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i take it back || JJK

Oneshot <part 1/2>

↬ admit it sweetheart, you love the sound of my voice too 𓏲 ๋࣭ ࣪˖✮⋆˙

Pairing: Jungkook x Female!Reader

Summary: the plan was simple: get her degree, keep her sanity, and destroy Jungkook by any means necessary. Unfortunately, he is infuriatingly smart, disgustingly smug, and exists solely to drive her insane. Sure, it's a battle for intellectual dominance, but as sharp insults slowly give way to a quiet truce, the rules start to blur. That is, until Jungkook crosses a line, a line he's not sure he can come back from.

Genre/Tags: academic rivals, enemies, college au, romance, fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, betrayal

Word Count: 30.5k

Warnings: stress, academic burnout, fainting, pathetic jungkook, jungkook is a mess, grovelling jungkook, secret softie jungkook, financial hardship, mentions of gambling, parental issues, parental neglect, mild sexual content, kissing, minor dirty talk and degradation, dry humping, brief harassment and sexual harassment (men being creepy), alcohol consumption, substance use, (pls lmk if i have missed anything)

Notes: (you can 100% skip these notes, they do not add anything to the story it's just me ranting.) Okay, firstly, I'm not a philosophy student, so if you see something that doesn't look right... no you didn't 🤫 (wait but seriously if something is really wrong, please let me know and I'll edit it). Secondly, I LOVE ACADEMIC RIVALS TO LOVERS WITH EVERY BONE IN MY BODY. And it pisses me off that there's barely any of it out there (across all fandoms) when it's so fucking good. Writing this also reminded me of high school where I, okay I wouldn't say I had a full on rival rival, but we were deffo competitive. And like, I kinda had a crush on him until I got to know him better and found out he's just a misogynistic racist prick (kill me please). And he won't stop bothering me now even though I haven't seen him in ages, like… get a grip??? take a hint??? fuck off??? (Thank god I ended up scoring higher than him in the final exams, omg could you imagine if he beat me?? I don't even wanna think about it. Anyway… this is my first time posting with like somewhat heavy angst(?) Someone please tell me why angst is so difficult to write I swear this took so long because I kept second guessing everything. Like fluff and romance is very straightforward for me and I find a lot easier but angst… trying to figure out if the stuff I was writing was actually painful is so fucking difficult, I kept rewriting everything 😩😩. But next time I'm gonna do better dw 🤞🏼. Oh and another reason why this took so long was because I injured myself at the gym (in literally the most stupid, most preventative way ever) and so I was in bed a lot of the weekend and my laptop gets too hot to balance on my legs so I just couldn't write 💔💔. And I also had this weird thing happen a few nights ago and I actually thought I was going to die. When I get ready for bed I like to turn on the AC so that my room is cold for when im trying to fall asleep but I turn it off just before I lie down. But when I laid down, I got these really intense shivers, like little fits idk how to describe them. And then when they stopped I was so hot the whole night I kept waking up. I thought I was coming down with a fever or smth but the next morning I was fine?? Like perfectly fine?? Why is my body ragebaiting me??? Anyway, this is one of my favourite Jungkooks I have written so far (he's up there with my Gilmore Girls JK hehe). And the only reason this is in two parts is because of the blocks limit Tumblr has, so unlike a few other oneshots I have, you do have to read part 1 before part 2, they're not standalones. enjoy :D

Requested By: @misseagull

"I swear the iced coffee today tastes like straight-up dish soap," Yeji groans, her face contorting in a way that makes it seem as though she just swallowed battery acid as she holds the plastic cup out towards you. "Try it. Tell me I’m not crazy."

"Yeah, no thanks, I value my digestive tract," you say, side-stepping the biohazard whilst trying to balance your heavy tote bag—which currently contains three overdue library books, an umbrella you forgot to unpack three weeks ago, and a half-eaten granola bar—on one shoulder.

Isla snorts without looking up from her phone, her thumb flying across the screen at lightspeed. "You guys are dramatic. It’s seventy-five-cent coffee from a machine that hasn't been serviced since the Fall of Rome. What did you expect? Single-origin Ethiopian beans stomped on by ethically treated alpacas?"

"I expected it to not taste like Dawn, Isla!" Yeji huffs, adjusting her cardigan as you all trudge down the drafty corridor.

"That's on you for having high expectations for a university that spends its entire budget on lawn care," Isla replies smoothly, slipping her phone into her back pocket before slumping her arm over Yeji's shoulder. "Anyway, who's coming to the bar on Friday? If I have to spend another weekend watching eight hours of home renovation shows, I’m going to actually lose my mind."

"Oooh, count me in, provided I survive this seminar without Jones deciding my draft was a personal insult to his ancestors," you say as you reach Seminar Room 304. You push the heavy oak door open, fully expecting to sail smoothly and claim your throne, but you instantly freeze dead in the doorway.

The abruptness of your stop causes a literal chain-reaction pileup behind you. Yeji slams directly into your back, and Isla stumbles into Yeji, emitting a loud oof that echoes down the hallway like cartoon brakes screeching. Behind you, the two peer over your shoulder, instantly recognising the dark cloud of impending doom hovering over the room. You feel their collective, soul-weary sighs right down the back of your neck.

"Here we go again," Yeji mutters under her breath, grabbing Isla by the strap of her bag and forcibly dragging her towards the safe, neutral ground of the middle row. "Please. I am begging you. Don't start a scene before 9:00 AM. I haven't had any real caffeine yet."

You don't hear them; you can't. It's like static in your mind as your eyes zero in on your seat. Well, focused more on the being currently occupying it.

Jeon Jungkook.

The bane of your academic existence, the perpetual thorn in your side, the human equivalent of a pebble wedged permanently into your shoe. Ever since day one of orientation week, many moons ago—when he had the audacity to counter your very first point on Cartesian Doubt with a lazy smile and an airtight counter-argument—your life has been an escalating, bloodthirsty cold war for dominance. He exists solely to frustrate you: infuriatingly quick-witted, insufferably smug, and entirely dedicated to turning every seminar, every lecture, every presentation, and every debate into your own personal fencing match.

Now, the seat. Calling it just a "seat" is an insult to human engineering. It is a sacred sanctuary, discovered after a full morning of systematically testing every single chair and compiling a mental spreadsheet ranking back support, cushion density, proximity to power outlets, and table wobble. And this chair, this one chair, is the undisputed crown jewel of Room 304. It’s in the third row from the front, by the window—the only chair in the entire room whose foam cushion hasn't been completely flattened into concrete by generations of stressed undergrads. It sits at a precise forty-five-degree angle from the window, catching optimal natural light that doesn't cause screen glare, whilst maintaining a favourable distance from the podium so Professor Jones' morning voice doesn't make you go completely deaf. It is ergonomically superior, emotionally comforting, and above all else, yours.

And he’s sitting in it like he owns the damn thing.

Jungkook is leaning back, his long legs stretched ridiculously far out under the desk, casually taking a bite of a crisp red apple. The second your eyes lock onto his, an entirely deliberate smirk spreads across his face. He chews with painful slowness, just to make sure you digest the full weight of his audacity.

You march down the aisle, stomping up to the desk, and slam your heavy tote onto the wood with a thud loud enough to startle a guy two rows behind.

"Move," you say.

Jungkook swallows his bite of apple, tilting his head back to look up at you with an expression of mild confusion. "Good morning to you too. Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?"

"Jungkook, I’m not doing this today. Get your ass out of my seat."

"Your seat?" He dramatically leans over the armrest, craning his neck to inspect the underside of the desk. "That's weird. Doesn’t seem to have your name on it. Did you write it in invisible ink, or is it engraved on a cellular level?"

"I’ve sat here every single Tuesday since September. You literally always sit right next to the door so you can sprint out the second the clock hits ten."

"Well, I must have had a sudden spiritual awakening," he says smoothly, resting his elbow on the desk and propping his chin in his hand, looking up at you through his eyelashes. "I decided I like the natural lighting over here. It really brings out my eyes, don't you think? You shouldn't hoard it all. Bad for your karma."

"It's bad for my patience, is what it is," you snap, stepping closer into his space and crossing your arms. "You don’t even like sunlight. You wear hoodies in mid-July."

"People change," he chirps, taking another loud, crunching bite of his apple. "Are you going to keep standing there looming over me, or are you going to sit down?"

"I will physically tip this chair over with you in it."

"I'd love to see you try, sweetie—"

Before you can grab him by the collar of his denim jacket and test that theory, the door slams open. Professor Jones sweeps into the room: a tornado of tweed and unread essays, dropping a thick, terrifying stack of handouts onto the front podium with a loud thump.

"Alright, quiet down, everyone! Phones away, open your readings to page fourteen!" Jones barks, not even bothering to look up.

Jungkook gives you a mock-sympathetic little pout, his eyes dripping with fake pity as he raises his hand and makes a subtle, tiny shoo motion with his fingers. Gritting your teeth so hard you practically feel your molars creak, you’re forced to accept defeat in this battle. You haul your bag across the room and sink into the only empty chair left now, tucked right into the dead-zone corner next to the rusted cast-iron radiator.

The second you hit the wooden seat, the radiator awakens like some ancient spirit. It emits a loud, rhythmic CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-HISS, sending a violent blast of dry, boiling heat bursting directly into the right side of your face. Within thirty seconds, the metal pipe is singing, whistling, and radiating enough thermal energy to melt solder, turning your tiny corner of the room into a personal sauna.

You wipe a microscopic bead of sweat from your forehead, feeling your hair instantly begin to frizz, and glare straight across the room.

Through the gap between five students' heads, Jungkook catches your eye. He rests his chin on his palm, tilts his head, and silently mouths: Hydrate, you're gonna sweat.

You hold his gaze with unblinking, murderous intensity. Without breaking eye contact, you slowly raise your left hand, pretending to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear while subtly flipping him a very precise, very emphatic middle finger.

Jungkook’s lips twitch, his eyes sparkling with triumph as he takes another slow bite of his apple.

The library is relatively quiet for a Wednesday afternoon, save for the hum of the fans and the distant, collective despair of students. You're sitting three rows down from Jungkook's self-proclaimed "focus zone" in the back of the library, nursing a far superior vantage point.

You’ve spent the last twenty minutes watching him. More specifically, watching his ridiculously expensive fountain pens. He treats those pens like they’re his newborn children, or artefacts that belong in the Louvre. He polishes the caps on his sleeve; he aligns them perfectly parallel to his notebook; he caps them with intense reverence that makes you want to roll your eyes into the back of your skull. It’s embarrassing.

But when Jungkook stands up, stretching his arms over his head and tosses his phone onto the table with a quiet, "Watch my stuff, I’m grabbing a book," you strike.

You should be taking the moral high ground. You should be revising your notes like a mature, functional adult who cares about her degree. But as you watch him disappear into the dark maze of the library, leaving those ridiculous, absurdly overpriced fountain pens completely unguarded, you think to yourself: You can't let this golden opportunity go.

The second he disappears into the stacks, you casually stroll past his table. Lucky for you, his bodyguards are compromised. Namjoon is so deep in a 600-page book on political philosophy that he has pretty much dissociated from reality, and Taehyung is fast asleep with his cheek pressed so hard against a binder that he's practically becoming one with it.

In one swift, practised motion, you glide past their table, swipe all three fountain pens off the smooth wood, and retreat back to your desk. Within four seconds flat, you twist your hair up into a bun and stick one of his precious pens straight through the centre to lock it in place. The other two drop safely into the abyss of your bag.

Five minutes later, Jungkook returns.

He sits down, plugs in his laptop charger, and reaches out to grab a pen.

His hand hits bare wood.

He stops. He looks down. He frowns.

Then, the frantic shuffling begins. He lifts his notebook. He checks under his laptop. He picks up his pencil case and shakes it like they're going to magically materialise out of thin air.

"What on earth are you doing?" Taehyung groans, waking up with a red crease down the side of his face. "You're shaking the whole table, man."

"My pens," Jungkook mutters, his voice rising as he flips through his entire backpack. "They're gone. Tae, where are my pens?"

Namjoon doesn't even lift his head from his book, flipping a page with excruciating slowness, trying to savour each and every word. "You probably dropped them. Check the floor."

"I didn't drop them!" Jungkook snaps under his breath, practically dropping to his knees and crawling under the table like a madman. His hands sweep across the industrial carpet. "I put them right here! I always put them right here!"

He pops back up, breathing through his nose, scanning the study area like a damn detective. His eyes sweep across the rows of desks—and freeze directly on you.

You are, at this exact moment, the absolute picture of a diligent, saintly student. Highlighters capped and aligned, cheek resting elegantly on your hand, frowning down at your reading as if you're single-handedly solving world hunger through epistemology.

Jungkook narrows his eyes. He pushes off his desk and starts walking over, his heavy footsteps practically burning holes into the carpet. He stops right in front of your desk, shadow falling completely over your open textbook as he leans down into your personal space.

"Where are they?" he whispers sharply.

You slowly look up, blinking with pure, unbothered innocence. You even take a second to tilt your head in quiet concern. "Where are what, Jungkook? Your manners? Because, honestly, you should really stop invading my space; it's getting weird."

"My pens," he says, leaning closer, his dark eyes searching your face for the slightest crack in your mask. "I know you took them. Don't play dumb with me."

"I have literally no idea what you're talking about," you say sweetly, resting your cheek back in your hand. "Did you lose them? Maybe you left them in the Seminar Room yesterday. You were pretty distracted being an absolute pain in my ass."

Jungkook opens his mouth to fire back—and then his eyes track upward.

Right to the top of your head.

Sticking prominently out of your bun, holding its entire structural integrity together, is a sleek, unmistakable pen with a shiny silver clip.

Jungkook stares at it. He blinks once. Twice. The sight takes his breath away. He slowly raises a finger and points right at your scalp. "It's literally in your hair," he says, his voice taking on an accusatory pitch. "You stole my pens and turned them into... hair accessories? What kind of monster are you?"

You don't even flinch. You simply reach up, gently patting the left side of your head—nowhere near the pen—and look him dead in the eye. "I don't know what to tell you, Jungkook. It's just a hair stick."

"It's a fountain pen. My pen.."

"It's a modern, minimalist hair stick," you correct him smoothly, turning a page of your textbook with a crisp snap. "It's trendy. You wouldn't get it."

"It has a metal clip on it!"

"A clip for extra grip," you say flatly. "It's perfect."

Jungkook begins flailing his arms in tiny, muffled gestures of pure frustration, his voice rising into a frantic whisper. "It literally says Kaweco on the side!"

"Wow, what a coincidence." You pick up a yellow highlighter and tap it rhythmically against your notebook. "Now, if you don't mind, some of us actually came here to study. Unless you have any physical evidence that I stole your precious little toys?"

"Physical evidence?!" Jungkook splutters, throwing his hands up. "It’s literally staring me in the face! It is protruding from your skull like an antenna right now!"

You look back at his angry, flushed face and blink with confusion. "I don't know what you mean. Sounds like a hallucination. Are you sleep-deprived? Have you been drinking the canteen coffee again?"

Jungkook lets out a disbelieving laugh, shaking his head as he hovers over your desk, his eyes sparkling with a look that promises warfare. "You are going to pay for this," he whispers.

"Whatever you say," you smile, not looking up.

The following morning, revenge arrives in the form of an automated system notification sent straight to your university email at 8:02 AM.

You sit down at a sticky wooden table in the student union café, feeling a deeply satisfying sense of smug accomplishment. You’re nursing a hazelnut latte that you managed to snag a coupon for at the beginning of the year, and thoroughly enjoying the mental image of Jungkook desperately hunting through his room for Kaweco pens—which are currently hidden at the absolute bottom of your sock drawer under a layer of tights.

"I'm telling you, if we don't start drafting the outline today, we’re fucked," Yeji sighs, violently shaking a packet of sugar into her mug until the paper tears and sprays granules across the table. "Hey, did the updated groups drop yet? Check the student portal."

"Oh god, please tell me they didn't change," you beg, pulling out your phone and taking a victorious sip of your coffee. "I’ve had Gable since September. He’s an actual saint. The guy lets us bring tea and cookies class, and I'm pretty sure his criterion for essays is just vibes."

"He really is an angel," Isla agrees through a mouthful of blueberry muffin. "He gave me an A-minus on an essay last year where I quoted a Whitney Houston song in the footnotes."

"Exactly," you smile, tapping open the portal app. "He's the best thing that’s ever happened to my GPA."

You hit refresh. The screen flickers with a soft white flash. You glance at it. You blink.

The bold text listed under Assigned Academic Supervisor & Discussion Group Leader does not say Dr Arthur Gable.

It reads: Dr Clarke Moore.

The coffee in your mouth instantly turns to ash.

Moore. The legendary dragon of the department. A man who looks at undergrads with the deep, abiding disappointment of a father who just found out his child dropped out of high school to pursue mime artistry. He is the human equivalent of a papercut soaked in lemon juice, a professor whose grading rubric ranges from Disgraceful to Barely Acceptable, who views student tears as a vital dietary nutrient, and who routinely assigns sixty pages of original German texts over long weekends just to test your will to live. Transferring into his group isn't an academic reassignment; it is a fast-track passport to a purgatory of crimson red ink, broken dreams, and ruined sleep schedules.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!" you roar.

You slam both palms onto the laminate table so hard that Yeji’s mug jumps two inches to the left, splashing coffee over her sleeve. A nearby table of hungover students flinches in unison, staring at you in horror.

"Jesus Christ on a bicycle!" Yeji gasps, clutching her chest as more sugar from the packet she’s holding spills everywhere. "What happened?! Did the university go bankrupt? Did they revoke our loans? Why are you looking at your phone like it just threatened your bloodline?!"

"Did they cancel the Friday night drink specials?!" Isla asks, dropping her muffin and clutching her heart with genuine panic.

"No," you wheeze, your chest heaving with murderous, incandescent rage as your thumb frantically taps the screen to open the transfer audit history. "Worse. So much worse. Look at this. Look at what some ungodly creature has done to my life."

Yeji leans over the table, squinting through the steam of her coffee. "Professor Moore? Wait... why on earth would you voluntarily swap out of Gable's cosy group for The Guillotine? Are you performing some kind of twisted academic self-flagellation? Oh my god, are you moonlighting as a masochist?"

"I didn't!" you snarl, still scrolling your phone to get to the bottom of this. Your eyes fly to the automated admin audit log stamped at the bottom of the portal page in tiny, cold grey font:

System Audit Log: Discussion Group Transfer Request submitted via Student Self-Service Portal. Location: Humanities Library — Terminal 4 Timestamp: Wednesday, 16:15 PM

Wednesday. 16:15 PM.

Humanities Library.

Directly across from your study table.

The exact ten-minute window when you stepped away to use the printer--actually, it was more like twenty because the library’s prehistoric printer demanded a manual feed, decided to take five minutes per page just to think about its life choices, before giving you warm blank sheets like a pathetic participation trophy, swallowing your last two printing credits.

The blood in your veins instantly turns hot. The audacity. He didn't just counter-attack with a childish prank; he committed actual administrative fraud. He used your unsecured portal session to forge an official tutor transfer request, signing you over to the most brutal professor in the entire building.

"That miserable, conniving, low-life, demonic son of a..." you mutter, your voice dropping into a register that makes Isla slowly pull her muffin away from you.

"Who?" Isla asks, looking back and forth between you and the screen in total bewilderment. "Who forged your portal? Is this an IT glitch?"

You don't answer. You can't. Because at this exact, cosmic second, the heavy glass doors of the student union swing open.

In walks Jeon Jungkook, naturally.

He looks infuriatingly, outrageously handsome in an oversized grey sweater, matching sweats, a half-empty backpack slung lazily over one broad shoulder, holding an iced latte in his hand. He’s chatting with Namjoon, laughing at something, looking entirely unbothered. He looks like he just stepped out of a university recruitment brochure. And you hate it.

You stand up so fast that your chair screeches against the floor, tipping backwards and hitting the ground with a deafening CRASH. Across the crowded, sunlit café, as if feeling the blistering heat of your gaze slicing through the room, Jungkook slowly turns his head.

His eyes lock onto yours.

Yeji and Isla look from your white-knuckled fists over to Jungkook, the sudden silence at your table stretching so thin you could slice it with a butter knife.

"Oh God," Yeji whispers, placing her head directly in her hands. "Not again."

You glare across the room at him with enough concentrated hatred to reanimate an entire graveyard, your jaw clenched so tight your teeth ache, silently mouthing through the air: You are going to burn in hell for this.

Jungkook doesn't laugh. He doesn't pull a childish face. He doesn't panic or look away.

Instead, he stops dead in his tracks. He takes a slow, deliberate sip of his iced coffee through the straw, his eyes never leaving yours. Then, slowly, the right corner of his mouth twitches upward, curling into the subtlest, smallest, most maddeningly smug micro-smile in human history.

He gives you a single, barely perceptible nod of acknowledgement—a silent checkmate—turns back to Namjoon, and casually strolls away, leaving you standing in the middle of the café with an overturned chair, a ruined timetable, and a war that has officially gone nuclear.

Friday morning in Professor Wilde's auditorium is less like an academic lecture and more like a public execution.

The atmosphere in the room is suffocatingly tense as students clutch their notes like holy relics and silently re-evaluate every decision that led them to this moment. Today is the individual presentation day for your jurisprudence class—forty per cent of the grade, delivered directly to a woman who marks down points for improper posture. She would be a great match for Moore.

And naturally, you’ve spent the entire ten minutes before class waiting, waiting to orchestrate a masterpiece of sabotage.

You watch from your desk as Jungkook prepares his materials at the side of the room. True to his insufferable nature, he hasn’t just brought notes; he has crafted a stack of precisely twenty pastel-blue index cards, bound by a neat metal ring, typed in 10-point Times New Roman, and colour-coded just for the fun of it.

When Professor Wilde turns her back to fiddle with the projector screen, and Jungkook steps over a few aisles to answer a question from another terrified classmate, you strike again.

You slip out of your chair, sneak past his desk, and sweep the cards off his table, dropping them straight into your jacket pocket. You retreat so fast and so smooth that Yeji beside you doesn't even notice—until you pat your heavy, bulging pocket and offer her a triumphant wink. Which she returns with confusion.

"Alright," Wilde's dry voice cuts through the room. "First up. Mr Jeon. The floor is yours."

Jungkook turns around, smooths down his tee and steps towards his desk to grab his cards.

He stops. He looks at the clear surface. He checks under his notebook. He checks his back pocket.

Beside you, Yeji looks at your pocket, then at Jungkook, and lets out a tiny, high-pitched squeak of terror. "Tell me you didn't," she whispers, ducking behind her notebook.

You just smile innocently into your lap.

Jungkook takes a slow, deep breath through his nose. A tiny, dangerous muscle twitches in his jaw.

He knows. He knows instantly.

For two seconds, you wait in silence. You think he’s going to call you out in front of Wilde. For a moment, you almost rethink your actions. Instead, Jungkook’s expression hardens into focus. He pulls his hands out of his pockets, turns toward the front of the room, and steps up to the podium completely empty-handed.

"Whenever you're ready, Mr Jeon," The Professor says, pen hovering over her marking sheet.

Slowly, his eyes scan the room, skipping past twenty nervous faces until they lock onto you with absolute, razor-sharp certainty.

Jungkook doesn't look at the screen. He doesn't look at Wilde. He doesn't look at the floor. They don't move.

"John Austin’s Command Theory of Law posits that legal systems are fundamentally nothing more than commands issued by a sovereign, backed by the threat of sanction," Jungkook begins. His voice is smooth, deep, and commanding, carrying effortlessly to the back corners of the room. "A framework that essentially reduces the rule of law to the order of a gunman situation writ large."

He begins to speak. And he doesn't stop. What follows is not a clumsy, stumbling attempt to remember notes. It is a display of nothing but academic brilliance. He quotes passages verbatim. He breaks down three complex counter-arguments off the top of his head. He navigates dense theoretical concepts with the casual grace of a master pianist playing a piece he’s known since childhood.

"However, where Austin's legal positivist stance fails is in assuming that compliance is driven purely by fear of penalty," Jungkook continues. "Hart correctly counter-argues that a functioning legal order requires an internal point of view. An acceptance of primary and secondary rules. Take, for instance, a scenario where an opposing actor attempts to subvert the rules through illicit, unauthorised interference—what Hart might describe as operating recklessly within the penumbra of doubt."

A few students in the front row audibly gasp, leaning forward in their seats.

"Is he... is he reciting entirely off the top of his head?" Isla whispers frantically from two desks over, her jaw practically resting on her wooden table.

And the entire time, he does not break eye contact with you. Not once.

Jungkook doesn't pause. He talks like he’s reading off a teleprompter written on your forehead.

It is utterly terrifying, and in a way (which you swear you will never admit aloud) hypnotic. But despite his smooth cadence, his eyes bleed nothing but promises of absolute retribution. Every emphasised point feels like a personal threat. Every sharp intellectual conclusion is thrown directly into your face like a challenge.

By minute six of his speech, the room is dead silent. Nobody is breathing. Tae has his phone out, secretly filming from behind his pencil case with his mouth hanging wide open. Namjoon is nodding slowly, captivated.

And then there's Professor Wilde. A woman who you're pretty sure hasn't smiled since 1998 has completely stopped writing. She's lowered her pen, pushed her glasses up her nose, leaning forward on both elbows, staring at Jungkook with something bordering on actual respect.

Meanwhile, you are sitting in your chair, slowly incinerating from the inside out.

The stolen index cards in your pocket feel like twenty bricks of pure shame. Your teeth are grinding together so hard your jaw aches. You didn't strip him of his leverage—you gave him a goddamn stage to pull off the most legendary, disgustingly impressive academic flex in the history of the department.

"And so," Jungkook concludes, "we find that attempting a bad-faith challenge against established legal authority, without evaluating the raw capability of your opponent, is not just a tactical error. It is a pathetic, unenforceable failure."

Silence hangs in the air for three excruciating seconds. Then, Professor Wilde slowly begins to clap.

"Incredible," she says, her voice carrying genuine awe. "Twenty-two years I have taught Jurisprudence, Mr Jeon, and that was—without hyperbole—the most masterly, articulate deconstruction I have ever witnessed. No notes. No stumbles. Absolutely stellar work. Grade A."

A wave of hushed, excited whispers bursts out across the room.

"Unbelievable," Yeji mutters, staring at him. "He's actually not human."

Jungkook bows his head slightly towards Wilde. "Thank you, Professor."

Then, he turns to walk back to his seat.

As he passes your desk, the cold intensity vanishes instantly. Instead, a victorious smile crosses his face, eyes sparkling in amusement. He brushes his hair back with one hand but doesn't say a word. His expression, however, spells out: Nice try, sweetheart.

You sit frozen, your hands clenching into fists under the desk, your blood boiling so hot you feel like you're about to spontaneously combust right there on the spot.

You are so unbelievably pissed off.

You glare at the back of his neck as he sits down, silently swearing on your life, your degree, and your ancestors that you will make Jeon Jungkook suffer if it is the last thing you ever do.

The campus café queue moves at a crawl, but your victory makes the wait feel glorious. The mid-term grades dropped around twenty minutes ago, and you beat Jeon Jungkook by a glorious, beautiful, magnificent, life-affirming two whole points.

Now you are standing in the queue, practically glowing. When you reach the front with a skip in your step, you look the exhausted student barista directly in the eyes with the saintly smile of a conqueror.

"Hello, what a lovely day it is today! Could I please get a triple-shot iced oat milk latte, decaf?" you say, reciting the order from memory. "Oh, and one pump of vanilla, but light ice, and could you make sure the shots are pulled over the ice, so it doesn't curdle the milk, thanks."

The barista blinks, her marker hovering over a plastic cup. "Got it. Name?"

"Jeon Jungkook, Defeated by Two Per cent."

"Wait... the whole thing? Or...?" she asks, frowning.

"Just write it down, please. It's a matter of academic integrity."

Five minutes later, Jungkook strolls into the building, looking like a high-fashion advert in his oversized dark coat, clearly in need of his afternoon fix. You're leaning against the pickup counter, casually sipping your tea, which you got as a buy-one-get-one-free deal, as the barista clears her throat and yells.

"Triple-shot iced oat latte for a… Jeon Jungkook, Defeated by Two Per cent?"

The ambient chatter of around forty students dies down slightly. A few people you recognise from your department turn around, snickering. Jungkook freezes mid-step near the napkin station. His jaw tightens, a muscle in his cheek twitching before his gaze fixes onto yours across the room.

You raise your cup in a silent, glowing toast.

With slow steps, as if the guy is being dragged to his demise, Jungkook walks up to the counter and grabs the cup, keeping his eyes on you. "You are deeply, like unhinged-level petty," he mutters, stepping so close into your space that you pick up on the cool scent of autumn air clinging to his jacket.

"I'm a winner," you correct smoothly, walking side-by-side with him out into the courtyard. "How does second place taste, Jeon? Rich? Creamy? A little nutty?"

Jungkook takes a long, aggressive sip. He pauses. His eyebrows knit together, and he pulls the cup away to glare at the pale brown liquid. "Why is this sweet? And why doesn't it taste like espresso?"

"Oh my days," you gasp, putting a hand over your heart in mock horror. "Did I forget to mention? I had them swap the triple shot for decaf."

Jungkook stops dead on the cobblestone path. He stares at the cup in his hand as if it contains active radiation, then looks up at you. "My Metaphysics presentation is in twenty minutes. It is three hours long, and you gave me decaf?!"

"Consider it a lesson in procedural justice," you beam, stepping past him. "Enjoy your nap, 2 per cent."

Jungkook stops dead, staring at the cup in horror before looking back at you, promising swift, merciless retribution. "You are an actual monster."

"I am going to destroy you," he claims, his voice low, raspy, and dangerously quiet behind you. "I'm going to make you rue the day you ever learned how to read."

"Give them back, Jeon."

You’ve backed him into the narrow, dimly lit alcove behind the library archives—a quiet corner hidden between two towering walls of dusty nineteenth-century legal journals.

Jungkook leans his back casually against the bookshelf, tucking his hands into his pockets. He looks down at you, his dark hair falling messily across his forehead.

"Give what back?" he asks smoothly, tilting his head. "My pens? Because I’m pretty sure those are currently taken hostage by you."

"My cards," you hiss, stepping closer until your shoe practically touches his sneaker. "I know you have them. Hand them over."

"Why?" Jungkook chuckles, a low, rumbling sound in his chest. "Planning on eating them to absorb the theory through osmosis? Besides, you took mine; I'm only returning the favour."

"I took them because you're an asshole, and then you committed administrative fraud, signing me up for Professor Moore's execution squad!"

"And I signed you up for Moore because you stole my Kawecos!" he counters, leaning down so his face is suddenly inches from yours, his eyes flashing with sharp, dangerous amusement. "You started this war, sweetheart."

"And I will end it," you snap, poking a sharp finger directly into the centre of his chest.

Jungkook doesn't flinch. Instead, he catches your wrist in one quick, effortless motion, holding your hand flat against his chest. You can feel the solid, steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath his sweater.

"Is that a promise?" he whispers softly.

The quip you had on your tongue dies instantly in your throat.

Neither of you moves. The pettiness evaporates, leaving a heavy silence in its place. The hum of the library fades into background noise.

You look up at him. His eyes drop from yours, trailing down to your mouth before flickering back up, darker now, the smugness vanishing into something thick and molten. He steps forward, his chest brushing yours.

The heat radiating off him is thick. Your breath hitches, your pulse spiking in betrayal against your ribs as the sudden urge to grab his collar and pull him down pulls at your chest.

It’s the exact same look he gave you seven months ago.

It’s almost the end of finals, the weekend before the end of the year, and the entire Philosophy department is operating on seventy-two straight hours of sleep deprivation, cold cans of energy drinks, and spite.

Your brain feels like complete mush by the end of it, but to celebrate the almost-survival of the brutal exams, someone in the year above has organised an off-campus house party in some drafty, Victorian rental ten streets away from campus. The air smells of cheap tequila, stale beer, and collective academic burnout.

You’re leaning against the peeling floral wallpaper of the cramped upstairs hallway, nursing a red plastic cup filled with four fingers of spirits that taste like actual industrial cleaner.

Then, he appears.

Jungkook stumbles out of the overcrowded bathroom, his hair ruffled, strands glued to his forehead from the humidity, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows to reveal his thick forearms, one painted in dark ink, looking just as wrecked and drained as you feel. He stops when he spots you, blinking his heavy eyelids.

"Ah, look who showed up," he mutters, leaning his shoulder against the wall opposite you. "I thought you dropped out halfway through the week."

"In your dreams, Jeon," you slur softly, your voice raspy from exhaustion. "I answered every single prompt. You looked like you were about to faint onto your desk."

"I wasn't fainting," he scoffs, stepping closer, his voice low and heavy with fatigue. "I was contemplating the futility of our degree."

"You were panicking."

"I don't panic."

"You do." You take a step toward him, pointing a shaky finger at his face. "Your jaw twitches when you get stressed. It’s twitching right now."

Jungkook lets out a soft, breathy laugh, taking a step directly into your space. He’s standing close. Too close. So close that you can practically smell the alcohol on his breath, mixed with the earthy scent of his cologne.

"Someone's been spending too much time gazing at my jaw; want a closer look?" he whispers, his eyes darkening as he tilts his head down.

"Please, you wish; I spend time evaluating my target," you counter, but the sentence lacks all its usual venom.

Jungkook notices the slight slur in your voice. "Evaluating your target, huh?" he echoes softly, taking another half-step forward until his chest is practically brushing against yours, trapping you against the peeling wallpaper. "And what's the evaluation? Am I passing?"

Jungkook stares down at you, his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths.

"You're failing," you lie, but your breath catches in your throat as his gaze drops down to your lips. "Abysmally."

"That's funny," he whispers, leaning down until his lips brush the shell of your ear, his warm breath sending a violent shudder straight down your spine. "Because I don’t see you stepping away."

"God, I hate you," you breathe. You look straight up into his heavy-lidded eyes, plastic cup slipping from your fingers and hitting the floor with a dull thud as your hands shoot out to grab the collar of his thin sweater, fingers twisting tightly into the thick cotton.

What comes next, you blame entirely on the toxic waste currently sloshing around in your system: the three back-to-back tequila shots Yeji forcefully poured down your throat the second you walked through the front door, the mysterious red cup Isla handed you straight out of a questionable punch bowl sitting in the corner of the kitchen, and the sketchy homemade brownies where you can feel the THC starting to kick in, turning your brain into warm, sluggish cotton, making your limbs feel like lead.

The second the words leave you, you pull him down and crash your mouth onto his.

It isn't gentle. It isn't sweet. It is a messy, desperate, explosive collision of years of built-up frustration, endless library glares, and raw attraction.

Jungkook lets out a surprised gasp against your lips, but all hesitation evaporates instantly. With a low groan, one arm wraps around your waist, hauling you completely off your feet and slamming your back against the wall; the scratchiness of the wallpaper grazes your shoulders, but you don't even notice it.

You kiss him with reckless desperation, taking complete control as you force his mouth open to tangle your tongue with his, tasting nothing but sharp citrus and heat. He kisses you back like he’s trying to strip you apart—relentless, heavy, and possessive. You bite his lower lip, tasting the sharp alcohol on his tongue, and he reacts by sliding his knee directly between your thighs. The firm pressure sends a white-hot shockwave straight down your spine.

His hands slide up your back, long fingers knotting deeply into your hair to tilt your head back to deepen the angle. He groans into your mouth, his body now pressing flush against yours, trapping you firmly between him and the wall. Every touch is electric. Every shift of his hips against yours sends more sparks straight to your core.

"You're out of your mind," Jungkook mutters against your lips, his voice wrecked and completely lacking its usual composure.

His bare palm then sneaks beneath the hem of your shirt, warm and slightly rough with callouses against the sensitive skin of your waist. You arch into his touch with a quiet gasp, your fingers dragging across his chest to grip his shoulders, pulling him impossibly closer until you can't tell where you end and he begins. Jungkook lets out a ragged hum at the movement, his mouth abandoning your bruised lips to trace a line of open-mouthed kisses down the side of your jaw. The kisses are soft yet deliberate, almost searching. They're devoting excruciating attention to every inch of exposed skin until his lips graze that precise spot right beneath your jawline. An involuntary whine slips from the back of your throat, which you immediately bite your lip hard to muffle. Jungkook pauses for a second, and you feel the victorious smirk against your skin.

"Found it," he murmurs against your flesh before latching back onto that exact spot, kissing it harder, nipping with just enough pressure to make your head tilt back for better access. Your knees going completely weak under his weight.

He continues to nip at your pulse point—just hard enough to force a sharp, helpless gasp hitch from your throat—before laving his tongue over the sting, making your entire body go completely rigid with a wave of pleasure.

"Jungkook—" you breathe out, the sound weak. It's embarrassing.

"What?" he rasps against your neck, his hot, heavy breath fanning over your skin. "C’mon, use your words for me," he mutters.

But you can’t. Your mind—usually so quick, so precise, always armed with a sharp rebuttal or an airtight counterargument—has completely short-circuited. Everything disappears, and all you can feel is him.

One of your hands shifts, fingers finding the hair at the nape of his neck before tugging hard, just hard enough to keep from sinking straight to the floor as another wave washes down your spine. You open your mouth to try again, desperate to summon even a fraction of your usual composure, but all that escapes is a trembling, helpless gasp that fans over his cheek. Your knees almost buckle, completely useless, saved only by the heavy line of his thigh between yours to lock you in place.

He feels the exact moment your last defence crumbles. He feels the way your chest heaves against his, the way your grip in his hair turns frantic, and a hum of satisfaction vibrates deep in his chest.

Slowly, he drags his lips up the sensitive column of your throat, stopping just beneath the turn of your jawline. He doesn't pull away—he stays impossibly close, pressing warm kisses. His hand tightens around your waist, fingers tracing hypnotic circles which leave goosebumps in their path along your skin, hauling you so flush against his chest that there isn't a single inch of space left between you.

"Where'd you go, hm?" he rumbles. His eyes gleam in the dim hall, watching the heavy-lidded daze in your eyes and the way your lips part, completely unable to form a coherent response. "Usually got an answer for everything."

He lifts his head slightly, teeth now lightly grazing the soft skin right behind your ear, his warm breath fanning across your temple before his voice drops into a low whisper.

"Going dumb for me, baby?"

His words hit you, sending liquid heat straight down to your core, and you can’t help the whimper that escapes your throat before you can catch it, letting him hear just how ruined you are. His other hand remains buried deep in the back of your hair, keeping you held exactly where he wants you as his knee pushes higher, firmer between your thighs. Every shift of his weight sends a wave of friction straight across your core, forcing your thighs to clamp around his leg in between them.

Your hands then move to scramble over his back, clutching tightly at the heavy cotton, dragging the fabric up so your fingers can press directly into the hot muscle of his lower back. He shudders against you, a groan vibrating against your skin.

His eyes are now completely pitch-black in the dim, yellowish haze of the flickering overhead light, pupils blown so wide there is barely any dark brown left. He looks utterly undone—ruined, stripped of all that unbearable academic arrogance that usually drives you up the wall.

"Tell me to stop," Jungkook mutters directly against your lips as his thumb hooks under the waistband of your jeans. "Tell me right now, sweetheart," he breathes, the words slurred and heavy against your mouth as he refuses to break the kiss, "because if you don't…"

He doesn't finish the threat. He doesn't need to. Instead, he just deepens the kiss, his teeth grazing your lower lip with urgency as his chest heaves against yours.

You answer him by reaching your hands up to frame his jaw with both hands, and drag him even closer into the filthy blur of it all.

Jungkook snaps. He lets out an almost frantic noise against your mouth, a helpless groan of total surrender.

He reaches down, his fingers giving the flesh of your upper thigh a firm squeeze before he hooks your leg up, hitching it tightly around his hip. The sudden shift in position presses his now-evident bulge flush against your core through the thick denim of his jeans, and the friction sends more sparks down your spine.

Then, the sudden, heavy roll of his hips against yours knocks the remaining breath straight out of your lungs. A gasp hitches in your throat as he does it again: slow, deliberate, and firm, grinding his weight against your core with a precision that makes your eyes roll back into yesterday.

The thickness of him pressing against you creates an unbearable friction. Every movement of his hips sends shockwave after shockwave. You can feel the slick heat building between your thighs, the embarrassing wetness soaking through your panties with every brutal roll of his hips, even more so as you move your own hips to match him. Your fingers dig frantically into the broad expanse of his shoulders, clinging to him like a lifeline as your hips continue to instinctively tilt up to meet his, desperate for more.

He feels the shift in your rhythm, feels the slick, undeniable evidence of how he’s affecting you through your clothes, and it drives him completely insane. A filthy groan tears from his throat and the grip of his hand on your upper thigh turns brutal, long fingers bruising into your skin to lock you flush against him, leaving zero space for escape.

"That's it," he rasps into your skin, his pace picking up into a steady, relentless roll that has you whimpering out loud. "Look at you... completely undone for me."

The movement is hypnotic. He drags his hips back just an inch before rolling forward again, pressing deeper into your warmth, making your toes curl inside your shoes as a tight, unbearable coil begins to twist tightly in your stomach. Your head falls back against the cool wall behind you, exposing the long, flushed line of your neck, and Jungkook immediately leans down to take full advantage—his mouth latching onto your pulse point, biting down softly before laving his tongue over the sting.

"Jungkook, please—" you sob out, the word torn from you in a broken, breathy plea.

"Please what?" he rumbles, as he hooks your leg higher, rolling his hips into you with a sharp, heavy snap that makes your entire body go rigid. "Tell me what you want. Use your words."

But you can't form a sentence. You can only tilt your head into his touch, your body arching helplessly off the wall, completely surrendered to the rhythm of his body against yours.

He backs you up so hard against the wall that a framed picture further down rattles loudly against its nail. His bare palm slips further up beneath your shirt, fingers sprawling flat across your ribcage as one of your hands traces restless circles around his back. Your other hand moves upward, tangling deeply into the soft hair at the nape of his neck. You tug firmly at the roots, and the movement draws a low, shuddering moan from deep in his chest, vibrating directly into your mouth.

Your head spins, utterly consumed by the alcohol, the THC, months of crushing academic stress, and pure desire.

His fingers finally move down to reach the button of your jeans, nudging the metal tab. His fingers pop the metal button with ease, but when his knuckles slide down to the zipper, his pace slows to an excruciating crawl. The metal teeth rasp against each other, grain by grain, as he pulls the tab down millimetre by millimetre, letting his warm knuckles graze the bare skin of your lower stomach with every fraction of an inch.

God, just get on with it, your mind screams, every single nerve ending in your body coiled so tight you’re five seconds away from a full physical shutdown. His deliberate restraint is no longer sweet—it is torture. He is unzipping your jeans with the pace of a museum curator handling a three-thousand-year-old scroll, and you are about to lose your entire mind. You don't need him to peer-review your denim. You don't want his slow perfection, nor do you need a three-stage evaluation before he makes a move. You want his hands on you. You want him fast, you want him now. You want the unbearable, throbbing ache between your thighs addressed today, preferably before you die of old age right here against the wall.

You let out a breath against his jaw, your fingers knotting tighter in his dark hair, tugging his head back just enough to silently demand he hurry the fuck up.

Jungkook’s lips twitch against your throat, fully aware of the quiet havoc he's wreaking, and he finally yields to your frustration. He pulls the zipper down the rest of the way, and without missing a beat, his hand slips beneath the undone denim, his fingers glide against the lace edge of your panties, feeling the fabric between his fingers before he sneaks past them, under the lace to meet the dampness.

You can feel the heat radiating off his digits as they make way straight for the slick, feverish wetness waiting for him. You can feel his long fingers about to press firmly against your hypersensitive core—

CREAK.

The sound of a heavy, unsteady boot stepping onto the top creaky stair shatters the hazy bubble.

"Bro... ugh... where the fuck is the bathroom?"

A slurred, loudly intrusive voice echoes down the narrow corridor. A thoroughly wasted student stumbles out from the stairwell, blinking blearily through the gloom whilst clutching a red plastic cup.

Jungkook freezes instantly. His mouth halts against yours, his entire body going rigid.

Before the guy can even process the two shapes pressed together in the shadows, you panic, shoving wildly against Jungkook's broad chest. Surprised by the sudden force, he stumbles back two full steps, his hands instinctively dropping from your waist and pants.

"Hey," the drunk guy mutters, swaying slightly as he points a lazy finger toward the end of the hall. "Is someone in there? I'm gonna throw up."

"Second door on the left," Jungkook snaps, his voice remarkably sharp despite the fact that he is breathing like he just ran a five-mile sprint, his hair completely dishevelled and his lower lip swollen and red.

"Thanks, man... appreciate it..." the guy mutters, stumbling past the two of you, completely oblivious to the radioactive levels of sexual tension vibrating in the air, and slams the bathroom door shut behind him.

Silence drops back over the hallway.

You stand there, pressed back against the peeling wallpaper, frantically tugging the hem of your shirt down, zipping up your jeans, smoothing it with trembling hands.

Across the narrow aisle, Jungkook is standing with his feet shoulder-width apart, his chest rising and falling in heavy gulps. He runs a shaky hand through his hair, pushing it off his forehead, his eyes slowly swinging back to meet yours.

The air between you is thick and loud. The memory of his hands under your shirt and his mouth hot against your neck burns on your skin like a physical mark.

You stare at each other for three endless seconds—flushed, breathless, and utterly horrified by how close you both just came to completely burning your entire dynamic to the ground.

Monday morning arrives with all the mercy of a sledgehammer to the skull.

You’re sitting in the back row of the hall, clutching an ice-cold bottle of water, trying to ignore the dull, lingering ache behind your eyes and the maddening throb of your lips from Friday night.

The heavy doors at the front of the hall swing open.

In walks Jungkook.

He looks infuriatingly put-together, his backpack slung over his broad shoulder. But as he steps into the aisle, his eyes sweep up the rising rows of seating—and lock squarely onto yours.

For three seconds, the entire room drops away.

The memory of his hands beneath your shirt, his weight pressing you against the wall, the hard ridge of his bulge against your core, and his hot fingers hovering over your core hangs suffocatingly in the air between you.

Neither of you says a word. Neither of you so much as blinks.

Slowly, carefully, Jungkook takes a sip of the coffee in his hand, his eyes never breaking yours. Then, right before he shifts his weight, he gives you a tiny, barely perceptible, solemn nod—a silent, non-verbal treaty forged in mutual, absolute panic.

This never happened.

We bury this.

We take this to our graves.

He breaks the eye contact, casually walks up the stairs, and slides into his usual seat. He leans back, stretches his long legs under the desk, and turns to glance back at you over his shoulder—flashing that familiar, infuriatingly smug smirk as if nothing had ever happened.

"Co-captains."

The man doesn't even bother looking up from his heavy oak desk. His fountain pen, which no doubt costs more money than you make in a week, scratches against a stack of administrative appeals, the scent of bitter black coffee and aged paper hanging thick in the stuffy office air.

"What?!" The word explodes out of both your mouths in perfectly synchronised outrage. You snap your heads around simultaneously to glare at each other, the temperature in the small room instantly skyrocketing.

"Professor, with all due respect," you begin, your voice dangerously tight, your knuckles turning white as you grip the edge of the armrest of your chair, "Jungkook is entirely too unreliable for a leadership position. And all his arguments rely on theatrical intimidation, aggressive posture, and ninety per cent unearned arrogance!"

"And she’s a tyrannical micromanager who will turn this into a rigid, soul-crushing dictatorship," Jungkook counters smoothly, but equally as outraged, calloused palms flat on the wood of the table. "I’d rather swallow broken glass than share a podium with someone who colour-codes her index cards by philosophical eras and hyperventilates if someone uses a split infinitive."

"First of all," you snap, swinging around to face him so fast your hair whips across your shoulder, "colour-coding index cards by era reduces retrieval time during cross-examination by a full forty per cent! It is structural efficiency—something your sad pile of scribbled-on scrap paper couldn't even dream of achieving!"

You tilt your chin up, glaring straight into his dark, stupidly smug eyes.

"And split infinitives are a lazy, uncultured blight on formal rhetoric! Just because you lack the basic discipline to avoid shoving an adverb into the middle of a perfectly good verb phrase doesn't mean the rest of us should lower our standards to accommodate you!"

"It’s modern usage," Jungkook counters without breaking a sweat, leaning down until his face is infuriatingly close to yours, his voice dripping with provocative amusement. "Language evolves. Unlike your archaic, rigid little mind."

"It's not evolution, it's laziness!"

"It's emphasis, sweetheart—"

"Enough!" The man's voice cracks across the room.

The Department Head finally caps his pen with a sharp, echoing click. He pushes his wire-rimmed reading glasses down the bridge of his nose, eyeing the two of you over the frames with the deadpan gaze of a senior academic who earns far too little to deal with your perpetual, bloodthirsty rivalry.

"I did not open this door to host its own debate," he says with nothing but apathy. "You two hold the highest advanced scores in the history of this faculty. Your individual debate records are completely unblemished, and the lower years need someone to look up to. I do not care about your personal vendettas, and I certainly do not care about infinitives," he says dryly. "The society needs structure; the lower years need mentors who actually know what they're doing. You will run the workshops together. And if I hear so much as one formal grievance, one petty noise, or one whisper of sabotage from either of you, I will personally pull you both from the roster and make you clean out the archives. Now get out."

You shiver at his words, actually shiver. Then look to Jungkook, only to find him already looking at you.

Well great.

Twenty minutes later, the heavy double doors of the lecture hall swing shut, echoing throughout the room.

You are standing behind the small wooden lectern at the front, preparing for your very first development workshop. Sitting in the first ten rows are dozens of wide-eyed lower-year students, holding their pristine spiral notebooks like shields, staring up at the two of you with a mix of intimidation and curiosity.

Besides you, Jungkook leans one long arm against the edge of the desk, completely unbothered as he flips through his printed sheets. He looks irritatingly put-together—dark sleeves rolled up to his elbows, hair pushed back off his forehead, shoulders wide. It doesn't take long to notice where half of the front row's attention is actually focused.

A small cluster of lower-year girls are barely even looking at the presentation slides on the screen. They're whispering behind raised notebooks, tracking the line of his jaw every time he tilts his head, nudging each other with not-so-subtle smirks whenever he steps an inch closer to adjust the microphone. One of them twirls a strand of hair around her finger, leaning forward on her desk to ensure she stays firmly in his line of sight.

A tightness coils right in the centre of your chest. It’s an annoying and rather pathetic sensation, which is swiftly followed by the petty urge to step slightly to the left to block their view entirely.

You choose to ignore why you are feeling this way. You will not elaborate further, certainly not. No one can make you.

Jungkook, completely oblivious to their subtle performance, doesn't glance their way once. Instead, he shifts his weight, turning his head towards you as his eyes soften instantly. "Ready when you are," he murmurs softly, stepping just a fraction closer to your side.

The lectern was clearly designed for a single speaker. Because neither you nor Jungkook is willing to yield an inch of physical territory or take a single step to the side, you are forced to stand pressed flush against each other, shoulder-to-shoulder. His broad frame completely dominates your left side, the heavy heat of his body radiating right through the dark knit fabric of his sweater, filling your senses with the sharp, familiar scent of his earthy cologne.

"Move your elbow," you whisper strongly out of the corner of your mouth, plastering a saintly smile onto your face for the benefit of the watching freshmen. "Your bicep is taking up roughly seventy per cent of the available space."

"I have wide shoulders, sweetheart—and considering how hard you're pressed against my side, I'm starting to think that you don't mind the lack of space at all," Jungkook mutters back under his breath. A little curve tugs at his lips as he stares straight ahead, his arm shifting deliberately to press even firmer against yours, radiating even more heat straight through his clothes.

Then with extreme slowness, his long fingers reach across the wooden ledge, casually nudging your neatly stacked, colour-coded index cards two inches into the dark shadow of the microphone base. "And stop clicking your pen. The spring is giving me a headache."

"I haven't clicked it once," you hiss through gritted teeth.

"You're thinking about clicking it. It's the intent that offends me."

You bring the heel of your worn-out leather boot down sharply, stomping directly on the toe of his pristine sneaker beneath the protective shadow of the lectern. Jungkook doesn't so much as flinch, but his right hand shoots out beneath the wooden ledge, and his fingers wrap firmly around your waist, pinching the sensitive skin at your hip through the fabric of your shirt.

Your breath hitches in your throat, a wave of sparks shooting down your spine.

"Do that again," he rasps under his breath, his dark eyes fixed on the back wall as if he's merely pondering some abstract philosophical truth, "and I will intentionally ruin our demonstration."

"Try it, Jeon," you whisper back, your fingers digging into the edge of the lectern so hard your nails turn pale. "I will dismantle your credibility before we even reach the Q&A, and I'll do it using your own scribbled notes."

"Is... everything okay up there, captains?" one of the first-year debaters asks nervously from the front row, his pen hovering uncertainly over his pad. "Should we... start the mock debate prompt?"

"Everything is wonderful, Mark," you beam smoothly, casting a sweet look toward the freshmen whilst your hand sneaks under the lectern ledge to slap Jungkook's wrist away from your hip. "Whenever you're ready."

"Whenever you're ready," Jungkook echoes softly, his voice dropping an octave, all raspy, dark, and dangerously low right against the shell of your ear as his thumb drags one last, slow, deliberate circle against your waist before finally releasing you.

One of the freshmen nervously stands up and reads a pre-prepared, somewhat shaky opening statement on act-utilitarianism and social policy, sitting back down with a relieved sigh; you remember the feeling.

However, the very second she sits down, the petty, childish sabotage between you and Jungkook vanishes in a single instant.

It is mesmerising and completely, utterly awe-inspiring to watch.

Without exchanging a single glance or a word of pre-session coordination, your dynamic shifts from low-level personal warfare into what can only be described as a hive-mind machine of pure intellect. Jungkook steps smoothly up to the central microphone, his deep, resonant voice cutting through the quiet room. He doesn't glance at a single note. He dissects the prompt's core premise with surgical precision, laying out three distinct logical fallacies and restructuring the entire debate framework in less than forty seconds flat.

He speaks with absolute authority, his posture commanding, his voice rich and steady. Then, he pauses. Not to check his outline, not because he ran out of breath, but because he knows, down to the exact millisecond, the moment you are going to strike.

"And as my co-captain so brilliantly demonstrated," you project effortlessly across the room, your voice carrying with absolute clarity, "their reliance on this completely collapses the very moment you introduce structural systemic biases, which naturally opens the door to Kant's categorical imperative.”

Jungkook cuts back in without any hesitation. He leans down into the microphone right beside your cheek, his voice layering over yours so closely you can feel the rumble of his chest vibrating directly through your shoulder.

The entire group of lower years sits completely frozen, their pens hanging mid-air, their jaws literally dropping.

You pass the floor back and forth like an intricate, light-speed duel. You anticipate his logic three steps before he speaks it aloud; he builds the exact, devastating structural setup for your punchlines before you've even flipped your index card. You finish each other's counterpoints seamlessly, weaving an airtight, impenetrable wall of rhetoric that leaves the entire room floating in a stunned, breathless reverie of total awe.

You hate him. He infuriates you to the very core of your being. But standing beside him, feeling the high of someone who can match your brain step for step, makes your blood sing with a wild heat that has nothing to do with academic instruction.

For a fraction of a second, you catch his eyes, which are burning down into yours, pupils blown wide with an adrenaline-fueled hunger that makes your stomach do a violent flip. He is just as thrilled as you are. He is just as breathless, pulse hammering against his throat where the collar of his sweater sits open.

When the timer rings, signalling the end of the demonstration block, the synchronicity vanishes as fast as it appeared. The freshmen erupt into frantic, admiring murmurs, leaning over to whisper to each other about how insane the two of you are together. Jungkook steps back immediately, gathering his scattered papers off the lectern, dropping his voice so low that only you can hear it beneath the rustle of the students taking frantic notes.

"Your transition into the Kantian framework was sloppy," he mutters, his breath warm against your temple. "You rushed the secondary premise."

"Your setup took five seconds too long," you whisper right back, leaning directly into his personal space to glare up at his smug, infuriatingly perfect stupid face. "We would have stunned them thirty seconds faster if you didn't love the sound of your own voice so much."

Jungkook leans down, his lips practically grazing the shell of your ear as he reaches past your waist to grab his pen from the ledge.

"Admit it, sweetheart," he rasps softly, his dark voice thick with a dangerous warmth that feels entirely too familiar, one that makes your knees feel entirely too soft. "You love the sound of it too."

Amidst the squabbles, the sabotages, and the relentless pettiness, there are rare, fragile hours when an unspoken truce settles over the two of you.

It usually happens around 2:00 AM in the library halls, when the rain beats a relentless rhythm against the panes and the rest of the university is asleep. The insults, the quips, all of it dissolves under the weight of mutual exhaustion. The childish pranks fade into the background, replaced by a quiet that neither of you dares to speak about.

In these hours, you don't swap his triple-shot espresso for decaf. He doesn't mock your citation formatting or scribble condescending red ink over your outlines.

Instead, when the bitter draft from the god-knows-how-old library windows seeps through your clothes and makes your shoulders hunch, Jungkook notices immediately. Without looking up from his screen or pausing his furious typing, he reaches into his backpack, pulls out his thick oveersized hoodie, and blindly tosses it directly into your lap. You don't argue or accuse him of treating you like a charity case. You just quietly slip your arms into the ridiculously long sleeves, wrapping it tight around your shoulders and burying your nose in the soft collar—breathing in the quiet, intoxicating mix of wood and earth that clings to it. You also pretend not to see the tiny curve that tugs at the corner of his lips when you pull it close.

And when his posture finally slumps from typing six thousand words on epistemology, he lets out a long, weighted sigh. Slowly, he leans sideways until his head rests heavily against the curve of your shoulder. His dark hair—unruly from the number of times he runs his fingers through it when proofreading—tickles the sensitive skin of your neck, his warm breath fanning against your collarbone in a slow rhythm as he closes his eyes for a momentary rest. You don't shove him away or make a comment about personal space. You simply tilt your head just enough to let him settle comfortably, shifting your weight to bear his load whilst continuing to type out your footnotes with one hand, your arm pressed flush and warm against his.

Or when you reach for your empty mug, your fingers grasping air as he takes it from the desk before your hand can even drop back down. He doesn't say a word when he walks down two flights of dark stairs to fetch fresh boiling water, returning to set it back on your desk alongside a fresh tea bag—the exact blend he knows you prefer—and a bar of dark chocolate, carefully snapped in two with the noticeably larger half nudged toward your keyboard. You split your remaining pastel highlighters down the middle, sharing the wooden desk in a perfectly orchestrated dance of turning pages, soft mechanical key clicks, and warmth.

There are no arrogant smirks. No dangerous, heavy-lidded glares that threaten to burn down the room. Just two stubborn people who understand the exact weight of each other’s ambition, sharing the quiet darkness of the night.

But every so often, when he thinks you're too absorbed in your notes to notice, his eyes linger on your face, a soft warmth breaking through his usual guarded expression.

So, for the unlit hours, the perpetual nuclear war cools. You exist in a fragile pocket—right up until the first pale pink rays of dawn hit the glass, the morning library rush begins, and he rubs his eyes, looks at your screen, and dryly asks if you wrote your conclusion with your eyes closed, reigniting the fire all over again.

The light above the kitchen doorway hums with a sickly flicker, casting tired shadows across the diner floor. Lucas unties his grease-stained apron, tossing it onto the counter with a heavy sigh. "That's me done," he says, checking the clock on the wall—3:45 AM. "You got the last half hour, right? Just wipe down the back tables, lock the register, and pull the blinds."

"Yeah, yeah, I've got it," you say, forcing your voice to sound steady despite the hollow ache in your lower back. "Get some sleep, Lucas."

"You too. You look like a ghost." He waves a hand over his shoulder and pushes through the back door into the cool night, leaving you alone in the silent diner.

Thirty minutes. Just thirty more minutes until you can close up and collapse.

You hate the night shifts. Nights should be fun; they should be relaxing; they should be soft and forgiving. They should belong to low laughter in warm rooms and heavy, restful sleep under thick blankets, wrapping around you after a long day. But it appears the universe is actively working against you, and the desperate need to pick up extra shifts means you don't get a choice in sacrificing the dark just to stay afloat.

The diner at this time in the morning is a lonely, neon-lit graveyard of grease and faded laminate. The air hangs thick with the burnt tang of stale coffee, old fryer oil, and diluted bleach. Overhead, the long fluorescent tubes above the pastry display hum a relentless buzz that vibrates straight into your temples, flickering every few seconds like a failing pulse. Faded red vinyl booths, cracked along the seams to expose yellowing foam, line the fogged front windows, whilst the floor bears dull, scuffed scars.

You wring out your rag over a plastic bucket, the lukewarm water turning a murky grey, before sweeping it in circles across the sticky counter.

The brassy chime cuts through the quiet as the door swings open, bringing with it a violent gust of freezing night air that smells of wet asphalt and regret. The icy draft sweeps across the floor, whipping around your bare ankles and making you shiver straight through your thin tee and damp apron.

Then come the footsteps.

Heavy, wet squeaks of rubber soles drag across the tiles as the customer moves toward the register with a slowness that feels extremely targeted, taking an eternity just to cover the ten feet between the door and the counter.

"I want the pancake special," the guy says, staring blankly at the illuminated board above your head.

"We stop serving hot items at three in the morning, sir," you explain flatly, keeping your hands clasped tightly over your damp rag. "I can get you cold sandwiches, pastries, or coffee."

He blinks slowly, digesting the information like a dial-up modem trying to load a basic web page.

"Okay, but I want the pancakes with bacon."

You take a deep, shaky breath, pressing your thumbs into the sides of your fingers. "Sir, the griddle is off for the night. The kitchen staff left. I cannot cook pancakes and bacon."

He frowns, his forehead crinkling in condescending confusion. He looks at you with pity, as if you're the uneducated idiot in this transaction.

"So... just turn it back on?" he asks, leaning over the counter and tapping a thick, dirty finger against the glass display case. "It’s a stove, isn't it? You turn the knob, flame goes on, batter goes down. And it takes like two minutes to fry an egg, right? Just give me the pancake special with extra syrup. I'm not asking for much."

"I am not authorised to use it. The staff have left. The kitchen is closed," you say, voice dropping an octave as your jaw locks tight.

"Look, sweetheart, it really isn't that complicated," he snorts, letting out a wet, raspy laugh that smells faintly of stale malt liquor. "I'm the customer. You're the worker. The sign right up there says Pancake Special. It doesn't say Pancake Special Except If the Girl Working Doesn't Feel Like Turning On The Stove. If you don't know how to make them, I can come behind the counter and show you. It's just flour and eggs."

A dull, throbbing pulse pounds behind your temples, radiating straight down into your neck.

You are a philosophy student at the top of your year. You spent four hours yesterday dissecting complex epistemological frameworks and Kantian ethics, and right now, you are being patronised by a man who looks like he would lose a battle of wits against a loaf of bread. Internally, you want to grab the heavy stainless-steel napkin holder and bash your forehead repeatedly against the edge until you pass out cold.

He points up at the glowing menu board again, puffing out his chest. "See? It's right there. Seven ninety-nine. Are you telling me you're refusing to take my money?"

"The. Kitchen. Is. Closed," you say, each word enunciated with the restraint of a saint holding back a nuclear strike. "Coffee. Or cold sandwich."

He stares at you for three excruciatingly long seconds before squinting back up at the board.

"Fine," he sighs loudly, rolling his eyes as if he's making a heroic compromise. He scoffs, grumbling about terrible customer service before buying a stale blueberry muffin, and finally stumbling back out into the night.

You drop your head, closing your eyes for five glorious seconds—until your phone vibrates violently against your thigh.

Your mother.

You step into the narrow hallway near the restrooms to take it, your heart instantly plummeting into your stomach.

"He did it again," her voice comes through the speaker—fragile, breathless, and weeping softly. "Your father took the rent money to the parlour last night. He swore he’d double it, but... the landlord gave us forty-eight hours, sweetheart. The gas is already off. Your sister is sleeping in her winter coat."

"Mom, shh. How much?" you whisper, leaning your forehead against the damp brick wall, your chest tightening so hard you can barely draw air into your lungs.

"I swear to you, this is it. This is the absolute last time I let him do this to us," she stammers, her voice rattling through the phone speaker, breathlessly. "I mean it this time. I told him right to his face when he walked back in—I said, if you dare touch that rent money— I'm leaving you. I'm packing up the kids, I'm calling my sister, I'm done. I can't keep living like this, I told him—"

"Mom."

"—and he just sat there, acting like he didn't care, but I'm serious this time! I'm not going to let him ruin us anymore. I'm going to put my foot down, I swear to God I—"

"Mom," you cut in, your voice dropping into a flat line that completely cuts her off mid-sentence.

Silence stretches over the line. You know she’s lying. She knows she’s lying. You’ve heard this exact, tearful speech fifty times before—the empty courage, the theatrical outrage that dissolves the very second your father brings home a cheap bottle of wine or a half-hearted apology. She will never leave him. She doesn't have the guts. She’d rather watch her eldest drown under the weight of two jobs and a degree than face the terrifying reality of standing on her own two feet. It’s something that still hurts, but something you accepted long ago.

"How much?" you ask again, the words scraping out of your throat. "How much does he owe?"

She stammers out a number that makes the world turn completely grey. She apologises over and over, and over, her cowardice bleeding through every single word—too afraid to leave him, too weak to stop him, constantly leaning on her oldest child to pull the family out of the fire.

"I'll transfer what I made from tonight," your voice lacks all its usual signs of life. "And I'll send the rest of my savings. Just... buy groceries for the kids, and blankets. Please."

The second the line cuts, you open your banking app with trembling hands and wipe it out on the spot, leaving yourself with less than fifty to survive the rest of the month.

When you walk back out front, the bell chimes again.

Three men in their late thirties walk in, smelling heavily of stale bourbon, wet leather, and cheap cologne, taking over the back booth. You walk towards their table carrying a heavy glass coffee pot, your back still throbbing, but now accompanied by a sting behind your eyes.

"Hey, coffee girl," the guy on the outside of the booth drawls, his heavy-lidded gaze dragging slowly down the front of your apron. "Another refill over here. And put a little pep in your step this time, would you? You're looking real sullen."

"Right away, sir," you say, your voice completely flat as you lean over to pour the dark liquid into his mug.

As you lift the pot, his fingers shoot out, brushing deliberately across the sensitive skin of your wrist. He doesn't just touch you—he lets his fingertips trail up the inside of your forearm with a slow pressure that makes your skin itch.

A wave of nausea twists your stomach. Every single instinct you have screams at you to wrench your arm away, to slam the heavy pot down and spit in his face. But your muscles lock up, paralysed in the humiliating reality of your own helplessness.

Don't react, the other half of your mind screams, a high-pitched alarm echoing in your temples. If he complains, you lose the shift. If you lose the shift, there's no money left for rent, no heat for your siblings, nothing.

So, you swallow the bile, keep your posture rigid and expression blank as his thumb presses just a fraction too hard against your pulse point. He treats your body like public property, wrapped in the disgusting comfort of knowing he can get away with it—because he knows, and you know, that you are completely trapped.

"You know," he murmurs, leaning out into the aisle until his face is uncomfortably close to your waist, "a pretty girl like you shouldn't be slaving away in a dump like this at four in the morning. What's a sweet thing doin' working nights? Could be making way better money if you hung out with us instead."

His two buddies snicker into their paper napkins, one of them blowing a cloud of sweet-smelling vape smoke directly into your face.

In a lecture hall, you would dissect his intelligence, humiliate his lineage, and reduce him to ash in under thirty seconds flat. But as your hand trembles around the handle of the pot, you force yourself to stare at the sticky vinyl table, swallowing the lump rising in your throat.

Less than fifty.

You pull your wrist back with icy restraint. "Is there anything else I can get you, or are you ready for the check?"

"Ooh, feisty," the second guy laughs. He reaches his arm across the table, his elbow sweeping a tall glass of iced water right off the edge, intentionally, of course.

It shatters against the tile floor with a loud, violent CRASH, splashing freezing water, melting ice, and sharp glass shards all over your sneakers.

"Oops," the creep smirks, leaning over the side of the booth to look down at your feet. "Clean up on aisle four, love. Better get down on your knees and get to it; don't want anyone slippin', right?"

Your breath hitches, hot tears burning behind your eyes as your knuckles turn ghostly white around the coffee pot. You can't get fired. You can't lose this job.

You repeat those words as you bend down, picking up shards of glass. One of them nicks your finger; you don’t feel it. You don’t feel anything.

The desk between you is a bloodbath of red ink.

You slide Jungkook’s draft back to him, the paper so thoroughly covered in harsh marginal notes, circled syntax errors, and giant question marks that the original black text is barely visible.

"Did you write the third paragraph in a fever dream," you ask, leaning back in your chair, arms crossed, "or does your brain just naturally bypass all logic when you write?"

Jungkook picks up his paper with two fingers, dramatic disbelief written across his face as he scans the red sea of your corrections. "What the hell? This shit could pass as modern art now.”

"You used twenty-four adjectives in one sentence and spelt ‘existentialism’ wrong. Twice!” You move back to your laptop. “I fixed it, but try using a comma next time—it won’t hurt your ego."

Jungkook doesn't look angry. No, instead, his eyes trace slow lines across your detailed critiques; he can practically hear the thoughts behind every aggressive question mark. He leans across the table, sliding his elbows over his paper until his face is only inches from yours.

"Just admit it, you spent three hours picking apart my essay," he whispers, his heavy-lidded gaze locking onto yours, "just because you like staring at my handwriting."

"I spent three hours picking it apart because it was trash," you whisper back without flinching, though your heart betrays you.

You swallow hard, fighting the sudden heat creeping up your neck as his eyes lock onto yours. You need to keep talking. If you keep talking, he won't notice how unnaturally fast you're breathing, or how the proximity is messing with you on so many levels.

"It was—it was shit, actually," you trip over the first few syllables before forcing your rhythm back. "A total train wreck. I’ve seen better analyses scribbled on the back of a wet coaster. Your entire second argument was just... it was wrong. Horrible. Flimsy, poorly researched, completely derivative—a literal disaster. I didn't even want to read it, okay? I only read it to prove how fundamentally broken your logic was. So don't flatter yourself."

Jungkook doesn't back off. If anything, he lets the quiet linger just long enough to let your breathy rant hang humiliatingly in the air between you.

You want to rip off the smirk that spreads across his face, dimpling his cheek in a way that makes you want to launch yourself off a cliff. He doesn't look insulted—the complete opposite, actually. He looks thoroughly pleased. Like you’re in some twisted world where he apparently gets off on you demeaning him.

"A literal disaster," he repeats softly, eyes tracing the trajectory of the flush now burning bright red all the way down your throat. "A total train wreck."

He tilts his head, eyes sparkling. Oh no. You know that look. That’s the ‘I win, and we both know it’ look.

"You stammered, by the way. Right around 'it was.' And your pulse is practically jumping out of your neck."

"It's from rage," you snap, your chest heaving as you try—and fail—to glare through the suffocating heat in your face. "Because you're insufferable."

"Right. Rage," Jungkook murmurs. His gaze drops briefly to your mouth before locking back onto your eyes, completely unbothered. He raises a hand, knuckles brushing the edge of your sweater sleeve as he shifts his weight. "Which is why you catalogued every single mistake. Which is why you spent three hours of your night staring at my name on a page instead of sleeping."

He pulls back just a fraction to give you air, though the triumph radiating off him is thick enough to choke on.

"Admit it," he whispers, leaning back against the heavy oak chair and crossing his broad arms with unbearable self-assurance. "You loved every single second of it."

It's almost midnight, and the words on the page are blurring into an unreadable smear of black ink.

You sit cross-legged on the carpeted floor of the empty student lounge, surrounded by open philosophy textbooks, annotated outlines, and highlighted notes. Your eyelids feel like lead. Every ten seconds, your head lurches downward in a sudden micro-sleep, jerking you awake with a sharp pulse of adrenaline. You rub your knuckles hard against your eyes, trying to force your brain to process a single sentence on moral duty, but your body has reached its absolute limit.

You sigh heavily, closing the book with a soft thud. "That's it," you whisper to the quiet room. "I'm calling it a night."

You push yourself up to gather your binder, but the moment your feet hit the floor, the whole world tilts.

A high-pitched static fills your ears. Cold sweat breaks out across your forehead, and your vision tunnels into pitch-black spots. Your head spins, and your knees completely buckle beneath you. You brace for the impact of the hard carpet—

Strong arms catch you mid-fall.

Before your knees can hit the floor, you feel someone haul you up against their chest, wrapping their arms firmly around your waist and back to support your dead weight. Then you smell it. Clean. Warm. Earth and wood.

Jungkook.

He lowers you gently onto the carpet, keeping his solid frame locked around yours.

"Hey—hey!" he murmurs, his typical arrogance completely vanishing. "Look at me. What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Breathe, come on."

You try to pull away, try to pull up walls and retreat. But the dam breaks completely. The pressure behind your ribs snaps, and hot tears spill over, blurring the world completely. And before you can force a breath back into your lungs, a raw sob tears out of your throat.

Your entire body shakes, all the fight draining out of you. And without a thought, you bury your face straight into the warm crook of his neck, your hands knotting into the fabric at his shoulders. It’s involuntary; it just happens. And you hate it. You hate all of it. You hate how helpless you feel, hate the desperate way you’re clinging to him, but the relief of letting go is too overwhelming; it hurts.

Jungkook doesn't pull away. He doesn't flinch, doesn't hesitate, and doesn't offer hollow words. Instead, his arms lock around you, lifting you and pulling you securely onto his lap until there isn't a single millimetre between you.

One hand glides up to cradle the back of your head; his long fingers sift through your hair, tangling the strands to press your face comfortably into the heat of his skin, just holding you. He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t need to, he knows he doesn’t need to. He simply exists; he’s there, absorbing every shuddering breath, every ragged gasp, every tear that races down your cheek.

He tucks his chin lightly against the top of your head, his other hand rubbing slow circles in the centre of your back. He doesn't ask you to stop. He doesn't tell you you're okay when you're clearly not. He simply lets you shatter against him, taking the full weight of your grief and rage without shifting an inch. For years, you’ve built your entire existence on being unbreakable, on standing tall and biting your tongue until your mouth tasted like copper—but right here, wrapped in his warmth, the exhaustion of holding yourself together catches up to you all at once.

And for the first time, you just let yourself fall apart.

You don’t know how long you stay like that; time doesn’t even feel real. Seconds bleed into minutes until the quiet hum of the room settles back over you

Eventually, the violent shudders and cracks in your throat taper off into small, hitching breaths which still burn the back of your throat.

But through it all, Jungkook doesn’t move. The hand cupping the back of your head never loosens; his fingers never stop tracing shapes across your back. He simply rocks you back and forth until you feel the static in your mind slowly start to subside.

Every instinct in your body screams at you to shut your mouth—to pull away, wipe your eyes, and run out the door, never looking back. You swallow hard, jaw clenching as you try desperately to force the truth back down your throat. He’s the last person on earth who should hear this. You shouldn't be saying any of it.

"I—" Your voice breaks on the very first syllable, raw and small. You freeze. Stop talking, you tell yourself. Shut up. Don't do this.

But you can't stop. The floodgates are broken, and the exhaustion running through your veins is stronger than your pride.

The words spill out in a jagged, hesitant whisper against his skin, trembling with a shame you can't hide. You try to filter yourself, try to salvage a single shred of dignity, but it all comes tumbling out anyway. You spill the double shifts, the constant, grinding humiliation of barely keeping your head above water. Your fingers grip his shirt so tightly your knuckles turn white as you confess about your father—about him gambling away the rent money all over again—and your voice drops into an ashamed murmur as you mention your mother's hopeless cowardice.

You swallow past a fresh wave of tears, admitting everything in a broken breath. Every single word peels your skin off your own skin, but as you cling to him, you are completely powerless to hold it in any longer.

Jungkook listens in silence. He doesn't interrupt, doesn't mock you, and doesn't make a single sound.

When you finally run out of breath, he shucks off his jacket. Gently, carefully, he wraps the heavy fabric around your shoulders, pulling your arms through the sleeves and zipping it all the way up to your chin.

"Stay right here," he whispers softly, pressing a quick touch to the top of your head before stepping toward the small kitchen down the hall.

Seven minutes later, he returns carrying a ceramic mug. He crouches back down, sliding close, and gently places it into your shaking hands—spearmint and chamomile tea, a generous spoonful of honey, and a splash of almond milk, prepared exactly the way you drink it.

He sits down right beside you on the floor, pulling his knees up and pressing his shoulder flush against yours.

"Look at me," Jungkook says softly, waiting until you turn your tear-stained face toward his. There's no smugness in his gaze, only sincerity. "You are the smartest, toughest person in this entire building," he whispers, his voice thick and entirely earnest. "I mean it. I watch you in those lecture halls, and I see how your mind works, how you fight for every inch, how you refuse to back down even when the whole world is pushing against you. You're carrying an impossible weight on your shoulders, and you're doing it all to protect your family without a single complaint. You’re brave as hell, sweetheart, and you can get through anything."

You take a small, warming sip of the tea, letting the honey coat your dry throat. His words settle deep in your chest, cutting through the fog. Slowly, your breathing evens out, the warmth of his jacket wrapping around you.

You glance sideways at him through your wet eyelashes. A tiny, faint curve tugs at the corner of your mouth as you lean your head slightly toward his shoulder.

"Oh," you whisper, your voice still raspy from crying, but laced with a sudden flick of life. "So you think I'm smart? Smartest person in the building, was it?"

Jungkook freezes for a split second. A faint flush creeps up the back of his neck, and he immediately snaps his head straight ahead, staring at the blank wall as his jaw tightens.

"I said you were annoying," he mutters, pulling his shoulder back half an inch, though he doesn't actually move away from you. "You misheard because your ears are full of tears."

"No, no, I heard it clearly," you say, taking another sip of tea and letting out a satisfied sigh. "You said I was smart. And tough. And... what was the other word? Brave as hell? Should I write that down? Should I get it framed?"

"Don't let it get to your head," Jungkook grumbles, rolling his eyes so hard it's a miracle they don't roll out of his head entirely. "It was a motivational speech. I read it off a poster in the gym. I say it to myself in the mirror every morning."

"You say 'sweetheart, you're brave as hell' to yourself in the mirror every morning?"

"Shut up."

"I knew it," you murmur, a breathless little chuckle finally escaping your lips—the first real sound of relief you've made all night. "Jeon Jungkook, closet softie."

He turns his head, eyes narrowing down at you with a mock glare, though the corner of his mouth twitches violently as he tries—and completely fails—to suppress a flustered smirk. "I am not soft. I am cold-blooded and ruthless, and I happen to be stuck babysitting a stubborn philosophy major."

"A stubborn philosophy major who is currently wearing your favourite jacket." You pull the sleeves up over your knuckles, fluttering your fingers at him. "And who you just made perfect tea for."

"I made the tea out of pity so you'd stop hyperventilating into my sweater," he counters, nudging his shoulder heavily into yours. "Drink it before I take it back and drink it myself."

"You hate almond milk; you say it tastes like wet chalk and crushed dreams."

"I'll suffer through it out of pure spite."

"Admit it," you whisper, resting your temple lightly against the sturdy, warm side of his arm. "You care."

Jungkook looks down at you for a long second. The lingering flush on his cheeks softens, his heavy-lidded eyes dark and quiet in the lounge's dim light. He lets out a defeated breath, his arm shifting until it wraps comfortably back around your shoulders, anchoring you flush against his side.

"I think you're a massive pain in my ass," he whispers softly, his thumb tracing a slow circle over your shoulder through the heavy fabric. "Besides, I need you functional. Who am I supposed to gloat to about final grades if you're out here collapsing on me? So, finish your tea and put your head back on my shoulder before I revoke your hoodie privileges."

"This is mine now," you mutter, closing your eyes as the warmth finally lulls your exhausted body into safety. "You're never getting it back."

"Over my dead body," Jungkook hums, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling purr right beside your ear.

The university coffee shop is less of an establishment and more of a sound experiment in how much acoustic violence a single espresso machine can inflict, but your table in the back corner is its own disaster zone.

Isla is currently attempting to balance three dry-erase markers on her upper lip, Yeji is sneaking sweet potato fries straight off of your plate, and the table itself is buried under a landmine of half-empty paper cups, tangled charger cords, and heavy textbooks. A complete barricade against the rest of the world.

"I’m just saying," Isla muffles around the markers, her face frozen in a terrifying display of concentration, "if the university expects me to actually comprehend Heidegger at eight in the morning, they should at least hand out free espresso shots at the door. It’s basic human decency."

"You haven't even read a single page of Heidegger," Yeji says flatly, dipping a stolen fry into mayonnaise and pointing it accusingly. "You’ve been staring at Wordle for forty minutes."

"It’s about structural linguistics! It counts as revision!" Isla’s lip twitches, sending the markers tumbling into her lap with a plastic clatter. She huffs, dramatically throwing her head back. "Besides, today’s word is an absolute war crime. What five-letter word has three vowels and feels like a direct personal attack on my character? It’s rigged." She crosses her arms, sulking heavily into her chair. "And anyways, look at Y/N. She actually read the material, and she looks like she was just brought back to life by an unlicensed doctor."

"Hey!" you mutter defensively from behind your mug, though you can't really argue the point. You are buried up to your chin in an oversized, dark hoodie—one that smells so distinctly of earth and wood.

Look, it’s not like you stole it. Technically. He was the one who wrapped it around you, okay? He practically forced you into it. The fact that you walked out wearing Jeon Jungkook’s actual clothes—and haven't taken them off for twenty-four hours because the fleece feels like a warm hug—was an administrative oversight. If you admit out loud to anyone why you're really wearing it, Isla will literally broadcast your execution on social media. It’s thermal utility. Pure post-crisis survival. You are merely utilising his resources against him. It's strategy. Nothing else.

"I'm fine," you add aloud, taking a long sip to hide the sudden heat on your face. "Just tired."

"You're always tired," Yeji sighs, taking in the dark smudges beneath your eyes. "You need a miracle, sweetie. Or a massive bag of unmarked cash."

"Speaking of massive bags of cash," Isla suddenly gasps. Her eyes go wide as saucers as she taps her phone screen furiously, managing to knock over an entire container of wooden stirrers in the process and ignoring the mess completely. "Holy shit. You guys. Look at this."

"If it’s another video of a cat playing the piano—" Yeji starts.

"No, shut up, look!" Isla slams her phone straight onto the middle of your open textbook, nearly drowning your carefully highlighted notes in the melted ice from her coffee.

You lean forward, squinting at the bright digital poster pinned to the student portal. Bold, dark lettering screams across the top of the screen:

ANNUAL INTERCOLLEGIATE NATIONAL DEBATE CHAMPIONSHIP

Individual Entry. Open to all.

FIRST PLACE PRIZE: $10,000.

"Ten thousand dollars," Isla breathes. "Ten. Thousand. Dollars. Do you realise what that means? That’s like... eight hundred iced lattes. That’s those exact platform Doc Martens I’ve been staring at for six months, a vintage vinyl collection, three concert tickets, and enough takeout to never see a kitchen again. I could literally buy a small island."

Your breath hitches in your throat.

Your eyes lock onto those four digits—10,000—and the coffee shop around you instantly fades into a distant buzz. For Isla, it’s a fantasy shopping spree. For you? Ten thousand dollars isn't just an academic prize. It’s four months of rent paid before the landlord can even send a notice. It’s the electric bill cleared. It’s real food in the pantry, and your mother never having to stand in a dark hallway quietly crying into her hands whilst she works out the numbers. It’s breathing room. And it's enough to give you a little left over by the end of it.

"Individual entry," Yeji reads over your shoulder, letting out a low whistle. "Anyone can enter. But honestly, who even goes into these things? You'd have to go solo against all those insufferable debate psychos who treat public speaking like gladiatorial combat."

Isla’s eyes slowly slide from her phone screen over to you, a terrifying smirk spreading across her face. "Yeah. Total psychos... like a certain guy you’re always fighting with in the library stacks."

Your heart does continuous flips against your ribs, no respect for your attempt to remain nonchalant.

"Y/N," Isla leans clear across the table, her knuckles digging into the sticky wood. "You are hands-down the most articulate speaker in this whole useless faculty. If anyone can march into a solo tournament and snatch ten grand, it's you. Plus, imagine the look on Jungkook's face when you take the trophy right out of his hands. He'd probably cry. You have to do it."

The wager is signed at precisely nine-fifteen in the morning on a greasy paper napkin. The terms are scrawled: LOSER = SERVANT FOR THE DAY.

And for twenty glorious minutes, you actually think you have him. Your critique is solid, your arguments flow perfectly, you throw in a few passages verbatim that have half the lecture hall sitting in held silence. But your head isn't held in the clouds for long.

As you sit down, folding your arms and extremely prepared to accept your rightful crown, Jungkook steps up to the podium.

He doesn't bring a notepad, show-off. He simply rests his hands on the wood, adjusts his glasses, which you're ninety per cent sure he doesn't need and just uses to look smarter, though you believe he looks sexy stupid. And with a composure that makes you want to stab yourself with the Kaweco that rests in your hand (don't ask how, but they've rubbed off on you). He doesn't just systematically dismantle your entire thesis in eight minutes flat, no, of course not. That would be too easy. Too simple. No, of course, he has to do it in the most infuriating way possible. By citing three of Professor Jones' own published papers—from memory. It isn't just a presentation; it's a kiss-ass. A shameless display of brown-nosing.

So, it's no surprise that when Jones hands back the scores, you meet your demise.

Y/N: 93/100.

Jungkook: 97/100.

As the auditorium stands to gather their belongings, you hear a low whistle from behind you, followed by a grating voice that is full of nothing but arrogance. "Ninety-seven to ninety-three," Jungkook hums, leaning over your shoulder, insufferably smug. He twirls his pen (ones that he invoiced you for, yes, invoiced. And you sent the email to junk without a second thought. Actually no, you did think. You thought about the utter audacity of the man) across his fingers, sliding the napkin across your desk, along with the marking sheet he received with the red ink circling the clear '97'. "Take a good long look at that. Frame it. Bask in all its glory, the glory of a master at work."

"You pandered to Jones' ego!" you snap, packing your notebook so hard the zipper of your bag nearly rips. "You cited his 2018 paper just to make him blush; you basically bribed him."

"It’s called strategy, sweetheart; you're only calling it a bribe because your brain wasn't smart enough to think of it first," he corrects, and you hate how he's right, not that you'll ever admit that. "Face it: I outplayed you, I out-argued you, and now I own you until midnight. So, be a good servant, and carry my bag. Oh, and fetch me my iced coffee, but try not to lag behind your superior."

Twelve hours. You can do this. Just twelve hours.

Ten minutes later, your right shoulder is actively dislocating under the weight of his bag. You don't know what he keeps in there, but judging by the bone-crushing weight, you guess he's hauling a set of anvils. You silently pray to let one of them drop onto your head. And to make matters worse, the strap keeps sliding off the hoodie that you're zipped up in, one that smells faintly of wood and earth, which you will also not discuss why.

Jungkook, a few steps ahead of you, struts into the cafeteria like a king inspecting his domain, leading you straight towards a large circular table where a few of his friends are mid-argument over lunch.

"—if the bread covers it on three sides, it's a taco!" Taehyung is practically yelling, waving a soggy fry like a weapon.

"It’s a hot dog, you absolute barbarian!" Jimin argues back, his spoon suspended mid-air in disgust. He cuts himself off the second he spots you two approaching,

"Bow down, boys," Jungkook announces loudly, dropping onto a seat and pulling you down right beside him. "Meet my personal servant for the day."

Taehyung’s hand is still frozen as his eyes flicker between you and Jungkook, before dropping down to your outfit. He freezes. "Wait. Hold on. Why is your servant wearing your grey hoodie?"

"Wait, what—" Jimin gasps, slamming his hands onto the table so hard his apple juice wobbles. "She is! The off-limits one!"

"Ah! The sacred fleece," Hoseok glares at Jungkook in utter outrage. "The one you almost dislocated my shoulder over when I asked to borrow it for laundry day last Tuesday?!" His eyes swim with delight.

A comical wave of crimson rushes up the back of Jungkook’s neck, burning straight to the tips of his ears. "Shut up!" he snaps, snatching a fry off Taehyung's plate and chucking it straight at Hoseok's forehead. "Autumn’s a bitch this year, mind your own business!"

"And to clarify, I was academically sabotaged, not defeated," you interject smoothly, dropping Jungkook's oversized latte onto the table with a sharp clack. "Here's your coffee, master. I hope the ice gives you a severe brain freeze.

"That is no way to talk to me, servant. Don't be a sore loser now."

"You won by four points because you sucked up to Jones!"

"A win is a win. You're my slave."

"I will literally throw your heavy-ass bag into the campus pond."

"I mean, a win is a win," Jimin agrees. "Though if you're his slave for the day, Y/N, feel free to drop a heavy book on his toe. He’s been insufferable all week."

"Can you blame him?" Namjoon chuckles, setting down his book. "He spent three hours last night pacing our place, practising his opening arguments for that tournament."

You freeze. The fry halfway to your mouth stops in mid-air.

"Tournament?" you repeat slowly, turning your head to glare at Jungkook. You obviously expected him to enter, but you didn't expect him to not tell you about it. "As in... the ten-thousand-dollar national debate championship next month?"

Taehyung snorts into his napkin. "Yeah, he signed up the exact second the portal opened. He’s been obsessed. He literally—"

CLACK.

Jungkook kicks Taehyung under the table, and the guy lets out a high-pitched yelp of agony, clutching his shin whilst muttering a string of curses.

"You're entering?" you whisper, eyes narrowing into slit-thin daggers. "You didn't tell me you were entering!"

"Why would I?" Jungkook smirks, entirely unfazed, his arm casually resting over the back of your seat. "Give my opponent a head start to prepare? C'mon, we all know I'm gonna win, but feel free to keep up."

"Keep up? Keep up? I will dismantle your entire case point by point and dig you into the ground until the judges feel pity for you!"

"I'd love to see you try, sweetheart. You couldn't even beat me on a basic informal presentation today!"

As the two of you gnaw at each other's heads, a small gap between you, noses practically touching, you completely tune out the rest of the world.

Across the table, the boys lean back in their seats, entirely ignored, and begin whispering among themselves.

"Look at them," Jin murmurs under his breath, crossing his arms and leaning his chin towards Namjoon whilst watching you two bicker. "Is this a cafeteria or an audition for a tragic romance drama? I am genuinely five seconds away from throwing my soup at them."

"He’s practically breathing her air," Taehyung whispers back, leaning in close, holding his bruised shin. "I mean look at his left arm! He doesn't even realise he's doing it! He looks at her like she hung the damn moon, but he's yelling at her about Kant!"

"It’s psychological warfare," Yoongi deadpans, not even pausing his laptop typing, though his eyes dart over the top of the screen. "They have almost two collective degrees in philosophy yet zero brain cells for basic human self-awareness. It’s embarrassing to watch."

"Try living with him, Yoongi; you don't even know," Namjoon sighs, rubbing his temples at the thought of it. "Last night he literally said, 'She's going to use epistemological foundationalism against me, Namjoon, I saw it, right there, in her sneaky little eyes,' with the most smitten, pathetic smile I have ever seen on a human face. He's down so bad it's a medical anomaly."

"If they don't kiss by finals, I'm filing a formal harassment report with the university," Jin states flatly, taking a calm bite of his sandwich.

"Fifty bucks to whoever shoves their heads together right now," Hoseok adds.

"Don't do it," Yoongi warns softly. "They'd stop arguing with each other and team up to destroy your life. Have you seen them? They're lethal."

"I just don't understand how two people can be so unbelievably stupid," Taehyung whines quietly, resting his chin on his fists as he watches you aggressively poke Jungkook’s chest to emphasise your rebuttal, whilst Jungkook just stares down at your lips with a thoroughly besotted grin. "They've been doing this foreplay-by-debate routine since freshman year! Just shut up and make out already!"

"They won't, you know they won't," Namjoon mutters, shaking his head in pity. "Admitting they like each other requires acknowledging a vulnerability, and according to their mental illness, vulnerability is a concession of defeat."

"Idiots," Jimin synthesises neatly. "Absolute, intellectual idiots."

Meanwhile, back in your private war zone, you are completely oblivious to their commentary.

"I am going to obliterate you," you whisper flatly. "I’m spending the rest of my day as your slave, meticulously planning your public humiliation."

Jungkook’s smirk widens, his dark eyes sparkling with dangerous affection.

"I'd like to see you try, sweetheart," he rumbles softly, his voice dropping into that deep register that completely cuts right through your anger. "Now hush. Your master wants another drink."

By three in the afternoon, Jungkook’s interpretation of having a "servant for the day" descends into petty tyranny. You can't wait for this day to be over.

He sits regally at the centre oak table like some ancient emperor, leaning back in his wooden chair with his arms crossed over his chest, as you lug six massive, dust-covered volumes across the aisle.

"Set them down gently, servant; these are precious," he whispers loudly, pointing a single finger at the wood. "Volume four on the left. And adjust my laptop screen two degrees to the right; the lighting is offending my eyes."

"I am actively planning to slip poison into your next coffee," you hiss under your breath, dropping the heavy books onto the desk with an intentionally loud thud.

The librarian, who looks around ninety and probably gets off to the Dewey Decimal System, three rows over, shoots you a glare sharp enough to kill, but Jungkook doesn't even flinch.

"Refusal to serve with a cheerful attitude will add a further two hours to your sentence," he hums smoothly, twirling his pen between his fingers. He leans in close, lowering his voice until his lips are hovering inches from your ear. "Now open chapter twelve and find me every reference to territorial waters. Go."

You roll your eyes so hard you nearly see your own brain, but you drag a chair up beside him anyway. And for thirty long minutes, you furiously flick through dense, tiny-print pages, scribbling bullet points into the margin of his pad whilst he sits there, casually analysing the water stains on the ceiling.

Eventually, however, the weight of endless footnotes and note-taking catches up with you. Your hand cramps, your shoulders drop, and you let out a heavy, dramatic sigh before collapsing forward, resting your forehead flat against the open textbook with a muffled groan of absolute defeat.

Jungkook stops twirling his pen.

He looks sideways at you, his eyes sweeping over your slumped frame, the oversized sleeves of his fleece hoodie swallowing your hands completely. He takes in the faint smudge of ink near your cheekbone from the leaking pen, the way your hair spills in waves across the pages, and how the heavy fabric leaves you looking ridiculously small, completely stripped of all your typical academic defences. The playful arrogance vanishes from his face, replaced by a rare moment of unguarded attention.

Without saying a single word, he reaches down into his gym bag, pulls out a warm, bakery-fresh chocolatine wrapped neatly in wax paper, and slides it directly under your nose, gently nudging your cheek with the edge of the pastry.

You lift your head slowly, squinting at the package suspiciously through a mess of fallen hair. "What's this? Did you lace it with cyanide?"

"Call it an official royal decree," Jungkook mutters, turning his head to look straight at his laptop screen as a faint, telltale pink tint creeps up the back of his neck. "My servant isn't allowed to collapse from exhaustion as she is creating my research notes. It reflects poorly on my management style."

You unwrap the buttery pastry, the rich scent of warm chocolate filling the air between you. "You bought this for me at the campus café before class even started, didn't you?" A small smile tugs at your lips as you take a bite, but Jungkook just scoffs softly.

"Just shut up and eat it," he grumbles, reaching over to pull the hood of his fleece up over your head, before gently tugging the drawstrings until it frames your face like a ridiculous cocoon. "Master's orders."

By five o'clock, Jungkook's theatrical reign of terror reaches its peak in the busiest, most crowded corridor of the humanities building. He isn't just treating you like a servant—he is playing the role of a spoiled, Victorian aristocrat who has never opened a door for himself in his entire life.

"Servant," he announces loudly, stopping dead in the middle of the crowded hallway, causing three rushing freshmen to swerve aggressively to avoid crashing into his back. He gestures dramatically toward his unbuttoned coat. "My hands are full of crucial academic thoughts. Fasten my coat. The draft in this corridor is threatening my vocal cords."

"You are wearing a scarf and a thermal shirt," you whisper through gritted teeth, your face burning as several students turn to stare at you. "Button your own coat, Jeon."

"Refusal to obey," he gasps, placing a hand flat over his chest. "I am faint from the insubordination. Do I need to remind you of the napkin? The legally binding contract?"

You let out a long, suffering exhale through your nose, stepping forward to grab the edges of his coat. Because he is absurdly tall—what did his parents feed him?—you have to lean in close, your fingers brushing against his chest as you align the buttons.

Jungkook immediately leans down, resting his chin on the top of your head as you work. "You're taking too long," he murmurs right into your hair, his voice vibrating through his chest against your hands. "An efficiency rating of three out of ten. Also, grab my water bottle. The insulated one. And don't make me ask twice; my throat is absolutely parched from carrying the entire philosophy department on my back."

"I am actively calculating the legal consequences of tripping you into a recycling bin," you mutter under your breath, fishing the heavy metal flask out of his bag and shoving it into his waiting palm.

Jungkook takes a slow, dramatic sip, capping it with a sigh before handing it right back to you without breaking his stride. "Your attitude is severely lacking today. A proper servant anticipates their master's hydration needs."

"A proper master doesn't make his servant haul forty pounds of shit through a crowded corridor," you snap, shifting the crushing strap on your sore shoulder. You're still completely swaddled in his giant hoodie, sleeves pushed up to your forearms now, no doubt looking disgruntled.

Half the department is openly watching the spectacle. People are nudging each other, hiding giggles, and whispering as they recognise the campus's two most notorious rivals—specifically taking note of the fact that you are wearing his notoriously off-limits clothes whilst glaring daggers at the back of his head.

"Now take my phone, sweetheart; need you to take dictation."

"Take dictation?" you repeat, astounded. "For what?"

"My brilliant thoughts, of course," he says smoothly, pulling out his phone and tapping the voice-notes app before shoving it into your hand. "Hold this at a forty-five-degree angle toward my mouth as we walk. I'm having a sudden wave of genius."

For god-knows-how-long, you are forced to walk backwards through the crowded hallway, holding his phone up like a disgraced news reporter as Jungkook walks slowly behind you, his hands tucked casually in his pockets.

"Note for the memoirs," Jungkook dictates into the phone, his voice echoing loudly off the lockers. "Five-fifteen p.m. My servant is walking backwards with great discipline, though her glare suggests she is planning my assassination. Addendum: remind her that assassinating your master is a violation of the contract."

"I am going to throw him off the library roof," you say directly into the microphone.

"Edit that out," Jungkook tells the phone smoothly. He steps forward, closing the distance between you in one long stride, reaching out to snag the hood of his oversized hoodie and gently pulling you forwards so you stop walking backwards before you trip over a trash can.

He keeps a light grip on the back of your hoodie, his eyes sparkling with mischief; you choose to ignore the flush across your skin. "Easy there. Now, servant... bring my belongings to my car, or I'll make you tie my shoelaces in front of the entire faculty."

By seven in the evening, your shoulders are actively plotting against you, and you are currently sifting through the quickest way to meet your demise. Any rational human being would have surrendered by now, would've thrown in the white flag and performed a walk of shame away from the man in front of you. But you can't. You physically can't. There's this throbbing nerve in your brain that is reminding you, no, telling you that under no circumstances can you ever surrender to Jeon Jungkook, his ego is too big, it'd probably explode if you feed it any more satisfaction. Which is why you tell your body to suck it up and to just endure a few more hours, and by endure you mean suffer a fate worse than death.

So now, you are following him into the university centre, swallowing your pride, and throwing away all reasonable thoughts to just turn around and quit. He guides you over to the free weights section, and you drop his bag next to a bench. At the exact moment you lean back up to stand up straight, of course the bastard is shrugging off his thermals, lifting them over his head to reveal a stupidly tight white tank top. The thing looks vacuum-sealed to his body. It clings mercilessly to every single contour of his torso, accentuating every muscle and every line. It follows his shape, cinching into a waist so narrow it's clear to you that God has favourites.

Then there are his arms. ‘Stupidly large’ doesn't even begin to do them justice. His shoulders are capped with dense muscle, his biceps flexing with every minor shift of his hands. Dark ink crawls all the way from the back of his right hand, winding in a thick, continuous sleeve up his forearm, over his shoulder, and spilling across the right side of his chest, peeking out from beneath the thin strap of the tank. And to make matters infinitely worse, he is already warm, a light sheen of sweat glinting across his collarbones and throat, with patches of his tank turning translucent to expose the golden skin beneath.

Before you even have the chance to wheel it back in and have word with your mind, it already flashes back to that night—to the blur of his mouth pressed against yours. You can practically feel the ache in your palms as you remember how it caressed that exact golden skin, fingers digging helplessly into his shoulders, clinging to his back as he pulled you flush against his chest. It's infuriating, really. The absolute betrayal of your mind, and of course how your body remembers the exact weight and heat of him, something you've been trying your hardest to burn out of your mind.

It's a war crime. A hate crime. All the crimes.

But Jungkook just casually tosses the folded fabric onto the bench right beside your hand, either completely unaware—or, far more likely, completely aware—of the chaos he is causing to your blood pressure.

He turns to you, adjusting his posture into something more regal as he gestures toward the heavy dumbbell rack. "Servant," he commands, raising his voice just enough to carry over the gym's speakers. "Be a dear, and hand me my 70-pound dumbbells. Oh, and present me my water bottle between every set with a bow."

The audacity of this man. Who does he think he is?

He wants a servant? You think. Fine. You’ll give him an Oscar-winning performance.

So instead of sulking, you step up to the rack, clasping your hands dramatically over your heart.

"AS YOU WISH, MY NOBLE MASTER!" you yell at the top of your lungs, your voice echoing loudly off the concrete walls.

Four heavy-lifting guys near the hack squats instantly freeze mid-rep, their heads snapping towards you in a mixture of confusion and amusement. Two guys on the treadmills nearby actually stumble mid-stride.

Is it petty? One hundred per cent. Is that going to make you stop? After seeing the clear red crawling up his neck? No fucking way.

"What are you doing?" Jungkook whispers furiously, stepping into your space to block you from the staring crowd. "Stop shouting!"

"I am merely serving my lord with the devotion he requested!" you announce in a rather loud but monotone voice, mimicking a mindless droid. This is too good. He looks like he wants the Smith machine to fall on top of him. But no, you're not finished, not even close. You grab his bottle with two hands before sinking into a deep, absurdly theatrical curtsey right there in the middle of the gym. "Is the temperature of your water satisfactory, Sire? Shall I fan you with a towel whilst you lift, my lord? I am forever indebted to you and only you; whatever my master requires, he shall receive!" Your voice doesn't waver or falter, not one bit. If anything, it increases in volume but maintains that monotony.

"Y/N, I swear to God, shut up, or I'm gonna have you committed!" he grumbles, his face burning bright red as a pair of powerlifters snicker into their towels. He snatches the bottle out of your hand, completely abandoning his composure. "You're doing this on purpose!"

"I am merely executing my contractual duties," you say sweetly, crossing your hands inside his oversized hoodie sleeves. He sighs, clearly not wanting to admit defeat as well.

"Get over here and spot me then," he snaps, stepping over to the incline bench and grabbing a pair of heavy dumbbells. "And don't yell."

You step behind the head of the bench, placing your hands just beneath his elbows. You remind yourself that you are a scholar, an academic, a woman of cold, rational logic. But as you look down from this angle—at the sharp contour of his jawline, the veins pulsing in his neck, the ones wrapping around his forearms, the bulge of his biceps, and the absolute, burning focus in his dark eyes—your traitorous pulse jumps a beat.

It’s just biology, you think, trying to suppress the heat rising in your face. An involuntary physiological reaction to a ridiculously well-built bastard.

Stop. You're embarrassing us both here. Where's the self-control?

"I mean this so seriously, please drop these on your face," you whisper, leaning down until your mouth is right beside his ear.

Jungkook pauses mid-rep, the ridiculously heavy dumbbells hovering steadily above his chest. His forearms are straining to the point where you can make out his veins crawling down them. But your attention shifts back to his eyes, which are locked straight onto yours, entirely unfazed by the weight and your wishful thinking. Then that insufferable look on his face appears, one that slightly makes you wish you never opened your mouth in the first place because now you have to deal with whatever remark he comes up with. The dense muscles in his chest and shoulders flex beneath the damp white tank as he drives the weights back up.

"Nice try, sweetheart," he rumbles before bringing them back down, setting them on the floor. He sits up on the edge of the leather bench, leaning back to gaze up at you.

"You think I have amateur grip strength?" he hums, running a long-fingered, calloused hand through his messy dark hair to push it back from his face. "I've never dropped a weight in my life, and honestly? If one of these did manage to slip, it'd apologise to my jawline on the way down."

"You are too full of yourself."

"I'm just realistic." The glint in his eyes instantly makes your pulse betray you. "Besides, if I messed up this face, who would you spend all evening staring at during our research sessions?"

"I stare at my laptop screen," you snap, trying desperately to ignore the way your heart has suddenly picked up the pace.

"Liar," Jungkook hums softly, his hand coming up to lightly tap the tip of your nose with his thumb. "You were admiring the view two minutes ago. Now, be a good servant, go re-rack these and grab the eighty-pound ones. I've got two more sets, and you're going to stand right there and watch every single one."

Fuck life. Fuck Jones. Fuck everything.

And apparently, you pissed off God in more ways than you can imagine because, as if this day couldn't get any worse, as you reach the rack in the corner, a guy in a cut-off stringer in the colour of what you can only describe as a crime against humanity steps directly into your path, blocking you off from the rest of the room.

He leans one thick arm against the rack above your head, invading your space with absolutely no decorum or subtlety.

"Hey, sweetheart," he says, eyes lingering uncomfortably over your body. A visceral shudder ripples down your spine. The word sweetheart settles over your skin like a layer of oily slime. You can already see where this is headed. "What's a pretty girl like you drowning in a hoodie like that? Why don't you take it off so we can see what you're hiding under there?"

The more you think men can’t possibly get worse, the more they find new ways to surprise you. The sheer audacity of this man.

As if this fleece-lined fortress of a hoodie was some interactive mystery box he was personally invited to unwrap. As if you put it on today simply just to tease the general public, and not because you were shivering in the lecture hall this morning because your jacket ripped a day or weeks ago.

Your patience tank isn't just empty—it was drained, bleached, and set on fire hours ago. You’ve spent the day tirelessly working, dealing with insufferable classmates, and enduring fluorescent light torture, and now you’re expected to play nice with a guy whose entire personality clearly relies on unearned confidence, protein powder, and cheap body spray?

You want to turn around and ask him, with genuine scientific curiosity, if he practised that line in a mirror before deciding today was the day to test his luck with a woman who looks ready to commit a felony. You want to inform him that the only thing you are ‘hiding’ under this hoodie is a complete lack of interest and enough suppressed rage to power a small village. But mostly, you just want him to instantly vaporise so you can go back to existing in peace.

But before you can even speak, the guy reaches out and aggressively snatches the heavy fabric of Jungkook's hoodie sleeve, tugging it downwards to pull you closer to him. "Come on, lose the sweater, baby. Let me show you how to actually use the equipment."

You yank your arm out of his grip, stepping straight into his face instead of backing away. "Do not touch me,” you say, voice dropping flat, forcing his smirk to falter. “If you put your hand on me again, I will make sure that you have a very long night in the ER," you continue. "Learn to keep your hands and your words to yourself. Now. Back off and go finish your quarter-squats before you make yourself look even stupider in front of the whole gym.”

He sputters, his chest puffing up as he tries to salvage his shattered ego. "Who the hell do you think you're talking to? I was giving you a compliment, you psycho—"

"A compliment?" you interrupt, taking another sharp step into his space so he’s the one forced to take a hesitant half-step back. "You grabbed my arm and made a sleazy comment about my body in a public gym. That’s not a compliment, that’s harassment. And everyone can see your shit form, and even shittier personality.”

He glances over his shoulder, realising two guys on the lat pulldown are staring right at him with unsubtle, amused grins. Desperate to save a crumb of dignity, he scoffs, "I hit full depth on my squats, for your information."

"Your legs didn't even break forty-five degrees," you reply with deadpan precision. "My grandmother hits better depth picking up her mail."

The guy's face flushes a deeply satisfying, blotchy red. Humiliated, his demeanour instantly shifts from sleazy to aggressive. "Listen here, you little bitch—" he sneers, stepping up and raising his hand.

He doesn't get to finish the sentence.

You feel someone step up beside you, closing the distance in two strides.

Jungkook.

He doesn't grab the guy or tackle him; instead, he simply plants himself shoulder-to-shoulder with you, a silent confirmation. He's with you.

"I'd take her advice if I were you," Jungkook rumbles, his voice calm and laced with certainty. "She wasn't lying about your squats, by the way—your knees barely buckled. It’s embarrassing. And trust me, she doesn't make empty threats." He doesn't bother raising his hands or puffing out his chest; the stillness in his posture does all the heavy lifting. He just towers beside you, adjusting the hem of his shirt, looking down at the guy like a mild inconvenience he’s debating whether to flick off his shoe.

The man's gaze flickers between your pissed-off expression and Jungkook's sharp gaze, before shooting down to his broad-shouldered, tattooed glory. You can practically see the thoughts as they form in his puny little mind.

Girl angry. Guy giant. Guy covered in tattoos. Guy scary.

Oh.

Bad maths. Very bad maths.

Abort. Run.

He manages to stammer out some pathetic, garbled excuse under his breath, one that you don't even fully hear before he backs away with his hands raised and vanishes towards the locker rooms.

"A long night in the ER?" you hear Jungkook say softly. "A bit barbaric for an ethics student, don't you think?"

"I was being merciful," you snort. "I was going to critique his entire lineage next, plus his form was really shit. Astronomically fucked. What injury is he training for?"

"Oh, one hundred per cent,” he chuckles. "I almost felt bad for the guy."

"Almost?"

"Not even a little bit," he hums, leaning down until his lips are hovering inches from yours, his tone dropping back into that quiet, dangerous, flirty register that makes your breath hitch. "Now, where's my dumbbells? You're slacking. Someone's not getting a good recommendation from me."

The concrete hallway outside your apartment door is frigid, an evident sign of the approaching winter. The hall is illuminated only by the faint hum of a single flickering overhead bulb.

Jungkook is leaning against the wall beside your door, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his dark jacket, rain dripping steadily from the ends of his hair onto his shoulders. Even drenched in rain, he looks good. It’s infuriating, unfair even. Like he just walked off the set of a damn movie. His damp curls plaster against his forehead, and the harsh shadows from the singular bulb carve out the precise angles of his jaw. It is deeply unjust that someone shivering in a drafty, flickering corridor can still look that devastating, taking up space like he owns every inch of it. You hate him for it a little bit.

"You know," he says, voice a lazy drawl that echoes in the quiet corridor, "normal people usually offer a coffee—or at least offer a proper thank you—when someone walks them eight blocks through a torrential downpour. But I guess basic manners weren't included in your syllabus."

He’s baiting you. You can see it in the tilt of his chin and the gleam in his eyes, waiting for a sharp roll of your eyes or a biting retort.

Instead, you just turn the key in the lock, push the door open, and step aside. "Get inside, Jeon."

Jungkook freezes, his mouth staying slightly open. He blinks, obviously caught entirely off guard. "What?"

"You're soaked, it’s cold, and you look like you’re about to catch pneumonia on my welcome mat," you say softly, pulling the door wider. "Come in. I’m making ramen."

He hesitates for a split second—a rare beat of genuine uncertainty—before stepping past you into the small entryway. He kicks off his boots, looking slightly too broad and entirely out of place for your modest living space. You move to toss him a dry towel from the bathroom, which he uses to aggressively dry his hair, leaving it pleasantly messy and sticking up in every direction. Still looks good.

It’s ten minutes later, and you’re both sitting cross-legged on the floor around the low coffee table, a single pot of piping hot spicy ramen steaming between you, and a distant movie playing quietly in the background.

There’s no bickering. No intellectual sparring match, no defensive walls, and no performance. Both clearly too exhausted for that.

"I actually didn't think you knew how to boil water," Jungkook murmurs, blowing gently on a mouthful of the noodles.

"I’m a culinary mastermind," you reply, completely offended, but lacking all the bite, as you nudge the soft-boiled egg over to his side of the pot. “If you don’t want it, more for me then.”

"I’m not complaining; I’m just assessing if I need to get 911 ready on my phone," he says, taking a bite anyway with a quiet, appreciative hum. “Oh shit, you get the extra spicy ones?" he asks as he begins chewing, eyes widening from realisation into those little galaxies you rarely get to witness—his pupils are blown wide in the dim lamplight until the dark irises practically disappear, reflecting the warm glow of the room. He looks unfairly soft. Too soft, forcing you to look away before you can risk giving him something to no doubt tease you about.

"They were on sale," you reply. "Don't judge."

“No judgment here. You know, the guy at that 24-hour place down the street gave me two free hash browns yesterday because he thought I looked dead on my feet."

You snort softly, taking a sip of water. "Did you take them?"

"Of course I took them. I ate one standing right outside the door in the cold. It was delicious, actually."

"What happened to the second one?"

"Eaten on the walk back," he says, twirling his chopsticks lazily between his fingers. "A rogue pigeon looked at me like it was planning a mugging, so I had to assert dominance and finish it on the spot."

"You asserted dominance over a bird at two in the morning over a hash brown?"

"It was a greasy, glorious hash brown. Survival of the fittest." He takes another mouthful of noodles, immediately wincing as the spice catches the back of his throat. "Though I think this ramen might actually finish the job the cold started."

"Weak," you scoff mildly, taking a deliberate bite of your own noodles to prove a point, even as the chilli hits your tongue like a tiny, aggressive firecracker. You force your face to stay entirely stone-still. Asserting dominance, naturally.

Jungkook tracks your reaction, a knowing smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Yeah? Not burning at all?"

"It's practically sweet," you lie cleanly, reaching for your water glass with zero urgency and taking a slow, steady sip. "You just have a weak palate, Jeon."

He lets out a low, huffed laugh, shaking his head as he reaches for his own glass. "Right. Your eyes are watering, but it's sweet."

"It's called passion."

“Yeah, yeah.”

A quiet settles over the room. No one jumps to fill it; no one shifts to ease it. Outside, the rain simply continues its torrential pour against the glass whilst the hum of the television in the corner flickers low blue shadows across the coffee table. You slowly rest your elbows on your knees, watching the steam dance above the pot. Its lazy curls dissipating into nothing. You notice how Jungkook also appears to be in the same world of comfort. He doesn't check his phone. He doesn't make a move to get up, doesn't glance toward his wet boots in the hall, and doesn't offer a single comment to break the calm. He just lets his head rest heavily against the base of the armchair behind him, his long legs stretched out into the small space beside the rug, breathing slow and steady.

You lean your head back against the sofa, taking a slow sip of water, your eyes idly drifting over to the screen. You catch a woman flinging a glass of water straight into a man's face before turning on her heel and storming out into the rain, much like the one outside currently.

Jungkook swallows his mouthful of noodles, watching the scene play out for a second before a faint, disbelieving huff escapes his nose. "Oh my god," he murmurs softly, pointing the tip of his chopstick toward the screen. "That is the exact face Tyler made outside the math building last… Tuesday, was it?"

You look from the screen back to Jungkook, then back at the screen, trying for the love of god to remember what on earth he was talking about. Until it hits you, and a sudden grin pulls at your mouth at the realisation. "Oh god. When Somin threw her iced tea at him?"

"She didn't just throw it; she dumped it over his head like a damn christening," Jungkook corrects, his voice light. "The entire lacrosse team was standing right behind them. Dead silent. Just Tyler dripping orange onto his white sneakers."

"Wait, but I thought they broke up three weeks ago?" you ask, leaning forwards, thoroughly invested. "Didn't he bring his guitar to her building to sing an apology?"

"He did," Jungkook chuckles as he tilts his head back. "And she called security on him for a noise complaint before he even finished the first verse. This other guy had to drag him away by his hoodie; I think Taehyung got the whole thing on camera."

"No way," you laugh softly, the warm sound settling easily between you. "Why were they fighting on Tuesday, then?"

"I think he accidentally liked his ex's post from 2021 whilst scrolling," Jungkook says, picking up his glass. "He tried to claim his thumb slipped because his phone screen was cracked, but Somin wasn't having any of it."

"A 2021 post? Yeah, he’s cooked. There's no coming back from a three-year scroll."

"That’s what I said!" Jungkook says, and you notice his eyes crinkling at the corners, dimple peeking through slightly. "Honestly, the guy should just cut his losses and change his major, but I think he’s planning another grand gesture."

"He needs to be stopped."

"Oh, absolutely," he agrees, letting out a soft sigh as he settles deeper into the rug, legs a few millimetres away from brushing yours.

You watch his profile in the warm yellow glow of your floor lamp—the relaxed line of his jaw, the dark curls messy over his forehead, and the complete absence of any competitive edge. It’s strange, and disarmingly nice, just existing with him like this.

"It's weird seeing you so quiet," you say, swirling the water in your glass. "Usually you're just... intense. Like you're always trying to win something."

Jungkook lets out a faint huff of a laugh, his eyes fixed on the remaining steam above the pot. "Yeah, well. Force of habit." He shrugs lazily, picking at the skin of his thumb. "It’s just easier to take up the space first before someone else forces you into a corner; always gotta be switched on, you know.”

You watch him, taking in the faint dark circles under his eyes. It’s jarring, seeing him like this. You’re so used to the armoured version of Jeon Jungkook—the retorts, the smug expressions, the insufferable need to one-up everything and everyone around him. You’ve spent over a year learning how to brace yourself against him, learning how to match him. But sitting here, in front of him in the quiet of the night, still damp from the rain, his posture completely sunken in. Without his sharp edge, he just looks tired. Human, in every way.

"You don't have to be 'on' around me, you know. You don't have to do all that."

Jungkook turns his head against the base of the armchair, looking over at you. He doesn't answer right away. The room stays quiet for a beat, just the steady, muffled hum of the rain against the windowpane, and voices mumbling from the TV.

"Yeah," he says softly, rubbing a hand tiredly over his face. "I know."

The admission lands softly between you. Hanging in the quiet space of liminality. You’re still half-unsure whether you should’ve said that, and he’s half-unsure whether he should have replied. It feels like stepping across a boundary drawn in the dark. The distance between the two of you has been governed by clear, comfortable rules. You spar in drafty corridors, trade sharp glares over coffee cups, match each other’s remarks beat for beat. You keep each other at arm’s length because arm’s length is safe; it’s predictable; it’s easy to measure.

But here, now, those rules have dissolved, and neither of you seems bothered by that.

You rest your chin in the palm of your hand, studying him, the shy demeanour that he’s currently adopted, a rare one. One that plants a wicked thought in your head, and it quickly takes root.

"You know, Jeon..." you murmur, keeping your voice smooth and entirely even. "You're actually really cute when you're too exhausted to be an asshole."

Jungkook chokes on his own breath so hard it sounds like his soul is attempting a quick exit. Every single defensive instinct he possesses—carefully cultivated over a year of intellectual posturing—instantly short-circuits. His eyes snap wide, his entire body jerking upright as if hit by a live wire. His typically cool demeanour completely vanishes into thin air as he scrambles for footing on your rug, his long limbs flailing just enough to send his water glass rattling precariously against the coffee table.

"I—what?" he stammers. His voice drops an octave, then betrays him entirely by cracking right down the middle. Great, he thinks. Thanks for that one.

"I'm just saying," you continue innocently, propping your chin back on your palm with a sweet smile. "You walked eight blocks through a freezing downpour, dried your hair with my fluffy yellow towel, ate my ramen, and now you’re sitting on my floor looking like a sleepy golden retriever. It’s adorable."

If human spontaneous combustion were possible, Jeon Jungkook would be a pile of ash on your carpet.

A furious shade of crimson blooms across his chest, rushing straight up his throat like a tidal wave and painting his cheekbones and the tips of his ears a burning, undeniable red. It’s almost comical. His brain goes completely offline. Golden retriever? Yellow towel? Adorable? His pride is screaming in agony, but his body is operating purely on blind survival. He lunges for his water, practically draining the entire thing in one desperate, gulping shot to buy his frantic synapses enough time to assemble a response.

"I am not... I don't look like a retriever," he grumbles, jaw clenching so tight you can see the muscle tick. He stares aggressively down at the ramen pot as if it has personally betrayed him. "The ramen is too spicy. It's hot in here."

"Right," you purr softly, leaning in just a fraction closer. "Your ears are bright red, Jeon."

Jungkook immediately claps his palm over his left ear to hide it—an impulse so transparent, so disastrously uncool, that you burst out laughing. He shoots you a glare that is clearly meant to strike terror into your very soul, but with his hair sticking up in messy, damp spikes and his cheeks burning hot crimson, he carries all the intimidation factor of an angry, dishevelled kitten.

"Shut up," he mutters under his breath, though there isn't a single drop of venom left in him. Utterly defeated, he yanks his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and burying his face deep into his sleeves to hide the flustered grin he is fighting with every remaining fibre of his being to suppress. "Just... finish your noodles."

The day has barely begun, and you’re convinced that the library has it out for you.

Earlier today, on your way to your preferred study spot, your sacred, squeaky desk on the third floor was, unfortunately, completely hijacked by a flock of freshmen students holding a full-volume debrief whilst violently shaking iced coffees and throwing paper aeroplanes. When you gave them the death stare, nudging them to flee the scene so serious work could be done, one simply asked if you needed help finding the elevator. You’ll admit, your eye did twitch ever so slightly, but alas, you moved on to your second favourite spot: a small conference room tucked away in the fifth-floor sports education section which barely sees signs of life—mainly because the elevator broke weeks ago and no student in their right mind would walk up five flights of stairs voluntarily (except for you but that is not important). It’s perfect. Secluded enough that people often forget it’s there to book. But of course, the one day you needed it, you found it occupied by six professors old enough to have been there to sign the Magna Carta, holding an emergency meeting on ‘departmental morale’. That left you with spot number three, which was literally cordoned off with police tape because a chunk of the nineteenth-century ceiling had given up on life and collapsed directly onto the rows of desks.

The entire thing feels like an orchestrated attack.

So now you're stranded in the library's new extension. It’s a blinding, sterile void of operating-theatre white paint, fluorescent lights that hum at a frequency only dogs can hear, and plastic chairs clearly designed by someone who detests the human spine. There is no dark mahogany, no brass lamps, nothing. It’s the epitome of soulless. Just you, a sterile white desk, and a blank screen aggressively mocking your lack of options.

An hour later, you're struggling with a citation format, muttering under your breath as you type and delete the same footnote four times, debating throwing the laptop down the glass balcony beside you. Before you can see that idea into fruition, a shadow looms over your shoulder, and you see the bane of your existence peer down to gaze at your screen.

His chest almost brushes your back, and you stiffen at the scent of his woody cologne that wraps around you instantly. He reaches past your shoulder, his arm brushing yours as his fingers take over your keyboard. The heat radiating off his chest is near-suffocating, turning your skin electric as he types out the correct formatting with infuriating ease. Ease that makes you want to bend back all of his fingers and rip them off. You look down at them typing and—

Oh no. That was a mistake. Why did you do that? What on God’s green Earth compelled you to do such a thing? This is bad.

Because now, playing in high-definition horror across your brain, is the exact memory of those exact fingers sliding down the front of your unzipped jeans months ago.

Your mind—which should be strictly focused on this essay—immediately betrays you, looping the image of his knuckles grazing your bare stomach before slipping under the damp lace, previewing the absolute, life-altering ecstasy you were mere milliseconds away from receiving before that bumbling, drunk bastard stumbled down the hall and ruined it all. Talk about cock-block of the century.

You stare at his hands on your keyboard.

Stop looking at his knuckles; your brain screams at full volume. Look away. Look at the wall. Look at the hideous lights. Look, one of them has a trapped spider in it. And that one’s got a cockroach. No, don’t think about cock. Okay, look literally anywhere else.

Instead, your traitorous eyes, which you will be having words with soon, trace the faint blue veins running across the back of his hand, down to the neat trim of his nails, remembering how those fingers had come so close to driving you completely insane. You can practically feel the heat of them.

Here you are, currently sitting in a library that looks like a high-security dental clinic, bathed in fluorescent lighting bright enough to see from space, having the most filthy, unholy thoughts about your enemy’s index finger. It is an absolute crime against higher education.

A flush flares up your neck, burning hot enough to rival the sun, and your breath hitches in your throat.

Pull yourself together.

Jungkook finishes the citation with a final, decisive hit to the Enter key. But instead of pulling back, he lingers. His chest presses a fraction closer to your back, his scent completely drowning out the room's smell of cheap floor sanitiser. He rests his right hand on the white laminate desk, right beside yours, clearly not interested in the idea of personal space, and even less interested in the idea of moving.

"You left out the volume number," he whispers, his hot breath grazing the shell of your ear. "For someone who beat me by two per cent, your citation skills are remarkably embarrassing."

Your heart does a traitorous flip in your chest—have to have a word with that too. Without thinking, you swat his hand away from your keyboard with your pen. "Get off my back, Jeon. Nobody asked you."

"Your suffering was making too much noise," he replies, finally stepping back with his hands in his pockets.

But he doesn’t leave; of course he doesn’t. He skips a seat and settles next to you on the white table, taking out his own laptop.

By 8:00 PM, you’re slowly regretting life.

The room is almost completely deserted, save for you, Jungkook, and a few other people three rows down. It’s nearing the evening now, exhaustion settling deep into your bones as you lean back in your chair, stretching your arms over your head with a soft groan. Whilst you’re enjoying your little, much-needed stretch, head all tilted back, massaging your eyes with the backs of your hands, you almost don’t notice Jungkook quietly reaching over—until he snatches your printed essay outline from under your nose and uncaps a red pen.

"Hey!" you snap, sitting up instantly. "Give that back!"

"Your second premise is built on absolute sand," he says smoothly, ignoring your reaching hands as he rapidly scribbles three brutal red lines across your carefully structured paragraph. "You're relying on a flawed interpretation of act versus rule utilitarianism. If you hand this in to Wilde, she’s going to dissect you alive."

"I don't need your help, Jeon!" You snatch the paper back, glaring at the red ink taking over your margins. "My premise is solid!"

"It's weak, and you know it," he counters calmly, turning back to his laptop to keep clicking away. "Fix it, or don't. I'd love to watch Wilde shred you in front of the whole class. Just remind me to bring some popcorn."

As he turns back, you quickly pull a neon-pink sticky note from your bag, scribble two fast lines in thick black marker, and slap it flat onto the centre of his keyboard.

Jungkook looks down, squinting at the note like it’s asking for a ransom.

Your conclusion in Chapter 3 lacks basic logical validity. Also, your handwriting looks like a toddler having a seizure. - Y/N (The Superior Student)

Jungkook stares at the note for two long seconds. Then, a low laugh escapes his throat. The laugh does something to you, and no, you will not elaborate any further. He peels the sticky note off his laptop, but instead of throwing it away, he carefully folds it in half and slips it straight into his front jacket pocket.

By 10:00 PM, your research hits a dead end.

You need this obscure 1884 translation of a text you don’t even want to try to pronounce, and the only physical copy in the university's possession is missing from the philosophy stacks. You've been searching the online portal for an hour, groaning aloud.

But before you can admit defeat, Jungkook stands up, gathers his laptop, and walks towards the exit without saying a word. But as he passes your desk, he drops a tiny, folded scrap of yellow lined paper directly onto your keyboard.

You unfold it.

Written in his sharp, stupid, slanted handwriting is:

Where high theory returns to clay. Look by the texts on topsoil and hay. Row 4, Shelf C. Don't say I never gave you anything, 2%.

You stare at the paper, eyes narrowing. Dramatic.

Ten minutes later, you are standing in what can only be described as a subterranean dungeon. The contrast is insulting. Upstairs is a blinding operating room, but down here, the Agriculture and Soil Science section looks like the set of an indie horror film with the budget cut before they could get proper lighting. The air is five degrees colder, thick with dry rot and misery. Not to mention, it is an absolute ghost town. The fluorescent tube overhead hums and flickers in a dying rhythm, casting erratic shadows over the towering metal shelves that haven't been dusted since the Middle Ages.

You creep down the flickering aisle, eyes squinting and darting between the yellowing textbooks when it hits you: Jeon might actually be a psychopath. Zero call service? No surveillance cameras? No witnesses? You’re half expecting Jungkook to emerge behind the volumes on soil acidity wearing a plastic poncho, and these dusty cinderblock walls are going to be the last thing you ever see.

Killed over a riddle about soil. What a way to go.

You reach Row 4 and continue down it in search of what? Who knows at this point? Agriculture in World History, Stable Isotope Ecology, Guide to Bovine Respiratory Health.

It’s a graveyard of livestock care and soil density reports, and you’re ninety per cent sure that if you pass out down here from inhaling 1970s crop dust, your body won't be discovered until the next departmental accreditation audit in 2035. But just before you’re about to turn around and most likely hunt down Jungkook and his family, you see it. Right there, tucked neatly between Principles of Dairy Farming and Soil Phosphorus Insights, is the pristine, leather-bound 1884 translation. The exact one you need.

He had likely hunted it down earlier, hid it in the most obscure section of the library so no one else could check it out, and gave you the key. You clutch the book to your chest, your lips twitching with a reluctant, helpless smile that you aggressively force back down before it can solidify.

"Categorical imperative," you snap across the small round table at the coffee shop, pointing a spoon at his face. "Go."

"An unconditional moral obligation that is binding in all circumstances and is not dependent on a person's inclination or purpose," Jungkook rattles off without missing a single beat. He doesn't even look up from his phone, casually reaching across the small table and picking a fresh strawberry straight off your slice of cheesecake.

"Hey! That was mine!" you protest.

"You lost the round, sweetheart," he smirks, popping the fruit into his mouth and chewing with obnoxious satisfaction. "Rules are rules. Wrong answer or slow answer loses a bite."

"I didn't lose; I was testing your speed," you grumble, pulling your plate closer. "Fine. Hit me."

Jungkook looks up from his phone, eyes sparkling with challenge that always seems to exist between the two of you. “Veil of Ignorance.”

“Rawls’ thought experiment designed to construct a fair society by making decision-makers oblivious to their own status, talents, and wealth.”

“Deterrence theory.”

“Legal philosophy holding that punishment prevents future crime through individual and general intimidation. Everyone knows that one; is that seriously all you have?”

“Okay, fine. You asked for this. Aristotelian virtue ethics.”

"Morality based on building character and achieving eudaimonia rather than following strict rules or weighing outcomes," you blurt out on complete autopilot, your brain entirely locked.

Jungkook sets his phone down, resting his chin in his hand. He lets the rapid-fire momentum linger for half a second, lulling you into answering on pure instinct before striking, clearly trying to catch you out.

"My biggest pet peeve?"

“Those people who click their four-colour BIC pens during exams,” you blurt out without missing a single beat, the momentum carrying your tongue straight over the trap. “You glare at the back of their heads; you’re practically burning holes in their spinal cords.”

The words leave your mouth before your brain can hit the emergency brake.

You freeze.

Brain, you weren’t meant to do that. You weren’t meant to know that. Thanks a lot.

Jungkook doesn't say a word. He just stays there, leaning on his hand, a slow, victorious expression spreading across his face until that infuriating dimple makes an appearance. You want to kiss and carve it off his face.

"Correct," he hums smoothly, voice dropping an octave with satisfaction. "And how, exactly, do you know that?"

"I—because you're so loud about it!" you scramble, your cheeks suddenly bursting into a humiliating heat. You grab your fork like a weapon, pointing it accusingly at his nose. "You literally radiate hostility across the entire third row. A blind bat would notice it. It’s not like I’m watching you."

"Right. You're not watching me," Jungkook repeats, leaning forward until the small round coffee table feels half its size. The room feels hot, stupidly hot. The suffocating kind of heat that makes you hyper aware of every movement, every sound, and every time you think about the heat, you swear it gets hotter. "You just happen to know the exact brand of pen, the exact moment, and my exact physiological response to it."

"It's basic spatial awareness!" you snap, pulling your cheesecake even closer into your chest, guarding it. "You're a nuisance, Jeon, and nuisances are hard to ignore."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, sweetheart," he chuckles softly, a low sound that makes your chest tighten. Before you can react, his long fingers dart out with lightning speed, snagging another massive piece of strawberry directly off your fork before you can get it to your mouth.

"Jungkook!" you gasp, outrage snapping you out of your fluster.

"You lost the bonus round," he says innocently, popping the strawberry into his mouth and looking down at you. "You took too long to justify how much you pay attention to me."

You’re going to kill him.

The grand auditorium stretches upwards in towering arcs of dark wood and polished brass, blinding overhead spotlights cutting through the warm haze of the murmuring crowd. Over eight hundred students, faculty members, and a distinguished panel of guest judges sit packed into the steep, velvet-lined tiers. This isn't just a university showcase—it’s the National Intercollegiate Debate Championship, an open-bracket battleground where any student from any discipline can take the floor. On the line are eternal bragging rights and $10,000.

$10,000.

To the university, it’s just a slick press release—having two of their own manage to claw their way to the grand finals. To Jeon Jungkook, it’s a shiny trophy to stack atop an already ridiculously gleaming resume. But to you? It’s security, breathing room.

Backstage, your hands are ice-cold, which is absurd because you aren't even scared. You know you are fully capable of wiping the floor with anyone out there, let alone Jeon Jungkook. Your brain is an engine ready for blood. Your body, however, apparently missed the memo, deciding to launch a full adrenaline mutiny. Your heart is pounding in your ears like a broken subwoofer, and your fingers are trembling as if you're about to fight a bear instead of delivering a fifteen-minute opening statement.

You pull your shoulders back and try to smooth down your blazer, attempting to order your rogue hands to stop acting like damn leaves, when a rustle of paper catches your eye. Slapped across the front cover of your binder is a bright yellow sticky note in Jungkook's slanted handwriting:

Try not to cry when I demolish your entire argument, sweetheart.

You snap your head up to find him leaning against the steel equipment rack a few feet away. And god, it pisses you off how unfair it is. He is tailored in a dark charcoal suit that hugs his shoulders entirely too well, his crisp shirt unbuttoned just enough at the collar to make you want to throw a heavy book at his head. For one dangerous second, your brain flashes back—to that humid, stupid, house party, the dark hallway, the taste of cheap drink, and the searing heat of his mouth pressed against yours before—

Nope. You yank your mind back by the throat, slamming the door on that memory before it can ruin your focus.

You look back to his eyes, which promise nothing but a clean battle between equals. You crush the sticky note into a tight ball in your fist, drawing blood from your glare, but your chest betrays you anyway- not cool.

You divert your gaze, but before you step out onto the stage, you peek through the slit in the heavy curtain towards the front row.

Jungkook’s parents are already seated near the centre aisle. His mother sits with her hands folded neatly over a soft cream cashmere cardigan—the kind of quiet luxury that probably costs more than your entire semester's rent—whilst his father beside her beams with a proud, effortless smile, adjusting a camera lens. They look so warm. So stable. Safe.

Your eyes shift to the empty reserved seats four rows back. Velvet upholstery and empty air. Standard. Your dad is probably passed out on a cracked armchair right now, or feeding his last twenty bucks into a slot machine down at the local pub. No safety net, no proud parent with a camera lens, no one coming to rescue you if you mess this up. It just is what it is.

Don't go there, you tell yourself sternly, forcing down the tight, hot lump in your throat. Not today. Not now.

Then, four rows back, a sudden movement breaks your spiral. You find Yeji waving frantically with both hands as Isla sits beside her, holding up a tiny cardboard sign that reads: CRUSH HIM, Y/N!

A quiet breath escapes your lips. You don't have a family sitting out in those seats, but you have them. Swallowing the sting in your throat, you square your shoulders, lock your jaw, and wait, wait for the curtains to part.

The first forty minutes can only be described as war.

"To claim that individual ethics can exist in a vacuum, completely detached from social structure, is an intellectual fairy tale," Jungkook argues, leaning low into his microphone. His voice fills every corner of the hall, radiating the kind of calm authority that makes you want to throw the podium at his head. "Without a rigid, universal framework, 'morality' becomes whatever anyone wants it to be. Order isn't an option—it is the prerequisite for any functional society."

You grip the edges of your podium so hard your knuckles turn white. Look at him. Standing there looking like a damn CEO, pretending he didn't almost choke to death on spicy ramen on your living room a few weeks ago.

In the third row, the spectator section is already buzzing.

"God, this Jeon guy is on fire today," some guy from another university whispers to his friend. "His structure is literally airtight."

A few seats down, Taehyung leans over to whisper to Jimin and Hoseok. "He’s in his element. Look at him."

"Yeah, but watch her," Hoseok whispers back, eyes glued to the stage, like he cannot turn away no matter how hard he tries to. "She’s not giving him a single inch."

When you step up to your mic, your heart is hammering, frantic. But your voice gives nothing away.

"Order built on suppressing human context isn't morality—it’s just forced compliance," you counter, keeping your tone smooth, steady, sharp. "My opponent begs you to evaluate this issue inside a neat little vacuum because he knows—and he knows full well—that the second you introduce real-world inequality, his entire universal thesis completely crumbles."

Dismantle that, sweetheart.

Four rows back, Isla clutches Yeji’s, shaking it with every word. "She’s turning his own words against him!" she squeaks softly.

"She’s pinning him," Yeji breathes, a proud, slightly terrifying grin breaking across her face. "Look at his jaw."

Then comes the open rebuttal round—and you lay the trap.

Drawing on an obscure, overlooked paper on structural ethics, you box Jungkook into a fatal logical nightmare. It’s glorious. You force him into a corner where every single available exit requires him to either betray his own core premise or admit, in front of eight hundred people, that you are entirely right.

You stand tall at your podium, tilting your head just enough to catch his eye. You watch his jaw clench, the tiniest fraction of a twitch hitting his eyebrow as his brain frantically calculates the math and realises that he's completely trapped.

You see the exact moment something in him snaps.

His eyes flicker for a fraction of a second towards the front rows—catching his father’s hovering camera lens and the expectant, proud smile of his mother—before snapping back to you with a cold panic. Right now, in this moment, he's a boy who doesn't know how to survive a fall."

You can see the gears turning in his mind, the prospect of losing in front of eight hundred people, of losing the championship. He doesn’t know how to fail. He’s never learned how to lose, not like this.

You also see the exact moment a spark ignites in his mind. And how you wish you were more prepared for this.

He steps up for his final ninety-second closing rebuttal. He doesn't even look at his notes; they’re useless. They’re not going to save him now. Instead, he looks directly at you.

"It is undeniably moving to hear the opponent construct such a passionate, emotionally charged argument," Jungkook begins, his voice unusually detached, a hum that cuts through the hall.

Silence stretches over the audience. A judge stops tapping her pen against the sheet. Students lean forward in anticipation. You yourself brace the edge of your podium

The auditorium falls into an eerie, suffocating silence.

"However," he continues, turning his body to face the judges, his eyes unblinking, "this panel must distinguish between objective ethical philosophy and arguments born from an acute, personal volatility."

Your breath hitches in your throat.

“The opposing side demands that we abandon objective framework in favour of ‘human context’,” Jungkook says, every single word enunciated with sickening precision. “In doing so, this asks the panel to mistake personal hardship for universal principle. But when an argument and perspective is constructed not through disciplined objective reasoning, but through the mercenary lens of chronic socio-economic desperation to justify dismantling order, it ceases to be a critique. It becomes a projection—an attempt to bend objective rules simply to compensate for an unstable life.”

The blow lands brutally—a physical force—knocking the air right out of your lungs.

It’s surgical. On the surface, he’s simply countering your point, claiming emotional bias. But beneath the academic rigidity of his words, the subtext is sharp. It’s toxic.

He doesn't name your father. He doesn't explicitly bring up the debts, the late shifts, or your empty bank account. He doesn’t spell out the jagged pieces of your life. He doesn’t have to do that for you to realise what he’s done. He’s taking every quiet vulnerability, every small confession, every scar, every ounce of shame, and has weaponised it on a national stage to brand you as an unstable, desperate fraud.

A few rows down the auditorium, Taehyung’s jaw drops. "Did he... did he just say that?"

"What the hell is he doing?!" Hoseok hisses, staring at Jungkook as though he’s looking at a complete stranger.

"What the fuck," Yeji gasps, her hands flying over her mouth, eyes wide with shock.

Around them, the crowd breaks into a chaotic, muttering storm.

"Jesus, that was dirty," a girl amongst the back rows whispers loudly. "That wasn't even a rebuttal, that was just a straight-up attack."

"I don't know," a guy next to her counters under his breath, shaking his head. "It's ten grand and a national title. Jeon saw a crack in her perspective and just drove a wedge into it. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to win."

"Brutal, though. He completely gutted her."

The judges sit in stunned, uncomfortable silence. It’s abstract enough that it doesn't explicitly break tournament rules for disqualification, but the malice radiating off of it is still blinding.

You stand at your podium. You don't yell. You don't object.

Jungkook finishes his sentence, his breathing heavy. But as his gaze swings back to catch yours, the high he feels instantly turns to ash, and the sight of your hollow expression finally hits him.

Every single drop of warmth drains from your face, leaving your cold skin sticky and translucent. Your heart doesn't race as you expect it to. It can’t. It can barely even beat. You simply stare across the narrow gap at him, your mind ringing with an empty, deafening silence.

The muffled murmur of eight hundred people in the audience, the harsh glare of the stage lights, the distant hum of the microphones—it all fades into a low, underwater buzz. The world shrinks until there is only the few feet of dark wood separating your podium from his.

Just a few weeks ago he had been the soft boy sitting on your living room floor, damp-haired and wide-eyed. You thought you were building something real. You thought the quiet revealed a type of truce, something real built in between all the rivalry.

Now the horrifying truth of it all settles in; it wasn’t a truce, just ammunition.

He didn’t just defeat you, outsmart you, or best you. He took quiet moments, painful moments, moments you trusted him with and laid them out on a silver platter under a glass dome and sharp lighting for a room full of strangers to dissect. He traded your safety for ten thousand dollars, deciding the most bruised parts of you were worth stepping on to win.

All you feel is numb. Stupid as well. But mostly numb. There’s no fiery anger here to warm you, no sharp dignity to keep you standing tall. There’s nothing left.

You don’t scream. You don’t object. You just stand there, hollowed out, watching the man who made you feel safe become the person who hurt you worse than anyone ever has.

DING.

The timer sounds, breaking the silence.

You don't wait for the panel to speak. You don't wait for the final scores, and you don't look up at the judges.

With quiet hands, you slide your notes back into your binder. You zip your bag shut in one swift motion, keeping your jaw locked, refusing to let a single tear spill in front of him, his proud parents, or the eight hundred people packed into those seats.

Without giving Jungkook so much as a glance, you turn away from the podium. You walk down the steps of the stage and stride down the side of the stage, disappearing into the wings until the heavy double doors swing shut behind you before they can even declare him the winner.

The second the heavy doors slam shut behind you, Jungkook's entire world goes mute.

"...and the winner of the National Intercollegiate Debate Championship, receiving the ten-thousand-dollar cash prize, is Jeon Jungkook!"

A roar of applause breaks out across the auditorium. People stand and clap and whistle and gaze up with glee. His father stands with a proud flash of his camera, and his mother beams. clapping her hands together softly muttering sweet words. On the side of the stage, the panel of judges stand to offer him a formal handshake, holding out a sleek glass trophy which flickers under the harsh lights pointed straight at him.

But Jungkook doesn't move. He can't. To Jungkook, none of it exists. The claps and cheers drop into the background like static, all muffled and maddening. It's like he's listening to the world from underwater. The bright stage lights burn against his eyes, exposing exactly what he's done, leaving him completely raw. And what is supposed to be the sweet taste of victory turns thick and smoky, like ash on his tongue.

He won. He won the competition. He had just proved in front of hundreds of people, thousands, maybe, if people bothered to tune in at home, that he was undisputedly the best. The judges’ scorecards confirmed it in glowing, undeniable numbers. His name was being echoed through the auditorium speakers, cementing this moment.

It's not like last year's finals where he beat you by one per cent, not like the rush he felt during his first ever high school competition, not like the pride he feels receiving his essays with near-perfect scores, not like just a few weeks ago where he beat you by two points in the informal presentations.

Those victories had felt like pure oxygen. They had tasted like honest sweat and hard-earned glory.

No, this victory isn't sweet. It doesn't even feel like a victory.

He stands there, frozen behind his podium, shoulders still, gaze blank as it remains locked on the vacant wooden stand where you just stood seconds ago.

What did I just do? Is all he can think.

The question all but rattles through his mind, followed by a wave of nausea that has his head feeling so light and his legs like jelly that his knees almost buckle. His own voice replays, each word forcing his stomach into a sickening knot. It feels as though an invisible hand has bound him, forcing every cruel word down his throat until he chokes on them. He's powerless to escape, unable to stop it, and condemned to endure his own malice.

“Mercenary lens of chronic socio-economic desperation… compensate for an unstable life.”

God, he had said those words out loud. He had articulated them with such calculated precision, such posh cadence, with no hesitation, and no regrets in the moment. He had leaned into the microphone, let his voice project through the speaker system as if this were a casual Wednesday and let the words flow out perfectly. He didn't hesitate; he didn't stumble over a single syllable; he didn't flinch. And the worst part? He didn't falter. It's like his heart didn't catch up to his brain until you weren't standing across from him anymore. He had seen the shift in your face, seen the exact second colour drained from your cheeks, the way your posture broke, and the light in your eyes dimmed. And he felt nothing. Fuelled by nothing but fear and adrenaline, he held his head high, ready to claim his crown. He used his words to make sure every single person in this room understood exactly what he meant. He used them to win.

No, not win. This isn't winning. He didn't out-think you. He didn't logically dismantle your words with better logic, more relevant clauses, or a stronger framework. This wasn't deserved or earned. He didn't win because he was smarter. No. He won from his own petty arrogance and own stupidity. The moment he felt cornered, the second his pathetic, fragile ego felt the trophy slip from his fingers, he reached for the dirt and clung on for dear life. He didn't just pull a last resort; he had taken your darkest secrets, ones you had whispered to him in a moment of defeat behind closed doors and used them against you. He had used every admission of fear, of unbelonging, of helplessness, and thrown them into your face in front of eight hundred people.

She trusted me, his brain screams, the realisation tearing him apart. She let me in, and I used it to gut her.

You had given him the one thing you kept guarded from almost the rest of the world: your own private scars, and the painful truth of how badly you needed this. You had looked at him for years, in seminar rooms, in lecture halls, across library desks, in crowded coffee shops, in late-night planning, and early-morning revision sessions, in the dim hallway of that party months ago, and that night a few weeks ago on the floor of the lounge, and decided that he was safe. You had believed, even if only for a fleeting second, that he saw you as an equal. That despite how much you infuriate each other, you believed that under all of that, under all the rivalry, he was one of the few places in your life where there was no judgment, no snark, nothing for your drowning life.

And what did he do with that?

He didn't protect it. He didn't hold it gently between you. He had dragged it out into the glare of a packed auditorium, laid it across a stage, and slaughtered it with a polite smile on his face. A cheap rhetorical trick. A cruel punchline.

I did that, he thinks, the thought suffocating him, crushing his chest until he can barely force air into his lungs.

The ten-thousand-dollar grant isn't a victory; it’s blood money. The mere thought of receiving it revolts him; he feels disgusted by his own skin, sickened by the reflection of the cowardly, insecure monster who had traded your heart for a title and a piece of glass, which was no doubt just glorified plastic. There was no pride in using the blade he had stolen from your chest. There was no glory in standing victorious over a ruined battlefield he had created by tearing open your deepest, most private wounds in front of a stadium full of strangers.

Jungkook doesn't touch the trophy. He doesn't shake the judge's hand. He ignores the confusion on his parents' faces and the icy stares from Taehyung and Hoseok in the second row. Instead, he turns on his heel, vaults down the stage steps and shoves through the crowd of students, abandoning his leather binder on the podium. He throws his shoulders against the heavy doors, bursting out into the lobby.

"Y/N!" his voice cracks, booming uselessly off the soaring stone walls. "Y/N, please!"

Nothing. The foyer is empty, cold, quiet. Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass doors, the night air is slick with heavy rain, the wet sidewalk reflecting the harsh yellow glow of the streetlamps. The warmth of the light mocks him.

Your shadow is gone. You have completely vanished into the dark.

"Shit!"

Jungkook grabs a handful of his hair, his fingers clawing at the strands, dissecting them, yanking them so hard the style falls apart, the gel practically melting away altogether. His scalp sings as a groan rips from his chest. He paces the floor, breathing ragged and wild, heart hammering against his ribs.

He slams his fist hard against a nearby marble pillar; the skin almost splits, and a sharp pain radiates up his arm. But he barely registers it. It's nothing compared to what he feels inside. The suffocation in his chest.

What have I done?

The thought takes root in his mind, weaving around his brain, planting itself dead in the centre as if nothing else matters. He knows he fucked up. He knows what he's done. He had crossed a line. An unforgivable one. He had broken the one thing that mattered more to him than any grant, or title, or win ever could. But he refuses to accept that this is where it ends. He refuses to let you walk away thinking he didn't care, or that he was truly this heartless.

He pulls out his phone from his pants pocket, the thing shaking violently in his hand. It takes him three tries to unlock his phone before he dials your number, over and over again. But each time it just sends straight to voicemail. He pockets the damn thing, pushing through the heavy glass doors into the rain.

He is going to make this right. He will search every street, every library, every obnoxious coffee shop, every flickering bus stop, and every forgotten study nook. But he will. He will tear himself apart if he has to, but he's going to make this right.

He has to.

╰› read part 2 <here>

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