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house of cards (m)

pairing ⟶ jungkook x fem!Reader (feat. Namjoon & the rest of the boys)

synopsis ⟶ What does safe mean when you are chased by zombies, when every corner you turn could be the last one for you? What do words like home and future mean when you’re always on the run and every moment could be your last? They mean nothing and everything at the same time and Jeongguk is all of the above. He is your safe haven, he is your home and he is your future. But things like that crumble easily in your world.

genre ⟶ smut, angst, apocalypse!AU, zombie!AU

rating ⟶ 18+

word count ⟶ 17.453 words

warnings ⟶ graphic depictions of sexual intercourse, hair pulling, marking each other with admittedly too many hickeys, teasing, couch sex, fingering, dirty talk, pounding, kind of soft sex but also rough sex?, multiple orgasms, a little tiny drop of chocking because why not, oral sex (receiving) because we all know I can’t resist and have to put this literally in every fic I write lol. Death, violence, blood, gunshot wounds: all of which include graphic descriptions. [I AM TERRIBLY SORRY].

author’s note ⟶ this fic has been written for the “Bulletproof Bingo” project created by @ficswithluv! You can find the card I received here (click!) but to make things more fun and keep the surprise I blurred out all the songs except for the five songs in the same row that I’m going to write first ;) A special thank you to @inkedxclouds for reading the opening scene and encouraging me to keep on writing it! Your words (and advice!) really helped me so really, thank you again ♥

song title ⟶ House Of Cards - BTS [ lyrics that inspired the story the most: “A house made of cards, and us, inside / Even though the end is visible / Even if it’s going to collapse soon / A house made of cards, we’re like idiots / Even if it’s a vain dream, stay like this a little more / As if there’s no such thing as tomorrow / As if there’s no such thing as a “next time” / Right now, in front of my eyes, everything without you / Is a terribly pitch-black darkness” ]

tag list ⟶ @mrcleanheichou • @ayujaded • @vera6483 • @peterrogers15 • @ggukkieland

The city is on fire.

The flames dance in the air, tint everything black and red and menace to reach up the sky, bring that down as well so that truly nothing is left unscathed in the entire world. The heath burns his flesh, makes his eyes water, turns his throat dry and he doesn’t need to look behind his back to know you can feel it too, to know how fast your heart is beating inside your chest, thumping hard against your ribs like a trapped hummingbird inside a cage. He doesn’t have to look to know your chest is heaving, that fatigue and panic are taking over your entire system. He doesn’t need to, but he still tilts his head slightly to the side, fixes his gaze on your face for a whole second before turning back around to take in the destructive scenery all around you.

His legs move faster. They hit hard on the dirty and sleek bitumen, seemingly indefatigable, but the truth is that the only thing propelling him forward is self-preservation and the knowledge that if he stops, even for a second, he’ll be dead and you right along with him.

But Jeongguk is not stupid. He knows you’re both reaching your breaking point, that you won’t be able to keep on going much longer and that knowledge turns him desperate.

There has to be a way out. He refuses to believe this is the end. No, no, he will not allow it.

His fingers are wrapped tightly around yours and he tugs on them harder, pulls you closer to him so that he can feel the warmth of your body, your heavy breath hitting the back of his neck every now and then. Like this, he knows you’re alive, that you are both still here and most importantly, still human.

Neither of you dares to take a look behind your backs and truth is, you don’t even have to. All it takes is for you is to close your eyes—or even blink—to see them.

Skin of a sickly ashen grey. Eyes void like an abyss, black as coal. Mouths open wide in a perpetual silent scream that haunts both of your dreams every single night. Teeth ready to bite, rip the skin off and let the blood soil the bitumen and fill their monstrous mouths. Arms outstretched to grasp you, to pull you into them to scratch and rip the skin until nothing of you is left, not even your soul, and you are one of them. Another little piece in the ever-growing army of walking corpses.

All it took was two weeks.

Two weeks for the whole world to crumble down, splinter into tiny frail little pieces of glass and all by the hands of monsters that only used to live inside TV screens on Halloween: zombies.

Jeongguk curses under his breath, swiftly turns to the left in a vain attempt to confuse the brain-dead creatures right behind your backs but he knows it won’t work, not this time, not when there is so many of them.

He dares another look at your face and the utter terror he reads on your features turns his heart smaller inside his chest.

He swore to protect you.

One year ago, in front of your families and friends, he made his vows. What was it that he promised? To love you and cherish you until the end of his days, to protect you and grant you a happy life. And now what? What happened to all those pretty words that filled his mouth back then?

Lies. Lies. Lies.

Everyone you ever cared about and loved is gone. Everything you ever knew is gone. All in the blink of an eye. There were no goodbyes, no mourning, no nothing. And he can see the toll it has taken on you whenever he looks inside those beautiful eyes of yours. Once upon a time, they used to shine like stars in a night sky but not anymore—just another thing to add to the list of what those monsters have taken away from the both of you.

Your legs are tired. Your lungs are begging for air and all you can think about is just letting go, just let your body fall and claim the desperate rest it needs. When was the last time either of you had a proper night of sleep? When was the last time nightmares didn’t wake one of you in the middle of the night and successfully kept you awake through most of it until the sun was back up in the sky?

Jeongguk curses, his voice quivers around the edges alongside his limbs and he can hear your breath catch, get trapped inside your lungs.

Is this the end?

He gulps down heavily, bites on his bottom lip like he always does when he is focused on something, when he is so deep in thought the whole world disappears. But this time, the look on his face is one of panic and dread.

There is no way out.

Jeongguk curses under his breath again, forces you to take another swift turn to the left and you both know it’s futile and desperate but what else is left?

You don’t want to die like this, in a dark alley of a city you’ve never seen before, helplessly running away from the nightmares behind your backs. So you pray. You pray to all the deities known to mankind, even those you’ve never believed in because truthfully, this is all you have left, isn’t it? The hope for a miracle.

Jeongguk falters and you almost bump right into him. His name leaves your mouth like a shrill but it falls on deaf ears because right there, in the middle of the street, shining like a beacon, lies a car.

A car.

Amidst all the smoke and fire, standing amidst all of this wreckage with barely a single scratch on its surface, that car almost looks like a mirage, a freaking miracle. Or a curse. Too good to be true, too-fucking-good to be true. And yet, it is a chance. Perhaps your only chance. So he takes it. Because this is what your lives have been reduced to. A fucking gamble.

So he takes courage, treats this as a round at the Russian roulette where you don’t know whether you win or lose until you pull the bloody trigger and shoot yourself right on your temple. He takes courage and tugs on your arm, yanks it forward as he aims for the car ignoring both the yelp of pain and the shrill of panic that erupt from your mouth.

He ignores the way you call his name in question and horror as your eyes land on what to you looks like nothing but certain doom. He ignores the way you try to yank him in the opposite direction, the way your hand trembles in his grasp with nothing but fear, the way your breath catches as the creatures get closer and closer and closer.

You can almost feel their breath on your neck, you can almost feel their hands on your skin, their claws sinking inside the tender flesh to bring you down with them.

"Hurry!"

His shrill cuts through the air like a knife. Your heaving breaths fill the silence left in its wake and they mix with Jeongguk's and the monsters’ right behind your backs.

What happens next is nothing but a blur.

Curses and screams fill the air, your bodies pressed together inside the car as you pray to all the Gods somewhere up there in the sky to spare your life just this once, to not let the both of you die like this, in a city in ruin with not a single person you ever loved alive to mourn you.

You pray and maybe, maybe someone is really up there, listening and granting wishes because while the monsters surround you, while they shake the car and hit the glass with their fists and open mouths, Jeongguk turns the key and the engine roars to life.

An exhilarated laugh escapes his parted lips, shakes his thin body to the point he’s jolting on the seat whilst pushing with all his might on the pedal to propel the car forward.

Your hand searches his and finds it around the gearshift. Your fingers automatically lace together as if that is the very purpose they were created for and then, you close your eyes and the world turns black and subdues as you will it all away. The flames, the monsters surrounding you, the smell of fire and death that still fills your nose… they disappear just like magic as you push your thoughts far away from here.

You fill your head with images of your past life, one that almost looks like a dream now, something you’ve only seen while sleeping and not actually lived through. You fill it with laughter and kisses under the sunlight on that beach in Busan where you and Jeongguk finally confessed your feelings for each other. You fill it with the sensation of his warm hands against your naked flesh, you fill it with his beautiful, endearing smile. With the sound of his voice as he softly calls your name first thing in the morning or when he whispers it in your ears while you make love. You fill it all with him so that you can ignore the way the car shakes, the sounds of the monsters falling on the ground as the car drives into them, pushes them down on the bitumen and steps on them.

Slowly, silence envelops you whole and in return, your heart stops hammering against your chest like a caged bird and yet, it is still not enough to prompt your eyes to open because you know that the moment you do so, no matter how far away from the madness and horror you currently are, you’ll never be distant enough because this is your new life and all the happy images filling your head right now are nothing but long-gone memories.

Jeongguk’s eyes are trained on the empty street and yet he can almost see you sitting right next to him with your eyes closed and your cherry lips parted, breathing ever so softly and drifting inside your world of memories. He knows that world oh too well, being a frequent visitor himself. It’s easy to forget the nightmare when you close your eyes and just drown yourself in the past, push your entire body so down under the deep waters you can’t even hear a peep from the world raging outside. Easy and comforting.

It scares him. It scares him how effortless it is to just let go and pretend, to let your consciousness slip away long enough you could almost forget how to get back.

He calls your name ever so softly then, his voice sweet and rich just like your favourite filled chocolate doughnut—your usual breakfast on a weekend, when he’d purposefully get out of bed before you just to go buy some for the both of you to consume in the comfort and warmth of your bed.

The memory makes a small smile stretch on your lips but it quickly fades as stripes of bleeding red and violent pink start burning its edges, slowly reducing it to nothing at all.

The sun is setting in the sky, falling rapidly behind the hills ahead of you and bringing all the light right with it. An involuntary shiver runs down your spine for there is nothing you dread more than the night and the nightmares sleep always brings right along with it. Another day has passed and if only there were a set date, a fixed moment in time you know to mark the end of it all, maybe you’d be able to rejoice then but that is just another luxury you don’t have.

Jeongguk’s eyes move on your face then, just in time to catch the way your expression inevitably falls and your smile disappears as quickly as it had formed. The peaceful expression, the little glint inside your beautiful eyes still present a few seconds ago are once again broken by the cruel reality and Jeongguk hates himself a little for shattering the dream, for pulling you back inside this Hell right along with him but even that deep sense of guilt can’t overpower the relief of having you still right next to him, alive and well and… present.

So he offers you a little smile, a tug of his hand to prompt your eyes to shift away from the bleeding sky and rather fix them on him and the moment they do oh, how they make his heart beat loudly in his chest, how do they so easily bring warmth to his cheeks and limbs.

“We’ve made it, baby.”

Yes. You’re alive.

You laugh and nod your head a couple of times for him. And Jeongguk could swear you illuminate the entire car, hell, even the whole road ahead of you with that smile full of sunshine he fell in love with so many years ago, when you were still kids. And the more you look at him, at the way his eyes shine like stars and his nose scrunches up in that adorable bunny-like way of his, the bigger your smile gets and Jeongguk is certain that you, like this, are the most beautiful thing he has ever laid eyes on.

Deep down, you both know this is temporary, that this feeling of victory will be gone in a matter of a few hours when you’ll inevitably face another one of those monsters and yet, you allow yourselves to bask in the little joy you feel, in the glimpse of normalcy right within your grasp. For once, you decide not to care and rather live to the fullest inside this little bubble of happiness. A bubble so small and delicate even a breath could easily burst it.

“We did, didn’t we? Wow… I can’t believe it,” your voice is soft and filled with a little hint of the mirth that turned your lips upwards for the first time in days and Jeongguk can’t help but smile even further while focusing his eyes back on the road.

“Me neither,” he confesses, shaking his head a little for it does still feel absolutely incredible and so unbelievably lucky there must be a catch about the whole ordeal somewhere. He pushes those type of thoughts away with all his might, though, as he tries to enjoy the opportunity he was given to live another day right next to you because he hates this part of himself, the pessimistic side that everyday swallows a bit more of the person he used to be before this nightmare started.

It is the middle of the night when you finally come to a halt in what looks to be an abandoned city. One of many, you think to yourself as you scan your surroundings waiting for that telltale sign of danger that comes with the grunts of the famished walking corpses. The silence of the night welcomes the both of you, though, as you help yourselves out of the car and before you can even glance towards Jeongguk, he is standing right there, by your side, fingers laced around yours to keep you as close as possible. You smile at the tender gesture. It’s one of the few habits of his that hasn’t subdued just yet.

You know.

And even though most of the times you pretend you haven’t noticed the way he has changed—nor the way you have—you know he has and sometimes it is hard to ignore how empty his eyes look when they are not fixed on you, how thin his lips look now that they are always stretched into a harsh line and not pulled into a gentle smile and most importantly how often you catch his hands shaking and him balling them into fists to stop their incessant tremor.

You tug on his hand, offer him a gentle smile the second he looks at you and you imprint the sight of his smile in your memory, the way his eyes light up with a glimpse of the man you fell in love with. You map every single inch of his face just so you can remember him like this the most. Your Jeongguk, not the one the army of dead bodies has created.

You have never walked on a minefield before in your life but if you had to guess how it feels you’d bet he’d be a little like this as you walk through the empty streets in the middle of the night without having a single clue where to go, where to hide. Potentially, every turn could signify your demise. With every step you take, you feel like shrinking inside yourself, turning a little smaller inch after inch whilst your body quivers ever so slightly in fear and your heart aches as it pounds hard against your ribs.

It is Jeongguk that spots the abandoned building first.

The city has been turned to ashes, set on fire like your own and the one you saw after that, and the one after that too and so on into a trail of smoke, fire and destruction that has left barely anything unscathed. Yet this building looks somewhat decent, with the door still there—albeit swung open—and a few windows with the glass still intact to protect you from both the drop in temperatures and any unwanted guests.

A little winning smile forms on his lips then and he tugs a little on your arm so that you can hurry your steps, get to what promises to be your safe haven—at least for the night—as quickly as humanly possible without making a single sound so not to stir awake the creatures surely lurking in the dark.

Your steps are full of uncertainty and fear as you step into the abandoned building and walk on the broken tiled floor. With each step you take, you tug a little harder on Jeongguk’s hand in fear of what you might meet at the end of this long corridor and seemingly endless string of doors.

If it had been for you, you would have stopped at the first apartment with it being close enough to the exit to make a quick escape if needed. Instead, you keep walking and you only stop when there’s only a set of doors left and even though you know this is probably for the best, that it would be harder for anyone to find you here, that the brainless creatures are less likely to sense you so far away from the streets, you can’t shake the uneasiness prompted by the fear of getting trapped inside this place and not being able to leave it with your humanity still intact.

The door opens easily. Just a little tug from Jeongguk’s hand and it swings open to reveal a simple apartment with minimal and mostly-ruined furniture. The signs of struggle, of a hopeless fight, of the loss of other human lives, taint every inch and corner of this place that probably used to be filled with love and warmth once. You can almost sense the pain, the fear and horror. You can almost hear the screams as your fingers brush against the door, the walls, the little objects filled with memories on the furnishing. It’s just like echoes from ghosts that beg to be heard, to be remembered so that at least this little part of them can live on, forever human.

You gulp down heavily, force your eyes to tear away from the picture of a happy family still hanging on the wall and rather focus it on your boyfriend’s back as he walks inside the apartment just to make sure no surprises are waiting for you inside any of the empty rooms. You follow his every movement, you mirror every single step and fill your thoughts and sight with him so that it’s easier to bare everything, so that it’s easier to ignore and move on, to live and fight for your chance at survival.

His soft voice breaks the silence just to call your name and draw you next to him and you easily comply letting him lace your fingers together. He places a tender kiss on your forehead then before opening his arms to welcome you in his warm embrace. You feel your body relax into the familiar sensation of being completely engulfed by his strong arms, you feel your heart slowly melt as his scent fills your nose the instant you hide your face in his broad chest. He holds you like this for what feels like hours and he doesn’t have to utter a single word for you to know what fills his head and moves his heart. Fear, relief, love, guilt—you’ve felt them all, sometimes even all at once while looking towards him in the midst of one of your escapes and, inside this embrace, you can sense them all, hanging above your heads and weighing on his heart and shoulders.

Your arms wrap around him, tuck underneath the green jacket so that your fingers can fist the thin black shirt under it and pull him into you more so that not a single breath of air can come between your aching, broken bodies.

Jeongguk’s lips quiver, a trembling breath escapes his mouth as he lets himself break within your embrace knowing oh too well that you’ll help him put back together every single splinter of his being. He breaks without a single word or sound and yet you mend him over and over again until he’s whole once more and he can smile at you anew and mean it.

He doesn’t have to say anything. All it takes is one look from his glinting eyes and a nod of your head and in an instant, you’re sitting on the couch ignoring the ripped fabric and the dark stains on it in favour of the little food in your backpacks.

When you had it all, you had taken for granted many things: a roof on top of your head, an endless source of running water, good food on your table every single night. Now, you don’t even have half of that and yet, there’s a little smile on your face as you consume your dinner with your boyfriend sitting right next to you and that’s because even the stale bread in your hands tastes heavenly after days of pure starvation.

His mouth is still filled with bread to munch on when he fishes out the map from his backpack and his eyes start scanning the names of the cities you passed on your desperate run to safety. His eyes are eager and filled with hope and excitement and he looks so breathtakingly beautiful in this moment—even with dirt on his hands, dried blood on his clothes and dishevelled hair—that you can’t help but stare as you force down your throat the last bite of your meal.

You watch his eyes light up in recognition, you watch them scan the map again and again just to make sure and then you see his mouth open to form a little “o” of surprise and… excitement?

His beautiful eyes of coal fix on you then and the most dazzling smile twists his lips up to the side. An exhilarated laugh escapes his mouth, shakes his chest as he points at the map with the excitement of a little kid in a candy store.

“We’ve made it! Fuck, we’ve actually made it!”

You dart forward, steal the map from his hands to fix your gaze on it and see it for yourself. The safe haven, the refuge Yoongi and Hoseok had heard about and dreamed about every single night before they lost their fight is near, so fucking near you can almost see it now if you close your eyes and squeeze them hard enough.

The Refuge.

“How far is it from here?” Your voice trembles, coming out as soft as a whisper as you tilt your head a little to the side just to fix your gaze back on him.

A grin welcomes your words and you can swear stars are shining in his eyes as he bumps his shoulder into yours so that he can point at the map, show you the road you’ll have to walk on to get there.

“If we’re lucky and the car doesn’t run out of fuel we’ll be there by the end of tomorrow.”

Just a breath. That’s the fraction of a second it takes for you to lean forward and crush your lips on top of his, claim his mouth at the height of your euphoria. The colony of humans, the safe haven your friends talked about every waking hour you spent together is just miles away and the promise of safety and normalcy erases everything else in an instant.

In this moment, all that exists is you and him and the hope for a better, brighter future and with your heart beating so frantically in your chest, all you can do is get lost in him, in his sweet scent, in the heavenly sensation of his fingers wrapped around your frame and his lips roughly moving on top of yours.

You grab his face to pull him into you even more and Jeongguk gladly follows, moulds under your touch to fit on top of your body as you let yourself fall on the couch while still kissing his lovely lips. Your hands are eager, your tongue relentless as it seeks his own through his parted lips and the excitement and adrenaline mix together and build until what is driving your every movement is passion and desire and need.

A low grunt moves past his lips as you tug on the long strands of hair on the back of his head and he doesn’t have to open his eyes to know there’s a wicked smirk painted on your lips, a little knowing smile prompted by the fact that you know way too well how much he likes that, especially when he’s far deep inside of you, rocking his hips furiously to reach his high and bring you down with him.

Your fingers leave his curls in favour of his jacket to move it past his shoulders, let it fall along his arms until he’s unceremoniously throwing it away. But it is not enough to satisfy your desire of seeing him, touching him, claiming him. So your hands hook around the hem of his shirt to lift it off of his head and Jeongguk follows your desires, lets you guide him and take control over him with the barest touch of your fingers. A single brush of your digits on his feverish skin is enough to gather goosebumps on the flesh and blood deep down his crotch. His cheeks turn a lovely shade of coral under your gaze as you bite down your bottom lip while your eyes move up and down his half-naked body. It’s a sight you’ve seen countless of times before and yet, it still makes your mouth run dry and butterfly flutter in your stomach like the very first time.

A small smile spreads on your swollen lips the moment you catch sight of the necklace dangling from his neck. It glints under the artificial white lights of the streetlamps filtering through the windows, looking as if it were made of the purest glass on Earth. You reach out to touch the sharp point of the feather and then you take it within your grasp and tug on it until he’s falling back on top of you and your lips are tasting each other once more.

You drag your nails across his naked back ever so softly yet the sensation of the teasing touch makes him grunt and roll his hips into yours once in a form of retaliation that has you calling his name in a mix of a warning to stop and a plea to keep going. Jeongguk clearly decides it is the latter for he does it again, and again, and again until you’re fully whining his name inside the kiss and digging your nails harder into his naked flesh.

“You’re such a tease,” you whisper atop his mouth the instant his lips leave yours just so that he can look inside your eyes and oh, that little smirk on his lips is so enticing you have to fight against yourself not to kiss him senseless right then and there.

“Look who’s talking.” His voice is rough around the edges, laced with the desire coiling in his stomach that is making his blood boil and gather right between his legs.

You tilt your head a little to the side and let your fingers roam against his chest, stroke ever so softly the fine line of his abs just to watch them contract under your touch. You drag your hand further down his torso and you can hear the way his breath catches the moment your fingers are ghosting over his belt. Your teeth sink into the soft flesh of your bottom lip and Jeongguk curses under his breath as you let your hands move past that belt, get inside his jeans and palm his bottom cheeks through the fabric of his boxer briefs. You watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down, his jaw slacks as you tug on his hips so that he can press his confined member against your aching core.

Your body seems to catch on fire, turn into liquid flames right underneath his intense gaze and it takes again all of your willpower to not strip him naked in a second and push him deep right inside of you. But no, you want to savour this moment, make it last throughout the whole night so that you can rekindle properly with each other’s bodies after spending so much time running for your lives, out in the streets, unable to let yourself go and touch each other like you used to every single day before all hell broke loose. It’s been too long. Too long without his fingers on you, without his lips on your neck, without his sex battering yours in ways bound to make you forget your own name. Too-fucking-long.

He calls your name, wets his lips and begs with his eyes to give him more, in whatever form you prefer and you grant his silent wishes with the slow drag of your hands as they inch back towards his belt in order to free him at least from the confinement of his jeans. He releases a soft breath as you unbuckle it for him and then slowly unfasten both the button and the zipper and that same breath seems to hang in the air as your fingers palm him for the first time in weeks. His eyes close in bliss, his head tilts a little back and you drink up the sight of him like this, already getting ruined before you can even touch him properly. Oh, the things you’d do to him and let him do to you all at once and until neither of you can keep on going any longer.

That’s when you attach your lips on his skin, suckle on the firm flesh of his abs until a purple rose blooms there to mark your passage, followed by another and then another until he is whining and growing stiffer under your digits.

Your hands leave his groin and far too quickly for his liking judging by the little grunt of frustration that leaves his parted mouth but that one is quickly replaced by another as you push on his chest until his back is hitting the couch instead of yours and you are the one towering over him, ready to take control.

Your mouth easily finds his weakest spot on the side of his neck and attaches right there just so you can bask in the way his body catches on fire underneath yours, in the way he can’t help but arch his back a little into you, call your name and dig his fingers on the supple curve of your ass. His skin is tender and sweet and it takes so little effort for you to mark it with your eager lips and teeth that you can’t help the deep desire of wanting to mark all of him and turning it into a painting of roses in the shape of your mouth. You close your eyes and let your lips trace every corner of his neck, his clavicles and shoulders and you almost turn deaf to his pleas and whines and sighs of ecstasy. You almost lose yourself completely in the effort of mapping every inch of his skin until nothing is left for you to claim any longer and you have no choice but start all over again.

It takes his hands tugging on your shirt to rip it off of you for you to stop and it takes his mouth on your neck, his hips twitching underneath yours, his voice calling your name, for you to subdue completely and let him strip you of all of your clothes once and for all.

Jeongguk’s fingers tremble with the excitement growing stronger and stronger in his system and they turn rough on your tender skin as they finally get the chance to stroke and pull and feel it under his digits. It’s your turn to close your eyes and tilt your head back, it’s your turn to surrender to his desire-driven touches and mould and melt underneath it. It is your turn to whine and sigh and call his name and Jeongguk drinks up every second of it just like you did and the more he watches you like this, the more he touches you like this, the drunker he feels and the drunker he wants to get because hell, he had almost forgotten how sweet you taste on his lips, how heavenly you feel tightly wrapped around him, how breathtakingly beautiful you are like this, towering over him with nothing but desire filling your gaze.

The bare thought of your walls squeezing him oh so blissfully is enough to make him groan and claim your lips once more while his hands start inching down to where you desire them the most. The touch is simple and slow and yet you arch your back for him, roll your hips on top of his just to feel his length brush against your sleek core. His teeth grasp your bottom lip, pull it down in a way that has you hissing in both pain and excitement and you can’t help but roll your hips once more, bask in the sensation of his turgid member right between your southern lips. You tilt your head back as his lips find your neck once more, attach to the soft spot underneath your jawline to leave his mark there—something he knows to be your utter weakness.

A breathy sigh of elation escapes from your lips and you feel him smile against your skin, you feel his teeth dragging across your neck just so he can playfully bite your jawline next and tease you further. You whisper his name and it sounds like a plea to his ears and one that he is more than glad to take on because damn, he has missed touching you like this more than he even realized. The more his mouth kisses you, the more his fingers brush against your delicate flesh, the more he feels compelled to. So he explores your body more, basks in the way you sigh for him, arch your back, roll your hips, call his name and abandon yourself to his every touch. It is at the apex of your arousal and frustration that his fingers finally find the treasure right between your legs, the sweet spot he had been craving all this time.

The pads of his fingers brush against the sleek skin to gather your juices and slowly bring them up to his mouth so that he can taste them and hum as he sucks his own digits like he would if they were covered with honey instead. The scene is so lewd it prompts a grunt to leave your parted lips while the arousal deepens right between your legs, coiling down to his own turgid member. You watch his eyes zone in onto your dripping sex, you watch them light up with wanton desire and it is then that you beg him, truthfully beg him to lay his hands on you.

“Touch me, please.”

The plea is nothing more than a pained whimper and yet it rings loud and clear into his ears and, oh God does it work because in a fraction of a second, those fingers that were inside his mouth find your core again and this time, they are there to stay. His digits press hard against your swollen clit and draw deep circles onto it while his eyes fix on your face to catch the way it morphs with pleasure.

He drinks up every little whine, every flutter of the eyes, every tilt of the head, every single bite of the lips, every little quiver of your body on top of his.

“Lift your hips, baby.” His voice is hoarse as he speaks those words, laced with all the arousal clouding all of his thoughts and the fire you can see in his eyes makes your head spin and your mouth run dry. The way he wants you, the way he plans to claim you over and over again on this ragged couch are so clear in his gaze you can’t help but whine in utter anticipation and follow his every instruction.

So you leave his neglected cock and lift your hips high enough for him to drag down his fingers and play with your folds instead. His touch is soft at first, tentative even, but all the more enticing. It makes your desire grow deeper, it makes your body quiver with impatience and expectancy and he loves every little second of it. To torture you like this, to slowly drive you insane before throwing you over the edge of utter bliss makes him feel absolutely dizzy and just like an addict, it keeps him wanting more of it.

“You’re so wet,” he mutters under his breath and you let out a strangled whine in response that has him chuckling lightly underneath you. The teasing glint in his eyes, that little smirk that pulls his lips slightly upwards to the side make you want to lean forward and kiss him until you run out of breath but oh, that thought gets swiped away in an instant by the sudden intrusion of two of his fingers right inside your sex.

Your head falls backwards, your muscles tense and your jaw slacks as your walls contract around his heavenly fingers, adjusting to the stretch so quickly he has another finger plunged deep inside of you in an instant. You call his name once more, let a trembling breath escape your parted lips and Jeongguk takes that as an encouragement to pump his fingers in and out of you. The pace is torturously slow and it has you wetting your lips over and over again whilst your arousal grows bigger and bigger, trailing down your thighs.

His fingers curl into you and you hiss, bite your bottom lip and go rigid on top of him and the sight is so beautiful he does it again and then once more just to see you crumble and tremble and give in into the impossible pleasure spreading through your limbs like liquid fire.

He lifts himself up enough to bring his mouth to your naked breasts and envelope one of your nipples with his soft rosy lips. You gulp down heavily and find purchase onto his raven locks with one of your hands while the other one ventures out between your lifted legs to seek his erection and brush your fingers against it.

The little grunt of appreciation that comes with the simple touch spreads a smile on your lips, encourages you to wrap your fingers around it to pump it a few times, spreading your juices all over his hard length.

“I want to feel you,” you mutter under your breath and Jeongguk’s teeth pull a little on your turgid bud making you hiss in both pleasure and pain.

When his eyes fix on you, a long shiver runs down your spine. Goosebumps gather on your flesh and your heart turns rampant in your chest, “Then ride me, baby.”

The pressure of his fingers inside your core disappears as quickly as it came and it leaves you startled, contracting around nothing but thin air and mourning the sudden loss. His invitation, though, hangs in the air heavy like stones and thick like fog. And it is that invitation, the temptation in taking the lead that prompts both of your hands to push on his chest until he’s flat on the couch once more, looking up to you with all the desire burning deep inside his stomach.

It is still him that guides you, though, encourages you to take command and make him yours. It’s his fingers that wrap around his length to align himself to your dripping sex. It’s his free arm that wraps around your stomach and pulls you down so that you can finally meet his member and it’s still him that pushes you down just enough for the tip of his cock to brush against your sleek folds.

Wetting your lips, with your eyes pointedly fixed on his, you sink onto him then, ever so slowly, just so you can bask in the sensation of being filled up to the brim for the first time in weeks and let it last for as long as possible. Jeongguk lets out a sigh underneath you, his eyes closing as he lets go to the blissful sensation that is your walls contracting around him, welcoming him back with a tight embrace that already menaces to cut his oxygen intake short.

His free hand finds the supple curve of your ass and wraps around it as you sink completely onto him and let out a pleased sigh at the sensation of him filling you whole. You find purchase on his chest as you lift your hips back up ever so slightly and when his eyes find yours once more and lock you there, you start moving on top of him.

The lewd sound of skin slapping on skin fills the empty apartment, quickly followed by your soft sighs, readily amplified by both of his hands squeezing your bottom cheeks.

Jeongguk’s mouth hangs open, his eyes fixed on your face as you quicken your pace on top of him, rolling your hips every now and then just to hear his grunts, just to feel his nails dig into your flesh more and in a way that is bound to leave half-moon shaped marks scattered across it.

You arch your back a little and lean back to rest your hands on his knees instead and roll into him faster, pushing him deeper until he’s brushing against your cervix in that delicious way that always brings you crumbling down in the span of a few minutes. The guttural sound that escapes from deep down your throat makes him desperate to hear more and to feel the delectable way your walls would squeeze him at the apex of your high. It is then that one of his hands leaves your bottom cheeks in favour of your swollen bud, the very trigger of your pleasure.

The way you call his name then drives him absolutely insane, convinces him that his name has never sounded so beautiful before and oh, it turns his fingers fervent, prompts his hips to roll up into you to meet you halfway, faster and deeper and that’s how you lose your battle for control, that is how you end up giving in to him and letting him claim you with everything he has to offer.

Jeongguk’s hips snap into yours in time with the furious pace of his digits atop your clit, drawing perfect circles on to it that turn you blind and deaf to your own screams and mewls of ecstasy. He calls your name with a deep grunt but you cannot hear it when your ears are ringing so loudly, when your heart is beating so fast inside your chest it might explode soon, when your vision completely disappears and your body starts to quiver on top of his as you lose control.

The pleasure hits you like an unexpected wave of cold water and it steals your breath and sanity away. You come all around him mewling out loud his name and in that moment it doesn’t matter that you might stir awake some monster, that you might reveal your location to the nightmares waiting for you, no, all that matters is the pleasure and how absolutely paradisaical this moment feels.

Jeongguk’s eyes of charcoal are the first thing you see when you finally open yours, when the pleasure subdues and you come back down on Earth, to the here and now. And it’s those eyes of fire that make you rock your hips into him, that make you lift your ass and slap it back onto his thighs hard and fast.

The sounds that erupt from his mouth are like music to your ears and they guide your every movement and oh, you’d bring him down with you like this over and over again but Jeongguk begs you to slow down, to let him enjoy this moment a little bit longer until he has no choice but to paint your walls white.

“Turn around, baby,” he instructs after wetting his lips, his voice deep and hoarse and filled with the passion and desire driving his every movement, his every word.

His legs spread to welcome your ass right between them and as you find purchase on the couch, you let your sex sink back onto him, rejoicing in the new stretch this position provides.

A string of curses escapes his mouth drawing a little wicked smirk on your lips and prompting your hips to snap into his harder. Your hands are both sprawled on the couch to keep yourself standing enough to keep this perfect angle that is bound to turn the both of you absolutely insane. Your body is still quivering with the aftermath of your first orgasm and the lightheaded sensation that still lingers in your system makes your hips move furiously on top of his, drawing all kind of beautiful sounds from his parted lips.

You turn your head back enough to fix your eyes on his face, watch the way it morphs with pleasure. You call his name once, twice in a row and Jeongguk grunts and snaps his hips back into you, hard and fast to the point he’s about to erupt deep inside of you. You can see it in his eyes: the desire, the wanton need, the desperate search for his own release and the more you look at him like this, the more he fucks into you like this, the faster your heart beats, the harder your blood flows in your veins.

Jeongguk’s hips slow down, his bottom lip trembles with the breath that escapes from his lungs and he doesn’t have enough time to utter his next words, to explicitly say what he so desperately desires from you because you push your hips back once more, roll them onto his turgid shaft and fuck yourself on him, impale yourself on his cock until you are crumbling, breaking to tiny pieces right within his grasp. Jeongguk can’t take his eyes off of your quivering limbs, off of your ass still bouncing up and down in front of him, off of his cock plunging deep in and out of you. It is then that he takes the lead once more, pushes you flat on the couch so that he can stand on his knees and pound deep inside of you.

His hips snap into yours so hard and fast you don’t have a spare second to catch your breath, to allow yourself to come down from this impossible high. You mewl his name as his hands find purchase on the small of your back and he roughens up his pace, grunts your name in a row, tells you how impossibly good you feel so tight around him, squeezing him to madness. And you drink up all those words, eat them up like a famished woman on a deserted island and oh, do you galvanize him even further with your sighs of ecstasy, with your pleas for him to fuck you harder, faster, stronger.

If you close your eyes you can almost see his luscious thighs, the way his ass snaps with his hips as he pushes deep inside of you, the way his back contracts with the effort of keeping himself standing right above you, the way sweat shines on his golden skin like fine pearls. You can almost see his raven hair getting wet and stick to his forehead and to his neck and oh, how you’d love to tug on those strands, elicit a hiss out of him and throw him over the edge just like that but instead, it’s Jeongguk that leans forward to grasp your hair, tug on it until you have no choice but arch your back and tilt your head back.

Your eyes open to bore into his as you bite your bottom lip for him, heave out a sigh of ecstasy that is quickly followed by a string of pleas for him to cum right inside of you like this, fill you up to the brim on this ragged couch inside an apartment that isn’t your own, in a city you have never seen before.

Jeongguk grasps your neck then, pushes his fingers on the soft skin deep enough to cut the oxygen intake in half and then he kisses you fully on the mouth, claims your lips with the same ferocity set right between your legs and just like that, you come once more and as your orgasm coils down your thighs and soils the couch further, he shoots his pleasure deep inside of you. You feel his hips snap and still as he lets out a deep grunt of liberation, you feel his hands quiver on your neck and on the small of your back, you hear the stream of little curses that leave his mouth as his orgasm just keeps on coming and coming and coming and you don’t have to look to know his eyes are trained on your sex, dripping with the mixture of both of your pleasures.

The sight of you like this leaves Jeongguk breathless, it leaves him wanting more of this, more of you, it leaves him wishing he could fuck you just like this for the rest of your lives without having to think about anything else outside those four walls. His fingers leave your neck then, allow you to breathe in freely as he slowly drags his cock out of you in favour of his mouth because hell, ever since you started undressing him, this is all he could think about. His tongue brushes against your sleek folds and a deep shiver runs down your spine, followed by a whimper. You call his name softly in question, you tilt your head a little to the side just so you can glimpse at his face but Jeongguk’s answer comes in the form of his tongue flattening completely atop your sex and in the deep grunt that erupts from deep within his throat. The taste of your pleasure mixed with his own is inebriating, quite potentially addicting and so very sweet he just can’t help but gather it all on the tip of his tongue, careful not to waste a single drop of it.

“You taste so good, baby,” he mutters under his breath and you shiver at the lewd words, at the way his eyes are still trained on your sex with all that passion burning deep inside of them. Your body falls completely on the couch then, your ass slightly tilted upwards to offer him the perfect view and angle to keep tasting you like this with his relentless tongue. He laps at your folds, lets his tongue move right between them to gather the nectar he so desperately craves right from the source, oh so delectably deep within you and when you start trembling slightly, when soft sighs start leaving your pretty and swollen lips, he decides to attack your clit too, suckle on the sensitive bud until you are fisting the couch beneath you and begging him to keep on going even though you know you cannot take much more, even though literally every single muscle in your body is aching right about now.

His hands grasp your hips, keep you perfectly still as he devours you whole and he doesn’t stop, not even to catch his breath, until you’re a quivering mess all over again, mewling his name and coming all over his face. And Jeongguk, oh, he loves every second of it and still makes sure to welcome every drop of your pleasure on his tongue to gulp it down and feed on its sweet and sour taste as if this were the very first time.

Your body gives out and you let yourself go completely, close your eyes while coming down from your high and every word that leaves his mouth is muffled by the loud ringing in your ears, by the heavy breaths that leave your heaving chest, by the loud drumming of your heart.

It’s the tenderness of his touch, the way his arms envelop you whole that bring you back to the present, to the empty apartment and it’s his lovely lips on your forehead as he pulls you up to welcome you in his tight embrace that keeps you from falling into a deep slumber.

“You look like you’re about to fall asleep,” he whispers, chuckling slightly at the way you hum while closing your eyes, genuinely fighting against the need to just shut down and recharge.

He hums then, places another soft kiss on your temple and tangles your limbs together while making himself comfortable on the raggedy couch.

“Sleep then, baby. We have a big day ahead of us and I want to leave as soon as we can after going out to find some food.”

A smile forms on your lips then and you nod your head a couple of times. Yes, for a second you almost forgot about your dream and how it’s about to become reality, how close you are, at last to the final destination.

So tonight, you fall asleep with no fear of tomorrow, you fall asleep in the blink of an eye without having to trick yourself into closing your eyes and shutting down all of your thoughts. Tonight, for the first time in weeks, you sleep peacefully in his arms without a single nightmare coming to haunt your dreams. Tonight, the happy memories running through your head behind those closed lids do not burn and turn to ashes, no, they shine brighter than a thousand suns because, for the first time in weeks, you actually believe they could turn into reality soon.

There are some things you can feel in your guts long before they happen. They just sit there, on the pit of your stomach, to make you nervous, nauseous and restless even though you don’t know what they are just yet.

When you wake up and lift your head from his naked chest just so you can stare at his beautiful, peaceful face, you instantly know it’s one of those days. The nervousness sips into your system all at once, cutting your breath short, turning your heart into a caged bird eager to escape. Yet, you don’t utter a single word because today it’s a big day. The day.

You don’t say a word when he kisses you as soon as he wakes up nor when he makes plans for your departure. You don’t even say anything when he puts his almost-empty bag behind his back and walks out the door to scout for some food to bring with you on your trip to salvation.

A lot of words are wasted and gulped down, trapped in the deepest recess of your being where no one can see them or hear them except yourself. And those words menace to choke you, to burn you and consume you until nothing but ashes are left as you wait for him sitting on that same couch you made love on top of last night.

You wait. And wait. And the seconds tick by turning into minutes that turn into hours and the longer you wait, the worse you feel and it’s when your head is starting to spin, when it becomes too hard for you to breathe, when it’s impossible for you to focus on anything else that isn’t the worst-case scenario that you finally get up from the damn couch, pull the backpack on your shoulders and leave the apartment.

Smoke welcomes you back into the real world outside your happy bubble. It stings your eyes, it makes them water and has you coughing out in desperate need of clean air and you know the wiser thing would be to run back to the relative safety of the apartment but the uneasiness in your stomach grows bigger and bigger, dilating like oil at sea, menacing to take over every single cell you’re made of. So, you walk. Walk away from your pretty perfect house, the one you built out of cards last night even though you knew it was going to inevitably collapse soon, the one where you sought peace and happiness and hope for a bright future. You leave it all behind because you have no other choice but to.

The eerie silence of the city is one you’ve experienced countless of times before and therefore you know it’s nothing but the quiet before the storm hits, a trap to make you lower your guard enough for the monsters to attack and take you down with them and as you walk through the deserted and unknown alleys, the feeling of being followed and watched takes over, prompts your legs to move faster just in case you need to start running for your life.

You’ve never been out on your own before. You always had Jeongguk to guide you, to protect you. It takes just a few minutes on your own out there to realise how much you depend on him, how bloody helpless you are on your own out here in the real world where nothing goes according to plan and you can’t count on anyone except for yourself. Again, you realise how lucky you had been all your life, how many little things you took for granted and it makes you wonder if this isn’t some sort of punishment or even a lesson being taught to whole humanity so that one day, the few survivors can learn from it and not repeat the same damn mistakes they’ve made before.

The sound of your name breaks the silence, cuts it in half, rips it to shreds. You whip your head around in the direction of the sound and it’s Jeongguk that you see right there, running through the wreckage the monsters have left behind in that unmistakable way that can only mean one thing: run or perish. So you outstretch your arm for him, lace your fingers together and start running right alongside him without asking a single question and without even looking behind your back.

Your heart soars with relief and gratitude for his salvation and that emotion slightly subdues the uneasiness in your stomach, slowly puts it to sleep as your feet hit hard on the bitumen while you trace your steps back to the apartment, its four safe walls and most importantly the car waiting for you there, that very car that promises to take you the hell away from all of this once and for all. Your grasp around his fingers tightens and as it does, his eyes land on you and that little smile of his twists his lips, at last, to bring warmth to your heart and body, to bring peace to the raging war inside your head.

The apartment’s door slams shut behind your backs and you both press your bodies on it to keep it firmly shut as you try and catch your breath. It is only when you feel his body relax against yours that the words come out.

“What happened?”

Jeongguk grimaces, shakes his head while closing his eyes while a little sigh escapes his lips, “I let my guard down. I was so sure those fuckers were far away deep down the city’s core I was surrounded in an instant. There were so fucking many…”

Your hand comes to his cheek and he leans into the touch immediately, without even noticing. The warmth of your touch placates his heart and brings his eyes on you. They are sweet and filled with love and you can’t help but lean in to kiss his lips.

“It’s ok. We’re alive and we’re about to get the hell away from here.”

Jeongguk smiles at you, nods his head a couple of times before pulling you fully into him, wrapping his loving arms around you and then resting his head in the crook of your neck. He insists that your perfume still lingers there up to this day and it doesn’t matter how much you tell him it is not possible, that any trace of your favourite perfume has long gone, he still claims that as his favourite spot that tastes and smells just like you.

Your fingers find purchase on his shirt, tug on it to bring him even closer, so close there is not a single inch of your bodies that is not touching and it’s right then that the bubble bursts, at last. It takes nothing more than a small touch, a little brush of your fingers against his skin.

Jeongguk hisses in pain and your heart stops.

Jeongguk releases you from his embrace and his eyes full of horror and dread fix on your face, cutting the air out of your lungs.

Jeongguk lifts his shirt up to reveal a red, bloodied mark on his left hip and your world crumbles for the second time in just two weeks.

Jeongguk takes in a sharp, trembling breath and tears start rolling down your cheeks as you furiously shake your head, frantically denying to yourself the truth laid out right before your eyes.

Jeongguk calls your name, puts both of his hands on your cheeks to brush the tears away but it’s a lost battle when they keep coming and coming like water pouring out of a splintered dike.

Tears fall from his eyes too. Thick as pearls, clear as glass, rare as diamonds. And you hate them because the more you look at them rolling down his cheeks, the more real it gets.

“N-no, no, Jeonggukie, no,” your bottom lip quivers, your voice breaks, your body trembles under his gaze as if an earthquake has been trapped right inside of you and it’s now breaking loose, erupting deep within you. You choke on your tears as you grab both of his arms with all the strength you have left in you, pull him into you as if that would stop the venom from spreading and taking his beautiful heart away, “Please.”

You don’t know if your plea is for him to tell you that it’s going to be ok, that this is just a nightmare, nothing to be scared of when you’ll soon open your eyes anyways and realise how stupid you were being or if it’s for some deity up there to help you, to grant you another miracle.

You don’t know but either way, it falls on deaf ears and it doesn’t matter how much you cry and scream and beg and pull him into you, nothing changes. You had your chance, didn’t you? You were granted a wish, a proper miracle back inside that car less than twenty-four hours ago. That was it, that was your first and final ticket and you carelessly used it, without even thinking, without even… You break. There are a million tiny pieces of yourself right there on the ground, sprawled across the dirty floor like an impossible puzzle to rearrange.

“Baby.” His voice is soft. No trace of the fear he feels right inside his heart, not a single trace of the anger and despair running through his veins. His last gift to you, the only thing he has to offer, it would seem, is his feigned peace of heart and mind, “Baby, listen to me.”

You don’t want to listen because deep down, you already know what he’s going to say and you do not want to hear those words, you don’t want to have to remember them ever leaving his mouth. So you fight him, yank away from his arms, try to run from him and the new reality that you’ve been thrown into but there is no hiding, no running this time. It’s game over, right there above your heads, written in crooked and red all caps.

“Listen to me!”

It would be easy to close your eyes and let yourself drift inside that happy land full of memories you retract to whenever things get too intense and heavy but his eyes are filled with raging fire, dancing flames of coal that hold your gaze on him, trap you there so that you can’t escape, not even for a second, not this time.

“There is a gun inside my bag, I want you to take it and—”

“NO!” The scream that erupts from your mouth scratches your throat, burns you from the inside out with the same force of those flames still trapping you there, within the tight grasp of his hands on your shoulders.

“Please, baby,” one of his hands moves to caress the top of your head and you close your eyes to relish into the touch knowing it will probably be your last. You lean into his hand as it reaches one of your cheeks once more and the softest sob escapes your parted lips as you try with all your might to deny the fact that it is over, that this is it and there is no going back.

“Please don’t make me do it,” your voice breaks, quivers helplessly as you open your eyes once more, fix them back into his beautiful, shining ones. You can see the pain there, the guilt and despair laced with the fear of doom but what you see is nowhere close what Jeongguk really feels.

He’s scared. Scared beyond belief and far more than he has ever been. He’s scared of the unknown, he’s scared of the pain, he’s scared of leaving you behind like this, of what will happen to you once he is gone and nobody is left to protect you. He is scared of what you’ll do to yourself after he… but he has no choice, he has no fucking say in all of this and he hates himself for everything. He hates himself for being weak in his final moments, for not having the courage to do it himself but most importantly for allowing this to be your last time together. It shouldn’t be like this, it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

But all these thoughts, all those words, they never leave his mouth. No. What comes out of his mouth is a reminder and a plea, all in one.

“You promised. We promised.”

It hits you just like a slap across the face, one so hard it would tilt your head to the side and turn the skin tender and boiling hot to the touch.

You remember that night. Sleeping under the stars in a dark alley trying to breathe as silently as possible to not gather the attention of the monsters roaming through the city, you laced your fingers together and promised with nothing but the night sky as your witness to never let yourselves become one of those soulless monsters. You promised while praying in your heart it’d never come the day either one of you would have to abide by it.

And now here you are.

“Don’t let me become one of them, baby, please. I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Tears roll down his cheeks, harder and faster than ever before and each droplet breaks you a little more until truly, you feel like nothing of you is left. In this moment, you give up everything you’ve ever been. In this moment, you rip your soul to shreds and part ways with it knowing you’ll never be reunited with it in this life.

The sense of void engulfs you, swallows you whole and all you can hear are his words on repeat and oh, all you can see are those beautiful eyes of his pleading you to do it and you don’t know if it’s your hands that reach for his backpack to seize the gun nestled inside of it or if someone—or something—else is guiding your trembling fingers but, in an instant, the gun is there, right within your grasp and pointed straight to his head.

Jeongguk is looking at you and he tries to smile, tries to regard you with all the warmth filling his heart but he can’t hide the fear that is trapping him there, cutting the air out his lungs, turning his heart restless against his ribs. He fears everything but what he fears the most is what he’ll become if he doesn’t die right here, right now. So he forces himself to smile, he forces himself to nod, he forces his eyes to close and a sigh to move past his lips.

The bang echoes in your ears.

The bullet goes right through his head and yet you can fill it stuck right inside your heart instead, twisting into the flesh until you cannot breathe or think and all that is left is the pain and the scream of agony that leaves your trembling lips.

The gun slips from your quivering hands and hits the hard ground and your eyes fix on it long enough to notice the pool of red tinting the floor, soiling the carpet, slowly reaching for your shoes.

His blood.

You fall on the ground and break into tiny frail shreds of porcelain, so sharp they could cut deep into the skin, infiltrate under it and kill you from the inside out.

Your quivering hands are lost inside your hair, fisting them so hard you might pull them from your skull but you do not care nor feel any of the pain spreading through your body. No, not now when your eyes are fixed on what remains of his beautiful face. Those eyes that used to hold galaxies in them are void now, dark and lifeless like a night sky without a single star. Those pretty rosy lips you kissed until yours ached are now pale and turning cold, stuck in a perpetual “o” of utter shock. Those warm and delicate hands that used to hold you, caress you, explore you are now grasping nothing but the thin air and you open them to lace your fingers with them one last time.

One.

Last.

Time.

The desperate cries come then.

You are deaf to your own screams, blind to the tears coiling down your face, oblivious to the way your body shakes with each strangled breath, with each inconsolable sob. You throw yourself on his motionless body, rest your head atop his chest as if he were nothing more than asleep and you cling to his shirt begging him to hug you back just like he used to, reassure you that it’s all going to be ok, that this is just another one of your crazy nightmares, that none of this is real.

But when you open your eyes he’s still lying motionless on the ground, his eyes are still void and staring up at the ceiling and his arms are still sprawled on the floor and not tucked around your body to keep you safe. And the worst part of it is that this is all because of you. You did this to him.

The bang echoes in your ears again, louder and louder with each passing second and closing your eyes doesn’t work anymore because now, all you see behind those closed lids is his dead face and those bottomless black eyes.

Everything breaks inside of you, everything shatters and falls helplessly on the soiled floor to join him and fly away with him to a place far away from here. And oh, how much you wish you could join him, that you could pick up that damn gun, point it to your head and just let the last remnants of your soul go so that you won’t have to face this or live through this a second longer but you don’t and you try to tell yourself it’s because you are a coward, that it’s because deep down you want to survive no matter what because it would be easier to accept that, it would be easier to just loathe yourself and think the most despicable things about yourself but, alas, it wouldn’t be the truth. No, even now, even when his eyes cannot see you anymore, even when his voice cannot reach you, and his hands cannot hold you, you’re still doing everything for him.

If you close your eyes, if you focus on the silence surrounding you hard enough to tune out the loud bangs ricocheting through your consciousness, you can almost hear him begging you to keep on living, to keep on fighting for your dream so that his death is not in vain, so that not everything is lost. But even still, it is not enough for you to lift yourself up, for your legs to move and bring you out of this apartment, out if this forsaken town. It is not enough for you to actually stand up and fight for your life, for a chance at survival, for an actual future. So you stay there, on the floor, with your arms wrapped around him and your head resting on his immobile chest. And you remain there for hours, crying until there are no tears left to cry, until your eyes burn and your throat aches, until the sun goes down and you are enveloped in darkness.

You stay there, motionless just like him except for the steady rise and fall of your chest and not even the noises coming down the hallway, not even the sound of steps startle you, prompt you to leave him behind and run to safety.

Your eyes move to the door as it swings open and you’re almost ready to welcome your end without even trying to put up a fight but it is not a monster that stands right there, on the edge of this apartment door. No, it’s a human and that human is pointing a gun straight to your head.

“Fuck!”

The man curses, takes a step back and pulls his gun away from your face to point it on the floor instead.

“You’re human.” He says and you notice how deep his voice is, warm like honey and comforting like a lover’s hug, “I almost shoot you in the head.”

The man’s eyes look kind even though the shock is still written all over his face but that warmness disappears in an instant as he finally takes in the scenery before him: a pool of blood, a pair of void eyes staring straight up at the ceiling, a gun abandoned on the floor not too far away from your feet.

It is clear from the way he looks at you that he’s seen this before, probably even lived through it and the tenderness in his gaze, the way he takes careful steps towards you, the way he softly calls for you with a simple ‘hey’, oh, they all bring the tears and despair back and within seconds you are sobbing all over again and so hard your body shakes and menaces to actually splinter with the force of your pain. It is then that this stranger’s arms engulf you, surround you just like the tallest and safest towers ever created by mankind and you let him because you need this, you need someone to hold you together even for just a few seconds and even if you don’t know his name and he doesn’t know yours.

“Joon, the whole floor is clear, looks like we found somewhere for a good night’s sleep tonig—oh…”

There’s another man standing at the door now, his eyes big as saucers as he takes in the scene before his very eyes and you watch how his mouth opens and closes as he struggles to put together the whole thing and honestly, if this were a movie it would almost be amusing and comical but even the hope to wake up and discover it was all part of a nightmare, a recreation of your mind after watching a stupid horror movie alone in the middle of the night is now gone, completely erased.

“Yes, bring the others in, we’re going to stay.”

The other boy looks up at the stranger still holding you—Joon?—with questioning eyes but doesn’t dare to speak a single word and instead retreats to the end of the corridor in utter silence.

“It’s just four of us,” he says then, looking down at you with a tender smile, “We need somewhere to stay for the night and you probably shouldn’t be alone right now.”

He welcomes your silence with a slight nod of his head and then his arms are gone and you almost reach out for him to beg him to keep you in his embrace until you’re sure you’re not going to break apart into thousands of pieces but you don’t. Too afraid to ask, too scared to even dare to.

“We’re headed to the Refuge. Have you heard of it? It’s quite close at this point, if the rumours are true. It’s a community of humans that has successfully kept those fuckers out.”

“We…we were going there too.” Your voice is small and croaky, barely above a whisper but in the silence of the apartment, he hears your words loud and clear and responds to them with a hum.

“You could come with us.”

His words are simple yet they startle you, they prompt your eyes to fix back on Jeongguk’s lovely face and suddenly you are hyperventilating because no, you can’t leave him behind like this, you can’t leave his body here for those monsters to feed on. You just can’t.

The stranger’s arms are around you in an instant once more, his voice is soothing in your ears as he tries to calm you down, to stop the tears and the choking sobs but all his words fall on deaf ears as you start breaking apart all over again. You scream and cry your heart out and he lets you, he doesn’t leave your side again though, no, he keeps you right there within his embrace and he doesn’t give up and it does not make sense for someone you’ve barely even met to care so much about you, to have this much patience but maybe, maybe after seeing so much horror, after parting with so many different people just like you did he decided not to leave anyone else behind if he can, not even random girls met in an empty apartment in a forsaken, nameless city on a crumpled map.

“I know it’s hard but it’s going to be ok, I promise. You can’t give up now, ok? We’re so close, so freaking close and I didn’t know him but if he cared about you just as much as you evidently care about him, I’m sure he’d want you to move on, he’d want you to fight and win this battle and survive.” His words do come through this time and they should probably soothe your heart but they break it harder because no, he didn’t know Jeongguk but then why do his words match him so well he could have said them himself? You know he’d want you to follow them, to bring yourself to salvation and wasn’t that exactly what you told yourself while embracing his dead body all those hours ago?

The stranger breaks the embrace enough to look inside your eyes, to tentatively reach out to dry your tears and there is so much affection in his gaze, in the careful way he touches you, in the little dimpled smile he shows you and you already know, you’ll never be able to thank him enough for all of this.

“Who are you?” Your question comes out as a trembling whisper yet he catches on to it and smiles harder, pulls his gaze away from your face as his cheeks turn a lovely shade of coral. What you meant to ask was if he’s an angel, someone sent from up above to save you and guide you through this difficult path and maybe he gets what you mean or maybe he doesn’t but still, he replies and it’s the easiest answer he could ever give you, “I’m Namjoon.”

It is then, as you whisper his name and get acquainted with it that the other boy returns, followed by two more young men and their belongings which, just like yours, fit all inside a single bag.

“This is Jimin,” the boy next to you points to the shortest one of the bunch and you watch him blush as he slightly bows down while chewing on his bottom lip. He was the one that found you and Namjoon on the ground and his eyes still spark with curiosity but he doesn’t dare ask any questions and you are grateful for that.

“Taehyung,” Namjoon says, pointing towards the guy standing right next to Jimin, his fingers laced around the other boy’s in an unequivocal way that reminds you in an instant of the way Jeongguk always used to hold your hand any chance he got, especially the past few weeks.

“And that is Seokjin.” The last boy waves at you and the discomfort in his features is enough for you to pull your gaze away from him and fix it back on the ground.

No matter how much you try, you can’t shake the fact that this is wrong, that all of this is just wrong. You staying here, those boys standing here all around you, invading the privacy of this place and what it holds in it and you hate that this is somewhat normal to them—and to you—that it doesn’t shock humans anymore to find others with holes in their heads or even worse.

Silence envelops you and none of them breaks it and it stretches on and on until you can’t take it anymore, until it feels like you cannot breathe anymore.

“He was bitten,” you utter then, voice trembling and tears falling on your cheeks slowly like fat, translucent pearls. “He asked me to… I had no choice but… He—His name is-was Jeongguk.”

The boys bow their heads when you lift your head up and you can see the sadness in their eyes, the recognition and understanding that comes with experiencing all of this on your own skin, with your own eyes and maybe that’s why you don’t say anything when Namjoon slowly pulls Jeongguk away from your arms, maybe that’s why you let Seokjin lift you up from the ground in favour of the couch, maybe that’s why you let them touch him, close his eyes, pull him away and clean his blood off of the floor the best they can.

“We’ll bring him with us, we’ll bring him to the Refuge and spread his ashes there, away from all of this. What do you say?”

“Why are you doing this for me?” You look up to Namjoon while you hug your legs close to your chest and in that moment you don’t realise how ungrateful you must sound to him, questioning him and his motives over and over again instead of thanking him with all that you’ve got but he doesn’t comment on it, no, he offers you a gentle smile and a little sigh that holds all the exhaustion he must feel in it.

“Because there’s too little of us left to not care about each other at this point.”

Those words warm your heart, they warm your shivering body and move you in ways you didn’t think possible anymore. That little part left of your soul holds onto his words, onto the hope he provides and it hangs on to it with both nails and teeth refusing to let go and it’s that part of you that makes you open your mouth once more but this time, it is to offer some help and not just throw more burden to the mix.

“We found a car. It still has fuel in it and we planned to use it to reach the Refuge.”

Maybe this was all meant to be. Maybe, you were meant to meet and save those boys and they were meant to find you and pull you back together in the darkest hour of your life. Yes, maybe it was all written in the stars and it might not be fair because life, you’ve learned, hardly ever is but when your eyes land on the tall white walls of a city hidden in the mountains the following night, all the puzzle pieces fit together.

You watch the flames dance, feel the warmth of the fire on your hands, rising up to your arms and slowly reach your face like comforting hands tying to caress your body.

The heat makes your eyes water, makes your skin feel impossibly hot and yet you don’t move a single inch and find yourself almost wishing those flames would actually reach out and claim you right along with him, burn you until there’s nothing but ashes to remind the world that once, you existed. But it’s not you that burns, no, it’s Jeongguk. You watch his lovely body disappear inside those flames: his strong arms that used to hold you, his rosy lips that used to kiss you and call your name so sweetly whenever you were together, those beautiful eyes of coal you always got lost in, that luscious raven locks you loved to run your fingers through or tug on depending on the mood… you watch it all burn and disappear.

There is a comforting hand on your shoulder. The touch is delicate and sweet, enough to soothe your aching soul without it being too invasive and you are glad for it, for his presence by your side. Kim Namjoon saved you in more ways than meet the eyes. He saved you two nights ago when he found you holding Jeongguk’s lifeless body, he saved you when he put you inside that car with his friends, he saved you when he successfully brought you here, to the Refuge, where you can now freely mourn your loss and do it right. This is the first proper goodbye you were granted ever since it all started and in this moment you part ways with the love of your life but also with your family and friends, with everyone you’ve ever met that turned into an impossible monster or perished before the venom could turn them into one. And you allow yourself to break a little because it’s ok, you’re allowed this one moment of weakness now, you’re allowed to cry your heart out for all the things you’ve lost during this fight.

Your knuckles turn white against the necklace around your neck. The sharp ends of the feather dig into your skin and you let it, hell, you even grasp it tighter as if trying to merge your hand with it as if that could somehow bring him back or let him live right inside of you to his fullest. The tears run faster down your cheeks because this, right within your grasp, is all there’s left of him: a necklace and your memories. Nothing more.

All that Jeongguk was, his past and present and future, they were all swept away in an instant, like dust under the force of the wind and you are the only one that remains to remember him, to tell his story to the world, to let him live on so that he won’t ever be forgotten amongst the millions of lives that were lost.

Just you, a necklace and a fist of ashes.

It’s with trembling fingers that you release them all in the air, let his entire being be swept away by wind so that it can cover the land all around you and be reborn in this field in the form of beautiful flowers, majestic trees, droplets of water to fill the river running down the hills.

The breeze is warm against your skin and if you close your eyes you can almost imagine his fingers caressing your body just like the wind is, you can almost imagine him embracing you through this air surrounding you, playing with your hair and enveloping your body.

For the first time in days, you smile. You smile at the thought of him being finally free and at peace right where he wanted to be, you smile at the thought of him looking down at you with his beautiful eyes, with pride shining in them. You smile at the thought of him nodding his head while patting yours, you smile at the idea of his fingers lacing with yours one last time as he says his goodbye with the promise of always looking down on you, of always protecting you, even from up there where nothing goes unseen. You smile and you thank him for loving you so much, for saving you countless of times even before the zombies arrived, even before you realized you were being saved and that you even needed to.

You thank him and tell him how much you love him, how you will never forget him, how you’ll keep cherishing him and keeping him right inside your heart for every second of your life from here moving forward and you repeat those promises you shared one year ago, on that altar, so that he knows you are his forever and no matter what, you’ll always belong to him just like him belonged to you until his very last breath.

When the touch of a hand warms your shoulders and brings you back on Earth, for a second you startle and foolishly hope to turn around and see him standing right there, smiling at you with his head slightly tilted to the side. But when you turn it’s not Jeongguk that welcomes you, no, it’s Namjoon with his timid smile, with eyes full of wonders and understanding and this time, your smile, incredibly, does not falter nor disappear.

Namjoon doesn’t utter a single word and he doesn’t need to because you know, even though you’ve barely met him, that he is simply there for you, that he is offering you his support and friendship amidst those difficult times and you don’t tell him how grateful and touched you are but a part of you suspects he already knows.

Your eyes drift away from his face and it is then that you notice the other three boys standing a few steps back from the two of you, their eyes fixed on you and the deserted land right behind your back.

They came.

You don’t know when they arrived or if they’ve been there the whole time but either way, you are grateful for their presence too because at least, someone else besides you is here to say goodbye to the wonderful man that was Jeon Jeongguk and it does not matter that they never met him and that they never will, they are still here to accompany his soul somewhere far away from this nightmare and the smile on your lips spreads while tears run down your cheeks once more.

You thank them, your voice nothing more than a trembling breath and they smile back at you, nod their heads and join you right there, at the edge of this green cliff where it’s easy to imagine a new world full of peace and love.

You look up at the sky once more and as the silence envelops you and the boys once more, you whimper out your farewell.

“Goodbye, Jeongguk.”

The grass is soft and ticklish under your feet as you walk through the empty path that leads to your favourite spot: the edge of the hill.

A warm smile spreads on your lips and you unconsciously fasten your pace as your eyes land on the vast sea of green, the clear sky up ahead, the dozens of flowers scattered all over the valley.

“Hey there, handsome.”

Your voice breaks the silence of the heaven-like place, gets carried away by the gust of wind that welcomes you right there, in front of the marble stone where you are bound to be found every single day, right when the sun rises up in the sky and shines brightly on everything in sight.

Your fingers reach out to caress the marble, feel the crevices that make out his name right under your digits. You’ve done this countless of times before and yet you still hope one day they’d get engraved in your digits and stay there to accompany you every single hour for the rest of your life.

You heave out a little sigh as you let your body fall on the ground to hug your knees to your chest and rest your chin on them.

You know this is futile, you know that there is absolutely nothing of him right there, under the ground, that this is just a symbol of his existence, of the fact that once, a great man named Jeon Jeongguk walked the Earth and yet, you still come here every day to talk to him, to see him and remember him like he used to be before everything crumbled down and burned.

This time, it feels different though. Your smile falters a little, you divert your gaze and fix it on the ground to play with the grass, pluck with your fingers whilst you search for the right words to speak because you know, the moment they’ll hang up in the air they’ll become real and part of you is still not ready to face it all, to embrace the inevitable change coming your way.

“Today is the day,” you say then before biting down your bottom lip whilst lifting your gaze back up. In an instant, the tombstone disappears and sitting right across from you is Jeongguk. His eyes are sparkling, his lips are twisted a little to the side in a gentle smile and he is nodding his head in encouragement, urging you to speak up.

“We’re leaving in an hour.” Your voice is small and full with the uncertainty you feel blossoming right inside your heart.

Five years have passed since that night in that city in ruin. Five years spent in this Refuge trying to save and rebuild humankind. Five years of battles and uncertainties and pain, so much pain, but also joy and relief and victories and now, now the nightmare is over and what awaits for you outside this safe haven is a world similar to the one you left behind before the zombie appeared. A normal world rebuilt by those that were left behind, a world full of normalcy and opportunities and peace.

But you are scared. Scared of the future, scared of leaving this place that has kept you alive and safe for so long, scared of leaving him behind even though there is nothing of him left in this place anyways. But Jeongguk smiles at those words and it’s one of those dazzling smiles that used to make butterflies dance in your stomach, that used to turn your heart into a hummingbird, that used to make you feel as warm as the sun itself. You can almost hear his voice then, telling you how happy he is and that you should not be afraid, that he’ll still be right here for you, watching over you every step of the way.

It’s then that the tears come and fall down your cheeks. It’s then that you nod your head and promise him you’ll be back, one day, to sit just like this on this spot of grass in front of his tombstone. It is also then that a pair of small hands comes up your face, hides the sight of Jeongguk from you, throwing you into a pitch-black darkness that instead of fear brings nothing but laughter.

“My, my, who is this? Could it be my little monkey, by any chance?”

Yoona’s laugh fills the air as you turn around and welcome her in your embrace to tickle her to the point of tears. Her eyes shine as she looks up at you and you can see so much of him in there sometimes it’s almost painful to look at her but today, today it serves as a reminder that you’ll always have a part of him right beside you, no matter what.

“I’m sorry, _______. I tried to buy you a little more time but she just wouldn’t sit still.”

Namjoon’s voice reaches you then and as you lift your eyes you watch him stand there with his apologetic smile, dimples in full display as he shakes his head while watching your daughter struggling under the torture of your fingers on her belly.

“It’s ok, don’t worry. I was done anyways.”

You smile at your kid, bump your nose together with hers and hug her tight to your chest. She’s your little miracle, the very last gift he left behind before turning into ash and when you thought all of you was gone, when you thought you’ll never be able to love anyone else anymore, she came your way and filled your heart with all the love of the world.

You hear Namjoon’s steps as he walks away, allowing you one last moment with the love of your life and this is just one thing more to add to the list you are immensely grateful to him for. At this point, you are convinced not even an entire lifetime will be enough for you to be able to repay him or thank him enough for all that he has done for you all these years.

“Are you ready to leave, baby?”

Yoona nods her head in excitement. She’s the adventurous type, just like her dad used to be, and the thought of seeing the outside world thrills her so much she could barely sleep last night. This place is all she’s ever known, all she’s ever seen but you told her about the world outside those high walls made of stone, you told her stories about faraway places that look nothing like the Refuge, you told her fairytales from your childhood but also memories of yourself, her grandparents, her father and now that this world she’s been dreaming about is suddenly within her grasp all she wants to do is reach her little arm out and grasp it with all her might.

“Are you sad, mommy?” Her little palm rests on your cheek and it is then that you realise a few tears have escaped your control once more. You quickly brush them away but that is not enough to bring the smile back on her lovely face, to erase the worried expression twisting her features. “Is it because of daddy?”

She turns around towards the tombstone then before reaching out her little arm to feel the characters that make out his name under her digits, just like you always do. You know she is caressing his face now, that she’s making sure he knows how much she loves him even though she has never seen his face before, even though she has never heard his voice before and all she can do is imagine, fantasize and dream about him.

“Will daddy be sad if we leave?”

Her voice is small and your heart breaks a little and oh, it takes all your strength to keep the tears from falling now, to hold the pain deep inside of you where she can’t see it. You tighten your grasp around her, rest your chin on her tiny little shoulder so that you can place soft kisses on her cheek and reassure her that it’s ok, that you’re going to be ok and that no matter what, he’ll always be right beside her and all she’ll ever need to do is close her eyes to see him and feel him all around her.

“No, baby girl. Daddy will always be with us, no matter where we go and he’s happy, so so happy we’re going on a little adventure.”

She smiles a little, nods her head a couple of times before diverting her gaze to the necklace around her neck. She grasps the feather with her tiny fingers, brings it to her lips to kiss it lovingly and then she turns to you and the storm seems to have passed, just like that.

“Because he’s right here, right?”

She brings the necklace towards your face and you nod a couple of times before pointing right to her heart, “And right here.”

Yoona smiles her brightest smile and untangles from your embrace in favour of the tombstone. You watch her throw her arms around the marble stone and hug it tight to her chest and then you hear her whisper her farewell words—Goodbye, daddy. I love you.—and oh, your heart breaks all over again in an instant. And you would break too, right then and there, if it weren’t for her little smile and for Namjoon’s voice pulling you out of your thoughts.

“We have to leave soon.”

His voice is apologetic and full of understanding and you offer him and your daughter a gentle smile as you finally rise up from your spot. Your baby throws her arms around your neck as you lift her up and warmth spreads through your body as you hug her closer to remind yourself why you are doing this, why you are leaving all of this behind. For Yoona.

Namjoon’s hand finds your shoulder then as he throws one of his arms around you and even though he doesn’t speak a single word, you hear all of the things he wishes he could say to you and when you look at him, you silently thank him over and over again like you have been doing every single day of these past few years.

But your last words in this place are not reserved for him, no, they are for Jeongguk and only for him to hear.

Goodbye, my love. I will always love you.

A gust of wind caresses your cheeks then and you smile at the bright sky above your head because deep down, you know this is him touching you and when you close your eyes, just for a second, you can hear his voice through the gentle breeze, whispering right inside your ears.

Don’t fear, my love. I’ll always be by your side. I love you.

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