A Little Bolder (JJK) Chapter 1
Pairing: Established Relationship Idol!Jungkook x Hybe Producer!Reader Summary: Years into your relationship, Jungkook was facing growing pains in his career. As he desires to share more with the world, you're nervous for how and when he'll make that choice
Warnings: A little emotional turmoil. Other members being annoying. Company politics. Smut! Unprotected sex. Whiny, subby Jungkook. Needy Jungkook. Riding. A little taste of cum. Hint of breeding kink. Just a hint. Banter. Word Count: 11.8K. Part 1/? A/N: I came up with this idea last minute, so let me know if you like it! Sorry for any typos. If there's enough interest I'll continue the series. I already have part 2-4 mostly written. Oops. No taglist.
Part 2
Jungkook was getting bold.
In the months leading up to enlistment, during the whirlwind of his solo promotions, he’d really started to find his rhythm. Not just on stage. Not just in interviews. In how he existed online, how he showed himself to the media and, most importantly, to his fans.
Lives were streamed from his living room instead of some stuffy company studio. He talked more about his actual life, not just “behind-the-scenes” content packaged for promotions. Little, unfiltered glimpses into Jeon Jungkook, the person, slipped through more and more often.
People loved it. It let him crawl even deeper into their hearts.
Then he enlisted. The livestreams and posts slowed to a trickle. He did what he always did: showed up and worked hard, all that restless energy poured into his military service. On the rare occasions he did pop up online, he joked that interacting with fans during his breaks only made him more desperate to get back on stage.
When he was finally discharged, he came back lighter. More shamelessly, unapologetically Jungkook.
He still kept certain lines where they’d always been. He never aired out his issues with the company, never voiced how disappointed he’d been when his post-enlistment solo concerts were shelved in favor of the BTS comeback. He stayed silent about that for the cameras.
He didn’t talk about his family. He didn’t talk about his closest friends. The things he knew needed to stay his–stayed his.
But everywhere else, he was pushing.
He started speaking on things that, in hindsight, should’ve stayed off-camera. The smoking, for one, an open secret at this stage of his career. He’d never glorify it, never encourage anyone to pick it up; he hated the idea of influencing someone like that. Still, the fact that he mentioned it at all felt huge.
He talked about the “friend” living with him. Let that friend wander in the background of his lives, laughter and half-appearing shoulders making cameos, even while the company sent increasingly pointed reminders not to.
He was getting bolder, and it worried you.
When would he decide that he didn’t care about anyone’s opinion on his relationship status? That was the part that made your stomach twist every time he went live with that easy, dangerous smile.
He deserved this freedom. After years in the spotlight, micromanaged down to his hair color and sleeve length, he deserved to feel comfortable in his own skin. To live how he wanted. To share what he wanted.
The problem was Jungkook was both calculated yet impulsive.
Telling fans about quitting smoking had been impulsive in the moment, even if the thought had lived in his head for weeks. He’d told you in private that he wanted to share that victory with them, wanted them to know he’d done something hard and ugly and come out the other side. But when he actually said it? It wasn’t part of any plan. The words just tumbled out, no clearance, no script, just a casual confession that sent chats and timelines spinning.
That was how his brain worked. He would think, and think, and think about something until it carved a groove in his brain… and then one day, without warning, all that consideration condensed into a single “fuck it” and he’d jump.
You adored that about him in some situations. New motorcycle? “Fuck it.” Piercing at 2 a.m. in some random shop because he liked the vibe? “Fuck it.” Last-minute trip when he had one free weekend for the first time in months? Absolutely, “fuck it.”
But when that same impulse applied to the internet, it terrified you. He couldn’t take back what he said online in the same way he could return an impulse purchase.
Because you knew he’d been thinking about the relationship thing. Long before you, he’d turned the question over in his head: If I ever get married, how do I tell them? How much do I owe them, and how much do I owe myself?
Now, you’d been together for years. He was getting older in idol years—still young in real life, but heading into a different phase of his career. He’d told you plainly that he wanted to marry you one day. That he wanted kids with you, a life with you.
And you knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that one day that same “fuck it” instinct could be aimed straight at your privacy.
Your worst-case scenario was never some carefully crafted press release. It was him, a couple drinks in, doing a late-night live, eyes soft and voice low, and casually dropping, “I went to dinner with my girlfriend last night,” like it was no big deal.
No name. No details. Just enough.
Enough for the internet’s FBI-level ARMY detectives to start zooming in and cross-referencing. Enough for someone to pull up schedules and staff lists and blurry reflection shots.
And honestly? It wouldn’t even be that hard.
You worked together. Same company. Same building. Same late nights.
You weren’t invisible. You were just unconfirmed. And with the way Jungkook was getting bolder, you weren’t sure how long that would last.
… “Okay, try it again, but emphasize your words a little more. Add a little more punch to them,” you said into the intercom, thumb resting on the talkback button.
The red light in the vocal booth blinked to life again. Jungkook was on the other side of the glass in his usual big bucket hat, white wife beater, and sweats so oversized they could probably fit two people. The matching hoodie had been discarded over the back of the chair an hour ago, abandoned somewhere between “run it from the top” and “we need to change the pre-chorus again.”
He muttered the line once under his breath, rolling the consonants around like he was tasting them, then stepped into position. You watched his shoulders square, his mouth find the exact distance from the mic he liked, the way his hand lifted to hover near the headphones.
“Gimme that gasoline,
Gimme that, make me fiend,
Gimme that, make me sweat,
Something I can’t forget.”
He pulled back, lips twitching, eyes already flicking up to find yours through the glass. It was instinct at this point—he needed your read on the take almost as much as he needed to breathe.
You hesitated, your producer brain and your very-biased-girlfriend brain briefly wrestling. The words were there. The feel wasn’t.
You pressed the button again. “Not quite. You’re hitting it, but I want it to feel dirtier. Like you’re right on the edge of something.”
Across the glass, his mouth curved. He lifted his hand, thumb and forefinger pinched together, and mouthed, “like this?” with a knowing tilt of his head that earned him exactly zero professionalism from you.
Before you could answer, the booth door swung open and Jimin leaned in, hair a little messy from where he’d been lying on the couch scrolling through his phone.
“Is he flirting with you, or the microphone?” Jimin asked loudly, one eyebrow arched.
You jumped; Jungkook barked out a laugh inside the booth, the sound muted on your side.
“Both,” you said dryly, taking your finger off the talkback button so he wouldn’t hear the smile in your voice.
“Yah,” Jungkook protested faintly from the other side, tapping the glass with his knuckles. “I can still see you.”
“That’s the problem,” Taehyung said as he walked in behind Jimin, hands tucked in the pockets of his sweatpants. He squinted through the glass theatrically. “No wonder he doesn’t want to leave the booth. The view is too good.”
You rolled your eyes and pretended to study the waveform on the monitor. “Do you all need something, or are you just here to make my session notes unusable?”
Namjoon’s voice floated in from outside the door. “We’re here to be supportive and annoying in equal measure,” he said, stepping into the room with a notebook under his arm. “Also, management just called again. They want ‘more English’ on track three and ‘less experimental’ on track six.” He made air quotes as he said it, like the words themselves tasted bad.
You groaned under your breath. Of course they did.
Ever since you’d been flown out to Seoul on what felt like a reckless gamble years ago, a kid fresh out of college with a couple of unexpected hits under her belt, you’d been walking this tightrope. Hybe had hired you as an in-house writer/producer after a couple of your demos for smaller groups quietly blew up. The jump from “unknown freelancer in a tiny studio” to “the person Pdogg calls up to his room because he ‘needs your ears on something’” had been whiplash in the best way.
“Run BTS” had been your accidental introduction to the big leagues. A half-finished pre-chorus mumbled into your laptop at 3 a.m., dragged into a weekly producers’ meeting without much expectation, and suddenly the higher-ups were slicing it apart, trying harmonies, asking you to stay in the room. Months later, Pdogg had played you the near-finished demo with rough guide vocals and your own mumbling still tucked into the pre-chorus. He’d leaned back, looked at you over the rim of his mug, and said, “Welcome to Hybe.”
Now you were here in LA, in a rented house with the biggest group at the label, technically “overseeing” parts of their comeback album. The company trusted your ear enough to put you in the room with them; they trusted your judgment enough to let you push back—up to a point. But they also expected you to make their job easier, to find a way to feed the boys’ authenticity and the label’s bottom line at the same time.
Every day, some variation of the same email landed in your inbox: Not enough English. Too niche. Can we get a stronger hook here? Is there a way to “universalize” this lyric?
Universalize, in this context, meant “appeal more to Western charts.”
“Let me guess,” you said, swiveling your chair toward Namjoon. “They want to change the second verse I just fixed.”
“They want ‘options,’” he said, grimacing. “Which means they want it in English, and I want to not hate myself.”
Jin appeared in the doorway, a protein bar in one hand, the other rubbing sleep from his eyes. “You’re all too loud,” he announced. “Some of us are trying to nap off our existential dread.”
“You were snoring,” Hoseok called from down the hall.
Jin pointed at him without looking. “That was my soul leaving my body after reading the email from Hybe.” He took a bite of the bar and chewed thoughtfully. “So. Are you two done making heart eyes through the glass, or is this part of the recording concept?”
Your head snapped back toward the booth on reflex. Jungkook was leaning against the mic stand, arms folded, a lazy grin pulling at his mouth. He lifted one hand and shaped his fingers into a heart, angling it so just you could see.
You narrowed your eyes and mouthed, “focus.”
He exaggerated a wounded look, pressing a hand over his chest as if you’d physically shot him.
“Don’t worry,” Jimin laughed, propping his chin on the back of your chair. “We’ll tell them you were thinking about the fans the whole time.”
“Please don’t tell anyone anything,” you deadpanned, though heat was crawling up the back of your neck. The company technically knew about your relationship. They’d chosen a strategy of “we’re aware, keep it contained, don’t be stupid,” but that didn’t mean you wanted to feed them ammunition.
Out of everyone, the members had been the first line of defense. They’d rolled their eyes and groaned through the awkwardness, then folded you into the group like it was the most natural thing in the world. But they also enjoyed pushing you exactly as far as they knew they could.
“Okay,” you said, clapping your hands once as you turned back to the console, forcing your brain into producer mode again. “Kook, one more pass from the top of that pre, but lean into desperation. Think…” You searched for a reference. “Think early mixtape energy. Or that one time you begged the manager for extra fried chicken.”
A chorus of laughter erupted behind you.
“Ah, that was a dark day,” Jin said, dabbing an imaginary tear. “He almost cried.”
“I did not cry,” Jungkook protested through the microphone, scandalized.
“He did,” Taehyung confirmed.
“You absolutely did,” Jimin added, patting your shoulder. “He called you after, remember? ‘They won’t let me order more, baby, what do I do?’”
Jungkook’s cheeks flushed even through the glass. He shot Jimin a look that promised revenge and then turned back to the mic, shaking out his shoulders.
“Okay, okay, shut up, let me do this,” he said into the talkback. Then, more softly, looking right at you, “Watch me.”
The room settled. Even with the teasing, even with the company’s emails pinging in the background and the weight of expectations pressing on everyone’s lungs, the second he locked into a take, everything narrowed to that red light, that voice, and the space between your fingertip and the record button.
“Rolling,” you said quietly, and hit it.
…
“Okay, one last take. With those notes,” you murmured into the intercom.
Jungkook inhaled, shoulders rolling back as he slid in closer to the mic. You watched the tiny adjustments: chin angle, hand hovering near the headphones, the subtle shift in posture that meant he’d dialed in.
“Gimme that gasoline,
Gimme that, make me fiend,
Gimme that, make me sweat,
Somethin’ I can’t forget.”
On “can’t,” he let his voice catch, a tight, needy little whine right at the end of the word. It was the exact thing you’d asked for minutes ago, when you’d told him, “Just give me a bit of a whine there. Like you’re begging for it, not just asking.”
The line hit your headphones and sent a low buzz down your spine.
You let the last reverb tail out, then hit stop.
The room behind you erupted before you could even speak.
“Oh my god,” Jimin groaned, flopping back dramatically on the couch. “No. Absolutely not. You can’t sing that like that. People will die.”
“Respectfully,” Jin added, hand on his heart, “I am not going to prison because Jungkook decided to moan on a pre-chorus.”
“That was not a moan,” Jungkook protested through the mic, though he was already grinning.
Taehyung tilted his head, expression considering. “Mmm. Somewhere between a whine and a whimper,” he decided. “Very on-brand.”
You pressed the talkback. “Pre-chorus is fire,” you said, ignoring the members. “That ‘can’t’ is staying.”
Jungkook beamed, pride punching through the glass.
“I taught him that,” Hoseok bragged from the doorway, having just returned with a bag of chips. “You think he came out of the womb knowing how to whine on command?”
“Hyung, please,” Namjoon muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We’re already skating on thin ice with the lyrics. Don’t make it sound worse.”
You muted the room and ran the take back, just to make sure it sounded as good as you thought. It did. The whine was the perfect crack in the polish: a tiny, hungry sound that made the whole section feel less like a performance and more like a confession. It walked the line between suggestive and explicit beautifully.
Which, of course, meant the company would probably hate it.
You saved and uploaded the comped take ahead of your upcoming meeting and leaned back. “Okay, that’s a wrap on vocals for this one,” you said. “We can tweak ad-libs later, but the main body’s there.”
“Good.” Namjoon checked the time on his phone and let out a short laugh that had no humor in it. “We’ve got that meeting upstairs soon.”
Right. The meeting.
You could practically see the calendar reminder pop up in your brain: In-person check-in: progress, concept, language strategy.
You started closing out the session, labeling tracks, bouncing a rough. The usual shuffle happened behind you—chairs scraping, bottles tossed, the guys stretching out stiff limbs after hours of sitting and listening.
As you stepped out of the control room, Jungkook caught up with you in the narrow hallway, falling into step so close your arms brushed.
“That last take,” he said quietly, voice low just for you. “You really liked it?”
“Yeah,” you said. “That ‘can’t’? Perfect.”
He ducked his head, faux-shy. “I only did it ‘cause you told me to whine.”
“Wow,” Jin said, suddenly materializing on your other side like he’d teleported. “The things you two say out of context.”
Jimin nearly choked on his water. “You told him to whine?” His grin was wicked. “No, say it again slower.”
“Don’t make it weird,” you snorted.
Taehyung, of course, made it weird. “You should’ve heard her,” he said, dropping his voice into an exaggerated imitation. “Jungkookie, whine for me on ‘can’t.’ Like you’re right there. No, more. Really beg.”
You swatted at him, mortified. “That is not what I said.”
“Spiritually,” Hobi said, “that’s what you said.”
Jungkook laughed, that full-bodied, shoulders-shaking laugh that made everyone else smile even if they didn’t know why. “You’re just jealous,” he told them. “She didn’t ask you to whine.”
Yoongi, who’d been walking ahead with Namjoon, glanced back over his shoulder. “You whine plenty on your own,” he said.
Jin put a hand to his chest, mock-wounded. “Our maknae’s all grown up. First he casually drops that he used to smoke, now he’s out here panting on pre-choruses.”
Namjoon groaned. “Please don’t say ‘panting’ in front of the A&R team.”
The mention of A&R sobered you a little.
The buzz of the studio faded as you neared the conference room A glass-walled box a floor up from the main tracking space, currently occupied by a small cluster of people in business-casual who had never spent twelve straight hours in a recording booth in their lives.
On the big screen at the head of the table, a video call window was waiting, filled with black rectangles and names of Hybe staff in Seoul. The little red “Recording” dot at the top of the screen made your stomach knot on instinct.
“Okay,” Namjoon said under his breath as he opened the door. “Everyone behave.”
“Talk to him,” Yoongi murmured, nodding toward Jungkook.
The room smelled like coffee and printer toner, a sharp contrast to the subtle mix of sweat, wood, and electronics downstairs. You grabbed a seat a little off to the side. Close enough to speak if needed, far enough not to be the first person fired upon.
Jungkook sat a chair away from you, between Jimin and Hoseok. Across the table, a few local producers and engineers you’d been collaborating with nodded hello. One of the LA A&Rs, Nicole, gave you a small, sympathetic smile. She knew the game, too.
The screen flickered, and faces appeared—Pdogg, a couple of senior A&Rs, someone from PR, and a deputy manager from the artist division. Little squares of Seoul at some ungodly hour of the morning.
“Hi everyone,” said the lead A&R from HQ, Mr. Kang, adjusting his glasses. “Thanks for making the time. We heard some promising things. We also have… notes.”
Of course they did.
There was a quick round of greetings, polite bows to the camera, the usual “you’re working hard” exchanges.
Namjoon did a succinct recap of where you all were in the process—how many tracks were close to done, how many were still in demo-stage, the rough themes. When he mentioned the track you’d just been working on, Mr. Kang perked up.
“That’s the one with the… hm… ‘gasoline’ hook?” he asked, glancing down at his notes.
“Yes,” Namjoon said. “Fire 2.0. Working title only. It’s still evolving.”
“It’s sexy,” Nicole added lightly, trying to keep the conversation buoyant. “In a good way.”
A few of the faces on the screen smiled. PR did not.
“We listened to the latest rough a couple minutes ago,” Pdogg said then, his voice even. “The energy is strong. Jungkook’s performance is very good.” He looked at Jungkook briefly, a small, remorseful nod. “But Mr. Kang has some notes on the language and tone.”
Here it was.
You kept your face neutral, pen poised above your notebook.
Mr. Kang cleared his throat. “The English sections have improved from the last draft, but the content is stil risky. ‘Gimme that gasoline, gimme that, make me fiend, gimme that, make me sweat…’ and then…” He flipped a page. “‘Something I can’t forget,’ delivered with that–ah, vocal nuance.”
Hoseok snorted, disguising it as a cough. Jin kicked him under the table.
“In the global market, suggestiveness isn’t necessarily a problem,” one of the LA A&Rs said carefully. “But we do need to consider the existing fanbase’s expectations and the brand image.”
“There was also… recent online discourse,” PR chimed in, clicking something on their end. Another window popped up on the screen, screenshots of fan tweets, translations, threads. “Some fans have been surprised by Jungkook-ssi’s more mature comments during lives.”
The screenshot zoomed in on a thread about the smoking thing. Your stomach dipped. The hadn’t failed to mention this in a meeting since it happened–weeks ago.
They’d pulled clips: Jungkook casually mentioning he used to smoke, talking about quitting, the way he’d laughed it off. The responses ranged from worried to proud to, of course, outrage.
“It’s not a scandal, but it did generate conversation,” PR said. “We need to be careful about piling too much of this ‘grown-up’ image at once. It can be polarizing.”
Jungkook’s jaw worked, just a tiny flex.
“It was honest,” he said, voice steady but tight. “I quit. They asked, I told them. I didn’t—” He stopped himself, put a hand over his knee like he needed the physical anchor. “It wasn’t about image.”
“We understand,” Mr. Kand said, eyes on him in that way that meant he really did. “But perception is the point. If we add explicitly suggestive lyrics on top of that, plus certain visuals… it becomes a narrative. We’d like to manage that narrative, not chase after it.”
You inhaled slowly through your nose. This wasn’t new. It had just never been pointed at you this directly.
“Maybe we should hear what the writers think,” Nicole suggested, glancing at you. “Why that line, why that delivery.”
You felt every set of eyes touch your face.
“The hook works because it’s right on the edge,” you said, making sure your voice was calm. “Lyrically, it’s not explicit. There’s double meaning, definitely, but it stays metaphorical. The performance sells the tension without crossing into anything you couldn’t play on a radio edit.”
Mr. Kang gave you a polite smile. “The performance is exactly what concerns us,” he said. “It’s… very intense.”
Jimin tried to help. “Hyung, we’re not teenagers anymore,” he pointed out. “The fans know that. A lot of them are older than us now. They talk like this all the time on Twitter.”
Hoseok nodded. “Honestly, the way they talk about us is worse than anything in that pre-chorus.”
Yoongi, who’d been quiet, spoke up. “We can’t be twenty-three forever. If his real life is more mature now, the music has to grow too. Otherwise it’s fake.”
Mr. Kang’s expression didn’t change, but he didn’t interrupt.
You kept going, aware you were toeing a line. “If we strip out all the tension, the song collapses. The ‘gasoline’ metaphor is about obsession, addiction, that kind of pull. Without that ‘I can’t forget’ moment hitting the way it does, you just have a catchy but empty hook.”
Pdogg’s mouth twitched, like he agreed but couldn’t say it outright on a call with PR listening.
“And you’re confident,” PR said, “that this won’t be interpreted as… overly sexual?”
You hesitated only a fraction of a second. “I’m confident that it’s intentionally ambiguous,” you said. “Which lets people read it how they want.”
Namjoon gave you a small, grateful look across the table.
On the call, PR sighed. “There’s also the cumulative effect,” they said. “The more we lean into these kinds of lyrics, combined with more mature conversations, the more certain segments of the fanbase might feel alienated. Especially younger ones. Parents.”
There it was—that word again. Cumulative. As if the boys being honest and sexy in their own music was an accident that could stack up into a problem instead of… his actual adulthood.
Jungkook’s fingers were drumming lightly on the underside of the table now, a habit you recognized. He spoke before you could.
“I’m not a kid,” he said. “They know that. I served. I smoke—” He caught himself, corrected, “I smoked. I date. I’m not gonna lie just to keep pretending I’m something I’m not.”
“Jungkook-ah,” one of the managers said gently. “No one’s asking you to lie. We’re asking for… strategy.”
You could feel the weight of what wasn’t being said: strategy about you; strategy about how close the world could get to the truth before stock prices twitched.
“The performance–” Mr. Kang tried again, steering back to safer ground. “Could we maybe adjust the delivery of that line? Less—how did you put it?” He consulted his notes. “‘Like you’re begging for it’?”
Your head snapped up. You hadn’t realized anyone outside the room had heard that.
Namjoon’s eyes went wide. Hoseok pressed his lips together to stop a laugh.
“Who said that?” PR asked, amused.
Jin pointed at you immediately, the traitor. “Our producer-nim.”
Heat flooded your face.
“It was direction for emotional intensity,” you said crisply, ignoring the guys’ smothered snickers. “Not… whatever you’re implying.”
On the screen, Pdogg quietly coughed into his hand.
Jungkook leaned forward, forearms on the table now. “I like it the way it is,” he said. “It feels honest. You brought us to LA to make something real, not to do the same, safe thing again.”
That “you” hung in the air, aimed vaguely at Hybe but landing squarely on the people whose names signed your paychecks.
You could feel the tension shift. The more he dug in, the more it put you between him and them. If you backed him too hard, you’d look reckless. If you didn’t, you’d be another person telling him to swallow parts of himself.
“Maybe we can compromise,” you offered, forcing your brain to move. “Keep the lyric, keep the melodic shape, just… pull back a tiny bit on that last inflection for the main version. Then we can keep the heavier ad-lib for a live or alternate cut.”
Pdogg considered that, nodding slowly. “We can try both,” he supplied. “Give some options, let the performance decide.”
Mr. Kang seemed satisfied with that. “That sounds reasonable,” he said. “We trust your judgment, Producer-nim.” He glanced at Jungkook. “And we trust your instincts, too. We just want to make sure you’re not giving everything away at once.”
Another subtext. Another dig. Another reminder.
There were a few more notes—more English in the bridge of another track, a suggestion to simplify a Korean idiom that “might not land internationally,” a discussion about title track contenders. You spoke when asked, defended what you could, mentally flagged what you’d have to massage later.
Eventually, the call wrapped. Polite bows. Promises to send new drafts. The screen went black.
The moment it did, some of the stiffness seeped out of the room.
Nicole exhaled. “Well,” she said. “That could’ve been worse.”
“Could’ve been better too,” Yoongi muttered, closing his notebook.
You started gathering your own notes, the embossed HYBE logo on the cover suddenly feeling heavier than paper should.
“You okay?” Namjoon asked quietly as he passed behind you.
“Yeah,” you said, and almost meant it. “Just… a balancing act.”
He gave you the kind of look that meant he understood more than he was going to say out loud in front of everyone, then moved on.
As the others filtered out in small clusters, Jungkook hung back. When you finally turned, he was still in his chair, arms crossed, eyes on you instead of his phone.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said softly.
“Do what?” you asked, though you knew.
“Take the heat for the line,” he said. “You could’ve just said, ‘yeah, we’ll change it,’ and moved on.”
You shrugged one shoulder. “They hired me to have a spine,” you said. “If I don’t fight for the song, I’m useless. I like the line the way it is.”
His mouth quirked, not into a real smile, but something close. “I meant—” He glanced toward the door, ensuring it was empty, then dropped his voice. “You always end up in the middle. Between them and us. Between me and… everything.”
That wasn’t an accident. That was the job—and the relationship—you’d chosen.
“It’s fine,” you said. “I can handle it.”
He watched you for another beat, something protective and frustrated flickering in his eyes. “Still,” he said. “Thank you.”
Before you could answer, Hoseok’s voice bellowed from the hall. “Are you two done flirting in the boardroom? The van’s leaving! I’m not losing my seat by the window because of your sexual tension.”
Your head thunked lightly back against the chair.
“Coming!” you yelled back.
Jungkook huffed a laugh, standing. As he passed you, his hand brushed your elbow, a small, grounding touch no one else would notice.
“Next time they complain about the whining, I’ll tell them it was my idea,” he murmured as you walked out together.
You glanced up at him, lips twitching. “Please don’t.”
He smiled, softer now, eyes warm in a way reserved only for you. “What?” he said. “I’m getting bold, remember?”
The words, meant as a joke, landed between you with more weight than either of you acknowledged.
On the walk back down the hallway, the others swallowed you up again—banter, complaints about hunger, arguments over who got the shower first at the rental house. The company’s tension stayed behind in the glass conference room.
But underneath the noise, the question buzzed quiet and relentless in the back of your mind:
If one little whine on a word made them this nervous, what would they do when he finally decided to stop hiding the biggest truth of all?
The van ride back to the house was quiet in that heavy, post-studio way. Everyone was buzzing and drained at the same time, brains still half in Pro Tools, bodies already fantasizing about hot water and soft mattresses.
By the time you pulled up to the LA rental, the sky was deep velvet, the streetlights washing the front yard in a pale orange that made the place look almost cozy instead of like a very expensive Airbnb overrun by seven men and their chaos.
The second the door opened, Jin sighed dramatically.
“I smell nothing,” he announced. “No soup, no meat. This is a disrespect to our hard work.”
“Hyung, it’s a house, not a restaurant,” Jungkook said, stepping past him and immediately kicking off his shoes. He padded toward the kitchen with the single-minded determination of a man who lived 60% of his life hungry.
“I left ramyeon,” Hoseok said as the rest of you trailed behind them, juggling backpacks and laptops and a stray camera bag. “I put a sticky note on it and everything. If anyone ate it, I’m fighting.”
“You mean the one in the top cabinet?” Taehyung asked, frowning thoughtfully. “With the sticky note that said ‘Don’t touch, Hoseok’s’?”
Hoseok froze. “…Yes.”
“Oh,” Taehyung said. “Then I haven’t seen it.”
You snorted as you dropped your bag by the stairs. “Very convincing.”
The kitchen light flicked on, revealing the familiar, endearingly awful state of the place: cereal boxes on the counter, a couple water bottles half-full, an empty coffee pot abandoned like a crime scene. The promise of Hoseok’s ramyeon was nowhere in sight, but there was a faint, smokey smell that did not bode well.
“Something’s burning,” Jin said, nostrils flaring like a bloodhound.
You spotted the culprit first: a pot on the back burner, a whisper of smoke curling from the edge of the lid.
“Oh my god,” you said, rushing over. “Who left this—”
Jungkook lunged past you, turning off the stove and whipping the lid off. A cloud of scorched steam billowed up, making everyone cough.
Inside, the ramyeon was a tragic, swollen mass clinging to the sides of the pot like it was trying to escape.
Hoseok stared. “My ramyeon,” he whispered. “Who killed my ramyeon?”
“You did this,” Yoongi pointed out, leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed. “You left the gas on.”
“I trusted you all,” Hoseok argued, hand over his heart. “In this house, there is no trust.”
Namjoon opened the fridge with the caution of a man who knew nothing good waited for him there. “We have… half a cucumber, three sauces I can’t identify, someone’s leftover fried rice—”
“That’s mine,” Jimin said instantly, stepping in. “Don’t touch it.”
“No one respects labels in this house,” Jin muttered, peering over Namjoon’s shoulder. “And yet they still expect their food to be safe.”
Your stomach rumbled. “We can make something,” you offered. “Eggs? Rice? There’s got to be something we can throw together that doesn’t involve carbonized noodles.”
“We should just order,” Jungkook said, already pulling out his phone.
“Company card?” Taehyung asked, hopeful.
Yoongi shook his head. “No, last time you ordered with the company card, you got six boba drinks ‘just in case.’ You’re cut off.”
“Those were a business expense,” Taehyung argued. “We were networking with… each other.”
In the end, you split the difference. Too hungry to wait for delivery. Jungkook and Hoseok started pulling out whatever was salvageable—eggs, some veggies, leftover rice from earlier in the week—and you joined them at the stove, falling into an easy rhythm. Namjoon and Jin argued over seasoning, Jimin and Taehyung hovered like impatient kids, and Yoongi sat at the table, scrolling on his phone but chiming in whenever someone tried to do something truly disastrous.
“Salt, not sugar,” he said without looking up at one point, just as Hoseok reached for the wrong jar.
“How did you even know?” Hoseok demanded.
“I just know,” Yoongi said.
You were at the sink rinsing some green onions when Jungkook stepped behind you, reaching around to grab a cutting board. His bare arm brushed against your side, warm and solid, and the contact lingered just a fraction too long to be accidental.
“Excuse me,” he murmured, voice low by your ear.
You didn’t have to look at him to know he was smirking.
“Stop flirting with the help and cut the onions,” Jin said, swatting at him with a dish towel.
Jungkook laughed and moved to your left, setting up beside you. He bumped your shoulder lightly as he lined the onions up and started slicing, his knife swiftly flying across the cutting board.
“Why is Producer-nim always hanging around him station anyway?” Jimin mused sarcastically, leaning back against the opposite counter, arms folded. “Every other night she’s right beside him. Very suspicious behavior for a producer.”
“Because if I don’t watch him, he’ll put gochujang in the scrambled eggs,” you said.
“That was one time,” Jungkook protested. “And it was good.”
“It was chaos,” Namjoon said.
Taehyung shot you a wicked look. “We heard talking last night, you know,” he said. “From your room.”
Your hand stuttered slightly on the faucet. “This is a house full of people. Of course you heard talking.”
“Mm, it didn’t sound like talking,” Jimin added, eyes wide with fake innocence.
Hoseok clutched his chest. “My purity.”
“Your purity left in 2016,” Yoongi said.
“Can all of you shut up and set the table?” you said, trying to keep your voice even as your face heated. “Food in five.”
The teasing went on, but it diffused into other subjects—some meme Taehyung had found, an argument about which LA taco place you needed to try before heading back to Korea.
By the time you all sat down around the long dining table, the kitchen looked marginally less like a war zone, and the late-night fried rice and eggs you’d thrown together actually smelled decent.
Jin said a solemn little “thank you for the food, even if it’s tragic” under his breath. Chopsticks clacked. Conversation folded over itself in multiple directions.
You were halfway through your bowl when Jungkook nudged your knee under the table.
You glanced at him. He mouthed, “water,” then tilted his glass to show it was empty.
You looked at the pitcher at the far end of the table, just out of reach between Taehyung and Jimin. If you asked someone to pass it, it would turn into a whole thing.
“I’ll get it,” you said quietly, rising from your seat.
You slipped around the chairs to the kitchen. The fridge hummed softly as you opened it, grabbing the filtered water jug from the bottom shelf. The cool air kissed your overheated skin—between the stove and the teasing and the meeting, you felt like your nerves had been put through a dryer cycle.
The fridge door was still open when you felt a presence slide in behind it.
A hand touched the small of your back, familiar and sure. You startled, then relaxed just as quickly as Jungkook’s scent, soap and sweat and something uniquely him, washed over you.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said, voice low enough that the hum of the fridge nearly swallowed it.
“Do what?” you whispered, even though you already knew.
“Let them put you in the middle again,” he murmured. “In the meeting.”
You exhaled, shoulders dropping a fraction. “That’s my job,” you said. “I’m supposed to be in the middle.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to be tired of it.”
You turned slightly, the edge of the open fridge door shielding the two of you from view. From the dining room, you could still hear the others—Jimin complaining about how much fried rice Taehyung had stolen, Jin dramatically comparing the burnt ramyeon to a Greek tragedy.
In your little pocket of cold air and quiet, it almost felt like you were alone.
His hand on your back slid up, fingers splaying between your shoulder blades before drifting to your waist. It was warm, anchoring. Your breath caught.
“You were so cool today,” he said. “In there. With all of them watching. You always are.”
“You were stubborn,” you countered, but there was warmth in it.
He smirked. “You like that about me.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t.”
For a second, neither of you moved. The water jug grew heavy in your hand.
Then he stepped in that last half-inch and the space between you disappeared. His free hand came up to the fridge door above your head, bracing it so it wouldn’t swing shut and give you both away.
“Come here,” he murmured.
The words shouldn’t have hit as hard as they did. You saw him every day. You were literally sharing a room with him on this trip. But something about the low rasp of his voice, the leftover tension in his shoulders from the meeting, the warm press of his chest against yours in this stolen sliver of privacy—it all snapped together inside you like a rubber band.
You let the water jug rest on the lower shelf, freeing your hand. Then you reached up, curled your fingers into the neckline of his shirt, and pulled.
The first brush of his mouth against yours was soft, testing. He tasted faintly of soy sauce and gochugaru, and underneath that, something that was just him. You made a quiet, involuntary sound against his lips; his response was immediate.
He kissed you harder, tilting his head to deepen it, his hand at your waist tightening. Your back met the cool edge of the fridge; his body crowded in, fitting into you like he’d been carved for this exact space.
It should’ve been quick, a stolen peck. Instead, heat flared, low and urgent.
His lips parted against yours, breath mingling. You let him in, fingers sliding up into his hair beneath the hat, tugging gently. He groaned—an honest, low sound that vibrated through your teeth straight down your spine.
“Fuck,” he whispered into your mouth. “You’re gonna kill me.”
His hand slipped from your waist down to your hip, thumb pressing into the dip there, then further, fingertips gripping around the curve of your ass. The touch was possessive, almost desperate, completely inappropriate for a kitchen seven feet from the rest of the group.
Your pulse spiked. You made a tiny gasp against his lips, and he chased it, deepening the kiss until you were dizzy.
He was hard against you; you felt it, hot and insistent at your hip where your bodies pressed together. The knowledge sparked something wicked in your chest. You rolled your hips, just a little, teasing.
He sucked in a sharp breath, muscles tensing.
“Don’t,” he warned, a laugh buried in the word. “We have, like, two minutes before someone comes looking.”
“Less,” you whispered, but you did it again anyway, just to hear the little ragged noise he made.
His hand slid up, palm flattening against your lower back to pull you tighter into him. His mouth moved from yours to the edge of your jaw, then lower, brushing the corner of your throat. You bit down a sound, your fingers dug into his shoulder.
“Kook,” you breathed, a warning and a plea at once.
“I know,” he said, but he mouthed at the skin just below your ear anyway, teeth scraping lightly. “I know, baby. Just—”
The word “baby” in his raw, whisper-rough voice lit every nerve you had. Your knees felt unsteady.
“—needed you,” he finished, exhale hot against your neck. “Just for a second.”
You untangled one hand from his shirt and slid it down his side, fingers brushing the waistband of his sweats. Even that small, teasing touch made him shiver.
His hips twitched. He exhaled a curse into your hair.
“Okay, no, stop—” he said, laughing quietly as he caught your wrist, pressing your hand flat against his stomach instead. You could feel the tension in him, the way his abs flexed under your palm. “We’re not doing this here. Not when Jin-hyung is twenty seconds away from coming to yell about the water.”
“I’m not doing anything,” you said, breathless.
“Liar,” he murmured, but he kissed you again, quick and sharp, like he couldn’t help himself.
A beat of silence. Two. Three.
Then—
“Hey,” Jimin’s voice called from the dining room. “Did you fall into the fridge? We’re thirsty too, you know.”
You jerked like you’d been shocked. Jungkook muffled a curse against your shoulder, then pulled back, eyes blown and cheeks flushed, lips kiss-reddened in a way that was absolutely not going to go unnoticed if you weren’t careful.
He reached behind you, grabbed the water jug with one hand like nothing had happened, and closed the fridge.
You took a second to smooth your hair and regulate your breathing. Your heartbeat still thudded against your ribs like it was trying to alert the entire house to your sins.
Jungkook dipped his head quickly, pressing one last soft, barely-there kiss to the corner of your mouth—more a promise than anything else—and then stepped away, putting a safe amount of distance between you.
By the time you both rounded the corner back into the dining room, he was wearing his usual innocent, slightly smug expression, and you were hoping no one could see how your legs were a little less steady than they’d been ten minutes ago.
“There they are,” Jimin said, eyeing the jug. “Took you long enough. What, you get lost behind the condiments?”
“Fridge is a mess,” Jungkook said smoothly, setting the water down. “I was cleaning.”
Yoongi snorted. “Sure.”
You retook your seat, avoiding Jimin’s knowing gaze. Jungkook slid back into his place beside you, knee bumping yours under the table in a secret little apology.
Dinner resumed. The conversation flowed on, mercifully moving away from bedroom-adjacent topics and into less dangerous waters—LA weather, the weird neighbor who kept jogging past the house staring at the windows, a movie Yoongi wanted everyone to watch.
Eventually, plates emptied. One by one, everyone drifted away from the table, some to the living room, some upstairs to shower, some lingering to scroll on their phones.
You helped clear, rinsing dishes while Jimin loaded the dishwasher in the unique, chaotic system that made sense only to him.
“Go shower,” he told you, bumping you away from the sink with his hip. “You look like you’re going to fall over.”
“I’m fine,” you protested, though your body disagreed.
“Go,” he repeated, gentler. “We can handle the kitchen.”
You dried your hands on a towel and surrendered. “Okay, okay. Don’t scratch the non-stick.”
“Who do you think I am?” he scoffed. “Namjoon?”
You laughed, heading toward the stairs. As you passed the hallway that led to the front door, you slowed. Voices.
You recognized one of the manager’s low tones, and Jin’s quieter reply. Namjoon was there too; you could hear the shape of his cadence even when you couldn’t make out the words.
You shouldn’t eavesdrop.
You did anyway.
You paused by the base of the stairs, partly shielded by the angle of the wall. The hallway was dim, lit only by the porch light leaking through the frosted glass. The manager stood near the door, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched with the kind of tired that had less to do with sleep and more to do with responsibility.
“—just saying we need no more surprises right now,” he was saying. “They’re already jittery about the smoking thing, some of your other behavior, and the tone of some of these tracks.”
Namjoon’s reply was steady. “We’re not doing anything reckless. We’re just… being honest.”
“There’s a difference between honest and unmanageable,” the manager countered. “You know that.”
Jin’s voice, softer: “What exactly are you worried about?”
The manager hesitated, then sighed. “Everything,” he admitted. “The lyrics. The lives. The fact that they’re older now and want to live like it. We don’t get to just think about the music. We have to think about parents, sponsors, international markets, the board…”
“Fans,” Namjoon supplied.
“Fans,” the manager agreed. “Some of them will be excited to see this side. Some of them will feel… abandoned. We have to roll it out carefully. No sudden shocks.”
Your chest tightened. You knew this conversation, even if you hadn’t heard this exact version before. It was the shadow that trailed every bold choice, every risk.
There was a pause. You could almost feel the air between them shift.
“This isn’t about the music only, is it?” Namjoon asked quietly.
Another beat of silence.
The manager lowered his voice a fraction. “There are… other factors,” he said, picking his words like he was stepping through a minefield. “Relationships. Living arrangements. People talk. One wrong photo, one careless sentence, and we’re not just talking about spicy lyrics anymore.”
Jin exhaled, a soft sound. “They’re not kids,” he said. “He’s not a kid. He’s gonna want a real life. He already… has one.”
“I know,” the manager said. And he sounded like he really did. “I’m not the enemy here. I’m just trying not to get blindsided. Hybe can accept more mature content. They can even accept a relationship if it’s managed right and timed right. But if it blows up in the middle of a comeback campaign, with sponsors and broadcasts and everything else lined up…”
“A mess,” Namjoon finished.
“A very expensive mess,” the manager said. “That lands on him. On all of you. On her, too.”
Your heart thumped once, hard.
You shouldn’t assume “her” meant you. But you knew it did.
“I’m not asking anyone to hide forever,” the manager went on. “I’m asking for no surprises while we’re building this. No Dispatch bait. No drunk slips. No… romantic Easter eggs fans can dissect in lyric credits.”
Namjoon gave a low, humorless chuckle. “You’re asking a lot of very human people.”
“I know,” the manager said again, weary. “That’s the job.”
You pressed your back lightly against the wall, suddenly very aware of every inch of the house—the laughter from the living room, the murmur of a TV, the distant rush of water upstairs where someone had finally claimed the first shower.
You thought of Jungkook’s mouth on yours behind the fridge door. The way his body had felt pressed into you, the way his voice had gone rough when he said he needed you. You thought of his statement earlier: I’m getting bold, remember?
You also thought of the way he’d looked in the meeting, jaw tight as the company seemingly picked at every new piece of himself he tried to offer the world.
“Just… keep an eye on him,” the manager said, dragging you back to the moment. “Both of you.” A pause, then, pointedly, “All of you.”
“We always do,” Jin said simply.
Footsteps shifted. The conversation dissolved into lighter notes—something about call times tomorrow, a reminder about a radio spot.
You slipped up the stairs before they could see you lingering in the shadows like a guilty teenager.
The bedroom you shared with Jungkook was at the end of the hall, the door half-open. You stepped inside and shut it quietly behind you, leaning against it for a second.
The room smelled like laundry detergent, Jungkook’s cologne, and something warm and male and lived-in. Clothes were strewn over a chair, his suitcase half-open at the foot of the bed. Your notebook sat on the nightstand where you’d left it that morning, pen tucked inside.
The bed, unmade and inviting, stared back at you.
You were still thinking about the manager’s last words—no more surprises—when the door clicked open behind you and Jungkook slipped in, closing it again with his heel.
He took one look at your face and frowned, crossing the room in three easy strides.
“Hey,” he said softly, reaching up to brush a strand of hair away from your forehead. “You okay?”
You looked up at him, at the boy who was a man who was an artist who was a brand, and who was also just… yours.
In that moment, with the echo of the manager’s warning still ringing in your chest and the ghost of his mouth still warm on yours, you weren’t sure which terrified you more:
The idea of the world finding out about you.
Or the idea of never letting it.
You didn’t answer his question right away.
Jungkook’s hand was still at your temple, fingers warm against your skin, his brows drawn together in that small, worried pinch he tried to hide on camera and couldn’t hide from you.
“Hey,” he said again, softer. “Talk to me.”
You exhaled, the sound catching halfway out of your chest. “I heard them,” you said. “Downstairs. By the door.”
His jaw tensed almost imperceptibly. “Who?”
“Manager-nim. Namjoon. Jin.” You swallowed. “Talking about… no more surprises. Maturity. Lyrics. Relationships. Me.”
His hand dropped from your face. For a second, something wary flashed in his eyes, like he was bracing for a hit.
“What did they say?” His voice was quiet, but there was a hard edge under it.
You pushed off the door and moved past him, needing the space to pace. “That the company is ‘jittery’ after the smoking thing. That they don’t want anything ‘unmanageable.’ That if something about us comes out in the middle of comeback, it’s an expensive mess.”
He stayed where he was, turning slowly as you moved, tracking you like he always did.
“And?” he prompted when you didn’t go on.
“And that I’m part of the calculation,” you said, turning to face him. “That whatever you do, whatever we do, doesn’t just land on you. It lands on me, too. On my job. On all of you.”
He took a breath like he was about to argue, then let it out through his nose, steadying. “They’re not wrong,” he said. “About it landing on you. On everyone. That’s… true.”
“That’s not the point,” you said, sharper than you intended. “The point is I’m tired of being a variable on some risk reports. I’m tired of overhearing conversations where our relationship is a line item between ‘lyrics too sexy’ and ‘shareholders might get nervous.’”
Something in his expression cracked—not into anger, but into a kind of pained understanding.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Me too.”
You hadn’t expected that answer. It knocked some of your next words loose.
“You keep talking about being honest,” you said, frustration and fear tangled together. “About how you’re not a kid, and you don’t want to lie. But I’m the one standing in meeting rooms making your ‘too intense’ lines sound reasonable.”
He flinched, just a little. “So what are you saying?” he asked. “You want to… stop? Hide more? Hide less?” His throat worked. “Walk away?”
The last option sat between you like an accusation. It shocked you how much it hurt just to hear it voiced.
“No,” you said instantly. “God, no, that’s not—”
“Then what?” His voice climbed a notch, the thin, frayed edge of his patience finally showing. “Because right now it feels like whatever I do, it’s wrong. If I hide, I’m lying. If I’m honest, I’m reckless. If I keep us secret, I’m putting all of this pressure on you. If I tell the truth, I’m risking your job and everyone’s careers and the comeback and—” He broke off, exhaling hard. “You think I don’t know that?”
You stared at him. “You don’t act like you know it when you’re drunk on live,” you shot back. “When you’re one ‘fuck it’ away from telling millions of people something you can’t take back.”
He winced. “That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” The words came out too fast, fuelled by the day, the meeting, the call, the stolen kiss behind the fridge, the overheard talk like your life was just an HR scenario. “You said it yourself. You think and think and think and then you just decide. You decide to mention smoking. You decide to let a ‘friend’ show up on camera. One day you decide to say ‘girlfriend’ and I don’t get a say. I just get… consequences.”
“Like I’m doing all of this for fun,” he snapped, temper flaring finally. “Like I’m not thinking about you every single time I open my mouth.”
He stepped closer, hands flexing at his sides, like he didn’t know what to do with them.
“You think I don’t hear them?” he went on, eyes dark. “The managers. The company. The fans who get mad if I so much as age. You think I don’t know I’m supposed to be whatever they want that day? Cute, pure, sexy-but-not-too-much, honest-but-only-the-nice-parts?”
He laughed once, harsh and humorless.
“And then I come here,” he said, gesturing around the room, “and I still have to pretend. With you. In public. In meetings. On credits. Do you have any idea how fucking insane it is to be sleeping in the same bed as someone, to live with someone, and not be allowed to call them my girlfriend in the daylight?”
Your throat burned.
“Yes,” you said, quieter. “I do, actually.”
His shoulders dropped a fraction as some of his anger leaked out, replaced by something rawer.
“Then why does it feel like you’re angry at me for wanting out of that?” he asked. “For… wanting to say it. Someday. Somehow.”
You swallowed hard. The fight in you deflated, leaving something more fragile.
“I’m not angry at you for wanting it,” you said. “I’m terrified of when you decide you’re done waiting.”
He went very still.
“Because I won’t stop you,” you admitted. “If you decide on some random Tuesday night live that you’re done pretending you’re single… I’m not going to be the one in the chat telling you to shut up. I’m going to sit here in the dark and watch your whole life change in real time. And mine with it.”
Silence stretched, thick.
His face crumpled, just a little. “Baby,” he said softly.
The endearment made your eyes sting.
He moved then, slow and deliberate, closing the last bit of space between you. His hands lifted, one cupping your jaw, the other settling at the nape of your neck, thumb rubbing small, absent circles into your skin like he was trying to ground both of you.
“I don’t want you to be some collateral damage,” he said, voice low and rough. “I don’t want you to be a line in some risk assessment. I hate that you even heard that shit downstairs.”
“I know,” you whispered.
He leaned his forehead against yours, eyes closing. You felt the tremor in his breath.
“I think about it all the time,” he confessed. “How to do this without blowing everything up. How to keep you safe and still not feel like I’m… ashamed of you. Or us.” His fingers tightened slightly at the back of your neck. “I’m not. I’m so fucking proud you’re mine.”
The word landed in your chest like a strike—mine.
Your hands found his waist, fisting lightly in his shirt.
“I just…” you started, then stopped, searching for the right words. “I don’t want to lose you to an impulse moment. Or lose everything else because of one.”
His mouth quirked, pained. “Then maybe the answer isn’t me never having a ‘fuck it’ moment again,” he said. “Maybe it’s… we decide together what that moment looks like. When. How.”
The idea was terrifying. It was also the first thing that didn’t feel like choosing between you and survival.
“We’re not there yet,” you said, voice rough.
“I know.” He opened his eyes, met your gaze. “But I need you to know I’m not just out here drunk and careless. I’m not trying to win some rebellion against the company at your expense. When they look at you like a problem, it… I hate it.”
You blinked. “They didn’t,” you started.
“They will,” he said, not unkindly. “If something leaks. If someone sees something. They’ll turn to you like you’re the one who needs managing. And I—” His jaw flexed. “I can’t fucking stand that.”
You stared at each other, breathing the same small pocket of air, all the noise of the house muffled on the other side of the door.
“Okay,” you said finally, the word shaky but real. “So we… keep talking it out. Before big decisions. Before ‘fuck it’ moments.”
He huffed out a breath that might’ve been a laugh. “Strategic ‘fuck its,’” he said. “Got it.”
A small, exhausted smile tugged at your mouth. “You’re an idiot.”
“Your idiot,” he corrected, and the way he said it—all quiet certainty and frayed tenderness—unraveled something inside you.
Your fingers tightened in his shirt; you tugged him down and kissed him.
This was not the careful, stolen kiss behind the fridge. This was immediate, hot, threaded through with everything you’d just said and everything you hadn’t.
He made a small, surprised sound against your mouth and then melted into it, hands sliding down to your waist, pulling you in until there was no space left. His lips were soft and urgent, moving over yours like he’d been waiting all day to do this properly.
Heat flared under your skin. The argument, the fear, the resentment—they all burned down into something simpler: want, sharp and insistent.
You broke away just enough to breathe. He chased you, mouth brushing yours again, like he couldn’t stand even that tiny distance.
“Come here,” he rasped, voice gone low and shredded. “Please.”
That ‘please’ did something to you. You walked him backwards until the backs of his legs hit the bed, then pushed lightly. He went down with a soft grunt, hands sliding up your sides as you followed, straddling his lap.
His eyes were wide and dark, pupils blown, chest rising and falling fast. He looked wrecked already, just from a few minutes of kissing and honesty.
“Fuck,” he whispered, head tipping back as your hands slipped under the hem of his shirt. “I—” He broke off on a helpless little sound when your palm found bare skin. “God, I love you.”
The words tumbled out raw, unposed. They hung between you for a heartbeat, then settled into something warm and certain.
You bent down, kissed him again, slower this time, letting him feel the answer in the way you mouthed at his lips, the way your body pressed into his.
He made another small, needy noise, his hands gripping your thighs like he wasn’t sure whether to pull you closer or ground himself.
“Tell me what you need,” you murmured against his mouth.
He swallowed, throat working. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, almost shy and completely sincere.
“Be with me,” he said, the words more like a plea than a command. “Just… tonight, don’t think about them. Don’t think about the company, or lives, or anything. Just be here. With me. Be mine.”
The way he said mine—rough, possessive, like a prayer—made you shiver.
“I am,” you said. “You know I’m yours.”
His control snapped like a string.
He surged up to kiss you, mouth hot and desperate against yours. There was no hesitation this time, no testing the waters. He kissed you like a starving man, like you were the only thing that made sense anymore.
A tiny, needy whine slipped out of him when your fingers slid under his shirt, nails scraping lightly over his lower stomach. He broke the kiss for half a second, breathing hard, forehead pressed to yours.
“Don’t—” He swallowed, voice cracking. “Don’t tease. I’m already—” He gave an embarrassed little laugh, lifting his hips helplessly against you. “Fuck, I'm so hard for you. I’m already gone.”
The admission, the way he said it, frustrated and turned on and almost shy, sent heat flooding through you.
You rolled your hips, slowly, deliberately, grinding down against him. He was thick and hard between your legs. His head tipped back, a broken sound tearing out of him.
“Shit—” His fingers dug into your hips, not sure whether to pull you closer or hold you still. “You’re so—” He cut himself off with a bitten-off moan. “You know what you do to me, right? You have to know.”
“Tell me,” you murmured in his ear, letting your lips drag along the soft skin there while your hips continued their slow roll against him.
He shuddered. “You make me crazy,” he said, the words tumbling out between ragged breaths. “Every time you look at me in that booth, every time you tell me to do something with my voice like that—” His thighs tensed under you. “And then I have to pretend I’m not thinking about you when I’m singing about… fucking wanting you so bad it hurts.”
You dragged your mouth along his jaw, nipping lightly. “Who are you singing about?” you asked.
“You,” he said immediately, like it was obvious. “Always you. Who else would it be?” His hands slid up your back, then down again, cupping your ass, pulling you harder against the insistent press of his body. “Every love song, every line that sounds like—like I want to wreck someone, to keep them, to—” He broke off with a gasp as you rocked against him just right. “It’s you. It’s always you in my head.”
Your pulse pounded in your ears. The air between you felt thick, too hot.
You kissed him again, swallowing the next needy sound he made, then leaned back just enough to look at him.
“Lie down,” you said.
His eyes went wide. “Baby—”
“Lie down,” you repeated, firmer.
He obeyed, sinking back onto the pillows, dragging you with him so you were sprawled over his chest. You could feel his heart racing under your palm.
You took your time—touching, kissing, teasing—until he was a mess beneath you, his voice gone high and breathy whenever you did something that hit him just right. Tongue tracing lightly over his sensitive nipples. Soft kisses all the way down his chest. He didn’t even bother trying to hide it; every whine, every broken little plea fell from his mouth like he’d forgotten how to be quiet.
The kisses down his abs and your hand jerking him through his sweats were wrecking him.
“Please,” he said at one point, hands pulling you up, eyes glassy. “Please, I need— just need you. Need to feel you. Want you so bad, it hurts.”
You kissed the corner of his mouth, thumb swiping over the flushed curve of his cheek. “What do you want, baby?” you whispered. “Use your words.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, jaw flexing, like he was almost too embarrassed to say it—and too far gone not to.
“I want to fuck you,” he said, voice rough. “Want you to take me. I want—I want to be so far inside you I can’t think about anything else. I want you yo feel me for days.” His fingers tightened on your hips, pulling you down, like he could will the layers between you into disappearing. “I want… fuck, I want to fill you up, I want to know it’s me you’re carrying, that it’s me you’re thinking about when you—”
His voice broke entirely, the last words dissolving into a choked-off moan.
Heat surged through you at the implication, at the way the thought alone seemed to wreck him.
You kissed him hard, swallowing his next whimper, and then you gave him exactly what he was begging for.
Your hands scrambled to pull your pants off while he lifted his hips to remove his. Then you were back on him and his hands were immediately on you. Grabbing and pulling your ass and then tracing up your sides to your tits. He squeezed them together. Jaw a little slack as his eyes watch them move between his fingers.
While he was distracted, you reached between your bodies, feeling how hard and ready he was for you. Pumping his cock a few times, he let out a low breath. You looked down–he was leaking for you. Tracing your fingers around the head, you brought your thumb up to your lips to taste him, looking him directly in the eyes. His hands had gone still and a guttural groan slipped out of his chest while he watched you taste him. His hips involuntarily thrusting up, seeking any kind of relief from how turned on he was.
When you finally lined him up and sank down onto him, his back arched, abs tensed, a raw, helpless sound punching out of his chest. His hands flew to your ass, fingers tightly gripping into your asscheeks.
“Fuck—” He clung to you like he was afraid you might ghost out of existence. “Oh my god, baby, you feel—” He gasped, cursing again, voice climbing into that high, desperate register that only ever came out here, with you. “So tight, so perfect, I can’t—”
You moved slowly at first, letting both of you adjust, feeling how he stretched you perfectly, savoring the way his lashes fluttered, the way his mouth fell open, the way every small shift of your body made him whine.
“Look at me,” you said.
He forced his eyes open, and the emotion in them nearly knocked you back—love and need and something you couldn’t quite name.
“I’ve got you,” you murmured. “Just me and you. Just us.”
He nodded frantically, throat working. “Just us,” he echoed. “Just you. Please don’t fucking stop, baby.”
You didn’t.
You set a rhythm that had him unraveling under you, every lift of your hips dragging something raw and honest out of him.
“Please,” he kept saying, like a mantra. “Please, please, please—don’t stop, don’t let go, don’t leave me, don’t—”
You leaned down and kissed him, hard, your fingers threading with his and pinning his hands to the mattress on either side of his head. He whimpered into your mouth, feet planting onto the bed and hips thrusting up to meet yours, completely gone.
You could feel him getting close—the way his rhythm stuttered, the way his words tangled.
“Baby, I’m—I’m not gonna last,” he gasped. “You’re—you’re gonna—” He cut himself off with a strangled moan as you clenched around him. “Oh my god—”
You pulled back just enough to see his face, to watch the way it crumpled, the way his eyes shone. “It’s okay,” you whispered. “Me too, I’ve got you. Give it to me.”
He made a helpless, wrecked sound at that, something between a sob and a whine.
“Yeah?” you coaxed. “You wanna give it to me? Wanna fill me up?”
He nodded so hard it almost looked like it hurt. “Yes—yes, I want—want you to take everything.” His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “Want to fill you up so you can’t forget I was here. Want you to remember every time you move tomorrow that it was me, that I—”
You caught his mouth with yours as he broke apart, swallowing the loud, desperate sounds he couldn’t hold back. He clung to you, shaking, riding it out with you wrapped around him.
You followed him over the edge not long after, the rough thrusts up into you while he chased his orgasm, the perfect thing to finish you off.
You collapsed onto his chest, both of you damp with sweat and breathing like you’d just run for your lives.
For a long time, there was only the sound of your hearts hammering in near-unison and the distant murmur of a TV somewhere in the house.
Eventually, his arms tightened around you, pulling you as close as physically possible. He pressed his mouth to your hair, your temple, your cheek, kissing any patch of skin he could reach.
“Mine,” he murmured, a sleepy, possessive little hum. “My girl. My producer. My everything.”
You smiled into his neck, your own arms looping around him.
“Yours,” you agreed quietly. “Always.”
Outside the room, the world was still complicated—contracts and call sheets and risk matrices and “no more surprises.”
Inside this bed, with Jungkook’s heartbeat finally slowing under your palm and the echo of his whiny little pleas still ringing in your ears, things felt… simple.
Messy. Dangerous. Inevitable.
And, despite everything, exactly right.
Read Part 2 Here
