?”

Voice low, patient.

“W-what?”

He doesn’t think he had ever heard Y/N stutter before .

“Are. You. Going. To. Apologize?”

“About what?”

“You already got two chances, Y/n.”

Her hands furled at her sides, mouth unsure of what to do.

He didn’t push but let her sit with the silence for a moment before she gave up.

“Sorry. Shouldn’t have said dumb.”

He stared at her, kind of disassociating for a moment. He just could never read her. What made her cave? Was it fear of losing her job? Being taken off the case?

Jungkook being mad at her?

He slowly let the smile slip back into his face, a laugh masking back up the tense moment.

“Relax.” He said, waving his hand. He could tell the attitude whiplash pissed her off, but he didn’t dwell on it.

If he was going to share a room with her, he had to accept the fact that she was going to be pissed off at him.

“You’re right, we’ll be too stressed prepping for closing on recess day.”

Y/N smiled so so slightly - she thought she won.

“But we’re all checked in, and the pool is open until 9 pm, and we have quite literally nothing to prepare right now. So let’s go-”

“We need to run through the opening statements-“

“We can do that in the pool.”

—

It took them until 8:30 pm to make it to the pool, which seemed to justify the cost of the stay. It was stranded at this time of night and April wasn’t exactly prime time for water sports, so they were treated to a rather private experience.

It also didn’t hurt that the pool was a tad overheated, which seemed to turn Y/N’s muscles to putty after that long car ride.

She had arms crossed over the marble tile edge, legs swaying in the deep water, and head leaning on her arms as she watched the Capitol building through the trees lining the perimeters of the hotel.

Jungkook had done a couple of laps before he noticed how still Y/N was, and he felt like he shouldn’t, but he still swam over to float next to her.

“You look cozy,” he whispered, his voice not having to extend far in the quiet night.

Her eyes were basically half closed when she looked in his direction.

“Mhm, the water is nice.” She murmured, cheeks squished against her arm.

He smiled a little more genuinely - unrehearsed. She just pulled it out of him.

“You really didn’t like that roadtrip, huh?” He asked, hand leaning over to brush a hair out of her face.

She recoiled immediately, popping the pink bubble that he had painted over them in his mind.

It was something in the mist that arose between the chilly spring night and the heated pool that made him, well, warm. Cozy. Felt close.

“S-sorry.” It was his turn to stutter.

“It’s fine. Don’t do it again.” She said, calming down and resting back into her cozy position again. It seemed to soften her because she modified her directive with: “I mean, I did it to you, too. Touch your hair. In your office. I guess it’s fine.”

He blushed.

“I said we’re never going to talk about that again.” He murmured, dipping his mouth under the water.

“You said to not tell anyone else about it. You have a terrible memory.”

Jungkook laughed, she didn’t reciprocate, so he laughed louder.

They didn’t get kicked out of the pool until 9:30, and by then, Y/N was basically half dead, sedated by the water. She pretty much took a nap in the elevator, leaning against the wall, and crashed onto the bed with her wet pool body.

“Y/n! We have to sleep on that bed!” Jungkook yelled, half chuckling. “Seriously, get up and shower. We start at noon tomorrow and I want to get there early.”

Y/n mumbled something, but it quickly became clear to him that she was not going to be able to get off of that bed for a hot minute, so he took the opportunity to shower first.

He appreciated her being conked out because he needed a long shower. He hadn’t been in trial in so long, not since the seizure, not since everything. And he had to do the opening statement.

He had always kind of hated doing those. Hated the spotlight. And now, he realized that he had always hated this feeling in his chest. This job was wrong for him.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, everything is wrong -

Until-

The hot water hits his back, scalds his skin. Soothes his nerves.

The slight pain in his sternum that’s always kind of there only ever releases in the shower.

It’s the sweetest burn.

He showers quickly, but he chooses to stay in the shower for much longer. In the steam, he feels like breathing is easier.

He runs through his opening statement, acts it out in his head, feels some of his confidence comes back, and he’s borderline excited for tomorrow when the banging on the door starts.

“Mr. Jeon, can you please get out!? It’s almost 11:00, and I need to sleep!”

She sounds beyond irritated. She also sounds like the nap did her well. He sighs, readying himself for the oncoming tension of sharing the room with her, and then steps out of the shower, closing the frosted door behind himself.

Y/N never stops knocking, her hand hammering against the bathroom door incessantly at a metronome speed - steady, timed, irritating.

He barely gets his towel wrapped around himself when she bursts in, over it already.

“Y/N, Jesus fucking Christ!” he shrieks, holding onto his towel with one hand and covering his chest with the other.

She's fuming when she walks in, disregarding him completely after a quick glare. She immediately marches into the shower and closes the door behind her and before Jungkook could even walk out, she starts stripping off her clothes and throwing out the items one by one through the opening at the top.

First her cover up, then her bikini top, then her bottoms.

He stares at them for a second before his eyes start drifting up towards the frosted glass of the shower door, almost unintentionally.

He remembers the exact conversation that he had with Jimin

“Ooh, there is a pool in this one!” Jimin yelped, grabbing Jungkook by his sweater collar as he passed by Jimin’s desk.

Jimin pulled him into stare at his computer screen, where the hotel’s main page was displayed. He had told Jimin to book the hotel for the trial, but he had also told him like ten other things that should have taken priority.

He opened his mouth to complain, but then he saw the hotel’s name, the pictures…

“Book it. That’s a nice hotel. It’ll be nice to relieve stress after the trial, and good conference rooms.”

Jimin laughed, “Yeah, sure. So practical. I’ll pack some bathing suits for you guys.”

Give it to Jimin, by the way, to pack Y/N’s nastiest, skimpiest bikini (or maybe it was just a normal, basic black bikini and he was a bit deprived).

“You had the bathroom for long enough! Why are you still here!?” Y/N shrieked over the roaring water - great water pressure by the way.

He was there because he couldn’t fathom the curve of her back, the length of her hair, down from that incessant up do. The outline of her a…..

“Get out!”

“Right! Sorry!”

He left the bathroom dazed, confused, and anxious, and not surprisingly, with a hard on.

This was AWFUL - she had managed to undo the entire shower in a matter of seconds, and even worse, just as he stepped out, closed the door behind him, there was a noise.

“God, you used up all of the hot water!” She shrieked again, but no amount of chastising was enough to mask the little groans and whimpers she let out under the cold water.

He slowly walked to the bed, sat down at the edge and glared in the direction of the bathroom.

This was… worst case scenario.

Absolute worst case scenario.

And, to add to the stress, he had no idea how long she was going to take in there - probably not long, given that she was being subjected to freezing water (deadly freezing, apparently, from the severity of the noises she was making).

He had to think, and he had to think fast. He was anxious, wound up, and had a boner - all things that were going to make an already tense night worse. And sure, the hot shower felt nice, but its effects had worn off. So did his evening dose of meds.

He knew something else that could take the edge off.

Again, this was the worst - he knew it! He knows how bad this looks, but he had to do it. You have to understand. He had to dip his hand under that towel, basically make it come undone, and wrap a hand around his rock hard member.

It hurt to touch, truly.

He slowly rocked his hand back and forth, eyes closed and ears focused on whatever the hell was going on in that bathroom.

Sure, it could just be her getting pneumonia under the freezing water.

Or, or - and this is where Jungkook’s mind took him - she was leaning against the shower door, ass out and cheeks spread open for the water to wash over her pretty pussy, the cold stream making her emit those beautiful noises as her hips hovered. And her beautiful face, her cheekbones, were pressed against that wet wall, lips lightly kissing the tile, eyes scrunched, mouth open, and, and, just maybe, follow along if you can, he was behind her, lips against her ear, fingers rubbing over her hole - no, not that one - the other one, before he slowly pushes it in, making her constantly let out those lovely noises because this is exactly what her uptight, stubborn asshole needed -

He bites his knuckle as he comes into the towel. He has never gotten dressed so fast in his life.

She’s out minutes after that, and Jungkook is more than aware that he looks like he ran a marathon.

“Sorry about that,” she mutters, already dressed in her pajamas. She’s running a towel through her long, wet hair.

His mind flashes for a second - wrapped around his hand, pulling at it…

“Hello?” She calls out, waving her hand in front of his face. He shakes his head. “Are you having another panic attack?”

He looks at her with a little bit of shock. Twice she had brought it up now. What was up with her?

“Because, you know, I know tomorrow is a big day and -”

His eyes squint, his ears flicker.

“Oh my god, you sneaky little -”

She immediately leans back defensively.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“Yes, you did! You’re trying to take over the opening statement because you think I’m gonna have a panic attack!”

She stays silent but puts her hands up as if to surrender.

“Oh, you sneaky, opportunistic -”

He’s up now with a finger in her face before he realizes that he has just gotten way too close so he has no choice but to march back and sit on the bed like an idiot.

“I was just trying to be nice. Take some of the pressure off.” she explains, sitting next to him on the bed. “You just seem really tense.”

He looks at her hand, resting maybe five inches away from his. Looks back up at her face. She’s, of course, staring off into the distance, barely paying attention.

“I’m really okay. I’m in my element.” He says, trying to reassure her, wondering if she’s having any nerves about this. Her last trial was just before he had hired her. She can’t be that out of shape.

“I’m just worried about you, I guess.”

The words hang heavy. They should hang heavier, but Jungkook finds it easy to force a laugh. Maybe because the idea is ludicrous - Y/N feeling things.

“I mean it.”

“Oh, Y/N. Please, you don’t-”

“I feel things.”

Her voice is harsh. Straight. Forceful. Almost angry.

But it’s angry in a new way. Usually, the anger comes from frustration, from tantrums. From i-want-it-and-i-dont-have-it-why-dont-i-have-it type of feelings, but this time, it seems to come from some far off place that’s a bit foreign to her - maybe from a you-don’t-understand-me-and-that’s-frustrating-because-I-want-to-be-seen kind of way.

He’s most certainly reading into it too much, but it would be nice to think that the body next to his was a warm one. After years of working with cold blooded snakes, he needed to find life in this crew, and he felt like he did, but this whole week seemed to be some final test of patience - a last rite of passage before he fully ascends as a wise, and above-the-stress-of-it-all lawyer.

One that isn’t tempted to kill himself all the time.

And he hasn’t! If his therapist is reading this, he would really like to emphasize that he has not thought about killing himself.

But this trial, it’s just a lot, suddenly. Sure, it’s been years in the making, but that actually makes it way worse. His big debut, oh god.

“I really don’t like sharing a bed with people.”

Y/N - who has been great when she realizes a mental health crisis is oncoming, but doesn’t seem to be great at realizing it in the first place - is completely oblivious to this turmoil, but it’s fine because she’s made it clear that she suspects it.

She seems to have figured him out.

“Right, I got that,” he scoffed, “I’d prefer not to share a bed, either. I feel like I’m going to get sued.”

“I might sue Jimin,” she said, and he could have sworn that that might have been a joke.

She dangles her feet off the ledge of the bed a bit.

“But you have before, right? Boyfriends or whatever?” He asks, trying to move the process along because he really needs to get some sleep.

“Once.”

Too late. Jungkook gets that dumbfounded look in his face again. He dares himself not to look at her with that expression because he knows it pisses her off, but he can’t help it. He looks at her with that dumb fucking expression because his curiosity has peaked to new levels.

He just cannot piece her together.

She sees that dumb expression on his face, and she’s true-to-nature immediately pissed.

“Have you had boyfriends?”

“I could actually sue you.”

“Right.” He recoils, staring back at the bed. “Well, how are we going to do this?”

She lifts her feet up to rest on the edge and then she rests her hands and her chin on her knees.

Something in his chest flutters.

“Y/N, come on, we gotta go to bed -”

She turns her head a bit curtly to look at him.

Nothing readable in her expression.

“Are you a little spoon or a big spoon?”

Jungkook laughs because he knows for sure that that’s a joke. She cracks a smile too.

They settle on setting up a wall of pillows in the middle of the bed. Separate blankets. Works well at first, until Y/N surprises him again.

He, from a reasonable presumption, believed that she’d likely sleep like a corpse, tucked tight into her blankets.

He’s horrified to learn that she twists and turns like a maniac. The entire night. It’s a wonder that she’s sleeping because she could easily join a WWE ring.

Multiple times throughout the night, she knocks the pillow wall down, and it’s Jungkook who’s left feeling defiled as he tries to rebuild it along with his wavering sanity.

He has to do his best to not take down the curtains and restrain her with them for the sake of an hour of uninterrupted sleep.

At one point, she actually fully punches him in the jaw.

So, when they wake up, she looks like a million bucks and he looks sick, at best.

“Amazing mattress. I’m surprised,” she commented over breakfast at the hotel restaurant.

His fork stopped mid bite of pancakes to let him glare at her, and his jaw tightened, but she was too busy shoving too big of a chunk of honeydew past her lips to pay his anger any mind.

Her small mouth.

His head zonked again and he damn near banged it against the table.

Last night was hell, but he had lived to tell the tale. That’s all that mattered.

But it might also have mattered that last night changed things for him.

Okay, let’s be honest - there was something from the get go. The Aramaic maybe?? Jungkook wasn’t entirely sure. The stockings definitely played a big part, but it was like the whole package. He was intrigued by her, sure. That was manageable.

But last night - the glimpse of her body through the shower door, the way her bikini clung to her body, the way her back arched in the water… It changed things. It twisted the initial intrigue into a monster.

A small one that he could keep at helm still, but every now and then, in moments like these, like when he watches her shove a huge fruit through her perfectly lined lips, with her distant eyes - he has to fight it. Actively.

“Okay, let’s go through it one more time.” He says, of the opening statement hanging over his head for the sake of a distraction.

“Ladies and gentleman of the jury,” she bellowed in a flat tone, both mocking him and getting him started on his monologue.

“My name is Jeon Jungkook, and my associate and I represent the Plaintiff in this case. Today you will hear about…”

“... the story of a man. A man whose farm has fed…” she half mouths half whispers along, making his ears twitch in overstimulation.

“... hundreds of thousands of people in this state. And yet…” He tries to continue, on track with the script.

“... This state thinks it fair to lay its overreaching, greedy hand…” She continues, making an odd face as if she was trying to mimic his facial expressions, but just absolutely failing.

His TMJ locks a bit.

“... to take this man’s ranch from him.”

“To take this man’s ranch from him!” Jungkook scrams to beat her to the punchline, chest leaning forward on the table as his voice raises a little.

Y/N’s chin pulls a bit in light shock and confusion as she picks up another honeydew on her fork and sideyes him.

“Mental health check in?” She says, and he spits out his coffee mid sip.

“Y/N, that’s it-”

“Wow, you really can’t take the pressure-”

“Cut it out!” He snaps. “Seriously, not cool. We’re a team. I’m doing the opening statement. You’re doing the closing statement. I trust you, you trust me. That’s it!”

She rolls her eyes and shrugs, sliding her hair to the side and reaching over for her own coffee.

“Who’s Minji?”

Silence - utter silence in his ear, and then a sudden ringing. A stable, painful ringing. His headache triples in a second, and the few bites he swallowed of his breakfast threaten to crawl back out.

The Caller ID. The panic attack. What a nasty, fucking bitch she had to be to pull that move.

Did she really want the opening statement that bad? I thought it was some awful joke.

She stares at him a bit more openly as she bites down on the honeydew, chewing on it slowly.

His vision blurs, but he takes a deep breath because no, not now. Please, not now.

He’s not sure who he’s pleading to, and it takes him another second to realize that it’s no one.

The court room is a mere two hours away, and no one is coming to save him from this nightmare. In fact, it’ll follow him everywhere for the next five days.

This has to be some deep, deep ring of hell. He should come out purified after this - this is a pilgrimage at this point.

Let alone the fact that she was right, there is press for this case. Everyone will be watching, not just because of the publicity of the case itself, but because it's his debut. The legal gossip blogs will talk about it. He’ll get interviewed.

If he survives this, he can survive anything.

“One more word, and I’ll run this solo. You know I will.” He says curtly, curling up a piece of bacon on his fork and biting into it like an animal.

She watches him as she nods, retreats.

Good.

They sit in silence as they finish their breakfast, and he’s almost got himself together when he catches sight of a few suited types heading towards their table in his periphery.

“Who is….” He starts to ask.

“Just ignore them.”

Her gaze is suddenly more interested in her plate than it has been all morning, and the trio of suited, cologne doused, Rolex wearing assholes line up around them as if they rehearsed their entry.

Jungkook watches their faces as he lifts a napkin to his mouth and realizes that they all look very familiar. They’re all probably not too far off from his graduation year. Big shots in the city.

Great.

“Hiya, Y/N. Heard about the little eminent domain case you got going today. With Judge Kim, too. That’s gotta suck.”

Y/N just keeps eating her honeydew. Doesn’t even seem to realize they’re there.

That prompts them to turn their attention to Jungkook.

“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Depression himself. You’d think a person would at least learn how to tie a rope in the three years it takes to get through law school.”

Jungkook is almost too taken back to be offended. Like, Jesus. That’s evil.

“But good to see the failures sweeping themselves out of our scene. You guys suit charity work way more. Leave the billion dollar deals to us.”

But he can’t judge. He remembers, vividly, a time when he spoke to people like that.

He almost feels bad.

He’d actually feel bad for if it weren’t for the fact that they started turning their escalation on Y/N.

“You know, though, don’t you?” The douchebag said to Jungkook. “You’re in really good company. I’m sure you’ve asked her why she leaves every single job she’s ever had after her first case, right?”

“I need you to go back to your own table-“

“Don’t tell me you haven’t asked yet! Go ahead Y/N, enlighten him on your antics!”

Jungkook slides his seat out and stands up, face composed, but body ready to get physical.

If he gets arrested for a fight, maybe they’ll delay the trial.

“Alright, alright, the freaks are teamed up. We’ll leave.” The douchebag announced, backing up slowly as he laughed along with his friends back to their expensive reserved table.

Y/n’s eyes were on Jungkook again, lips mindlessly wrapped around a pineapple this time as she watched him sit back down.

She looked curious, unfazed.

“Why did you just sit there and put up with it? I thought you’d at least kick him or something.” He grumbled out, shoving some of his omelette into his mouth.

She didn’t say anything, just watched him eat.

He was cutting up his bacon when she finally spoke again.

“Can I have a bite?”

He choked. Looked at the bacon, back at her with a look that read Are you serious?

He lifted the bacon towards her.

“This?”

She nodded.

But before he could even fully confirm, she was out of her seat and her lips were wrapped around his fork, eyes blaring into his as she ate the bite.

He didn’t retreat as her face came down to clamp down on the metal, eyes staring into his as she slowly pulled off, wiped a corner of her mouth with a perfectly manicured nail and sat back down in her seat.

“Sorry,” she said, lifting the napkin to her lips to really get the grease off. “I just wanted to make him jealous.”

Jungkook’s brows furrowed. He looked back at the douchebag at his table.

He was fuming.

“Is he the guy you spent the night with because…”

“No, not that one,” she corrected. “He’s, uh, dead.”

So matter of fact.

Jungkook could not have asked for a more startling start to the festivities.

“Let’s just get through this fucking trial.”

—

He’s not sure what that breakfast did or how it did it, but he’s ready to go. He’s so incredibly ready to go. He is buzzing in his seat as Y/N lays out all of their papers on the counsel desk, touches base with the client in the stands, and makes sure that the podium is lined up with everything Jungkook needed.

Before the Judge comes out, Y/N gives his knee a squeeze. He doesn’t let it affect him, only fuels him. He bounces that knee the whole time while they do their appearances and everything gets started. And then, he’s up.

The bright courtroom lights, the dozen or so eyeballs staring at him. The chance to be interesting, the chance to be boring.

The chance to win.

And it goes great. Poised, emotional, but reasonable. The jury is locked in, they seem intrigued, they seem offended, they seem like they may have eaten a steak off this guy’s ranch.

He is endlessly pleased. He’s even more pleased when the state’s attorney sucks absolute ass. He keeps writing notes to Y/N about it, who doesn’t even bother to read any of the notes half the time, and even when she does, she just shoots a displeased look at him like you look too happy. Tone it down.

He can’t help it, he keeps poking his pen at her thigh, taking and passing notes, and he’s back. He’s so back. Poker face on as he causes trouble - lion back in the colosseum. He was going to make those state attorneys quit their jobs after this with how well they were going to do. They had this in the bag.

They recess for lunch, and Y/N basically jumps out of her seat to get away from him. Jungkook happily follows her along, a little oblivious to how annoyed she is, but that’s mostly because she’s being good about not letting her annoyance show. At the very least, she’s aware that his joy is warranted, and that she just has a low tolerance for any show of it. She borderline seems allergic to it because during the recess, she hides from him completely, which is infuriating because he wants to go over one of his questions for his direct examination of the client - the poor rancher.

He scours the halls, checks all of the spare rooms, even lingers outside of the girl’s bathroom for a couple of minutes. Nothing.

Where could she have escaped to?

In the ten minutes he spends speeding through the Capitol’s courthouse, he never thinks or considers the fact that rummaging through the busiest courthouse in the city where he tanked his reputation, that there might be a slight chance of running into someone he shouldn’t run into.

And run into Minji he does.

She’s standing outside of the door to some Judge’s chambers, crowded by some associates and her, now, husband - a tall but beer gutted ex D1 dick with legacy parents whose biggest success is the area code he was born into (minus the beer gut, this might also be Jungkook down to a tee, so perhaps there is a little bit of a hate-through-the-mirror thing happening).

He can digest it however he wants, but this visual information in front of him is not going to be dealt with well.

Jungkook gags. Then and there he feels the run of bile in the back of his throat, his stomach twists and turns and he makes a beeline for the men’s bathroom on the other side of the hall.

And right at the one single moment where Jungkook needs her gone, Y/N basically materializes in front of him, makeup retouched, hair combed back, and a fresh douse of her tonka perfume on.

“Why are you running?” She blurts out, loud - makes a couple of people in the bustling hall look over. Not Minji, or the fat tall monster next to her. He can only thank god. “Who are you staring at - oh.”

His eyes shoot back to glare at her, but she’s staring over at Minji with absolute delight in her eyes. He’s not what she is - a chance for vengeance, a curiosity satisfied - who knows! Who cares! He needs to leave.

“Y/N, I need to go.”

She looks back at him, face pulled back in confusion.

“Go? Go where?” She asks, then looks back at Minji, “Like, go say hi?”

He shakes his head at the speed of light, grabs her wrist, and drags her into one of the spare rooms with all his might, because she’s insistently resisting, her curiosity desperately pulling her to Minji.

Once they’re both in one of the conference rooms with the janky coffee machine and the overhead fans (the state budget hasn’t allowed for any HVAC updates since the 90s), and the door is securely closed behind them, Jungkook can finally feel himself breathe, but it’s too late, the panic has set in, and he knows for a fact that his body will be vibrating with stress, plagued by flashbacks that he can’t choke down, for the rest of the day.

He’s out of commission, and they still have to do their client’s direct testimony before they’re done for the day.

Y/N slumps into one of the chairs, displeased, legs crossed, as he tries to catch his breath.

“You’re weird.” She mumbles, picking up the dangly pendant necklace that she had worn over her white button up. She had worn a navy skirt suit set today, one of her favorites from some insane underground, super exclusive Japanese designer.

Jungkook had his humble Hugo Boss on, but they matched. He likes that they matched. He tries to focus on the colors for a moment.

“You’re very weird. Why are you freaking out now after the hard part is over?”

He gulps and walks over to the counter with the coffee machine, quickly shoves a pod in and holds a mug underneath to feel the warmth of the liquid in his hands. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe, tries counting.

“At least today is almost over. And all I did was sit. What a waste.”

He bites his lip, knows she's going to be pissed, but asks anyway:

“Maybe it doesn’t have to be a waste?"

He could feel her piercing gaze on the back of his shoulders. He blew a metraton of air out, puffing out his lips and staring at the ceiling before putting the mug down and grabbing onto the counter.

“I need you to do the direct examination.”

“No.”

She's at her feet immediately, arms crossed, and eyebrows raised.

“Absolutely not.”

He sighs, rubs his temple and reaches for the little packets of creamer and starts dumping them one by one into his coffee.

“You have to.”

He hears her walking up to him before she grabs his shoulder and twists him around.

“No. That is not what I do.” She persists, grabbing his tie and pulling him in close. “I do not do the stupid, bullshit storytelling, pity party. I fight - I do the opening, the closing, I cross the witnesses, I voir dire, I argue motions, I do not deal with making people feel bad for a millionaire with a ranch-”

“I can’t do it!” He insists, lips quivering. “I wish I could-”

She’s not listening to him.

“People pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to go sit on trials to do just that. Do you know what people don’t pay me hundreds of thousands to do??? DIRECT TESTIMONY!”

“I can’t!” He repeats, voice loud, and hands pushing her away.

She fumes before him, fists balled and eyes slightly red.

“You want to hit me?!” he accuses. “Fine, hit me, slap me, kick me - won’t make a difference! I can’t do it. I’m having a panic attack. It won’t stop until I get in the shower or -”

“I know hitting you won’t help.” She says, matter of fact again. He stops rambling, eyes narrow. “That’s not your thing, is it?”

It’s his turn to raise his eyebrow, tighten his expression, and show a bit of annoyance. He feels like he knows where this is headed, but at the same time, his mind cannot possibly fathom where she is about to take this conversation.

“I know about them.”

His jaw clicks, he puts the mug that’s been keeping him steady back down on the counter. His hands are still shaking.

“About your old associates. Back when you were a senior at S&S.”

He stares at her like he’s getting ready to butcher something. His eyebrows are drawn back, his shoulders are tensing.

“Yeah?” He asks, voice still meek, and it sounds a little more broken than before. “What did you hear?”

“I heard about what you used to do to calm down. During trials.”

She knows that she’s testing a boundary right now. It’s not exactly fear, but there is hesitation in her voice.

“Go on.”

She gets this look - a whim - and he can tell for certain that she feels no fear. She looks like she’s solved a puzzle.

She doesn’t hesitate as she pulls out one of the chairs next to her, making way for herself to lean over the table.

It takes everything for Jungkook to not drop the mug in his hands. To not drop his jaw.

She leans on her elbows, faces the door, and with zero emotion, offers:

“You can spank me. If it means you’ll focus again.”

Never in his wildest dreams…

“Y/N…”

“I won’t take it personally. We can forget about it after.”

He has no way of telling her that this does the opposite of helping, but her train of thought brings him somewhere desperate.

“Really, do whatever you need to do. You have my permission.”

It’s too bad that he finds a solution in that dark place. And it’s even worse that he’s been given the green light by Y/N to do whatever he needs to do to relax because she’s right, she does not do direct testimony. She can’t take the social cues, she derails the story, she gets frustrated with the client - just can’t get her message across.

He walks up to her on the table, gently lifting her with a soft pull at her shoulder. She straightens out and stares at him with what Jungkook thinks might be fear. He can tell that she’s genuinely scared of having to do the direct testimony, genuinely doesn’t want to do it.

He needs to get it together. He needs her help for that. She seems to understand what his eyes are trying to communicate.

“You wanna know what I actually did to those associates?” He hums, pushing her around so that she’s leaning against the table, her fingers coming down to hold onto the aging, glossy wood.

Her eyes are careful, but she looks quiet and obedient - she seems to get very obedient when you have information she wants.

And though there is no singular human emotion that Jungkook could evoke from them, he can tell at the very least that she’s curious.

His hands came down to corner either side of her thighs, his face drawing close, maybe two inches from her nose. His arm muscles protrude as he leans his weight on them, strategically keeping his hips a good foot away from Y/N.

He smiles, and that look was back - the same one that chastised her at the beginning of the trial when she called him dumb.

And she looked like she wanted to hiss at him again, what a coincidence.

“Ready?” he asked, leaning a little closer, lips maybe an inch apart, his hot breath fanning over her lips. She nodded again, slow, but her eyes seemed less focused.

He looked up into her irises, brought his lips ever so close before parting them with a sick, sly smile, curled up in the nastiest way imaginable. And he said,

“You dumb, stupid, fucking bitch.”

Y/n blinked, and Jungkook took that as ammunition.

“You absolute, useless slut. You are worthless.”

Her face remained steady, just watching, not reacting.

“Is this what you wanted?” He asked, eyebrows furrowing slightly as if to imitate exasperation. “Is this what you needed? To be told you’ll never be shit?”

She hummed, and it almost took him out of it. He needed her to cry, but getting the words out was enough for now to release that fat tension held in his tight body.

“You can’t put two fucking words together. Is this what your parents wasted their money on? You should lick my fucking feet for letting you be on this case. For letting you work with me. What a desperate…”

She hummed again.

“Worthless...”

She nodded ever so slightly.

“Whore.”

He watched her chest rise a little higher than all her other breaths, before he took a step back, softened his face, and shook his head with something that felt like embarrassment.

“I was a dick. Okay? A huge, awful dick.” He admitted, but Y/N didn’t seem to be entirely present for this revelation. She seemed to still be stuck in that vortex of insults.

“And I feel awful, and I should be judged for all those things that I did.” He leaned in close again for the next part. “But I never touched those girls. And I never would.”

She seemed to snap out of it when he said that. She seemed slightly apologetic.

“Even if they begged for it.” he added.

Her face had returned to its normal, passive state by the time that his eyes had to meet hers, and the moment was over, and the point was made.

He was fine. They were going to win this thing.

They collected themselves, Y/N jotted something down on her legal pad, and they headed back into the court room. On the way over, Jungkook got the courage to ask her:

“Is that why you were being so mean to me this morning? Because of the rumors?”

She shook her head, adjusted the files in her arms.

“No, I wanted the opening and you wouldn’t give it to me. I just wanted you to give it to me." She thought for a moment before adding, "And I don’t really care about the rumors. I just needed you to do the direct.”

Simple. In an extremely complicated way, she was so simple.

Jungkook handled the direct, it went exactly as it needed to do, and the jury seemed more than happy with his client’s story. They objected to the other side’s cross of their client in just the right amount of excess to convince the jury that the state’s attorneys were mean bullies.

They high fived under the table before the judge called it a day. As they were packing up, Jungkook glanced down at Y/N’s legal pad, eyes locking on the note that she had scribbled earlier in the day.

“He’s just as crazy as I am. I think.”

—

The rest of the trial goes by in a blur. The shared room situation stops being a problem because they stop sleeping. They take turns taking power naps here and there, but they keep telling each other as they organize and reorganize their strategy, that they’ll sleep when it’s over. They’re so close.

The room turns into a war zone - paper copies of evidence everywhere, chaotic notes drawn over any legible surface, exhibits and diagrams laid out on the bed so as not to crease.

And the hard work pays off. They show up prepared, the court room loves them, and the press that began to litter the stands loves pulling Jungkook aside for interviews, and Jungkook loves updating them on the whims of his new life.

“Y/N Y/L/N is an amazing attorney. I am truly blessed to have her on my team. I think we need to encourage and support more strong willed, tough women in this industry. If we win, I owe it all to her.”

The reporter, hailing from some legal journal, is obviously familiar with these circles and looks kerfuffled at Jungkook’s description of Y/N. She tries to get him to clarify, and so does every other reporter that’s ever even briefly heard of Y/N’s reputation as being a ruthless villain, but he insists. She is the best attorney he has ever met. The kindest.

And he can’t be wrong. He gets to have his great big comeback with this case, but Y/N puts up a great performance, too. It's her usual level of excellence, which he had heard of back in the day, but he still watches in awe as all her weaknesses when it comes to the direct testimony transforms into a strength for her crosses.

She doesn’t take social cues, that’s true, but that works great for her as she delivers her harsh one liners to the state’s witness, cutting him off at every chance, and barely even acknowledging his attempts to speak.

“And wouldn’t you agree with me, Mr. Seon, that this farm is not the only available parcel in the area for the government’s plans?”

“Yes, but -”

“And further, wouldn’t you agree that there are over five different parcels, without any present ownership and without any present commercial value, that would suit the government’s needs way better than a poor old farmer’s family owned, generations passed cow ranch?”

“P-perhaps -”

“That is all, Your Honor.”

Murmurs from the jury, every time. Jungkook has had to fight his smiles extra hard during this trial. He doesn’t recall ever feeling this alive.

He doesn’t recall ever enjoying his second chair this much. They were always just wrong - a little too nice, a little too cold, a little too aloof, a little too dumb, a little too smart.

Y/N was everything, but nice and dumb. She was extremely cold, aloof, smart, mean, efficient, effective - god, was there any other word that he could muster?

After the closing statements, it became more than apparent that the jury would deliver a verdict in their favor on the last day, and so, they left the fourth day of trial without any work to bring back to the hotel.

Jungkook suggested they go out to a real restaurant, eat something substantial after days of vending machines and room service.

Y/N agreed, begrudgingly. She was more desperate for the bed and a good night’s sleep, but a hot meal couldn’t hurt.

So, they go to the happening restaurant where all of the other attorneys are refueling after their cases, but Jungkook makes sure to take them to the one that he knows is frequented with his crowd - the nonprofit guys, the solo practitioners, the odd ones out.

This crowd loves him, hails him - they’ve all been following the case. They’re patting him on the back, giving him their business cards, asking if he needs another associate.

Y/N seems to hate this crowd more than the one in the cocktail lounge, which was quite the opposite crew - the finance guys, the tech startup CEOs, the grimy and slimy.

She pokes her fork into her fish and chips like she’s stabbing it and sips at her beer as Jungkook reels away from another crowd that’s come to pay their respects at their table in this old timey Irish pub. Why do lawyers always frequent Irish pubs? He is on such a high by the time the crowd leaves them be that he can’t even eat, but he’s on his third beer, and he can’t stop despite the slight panic that he’ll be bloated in the post verdict pictures tomorrow. He needs to look good for the photo op.

“Well, congrats, Mr. Jeon. I would say you have had a very successful comeback.”

She’s barely interested in speaking the words as she shoves a tiny piece of fried fish into her mouth. Chews on it like its gum.

“Thanks, you don’t have to sound so elated.” He jokes, eyes squinting as he jokingly fakes his smile before dropping it down to a more genuine one. “Seriously, though, thank you. I couldn’t have asked for a better return to the scene. Glad to have you by my side.”

She shrugs, licks the salt off her lips and reaches for her beer.

Takes a fat chug. He’s almost taken back.

“Well, that’s a first.” She says, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

The move does something to Jungkook. He takes a glance down to her stocking clad legs. She wore a skirt every day. Matched him every day, without even asking.

“What is?” he asks, taking a big bite of his burger, humming around it when the charred meat hits his tongue. Real food.

“Glad to have you by my side.”

He looks up at her, wipes the ketchup off his lips, gulps.

“Huh?”

“Never heard that before. Let alone after a trial.”

He smiles, shakes his head.

“You deserve it, Y/N, you were amazing-”

“No, I wasn’t.” She corrected him curtly, putting her fork down and pursing her lips. “I was mean, I basically tried to sabotage you on that first morning, constantly snapped at you, I can’t even recall how many times I’ve told you to shut up, shut down your ideas, ignored your comments, insulted you-”

“O-Okay, got the picture. Got it! I just think that…” he looks for the right words, and when he can’t find them, he just goes back to eating his burger, shrugging. “I think you’re great.” he says with a mouth full of burger, looking at his fries instead of her.

When he looks up, she’s staring at her plate, hands folded in her lap, just staring at the fish, torn apart and discarded.

He opens his mouth to say something, but he’s distracted by the opening of the door, and a sudden rush of expensive suits and red bottomed shoes enter, bringing a cloud of murmurs with them: “can’t believe they kicked us out.” “they were being so unreasonable.”

And lo and behold, in comes Minji with her husband, and Jungkook wants to actually shoot himself in the face (no, he doesn’t. He doesn’t mean that).

“She’s back,” Y/N quips, eyes fired up again. Jungkook looks at her exasperated, pleading.

“We have to leave.” he says, signaling the waiter over for a check. “Now.”

Y/n pouts, the conniving mean, cold, heartless bitch pouts, and Jungkook is actually going to strangle her when they get back to the hotel -

“Mr. Jeon, you have something on your face.” She says, out of nowhere.

She’s out of her seat, in front of his, and in the crowded Irish pub, with bodies and noises all around, she manages to make it all go silent as she stands in between his legs, face inches apart from his.

He borderline expects her to repeat his insults from that first day, but instead, she stands there and takes a napkin to the corner of his mouth, where he’s sure that there are no crumbs or other food artifices.

He just watches her, forgetting about Minji, as she leans, eyes locked on his lips.

“She’s watching,” she whispers, eyes glancing up at his before flickering back down. “Do you want to piss her off?”

He slyly takes a glance in Minji’s direction, and she indeed is staring at Y/N, nostrils flaring slightly. He, out of instinct, tenses his muscles, and he notes that Y/n’s eyes follow the stretch of his chest under his rather transparent cotton button up. A light blue.

He presses a hand into the small of Y/N’s back and pulls her closer to whisper into her ear:

“Let’s go for a swim. I don’t care what she thinks.”

He pulls away with a wink, and while his insides burn with memories and pain that will forever follow Minji along for him, he can find it in himself to hold it together because Y/N’s cold eyes and cold fingers offer him the necessary relief from the fire in his head.

He grabs her hand, not thinking twice about it before grabbing their jackets from the backs of their seats and shoving enough bills down on the table to not cause a scene before they book it out of there, and true to his word, Jungkook sneaks them into the pool, which is technically closed so the overhead lights are off, but the pool lights offer enough illumination for a night swim.

He gets Y/n to agree to race him. She wins.

“I was a swimmer in college.”

“Of course you were.”

When they get back to the office, they’re heroes, warriors. Namjoon and Jimin greet them with confetti and balloons and chocolates, and Jungkook takes a whole box of it down to his office, sweet off of the high of their win - the jury returned an insane verdict for them, set a crazy precedent. He was back on the Times this morning with a little article in the legal section about the case.

Life is good. Can’t be better.

The next day, Jungkook comes in earlier than everyone else, high off of an early morning run. He changes out of his sweaty gym clothes in the office, and does some of Jimin’s work for him before he gets in - half curious about what the guy does with his day, and half just trying to win brownie points with him since he’s been gone for so long.

He enjoyed the chance to bond with Y/N (even though he has to shake some moments off of his head, like her bent over the conference table), but he didn’t want to risk his alliance with Namjoon and Jimin. They were nicer than Y/N.

He passes out the mail, waters the plants, and opens the shades, when an early flower delivery arrives. He greets the driver and signs for it, smiling wide - maybe it’s from one of the farmer rights’ groups.

He checks the card, and his face drops when he realizes it’s for Y/N. He doesn’t read much else, but almost immediately catalogues it as a romantic gesture and his mind spins.

Romantic gesture?? For Y/N?? What idiot is trying to get their knees capped?

He scoffs at the sender, at their efforts. She would trample these flowers. Toss them out the window. Whatever, he doesn’t care. He broodingly tosses the arrangement on her desk, letting a few petals plop around. He feels slight guilt for being so careless with it, but his sudden change in attitude doesn’t let him dwell in the shame.

Instead, he broods, puts on his worst attitude, and manages to piss everyone off.

“Who shat in your bed this morning?” Jimin quips in Jungkook’s office, pen tapping against the clipboard as he waits for his boss’s attention.

“What do you want?” Jungkook grunts, eyes locked in his computer screen, tirelessly typing away at a motion.

“The Southeastern Farmers’ coalition sent over a very nice bottle of whiskey - was going to ask if you wanted it.”

Jungkook sighs, stops typing.

“Was that really a good reason to bother me?”

“Jeez, who jizzed in your coffee?”

“I do want the whiskey actually!” Jungkook snaps, and Jimin mumbles something under his breath before turning around to leave, but Jungkook’s sigh makes him turn back around.

“Spill.” Jimin orders, sitting down on the arm chair.

“There is nothing to spill,” Jungkook grumbles, clicking his pen. “I do have a question, though.”

“Spiiiillll,” Jimin entices, a hand beckoning him to reveal his deepest secrets.

“There were flowers for Y/N this morning. That’s fine, obviously, I’m just so curious, I just can’t imagine her dating. Does she date??”

But Jimin doesn’t answer his question. His eyes just go wide and his hand hovers over his mouth for a moment before he clears his throat and stands up.

“Yellow roses?” he asks, and Jungkook slowly nods, more intrigued than ever.

Jimin is a man on a mission as he leaves Jungkook’s office, speeding past Namjoon’s desk with an unforeseen ferocity.

Jungkook has never seen him move so fast, so naturally, he’s hot on his tail, and he shoots a slight shrug at Namjoon as they pass him by.

Namjoon in his infinite wisdom overhears the word flowers and glances down at the date on his calendar.

He curses, rips out his headphones, and follows the crew down to Y/N’s office.

The door is closed. The lights are off.

“Oh god,” Jimin yelps, forehead slamming against the door with a loud thud. “Y/N, unlock the door!”

“She locked it??” Namjoon gasps out, catching up to them. He pushes Jungkook to the side slightly as he starts banging on the door.

Jungkook stands, helpless and confused but enthralled somehow.

“Y/N, open the door. It’s no use trying to work through it.” Namjoon speaks, loud but soft all at the same time, mouth leaning into the little crevice between the door and the doorframe.

“She’s working in there?” Jungkook asks, trying to peek in above the frosted glass. “It’s pitch black. The lights are off.”

But no one is paying attention to him. They’re just gently knocking on the door, trying to entice her out with whispered, soft offers through the door.

We’ll get Jungkook to work remotely for the rest of the week.

We’ll take you to the driving range.

I will take all of your calls, every single one, just please come out.

He learns a bit more about Y/N with each whisper, but he’s not even fully convinced she’s in there. There is no movement, no sign of life.

When Jimin and Namjoon finally give up, they sulk at their desks, looking genuinely broken. Jungkook calls them into his office for a little therapy session.

“It upsets me. Every year, I don’t know how she does it.” Namjoon rambles, feet kicked up onto Jungkook’s desk as he lays back against the arm chair. Jimin sits perched on the arm, biting at his nails and pulling back to inspect his tortured nail beds before going right back to it.

“And what is it exactly?” Jungkook asks, bringing in two piping mugs of tea for the men in an attempt to soothe them. He was tempted to sneak some of the expensive whiskey in to see if it would loosen them up more, but he realized that they were open books. They were never really super greedy with their Y/N handbook. They spilled whenever he asked.

“Oh, god, where do we start?” Jimin wanes, fanning himself with his hands. He’s overwhelmed beyond relief. “Where do we start, Namjoon? Help.”

“It’s actually insanely straight forward, but you gotta pay attention because it’s Y/N so it’s a little more complicated than it seems.”

“Is it an ex? A stalker?”Jungkook asks, hands wrapping cozy around his own mug.

“Both, kind of.” Jimin says, looking back down at Namjoon for assistance.

“Y/N doesn’t do exes. She doesn’t do relationships. But she’s human.”

“She fucks,” Jimin interjects, sipping his tea with a shaky grip. “She fucks without really thinking twice of it.”

He glares at Namjoon a little, and Namjoon blushes.

Jungkook glows red, too, but he’s not sure if he would categorize it as a blush. It feels more like irritation.

“Have you…” Jungkook asks, staring at Namjoon, trying to get his question out without really getting it out.

“Uh, yeah, a couple of times.”

“Tell him where, Namjoon.” Jimin insists, poking his leg with his foot.

Namjoon blushes a little harder, his hand coming up to scratch at his nape.

“Jimin’s old desk. At the old firm.”

Jimin nods, staring at Jungkook like “can you imagine?

He can. Oh god, he can. He shivers.

“I was pissed at Jimin about something, made a side comment about wanting to piss him off, and Y/N had suggestions. I took her up on it.”

“Were you still with…”

Namjoon shakes his head.

“Oh god, no! I was single! Really, nothing serious - it doesn’t mean anything to her.”

Jimin leans a little closer to Jungkook, who is absolutely enthralled by these revelations.

“Like nothing, Jungkook. It’s like drinking water. Eating, showering.”

“Like a chore.” Jungkook elaborates to see if he’s caught on.

Namjoon shakes his head.

“I wouldn’t call what she does a chore.”

Jungkook throws a pen at him.

“Watch it. This is a professional office.” He then turns back to Jimin. “So, what? This is just a butthurt ex? One night stand? Why is it making her freak out so bad?”

“Ok, well, the first caveat is that she’s not freaking out.” Jimin corrects. “Y/N doesn’t freak out. She’ll snap, crash out - not freak out.”

“And I don’t know, what would you call a dead hookup?” Namjoon asks, genuinely pondering. “Would that count as an ex?”

Jungkook recalls the dead guy - the one she shared a bed with.

“This is how it goes, and Jungkook, this stays in this room. Don’t tell Y/N we told you.”

This is odd. They usually do this type of thing right in front of Y/N. They talk about her, theorize about her, speculate about her - they do it all directly in front of her, in the same room as her.

So, this is… odd. No better word for it.

“It was her last year of law school. Not an awful year, but Y/N was a gunner, so she was a little distracted.”

Jungkook nods. Ok, distractions, fine, continue.

“She was hooking up with this one guy. He sounded like a really nice guy if you ask me.” Namjoon continues.

“Was friends with her from day one, always watched out for her, carried her books, dragged her to networking events. Honestly, Y/N would have gotten nowhere with that personality without him, and I say that as her biggest fan.”

Jimin holds Namjoon’s knee, getting him to pause for a second.

“Keep in mind, this is just what we managed to squeeze out of other lawyers from her law school. She will not open up to us about this, so we’re missing most of the picture.” He interjects, but Namjoon keeps going, waving him off.

“It’s enough of the picture for him to get the idea - anyway, they start hooking up. She’s a little distracted, a little overwhelmed - she gets pregnant.”

Jungkook’s eyes widen.

“Then, what!?” he beckons, eyes wide, fingers clutching the mug.

“What do you think?” Jimin asks.

He can guess, somewhat, the events that follow. And he doesn’t make them indulge it.

She’s obviously not a mother, and the poor guy is dead, but what of the flowers?

“He killed himself. Before graduation.” Namjoon answers.

“His parents have been mailing the flowers to her on his death anniversary every year since then.” Jimin explains.

“It usually takes them a while to find her again when she switches jobs. This was surprisingly fast. I thought she was off the hook for this year.”

Jimin looks sadder than he’s ever looked, and Namjoon doesn’t look much better.

Jungkook sits with the information, his fervent interest fading away slowly to a somber realization.

He knows nothing about Y/N, but finds that he cares for her infinitely, and he takes that time to also appreciate the fact that the two men in front of him also seem to care for her, deeply. And he thinks it funny, in that little second, that loveable, palatable Jungkook has burned every bridge he’s ever crossed, but cold, heartless Y/N has stolen hearts everywhere she’s gone.

Exes that are still obsessed, old hookups willing to work for her. She even has a gay man on the verge of tears because of his worry for her.

“Why doesn’t she just file for a restraining order or something?” he asks, his final curiosity of the night. Jimin and Namjoon exchange looks.

Jungkook sends them both home early, citing that it’s been a tough day for everyone, and suggests that maybe they should just try giving Y/N her space to mourn.

Jimin jumps on the offer, and sends out the mating calls (texts) to his roster. Namjoon doesn’t disagree, either, just settles for taking some of his work home to deal with after dinner, and he pauses by the elevators as Jungkook sees him out, helping him carry some of his files.

He looks at Jungkook, observing him carefully before speaking.

“She’s not mourning. Y/N doesn’t mourn. That’s another caveat.”

Jungkook shuffles the files he’s holding onto, listens intently. Namjoon reaches over to grab them from him with a foot holding the elevator open.

“She thinks she should mourn, but I don’t think she feels sad about what happened. I just think that she thinks she should feel sad, so she tries to. I think that’s why today is tough on her. It's also why she doesn't try to stop it. She thinks it's her punishment."

Jungkook nods, dusting his hands off on his pants.

“Do you get that?” Namjoon asks, but his tone is interesting. It’s not looking for confirmation, not condescending - just a simple question: does he understand what she’s feeling?

“I don’t know.” Jungkook answers, honestly.

Namjoon nods.

“Yeah, I don’t know if anyone ever will. I don’t think I ever will.”

Jungkook walks back into the office after that, most of the lights turned off and the day’s setting sun glowing all around through the windows.

It looks like the office is on fire, and to be fair, a hellish sentiment seems to settle in the air once he realizes that he’s alone in the office with an unpredictable, unseen Y/N.

He looks in the direction of her office, down the far end of the hall. He wonders if she had maybe slipped away while they were chatting it up in his office.

He can’t help it.

He walks over, spare key in pocket, contemplating his decision the entire way over.

He knocks once, puts his ear to the door, and can’t make out a single noise. Not a breath, not a sigh, not a drop of dust.

Utter silence.

“Y/N?” he calls out as softly, as gently as he can. He’s not sure why. Allegedly, she’s not even sad, so why is he trying to be comforting?

“Jimin and Namjoon are gone. You can leave, too, if you’re feeling overwhelmed.”

Nothing. No response.

He knew he shouldn’t, but he did. Dug into his pocket, and fished out the spare.

The golden key glowed orange as it caught a loose ray of dying sunshine - a clear, yellow warning sign.

He squeezed every muscle in his body as he pushed the key through, but when he went to twist the knob, he found it moving on its own.

He immediately jumped back, letting Y/N peek out from behind the door, eyes glassy and hair slightly unkempt. She had let it down out of her usual updo.

She looked… different.

Her face held an emotion - Jungkook wasn’t sure what exactly, but it was not the usual void he was confronted with on a daily basis.

Her button up was undone up top, and her black camisole peeked out from behind her collar. She had only opened the door a measly five inches, not quite letting him in.

“What do you want?”

He blinks at her, looks around the office to see if this was some grand big joke. She seems perfectly fine, other than the unkempt hair.

But then, his eyes drop to her hand holding the door open - the nails. The nail beds are clean torn off, all of them bleeding and chapped. They’re also shaking - almost unnoticeably so, but when someone is as well kept as Y/N, things like this become obvious.

Or, if you’re Jungkook, and you spend every chance you get hyperanalyzing her actions, a very similar result follows.

He looks at her once more, tries to measure the annoyance in her eyes as he calculates his next move. He has an epiphany when he puts up his finger, as if to say one second.

He runs down the hall to Jimin’s desk, snatches the expensive bottle of whiskey from the farmers and runs back to Y/N’s office. The door is fully open now.

He spots the yellow flowers on her desk, directly in front of her monitors, where he had dropped it off so carelessly.

He looks back at her, holding the bottle of whiskey like a prized fish.

“I bet you haven’t gotten any work done today.”

She looks back at her desk before turning back to him.

She shakes her head.

He tsks, puts the whiskey at his hip, feigning some disappointment and attitude.

“Well, that just won’t do, Ms. Y/L/N.”

Her ears glow a little red.

“I pay you to do your job. Not sit around in your office and mope.”

She stares at him, slightly confused.

“I say, we go into my office, you bring your laptop, and we drink some whiskey and catch up on the work you missed today.”

She keeps staring.

He feels his heart in his throat.

She steps back into her office, closes the door. Jungkook waits for the sound of the lock, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he hears shuffling, drawers opening and closing, and Y/N emerges back out with her hair combed down and laptop and files in hand.

“I’d like that.”

Jungkook beams. The whole time they’re in his office, he’s beaming. He has never been as productive as he is now, tackling all of Y/N's stupid, petty assignments as she handles the more serious ones.

She likes it, he thinks to himself every few moments. His giddiness is untenable. He has achieved what Jimin hasn’t. What Namjoon hasn’t. He managed to think of something that Y/N likes.

Likes.

She likes it.

I’d like that.

She’d like that.

He giggles to himself, making her stare up from the rugged floor, where she sits with her stocking clad legs bent under her.

She has her exhibits all laid out, arranging and rearranging them.

“Can you pass the bottle?” she asks, and he does, with two hands, so careful in his delivery as he revels in the fact that she’s drinking with him.

She has downed a good eighth of the bottle - the most he’s seen her drink - but she doesn’t seem to be reacting to it much.

She passes the bottle back to him and he accepts, taking a quick swig before passing it back to her, seeing if she’ll take it up on such a quick rebound.

She raises an eyebrow at him as if she recognizes the test, and takes a drink before handing it back over to him.

“Have you ever danced before, Y/N?” he asks, suddenly emboldened.

He half expects her to scoff or to get up and leave once she senses that his work hours are up, and his shenanigan hours are starting.

But she doesn’t. She answers.

“Once.”

He smiles, sits cross legged next to her, looking out at the exhibits.

“There seems to be a theme here.” he comments, but she doesn’t respond, just adjusts one of the exhibits.

He licks his lips in contemplation, watching her face before he proceeds.

“Do you want to talk about him?”

Her breath hitches. Her fingers clutch the piece of paper in her hands, lightly crushing it.

He reaches over slowly, as if to not startle the hissing cat, and grabs it out of her hands, putting it back down on the ground.

He doesn’t wait for her to look at him. He senses the slight freeze taking over her body - the slight shake.

“It helps.” He says, and she closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath in.

He feels really brave with the whiskey coursing through his veins, and maybe, more importantly, through hers.

“Come on,” he beckons, getting back up to his feet. He extends a hand down in front of her face. “Show me.”

She stares at the hand.

“What?”

“Show me how you danced. I want to see.”

She hesitates, but she grabs his hand.

Jungkook sees stars for a second.

He helps her to her feet, but his pull is a little too strong, and she ends up tripping into his chest a bit before straightening out.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, eyes searching his body as if she’s actually about to show him how they danced.

And she actually does. She reaches out to hold one of his hands, brings the other to the small of her back

“Is that okay?” She asks, and she genuinely seems to be wondering. Seems to care.

He nods and gives her a smile, which he’s realized he had wiped off his face as he stared at her in wonder, but he does his best to keep it on as she sways them to no music - just the sound of the AC blowing through the vents.

But he can’t keep it up. He is so intent on watching her, observing her, trying to record and catalog every feeling from every touch she gives him.

The bump of her hip against his. The squeeze of her hands. The brush of her nose into his chest when they trip over a step.

“It’s the waltz,” Jungkook realizes when she steps away, straightening out the collar of her shirt.

“Mhm.” she says, brushing herself off as if touching Jungkook covered her in dust.

“A wedding dance.”

Silence. Slight pause in her movements before she continues tugging herself back into place.

“Do you want a hug?”

She really stops now.

“What the hell is going on with you!?” She snaps, a heavy flash of anger landing on her face.

Oh, he’s done it now.

He opens his mouth to defend himself, but Y/N starts crashing out, as Jimin would say.

“No, you have been excessively inappropriate at every turn, at every opportunity, and you are crossing some serious professional boundaries. I won’t have this, you know! I’ll quit!”

For some reason, Jungkook’s brain screams at him to take that as a yes. Something in him tells him that the tirade is the biggest yes she could have given.

He hesitates but reaches over, slowly, and grabs her shoulder. She hiccups, stares at the grip.

With no further resistance, he tugs her into his chest.

Wraps his arms around her waist.

Digs his head into the crook of her neck.

Squeezes.

Gives Y/N a good, healthy hug.

She is frozen in his grip - both literally and figuratively. She’s not moving, but she also physically feels cold, and he wills it in himself to warm her up.

Her hands, suspended in the air, slowly and shockingly, come down to wrap around his neck, tentatively.

Her hold is weak, fleeting. But it’s there.

“I’m sorry for the flowers. I shouldn’t have just put them into your office. Should have waited for Jimin,” he murmurs, and her hold on him solidifies a bit. “I’m sorry for everything else, too. You must have been sad.”

She starts to pull away and he doesn’t resist, expecting her to rip herself away from his embrace, but she lingers in it, pulling away just enough to look at his face.

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t falter, just returns her gaze.

He knows there are thoughts swimming in his eyes that she can’t decipher, either.

He takes it in - they’re both mysteries to each other at that moment. Y/N isn’t the only anomaly.

Then, and he really can’t help it, his eyes drop to her lips - bitten and bruised from the stress of the day, but still tinted from her lipstick. They part at his attention, and his gaze flickers to match hers, but she’s staring at his mouth, too.

She looks determined. That’s the only way he can describe it.

She kisses him.

What does Jungkook do?

Take a guess.

He’s on her. Immediately. Lips reciprocating, and hands exploring.

First on her waist, wrapped around, pulling her tight into his chest as she widens her mouth, her arms wrapping around his neck and her hands winding into his hair.

He moans when she pulls, he can’t help it, and his arms have enough of her wandering hands as he grabs a hold of them and walks her back until her back is against the wall and he has her wrists pinned above her head, pulling her arms up, taunt.

She lets herself be kissed like that, Jungkook’s tongue happily dancing with hers, exploring her mouth, his free hand coming up to grab her jaw so that he can twist it one way or the other, deepening the kiss to his heart’s content.

He’s almost, almost too kiss drunk (and whiskey drunk) to notice her hands falling down to his belt, tugging his hips a little closer, but he pulls back, shy about pressing his concerningly and embarrassingly hard member into her.

“No,” he murmurs against her lips before pulling away suddenly. “No!”

The sight in front of him produces a guttural reaction. Makes him want to rip everything off of her and fuck her into the carpet, but it’s too much.

All of this is too much for today. Her messed up hair, her bitten lips, her flushed cheeks, her glassy eyes.

“We should go home.” He says, running a hand through his hair to tame it back into place after her assault.

“I’m not going to go home.” She says, matter of fact, but starts collecting her things, buttoning up her shirt.

“Okay, I’ll leave the keys, you can -”

“No, I mean,” she says, collecting the exhibits off of the floor. “I need to have sex, and you won’t have it with me, so I’m going to go to someone else’s house to have sex.”

Jungkook forgets how to breathe.

“Also, it would be nice if you could give me something in writing just confirming that what happened was a consensual exchange.”

He’s bewildered.

“I- I think it’s pretty obvious that it was consensual.” he stammers, trying his best to not point at the hard on he’s supporting, but he doesn’t need to, she looks directly at it. No shame.

“You can mention the erection in the letter, as further confirmation. But I can’t read your mind, and you looked pretty assaulted to me, so I don’t know, I just think I’m better off covering my bases.”

Jungkook doesn’t know what to do. He knows what he wants to do, but he doesn’t know what he should do.

He wishes Jimin or Namjoon were here to give him pointers.

“I apologize if you feel like I assaulted you. I am going to go have sex with an old coworker now.”

“Wait!”

Jungkook shouts, hand held out in front of him as if that’ll stop her.

It does, surprisingly.

She raises an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to come to his senses.

He weighs his options, tries to think straight, but he can’t. All he can picture is Y/N going over to Namjoon’s place, and letting him do whatever he wants to her…

He consciously knows it won’t be Namjoon, but it doesn’t matter. He tries to shuffle through all the men he’s seen around Y/N since he hired her - the drunkard from the lounge, the douchebag at the hotel, and now Namjoon - to see if anything hits less offensive, but every option drives a nail into his soul.

He can’t. He possibly can’t.

But something happens to him, something switches. A familiar intuition emerges - a dark sinister need- a want.

And Jungkook always gets what he wants.

“Y/N,” he speaks low, doesn’t look at her as he unbuttons his cuffs and rolls them back up to his elbows.

“Yes?”

“I need to calm down.”

Y/N tries to make sense of that. He can see her wracking her little head as she looks around a bit confused.

“Okay?” She says, confusion drenched in the simple word.

She sideeyes the shit out of him when he reaches for his belt, undoing the buckle.

“Remember that first recess during the trial?” he asks, pulling the leather off of his pant buckles.

She nods, slow and wary.

“Remember your generous offer?” he smirks, and there it is again. That dark, nefarious twist - something between a smile and a snarl.

She nods again, puts the papers down on the ground. Her hands are clasped in front of her when she straightens out.

“I remember.”

“Is it still on the table?”

She seems to be thinking for a minute, weighing her own options as Jungkook had just done.

But Jungkook has no patience. Not in the state of mind he has just slipped into.

“I thought that wasn’t your thing.”

“I just told you what I did to the associates,” he corrected, wrapping the leather belt around his fist once, twice, then unraveling it, watching Y/N’s eyes circle his actions in pure intrigue. “You didn’t exactly ask me how I like to fuck Y/N.”

She swallows, body stoic.

“Would you like to know, Y/N?” He asks, taking a bold step away from his desk towards her. There is barely 5 feet left between them.

He takes another step. 2 feet left.

“Do you want me to show you?”

They stand, Jungkook with sleeves pushed back, composure back in his bones, and Y/N as the textbook picture of “curiosity killed the cat.”

He sees the hair stand on her arms.

She nods.

He takes another step closer, looks straight into the abyss of her eyes - no fret, because he knows his are just as dark.

“On your knees.” He drags the words out like poison, staring at her down the bridge of his nose - a highline attitude he’d worked so hard to ditch in this new life.

But the return is rather delicious. And that’s what scares Jungkook as she lowers herself on the ground, digs her knees into the carpet - this version of him tried killing him. And yet, Y/N summons it no problem, and it doesn’t feel terrifying like that night in his apartment when he tried to murder himself.

It feels rewarding. It feels good.

“Give me your hands,” he orders, and she doesn’t hesitate much before offering up her wrists. He carefully winds the leather around them before knotting it down the middle, giving it one good tug to confirm the strength of his DIY cuffs.

She stares at his handy work, eyes glittering.

“Can you get up?” he asks, and she does, raising herself to her feet with perfect balance.

Her arm leans against his chest for support as he does, eyes looking up at him like he holds her entire world.

He’s never seen her look so… loving.

“Are you going to kiss me?” she asks, and he just purses his lips and shakes his head.

“Why would I kiss a desperate slut like you?”

“Well, you just did…” she whispers, pointer finger on her lips as she glances back to the spot where he had her pushed up against the wall.

“On the desk, Y/N.” He says, cutting her off short, and her head snaps back obediently. She nods and walks over, stands by the desk, her ass just barely sitting on the edge of it.

He stands in front of her, arms crossed, eyes drinking in her fully clothed body.

“Some ground rules,” he starts, eyes locked back onto hers, but she’s staring at his rock hard dick. Licking her lips.

“Eyes up here,” he snaps, a bit of his character slipping at the visual assault, but he recoils, maintaining his intimidating composure.

“Number one - you don’t talk, unless I tell you to.”

She considers it before nodding.

“Number two - you do whatever I say. No questions.”

She nods again.

He walks up to her now, grabs her cuffed hands which she holds up to her sternum and tugs her closer with the belt. She falls into his chest, and he catches her with a strong hand around her waist. He makes it a point to flex every time his body is on her - lets her feel how hard his muscles are under her touch.

He lets her land her hands on his chest, fingers sprawling out over his decollete, hidden by the thin fabric of his summer shirt.

“And you’re done when I say you’re done.”

She opens her mouth to ask a question but then quickly shuts it.

It lights him up - the sudden obedience. The easy submission. He’s never needed to be in someone more than in this moment.

“No bitching, no complaining, and no going to anyone else to finish the job.”

Her feet shift in her heels. Her legs press together. He smiles that sick, sick smile and runs a hand up her thighs, stopping just at the hem of her skirt, finger tracing right under just to see how she reacts.

She pushes up on her toes, almost as if she wants to get away, but it becomes clear that she’s just adjusting herself, and in fact just trying to get closer as she sinks bank down, trying to get his hand further under that skirt.

His body heats up at the thought of her neediness. Wonders if she’d ever beg. If he could get that out of her.

“Turn around, Y/N,” he speaks softly, but there is no way he can soften the delivery. He can tell that this new Jungkook is offputting to her. He can’t tell if it’s a good thing.

She listens, turns around to face the desk, his body standing perpendicular to hers. He closes his eyes, leans into her perfectly blown out hair, inhaling the scent of the shampoo she uses.

She shudders.

His hands come up to trace the top of her skirt where her shirt is tucked in, fingers just lightly tracing over her abdomen as his mouth moves to her ear, biting on the lobe gently.

Her breathing picks up, her nipples harden through her shirt. He feels indulgent when he lets fingers graze them, feeling the nubs under the pads of his fingers.

“Tell me what you want,” he orders, lips coming down to kiss her cheek, her jaw, pushing her hair back as he goes to stand behind her, pulling her hips back into his.

And she finally feels him.

She lets out a sound unimaginable - one simply cannot describe it.

He must have been waiting for that sound his entire life because it fires him up. Puts his thoughts to action.

With a steady hand against the top of her back, he pushes her down on the desk, making her ass lean flush against his dick. He drives it further into her, letting out indescribable sounds himself.

“I asked you a question,” he spits, his hand coming down to run over the curve of her ass.

She, uncharacteristically, tries to dig her hips into the desk, chasing it away from the pleasure he’s dying to give her.

She just shakes her head before laying her cheek against the desk to get the smallest of glimpses of him over her shoulder.

“I can’t,” she murmurs, almost choking on words. “I can’t do dirty talk.”

He wants to laugh - he’s bewildered.

What is she? What exactly is he supposed to do with her?

He brings his hand down on her ass, a loud clap - it resonates all the way down to her office.

Her cheeks burn.

“Did I ask you for dirty talk? No, I asked you to tell me what you want. Use your words, smart girl.”

She moans.

She fucking moans.

He slaps her ass again, unwittingly grinding into her as he does it.

“Tell me what you want, or you’re really going to regret leaving it up to me.”

“I want you to keep hitting me.”

Oh.

“I’d prefer it if you slapped me in the face.”

God.

He opens his mouth but then shuts it - unsure of what to do. He’s pretty sure he’s blown a fuse.

He’s off of her in seconds, turning her around and undoing his belt around her wrists. He doesn’t look at her when he does it, and she doesn’t stop looking at him.

He takes a step back when he’s done. Eyes wide and face flushed and guilt strewn all over him.

“I might also need something in writing.” He mutters, back to the new Jungkook, who is now so insanely out of his element. “O-on the consent thing.”

She awkwardly looks around and nods, trying to avoid eye contact. Jungkook feels wrong.

“Sorry for stopping so abruptly-”

“It’s fine. I’m going to leave,” she says before straightening her outfit and heading for the door, and Jungkook feels his heart break then and there.

But right before she leaves, she stops with her hand on the handle and looks back at him over her shoulder.

“I’m going to go to my apartment after this. I won’t have sex with anyone else tonight.”

And she leaves, just like that.

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