#namjoonxyou

[riaarivic]

Een zomernacht Namjoon (BTS RM) x You - What Happen When You Fall Summer Special Pt1

🫀 Pairing: BTS RM (Kim Namjoon) x Reader (Medical Director!Reader)

He confessed to an interviewer before he confessed to his orthopedic surgeon girlfriend, which is how a Brussels medical conference becomes a crime scene, a locked conference room becomes a confessional, and a man who drove five hours for twenty-three minutes in a parking garage ends up being marched to imaging before he's allowed to see a single Magritte. What follows is one weekend of award ceremonies, ceramic anatomical hearts, a shower bench that was not designed for two people, a conversation about libraries neither of them has admitted wanting until now — and somewhere between a concert in Brussels and a hotel terrace overlooking the city, two people who are very good at their jobs figure out that being very good at their jobs is not the same as being good at this.

⚠️ THIS IS A SPECIAL CHAPTER — READ THE MAIN SERIES HERE

🫀 Chapter index: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 EPILOGUE

🫀 Genres: Long Distance, Established Relationship, Slow Burn Continues Apparently, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Medical!AU, He Watched Every Dodgers Game This Season And Will Not Be Explaining Himself, She Learned The Names Of His Pokémon As An Act Of Love And Is Not Ready To Discuss It, The Ankle Situation, Celebrity x Non-Celebrity, They Are Both Enormous And Figuring Out What That Means, 18+

🫀 Short summary: "Six weeks apart, one borrowed weekend, and the question neither of them has figured out how to ask yet: how do you build a life with someone when both of your lives are already this size."

🫀 Rating: 18+ (minors DNI)

Part of The B-Side Series Universe 🖤

NAMJOON's POV

Namjoon knows applause.

He knows the polite kind, offered by people who have already begun checking the time. He knows the explosive kind that rises from sixty thousand bodies at once and reaches the stage with enough force to rearrange something inside his chest.

He knows applause that belongs to RM, the kind that is partly for the music and partly for whatever the music represents to the person making the sound, which is not quite the same thing as being heard.

This one does not belong to him.

This one belongs to you.

He sits three rows from the back of the conference hall with his hands folded between his knees, listening as a woman with silver hair and rimless glasses explains to a room full of medical professionals why your research matters.

Namjoon understands approximately seventy percent of what she is saying, which he considers a genuine personal achievement given that six months ago, phrases like neuromuscular load management and return-to-play outcomes would have passed through his brain without leaving evidence behind. Now he knows enough to nod at appropriate intervals and look personally offended when the speaker references the limitations of conventional recovery models.

The man beside him glances over. Namjoon stops nodding. There is such a thing as appearing too personally invested in orthopedic research, which is a sentence he would not have believed he would ever think, and yet.

He learned that two nights ago.

At three seventeen in the morning, unable to sleep again — the insomnia doing its thing, the hotel room ceiling doing its identical thing — he had opened your published paper on his tablet and started reading it for the fourth time since you sent it to him in February.

He has read the book about medical miracles twice in the same period.

That one he finished.

Yours he keeps returning to, which says something about either the complexity of your methodology or the fact that he keeps stopping to reread sentences you wrote and think about what they cost you.

Yoongi had woken twenty minutes into this to the sound of Namjoon quietly repeating longitudinal biomechanical assessment under his breath until the syllables stopped fighting him.

"Are you summoning a demon?" Yoongi had asked, with the affect of a man who has been woken before and knows it will happen again and has made a kind of peace with this that Namjoon finds both admirable and slightly insulting.

"I'm reading."

"You're speaking in tongues."

"It's medical terminology." Namjoon turned down the tablet brightness. "Go back to sleep."

"I was asleep." Yoongi pulled the blanket over his head with the efficiency of someone who has been managing inconveniences for thirty-one years. "Love has made you unbearable," came from underneath it, muffled but accurate.

This was, Namjoon had thought, genuinely unfair. He had been unbearable long before he met you. He had years of documented evidence. Yoongi himself could provide testimony.

Another slide appears behind the speaker.

Your name sits at the top in clean black lettering, followed by a list of credentials long enough to make something warm and slightly embarrassing spread beneath his ribs.

You had complained about that list this morning while fastening an earring in the hotel mirror, telling him it made you sound pretentious, and he had told you that qualifications were not pretentious when you had nearly killed yourself earning them.

You had said that was dramatic. He had reminded you that he was a poet. You had said that was not a defense, which, fair, but also he stands by the point.

The speaker continues, describing the study you led and the publication that followed, and Namjoon knows the public version — the study examined recovery patterns in elite athletes returning from complex lower-extremity injuries, proposing a model that integrated physical markers with sleep quality, psychological readiness, and the athlete's own perception of pain.

And he knows the private one.

He knows you wrote part of the first draft at his kitchen table in Seoul wearing his sweatshirt and a hair situation that you would object to him describing.

He knows you called him at two in the morning once because a data set was refusing to cooperate, and became annoyed when he suggested, reasonably, that perhaps you needed sleep more than another spreadsheet.

He knows you rewrote the conclusion after an athlete told you that everyone kept asking when his body would be ready but nobody had asked whether he was afraid, and that you went quiet on the phone for a long moment after telling Namjoon that before saying, almost to yourself, recovery doesn't mean anything if the patient doesn't trust their body anymore.

He had written it down when the call ended.

Not because he planned to use it in a song, although he might, but because sometimes you say something and a door opens without you seeming to realize anyone else can see through it, and he has learned to write those things down before they close again.

Onstage, the speaker says your work challenges the idea that recovery can be measured by physical performance alone.

Namjoon looks toward the front row.

You are seated at the end, close to the aisle, posture perfect, hands resting in your lap, one thumb moving slowly over the side of your index finger in the small, private way that nobody who hasn't spent a significant amount of time looking at you would notice.

He notices.

You are nervous, which you would deny with such conviction that he almost believes it when you do it, because you have delivered presentations to surgical boards and team owners and rooms full of physicians waiting for you to make a mistake, and you have never once let them see you sweat.

But being evaluated is different from being seen.

Evaluation has rules. You understand rules.

Praise asks you to stand still while people tell you something you made mattered, and you have never known what to do with your hands when affection cannot be redirected into a task.

The speaker says your name. The room begins to applaud, and you rise.

Namjoon forgets to breathe for a second, which is — fine. He's fine. This is completely fine.

It is not the dress, or not only the dress, though the dress has been creating problems for him since breakfast in a way that is entirely your fault.

It is dark blue and severe enough to appear professional until you move, at which point the fabric does something that should probably require a permit at a medical conference before noon. He had watched you fasten that earring in the mirror earlier and briefly lost the ability to locate his own tie, and you had noticed, because you notice everything.

"You're staring," you'd said, not looking away from the mirror.

"I know," he said.

"Can you stop?"

"No," he said, honestly, and watched the corner of your mouth do the thing it does when you are trying not to be pleased about something. You had rolled your eyes and said nothing else, which he has learned to interpret as a specific category of answer.

Now he watches you walk toward the stage, and the thing in his chest is partly the dress and partly something that has nothing to do with it.

He thinks about who you were when he met you.

A woman who had already crossed one ocean and arrived in Seoul with limited Korean, impossible standards, and a firm, almost architectural conviction that needing anyone was the first step toward becoming beholden to them.

You built a life anyway. A career, a reputation, a found family assembled partly from blood and partly from people stubborn enough to stay near you until you stopped pretending you wanted them gone.

Then you left again.

Not because you failed but because another dream called from Los Angeles, and for once you answered it without burning everything you loved to the ground first.

He had loved you when you were afraid of all of it. He loves you now while you are thriving.

The second is somehow more frightening, which is irrational and he knows it.

Crisis gives a man something useful to do, a role, somewhere to put his hands. Drive somewhere. Stand outside a room. Make tea. Carry a bag. Position himself between the person he loves and whatever is currently trying to hurt them.

Happiness asks for something else. It asks him to remain.

To witness.

To resist making himself into a tool simply because usefulness has always been his easiest way of understanding his place in another person's life.

You did not need him to make this moment possible. You did this.

You ran the research, defended the methodology, rewrote the paper until every claim could survive someone determined to challenge it, earned the position in Los Angeles with your name on the glass and the authority that now makes professional athletes stop mid-sentence when you lift one eyebrow.

He contributed nothing. He gets to be here anyway.

The thought reaches somewhere inside him that he is still learning to name properly, still finding the vocabulary for in the quiet between three AM and dawn.

Being needed has always made sense to him.

Being chosen feels like one of the cases in the medical miracles book he read, something improbable, insufficiently explained, documented by someone who was still a little shaken writing it up.

You reach the stage.

The award is glass, elegant and slightly impractical, and Namjoon immediately pictures you wrapping it in three shirts and placing it in your carry-on because you do not trust checked luggage with things that matter to you.

The presenter says something close to the microphone that he can't catch, and you laugh — small, more breath than sound — and Namjoon feels absurdly, irrationally proprietary about that laugh.

Not possessive, he knows better, but there is something about knowing how rarely it comes easily that makes it feel significant every time. Then you turn toward the audience and your eyes begin to move across the room, and he knows, because he spent two years learning the particular frequency of being looked for by you, that you are looking for him.

He stays still.

He does not raise his hand or adjust his position or make himself obvious in any way that would shift the room's attention from the stage to the back row, because this moment is yours and he refuses to become the most interesting person in a room that should be looking at the woman who earned the award on the podium.

Then you find him.

The shift in your face is almost imperceptible.

Your shoulders release by approximately three millimeters, the careful line of your mouth softens, and for one second you are not the Medical Director of the Los Angeles Dodgers accepting recognition from her peers at an international conference.

You are just looking at him.

Namjoon's heart does something medically inconsistent with continued function. He smiles. You narrow your eyes slightly — a warning, clear as a sticky note — and he understands: do not make a scene, do not you dare cry.

He had not planned to cry. He might do it out of spite now.

The applause fades as you reach the microphone. You place the award on the podium and adjust it half an inch to the left with the precise, involuntary movement of someone who cannot let a crooked thing stay crooked, and Namjoon has to press his lips together hard because of course you do.

Of fucking course.

"Thank you," you begin, and your voice is calm the way it always is when everyone expects nerves. "I'm deeply honored to receive this award, particularly because this research began with a question we are often too busy to ask." The screen behind you changes to a photograph of an athlete sitting alone at the edge of a training field.

"When can they return?" You pause. "That is usually the question. It is an important question — careers depend on it, teams depend on it, entire organizations build their plans around the answer. But it cannot be the only question."

The room goes quiet in the way rooms go quiet when something true has been said.

"When we reduce recovery to strength percentages, imaging results and performance benchmarks, we risk forgetting that an athlete can be medically cleared and still not trust the body we are asking them to place under extraordinary pressure."

That line lands inside him and stays there.

He knows he is not supposed to make your work into a metaphor for his own life — you are a scientist and you would tell him, with complete affection and mild exasperation, that correlation is not causation and also to please stop doing that — but he is going to do it anyway.

Because he is sitting in a conference hall in Brussels listening to you and thinking about the months after the military when he did not trust his own mind.

When sleep felt dangerous and silence felt worse.

When he could stand in front of a camera and speak clearly while some part of him remained at a remove, observing a man who looked exactly like Kim Namjoon and performed his life with impressive accuracy. He had been afraid that naming it would make it permanent.

Afraid that admitting he was not well would make him another weight the people around him had to carry, and there were already so many people carrying so much because of him.

So he did what he had always done. He kept moving. He wrote.

He made himself useful enough that nobody could question whether he belonged where he was standing. The right person, at the right place.

Healing had not arrived as a revelation.

No lights, no clarity, nothing dramatic enough to put in a song without it feeling borrowed.

It had come through repetition instead, the same way the miracles in the book came: slowly, improbably, against the available evidence.

Therapy appointments he had initially resented.

Medication conversations he had initially deflected.

Nights when Yoongi said absolutely nothing and simply remained awake in the other bed until Namjoon's breathing settled, which Yoongi has never acknowledged and Namjoon has never mentioned and which is one of the most significant kindnesses anyone has ever shown him.

Mornings when you called from Los Angeles and spoke to him as if he were not fragile but worth handling carefully anyway, which is a distinction that matters more than he has ever found the right words for.

He is still healing.

Some nights he wakes with his heart going and no immediate sense of where he is, lying in another hotel room in another city with the ceiling doing its thing. Some nights he does not sleep at all, just reads about miraculous recoveries in whatever language is available until something in him gets bored of catastrophizing and settles.

But he no longer feels like the wrong person in the right place. Less often, anyway. That counts.

Onstage, you thank the researchers who worked with you, the medical staff, the athletes who trusted you with their bodies and their fear.

You mention the younger doctors who challenged your assumptions during the study — the ones who pushed back, you say, are the reason the methodology is stronger — and he watches two women near the front exchange startled, private smiles.

You never speak about yourself for long.

Even accepting an award with your name on it, you find a way to distribute the credit before you have finished accepting it, which is something he recognizes in himself and finds, in you, both admirable and slightly maddening. Leadership changes the shape of pride. It teaches you to say we before you have decided whether you deserve the I.

Then you pause, and your fingers tighten on the edge of the podium.

"This publication was completed during a year of significant change in my own life." Namjoon looks up. You had not shown him the speech. He had asked. You had said no, and he had assumed it was because you wanted to focus, but he suspects now you were protecting yourself from his face.

"I moved countries," you continue. "I changed institutions. I accepted a position I had spent years working toward, knowing it would demand more of me than any role before it." Your gaze moves across the audience. This time it does not search — it finds him immediately, certain, like it knows exactly where to go. "I learned that choosing a new future does not always require abandoning the life that brought you there."

Namjoon stops breathing.

The room hears a sentence about professional transition. He knows better, or at least he thinks he does — you would accuse him of turning everything into poetry if he said so, and he would tell you to stop saying things that sound like poems, and you would tell him to go to hell, and he would, happily, as long as you were there.

"Sometimes," you say, "the strongest systems are not the ones that avoid change. They are the ones capable of adapting without losing their foundation."

He claims that one too. He has no right to it. He claims it anyway.

You finish by thanking the conference, the research board, your team in Los Angeles. You do not thank him, and he is relieved in a way he would struggle to explain — not because he does not want to be part of your life, but because he does not need to be inserted into your achievement to understand that he belongs in your heart.

That is new, for both of them. Hard-won and still occasionally surprising.

You step away from the microphone. The room rises, and Namjoon stands with everyone else and applauds until his palms sting.

A woman in the row ahead turns, does a double take, leans to whisper something to her companion. Namjoon keeps his eyes on the stage. On you. On the way you accept another handshake, a photograph, a brief embrace from the presenter that makes your body go slightly rigid before you remember to return it, and he laughs under his breath because some things will never change and he loves those things most.

His phone buzzes.

Bones 🦴 9:55AM: Stop looking at me like that.

He glances up. You are still onstage, smiling politely for a photograph, phone apparently in your hand at your side. He types quickly.

sent 9:56: Like what?

The response is almost immediate.

Bones 🦴 9:56AM: Like you're about to cry or propose. Both would be inappropriate.

He looks at his phone for a moment.

The word should make something in him recoil. Historically it would have, and he can say this with the unflattering self-awareness of someone who has spent enough time in therapy to have a relatively accurate map of his own bullshit.

He has never been particularly talented at being alone — he knows this, it is not a secret, it is simply a thing about him the way his tendency to lose objects while holding them is a thing, the way his belief that every new hobby requires an immediate and disproportionate equipment investment is a thing.

He falls in love headfirst, no brakes, no helmet, and then someone says commitment and he is suddenly examining available exits with the attentiveness of a man responsible for fire safety.

He wanted intimacy until it developed expectations.

He wanted permanence until permanence asked him to picture a version of himself responsible for maintaining it forever without knowing what forever was going to ask of him.

He wanted to be loved without ever becoming trapped inside the weight of being known completely by someone who might one day use that knowledge against him.

He is working on this.

It is a process.

The word sits in his chest now and does not make him look for a door. It makes him imagine things instead, which is new and mildly terrifying in a way that feels different from the old terror.

Your books mixed with his on shelves that would require negotiation about the system. Your shoes by the entrance of somewhere neither of them has agreed on yet.

A refrigerator containing food neither of you remembers purchasing and something his mother left because she remains convinced, with some justification, that two adults cannot adequately feed themselves.

A house, maybe. Not necessarily Seoul. Not necessarily Los Angeles. The lack of a specific answer should frighten him more than it does, and the fact that it doesn't frighten him more than it does is somehow the most frightening thing.

He types:

sent 9:58 AM: I can do one now and save the other for dinner.

Three dots appear. Disappear. Return.

Bones 🦴 9:58 AM: Kim Namjoon.

He grins. The man beside him relocates one seat to the left, which is reasonable.

sent 9:59 AM: I'm proud of you.

Your response takes longer this time. Onstage, someone directs you toward another camera and you turn and smile, and your phone stays hidden at your side. Then it buzzes.

Bones 🦴 9:59 AM: Thank you for coming.

He reads it twice.

He had moved meetings to be here.

His manager had rearranged transportation with the long-suffering efficiency of someone who has been doing this for years and has made a kind of peace with the fact that Kim Namjoon will periodically require schedule restructuring for personal reasons that are not professionally explicable.

Yoongi had accused him of changing outfits four times before meeting you, which was technically inaccurate because the first one had never been a serious option.

You wanted him here, and he is, and the text says thank you for coming with the careful simplicity of someone who means considerably more than that and has chosen the most defensible version.

He looks toward the stage. You are speaking to a conference organizer now, composed and brilliant and entirely yourself — the version of yourself that exists when the world is watching and you have decided to let it — and loving you sometimes feels less like falling and more like standing at the edge of something vast that he has not yet found the bottom of, and for the first time in his life that does not make him want to step back.

His phone buzzes once more.

Bones 🦴 10:03 AM: And stop smiling so loudly.

He presses his lips together. It does not work even slightly.

For years, the future had been something that existed in contracts. Album cycles, tour schedules, enlistment dates. Promises made in carefully measured increments.

Because five years could be negotiated, but forever could not.

He had never allowed himself to picture old age with any seriousness — not because he believed he would die young, but because surviving the next version of his life had always required enough attention that imagining the versions after that felt like a luxury he couldn't afford without losing his footing in the present.

Now he watches you leave the stage carrying an award for work that might change the course of your field, and the future arrives without asking permission.

Not clearly, not with any of the clean resolution he might write into a lyric. Just a flicker. Another conference, another city. Your name announced in a room where he has no purpose except to be there.

His hand at the small of your back in the corridor after, the specific casual possession of people who have stopped needing to think about whether they are allowed.

A question neither of you has learned how to ask yet because asking it would make it real and making it real would mean the answer matters, which it does, which is the problem.

Where will we be?

The old fear is still there.

He can feel it, quiet but present, recognizable the way scar tissue is recognizable — not the wound anymore, but evidence that there was one.

The instinct to make a joke, change the subject, convince himself that wanting the present should be enough and that wanting more is the kind of thing that ruins what you already have. He has spent a significant portion of his adult life listening to that instinct. He is, lately, trying something different.

He looks across the room at you.

And Namjoon, for the first time in his life, feels more afraid of running than staying.

NAMJOON's POV

Getting to Brussels had required six countries, eleven flights, three stadiums, two museum appointments, one international argument about whether pickleball rankings should include doubles performance — they should not, this is Namjoon's official position and he is standing by it — and twenty-three minutes with you in a parking garage in Los Angeles that he has thought about every single day since.

Tour memories rarely arrange themselves politely.

They come back as flashes, non-chronological, the brain filing things by feeling rather than date.

A hotel room in Madrid at four in the morning, Yoongi asleep in the other bed with one arm thrown over his face while Namjoon sits against the headboard with his laptop open and the brightness turned all the way down, watching a Dodgers game without sound like a man who has completely lost the plot.

He should be sleeping.

His body has decided that sleep is an administrative suggestion rather than a biological necessity, which is an ongoing negotiation he and his nervous system have been having since approximately 2019 and which therapy has helped with, incrementally, in the way the miracles book describes — not all at once, not dramatically, just the slow accumulation of better nights outweighing the bad ones until the math starts working in your favor.

The insomnia has improved.

That's the word everyone uses. Improved.

A useful word because it doesn't demand perfection or a finish line, just directional progress, which is the most honest thing anyone has said about his mental health in years and also occasionally maddening because improved still means some nights he's watching baseball at four in the morning in Madrid because you might appear near the dugout for three seconds and that is, apparently, sufficient motivation to stay awake.

The camera cuts to the medical staff. Namjoon leans forward involuntarily.

Wrong doctor. He settles back.

Two pitches later, the camera shifts again, and there you are — hair pulled back, sunglasses on top of your head, speaking to someone just outside the frame with the focused expression you wear when another person has made a poor decision and is currently learning about it. He takes a screenshot.

Then he sits with the low-grade shame of that for a moment and checks the folder. There are nineteen.

He had been under the impression there were fourteen.

This is accelerating in a direction he finds both embarrassing and entirely unsurprising.

"Did she appear?" Yoongi says, from the other bed, without moving.

"I thought you were asleep."

"I was." He doesn't open his eyes. "You inhaled like you saw God."

Namjoon looks at the frozen frame. "It was a good camera angle."

Yoongi lowers his arm enough to look at him with the expression of a man who has known Namjoon since he was a teenager and finds nothing he does particularly surprising anymore, which is somehow both comforting and deeply humiliating. "Sure."

"I was watching the game."

"You don't like baseball."

"I like baseball now."

"You like a specific doctor who works adjacent to baseball."

"That," Namjoon says, with as much dignity as a man watching silent baseball highlights at four AM in Paris can muster, "is an oversimplification."

Yoongi rolls onto his side. "What's the score?"

Namjoon opens his mouth. Closes it.

Yoongi closes his eyes again. "Exactly."

In Namjoon's defense, Yoongi is not in a position to throw stones from his glass apartment.

Both of them are conducting their long-distance relationships with a level of devotion that would be admirable if it weren't quite so pathetic.

They have the unspoken timezone rotation, the wordless hotel room negotiations, the habit of checking phones with a speed that is not quite casual enough to pass as casual.

The difference is that Yoongi does all of this with the composed affect of a man in complete control of his emotions, and Namjoon does it like a man whose emotions are in complete control of him, which is maybe just the same thing with different branding.

Neither of them has mentioned this.

The discussion, should it ever occur, would be extensive and mutually devastating, so they simply continue existing in adjacent rooms.

By the time the tour hits Europe, everyone has found a strategy.

Some are healthier than others.

Jungkook explores every city with the energy of a golden retriever who has recently discovered public transportation and has no one to miss and sleeps like a person whose conscience is clear and whose heart is uncomplicated.

He wakes early. He works out.

He sends photographs of food to the group chat at hours that feel personally aggressive.

He is single, which explains everything, and the rest of them regard him with the specific fondness of survivors watching someone who hasn't fallen in yet.

Namjoon loves him.

He also finds him, at times, mildly offensive in the way that someone in perfect health is mildly offensive when you have a chronic condition.

Jin is playing every sport. This is worth noting.

His wife had visited for two weeks in the middle of the American leg — two weeks during which Jin had been so disgustingly, visibly happy that Namjoon had felt both genuinely delighted for him and faintly nauseous in the way you feel watching someone eat something delicious when you're hungry.

And then she left, and Jin had processed this by immediately throwing himself into competitive bowling with a ferocity that suggested he was either sublimating something or genuinely becoming a professional.

He beats Yoongi sometimes.

Yoongi claims the lane was uneven. The lane was not uneven.

Jimin's situation remains officially unclear.

There is someone — possibly, allegedly, this is not confirmed and nobody has been formally briefed — and Namjoon knows this the way he knows most things about the people he loves, which is through accumulated observation rather than disclosure.

Jimin disappears to take certain calls. He smiles at his phone and locks the screen. He comes back from wherever he goes with slightly different energy, lighter somehow, and then reassembles his normal expression and continues as though nothing has occurred.

Nobody is asking questions. Namjoon is not asking questions because he recognizes the shape of what Jimin is in — that specific, tender, terrifying early stage where you don't have words for it yet and naming it feels like it might break something — and he was there not long ago, and he knows the only useful thing is to wait.

He is also, he admits privately, an expert in timezones now, and he understands better than most what it means to be managing something across distance that you haven't finished understanding yet.

So: no questions.

Just the occasional glance across a rehearsal room that says I see you and the deliberate decision not to make it a thing.

Taehyung approaches longing by becoming interested in everything.

All activities, all exhibitions, all restaurants located forty minutes away because the owner makes one specific dish using a recipe from a grandmother nobody has met.

He invites everyone. Sometimes they go.

He returns with photographs, stories, and objects that seem useless until he explains them, which he always does, at length, with genuine enthusiasm that makes it impossible to maintain any reasonable level of skepticism.

Namjoon has a small ceramic tile from a market in Mexico City on his nightstand now. It makes him think of cherry blossoms for reasons he can't entirely explain and hasn't tried to.

And then there is the pickleball situation, which Namjoon needs a moment to properly address because it has escalated beyond anything he consented to.

It had started casually.

Someone found a court — Namjoon suspects Hoseok — and by the second week there were teams.

By the third week there were statistics. By the time they reached Europe there was a shared document with win percentages, match history, and a section labeled sportsmanship concerns that Hoseok had created and populated with the focused energy of a man channeling something he can't say directly into something he can control.

Jungkook has six entries.

Namjoon has one, involving an incident with Taehyung that he maintains was a depth-perception failure and not, as the document implies, a pattern of aggressive play. Nobody accepts this distinction. Taehyung has offered to provide a victim impact statement. This is, in Namjoon's opinion, extremely dramatic for a recreational sport.

The bowling followed naturally, because once you have created a competitive sporting structure, you might as well diversify.

Yoongi bowls with infuriating precision. Watching pins fall with the expression of someone whose only surprise would be if they didn't.

Jungkook treats every frame like an Olympic qualifying event and celebrates strikes with physical intensity that the lanes were not designed to accommodate.

Jimin has a form that should not work and demonstrably does, which he will not explain and Namjoon has stopped trying to analyze.

Taehyung filmed himself once while releasing the ball, got a strike he did not witness, and has been referencing it for three weeks with the confidence of an eyewitness to his own legend.

Namjoon is, privately, not bad. He tells no one how much this matters to him. It matters to him quite a lot.

They play because it's something to do with their bodies after the adrenaline of a concert, something loud and physical that takes enough concentration to fill the specific hollow that opens up in each of them when the stage lights go down and the hotel room closes around them. Nobody says that part.

They are men.

They say "best of three" and "loser buys dinner" and "why the fuck are you checking your phone again", which is almost always directed at Namjoon and is a question to which everyone already knows the answer.

Touring is still beautiful, and Namjoon holds onto that with both hands because he doesn't want the missing you to flatten everything else.

The stadiums are full.

The music feels alive under his feet in a way it sometimes didn't, in the years when he was running so fast from whatever was chasing him that he forgot to feel the ground.

There are nights when sixty thousand people sing back words he wrote in the worst of it — wrote because he needed to put the weight somewhere outside his body — and the sound of it reaches a place inside him that had been closed for a long time.

He feels lucky. He feels present.

He trusts himself more than he did, and the members more than he did, which turns out to be related. The trust in himself making room for the trust in them, the therapy untangling a knot he hadn't known was load-bearing until it loosened.

He visits museums in every city that gives him time.

He buys books until his luggage exceeds all reasonable limits, which happened somewhere around El Paso and has not improved.

He finds things for his parents, his sister, and you — especially you, unreasonably often you, with a frequency that he is aware is slightly embarrassing and has decided to be at peace with.

A silk scarf from Paris because the color was exactly the one you'd worn the first time you argued with him in public and looked incredible doing it.

A first edition from a London shop because you'd mentioned the author once while half asleep, the words slightly slurred, probably not intending him to remember.

A small bronze sculpture from a gallery in Amsterdam of two figures leaning toward each other without touching, which the owner said represented tension and which Namjoon thinks represents a failure to communicate and bought anyway.

You are going to ask where you're supposed to put it.

He already knows what he's going to say.

Somewhere visible.

You will call him annoying.

It will stay visible for the rest of your life.

He finds himself thinking in these increments now — not every day, not with any of the terrifying permanence that used to make him look for exits — but sometimes, in the space between one thing and the next, the future arrives without asking permission.

It should frighten him more than it does. The fact that it doesn't is, paradoxically, the most frightening thing.

With you, the fear hasn't disappeared.

It's just changed direction.

Now he's more afraid of a future without you than one built with you, which is either growth or a new and more sophisticated form of the same problem, and he's genuinely not sure which, but it's what's true so he's working with it.

Which is why, after Stanford, he makes a genuinely stupid decision and feels great about it.

Namjoon wakes up the day after the last concert with a mission.

There's a flight the next morning. He has an appointment he already moved once. Management presents several logical and well-reasoned arguments for why driving from Stanford to Los Angeles is impractical, and Namjoon listens to all of them with the attentiveness of someone who has already decided and is simply being polite about the formality of disagreeing.

Then he takes the keys.

The drive is a little over five hours with traffic. He completes it in less, and he will not be elaborating on the specifics of how. He drinks bad gas-station coffee that tastes like burnt ambition.

He calls you once and you don't answer, which is fine, you're working, you always work, it doesn't bother him at all, he calls again eight minutes later just to confirm the not-bothering, and you don't answer that one either.

The music playing through the car speakers is something he put on deliberately to stop himself thinking, and it is failing completely, because all he can think about is the fact that he hasn't been in the same room as you in six weeks and hasn't touched you in longer than that and there is something genuinely wrong with him that this is what he's choosing to do with a free evening instead of sleeping like a person with functioning survival instincts.

He reaches Dodger Stadium while the game is still running.

He parks in the VIP structure because somewhere along the line your credentials have bled into his life in ways that are logistically convenient and emotionally symbolic and he's not examining that too hard right now. The rented SUV is enormous — why are American rental cars always enormous, why does every size option here read as a different category of too large — and smells faintly of artificial pine and the quiet bad decisions of whoever rented it before him.

He has twenty-nine minutes before he needs to leave. Realistically twenty-three.

He sends you five words.

sent 3:37PM: Parking lot. Level three. Come.

Your response arrives before he's finished putting his phone down.

Bones 🦴 3:37PM Absolutely fucking not.

He smiles at this, at the immediate certainty of it, at the fact that he knows you well enough to know you've already started moving.

sent 3:38 PM: I have twenty-three minutes.

The typing bubble appears, disappears, appears again with the rhythm of someone composing and reconsidering in real time.

Bones 🦴 3:38 PM You drove here? sent 3:38 PM: yes.

A longer pause.

Bones 🦴 3:40 PM : You are insane.

He thinks about this genuinely.

sent 3:41 PM: Possibly.

No response.

Four minutes of silence, which is four minutes of Namjoon watching the parking garage entrance with the focused attention of a man who is perhaps not entirely in possession of his dignity and is fine with that.

Then he sees you between the parked cars.

You're still in the Dodgers medical polo, credential swinging against your chest, walking quickly with the expression of a woman who has been doing triage all day and has just added one more item to the list. He unlocks the door.

You pull it open and the first thing you say is "you are an idiot," which is technically not a greeting but which he finds, coming from you, indistinguishable from one.

"Hello," he says.

"You drove from Stanford." You look at him the way you look at imaging results that confirm what you already suspected. "You have a flight."

"I'm aware."

"You have rehearsals tomorrow. Your ankle still isn't—"

He kisses you.

It's not strategic, or not only strategic — it's that he has approximately sixteen minutes now and has been on a highway for five hours and his entire body has been oriented toward this moment like a compass toward something, and every careful thing he was going to say arranges itself into silence the second his mouth finds yours.

You make a sound against him that starts as something like protest and becomes something else entirely, and your hands come up to his face with a certainty that makes his brain go briefly and embarrassingly offline.

Here is the thing about not seeing someone for six weeks that Namjoon had intellectually understood and is now understanding in a more immediate and less intellectual way: it resets something.

It recalibrates.

Your hands are in his hair and you smell like you and you're here, actually here, not on a screen at a calibrated angle, and the specific physical reality of you in this proximity is doing something to him that he would be profoundly embarrassed about if he had the available bandwidth to feel embarrassed.

He doesn't.

He slides his hand to your waist and pulls you toward him and thinks, with the only functioning part of his brain, that fourteen minutes is a genuinely criminal amount of time and whoever invented tour schedules should answer for it.

You draw back half an inch to breathe and he follows you, which he recognizes as undignified and cannot stop doing. "This vehicle," you say, slightly out of breath, "is absurd."

"I didn't choose it."

"You always choose cars that are too big."

"That feels unrelated to the current situation." He kisses the corner of your mouth. You let him. Your fingers tighten in his hair. "You came here to criticize my rental?"

"I came here to stop you from making terrible decisions," you say, and then you climb halfway over the center console to reach him better, which is, Namjoon thinks, the most persuasive possible argument against your stated position.

The center console is engaged in active combat with both of your knees. The geometry of this car is someone's fault and he resents them personally.

Your knee catches the gearshift. His elbow hits the horn.

The sound detonates through Level Three of the VIP parking structure with the enthusiasm of a vehicle that has absolutely no concept of discretion, and both of them go completely still in the particular, arrested silence of people who are deciding in real time whether this is a crisis or a comedy.

You drop your forehead to his shoulder first. He can feel you shaking before he hears you laugh, and then he's laughing too, and the two of you are in a too-large rental SUV in a Dodgers parking structure having narrowly avoided announcing yourselves to the greater Los Angeles metro area, and it is, Namjoon thinks, the best he has felt in six weeks.

"Oh my God," you say, into his jacket.

"In my defense—"

"There is no defense."

"You were in my lap."

"I was leaning."

"Extensively."

You lift your head. Your hair has staged a full rebellion and your expression is the expression of a Medical Director who has found herself in a situation inconsistent with her professional image and is not entirely sure she minds. "I am the Medical Director of this organization," you say, with what remains of your composure.

He nods with complete seriousness. "Very impressive. I am extremely proud of you, love."

He kisses you again before you can respond, because he can, because he has approximately nineteen minutes and he intends to use them, and you make a sound that he is going to think about for the next three weeks in hotel rooms across the world.

Here is the other thing about six weeks, which Namjoon is not going to say out loud and would deny under questioning: proximity to you is doing something to his nervous system that he hasn't fully experienced since he was approximately nineteen years old, and he is thirty-one, and this is either deeply embarrassing or evidence that he is catastrophically in love with you, and it is probably both.

Your hands are on him and his are on you and what he wants — what he actually wants, with a clarity that leaves no room for poetry or abstraction — is to fuck you.

Somewhere with more space and several more hours and no alarm set for anything, and the fact that he has nineteen minutes and a flight in the morning is something he is finding genuinely difficult to be adult about.

He is not proud of this.

He is also not particularly capable of hiding it from you, which you would usually find amusing and which right now you are, based on the evidence available to him, not in a position to mock because you are in approximately the same situation.

Ten minutes. He hates time.

He has never hated time more than he does right now, in this parking structure, with this woman, in this car that is slightly too large for everything they're trying to do in it.

Eventually the alarm goes off.

It's quiet — his phone, in his pocket, a sound he set six weeks ago as insurance against exactly this kind of bad decision — and it is possibly the cruelest sound he has ever heard in his life. You both go still. Neither of you reaches for the phone. It continues. The parking structure continues. Somewhere outside, a car alarm chirps and is immediately silent.

You pull back enough to look at him. Your lipstick is beyond recovery. He has never felt more accomplished or more frustrated simultaneously. "I hate that sound," you say.

"I know."

"You have to go."

"I know." Neither of you moves, and he loves you for not moving, and he hates the alarm with his entire being. "I miss you," he says, because he is done filtering himself through the machinery of being articulate.

Simple. True.

What it costs to say it has gotten smaller, which is maybe the most significant thing therapy has done for him — not resolution, just reduced cost, the same true things requiring less to get out. You look at him for a moment with something in your face that used to be harder to find, something unguarded, and say "I miss you too" in the quiet tone of someone who means something larger than those four words and is letting you hear it anyway.

He kisses you softly this time. Not the beginning of anything. Just: this. This moment. The keeping of it.

When you finally climb back to your seat, you straighten your credential and check the mirror and make a sound that suggests you are taking stock of the damage. You point at his ankle without looking away from the mirror. "Physical therapy."

"Yes, doctor."

"I mean it."

"I know."

"You're lying."

"A little." He watches you attempt to reassemble your hair with the efficiency you bring to everything, including catastrophes, and thinks: I drove five hours for this and I would do it tomorrow. "I'll do it," he says, mostly meaning it.

You look at him.

Something in your face softens by one degree, which from you is the equivalent of anyone else's full declaration. You reach over and fix his collar, which does nothing for the state of him but is the kind of thing you do when you're not ready to say what you're actually thinking, and he knows this, and he lets you do it anyway.

You open the door. Then stop, hand on the frame, and look back at him.

"Old habits die hard," you say.

Namjoon thinks about every car, every parking structure, every stolen hour from years of pretending this was manageable and temporary and not the thing it obviously was.

The difference now is that nobody is making them hide — their relationship is public, his management knows, your colleagues know, his family knows, and your father has developed a detailed and apparently non-negotiable BTS member ranking with Jimin at the top and Namjoon technically ineligible due to perceived conflict of interest.

You are not hiding.

You simply have three more minutes and a continent between you for the foreseeable future.

"Maybe we need new habits," he says, and reaches for your hand, and you look down at your fingers for a moment with the expression of someone doing math that keeps coming out the same way.

"Maybe," you say. And then you go.

He watches you walk back toward the stadium. You make it almost to the door before you stop, turn back, lift one hand. He waves. You disappear inside.

The drive back is five hours of Namjoon's hands on the wheel at ten and two with a grip that turns his knuckles white somewhere around the forty-minute mark and doesn't loosen.

He has the music off.

He has nothing on, just the road and the dark and the particular silence of a man who drove across California for twenty-three minutes and is now driving back, and he keeps his jaw set and his eyes on the highway and tells himself this is fine, this is the arrangement you chose, this is what it costs and he would pay it again, and somewhere around the two-hour mark, with nobody watching and the road empty and the city lights long gone, he lets himself be angry about it for approximately four minutes — not at you, not at the tour, just at time, at the sheer inadequacy of twenty-three minutes — and if there are two tears that he will deny with his full name and every credential he possesses, they are gone by the time he hits the outskirts of the city, and he never speaks of them again.

Twenty-three minutes should have helped. It doesn't.

Missing you doesn't reset because he held you — it changes shape, becomes more specific, more located. Now he misses the exact weight of you against him, the sound of your voice saying I miss you too in the unguarded dark of a car in a parking garage, the feeling of your hands fixing his collar like that's something you've always done, like it's already a habit.

He used to think any piece of you would be enough.

A hidden call. A stolen hour. Whatever you'd give without asking him to name what came next. Now he has your whole heart. And twenty-three minutes feels like something he should be more evolved than needing to be angry about.

That is the problem with getting what you want.

Eventually, you start wanting a life large enough to actually hold it.

NAMJOON's POV

By the time Namjoon's mind returns fully to Brussels, the applause has ended and you are trapped beside the stage.

There is no better word for it.

You are surrounded by a semicircle of physicians, researchers and conference organizers, all of whom appear determined to congratulate you individually while asking questions that cannot possibly have short answers.

You handle it beautifully, because of course you do — shaking hands, remembering names, accepting praise with the strained grace of someone who would genuinely rather perform an emergency surgery on a folding table in the middle of the reception than hear one more person describe her as inspirational.

Namjoon watches from a respectable distance and drinks his champagne and has learned, through a combination of experience and hard-won self-awareness, that there are moments when being near you is supportive and moments when being near you creates an entirely different event.

This is your room.

He has absolutely no intention of turning it into his, which is a more disciplined position than it sounds given that the dress has been creating active problems for him since breakfast and proximity has not improved the situation.

The discipline is also easier to maintain in theory than in practice.

A young man in a conference badge walks past, glances at Namjoon, continues walking, and then nearly introduces himself to a structural column because he has turned around to verify. Namjoon pretends not to notice. The young man pretends the column was part of his intended route.

They both retain their dignity, more or less. A server offers champagne. Namjoon accepts, mostly because it gives his hands something to do while he waits for the only thing he actually wants, which is to be close enough to touch you.

He has been in the same room as you for almost two hours. This should count as seeing you. It does not. Seeing you across a stage is not the same as being able to reach for you — it only makes the distance more specific, more located, gives the missing a precise address when it usually just has a city.

You look toward him once while an older surgeon talks beside you. Namjoon raises his glass.

Your eyes narrow with the specific economy of someone communicating do not start without saying words, which he finds, in the context of a formal reception where he has been on his best behavior for ninety minutes, mildly unjust.

He smiles. Your eyes narrow further. This is going extremely well.

The surgeon finally moves on. You turn toward another woman who has approached from the opposite side — Namjoon recognizes her from the program as one of the conference directors — and something in your face shifts from polite attention to actual interest.

Not the careful, professional engagement you give people who are speaking at length and haven't realized they should stop. Real interest, the kind that pulls your shoulders slightly forward and stills your hands. She says something that makes you glance down at the award.

Then she touches your arm and gestures toward the reception hall, and you nod.

Namjoon waits. He is capable of patience.

There is almost no evidence of this, but he believes it about himself, and belief is doing a lot of structural work in his life currently.

The room empties gradually into the adjoining reception space — tall windows, late afternoon light across white tablecloths, flower arrangements so structurally ambitious they might require an engineering permit.

You speak to three more people, pose for two photographs, and accept a business card from a man who appears to have printed his entire professional history in six-point font on both sides.

Then, finally, you look at Namjoon and walk toward him, and his body responds before his mind does — shoulders loosening, breathing evening out, some primitive and embarrassingly reliable part of him simply registering that you are close enough now and everything is, temporarily, where it belongs.

You stop in front of him. Neither of you speaks for a moment.

Namjoon wants to kiss you. Not politely.

Not in the calibrated, public manner appropriate for a medical conference where approximately half the room has just spent an hour discussing evidence-based decision-making. He wants to put one hand around the back of your neck and kiss you until the last six weeks stop existing, which is not a thought he can act on in this room, so instead he looks down at the award and says,

"You moved it."

You blink. "What?"

"On the podium. Before you started." He gestures with his champagne glass. "You adjusted it before you spoke."

"It was crooked."

"It was half an inch to the right."

"Exactly," you say, as though this is a complete and sufficient answer, which, from you, it is. He smiles, and something in your expression loosens by one degree.

"Hi," you say.

"Hi." He puts his glass on the nearest table.

One word. Completely insufficient.

He opens his arms instead, and you step into them without hesitation — which is new enough, still, that he feels it every single time, the not-hesitating. His hand settles against the middle of your back.

Your cheek presses briefly against his chest and Namjoon closes his eyes because there are too many people in this room for him to react honestly to the fact that you smell like your perfume and hotel soap and the faint metallic note of the award pressed awkwardly between you, and he does not care, he would stand here until it became socially concerning.

You pull back first, naturally, because you always pull back first, and say "you're wrinkling the dress."

"You wore a dangerous dress and expected no consequences."

"It's a conference."

"I noticed. I spent an hour behaving accordingly and I'd like some recognition for that."

"You texted me during my keynote."

"You texted first."

"I told you to stop looking at me strangely."

"I was looking at you with love and admiration." He reaches for the award. "Can I?"

You hand it to him. It's heavier than he expected — properly weighted, the glass thick, your name engraved cleanly into the base. He runs his thumb just beneath the lettering without touching it. "So this is the famous object."

"It's an award, Namjoon."

"Your name is on it."

"That's generally how awards work."

"I'm going to need a moment with it."

"You're going to become insufferable about it."

"I'm already insufferable about it. I watched the ceremony from the third row and texted you during the applause." He looks up at you. "I'm so proud of you." He means it simply, without decoration — the full weight of it, no performance attached.

The humor leaves your face. He watches the familiar instinct arrive: deflect, minimize, redirect the feeling into something practical before it can become tender and ask something of you. Your eyes move toward the reception tables. "The study had a very strong team."

"I know."

"The publication wouldn't have happened without the data access from the—"

"I know," he says, not unkindly. "I'm still proud of you."

Your mouth presses into a line. For one second he thinks you're going to argue. Then you exhale, quietly, and say "thank you" without sarcasm or an escape hatch, just the words, unprotected. He feels absurdly rewarded by this — the specific, disproportionate satisfaction of watching you accept something without negotiating its terms first. He knows better than to say so out loud. Healing dislikes being observed too closely, in his experience. You take the award back.

"What did you think of the presentation?"

"I understood most of it," he says, choosing honesty.

"How much is most?"

"Enough to be personally offended by the limitations of conventional recovery models." He pauses. "I've been reading."

"That," you say, "is what concerns me. You texted me last week to ask whether your inability to touch your toes could indicate a neurological disorder."

"It was a reasonable question."

"You are very tall and inflexible."

"I prefer medically complex."

"You're not medically complex. You're medically noncompliant, which is different and significantly more annoying." Namjoon decides this is an excellent moment to not mention that his ankle still hurts. This is cowardice. It is also, he believes, strategically sound. "You quoted my paper," you say.

"You noticed?"

"You used one of my conclusions in a message about Jungkook's bowling technique. You said his psychological readiness exceeded his biomechanical control."

"It was applicable."

"He threw the ball too hard."

"That is a less sophisticated way of saying the same thing."

You're shaking your head, which means he's winning, when the silver-haired woman from the ceremony approaches. Your posture shifts — not with discomfort, with respect, which tells Namjoon something.

"Dr. Van Acker," you say. "I was hoping to introduce you."

The woman smiles at him before extending her hand. "Dr. Elise Van Acker." Her English carries a light Belgian accent. He knows the name from the conference program he read over breakfast because he had two hours to kill and his phone was showing him Dodgers highlight reels from two weeks ago: orthopedic surgeon, research director, member of at least two international sports medicine committees.

"Kim Namjoon," he says. "It's a pleasure."

Dr. Van Acker's smile deepens. "I know who you are. My daughter would never forgive me if I pretended otherwise."

He laughs. "Then please tell her I appreciate her."

"I will. It may be the first thing I've said in a year that she actually listens to."

"This is Namjoon," you say, with the particular ease of someone who has practiced the sentence until it stopped requiring effort. "My boyfriend."

Namjoon's brain briefly stops performing several of its basic functions.

It is not the first time.

You've introduced him to friends, colleagues.

The public knows. The internet knows in considerably more detail than either of them would prefer.

And still — my boyfriend, said inside a room that belongs entirely to your work and your reputation and the life you built before he had any business imagining himself inside it.

Not RM at a conference. Not a guest. Yours.

Some ancient, idiotic architecture in his chest expands with a speed that is frankly embarrassing for a thirty-one-year-old man, and he keeps his face neutral with significant effort.

Dr. Van Acker looks between them. "Yes," she says pleasantly. "I gathered that from the way he watched your speech."

You turn to Namjoon. He clears his throat. "I watched normally."

"No," both women say, in unison, without consulting each other.

"I see you're already collaborating," he says.

Dr. Van Acker laughs. You don't, but the corner of your mouth moves, which Namjoon counts as a win and files accordingly.

She turns back to you. "I meant what I said earlier. The committee has been following your research since publication." Your fingers shift around the award — he notices. "We were fortunate with the data set," you say, and she says "you were rigorous with the data set" with the precise firmness of someone correcting a habit, and Namjoon decides he likes her.

The fact that you visibly don't enjoy being prevented from minimizing yourself makes him like her more.

"The Baseball World Classic medical group is reviewing its recovery protocols next year," Dr. Van Acker continues, accepting water from a passing server. "Your model is part of the discussion." The movement in your face is small enough that most people would miss it entirely.

Namjoon doesn't miss it.

Your attention sharpens, your mouth stills, the hand holding the award tightens until the glass edge presses against your palm — real, immediate interest, followed almost instantly by caution arriving to cover it like a hand over a flame.

"I'm glad the research is useful," you say.

"It could be more than useful." She studies you over the rim of her glass with the expression of a woman who has spent forty years watching talented people talk themselves out of things. "There have also been preliminary conversations regarding the Olympic cycle. The next commission will need physicians who understand elite sports organizations from the inside."

You don't look at Namjoon. That tells him more than if you had.

"The Dodgers are my priority," you say.

"Of course."

"And the season—"

"Is not permanent," Dr. Van Acker says, gently, in the tone of someone stating a fact rather than dismissing what you've built. "Neither is an Olympic appointment. There are different structures — advisory, research, medical leadership. Nothing has been formally designed yet." She reaches into her jacket and hands you a card. "I am not offering you a position in the middle of a reception."

"That would be unusual."

"It would also violate several administrative procedures, and I am unfortunately surrounded by people who enjoy those." Something warm crosses her face. "But I would like to speak after the season. About what comes next."

What comes next.

The phrase lands with more weight than its three words should carry. Namjoon has spent the morning thinking about five years from now, and now the future is standing between you in the shape of a business card and a Belgian orthopedic surgeon who sees exactly what you're capable of.

You slide the card into your bag.

"I would be interested in the conversation." Your tone stays controlled. He can see the pulse beating at the base of your throat.

Dr. Van Acker smiles. "Good." Someone calls her name from across the room and she excuses herself, pausing to touch your arm once. "Congratulations again. You should allow yourself to enjoy this."

"I'm working on it," you say.

She glances at Namjoon. "Help her."

Before he can speak, you say "do not encourage him," and Dr. Van Acker says "I was going to recommend champagne," and Namjoon says "I can do both," and she leaves laughing, which feels like a victory for everyone except you.

You watch her go. Your fingers move toward your bag, stop, move away — you want to take the card out and read it again, confirm the conversation happened, and instead you lift your champagne and take a measured sip with the composure of a woman performing composure rather than experiencing it.

"What?" you say, without looking at him.

"Nothing."

"You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Thinking loudly." Namjoon picks up his abandoned glass and drinks, mostly to buy himself a second. The champagne is warm now. He drinks it anyway. "Did you know about that?" he asks.

Your eyes stay on the room. "Not exactly."

"That sounds almost exactly like yes."

"I knew the paper had been circulated."

"And the World Championships?"

A pause. "Baseball World Classic. There had been an email."

Namjoon waits.

He has learned that waiting is one of the few things that consistently works with you — the silence staying open until you fill it, because you hate silence that's waiting for something and will eventually move to resolve it. "A preliminary email," you say. "A few weeks ago."

"When were you going to tell me?"

"When there was something real to tell."

"The conversation was real."

Your jaw shifts.

He can feel you assembling a response and then, something making you put it down.

You look at your joined hands — at some point in the last thirty seconds you'd reached for him, or he'd reached for you, and neither of you had noted the exact moment — and say, quietly, "I don't know what I want yet."

He chooses his next words with care, not because you're fragile but because the truth is. "You don't have to know before you tell me."

Your eyes come up to his.

The room continues around you — glasses clinking, someone laughing too loudly near the windows, a photographer arranging a group beneath the conference logo — and none of it matters much.

"I don't need permission," you say.

"I know."

"I'm not asking you to decide anything."

"I know that too."

"And I'm not restructuring my career around your tour schedule."

"I would be genuinely concerned if you did." He means it, and you hear that he means it, and something in your face does a complicated thing. "I'm proud of you," he says again. It keeps being the truest available sentence.

"That's not an answer."

"It's the one I have right now."

You look away. He lets you.

He has learned that pushing you toward vulnerability when you're already carrying something makes you build more exits, and he would rather stand still until you decide to open one than watch you construct another wall.

A man approaches to congratulate you, then another, and the moment closes but not entirely — you keep holding his hand through the first conversation and the second and a full discussion about cartilage regeneration with a physician from Denmark whose enthusiasm on the topic appears genuinely bottomless.

Namjoon stands beside you and listens and contributes when addressed and allows himself to become, for twenty minutes, nothing more than the boyfriend holding your award, your bag and an increasingly impractical collection of business cards.

He likes it.

This may be the most alarming thing he has discovered about himself on this entire tour — that standing inside your world without needing to become its center feels like something close to peace.

He has spent his adult life entering rooms with a function: leader, speaker, artist, representative, the person responsible for the temperature of everything.

Knowing how to occupy space when people expect something from him is one of his oldest and most exhausting skills. This is different. This is just being yours.

You introduce him three more times. "This is Namjoon."

Once, to a researcher from Seoul who clearly knows exactly who he is and is performing not knowing with insufficient conviction: "my boyfriend."

That one nearly does him in.

Then, to a surgeon from Madrid who recognizes him immediately and begins vibrating with it: "Yes, my boyfriend. Please don't make it weird."

The surgeon promises nothing.

Namjoon's pride becomes medically visible, he's sure of it.

"Stop," you say, without looking at him.

"I'm standing still."

"You're standing smugly. There's a difference."

"I'm your boyfriend. I'm allowed to feel good about that, you have said it three times, I counted."

"I will introduce you as a colleague."

"That would raise more questions."

"It would create fewer problems for me."

He leans slightly toward you. "I like when you say it."

Your expression shifts — the annoyance softening by one degree into something warmer, something that isn't quite a smile but is in the same neighborhood.

"I know," you say, simply, and he feels that land somewhere behind his ribs where he keeps the things he doesn't have songs for yet.

A conference coordinator reclaims the award for a final photograph.

Namjoon reluctantly hands it over and watches it go with what he recognizes is a disproportionate sense of loss. "You've become attached," you observe.

"It has your name on it."

"So do several published papers."

"I'm attached to those too. I've read the main one four times."

"You used it to diagnose Jungkook."

"Interdisciplinary application," he says, and you shake your head in a way that means you're not actually annoyed, which is its own language he's become fluent in.

You look across the room toward a hallway leading away from the reception. It's quieter that way, mostly empty, the kind of corridor that exists in conference centers for the purpose of having a private conversation or, in certain contexts, other things. When you look back at him, there's intention in your face that his nervous system receives before his brain does.

"Come with me," you say. "I need to speak to you."

Namjoon's higher reasoning leaves his body. He is not proud of this.

He is also not going to pretend it didn't happen, at least internally, because you have just said I need to speak to you in a voice that is doing something unreasonable, and he has not been alone with you in two weeks, and you arrived last night tired and jetlagged.

And the dress has been a continuous presence in his peripheral awareness since approximately seven AM, and he is a man with a completely understandable set of reactions to a particular combination of circumstances.

His mind goes exactly where it goes, immediately, with no detour through dignity whatsoever.

Oh, he thinks, very calmly. Oh, we're doing this.

His expression stays neutral through what he considers a heroic act of self-control. He follows you toward the hallway and he is definitely not thinking about exactly what kind of conversation might require a separate room and a closed door.

He is thinking about it. He is thinking about it quite a lot. He has decided this is acceptable given the evidence available.

You open the door to a small conference room.

Namjoon looks inside.

Long table, chairs arranged along both sides, a presentation screen on the far wall, no windows. He has, he reflects, had worse. You pull him in and close the door and then lock it, and that last sound — the small, definitive click of the lock — evacuates whatever remaining blood was still serving his brain.

He turns toward you with the careful energy of a man managing his face. "You know," he says, "I was genuinely trying to respect your professional environment out there."

"I'm sure that was exhausting," you say, reaching into your bag.

"It required significant restraint. I'd like that acknowledged." He watches you take out your phone. Okay, he thinks. Interesting. Unexpected. Not complaining. "I could stop restraining myself," he offers.

"I'm counting on it," you say, tapping the screen.

There it is, he thinks, with a triumphant internal smile because he has correctly read the situation. He has correctly read the situation. He is about to—

You hold the phone up between them.

It's open to a virtual magazine. An interview.

Him, from — he recognizes it immediately, because he did approximately forty interviews this tour and this was the one where the journalist had asked about his return to performing and he had been honest in the slightly unguarded way he sometimes is at the end of long press days.

His own voice, quoted in clean pull-quote formatting: "And even thought it's exhausting, and my ankle still hurts, I cant' help but want to get more into it."

The silence in the conference room is profound.

Namjoon looks at the screen. Looks at you. Looks at the screen again.

He becomes aware, in the specific, cruel way of a man whose brain is returning from a significant detour, that this is not what he thought it was.

This is not what it was at all. This is, in fact, the opposite of what it was.

You have not brought him to a locked conference room for a reason he is now fervently wishing he hadn't spent thirty seconds imagining. You have brought him to a locked conference room for a trial. He is the defendant. The evidence is in a pull quote. He does not have a lawyer.

One hand settles on your hip. Not seductively. Clinically. The specific positioning of your body when you are about to conduct an assessment. "Explain," you say.

Namjoon’s mind returns from his pants with astonishing speed, and finds, upon arrival, that he has absolutely nothing.

"When was this?" you ask.

"The interview?"

"No, Namjoon. The French Revolution."

He considers pointing out that they are in Belgium and the French Revolution was in France and these are historically distinct. His survival instincts, which are the part of his intelligence currently functioning, prevail.

"The Interview was a month ago," he says.

"And your ankle is still hurting now."

"It hurts sometimes."

"That is what you told an international publication."

"Then we're in agreement about the facts." Your eyes narrow in a way that makes the word agreement feel like a mistake. His attempt at humor dies a small, deserved death.

"How long?" you ask.

He shifts his weight.

You notice immediately because you notice everything, always, it is one of the things he loves about you and one of the things that is currently working against him.

"It depends," he says.

"On what?"

"How much we rehearse."

"That was not the question, Namjoon." "

No."

"How long has it been hurting consistently?" He looks toward the locked door. The locked door offers no assistance.

"It never really stopped," he says.

Your face changes.

Not dramatically, you have never needed volume to make a feeling frightening. It's quiet, the change, but he sees it. "It has never stopped hurting." you repeat.

"It isn't constant."

"You told an interviewer before you told me."

"He asked about the tour and I answered."

"You said your ankle still hurts."

"Yes."

"But you didn't think that was information your orthopedic surgeon girlfriend might find relevant."

"When you say it like that, it sounds bad."

"It is bad. Namjoon."

Namjoon exhales. He could defend himself.

There are reasonable mitigating factors, the tour schedule has been brutal, his physical therapist is aware of the discomfort, nothing in the symptom pattern suggests a new fracture or serious complication.

He also knows, with the self-awareness therapy has given him that he occasionally wishes it hadn't, that none of those factors are why he stayed quiet.

You turn away and start tapping through your phone, which means the conversation is losing.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Texting a friend that works at a medical center here."

"No."

"Oh, Yes."

"I have rehearsal tomorrow."

"You have a concert tomorrow, which is exactly why I need to know whether you should be performing on this ankle."

"I can perform."

"That was not what I said."

He watches you navigate to another page and thinks about the way you kept touching your bag during the reception, the small, checked movement toward the business card, the deliberate decision not to take it out, the composure you'd maintained so carefully for two hours in a room full of people watching you receive the most significant professional recognition of your career.

He thinks about how quickly you'd redirected when he asked about the World Championship Baseball thing. How firmly you'd said there's nothing to discuss with the tone you use when there is very much something to discuss and you have decided it is not yet real enough to share.

And then he thinks: you watched that interview before the ceremony.

You landed in Brussels carrying his confession in your phone, stood onstage and accepted an award with grace, introduced him as your boyfriend to everyone who asked, held his hand through forty minutes of reception conversation, and waited until you could get him alone in a locked room before saying a word about any of it.

You've been carrying this since you landed. Probably since yesterday, when you saw the interview. You've been carrying his ankle and your Olympic email and whatever fear lives at the intersection of the two, and you have been carrying it alone, which is the thing, the actual thing, that makes something in him go quiet and careful.

He's a little pissed about it.

Not at you, exactly.

At the familiar shape of it, the same instinct he has, to protect someone by keeping them out, and seeing it in you makes him understand why it makes you furious when he does it.

"You already knew," he says.

Your fingers stop. "About your ankle?"

"Yes. Before today." You're quiet for a beat.

"I saw the interview two days ago."

"And you didn't say anything."

"I wanted to speak to you in person."

"You could have called."

"You were busy."

"So were you."

"I'm not the one who hid an injury," you say, and there it is — the deflection, smooth and practiced, angling away from the larger conversation toward the one you feel more entitled to have.

Namjoon steps closer. You don't move away, which he files.

"Y/N."

"I'm scheduling your visit."

"You're deflecting."

"I am trying to prevent you from destroying your ankle before tomorrow's concert."

"My ankle is fine."

"You don't know that."

"Neither do you."

"Which is precisely why we need imaging."

He says it gently, but he says it: "You don't want to talk about the Olympics."

You look up sharply. The silence changes texture.

He dislikes being right about this in particular. He likes even less that you look briefly hurt by it, the way people look when they've been found doing something they weren't ready to have found.

"That has nothing to do with this."

"I think it has quite a lot to do with this, love."

"You neglected your rehabilitation."

"And you didn't tell me about the World Baseball Classic conversations. Or the Olympic commission."

"Because there was nothing to tell."

"There was an email."

"A preliminary one."

"There was a conversation today."

"You were standing beside me."

"Exactly," he says, and it comes out harder than he intends.

You blink. He closes his eyes for a moment, not out of frustration with you but with the version of this conversation that goes wrong, the one where fear turns into a fight in a borrowed conference room an hour after you received one of the most important recognitions of your career, where he says something too sharp and you say something too clean and both of you spend the night being right about the wrong things.

He's not doing that.

He won't.

When he opens his eyes, you have crossed your arms. The phone is held tight against your body.

You look like someone bracing for a version of this conversation that hasn't arrived yet. Namjoon approaches slowly, the way you approach something that might startle, no sudden movements, no raised voice, and when he reaches you he brings both hands to your face, palms settling against your jaw with more tenderness than either of you probably expected from the last sixty seconds.

Your skin is warm.

Your expression is stubborn and furious and more frightened than you would ever voluntarily admit, and he runs his thumbs gently along your cheekbones.

"I'm sorry," he says. "About the ankle. I should have told you. I didn't want to worry you.."

Your jaw tightens under his hands. "You don't get to decide what information I can handle."

"I know. You're right."

"I'm a doctor, Namjoon. Your doctor, functionally, whether you've made that official or not—"

"You're my girlfriend who is also a doctor, which means you get to be furious on both counts."

"I am furious on both counts."

"I know." He holds your face. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want to add to your load. You're running an entire medical department in the middle of a season and you barely sleep when one of your players is injured even when there are six other qualified doctors on staff."

"That is not relevant."

"It's relevant to me." Your eyes drop.

"I didn't want to worry you," he says.

"And that," you say quietly, "was not your decision to make."

He watches you sit with your own words for a moment. Then he says, carefully: "You didn't tell me about the Olympic conversations." Your eyes close.

Not denial, something that looks more like relief at the subject finally being said out loud.

"They aren't conversations," you say. "Not yet."

"A woman who sits on international medical commissions asked to speak to you after the season."

"That was today."

"You've known about the World Baseball Classic interest for weeks." He watches your face. "Longer?"

"There was an email," you say. "I didn't think it was serious."

"But you didn't tell me." The pause that follows is answer enough. "Why not?" he asks, and it's not an accusation, it genuinely isn't — he wants to understand the shape of it.

You open your eyes. "Because," you say, and then stop, and then: "I didn't want to worry you."

There it is. His own reasoning, returned to him in your voice. He holds your gaze. "That wasn't your decision to make." You close your eyes again and say, with some feeling,

"Fuck."

"Yeah," he agrees. He strokes his thumbs along your cheekbones again, lighter now. "Look at us," he says, "protecting each other right out of our own relationship." Your mouth twitches despite itself.

"Don't be clever about this."

"I'm not being clever. I'm being accurate."

"Same thing with you."

"Sometimes," he admits.

He's quiet for a moment, just holding your face, thinking about next year, which is already gone, already planned, already arranged in cities and flights and hotel room bookings and rehearsal schedules that exist in his calendar like a second skeleton.

The second half of the tour. The new album, which has already started becoming itself in notebooks he carries everywhere. Promotion cycle. Award season.

Fucking The Grammys, again, because apparently hope and humiliation are both renewable resources.

His future is not theoretical. It exists in contracts and departure dates and a schedule that was negotiated before this summer, before Brussels, before a Belgian orthopedic surgeon handed you a business card that changed the shape of the next two years.

And yours is becoming just as full. The Dodgers aren't slowing down. The research is moving beyond one organization. The World Baseball Classic is apparently in 2030, he doesn't entirely know what that means in terms of timeline, baseball still occasionally surprises him with its scheduling logic, but he knows four years and he knows international and he knows that if this becomes something real you will travel more and lead more and become, somehow, even harder to fit inside the margins of anyone else's schedule, including his.

He would never ask you to become smaller. You would never ask that of him.

This is one of the things he loves most about you, and also one of the things that frightens him most, because it means the question of how you build a life together is entirely structural, no villain, no easy solution.

Just two enormous careers and one shared library that doesn't have a room yet.

He lets his forehead rest against yours. "I'm scared too," he says.

Your fingers tighten around his wrists, which is when he realizes you've been holding them without either of you noting the moment. "Of what?" you ask.

He could make it smaller.

Distance, schedules, the logistics of loving someone across time zones. All true. None complete.

"That we'll keep waiting for things to slow down before we start building something," he says. "And that things never slow down." Your breathing changes.

"My next year is already planned."

"I know."

"The tour, the album, promotions. The fucking Grammys."

"Fucking The Grammys," you repeat, dry as paper.

"Again," he says. "With hope and suffering in equal measure." You almost smile. He loves you for the almost.

"You have the Dodgers," he continues. "The research. The World Baseball Classic in four years, whatever that means structurally. Possibly the Olympics in 2028."

"That's a long list of maybes."

"They take up real space even as maybes." You look down at their hands. "I don't want you to say no to any of it," he says.

"I know."

"I don't want you to slow down for me."

"I know."

"I'm not asking you to choose."

"I know." The third one comes out quieter than the first two, slightly cracked at the edge, and he hears it and he thinks you hear yourself and neither of you looks away.

"I don't know how to do this," you say. It might be the most frightening sentence you've ever said to him, because you always know what to do, or you make a decision fast enough that the not-knowing becomes invisible.

He rubs his hands gently down your arms. "Neither do I."

"That is deeply unhelpful."

"I'm offering honesty."

"It needs refinement."

"So does my ankle."

You pull back just enough to give him the look. "Do not make me laugh right now."

"I wasn't trying to."

"You absolutely were." "

A little," he admits.

He brings your joined hands to his mouth and kisses your knuckles, and you let him, and your eyes do the thing they do when the last defense comes down — not gone, just lower, just enough. "We cannot keep protecting each other by keeping each other out," he says.

"No."

"Even when it isn't final yet. Even when it might be nothing."

"Especially then," you say. "Because the nothing still matters to me. Your ankle at six in the morning during rehearsal matters to me. An email about the Olympics matters to me, even before it becomes real."

"I'll do better," you say.

"So will I."

"You'll complete your rehabilitation."

"That feels like a separate commitment."

"It is part of the same commitment."

"Medically perhaps."

"Entirely." He sighs, which you hear as the concession it is.

You step closer until your bodies meet, nothing urgent in it, just warmth and the slight loosening of something that has been held very tightly for too long on both sides. He rests his cheek against your hair.

The conference room hums around them, air conditioning and the muffled sound of the reception continuing on the other side of the wall, someone laughing too loudly at something, the ordinary noise of a world that does not know what is being figured out in here.

Nothing is solved. Next year is still full.

The Olympics are still two years away and still only a possibility. The World Baseball Classic is apparently in 2030 and he still doesn't entirely understand the scheduling implications and he's going to have to ask Taehyung, which is humiliating.

Their imagined home doesn't have an address.

But your heartbeat is steady against his chest, and for the first time in this conversation, neither of you is carrying the fear alone.

Maybe that's how they make it work.

Not with perfect plans or resolved logistics or a clear answer to the question of what city they'll be in three years from now. Just the decision, made again, to stop disappearing from the difficult parts. To show up in the conference room and say I'm scared too and mean it and stay.

Again and again, until doing better becomes something that looks like a life.

"Medical center tomorrow," you say, against his chest.

"Yes, doctor," he says, and means it, finally, one hundred percent.

READER'S POV

For someone who famously does not do feelings, lately you have been doing all of them. Simultaneously, apparently, without your consent.

Your phone vibrates while you are crossing the medical staff corridor beneath Dodger Stadium.

Namjoon 🫀 3:37PM: Parking lot. Level three. Come.

You stop for less than a second. Then you start running.

Your response is typed with one thumb while your credential swings repeatedly against your chest.

Sent 3:37PM : Absolutely fucking not.

This is a lie.

You are already halfway down the corridor and accelerating, which is information Namjoon does not have and which you intend to protect.

As far as he is concerned, you are standing somewhere in the stadium conducting a rational cost-benefit analysis of whether his presence is worth the inconvenience.

In reality you nearly take out an equipment cart because the man you love has apparently driven from Stanford to Los Angeles on an ankle you don't trust, with no warning and limited common sense, and your body has made the decision about how you feel about this before your brain finished the sentence.

You turn sharply into the next hallway. A member of the training staff sees you running and immediately abandons whatever he was doing. "What happened?"

"Nothing."

You do not slow down.

"Dr. Y/L/N — "

Behind you, someone says "why is she running?" and someone else says "I don't know" and then, with increasing urgency, "find out," and you hear footsteps which means you have accidentally mobilized at least part of your department.

You stop. Turn around.

Three members of staff are staring at you with the expressions of people preparing for mass casualties.

"There is no emergency," you say.

One of the athletic trainers looks at the direction you were running. "Then why — "

"Personal matter." Their expressions change. Not calmer. More interested, which is worse. You point toward the field with the authority of someone who runs this department and needs everyone in it to have amnesia about the last thirty seconds. "Go back to work." Nobody moves. "Now."

They scatter. You resume running.

Namjoon 🫀 3:38 PM: I have twenty-three minutes.

Twenty-three. You check the time.

Twenty-one now, possibly twenty by the time you reach the structure.

You should be furious about this. You are furious about this.

The fury is currently coexisting with something else that you are not going to name while you are taking stairs two at a time in professional clothing, because you have some remaining standards and naming the feeling would mean admitting you've been waiting for this specific vibration on your phone for six weeks.

The man drove five hours the morning after a concert. With no warning.

It is irresponsible. Dangerous. Completely irrational. It also makes your chest do something that you would, under oath, describe as a medical anomaly.

You hate that. You hate him slightly for causing it. You hate yourself considerably more for smiling as you push through the door to the next level.

This is not who you are.

Except that it increasingly, inconveniently, is.

continue reading in part 2 of the special chapter

Tag list: @whoisbts @sexytholland @btsevxn @kacythecarat @granataepfelchen @goawaysha @unknownbeknowst @joonmonjagi @cherryblossom1234567890 @blamgyuuuu @swagtimemachinecherryblossom @leftmensh @mikrokookiex @busanbby-jjk @jungkook97l @singularitypromise @angelarin @cherrycheolie @proudnoona @leeknowsbigtoe @pleasantheartsworld @lobbera @pinklasagna04 @jnshjjt @mar-lo-pap

[anonnie-in-wonderland]

Home Calls the Heart

Summary: Twenty-year old L/N Y/N realizes she might be, okay, is a little bit of a social pariah. But there’s not much she can really do about it. Until a dreary winter day, when a determined, persistent dog hybrid named Taehyung shows up and declares that he’s interested in adopting her for himself and the rest of his lonely pack.

chapter: six

Word Count: 7.7k

rating: T (angst central, past child abuse and animal cruelty)

genre: romance | hurt/comfort| magic AU

tags: bts x reader | ot7 x reader | hybrid | poly| FM!reader

Emperor Penguin!Seokjin, Golden Retriever!Taehyung, Coyote!Hoseok, Mountain Lion!Yoongi, Wolfdog!Namjoon, Kingfisher!Jimin, Holland Lop!Jungkook

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Author's Note: I know, I know. It’s been forever. The last year (or more) was a really busy one, and I also took a break for an extended period to work on myself and mental/physical health. Glad to be writing this chapter, felt kinda inspired after a few Jungkook songs came up on shuffle while I was out for morning exercise. Anyway~ enjoy

Jin-hyung stirred the rice around, carefully adding a few more ingredients with just a flick of his wrist. He was so graceful in the kitchen, multitasking with ease as he prepared an entire meal from scratch. 

Taehyung was assisting, happily following instructions with his tail wagging, even managing to get away with accidentally dumping too much gochujang in the dakgalbi with just a quiet “oops” and a sheepish expression. Taehyung was always hard to stay mad at like that. 

Jungkook would be lying if he said he didn’t miss this, didn’t miss them. There was something soothing about being back among them, quietly observing as the others did their best to also pick up a routine. It was a balm for his heart he hadn’t even realized he’d needed. And to think, it was all because they randomly met some human with magic. 

Not that Jungkook was praising her or anything. He was still wary of the fact that she might come back around, get the others all dopey and friendly with her, the way Taehyung was. He hadn’t stopped talking about how he had her number and could text or call her whenever he wanted, and it had been three days. 

Maybe it was too late for Taehyung, but Jungkook decided he could at least protect his other hyungs from the same fate. He didn’t want them warming up to someone who might not stay in the long run anyway.

 He was just looking out for them, the way they always had for him. It was about protecting his hyungs, not being possessive or insecure about someone moving into his spot while he was withdrawn or anything. And if being vigilant meant being around his family more again, so what? …There were worse things someone could do out of spite, right? 

“Kookie, would you check on that pan in the oven for me?” He perked up at the sound of his hyung’s sweet croon. If he had a longer tail, it would probably start wiggling around in content. Jungkook always adored when his family used one of his nicknames and spoke to him with so much blatant affection. 

In more recent years they jokingly called him their muscle bunny, because, well, he’d gone and gotten buff. He made a big deal about not being the little shy baby bun he once was anymore, and they respected him changing and discovering himself as an adult buck.

 But, deep down, Jungkook knew all they had to do was squeeze him into a hug when he was feeling down or rub a certain spot behind his ears, and he’d melt. Times like this worked too. It was a reassurance that he was still loved, even if he put his colony through it with his distance since Gramps died. 

Jin could easily check on the cookies, even while he did six other things, because he was an amazing multitasker. If he couldn’t, Taehyung, who was currently salivating too close to Jin’s pan—which earned him a maybe not-entirely-accidental elbow to the forehead—could. But it was Jin’s way of including him. The heat that hit him in the face when he opened the oven was nothing compared to the glowing warmth he held for his hyung, his whole family. 

“They look ready, hyung.”

“Good, you can take them out.” Jin had his wide back to him, distracted as he turned the heat down on the meal and fended off the impatient dog hybrid at his side. 

It was a small job, but Jungkook still grabbed an oven mitt and did it carefully. The aroma of Jin’s ginger cookies filled his nose, causing him to discreetly lean a little closer to get a good whiff. He was sure his tail did twitch in anticipation this time, just a little. 

“It’s done?” Taehyung was hanging over Jin’s back, being his normal clingy self. “Should I call the—”

“Lunch time?” Jimin’s tinkling voice made them all turn around, his shock of blue hair visible as he popped his head into the kitchen. “Ooh is that dakgalbi?”

“Mhm, I helped!” Jin didn’t dispute Taehyung’s eager chirp verbally, but the long side eye he gave the golden was loud enough.

“I’ll tell everybody,” The avian hybrid was already pulling out his phone, thumbs flying across his keypad as he likely informed the house group chat. It was more handy than someone might think to have one, even if they saw each other every day. 

It was at times the only way to get ahold of everyone when they were split up on different parts of the farm, or when they would go out shopping and inevitably all wander away from Gramps, he would shake his head and use the chat to tell them to get their butts back before they got left.

But it didn’t take long today. Apparently everyone had worked up an appetite. They came stampeding down the stairs or indoors, beelining to the kitchen in a way Jungkook knew was going to annoy Jin.

“Were you raised in a barn?!” He cried, right on time. Yep, called it. 

“The wilderness, actually.” Yoongi pulled one of his mittens off with his teeth and shook the snow from his hair as if to prove his point. Hoseok giggled, probably finding the snarky comment all the funnier since it applied to him too.

The both of them had spent more years in the household being raised by Gramps than they had out in the wild, but there was a certain animalistic sharpness to their movements and behavior that came out from time to time, a clue that they weren’t born domesticated. 

“Maybe you’d be more comfortable eating out on the porch then.” Jin retorted, accepting the plates Taehyung had retrieved for him. “This food’s only for the civilized ones.”

“Fine by me.” The lion shrugged. “Hell, I’ll shift down and eat in my fur while I’m at it. You’re not the only one who finds the cold refreshing.”

Jin only rolled his eyes, ignoring Yoongi calling his bluff. “Sit down before I change my mind.” he grumbled.

Seeming pleased with himself, Yoongi winked at them when Jin’s back was turned, rolling up his sleeves to wash his hands after stuffing his mittens in his pocket.

“This is nice,” Hoseok remarked, smiling wide after they were all seated and the food began to get passed around. “I missed sharing meals like this.” 

“Me too, hyung,” Taehyung wiggled around in his spot impatiently as he waited for the dish he wanted. Jungkook watched as it was almost handed off to him by Jimin, who smirked, passing it the other way when the dog hybrid groaned in frustration. “You did that on purpose.” He accused.

“Who, me?” Anyone who didn’t know them and couldn’t see Jimin’s wings would have a very hard time determining who was the dog when he made such a perfect pair of puppy dog eyes. “Anyway, is that all you’re eating Jungkookie? You should have some more.”

Jungkook looked down at his own plate. Compared to his usual, well, his previous intake before he startled nibbling his meals for lack of appetite, it was pretty light. 

“Want help?” Taehyung asked, already reaching for his plate from across the table. Usually Jin might scold for something like that, since it required reaching over other people’s meals, but he said nothing as his plate was passed and loaded up with a generous helping of lunch.

 His hyungs all worked to pass it back to him like the well-oiled parts of a machine, totally in sync, and it was yet another thing that made Jungkook want to hide a touched smile. They all wanted to take care of him, and they did it in a way that didn’t feel smothering. When he got his plate back, the rabbit hybrid picked up his chopsticks and ate his first bite reverently. The company and love of his family made the flavors richer, and before he knew it, someone was telling him not to eat so fast.

“There’s plenty more where that came from, Kook.” Yoongi said. 

Jungkook paused, ‘coming up for air’ as Hoseok put it when he was inhaling his food. All the patient faces he was surrounded by were trained on him, looking so subtly proud and content. 

The bunny dropped his head, not wanting them to see the way it was making his eyes water. Something bittersweet brushed against his heart and made it ache. 

Probably knowing every meal would be like this, Gramps would be absent from here on out, his chair remaining empty. They still had each other, and in time it might even be okay again, but their family looked different, and nothing could change that.

He trudged away from the house with his hands in his coat pockets, boots crunching through the powdery snow. A flake touched the fur of his ear and Jungkook stopped, the appendage flickering involuntarily at the sensitivity it caused. 

Jin stood on the porch, watching him, looking like the twelve feet between them was as wide as a canyon. He knew. Jungkook knew his hyung wanted to fuss over him.

 It was a total change of pace since Gramps died for him to want to go on walks. As a baby bunny he’d been active once he settled in, running all over the farm grounds with the rest of them. 

As he got older he helped with some of the more intensive labor-laden chores, which helped build up his impressive physique. Nothing toned muscle like an honest day of farm work. 

“I’ll be fine, hyung.” Jungkook appreciated the concern, but this was something he had to conquer at some point. If he didn’t get past this…if he didn’t face what he’d been hiding from…he’d be stuck forever.

“I’ll have some cocoa ready when you come back inside.” Jin promised, smiling sweetly. Jungkook waved, watching him turn to go back into the house, only to have to shoo his curious fellow maknaes away from the door. His keen hearing picked up Taehyung whining about something before it shut.

Sighing, Jungkook took a few more steps, lifting his nose up to the sky and watching more snow drift down from the gray heavens. An overcast winter day, huh? It was kind of similar to that time…

The rabbit glanced down at his feet, at the prints they made, thinking back to when he had walked around the farm hand in hand with Gramps. When he had first come home, his footprints had been tiny compared to the man’s adult-sized ones and he had never seen snow. He had never seen much of anything, really, except the lonely metal cage and concrete walls of his prison. 

The small hybrid’s swollen eyes blinked open, the creak of the cage door signaling his worst fear. Morning again. That meant the Coats were back, reaching into their ‘homes’ and dragging them out by the scruffs of their necks, carrying them off to the cold, terrifying room where they did their experiments. It had been the same thing, every day, going on for so long it was hard to keep track.

It would have been hard anyway, since he was so young, but the way time blurred together here made it harder. “Alright, I only need one of you today.” The human rumbled, his gloved hand reaching in and grabbing another kit by the neck. 

She squealed, but fell limp obediently as he hauled her away. Shivering, he curled deeper under the newspaper they had been using for a blanket, frightened eyes darting around to the three other bunnies left with him, squeezed in the far back corner of their cage all piled up. None of them dared to breathe, let alone move, until the door slammed shut again. 

“Sun Hee…” her sister Mi Cha squeaked sadly. He watched one of the other male kits groom her ears in an attempt to provide comfort. They were all at the mercy of the humans, all of them there for the same reason. To help, they were told. And the best way for them to do that was to be good, obedient little bunnies and cooperate. 

It wasn’t that they had much choice. Even as hybrids, the humans overpowered them easily. They were just scrawny little children, and after the series of tests they regularly endured most of them barely had the energy to pick their heads up to nibble the pellets they were given, let alone fight back. 

He had done that only once, and only because he was startled when he was grabbed up so roughly. Biting was his first defense, and his baby bunny teeth hadn’t done much damage anyway. But that didn’t matter.

He made the scientist angry, and he paid for it when he was taken back to a testing room, some of his fur shaved and water that made him scream in pain dripped into his eyes, which they held open. Later, he learned the term for it from one of the older kits—chemical testing.

He went on to explain to the younger hybrids like him their “true” purpose for being there that the humans would never tell them. They were testing subjects, bought to be used in a lab. 

Humans liked wearing something they called “makeup”. They didn’t have fluffy fur, so they shaved theirs off to rub products onto their bare skin and see if it hurt the hybrids. If it didn’t, they would do it on themselves. Each of them had been picked out to spend their lives there, “helping” humans make better makeup.

The news rattled around in his brain, but he barely processed it. He guessed that sounded close to right. There was something deep down in his distant memory, a time where had not been here with his fellow kits, but somewhere else. 

The bunny was pretty sure that was where he had come from, maybe even where he was born. It was where the two adult hybrids who were his parents lived. When he tried to think back, it wasn’t a clear picture anymore, sometimes just a feeling, sometimes hazy shapes and colors from an old memory.

He couldn’t even remember their faces anymore. But he knew the day he was taken away, a lady’s voice that must have been his mama cried and begged for them not to take her baby boy, her youngest kit. Arms held him so close, but stronger arms ripped him out of the safety they provided anyway. Everything was a blur. Everything about them was gone now. Only their smells stayed with him. 

Sometimes in the dead of night while he twitched around restlessly in his sleep, their scents almost came to him, as if they were really there. But when he opened his eyes, the room where they all slept was always quiet, dark and lonely, the whimpers of hybrids occasionally piercing the night. 

There were no adult hybrids kept with them in their room, so no one to protect them, or teach them things. They taught each other and comforted each other the best they could. And when the morning came they all braced for the possibility of being picked next. Sometimes, he felt like the humans had a target. Other times it felt random, like there was no reason to it at all. 

Either way it ended the same, one or more of them taken for testing, spending all day subjected to one cruel test after the next, until the scientists were satisfied and they were brought back to their cages to writhe on the cold metal in the aftershocks of pain. 

The kits who had not been tested on for that day would come and cuddle the spent, exhausted bodies of the kits who had. He had been pressed into the middle of the pile, panting, his blood burning and what little he had in his stomach matted into his fur after he couldn’t keep it in. He had also been on the outside of the pile, using his tiny body to share meager warmth with a crying kit who needed it. 

That was going to be his life, forever and ever, or at least until the humans came to take him for a final time like some of the kits before him who never came back. That was until the morning new scents and new voices came into the room, humans in uniforms he didn’t recognize. They were unknown, and that made them scary. Just like they would when it was the white coats floating toward them, the kits huddled up to make themselves smaller. 

A woman drifted closer, stopping in front of the cage with a strangled gasp. Through all the fur and limbs in his way, he could sort of see her through the tiny crack of space. Her eyes were shiny. His sensitive little nose smelled saltiness in the air. She was…she was crying.

“Found some more,” she whispered into a metal box raised to her lips. The Coats used those to talk to each other sometimes. Walkie-talkies. That’s what the smart older kit said they were called. “They’re young…” 

The cage door slid open with much less force than they were used to. Normally it seemed like the Coats would rip it off the hinges to get to the kits if they had to. But her hand hovered near the entrance, just laying there, no attempts to pull them all out. He, like the others, caught her scent. 

It was…different than the way the Coats smelled—which was cold and harsh, like the chemicals used to hurt them—it was…clean and nice.

 “Hi, hello,” she smiled a little, another gesture they weren’t used to from humans. The integrity of the pile was tested as some of the kits nervously started to squirm. “It’s alright. I’m here to help. It’s alright.”

He had always been curious, underneath all the fear and caution that kept them alive. If he could hop around, poking his head into nooks and crannies, sniffing around to explore the unknown, if it was a different place, a safer place…maybe he would.

It was a far off memory, but the little black kit could almost remember the touch of sunlight on his face instead of the artificial lamps shining on them.

 He could almost remember the grass. When his paws found purchase on the soiled newspaper underneath them, he began to slowly squeeze his way out, ears bent against the urgent squeals of horror that called him back to the pretend safety of their pile. 

Cautiously, he half hopped forward, pausing as he looked down at her fingers. Stretching his neck, the kit sniffed only getting that same clean, nice scent from before.

And that was when the curiosity he never got to express took over, his mouth gently nibbling the digits stretched out in front of him. The human made a quiet sound, not aggressive or angry, not dangerous. Creeping into her palm, he felt fingers curl gently around his stomach, pulling him up, close to her chest.

“Good baby,” she cooed. “Brave baby.” A finger caressed the top of his ear, and he flinched. But it didn’t do much more than that. A soft, friendly caress that turned into a scratch at the base. Although he couldn’t remember the last time he did it, his foot thumped when she scratched an itch he didn’t even know about. 

That was the beginning of everything changing. He was lowered into a crate, dark and full of warm, soft blankets. Snuggling down, he didn’t have to wait long before the other kits were placed inside one by one. 

He scrambled to peer out of the slats in the side as they moved, gently swaying in the woman’s secure hold. There was a flurry of motion out there, lots of humans, some he recognized as the Coats being walked out with their hands behind their backs. More and more cages being emptied as hybrids just like him were rescued.

“…can’t believe this happened right under our noses…”

“…illegal, new low.”

“…weren’t even trying to look into…”

“They’re just babies…look…” The crate was lifted, and another face he had never seen peeked in. This time, he moved back, his back pressing into the others cowering in the farthest part from the door. “I don’t know how much they understand. I don’t know if they’ve ever had the opportunity to shift. What if they don’t…don’t even know they’re hybrids?”

“What are they? Three or four year olds?” The second voice, a man’s, sounded unsure, gruff. He smelled smoky, not as nice as the other scent. “Once we get them safe, they’ll have all the time in the world to learn.”

To think, back then he didn’t even have a name. The scientists had only ever referred to him as the number he had come with, assigned to him in the breeding facility where he was born.

In the end, over one hundred and sixty other rabbit hybrids got rescued and taken into custody along with him. Gramps was a wealthy concerned citizen who had heard about the raid before it even broke national news. It paid to have connections in the task force that prosecuted hybrid abuse related crimes. 

The bunnies were still being processed when his savior showed up. Not that Jungkook knew it. To the bunny, he was just a bizarrely dressed human who peered down at him with concern as a task force officer cleaned his stained fur and tried to feed him strained baby food after they guesstimated his age.

Though apparently there had been more of them than they anticipated, and there was concern about how the youngest and most fragile of them would adjust to a shelter environment, even if it was a safe one. Foster care was preferred for the kits, it was decided, and Gramps had stumbled across a group of university students protesting the cosmetic company’s hybrid cruelty outside one of the stores that sold their products. He’d taken a flyer, somehow found out about the case, and wasted no time coming down and inserting himself in the situation. 

That was how he would eventually save them all and form their little family. A small bunny, young and behind on his developmental milestones, there was plenty about the situation that went over his head. It was so much to process at once, leaving him feeling vulnerable and overstimulated. But he remembered Gramps’ scent, his leathery hand reaching down to stroke him gently between the ears, and his soft, encouraging whispers. “You were just a tiny thing that left such a big impression.” Gramps had told him years later. “I knew I had to help you. I knew there was a hole you were meant to fill in our growing family.”

Jungkook paused, inhaling a deep lungful of crisp winter air and glancing over his shoulder. He’d gone a lot farther than he planned to just wandering, a bittersweet trip down memory lane. Gramps…there was truly nothing like him. So many people would have been frustrated or pushy or gotten overwhelmed with all his care and needs in those early years.

After all, being raised as a test subject didn’t make for the most socialized kid in the world. Looking back, he had more or less entered Gramps’ care as a blank slate, nothing of note about him besides being a malnourished hybrid from a bad situation. A creature to pity. No name, no voice…Jungkook had barely even had a personality.

His first day home was…something. Gramps whispered that the others would be gentle with him, carrying him through the door bundled in a blanket, still in hybrid form. Because the rescuers had been right—he didn’t know how to shift. 

The first four years of his life, kept heavily drugged and pumped full of harmful chemicals, it was a wonder he still could. Gramps wasted no time getting him set up with doctors, therapists, a whole support system. The best money could buy. “Maybe you don’t know it yet, but you’re a fighter.” Gramps had told him that first week. “I can feel it. I can see it in your eyes. One day, you’ll feel it too.” 

Jungkook had internalized those words, working hard to live up to the faith his savior had in him. Out across the fields, he watched a few cows roaming the barren grounds, a mother keeping a close eye on her young calf. It was so similar to the way he had been with his hyungs and Gramps, the rabbit couldn’t help but move closer to the fencing, overcome with emotion. 

They had been there every step of the way, as he slowly gained strength and put on weight, and as exactly five months later, he shifted for the first time. One minute he was a tiny rabbit, being washed in the sink after getting into a mess in the berry patch, the next he was naked and covered in skin and his hyungs: Jin, Taehyung and Hoseok, were running around, screaming for joy. Gramps was all pride, presenting him with clothes in his size he already had prepared, because he knew. 

His faith that one day Jungkook would master his ability to shift had never wavered. It went on from there—he learned to walk upright, learned to talk, learned to sing. Jimin was thrilled to have someone to harmonize with, and it made their farm chores go by faster when they sang and danced to their silly songs. As it turned out, Jungkook could learn to do a lot of things. “My boy, multi-talented.” Gramps would say when his close friends commented on how far he had come. “If Jungkook was a color he’d be golden.”

Golden. Jungkook stared up at the weak rays of the winter sun. The snow wouldn’t melt, at least not for a couple more days. ‘He thought I was golden when every other human looked at me and thought I was something broken to throw away.’

There was no putting a price on that. The mercy and compassion of one man was the reason he got a second chance, his first real home, a whole new life.

Knowing that person was no longer around, that they would never talk together as father and son while they weeded the garden; or that Gramps would never find and comfort him in his secret fort in the attic, crying when his insecurities pushed him too far in his own head and he didn’t want to worry his hyungs…it made his temples throb, and his fingers dug into the fencing just for the extra support.

 The air got punched right out of his lungs, like he’d gone a few rounds in a prized fight and his opponent got the upper hand. Reeling, his eyes squeezed closed, vaguely aware his breathing was heavy. Slumping over, the bunny heard the first pitiful noise crawl its way from his throat, biting his lip hard to stop it. 

It only came out as a strangled whine. When was this supposed to go away…? The way he felt, like he was coping one minute and dangling from a cliff the next? His own mind was a maze and his emotions were a rollercoaster taking him from the steepest highs to plummeting lows, guilt swirling through his stomach. 

Gramps had shown signs. He’d been getting weaker. Jungkook could smell a faint change in his scent. Why hadn’t he pushed? Why hadn’t he brought it up to the hyungs? If they made him go to the doctor…if they made him take it slow…if they…if he were a better son—

His breath rasped from his lungs and he gave up trying to hold on, allowing his body to sink bonelessly against the fence, down in the cold snow. Somehow, it was refreshing, grounding enough that the warm flush across his face and the pounding inside his head was made bearable.

For a split second, Jungkook could swear he felt the familiar touch of a leathery hand, the ring always on the index and pinky fingers extra weight on his shoulder. Blinking, he scrubbed his face, ready to be brave and…and face no one. 

So now he was going crazy, too? 

“…Jungkook?”

“No,” he groaned, letting his forehead touch the fence. “I’m not doing this.”

“Kookie, what’re you doing?” The voice asked, very clear, very present, and very concerned. “I thought that was you, and I’ve been calling you for a while now. Did you just not hear me?” Yeah, there was no mistaking that scent.

Jungkook dragged big mouthfuls into his lungs, gulping down the comfort of having someone he trusted so close. Being caught in such a moment of weakness and vulnerability should have had him ducking away again, but he was tired of running from the people who loved him most.

Still, there was a certain amount of clinginess he just wasn’t comfortable with. “M’good, hyung.” He wasn’t, but that was his problem to deal with, not Jimin’s.

Without a word, the avian hybrid gracefully sat next to him in the snow, situating himself comfortably like they were about to do a sharing circle—sans a few more members.

Jungkook knew he had to look like a wreck, but Jimin blinked up at him patiently with those round, understanding eyes, leaning back on his hands as he crossed his legs. “You know that’s not how it works,” he said lightly. “Do that with strangers, not with me~”

“Can it be later?” He asked, weakly. “It’s hard to…it’s like he’s still…please not right now?” He would die. If Jimin pressed the issue and made him really spill his guts, dig into the painful, throbbing mass growing where all his unreleased love and anguish for Gramps was stored, Jungkook would stop existing. 

Ever the emotionally intuitive one, of course his sweet hyung picked up on that, blessing him with a loving smile.

 Leaning forward, Jimin grabbed the sides of his face between warm mittens, pulling Jungkook’s head close with firm surety. Holding his breath, the rabbit closed his eyes like he had so many times before. 

Cool lips pressed against an eyelid, then both eyelids. Across his cheeks, on his nose, down to his lips. They lingered there, stealing the heat away from him. Jimin always claimed he loved kissing him in the winter because his lips were always warm. When they pulled apart, though, Jimin’s skin wasn’t the only place that had thawed. “It can be any time.” From Jimin, that was a promise. “Tomorrow, next week, even in ten years. I’ve got you.”

Jungkook pulled the smaller hybrid into him, all but crushing their bodies together in a hug. “I know, hyung.” No matter how fractured his heart felt, now matter how scarily raw he was, they would glue him back together, just like every time he needed them before. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bone tired after a long day at work, and yet somehow she had still managed to take a detour. (Y/N) lifted her head up from where it almost fully rested against the top of the steering wheel, her gloved hands running absently back and forth across the leathered material.

 The car was still running, her half-glazed eyes staring up at the storefront she was parked in front of. The Babbling Book. A cozy family-owned bookshop she’d been meaning to check out a long time. 

And after mentioning to her coworker she was hoping to support small businesses more this season and looking for her next cozy winter read, he had pointed her in the direction of this place on the hybrid side of town.

Apparently they actually had a wider selection than what was kept in the bigger, chain bookstore down on mainstreet, and (Y/N) could believe it. Mom and pop stores didn’t have to cater to corporate interests. They were free to stock whatever their heart desired.

 Cutting the engine, (Y/N) dabbed at her nose to make sure it wasn’t running, climbing out of her car. It really was a cute little store, a striped green awning hanging over the door, and a modest amount of snow and frost sprinkled there. The trim around the door was painted in the same friendly shade of green, and the light red brick it was set in gave it a nostalgic appeal. 

Rubbing her hands together for lack of something better to do with them, she carefully traveled the cleared walkway, hit in the face with a blast of warm air and a whiff of cinnamon and cardamom as soon as she opened the door. 

“Hi!” (Y/N) barely suppressed her yelp as a young girl slid down from a ladder, landing right in front of her with an energetic wave.  She couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve, bundled in a long skirt, leggings and a puffy pink sweater, gold eyes wide as her bushy tail twitched. “Whoa,” she said, awed. “Are you a human?”

“Y-” (Y/N) looked around, where other customers had baskets on their arms and were quietly shopping. Most of them appeared to be hybrids. Everywhere around her she saw long, pointed ears, or various length tails. Did her coworker tell her wrong? Were humans even supposed to be in here? Blushing at the thought of possibly intruding, (Y/N) heard her voice come out in a self-conscious whisper, plucking her sleeve. “Yes?”

Eyes practically glowing, the fox girl opened her mouth wide. “Soo-ah!” Only for it to fall shut as a woman with a gorgeous silver fox tail and wearing an apron hurried over. “You know we don’t ask guests questions like that.” Soo-ah’s ears drooped a little at the tips.

“Yes, eomma. Sorry miss…” Soo-ah bowed apologetically. 

“Everyone is welcomed here,” the woman assured (Y/N), plucking up and offering her a basket. “Please come in and browse, stay as long as you like.”

The adult hybrid ushered her daughter away by the shoulders, but not before Soo-ah threw her a wave. (Y/N) laughed under her breath, waving back and deeply inhaling the scent of paper and warm cinnamon. Although it wasn’t the largest bookstore she had ever been in, the displays around the shop already had several titles that caught her eye, and the shelves were stacked high.

(Y/N) almost didn’t know where to begin, and if she were a hybrid her tail would no doubt be wagging eagerly. Tracing her finger along the spine of a book in the mystery section, she carefully removed it from the shelf, studying the cover and then flipping it over to read the synopsis. There weren’t many books sold in her area of the city where hybrids featured as the protagonists.

Often, they were depicted as pets or sidekicks or god forbid, villains. So the thought of a calico cat hybrid being the lead detective in a murder mystery slash thriller already sounded interesting, and she placed it in her basket. It wasn’t hard to lose track of time, all the new books at her fingertips, each its own adventure. (Y/N) had hardly looked up since sinking into a chair near the fantasy section, thumbing through the pile she was considering, until a thud from nearby drew her attention.

‘That kind of sounded like someone fell over…’

Concerned, (Y/N) set the book down and hurried toward the source of the noise, finding a massive pile of books had indeed overturned, a pair of legs sticking out from under them. “Hang on!” She gasped, bending to pick up as many as she could, the pile starting to wiggle as the poor person underneath slowly sat up.

(Y/N) was so preoccupied with getting the books off them, hearing the sound of her own name almost made her drop them all again. “(Y/N)-ssi…?”

Astoundingly, she realized she knew the owner, one slightly dazed and very confused wolfdog hybrid meeting her eyes as she looked up. “N-Namjoon-ssi?!”

Swallowing, he climbed to his feet, brushing the front of his comfortable-looking gray pullover and then leaning down to offer her a hand. “What are the odds of running into each other here? Here, that was my fault. Let me.”

Before she could even tell him she had it handled, he was plucking the books up to tuck under his arm and using the other hand to help her up. (Y/N) held her breath a little, not wanting to look like she was swooning at the way he easily pulled her to her feet. Still, it was gentlemanly, and running into him was a pleasant surprise.

“Do you come here often?” She could have smacked herself as soon as it was out of her mouth. It sounded so much like a cheesy pick-up line. And yes, Namjoon was a very handsome man, his healthy tanned skin bringing out the sparkle in his dragon eyes. But given that she had only just gotten to know some of his family, the idea of actually making a pass felt absurd. Surely, he had his eye on someone else anyway.

“It feels like at least once a week.” He grinned, starting to place some of the books on the shelf.

“More like twice.” The fox woman hummed as she hurried by with a cart of books. 

(Y/N) smiled as she started to help Namjoon collect what was left on the carpet. “Sounds like they know you pretty well around here.”

“You could say I’m a regular customer,” He shrugged, looking both pleased and bashful. “I really like a good book, and I go through them pretty fast. Every time I put one down I end up right back here for the next one.” Clearing his throat, he added, “I don’t always ruin Soon-Bok’s shop, though. I’m just a little more ‘light-footed’ when I’m excited, as Jin likes to say.”

The way one of his ears drooped a little was too cute, (Y/N) thought as she melted a little. Namjoon said it so earnestly and matter-of-fact, too. She couldn’t help but picture the elegant wolfdog form she had seen, bumbling around and skidding into things with big paws and a thumping tail. 

Trying to fight down the smile surfacing, (Y/N) looked him in the eyes. “It’s my first time here.” she explained. “And the selection’s so different from what I’m used to at the bookstore I usually go to. I can see why you love it. There’s so much more—”

“Literature by hybrid authors?” He guessed.

“That too.” (Y/N) had at least five books all written by hybrids in her basket, and even more to sort through. “I was going to say diversity, but in this case I guess that’s practically the same thing.”

“It’s nice.” Namjoon nodded, finished organizing the books he had knocked down. (Y/N) struggled to get one she was pretty sure had come from a high shelf above her head back where it belonged, until Namjoon held out his hand with a short laugh. “May I?”

Not too proud to concede defeat, she put the self-help book in his large hand and watched as he easily slotted it back where it belonged with minimal stretching. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t sort of envious. “Soo…you wouldn’t happen to have any recommendations, would you?” Namjoon turned to her, eyes widening. “Since you’re more familiar with the selection here.” Was that dumb? Was that pushy? She was rusty at the whole socializing thing. Probably one of the reasons she’d always struggled to make friends… “You don’t have to if you don’t want—”

“I want to…” Namjoon’s eyes grew soft, “I’d love to.” It took (Y/N) a few seconds to realize the sound of something chopping the air was his tail wagging at an impressive pace. “What are you interested in?”

“What’ve you been reading lately?” She asked, genuinely curious. Someone like Namjoon probably had a fascinating taste in books. 

“Contemporary philosophy,” he said immediately. “Um, but I’m also following a murder-mystery series, and I planned to try a book about spiritual cultivation through gardening, because I enjoyed the author’s other book about emotional regulation through music writing and…” Dipping his head, Namjoon paused.

“Why’d you stop?” (Y/N) asked. 

“Is it too much?” He glanced down, “I know sometimes when I start in about what I’m reading it can be a little hard to follow. Not because I don’t think you’re capable of keeping up intellectually,” he quickly clarified. “But I know I get lost in tangents sometimes…”

“There’s nothing wrong with showing how passionate you are about your interests.” (Y/N) laid a hand on his arm. “That just tells me it spoke to you on an emotional level, and maybe it’ll speak to me the same way.”

Namjoon’s dimples revealed themselves in a sudden, beautiful smile that left her reeling back internally. Talk about a hidden weapon. Yes, (Y/N) knew he was attractive. Everyone in his family was. But to be on the receiving end of that look did make her heart skip a beat. “If you’ve got time, I could show you where the book is…and there’s a reading nook in the back. It’s a pretty peaceful way to pass a day like this.”

The spot Namjoon led them to was exactly as comfortable as she had described, the kind of cozy that was made for reading on a rainy or snowy afternoon indoors. She plopped down into one of the leather bean bag chairs, and he took an armchair right across from it. 

The wolfdog gingerly passed her a copy of the book he had recommended, and (Y/N) studied the cover and read the blurb on the inside of the dust jacket. “Hmm oh yes, this is right up my alley. Definite purchase. Thank you, Namjoon-ssi.”

He nodded quietly, his eyes pleased. “Any time.” (Y/N) noticed him pull a book onto his lap, squinting as she caught some of the words on the cover but not quite able to make it out.

“What’s that about? Any good?” He stilled, stared at what he had in his hands wide-eyed, eliciting a bit of confusion from her. 

“I’m actually not sure yet.” Namjoon admitted. “It just…spoke to me. It’s by an author who explains how he learned to work through his grieving process by managing fish tanks, and what he took out of it. It’s a bit…nebulous based solely on the introduction, but I get it. All of us have been working through losing Gramps in different ways, and sometimes…the progression of it surprises you.”

(Y/N) found herself nodding along, listening silently as he spoke. “I feel the same way. The whole thing gives you so much whiplash, one minute you’re okay, the next minute something reminds you of them and you’re breaking down over a song or a smell…”

Namjoon ran long fingers over the glossy book cover, his smile soft but distant. It wasn’t a smile for her, not really. He was thinking back to a memory, recalling a time that passed with the bittersweet fondness only nostalgia could bring. “Everything is heightened when you’re a hybrid, especially when you have a canine nose. After…after he was gone…his smell was still everywhere. All of our smells are thick around the farm, but Gramps’ was like a phantom for a while. I’d catch his scent somewhere and forget he was…” When he swallowed, she tracked the movement of his adam’s apple. (Y/N) waited for him to finish, in case he had anything to add, but that seemed to be the extent of wanting to talk about it at the moment.

She turned over the book in her own hands absently, wanting him to know she could relate. “I lost my mom very suddenly as a little girl. And then I lost…my path. I still had my dad, but I felt so alone. I couldn’t understand how fate could be so cruel and she could just be gone. I dwelled on it for a long time, and it didn’t help that people wouldn’t let me forget I was broken. I heard the comments they thought they whispered.”

She sniffled, surprised at herself as her eyes burned a little. Usually, she didn’t cry over her mother anymore. She could talk about it without tears coming to her eyes. Usually. “Ah, well,” she cleared her throat. “Thanks again for the recs. I’m especially eager to read up on how this author’s thoughts on existentialism relate to how they tackle the grieving process.”

If Namjoon noticed the shine to her eyes, he was kind enough not to bring it up. He perked up. “I really think you’ll enjoy it, and if you do, maybe…I could recommend more books sometime?”

(Y/N) readily agreed, hoping he would do just that. “I’d really like that.” 

It was nice talking to Namjoon, needing out a little, enjoying conversation with a fellow bibliophile. The time slipped away way too quickly as they sat and talked, and when they both had made their purchases and got ready to go, it felt like saying goodbye after a nice day out with a friend. Is that…what they were? Is that what they could maybe become? Friends?

Namjoon held the door open for her as they walked out, and a part of (Y/N) swooned at how considerate it was. She sat for a while once she was back in her car, letting her hands rest on the steering wheel and waiting to warm up. Namjoon had thrown one long leg over his bike after securing his books in a basket, waving as he rode by. 

She slowly backed out of the parking space, careful to watch for anyone behind her, whether they were on two legs or four. ‘Hanging out with them…it’s kind of nice.’ It’d been a long time since it felt like she had a group who “got her”.

**TAGLIST IS CLOSED**:

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[gwenchanamjoon]

Star-crossed Lovers prologue | Namjoon fanfiction

You weren’t supposed to debut. Truth be told you weren’t even supposed to fit into Korean society, but who cares about the truth when the entire country thinks you’re dating Kim Namjoon?

It had been a surprising career move to say the least. When you first arrived in Korea three years ago, all you were supposed to do was spend a year studying at Seoul National University and then head back to your home country. All your life up until that point traced out before you, like the pieces of the puzzle had been layed before you even had the chance to look at the bigger picture.

With a considerable scholarship and stellar academic track record, making it through the year almost seemed like piece of cake. Meanwhile, your parents were supposed to fix their broken marriage. Somehow, you both failed.

Prologue

A/N: This sets up the story and main character (aka you), so fair warning it won’t contain any of the boys yet. Look forward to the first chapter for them!

2015

Even though my mother is Korean, I sure don’t look like it. And I could tell other people weren’t buying it either, when I awkwardly went up to the desk of Rainbow Entertainment and conjured up my best, broken Korean to ask “Hello, is my uncle here?” And boy, did I hope the answer was yes. Not only had my uncle’s work place been a headache to find, it also just so happened to be located in what felt like the shadiest part of Seoul.

The receptionist behind the desk raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow “Your uncle?”, she asked, stressing the word as if to highlight my poor pronounciation along with the idiocy of my question.

I lowered my gaze slightly. If she disliked my pronounciation of ‘ahjussi’, she for sure wasn’t going to buy my pronounciation of his name. “Ah, you made it.” I all but yelped when a hand suddenly clamped on my shoulder, speaking Korean way faster than I was able to register. The receptionist’s scepticism only intensified at watching an 18 year old girl get frightened by her own uncle. I felt the strange urge to tell her this was only the second time we’ve ever met, but before I could assemble a poorly structured sentence in Korean, said uncle was hauling me across the floor and towards an elevator.

“Thanks for coming”, he spoke like I had a choice. Both in coming to Korea and to find him at his work place. “That’s alright”, I answered, bowing awkwardly as I’d seen others do. He chuckled at my obvious awkwardness and waved it away “Your mother said you wouldn’t mind putting in some work to fund your expenses and accomodation here in Korea.”

I nodded excitedly as I followed him out of the elevator “Of course, I’d love to do my share. Thank you so much for welcoming me in your home, I didn’t think student housing in Seoul would be so expensive.” My parents weren’t well off by any means and the scholarship only managed to cover the tuition fees and books. Nevertheless, my parents were adamant I’d come and study at Korea’s most prestigious university. Mosty likely because my uncle would watch over me.

“Oh no, you must have misunderstood. You won’t be staying with me.” He halted in front of an open door of what looked like a dance studio. My heart dropped, “I won’t?” My voice squeaked and my face drained of color as the fear of being stranded in a foreign country finally sunk in. About time it did.

“No, of course not. That wouldn’t be acceptable.” He entered the room and I looked inside, being met with seven girls staring right back at me.

“Finally, did she make it?” another, more authorative male voice spoke up and my uncle nodded and bowed deeply towards it. As I ventured into the room, I watched the other man stand up and clap his hands “Girls, meet your new English tutor. I trust you’ll be able to speak it well soon enough for your debut.”

Eyes wide, I turned towards my uncle who simply jutted out a thumb towards the girls. “You’ll be living with them.”

That same night I moved my 2 suitcases into a tiny apartment to live with 7 girls I’d never met before, in a country I’d never been to before, with food and customs I’d never even heard of. Up until that point I had tried my best to be friendly and communicate with them, making small talk and learning they were all practicing dancing and singing to make their debut as a girl group the next year. I nodded and smiled, all the while feeling the lump in my throat grow bigger and bigger.

Finally, when I layed my head down on my pillow in a top bunk of room filled with eight beds, I let my tears roam freely. And even though none of the girls could understand me when I hiccuped how badly I wanted to go home, they all held and comforted me nevertheless.

2016

I grew accustomed to the Korean lifestyle and to the lifestyle of my housemates. Often, when I didn’t have to attend any classes, I’d accompany them to dance and singing classes. Not much of a social butterfly myself, I enjoyed spending time with the girls and applying myself to a goal. It kept me going.

“I’m so sad you’re leaving soon.” Soomi, the maknae of the group pouted as we exited the doors of Rainbow Entertainment’s offices together for the very last time. Her arms were clutched around my waist as we walked and I patted her head affectionately. “Can’t you just stay for another year? Not even until we debut?” She’d asked me many times and I shared a knowing look with Hana, the leader. Though there had been an option for me to stay in Korea longer, I had my reasons not to. And I told them to Soomi once more

“You know I’d love to, but I can’t. This isn’t my home, my parents -- are waiting for me.” I’d almost said they miss me, but as any of the girls would tell you, I hated lying. During the last couple of months my parents and I hadn’t talked much, not even now my return was so coming up so soon. Even though my heart ached for the group of friends I’d made during this past year, I knew I didn’t belong here. “Let’s just have fun together this last night, alright?”

And so we did, all huddled up on and around the sole couch in our apartment, watching the Melon Music awards. The girls dreamed out loud about what it would be like standing on that stage. They all had their dreams as well as their doubts and insecurities, but I made sure they focused on the former.

“Girls, you’re always saying I’m the smart one, well take it from me. You will stand there. And you’ll be amazing.” I said it with conviction, succesfully hiding the disappointment I felt at not being there to experience it with them. During their training, I couldn’t help but share their dream of debuting as a girl group. And when PD-nim had offered me a spot in the group a couple of days ago, I had almost accepted. If it weren’t for my insecurities.

Looking around at the girls I could now call friends, I didn’t have half the talent or beauty each of them had. Their place was in the spotlight, mine was..

My phone buzzed and the name on the screen made my heart skip a beat. ‘Mom’. Finally.

Though the message itself made my heart stop.

‘I’m sorry to tell you this way.’

‘Your father and I have separated. He cheated, but he’s gotten a lawyer.

‘Whatever happens, you need to come live with me, alright?’

White noise rang though my ears, I faintly wondered if it was the sound of my heart beating immensely fast and loud. My eyes were wide as they stared straight ahead, just as BTS one an award. Their first Daesang. The girls around me erupted into cheers.

“Oh my god.” Shock.

“I can’t believe it! Yes!” Tears started flowing freely.

“If a group from a small company like Bighit can pull it off, surely we can too!”

Text messages kept making my phone buzz, but my thumbs ignored them and dialed a number before I’d fully registered it.

“Unnie, what’s wrong?” Soomi asked, her bright smile slipping from her face. The rest of the room quieted down their celebrations while my eyes stayed fixed upon BTS joyfully experiencing the pinnacle of their succes.

“I’ll do it.”

PD-nim nearly dropped his phone on the other end “You will? Are you sure?”

“Are you?”, I asked in return.

The man knew this would be a changing point in the future of the group, the decision he was about to make now could make or break their succes. The Korean public took to foreign idols even less than they did to chubby ones, though he felt change was on the horizon. “Then from now on, we’ll call you Luna from the girl group Infinity.”

[riaarivic]

What Happens When You Fall Epilogue (M) I BTS Namjoon x F!Reader

🩺 Pairing BTS RM (Kim Namjoon) x Reader (Orthopedic Surgeon!Reader)

🩺 Genres Medical!AU, Friends with Benefits, Mutual Pining, Angst, Smut, Celebrity x Non-Celebrity, Long Distance, Emotional Drama, They are two idiots infuriatingly in love

🩺 Rating 18+ (minors DNI)

Two years. One rule: no feelings.

You broke it somewhere along the way.

Now you’re left with him on one side—and everything else on the other.

🩺 Epilogue of the Fall Series Read Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

🩺 Main Masterlist 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺

A/N THIS IS THE EPILOGUE READ PART 4 FIRST OR YOU WILL BE SPOILED 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺

You don't do feelings.

That has always been the policy.

Right up there with sterile technique and not cutting corners and keeping things clean, manageable, contained within the borders of a life you built carefully enough that nothing could fall in without your permission.

The policy, it turns out, did not account for Kim Namjoon.

Minho didn't come home last night.

You notice this at seven in the morning when you emerge from your bedroom in search of coffee and find his door open, his bed undisturbed, the apartment holding a space that has been empty since evening. His keys are not in the pink bowl by the door. His jacket is not on its hook.

He knew.

Of course he knew — Minho, who catalogues things before you know they're worth cataloguing. He put it together in the two seconds it takes him to put anything together. And he took himself elsewhere, without announcement, without making it a thing, because that is what Minho does — he creates the space you need and then removes himself from it and never once asks for credit.

You stand in the kitchen doorway and feel something warm and enormous for your best friend.

Behind you, from your bedroom, the sound of movement.

Then Namjoon appears in the hallway.

Slightly disheveled. Your oversized sweatshirt that he found in your room at some point in the night and apparently adopted. His hair pushed back, his face carrying the specific softness of someone who has slept properly for the first time in days, which you take as medical credit because you told him to rest and he did and you are choosing to consider this a personal victory.

He looks at you.

You look at him.

"Coffee," you say.

"Please," he says.

You make coffee.

He sits at the kitchen counter and watches you do it with the attention of someone who has decided that watching you make coffee is worth his full presence, which is — you note this, you are noting everything now, you have stopped pretending you're not — one of his most consistently devastating qualities.

"Minho's gone," you say.

"I know," he says. "He texted me."

"What did he say."

Namjoon looks at his phone. "'You owe me twelve years of emotional labor and also dinner. Enjoy. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Actually do everything I wouldn't do. You've earned it.'" He sets the phone down. "And then a very specific emoji combination that I'm choosing not to interpret."

You hand him a mug.

Your fingers touch his on the handle.

Neither of you lets go immediately.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi," you say back.

The morning comes through the kitchen window in the warm light yellow of a Seoul spring, catching the steam rising from the mugs, falling across the counter in long warm strips. The city outside is doing its reliable thing. The apartment smells like coffee and cedarwood and the accumulated evidence of two people who have stopped pretending.

You are leaving in forty hours.

You don't say that.

Not because you're avoiding it — that time is done, you are finished with avoidance as a strategy, it has been formally retired effective last night in a hallway. You don't say it because you have both, wordlessly, agreed that these hours are not for logistics. They are for this. For the coffee and the morning and the ordinary, extraordinary reality of being in the same room without anything between you.

The logistics will wait.

They are, for once, not going anywhere.

What follows is not something either of you planned.

It is breakfast made badly in his kitchen — or your kitchen, the lines have blurred, he is in your sweatshirt which is oversized on you and a few inches too short for him and he has learned where Minho keeps the good pan and neither of you is examining this too carefully. He reads to you while the eggs cook, unprompted, something from his own notes, from his songs, and you tell him he doesn't need to do that, and he reads another paragraph anyway, and you eat standing at the counter because you forgot to sit down and then it seemed too late to bother.

He falls asleep on the couch at some point in the late morning, his head finding your lap with the easy certainty of something that knows where it belongs, and you let him, reviewing discharge notes on your tablet and pretending you're being productive and watching his face do the unguarded, weightless thing it does when he sleeps.

You are not being productive.

You are memorizing him.

You are allowed to do that now.

His phone goes off. Then again. Then Minho's name appears three times in rapid succession and you silence it with the practiced efficiency of a woman who has decided that Minho however beloved, is not getting these particular hours.

Namjoon stirs.

"Was that—"

"Yes," you say.

He settles back.

"Are you sure—"

"Sleep," you say.

He sleeps.

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He wakes up in the early afternoon and looks at you with the slow, warm, fully-conscious look of someone who knows exactly where they are and is pleased about it.

"Hi," he says.

"You say that every time," you say.

"You're always here," he says. "I'm always surprised."

"You need to stop being surprised."

"Working on it," he says. He sits up slowly, carefully — the ankle, which you examined this morning with the focused displeasure of a surgeon whose patient has been non-compliant and whose patient had the grace to look genuinely apologetic about it. He shifts to face you. "Can I tell you something."

"You're going to tell me regardless."

"True." He looks at you. Really looks, with the full, unhurried quality of it. "I'm proud of you."

You blink.

"The Dodgers," he says. "The position. All of it." Something in his voice that is careful and genuine simultaneously, the way he says things he's thought about before saying. "I should have said that before. I should have said it the moment I knew, which was when the article surfaced and I was—" He pauses. "I was so hurt that I didn't say the thing I should have said first, which is that what you've built is extraordinary. What you've done is extraordinary. And you deserve every part of what's waiting for you in Los Angeles and I'm sorry it took me this long to say it to your face."

Your chest does the thing.

"Namjoon—"

"I mean it," he says. "I need you to know that I mean it. This isn't—" He shakes his head slightly. "I'm not being gracious about losing something. I'm genuinely, specifically proud of you. You moved to a country that wasn't yours and you built something from nothing and you did it the hard way and you are one of the most competent people I have ever encountered and I have encountered—" The corner of his mouth. "A statistically significant number of very competent people."

You look at him.

"Thank you," you say. Quietly. Meaning it completely.

He nods.

Then "You need to send me an autographed Shohei Ohtani jersey."

You stare at him.

"I work for the Dodgers now," you say. "I'm the head physician. I'm not a—"

"You will have access."

"That's not what access means—"

"Signed," he says. "Ideally personalized."

"I cannot ask Shohei Ohtani to sign a jersey for my—"

You stop.

The word you were about to use sits in the space between you.

He looks at you.

"For your—?" he prompts, entirely too pleased with himself.

"For my person," you say, which is the word you were going to say anyway and you both know it.

His smile arrives in the full version. Dimple and all.

"Signed," he says. "Personalized. Please. For your boyfriend, preferably. If that's ok with you." That is more than ok. And you know that he doesn't mean the autograph.

"I make no promises," you say.

"You just said please," he says.

"I said please as part of quoting you—"

"It still counts," he says. "I heard it."

You throw a cushion at him.

He catches it.

You are both smiling.

The smiling settles into the comfortable quiet of the early afternoon, the apartment holding its warmth, the light coming through the curtains at the low angle of a day that is already partway through itself.

He looks at you.

Something shifts in his expression — the ease of it still there but underneath it something more careful arriving.

"There's something I need to ask you," he says.

You wait.

"The company," he says. "They want to put out a statement. A real one — not the damage control from before, not the clinical personal acquaintance language that meant nothing and helped no one." He pauses. "Something that says the truth. That you are — that we are—" He stops. Starts differently. "Something that makes it clear that what was done to you was wrong and that the people responsible will be held accountable. Something that gives you your name back." He looks at his hands briefly. "And something that makes it harder for anyone to come after you again. Because if we are together, and we are, then you are adjacent to my world whether we announce it or not and I would rather you be protected inside it than vulnerable at the edges of it and I know that's a lot to ask, I know going public is not a small thing, I know what it means and what it comes with and I am not going to pretend it doesn't come with things that are—"

"Namjoon."

"—difficult, and I want you to know that if you're not ready, if you need more time, if you want to wait until you're settled in LA before any of this becomes—"

"Namjoon."

"—official, that is completely valid and I will tell them to hold it, I will tell them indefinitely, I will—"

"Namjoon." Your hand covers his. "Stop."

He stops.

Looks at you.

His expression is doing the thing — the open, unguarded thing, the thing that surfaces when he is genuinely nervous and is not managing it well, which you find both slightly alarming and completely endearing because Kim Namjoon, who has stood in front of stadiums full of people and spoken into the silence of them, is nervous about asking you this.

"Okay," you say. Quietly. Steadily. "Tell them to put out the statement."

He blinks. "You don't have to decide right—"

"I've decided," you say. "Do it."

"Y/N—"

"I don't want to live like that," you say. Simply. The truest version of it, arrived at somewhere between three AM on a bedroom floor and the hallway where he was waiting and all the hours since. "In the shadows of it. Afraid of a photograph, afraid of a wrong angle, afraid of who's standing outside with a long lens waiting for something to use." You look at him steadily. "I'm not afraid of being yours. I never was. I was afraid of everything else that comes with it." A pause. "But you got on a plane. You sat on my floor. You crossed an ocean when I wasn't brave enough to cross the street." You squeeze his hand. "The least I can do is let you tell the truth about us."

He looks at you for a long moment.

"You're sure," he says.

"I'm sure," you say.

"It's going to be—"

"Loud for a while," you say. "And then it won't be. That's how it works." You give him a look. "I'm a doctor. I have dealt with difficult things before."

"This is different from—"

"I know it's different," you say. "I'm still sure."

He exhales.

Long and slow, the breath of someone releasing something they've been holding carefully.

"Okay," he says.

"Okay," you say back.

He looks at your hand over his.

Then he turns his hand over, the way he always does, and closes his fingers around yours.

"For what it's worth," he says, quieter now, "I'm going to spend a very long time making sure you don't regret it."

"I know," you say.

"I mean that."

"I know you do," you say. "That's why I said yes."

The afternoon light moves across the floor in slow degrees.

Outside, Seoul does its thing.

Inside, something settles — not loudly, not with any announcement, just with the quiet certainty of a decision made by two people who have finally stopped making decisions alone.

He picks up his phone.

Types a message.

Sends it.

Puts it face down on the cushion beside him.

Looks at you.

"Hi," he says.

"You already said that today," you say.

"You're still here," he says. "I'm still surprised."

You shake your head.

But you're smiling.

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His phone buzzes twenty minutes later.

He looks at it. Shows you the screen without saying anything.

HYBE, official channels, posted simultaneously across every platform with the quiet, total efficiency of a company that has received its instructions and moved.

In response to recent events, HYBE and BTS wish to address the violation of privacy directed at our artists and their personal connections. The deliberate targeting of private individuals for the purpose of harassment, defamation, or financial gain is a matter we take with the utmost seriousness. Legal action is being pursued against those responsible. Additionally: Kim Namjoon is in a committed relationship with Dr. Y/N L/N. We ask that fans extend to him the same respect and support they have always shown — understanding that our artists are people first, and that the people they love deserve to live without fear. We thank you for your continued care for all seven members.

You read it.

Then you read it again.

Committed relationship.

In print. Official. Sent to however many million people follow those accounts, which is a number you are choosing not to calculate right now because it will not help you remain a functional human being.

It doesn't go unnoticed that they added your title to your name. As if trying to mend how you were treated before.

You look at Namjoon.

He is already looking at you — his phone in his hand, his expression doing the careful, attentive thing of someone watching to see how something lands. Not anxious. Not performing calm. Just — present. Waiting.

"Committed relationship," you say.

"Yes," he says.

"In those exact words."

"Those exact words."

You look back at the screen.

At the statement.

At the number of reposts already climbing in the corner, the internet doing what the internet does — moving fast, the energy of it shifting, the weather of it changing direction. You can feel it even from here. People coming forward now, saying the things that were drowned out during the storm: leave him alone. he's a person. she's a person. this isn't yours.

Not everyone.

But enough.

Enough that it matters.

The people they love deserve to live without fear.

You said yes to this.

Twenty minutes ago, in the afternoon light of this apartment, with his hand in yours and his nervous rambling finally stopped and your own voice coming out steadier than you expected — you said yes. You chose it. Deliberately. With full information.

You are choosing it again right now, reading it in print, feeling the full weight of what committed relationship means when it is attached to his name and distributed to the world.

You are still choosing it.

"How are you feeling," he asks.

You look at him.

Really look — at the apartment and the afternoon light and the man on the couch beside you who sent a text twenty minutes ago and sat quietly with you while it became real and is now watching your face with the full, unhurried attention of someone who wants to know the true answer.

"Like I put something down," you say. "Something heavy." A pause. "Like I've been carrying it for a long time and I didn't know how heavy it was until just now."

He nods slowly.

"Lighter," you say.

"Yeah," he says. Soft. "Me too."

You look at the statement one more time.

The people they love deserve to live without fear.

"Okay," you say.

"Okay," he says.

You put your phone face down on the cushion.

He puts his arm around you.

You let him.

Outside, the internet continues its weather. The tide turning. The storm passing the way storms do — loudly and then not, the aftermath quieter than the thing itself, the sky after it cleaner than before.

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He tells you about the members in the late afternoon, while you are both on the couch with your legs tangled together in the unselfconscious way of people who have stopped keeping careful track of where one of them ends and the other begins.

"They're excited," he says.

"To meet me."

"They already know you," he says. "I mean — they know of you. They've heard me talk about you for two years." He pauses. "Which in retrospect is something I should have examined more closely as a personal behavior."

"For two years," you say.

"Extensively," he says.

"What did you tell them."

He looks at the ceiling briefly. "That you were brilliant. That you were difficult in the specific way of people who know they're right. That you made the worst coffee I've ever had and served it with complete confidence." A pause. "That you were — that talking to you felt like—" He stops. Finds it. "Like coming up for air. That's what I told Jimin. When I finally admitted it to him. I said she feels like coming up for air."

The afternoon light comes through the window.

You look at him.

"Jimin cried," he adds.

"Of course he did," you say.

"He's very emotionally available."

"I know. I've met him."

"He also said, and I'm quoting, finally, oh my god, I have been waiting for you to say that out loud for fourteen months, you are the most frustrating person I have ever loved." He pauses. "He's not wrong."

You smile.

"They want to meet you properly," he says, softer now. "When they come to LA. All of them. Not as—" He gestures vaguely at the general concept of his public existence. "Not as that. As mine." He looks at you directly. "I want to introduce you as mine. As my person. The most important thing in my life that isn't the six of them." A pause. "And you're the most important thing that isn't the six of them. I want you to know that. I want them to know that. I want it to be — real. Official. Out loud."

Your throat is tight.

"Okay," you say.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," you say. "Okay."

He exhales.

Like he was waiting for that.

Like he's been waiting for that for a long time and is glad to finally be on the other side of it.

"The concert," he says. "LA. September."

You look at him.

"Section 114," he says. "I'll leave the ticket."

And this time — this time, unlike the night in the hospital when you said okay knowing you wouldn't be here, unlike every version of yes you said while planning the exit—

you mean it.

"I'll be there," you say. "and I'll fly to Tampa, the last week of April."

He looks at you for a moment.

Like he's checking.

Like he's reading the difference between this yes and all the previous ones.

He finds it.

Something in his face settles — quietly, completely, the expression of a man who has been waiting for the version of you that means what you say and has just received it.

"Okay," he says.

Just that.

Okay.

Everything in it.

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The morning of the flight arrives with the particular gentleness of days that are ending something — the light softer than it has any right to be, the apartment holding its warmth, the city outside making its ordinary sounds.

You dress. He watches.

You make him eat before you'll let him do anything else, because this is who you are now, because you have decided to commit to it fully and without apology, and he eats with the easy compliance of someone who finds being taken care of by you entirely acceptable and has stopped pretending he doesn't.

"I'll call," you say.

"I know," he says.

"Not every day, necessarily—"

"Every day," he says. "Or when you can. Either."

You look at him.

He looks back.

You know what this costs. Both of you. The time zones and the schedules and the distance measured in flights. You know that love doesn't solve logistics. You know that choosing someone and being able to keep them are two different questions.

You know all of it.

You are choosing it anyway.

"Don't disappear," you say.

"I won't."

"I mean it."

"I know." His hand at your jaw. Warm and steady. His. "I won't."

You kiss him once — clean, certain, a punctuation mark rather than a question.

Then you pick up your bag.

"Text me when you land," he says.

You pause at the door.

"That's my line," you say.

The dimple.

God, the dimple.

"Borrow it," he says.

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The plane is quieter than you expect.

Or you are quieter than usual — the particular interior stillness of someone who has just gone through something that rearranged the furniture and is now sitting with where everything landed.

Window seat. Seoul shrinking beneath you in stages — the Han River first, silver in the morning light, then the city grid, then the suggestion of mountains at the edge of everything, and then just cloud, and then just sky, and then nothing that looks like anything you know.

Except.

You are beginning to have a theory about home.

The theory involves a man who reads to you while eggs cook and falls asleep with his head in your lap and says hi every time he sees you like he's still surprised you're there and probably will be for the rest of his life, which you are finding you do not mind at all.

Your bag is in the overhead.

Except for one thing.

The book.

The New York book, carried from surface to surface for weeks, treated with the care of something that means too much to interact with casually, now in your lap, now finally — finally — being opened.

The pages fall to the front.

And there, tucked against the inside cover with the deliberateness of someone who knew exactly what they were doing—

a card.

His handwriting. Small and careful, the way it gets when he's being intentional.

You read it.

I found this in a shop on 72nd Street at approximately 11 PM on a Wednesday because I couldn't sleep and I walked until I found something that felt right to bring back to you. I don't know what we are. I'm not sure we've ever known. But I know that when I find something worth keeping, the first thing I think is — she would like this. I've been thinking that for two years. I don't see it stopping. You are the most specific person I have ever met. Not in a small way. In the way that makes the world more interesting just by being in it. In the way that makes me want to write things down so I don't forget what it was like to be in a room with you. I don't know what the future looks like. Mine has a lot of airports. Yours has a lot of operating theaters. I know they don't sit neatly together. I've never been particularly interested in neat. I'm interested in you. Whatever you want that to mean. However much room you have for it. I'm not asking for more than you can give. I just want to be somewhere in the picture — whatever size, whatever corner. I'll take it. For as long as you want to let me. I'll be in LA in September. Section 114, if you want to come. — N P.S. Minho already has his ticket. He bought it before I asked him. I didn't even tell him about the concert yet. He just sent me a confirmation number and a single period. I don't know what to do with either of us.

You sit with the card in your hands for a long time.

The plane hums around you.

The clouds outside are vast and unhurried, the sky above them the impossible blue of high altitude — the kind that exists above the weather, above the noise, above everything that happens at ground level.

He bought this book in New York.

Before Seoul. Before the hallway. Before I love you in the morning light with the cedarwood. Before any of it was certain. Before you'd said anything true. Before you were anything other than two people who were supposed to be nothing and were, quietly and comprehensively, everything.

He already knew.

He came back anyway.

He sat on your floor and crossed an ocean and said I needed to see you like it was the simplest fact in the world.

And Minho — Minho who bought his ticket before he was even asked, who sent a confirmation number and a period, who has been watching this happen since a couch two years ago with the patient certainty of someone who knew, who has always known, who will probably bring this up at every available opportunity for the rest of your natural lives and you will let him because he has earned it—

You laugh.

The real kind. The surprised kind. The kind that arrives before you decide to let it, warm and ridiculous and entirely genuine, and the woman in the seat next to you glances over and you shake your head and look back out the window and let it finish.

You look at the card again.

I'll take it.

For as long as you want to let me.

You fold it carefully. Tuck it back. Close the book with both hands around it, holding it the way you hold things that mean too much to handle carelessly.

Your eyes are wet.

You let them be.

Because here is the thing about tears — the thing you know as a doctor, the thing you learned in medical school and in operating theaters and in the back hallways of hospitals at odd hours: they are not weakness. They are the body's most honest response. The system releasing what it's been carrying. The accurate physiological expression of something real.

You have been carrying this for two years.

You are allowed to put it down in the form of tears at altitude on a plane to Los Angeles.

You let yourself cry.

Quietly. Without apology. Looking out at the clouds above the weather while Seoul disappears behind you and Los Angeles waits ahead and somewhere below, in a city that smells like cedarwood and old paper and the particular warmth of a place that has been genuinely lived in, a man with a dimple and a notebook full of songs about you is holding his phone.

Your phone buzzes.

Namjoon🫀 3:57pm landed yet?

Namjoon🫀 3:57pm i know you haven't, it's too soon, i just wanted to say... Namjoon🫀 3:58pm actually never mind i'll say it when you land Namjoon🫀 3:58pm text me when you land

A pause.

Then:

Namjoon🫀 3:59pm i love you. that's what i was going to say. i love you.

You close your eyes.

Feel the warmth of it.

The simple, enormous, completely unmanageable warmth of it.

🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺

In medicine, there are cases that defy explanation.

Full recoveries from things that should not recover. Healing that exceeds every projected outcome, that surprises the physicians, that makes statisticians uncomfortable and poets reach for their notebooks. The body doing something the imaging said was impossible. The patient walking out of a room that the numbers said they shouldn't walk out of.

They call it a miracle.

The word is imprecise. It admits defeat, in a way — admits that something happened outside the framework, beyond the variables, in the space where science runs out of language and human nature picks up where science leaves off.

You have seen it.

Not often. But enough.

Enough to know that some things heal by forces that cannot be fully documented. That some fractures close in ways that imaging cannot predict. That the body — and the heart, which is a body, which follows its own logic, which has its own will — sometimes simply decides to recover.

Decides to choose.

You open your eyes.

Outside the window: clouds. Sky. The vast, unhurried blue of somewhere above the weather.

You pick up your phone.

You 4:07pm Haven't landed yet. Found the card. I'll be there. Where you can find me.

A pause.

Then, because you have decided — completely, irrevocably, without a single remaining reservation — that policies exist to be updated when the evidence demands it:

You 4:08pm I love you. That's all.

The three dots appear instantly.

Like he was already holding his phone.

Like he was always going to be.

Namjoon 🫀 4:08 pm I know. I love you too. That's everything.

You lean your head back.

Close your eyes.

And feel, rising through you like something that has been waiting a very long time to be allowed — like a patient sitting up in a bed they were supposed to stay in, like a recovery that surprised everyone in the room, like a fracture healing clean and complete and exactly the way it was always supposed to —

warmth.

Just warmth.

The simple, enormous, completely unmanageable warmth of someone who has finally, after two years and one couch in November and a thread she didn't cut and a man who crossed an ocean and sat on her floor —

stopped arguing with the truth of it.

You don't do feelings.

That was the policy.

Right up there with sterile technique and not cutting corners and keeping things clean and contained and safely within the borders of a life you built carefully enough that nothing could fall in without your permission.

You built it carefully.

You built it well.

And then he walked through Minho's door.

And you felt a thread.

And you didn't cut it.

And two years later, thirty thousand feet above the weather, with his card in your hands and his words in your chest and Los Angeles waiting at the end of a flight you chose on purpose —

you understand, finally, what the title of this story was always trying to tell you.

Not the season.

Not the injury.

Not the thing that breaks when the structure fails.

The fall.

The one you've been in since November.

The one you tried to stop and couldn't.

The one that was never a mistake — never a lapse in judgment, never a complication to be managed, never a case to be closed.

Just the most human thing.

Just two people, choosing each other, past every reasonable objection, past every policy and every exit and every no feelings said in good faith and broken in better faith —

choosing each other anyway.

Some fractures heal beyond what science predicts.

Some recoveries exceed every projected outcome.

Some people choose each other across oceans and time zones and two years of nothing that was always everything —

and the physicians call it a miracle.

And the poets call it inevitable.

And you —

you look out the window at the clouds above the weather and smile, quietly, to yourself, with the warmth of someone who has finally stopped arguing with the most obvious truth of the last two years —

and call it exactly what it is.

That's what happens when you fall in love. End of the Series.

🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺 🩺

Authors Note:

I am trying very hard not to cry as I write this.

I am failing. Completely and without dignity. 😭🖤

A month ago I was sitting in my bed watching seven men perform like they had something to prove to the universe, in the middle of one of the most difficult and uncertain periods of my life. And they came back — again — at exactly the right moment, the way they always seem to, the way I have stopped questioning and started just being grateful for.

And somewhere between the light sticks and the music and whatever it is that happens to you while watching a BTS concert (even if it's virtually) that you cannot fully explain — this story came to me.

I want to be very clear that this was supposed to be a short creative exercise. A smutty one shot. Something small and contained that I would post once and move on from. 🫠

Turns out I am constitutionally incapable of that. Words just — come. They keep coming. I have no control over them. They pour out and they become things I didn't plan and I end up fifty thousand words deep into a story about a surgeon and a man with a dimple and suddenly I am crying on a Tuesday night about bones and love songs and what happens when you fall. 😭

And the response.

I was not prepared.

I am still not prepared, honestly. Every time someone tells me they've read a chapter more than once. Every time someone leaves a comment that makes me put my phone down and stare at the ceiling. Every time you pick up a breadcrumb I left — and sometimes a breadcrumb I didn't even know I left — and give it meaning that makes the story richer than I knew it was. Every beautiful, funny, devastating question you ask that I am physically incapable of answering in under four paragraphs. 🥹

You did that. You made this story bigger than it was when I wrote it. And I am so grateful I don't have the words for it, which is saying something given how many words I apparently have. 😭🫶🏼

Thank you.

To every single one of you reading this from whatever corner of the world you're in, whatever time it is, whatever you're going through — thank you for being here. Thank you for falling with us. I hope you found the joy in the small things. The tree. The book. The dimple. The thread she didn't cut. 🤍

This is not goodbye.

Because I am already deep into a Namjoon POV that was also supposed to be one chapter and has also decided to become its own entire thing because apparently that's just who I am now. 😭 So our WHWYF couple is not done with us yet.

I hope you're there for the next part of the journey. 🖤

With so much love and gratitude and happy tears —

Ria 🫶🏼🖤🥹

[riaarivic]

Een zomernacht Namjoon (BTS RM) x You - What Happen When You Fall Summer Special Pt2

🫀 Pairing: BTS RM (Kim Namjoon) x Reader (Medical Director!Reader)

⚠️ THIS IS PART TWO OF THE SUMMER SPECIAL — YOU NEED TO READ PART ONE FIRST. 🫀 Part One. (Of the special summer episode)

Seriously. Go read it. Save this. Come back. Part two will be here when you get back and it will make significantly more sense if you know about the parking garage and the ankle and the ceramic anatomical heart and the locked conference room situation. This is not a threat. This is medical advice. And if you somehow landed here without having read What Happens When You Fall first — welcome, we're so glad you're here, but you have homework. It's good homework. It will ruin you in the best possible way. The whole B-Side universe is linked below and this story is the anchor of all of it, which means you should probably clear your schedule. 🫀Part 1 Of What Happens when you fall Part of The B-Side Series Universe 🖤 The B Side Series

There had been a time when needing another person felt like leaving something unlocked that should stay locked.

You understood that lesson early, at seven years old, in a house that went quiet in a way that quiet should never be allowed to go.

Your mother was a palliative care nurse.

She spent her career sitting with people at the end of their lives, teaching their families that comfort wasn't surrender, that staying present when there was nothing left to fix was its own kind of medicine.

She remembered birthdays and favorite songs and how every one of her patients took their coffee even after they could no longer drink it.

She made hospital rooms less cold by force of personality alone.

You remember the specific weight of her hands and the way she smelled like her hand cream and something underneath it that was just her, irreducibly her, and you remember that you thought she would always be there because she was so completely, specifically there that her absence seemed structurally impossible.

Then she got sick.

Brain cancer. The kind that takes its time.

The kind that doesn't take the person all at once but in pieces, so slowly that you spend months learning to grieve someone who is still technically present, who still has her hands and her voice and her face but loses, incrementally, the particular arrangements of herself that made her yours.

You were seven.

Old enough to understand that death was permanent.

Young enough to spend months afterward lying very still in bed at night, trying to bargain with something you couldn't name. If you were quieter, kinder, easier, less; as though the universe operated on a point system and you could earn her back if you just stopped taking up so much space.

She died on a Tuesday in March.

You remember the light in the room.

You remember that someone had left a cup of coffee on the windowsill and you fixated on it because it was easier than the alternative. You remember thinking that she would have known how everyone in that room took their coffee, and now nobody would know how she took hers, and that thought sat in your chest for years in the specific shape of something that never fully heals, just scar tissue over the place where something structural used to be.

Your father remained.

A cardiothoracic surgeon with impossible hours and brilliant hands and absolutely no map for what to do with a grieving seven-year-old girl when he was barely keeping himself upright.

He loved you. That was never in question.

He loved you like a man trying to repair something he couldn't see, carefully, silently, terrified that the wrong word would make it worse.

People offered help.

Relatives offered rooms, meals, the names of therapists.

Your father accepted condolences and nothing else, which is the first thing you ever had in common.

By nine you could cook several acceptable dinners and one excellent grilled cheese.

You knew how to separate laundry and write checks from the household account and recognize the specific sound of his car in the driveway after midnight.

Not because he didn't care. Because he was a surgeon and a widower and sometimes grief turns a house into two people living parallel lives and calling it survival, and you were your father's daughter, which meant you learned the language of love as something demonstrated through competence rather than spoken into the available silence.

Baseball helped.

You watched every game together, sometimes live and sometimes recorded because his surgeries didn't care about first pitch, and the games filled the quiet without asking either of you to explain it.

Statistics gave you something safe to debate.

There were beginnings and endings and someone always won and the next day everyone played again, which felt, for a long time, like the most honest thing anyone had told you about how to live.

He learned every player you loved. He knew which pitchers you didn't trust and which managers you believed should be fired.

When you became interested in medicine he brought home books. When you chose orthopedics instead of following him into cardiac surgery he read enough about musculoskeletal anatomy to argue with you properly, which was his way of saying I see you, what matters to you matters to me, even though he never said those words in that order.

You learned to love the same way. Through attention. Through learning.

Through quietly building a place inside yourself for the things that matter to the people you love, without announcing that you're doing it.

It is why, when Namjoon mentioned once that he'd been trying to understand baseball for months, you felt something you didn't entirely want to feel.

Because you recognized it.

You understood exactly what it meant to learn someone else's language as an act of love without calling it that.

The difference is that Namjoon says it.

He says I miss you out loud, without softening it into something manageable.

He says I'm proud of you and looks at you while he says it, no exit offered, nowhere to redirect the feeling.

He says I love you with a sincerity so complete it leaves no room for deflection, which you told him once, in the parking lot in Seoul, two years ago, and he had just looked at you and said good like that was the point.

Your father taught you to love someone without words. Namjoon is teaching you that the words are not weakness. That saying the thing out loud is not the same as handing someone a weapon. That you can be known completely and still be safe.

You are still deciding whether you believe that.

You're closer than you were.

Seventeen minutes by the time you reach the VIP structure.

Your lungs are registering a formal complaint.

You locate Level Three, move between the cars at a pace that is not running but is also not walking, because you have some dignity and approximately seventeen square inches of it remaining.

You see the SUV before you see him.

Enormous, impractical, exactly the car Namjoon would choose because he has a gift for vehicles that are significantly more car than any one human being requires.

The windows are dark.

Your pulse does something juvenile and involuntary, and you take one breath — two — and remind yourself that you are the Medical Director of this organization and a grown adult and that the fact that you are about to open that car door should not feel like —

The door unlocks.

You reach for the handle.

He's sitting in the driver's seat and he is wearing — what is he wearing — a flannel shirt, open, over a t-shirt that takes you a full second to process because it is a Psyduck shirt.

A Psyduck shirt.

Kim Namjoon, who has been on the cover of international magazines and spoken at the United Nations, who fills stadium seats in six countries, drove five hours across California to park outside your workplace in a Psyduck t-shirt and a flannel and glasses you have only seen him wear when he thinks nobody important is watching, and his hair is doing the thing it does when he hasn't touched it, which means he drove the entire way without fixing it, which means he left immediately, which means —

What do you mean, you think, with the specific hysterical clarity of a woman who is going to maintain composure if it kills her, what do you mean I want to climb into this man's lap and he's wearing a Psyduck shirt.

Psyduck. You know his name.

You know all of their names, actually, which is information you acquired gradually over the past year and a half through a process that felt at the time like passive absorption and that you now understand was nothing of the sort.

You know Psyduck and Gengar and the one Namjoon considers criminally underrated whose name you are not going to think right now because you are trying to hold onto the last functional shreds of your dignity and you cannot do that while mentally reciting the taxonomy of Namjoon's favorite Pokémon in a VIP parking structure.

You learned them, says a very unhelpful part of your brain. You learned them because that's what you do.

You knew about his books before you knew you were paying attention.

You knew which museums he'd been to and which ones he still wanted to see. You knew he hated the sound of hotel air conditioning and loved the smell of old paper and kept a celadon bowl by his door with things in it that had no reason to be permanent and were.

You learned these things the way you learned the roster of your father's favorite pitchers — without deciding to, without announcing it, just quietly building a place in yourself for what mattered to him.

Oh no, you think.

Oh no, you are so far gone.

"You are an idiot," you say, and get in the car.

The cedarwood hits you before the door closes.

It shouldn't matter. It's just a smell.

Cedar and old paper and something underneath that is just him, irreducibly him, the same combination that exists in his house in Seoul and apparently follows him across international borders and into rented vehicles, and you were prepared for his face and his hair and the Psyduck shirt but you were not prepared for this, and every carefully managed thing you have been holding since you landed in Brussels yesterday — the business card and his ankle and the interview and the four weeks since Stanford and six weeks since you really had him — comes undone all at once, quietly, the way things come undone when you've been holding them too tightly for too long.

"You are an idiot," you say again, because you said it once and it didn't do anything, and your voice comes out steadier than you deserve credit for.

Namjoon smiles. The glasses catch the parking structure light. The flannel is slightly wrinkled. He looks like himself, the real version, the one that doesn't exist on stages or in photographs, and you have missed this version of him with a specificity that you are only just now allowing yourself to measure.

"Hello," he says.

And all the feelings you have been outrunning since seven this morning finish catching up.

In the weeks after the parking garage, you become an expert in time zones.

Not casually familiar. Expert.

You know Seoul is sixteen hours ahead of Los Angeles until daylight saving time changes the calculation and ruins the only piece of international mathematics you had managed to memorize.

You know which European cities are nine hours ahead and which are not, because apparently an entire continent can agree on a shared currency but not on making your personal life easier.

You know that when you start morning rounds, Namjoon is usually ending a concert. When you finish your last meeting, he is asleep, or supposed to be.

The distinction matters.

You can look at a clock and calculate whether he is eating, rehearsing, being interviewed, or awake at an hour that will make you furious when you find out about it.

You don't need an app. You use one anyway.

There are three cities saved in your weather widget. Los Angeles. Seoul. Whatever city Namjoon is currently in. The third changes so often that the application has started suggesting destinations before you finish typing, which feels like a personal observation from your phone and you don't appreciate it.

Your life does not slow down because you are in love. This is both a relief and, occasionally, the entire problem.

The season moves forward with the relentless momentum of something that does not care about your personal development.

Injuries, travel schedules, recovery plans, players who discover they have been in pain for three weeks only when you make it structurally impossible to continue ignoring.

You oversee imaging, surgeries, rehabilitation, performance testing and the complicated diplomacy of explaining to extremely valuable, extremely stubborn men that their bodies are subject to biological reality regardless of their contract situation.

One pitcher insists his shoulder feels fine. You show him the scan.

He studies it for a long moment, recalibrates, and says "it doesn't look that bad," and you look at him with the specific expression you have developed over years of this exact interaction until he says "I'll follow the rehabilitation plan."

"Good," you say. The conversation is over.

Your department has learned that good in that particular register means the discussion has concluded.

You are respected here.

Not tolerated, not treated as an impressive exception whose competence requires ongoing explanation. Respected. It sits well on you. You've worked too hard to pretend otherwise, and you've been pretending otherwise for too long to keep doing it now.

At the same time, your phone is face down beside your laptop during every meeting, and if you say it's because of potential emergencies, you are lying to yourself and you know it.

Because Namjoon might call.

This is humiliating.

You refuse to examine it.

This is Namjoon's fault.

You did not plan to tell him about Brussels the way it happened, which was on a Tuesday call that was supposed to be nine minutes because he had rehearsal, during which you mentioned the conference almost accidentally, and then watched his face do several things in rapid succession before he said, "wait, when?" and you said "July first" and he said "I'm in Brussels July first" and you both went silent for a moment with the specific silence of people recalculating something at speed.

"You could come to the concert," he said, carefully, like he was trying not to spook something.

"I could come to the keynote," you said, equally carefully.

"Or both," he said.

"Or both," you agreed.

And then you spent four weeks planning a weekend together across twelve time zones with the logistical precision of a military operation, which you are choosing to find romantic rather than insane, because growth is apparently what this is.

What you didn't tell him, what you put in a folder labeled International Opportunities, are the other emails.

The World Baseball Classic inquiry. The reference to the Olympic cycle that had arrived three weeks ago and been sitting in that folder ever since, opened and closed approximately forty times.

You should tell him.

You know that immediately every time you open the folder.

Then you look at his schedule, tour, album in progress, promotions, the fucking Grammys again, and you put it back. Not because you think he can't handle it.

Because you know he can, and that's the problem.

He will be thoughtful about it and ask the right questions and be proud of you in the way that leaves you nowhere to hide, and then you will both have to sit with the question of what two enormous careers look like when neither of them is willing to become smaller, and you are not ready to have that conversation in nine-minute windows between his rehearsal calls.

So you keep the folder. You tell yourself it isn't real yet. You tell yourself you're being practical.

You are being a coward. You are aware of this.

The day after the fourth time you almost called him about the Olympics, your father calls you during a rare evening when you make it home before dark.

You answer while removing your shoes. "Are you eating?" he says, without preamble, which is how he says hello when he is worried.

"Yes."

"What did you eat?"

You open the refrigerator. Yogurt, half a lemon, a container of something that has developed opinions. "A balanced meal," you say.

His silence is architecturally judgmental. "You sound exactly like your mother when you lie."

Your hand stills against the refrigerator door. He doesn't mention her often.

Neither of you does.

The moment passes the way those moments always pass, quietly, acknowledged and then released, because that is the only way you both know how to carry her. You close the refrigerator.

"I finished the performances you sent," he says.

"That was three weeks ago."

"I had surgeries."

"I also have a job."

"You are not cutting into anyone's heart," he says, with the tone of a man who considers this a meaningful distinction. You lean against the counter and let him have it. "I have confirmed my assessment," he continues.

"Of what?"

"Jimin remains my first choice."

You close your eyes. "Dad."

"His proprioception is exceptional."

"You are evaluating a musician like a surgical candidate."

"I am appreciating artistry through an evidence-based framework." He says this with complete sincerity. "His rotational control during complex choreography demonstrates superior kinesthetic awareness. The alignment of his landings alone — "

"You know I'm dating Namjoon, RM." You say, never really used to his stage name.

"That is unrelated. And I know who Namjoon is."

"It is extremely related."

"I cannot allow nepotism to compromise the integrity of my assessment."

"Namjoon is not in your family."

"Not yet."

Silence.

Your father continues breathing on the other end of the call as though he has not just casually detonated something in the middle of your kitchen. You stare at the wall opposite you. "Did you just — " you start.

"I have an early surgery in 20 minutes."

"Dad."

"Buy groceries."

"Dad."

"Good night."

The call ends.

You stand in your kitchen with your phone against your ear, listening to the silence where your father just said not yet like it was a weather update. Like it was simply a fact about the future that he had already processed and filed and was reporting to you as a courtesy. Like Kim Namjoon becoming family was a variable he had already accounted for in his calculations.

Your father does not say things carelessly. He says very few things at all. What he says, he means.

You order food. You do not think about marriage, or shared holidays, or your father asking Namjoon detailed questions about his cholesterol and his smoking habits. You are almost entirely successful. For about twelve minutes.

Lena finds you the next morning before you've finished your first coffee, which is the kind of professional violation that would have resulted in a very different reaction six months ago.

She's been on the medical team for four months, transferred from the Mets with a recommendation letter that was genuinely impressive and the energy of a golden retriever who has decided you are her person and is committed to this position regardless of what signals you send.

You tolerate her because she's competent, which is what you tell yourself, and which has become less true as a complete explanation with every passing week.

Namjoon has ruined you.

Your previously functioning emotional temperature of a glaciar has been compromised by one man with a Psyduck shirt and now you apparently have feelings about your junior colleagues.

"Dr. Y/L/N." She appears beside you in the hallway with a tablet, a coffee you didn't ask for and the expression of someone who has something to say and is calibrating the delivery. You take the coffee because it's already there and it would be wasteful. "Martinez's imaging came back."

"And?"

"Better than we thought." She pulls up the scan. "The inflammation is down significantly. I adjusted the protocol based on the temperature variation you mentioned last week and — " She stops herself from continuing, which you appreciate. She's learning. "I wanted you to see it first."

You review the imaging. She's right. "Good call," you say, and watch her try not to visibly react to the praise and fail slightly. You hand the tablet back. "Put the revised protocol in his file and brief the training team by noon."

"Already drafted," she says.

"Then send it."

She falls into step beside you, which you've also stopped actively discouraging. "You seem — " she starts, then recalibrates. "You seem like you have a lot going on."

"I always have a lot going on."

"More than usual."

You look at her. She looks back with the expression of someone who has decided honesty is worth the risk, which reminds you of someone, which you are not going to examine right now. "I'm fine," you say. "Send the protocol."

She sends the protocol. She also leaves a second coffee on your desk at two PM without being asked, and doesn't say anything about it, and you drink it, and you are going to blame Namjoon for all of this when you see him.

Jin's wife calls on a Wednesday at eleven PM your time, which means it's late afternoon in Seoul and she has flour on her cheek again, which seems to be a recurring condition. "You look terrible," she says, immediately and with warmth.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." She wipes her hands on her apron. "You've been quiet in the group chat."

"I'm always quiet in the group chat."

"You sent a meme last week."

"That was a medical infographic."

"It had a cat on it."

"The cat was illustrating a point about recovery timelines." You shift against the couch cushions. "How are you?"

She gives you the look that means she knows what you're doing. "Jin sent me a video of him getting a strike in the bowling league and called it a date night," she says. "I am managing."

"A bowling video."

"With commentary. Seven minutes." Her expression is the expression of a woman who loves someone unreasonable and has made peace with it. "He was very proud of himself."

"Did you watch all seven minutes?"

"Twice," she says, without shame. "I also cried a little during the second viewing, which I'm choosing not to analyze." She tilts her head. "Tell me what's in your head."

You look at the laptop on the table. The folder. International Opportunities. "I'm fine," you say.

"You sent me a spreadsheet at two in the morning."

"It was an organizational document."

"It had color coding."

"Color coding is efficient."

"It had six tabs."

You say nothing.

She waits, which is something you've noticed about her — she has the patience of someone who has spent years loving someone who doesn't always have the words and has learned to make the silence available until they find them.

"There are some professional opportunities," you say finally. "Potentially. Nothing confirmed."

You tell her about the emails. The baseball commission. The World Championships. The Olympic cycle reference that keeps sitting in your inbox like a question you haven't answered. "None of it is real yet," you say. "That's why I haven't told him."

"That is one reason," she says.

You look at her.

"The other reason," she continues, "is that if it becomes real, you have to figure out what it means. And that conversation is frightening." She says it gently, without making it an accusation. "Because his next year is already planned. And if this becomes something, your next two years get very full very fast, and you're both already — " she gestures vaguely " — a lot."

"We're a lot," you agree.

"I mean that kindly."

"I know."

She's quiet for a moment. Outside whatever window is behind her, Seoul is doing something with late afternoon light. "I haven't seen Jin in six weeks," she says. "He sends me photographs of meals. Videos of the bowling league. Last week he sent a forty-second clip of Taehyung failing to understand a hand dryer in an airport." A pause. "I watched it four times."

"Was it funny?"

"It was the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life and I would never tell Taehyung that." She looks at you. "You miss Namjoon."

"Obviously."

"And you're scared."

"I'm — " You stop. Start over. "I don't know how to build something with someone when both of our lives are this size."

She nods slowly, like this is a thing she knows the shape of. "You don't build it all at once," she says. "You make a decision every time life changes. You renegotiate. You have the conversation even when you don't have all the answers yet." She pauses. "Also — and I say this with love — both of you make enough money to have one home in Los Angeles and one in Seoul, so I need you to locate the actual crisis."

You stare at her. "That's your advice. Real estate."

"And communication," she says, "but I led with real estate because you were catastrophizing and I needed to interrupt the pattern."

"I wasn't catastrophizing."

"You had six tabs, four color codes and a projection chart for the Olympic preparation timeline."

"That's called planning."

"That's called fear with a spreadsheet attached."

You open your mouth. Close it.

She's smiling now, warm and slightly smug, and you understand completely why Jin married her and also why she's occasionally infuriating. "Tell him," she says, more quietly. "Not because it's real yet. Because it's real to you. He wants to be in it. Let him."

You think about what she said long after the call ends. You think about it while you review files, while you eat the food Lena apparently ordered for the department without being asked and left in the break room like a competent, slightly alarming forest spirit, while you lie in bed at eleven PM with your phone on the pillow beside you in case Namjoon calls from wherever in Europe he is tonight.

He does call. From a noisy hallway, nine minutes between flights and whatever comes next. You ask if he's eaten. He describes something that sounds like a Michelin restaurant, which is one of the things you love about him, that specific, genuine delight in small things, and you listen and think about the folder on your laptop and open your mouth twice to say something and close it twice and then someone calls his name from somewhere and the nine minutes are up.

"I miss you, love. So fucking much it hurts." he says.

"I miss you too," you say, and mean it in a way that takes up more space in your chest than is strictly convenient.

You don't tell him about the folder. Again.

Three days later, Lena knocks on your office door with the expression she gets when she has information she's not sure how to deliver. "Dr. Y/L/N?" She holds up her phone, facing you, with the posture of someone presenting evidence at a hearing. "Is this your boyfriend?"

You look at the screen. It's an interview. Namjoon, on a virtual magazine, studio lighting, the smile he uses when he's being professional and honest simultaneously. The journalist is asking about Gwanghwamun, about the fall, about how he's been managing the tour.

And then Namjoon says, casually, with the energy of a man who does not realize he is confessing to a crime: "My ankle still hurts sometimes."

Your office goes very quiet.

Lena watches your face. She has the self-preservation instinct to not say anything. "Thank you, Lena," you say, in the particular tone that means you may leave now and she leaves now, closing the door behind her with the careful movement of someone exiting the enclosure of a large animal.

You read the sentence. Then again.

The rational part of your brain goes first — residual pain can be normal, touring places significant stress on the joint, pain doesn't automatically mean reinjury, there are gradations — and then the rest of you arrives and the rest of you is furious, because you have been asking how his ankle is for three months and he has said fine and better and you worry too much and apparently he has been performing on a joint that still hurts sometimes and said so to a journalist before he said so to you.

You open your messages. Scroll back.

A complaint about pickleball.

A photo of athletic tape that you had assumed was precautionary.

A message saying he was tired after rehearsal. Nothing about pain. Nothing specific.

You close the interview. Open it again. Read the words one more time.

Then you look at the folder on your laptop. International Opportunities. Four emails. Three weeks of not telling him. The entire Olympic cycle sitting in there quietly while you decided what he needed to know.

The hypocrisy lands with the specific force of something you were hoping to avoid.

You close the laptop.

You save the clip.

You pull up his contact and look at it for a long moment.

Brussels is in three days. You have a keynote. He has a concert. You have been planning this weekend for four weeks with the careful coordination of two people who don't get enough time and are going to make the most of this particular window.

You had imagined arriving and surprising him after the ceremony with something — you hadn't decided what, something warm, maybe something embarrassing, you've been getting more comfortable with embarrassing since you started letting yourself feel things in front of him.

Now you're imagining arriving with his own interview loaded on your phone and the extremely mature impulse to hold it up like a prosecutor with a key piece of evidence.

You book the flight. You pack the dress. You pack the research.

You pack the presentation notes and the folder, finally, because it's time, it's past time, and you are going to walk into that conference in Brussels and give the best keynote of your career and then find your boyfriend and have approximately four conversations at once.

By the time the plane lifts over Los Angeles, you are carrying several things across the Atlantic.

One of them is saved in your camera roll. Four words, Namjoon's words, the casual confession of a man who didn't think about the journalist but should have thought about you.

You carry it the whole way to Brussels. Through the ceremony. Through the reception. Through watching him stand in the third row looking at you like you are the most specific thing in the room.

You carry it until you get him alone.

And then you hold up the phone, and his face does the thing, and you understand — standing in that conference room watching him realize what he's walked into — that you have been doing the exact same thing from a different direction.

Him: protecting you from a hurting ankle.

You: protecting him from a possible future.

Both of you deciding alone what the other one could handle.

You're going to have to talk about that.

Both of you are, apparently, still learning.

Brussels is colder at night than you expected.

Not unpleasantly cold, just enough that Namjoon puts his hand at the small of your back when you step out of the conference center, a gesture so automatic you're not sure he knows he's doing it, steering you slightly away from the wind coming off the street.

The conversation from the conference room has settled into something quieter. Not resolved ,you're both too honest with each other now to pretend resolution happens in forty minutes in a borrowed conference room, but breathable.

The kind of quiet that comes after two people have said the true things and agreed to keep saying them. You're still thinking about the Olympics. About calendars. About a hypothetical library neither of you has the address for.

But the thinking has shifted from something sharp to something you can carry without cutting yourself on it, which is progress, which Namjoon would probably have a beautiful way of describing and which you are going to call progress and leave it there.

He starts talking about the city. Not filling silence, genuinely talking, the way he does when something has interested him, leaning into it with both hands.

"There's a place near the Grand-Place," he says. "I went this morning. The waffles are — " he pauses, searching for the right word with the expression he gets when English isn't quite sufficient, "— absurd. In the best way. I was going to take you."

"You didn't know I was coming."

"No," he says, simply. "But I hoped." He says it without self-consciousness, which is something you've noticed about him this tour — he's been less careful about hope, more willing to say it out loud.

You're still learning what to do with that. "There's a park near the Royal Palace too. I read there for a while this afternoon." He glances at you.

"You would have complained about the benches."

"Were they uncomfortable?"

"Extremely."

"Then I would have been correct."

He smiles.

He talks about the bookstore where he found something he absolutely didn't need and bought anyway, about a restaurant with six tables where the waiter corrected his French with such kindness that he couldn't find it in himself to be embarrassed, about the museum he's already decided you're going to tomorrow where there's a painting he has strong feelings about your feelings about.

"I don't have feelings about art," you tell him.

"That has never once stopped you," he says, which is either an insult or the most accurate thing anyone has said about you this week, so you let it go.

That's when you notice the men.

You catch the first one in your peripheral vision. Dark clothes, neutral expression, eyes moving constantly in the specific pattern of someone whose job is to watch everything without looking like they're watching anything. Twenty feet behind you, keeping pace. You glance across the street without turning your head. Another one, mirroring the distance from the opposite side.

Namjoon's security.

They stayed outside the conference center because the building had its own measures, controlled entrances, an attendee list, private security on every floor. On the street, the parameters change.

On the street he is not just your boyfriend walking through Brussels after an award ceremony.

He is RM

Recognizable even under a cap and glasses, and people know it, and some of those people are the kind of people that make two trained professionals necessary on a Tuesday night in Belgium.

You think about the group chat.

The one that had been renamed International Support Group for Women Dating Idiots for eleven minutes before Jin's wife changed it back and added a heart.

You'd been quiet in it at first, observing, the way you always enter a situation you don't have full information on yet. But the stories had accumulated. A girlfriend hiding in the back seat under a blanket because photographers were waiting outside a restaurant. Someone accidentally exiting through a hotel's service entrance and emerging beside industrial containers of kitchen waste.

A security guard maintaining absolute professional neutrality about a lipstick mark that had definitely not been there ten minutes earlier. Those ones were funny, the kind of thing that gets sent at two AM with a string of crying-laughing emojis.

The others weren't funny. S

trangers following cars. Hotel room numbers posted publicly. People photographing family members who had never agreed to be visible. A message from one of the girls describing someone screaming at her from behind a barricade while the member stood close enough to hear every word and couldn't move without making it worse.

You'd read that one and put your phone down and sat with it for a while, because you'd understood it intellectually for two years and feeling it land differently now is its own kind of information.

Namjoon is still talking about the museum.

His voice hasn't changed.

You say nothing about the men behind you, but you feel him register that you've gone slightly quieter, feel the almost imperceptible shift in the weight of his hand at your back. He threads his fingers through yours without interrupting himself. The pressure of it says: I know. I know you've noticed. I know you have opinions. Tell me when you're ready.

You don't say anything. Neither does he.

That's different from pretending it isn't there, which is what you would have done a year ago — filed it under irrelevant complications and moved on.

Now you let yourself hold it, the reality of the men twenty feet behind you, the specific texture of what it costs to love someone the world has already claimed. You hold Namjoon's hand on a street in Brussels and let the city pass around you and decide that later is soon enough for opinions.

Near the Grand-Place, you stop at a street vendor. Namjoon insists on ordering in French with the confidence of a man who has been practicing. The vendor responds in English without missing a beat. You turn away before your expression can betray you.

"I was understandable," Namjoon says, accepting the food with dignity.

"You asked for two things and possibly someone's grandmother," you say.

"The pronunciation was similar," he says.

"It was not," you say, and take a fry from the paper container, and he takes the ones with the most sauce, and you notice this and start selecting specifically those ones and moving them to his side without acknowledging what you're doing. He notices. He doesn't say anything. You keep doing it anyway.

By the time you reach the hotel, your feet have registered a formal complaint.

You're also operating on approximately four hours of sleep and whatever you ate on the plane, which was enough to function but not enough to feel like a person, and your body is beginning to submit the accounting for the day.

The security detail follows you through the lobby. One of them speaks with Namjoon's manager near the elevators, voices low, and you catch enough to understand what's being proposed. Someone staying on the floor. Someone stationed outside the room. Standard protocol, the manager says, given the public nature of the evening.

"No," Namjoon says, without volume but with the particular clarity of someone who has made a decision and is not entertaining a process around it.

The manager lowers his voice further. Namjoon doesn't. "The floor requires key access. There are cameras at both entrance points. She's registered at the hotel." A pause. "I appreciate it. I do. But no."

The manager looks at you.

You look at the elevator buttons, because this is not your negotiation, and also because if you make eye contact with anyone right now you will laugh, and that will not help Namjoon's position. The guard's face stays professionally neutral. The manager's does not quite manage it.

They reach some version of an agreement, Lobby presence, someone in the car outside and you step into the elevator before your expression finishes deciding what it's doing.

The doors close. Namjoon watches the floor numbers. You watch him.

"You sent them away," you say.

"They'll be in the lobby," he says.

"You told them no to the door."

"Yes."

"Why?" H

e turns his head, and his expression is doing the thing where he's being serious and also very much aware that it isn't landing as serious. "I value privacy," he says. "And, love," he adds, after a beat. "the moment that door closes, I have a few things I've been planning to do for the past eight weeks. I don't want other men listening to you while I do them."

You stare at him. He looks innocent. It's a poor performance.

The elevator continues upward and you are absolutely not thinking about Namjoon's security team and the cumulative professional experiences of men tasked with standing outside the hotel rooms of seven extremely attractive twenty-somethings with active personal lives and no particular reason to be quiet about it.

You are not thinking about this. You push the thought firmly away from yourself and look at the ceiling.

Namjoon is watching you with the expression he has when he knows exactly what you're thinking and is choosing not to say so, which is one of the things you actually love about him, that he knows when to let something be funny without making you explain it.

Your room is at the end of the hall. The suite is too clean in the way of expensive hotel rooms, everything placed with the careful impersonality of people whose job is to make a space look lived-in without it actually being lived-in. Your award is on the table where staff put it earlier.

The terrace doors are closed against the night air, and beyond them Brussels glows, golden and old and very far from Los Angeles.

Namjoon closes the door. The lock clicks.

Your phone buzzes on the table. You glance down. Minho.

The message is a photograph of him standing in what appears to be a hospital corridor with both arms curved above his head, constructing a heart shape around his body with the enthusiasm of someone who has decided this was important enough to interrupt a surgical nurse for. His mask is pulled down under his chin. His scrubs are pale blue. The plush bear is on his pocket. Beneath it:

Minho 7:57PM; CONGRATULATIONS DR. FAMOUS. How are the two lovebirds?

You show Namjoon.

His entire face changes, the particular brightness that happens when Minho does something ridiculous, which is often, and which Namjoon finds funnier every time.

"He made someone stop working to take that," you say.

"His arms aren't even symmetrical," Namjoon says.

"He looks ridiculous."

"He loves you," he adds, and means it, and you look at the photograph again and think that Minho did this on purpose, sent something absurd on purpose, because he knows you and knows the shape of days like this one and chose the thing most likely to make you laugh rather than the thing most likely to make you feel.

sent 8:03PM: Thank you. Your heart is anatomically concerning. sent 8:03PM: We're good.

You look at it for a second.

sent 8:03PM: Very good.

Send it before the self-consciousness catches up.

Namjoon sees. You can feel him not saying anything about it, which is its own kind of saying something.

"Don't," you tell him.

"I didn't say anything," he says. "

You're thinking loudly," you say, which makes him smile, which makes something in your chest do the thing it does, which you've stopped trying to manage into something more convenient.

"Yoongi has the room to himself," Namjoon says, with the tone of someone reporting a fact he has mixed feelings about.

"He'll be thrilled," you say. "He is."

A pause. "He's also a hypocrite." You look at him. "His girlfriend was in Spain last week," Namjoon says. "For three days. He sent me a door emoji and I sat in a museum bar for two hours."

"A door emoji," you repeat.

"That was our system," he says, with complete dignity.

"It was extremely effective," you say.

"It was," he agrees, and the look on his face is so specifically the look of a man who has been on the receiving end of his own system and found it significantly less charming from that angle that you start laughing, and once you start you can't stop, and he starts too, and for a moment the room is just that, the two of you, the Brussels night outside the terrace, the absurdity of door emojis and security teams and a man who drove from Stanford to Los Angeles and a woman who flew from Los Angeles to Brussels and both of them landing here, finally, with no alarm set for anything.

The laughter settles. Not into silence, into something warmer than silence, something that has the texture of being exactly where you're supposed to be.

You become aware of the room. The distance across it.

The terrace beyond the glass, the city below it, the fact that tomorrow is tomorrow and tonight is still tonight and nobody is going to knock on that door.

Tomorrow there's the medical appointment, which he has not escaped and is not going to escape.

Then the museum, the one with the painting he's already decided you have opinions about. Then soundcheck.

Then the concert, which you are apparently attending, which means you're going to stand somewhere and watch sixty thousand people give him the kind of applause that belongs to RM and feel, probably, the specific complicated feeling of loving someone who also belongs to all of them. You've been thinking about how to hold that. You're still working on it.

But that's tomorrow. Tomorrow isn't in the room yet.

Namjoon is across the room, jacket slightly wrinkled, glasses catching the light from the city outside, and he's looking at you the way he looks at things he wants to understand completely. Like understanding you is a project he's taken on willingly and finds genuinely interesting, which is something you used to find unnerving and have slowly, reluctantly, started to find the most disarming thing about him.

You cross the room.

He stays still, lets you come to him, which he's learned is better than meeting you halfway when you're deciding something.

You reach up and take his glasses off, fold them, set them on the table beside you.

He blinks, the slight adjustment of someone whose vision has just changed, and you look at his face without them, softer somehow, more the version of him that exists in hotel rooms and 3AM calls and parking structures in Los Angeles.

"Tomorrow," you say.

"Tomorrow," he agrees.

"Tonight you stop talking."

His mouth curves at one corner. "That seems unlikely," he says, and you kiss him before he can prove it.

And for one suspended second he goes completely still.

Hands at his sides, breath caught, the specific stillness of someone who has been holding something very carefully for a very long time and has just been given permission to put it down.

Then his hands find your waist and the restraint he has been managing for six weeks gives way all at once beneath his palms, he kisses you like he's been thinking about exactly this, because he has been, because you both know it.

The kiss begins carefully because there is still something tender between you, the apology in the conference room, the promises, the terrifying agreement to stop leaving each other outside the difficult parts.

His mouth moves against yours slowly, like he has all the time that Los Angeles denied him and doesn't quite trust it yet. You feel the question in the way he touches you, not whether you want him but whether he's allowed to believe you're really here.

You slide your hands beneath his blazer and around his back by way of answer, and Namjoon exhales against your lips with the sound of a man who has been underwater for six weeks and has just broken the surface.

"I missed you," he says.

"I know."

"No, love. You don't." He kisses you again before you can argue, deeper this time, his hands tightening at your waist until there's no space left between the front of his dress shirt and the fitted blue fabric of your dress.

His mouth moves to your jaw, your neck, unhurried in a way that makes it very clear he has no intention of rushing anything. "I missed you in Tampa," he says against your throat, and then his lips find your pulse point and stay there. "El Paso. Mexico. Every fucking hotel room, every museum, every time I saw something beautiful and had nobody to disagree with me about it."

"I don't disagree with everything," you say, and your voice is already doing something embarrassing, so you focus on the fact that you have a point to make. "I'm a reasonable person."

He lifts his head just enough to look at you with genuine offense written across his face, blazer slightly rumpled, hair already suffering from your hands. "You told me Monet was repetitive."

"He painted the same pond two hundred and fifty times."

"He was studying light," Namjoon says.

"He was avoiding the challenge of new subject matter. That is not studying light. That is commitment issues applied to a lily pond." His expression becomes so specifically wounded on behalf of a nineteenth-century French painter that you feel the laugh rising before you can stop it.

"This," he says, watching your face, "is what I missed. Exactly this." He cups your jaw in both hands and looks at you like you are the most specific thing he has ever seen. "You."

The word takes whatever argument you had left and quietly dissolves it. His thumb traces your cheekbone and his eyes are too full, love and relief and six weeks of want sharpened to a point by screens and short calls and messages sent in opposite time zones.

He kisses you again and this time there is nothing careful about it. Six weeks of restraint giving way all at once, thorough and unhurried, like a man who has been keeping a very specific promise to himself and has just been released from it.

Your lower back meets the edge of the table. Namjoon braces one hand beside you, catching his weight, and you hear the base of the award shift against the surface. You break the kiss.

"My award," you say. He stares at you.

"I almost knocked it over," he says.

"You did knock it over."

"It's still upright."

"Barely."

"I drove across California for you," he says, with the tone of a man presenting this as relevant legal precedent.

"That does not make you less clumsy," you say.

"I am trying," he says, very deliberately, eyes hooded and voice dangerously low, "to seduce you."

"You are endangering medical recognition," you say, and he looks at you for one long second before reaching around you, picking up the award with exaggerated care, and moving it to the far end of the table like he is relocating a crime scene. He turns back.

"There. Gone. Can I continue?" You take his face in your hands and pull him back to you, and the sound he makes against your mouth is low and immediate and goes straight through you.

His hands move over your sides, following the shape of the blue dress with his palms, and you become very aware that he has been looking at this dress all day with a specific quality of attention that was professional in the conference hall and is absolutely not professional now.

"I hate this dress," he says against your mouth. "

You've been looking at it since seven this morning," you say.

"Exactly," he says. "It has been between me and you for fourteen hours and I have had very complicated feelings about it for all fourteen of them." His lips find your neck and you feel his smile against your skin when your fingers tighten reflexively in his hair. "I imagined taking it off," he says, quietly, close to your ear. "For weeks, love. Not just this dress — I have imagined several dresses. I have imagined no dress. I have been spectacularly unreasonable about this and I would like you to know that I regret nothing."

"That is medically concerning," you tell him, because you need to say something that isn't the thing you actually want to say, which is me too, I have been equally unreasonable, I learned the names of your Pokémon as an act of love and I am not above admitting that anymore.

"You know what's concerning?" He lifts his head, and his eyes are dark and very focused. "That screenshot went to the group chat."

You go still.

"What screenshot?"

"The one I sent you by accident," he says, with the careful tone of someone who has decided honesty is worth the consequence. "Of you near the dugout. Two weeks ago."

You search your memory. "You sent me one. With the caption." "

That was intentional," he says, and his expression does something complicated. "The one I sent to the group chat was not."

You stare at him. "What did it say?"

Namjoon's jaw moves. "Look at her," he says quietly, and the fact that he says it the same way now as he apparently typed it in the middle of a baseball broadcast makes something in your chest do a full structural renovation.

"To the entire group chat," you say.

"Jungkook sent six heart emojis," he says. "Taehyung said your sunglasses suited you. Jimin asked if you knew I was stalking you." He looks like he would genuinely like to be somewhere else. "Yoongi said I was pathetic," he adds. "With what I can only describe as fondness."

You try very hard not to laugh. You fail completely.

Namjoon's forehead drops to your shoulder accepting his fate, and you can feel him laughing too, shoulders shaking against yours, and for a moment the suite is just that, the two of you and the Brussels night and the completely absurd reality of being loved by someone who sends accidental declarations to group chats and drives across California on an injured ankle and stands in the back row of medical conferences and looks at you like you are the only thing in the room worth looking at.

"I love you," he says, when the laughter settles.

Not transitionally, with his full attention, the way he always says it, as though the words deserve their weight every single time. "I missed you so much it made me genuinely fucking unreasonable, and I know that's not news, but I need you to understand the specific scale of it." His hands frame your face. "I missed you like a structural problem, love. Like something load-bearing was gone."

"You joined a bowling league," you say. "And a pickleball circuit. With standings."

"Because I missed you," he says, completely seriously.

"You are blaming sporting activities on me."

"I'm explaining causality." He kisses the corner of your mouth. "I missed you," he says again, against your lips. "Tell me you missed me. I need to hear it."

"You know I did."

"I know a lot of things. Tell me anyway."

You look at him.

At the dress shirt slightly untucked now on one side, at the blazer he's still wearing because neither of you has gotten that far yet, at his hair doing the thing it does when you've had your hands in it, at the man who is the most emotionally literate person you have ever met and somehow makes that feel like a gift rather than a demand.

"I ran," you say, before you can reconsider.

He goes completely still. "What?"

"Through the stadium. When you texted me." You watch his face. "I was already moving before I typed back."

"You told me absolutely the fuck not."

"I was running when I typed it."

Namjoon's expression does something you don't have a name for — something that happens below the surface, a rearrangement of something important. "You ran to me," he says.

"I was walking quickly."

"You said running."

"I may have been running," you concede, and he takes both your hands and holds them and looks at you with something so open and unguarded that you have to resist the impulse to look away, which is the old response, the one that belonged to a version of you that needed the exit more than the moment.

You don't need the exit.

"Some of my staff thought there was a medical emergency," you tell him, and he makes a sound that might be a laugh and might be something else, and then his arms are around you and his face is in your hair and his grip is the grip of someone who needed this more than he said.

"You have no idea what that does to me," he says, quietly. "You actually do not know."

"I have a working theory," you say, against his chest.

"No."

He pulls back and kisses you, and whatever restraint remained between you from the conference room dissolves entirely. He is not gentle exactly. But he is careful, which is different, careful the way someone is careful with something they know the exact value of.

His hands move over the fitted blue fabric and he makes a sound in the back of his throat that communicates very clearly what six weeks of looking at you through screens and photographs and three-second broadcast angles has done to him.

"I have been thinking about this dress," he says against your mouth, "since I saw you put it on this morning and then walk onto that stage. Since before that. I have been thinking about you in this dress and out of this dress and I have been in the third row of a medical conference being a completely normal and professional person about it." "You were not normal," you tell him. "I was extraordinary," he says. "I deserve a commendation."

You reach up and push his blazer off his shoulders. It falls somewhere behind him and he doesn't watch it go, he's watching you, which is something you've had to learn to tolerate, being looked at that directly, being found interesting enough to look at.

You're still learning.

You're better at it than you were.

His dress shirt has one button undone at the collar and you fix that, and the next one, and his hands slide to your hips and grip there while you work, patient in the way he is patient when he has decided where this is going and doesn't need to rush it.

"You're beautiful," he says, when your hands slow.

"That's your objective assessment?"

"My objective assessment," he says, "involves significantly more profanity and would embarrass both of us." He says it so seriously that you laugh, and he catches the laugh with his mouth.

"Turn around, love," he says, so quietly it is almost a growl, and you do, and you feel him exhale when he finds the fastening at the back of the dress. A slow breath, controlled, the kind that costs something. His fingers are careful and deliberate and when the fabric loosens he pauses for a moment, hands at your waist, not moving yet.

"I've thought about this, love. So much." he says, against the back of your neck. "Every night. What you'd feel like. What you'd sound like." The dress falls. He turns you around, and the way he looks at you makes your skin warm before he's touched anything.

"Fucking finally," he says, soft and reverent, and you would find it funny except for the way his eyes move over you and you understand completely that he means it.

"Shower," you say. He blinks. "We've both been traveling," you say. "And you've been wandering the city all day." He stares at you. "Together," you add, and the smile that breaks across his face is so immediate and genuine and slightly ridiculous that you point at him. "You look unhinged."

"You just offered me everything I want in life." he says.

"I offered you hot water and soap."

"And your company," he says. "And nudity, especially that."

"You are extremely easy to impress for someone who has performed at Wembley."

"That was nothing," he says, and takes your hand, and the absolute sincerity with which he says it does something to your ability to maintain a straight face.

The shower runs hot.

Steam fills the bathroom quickly, and Namjoon's dress shirt comes off somewhere in the process, and the careful quality of him gives way to something more direct that makes your breath catch.

He touches you like someone relearning what he already knows perfectly, not tentative, just thorough, like he has been compiling a list and intends to address every item.

There is something about Namjoon washing your hair that you were not prepared for.

His hands are gentle in a way that the rest of him hasn't been, working the shampoo through from root to end with the attention he gives everything; unhurried, deliberate, like this is something worth doing correctly. You feel the warmth of his chest against your back, all the hard lines of him against all your softs, and the contrast of it does something to your ability to think in complete sentences.

His thumbs press circles at your temples and you close your eyes and let him, which is its own kind of surrender. Not the loud kind, just the quiet willingness to be taken care of by someone who wants to.

Then his hands move lower, and the care becomes something else entirely.

He learns you the way he learns everything: thoroughly. With his mouth at the back of your neck and his large hands moving over your skin like he is memorizing the geography of you. When he cups your breasts the sound that leaves your mouth is obscene and immediate and you feel him go very still behind you for one charged second before he does it again, deliberately, his fingers pressing into the soft weight of your nipples while the water runs over both of you and the steam makes the whole world smaller.

"There you are, baby." he says, low against your ear, and the sound of his voice — wrecked, specific — does as much to you as his hands.

"Namjoon," you say, which means several things at once.

"I know," he says, which means he knows all of them.

He says your name against your wet hair.

He presses his hand against your center, and the sound you make bounces off the cold glass of the shower he's got you pressed to and the steam and comes back to you like evidence, and you realize two things simultaneously.

The first is that your knees have become unreliable.

The second is that he is taking his time. Not to draw it out, not to prove anything, not because the conversation in the conference room left something unfinished between you. He is taking his time because he has been counting.

Six weeks of voice notes and three-second broadcast angles and screenshots sent to group chats by accident, six weeks of knowing exactly what time it is in Los Angeles and what that means about whether you're sleeping, six weeks of carrying the specific, located weight of missing one person in a world full of places you couldn't bring her.

He is taking his time because he has been storing every version of this moment since Stanford, since the parking garage, since the last time he had you and had to leave, and now there is no alarm, no flight, nobody waiting, and he intends to spend every minute of what he's been owed.

His hand moves, his fingers enter you in one swift motion and your breath fractures and he presses his mouth to your shoulder and you understand that this — all of this, the slowness of it, the attention of it — is him saying something he's already said three times tonight in as many languages as he has.

I'm here. You're here. I'm not leaving yet.

And then you understand that he is not taking his time at all.

He has simply been deciding where to aim.

His fingers move with a relentlessness that whites out every coherent thought you had sixty seconds ago. One, then two, then four all at once curling with a precision that makes your vision swim, and his other arm bands around your waist because your knees have submitted their formal resignation and he catches you like he expected it, like he planned for it, which he probably did because he plans everything.

You are grateful — viscerally, specifically grateful — that he sent the security detail to the lobby, because the sound that leaves your body when he finds the exact spot he was looking for is not something you could ever recover from professionally, and you would not be able to look that man in the face for the remainder of the tour.

The cold glass of the shower presses against your cheek and your chest and you feel it everywhere — the sharp contrast of it against the hot steam, the water running in rivulets down both your bodies, Namjoon's chest solid against your back with every muscle drawn tight with the effort of holding you upright and doing what he's doing simultaneously.

His forearm flexes against your stomach. You feel the vibration of his chest when he says "mine" against the back of your neck, low and certain, and the tiny hairs on his arm rise when you say "yours" back, and you feel that too, feel the effect of your own voice on his body like a feedback loop that has no interest in stopping.

His fingers don't stop. His thumb is now drawing circles on your clit, and you don't understand why or how.

Your release moves through you in waves that start somewhere deep and radiate outward until your whole body is involved in it, until you are aware of nothing except his arm the only thing keeping you vertical and his voice somewhere close and warm saying "that's it, love, you're doing so good, let go for me, please, just let go —"

Your mind goes quiet.

Not blank exactly, just finally, mercifully still, the constant low-frequency noise of calendars and folders and six weeks of logistics going silent all at once, replaced by nothing but the water and the steam and the proof of what just happened running warm down the inside of your thigh.

When your vision resolves, you are facing him.

You don't know when that happened.

Namjoon is looking at you with an expression that can only be described as triumphant, water-dark hair pushed back from his forehead, chest still moving with slightly uneven breath, and he brings his fingers to his mouth with the unhurried confidence of a man who has just won something significant and knows it.

His eyes hold yours the entire time. The sound you make is not a word.

He smiles. "You haven't done that in a while," he says, and there is a warmth underneath the smugness that makes it almost forgivable, almost, except that his eyes are still doing the thing. "Then again," he adds, "I haven't properly fucked you in six weeks." He says properly the way poets say precisely — like it's doing specific work, like it means everything the sentence isn't saying.

You stare at him while your nervous system finishes filing its paperwork.

What, you think.

And then: oh.

And then the full inventory of what just happened arrives in sequence and you look at his face — at the wet eyelashes and the satisfied mouth and the shine in his eyes that he is making absolutely no effort to conceal — and realize that Kim Namjoon, who reads medical journals for love and sends accidental declarations to group chats and drove across California for twenty-three minutes, has also apparently been keeping very detailed notes on exactly how to undo you completely.

And then made you squirt. For the first time in a long time if you'd had to admit it yourself.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

He has always known exactly what he was doing.

You have simply been too busy being practical about it to notice.

And who are you but a grateful girlfriend?

You look at him. At the water running down his chest, at the expression on his face that is still doing the triumphant thing — and decide that Kim Namjoon, who held your award and your hand and your face in a locked conference room and asked for nothing except honesty, who has spent the last however many minutes making absolutely certain you were taken care of first, deserves something in return.

You'll give him hell tomorrow at the medical center.

You'll review every missed physical therapy exercise with the thoroughness of someone who has feelings about it. Tonight, you push him back against the shower bench and watch his expression shift from smug to something considerably more interesting.

If there is one thing the entire internet has correctly identified about Kim Namjoon — culled from interviews, lyrics, the specific way certain songs are structured, the recurring thematic content of his more personal work — it is this.

He is a man who has strong feelings about this exact arrangement. You on top of him.

He has written about it. Several times. With what his fans describe as vivid specificity and what you now understand to be journalism. You think about this while you move over him and feel the particular satisfaction of being right about something.

You both laugh when you attempt to arrange two adults on a shower bench that was designed for one average-sized person and is discovering, rapidly, that neither of you qualifies.

His elbow meets the tile. Your knee finds an edge. He says something that dissolves into laughter before it becomes a sentence, and you're laughing too, forehead dropping to his shoulder, and it is the best possible thing — the humor of it, the gracelessness of it, the fact that six weeks of longing has landed in a shower bench situation that requires logistical problem-solving before it can become anything else.

Then you shift your weight and sink down into him and his laugh dies completely in his chest, cut off mid-breath, replaced by something that isn't a word in any language he speaks.

His hands go immediately to your hips.

Not guiding, gripping, the way he grips things he is afraid of losing, and you feel his fingers press into your skin with a certainty that has nothing to do with controlling the situation and everything to do with needing something to hold onto.

What the songs don't say — what nobody knows except you, what exists only in hotel rooms and shower benches in Brussels and one very eventful VIP parking structure — is what Kim Namjoon sounds like when the poet runs out of language.

When you roll your hips into him his breath fractures at the hinge and the sound that replaces it is involuntary and unguarded and goes through you like a frequency, and you do it again because you are a scientist and the data is compelling.

His head falls back against the tile. His chest rises and falls with the effortful rhythm of a man who has forgotten how sentences work, and you press your nails lightly into the flesh of his shoulders and watch his jaw tighten and think: there you are.

Kim Namjoon, who has built an entire career on his capacity to articulate the interior of the human experience, reduced to the sound of your name broken in half.

He tries, occasionally.

Small attempts at words that dissolve before they become anything.

Your name, mostly. Love, sometimes, soft and wrecked and repeated. Fuck, when you change the angle, like a man for whom profanity is a last resort and you have just exhausted all his other options. His hands move from your hips to your ass and back to your hips because he cannot decide what he needs to hold and keeps changing his mind, and you think that this — this specifically, this version of him that exists only here — is the one nobody else gets.

Not the concert. Not the interviews. Not the seventy thousand people who know every word he has ever chosen to make public. This is the one that belongs only to you, and you have made peace with the fact that you are possessive about it in a way that would have frightened you a year ago and now just feels accurate.

You feel it building in him before he says anything, feel it in the way his grip tightens and his breath loses its rhythm entirely, and you move with him through it and feel yourself follow, and when it happens his voice comes back all at once "God, I love you" broken against your temple, and then again, I love you, and then your name, and then I love you again, the combination cycling through him like something that has been held under pressure for six weeks and has finally found its way out.

He says it against your hair and your cheek and the corner of your mouth and into the steam of the shower that is probably running cold by now and that neither of you has any attention left to give. I love you, I love you — not performed, not constructed, just the truest available sentence repeated until it accounts for everything he cannot otherwise say.

You hold him through it and feel him come down slowly, his forehead dropping to your shoulder, his breath evening out in increments, his hands finally going still at your waist like they have found what they were looking for and have decided to stay.

The water is definitely cold.

Neither of you moves.

"The water," you say, eventually.

"I know," he says, into your shoulder. He doesn't move. You don't either. His arms stay around you and You reach past him and turn it off.

The sudden quiet of the shower stopping makes the room feel different — closer, warmer, just the two of you and the steam and the sound of Brussels doing its quiet thing beyond the terrace door.

Namjoon lifts his head. His eyes are soft and slightly unfocused and he looks, you think, like a man who has just had several very significant experiences in rapid succession and is still conducting the internal audit.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi," you say.

He smiles, slow and real, and you think about the award on the table and the appointment at eight-thirty and the concert tomorrow and all the logistics waiting patiently on the other side of tonight, and you think that you are going to give him absolute hell about his ankle in approximately ten hours, and right now you are going to let him look at you like that for as long as he wants.

He says I love you again when you're tangled together on the bed in the quiet suite with Brussels glowing through the slightly open terrace door.

He says it the way he always says it — with his full attention and no apology, leaving no room to redirect or deflect. You've stopped trying to deflect.

That's new. That's his doing.

"I love you," he says, and his hand is in your hair and his eyes are very dark and very steady. "Say it back, love. Please." "

You're demanding," you tell him.

"I've been patient," he says. "Six weeks of patient. I've been so fucking patient, love, you have no idea."

"You drove across California without warning," you say.

"That was the patience," he says, and you look at him and understand that he means it — that for him, that drive was restraint, that the impulse had been there much earlier and the parking lot was the compromise version.

"I love you," you tell him.

His breath comes out slowly. "More," he says, which should be entitled and isn't, because he's not asking you to perform — he's asking you to stay present, to not pull back from it, to give him the real version rather than the careful version.

"I'm yours," you say, and feel him go still under your hands. The words come from somewhere you stopped guarding, and now that they're out they're just true. "I'm yours, Namjoon. I made peace with that."

Something happens to his face — not one expression but a sequence of them, moving through him too fast to catch individually, and then he's kissing you with a roughness that surprises you and doesn't, his hands gripping like you've just said the only thing that has ever mattered to him.

Maybe you have.

You feel the way it lands in his body, the surrender of it, the specific way a person comes undone when they hear the thing they'd stopped letting themselves hope for. He doesn't stop kissing you long enough to say anything, which means it's bad, which means it's good, which means you've broken something open in him that you intend to stay for.

Later — much later, the suite rearranged by everything that's happened, a pillow on the floor and his blazer somewhere across the room and his glasses still missing — you are lying with Namjoon's head against your chest and your hand moving slowly through his hair, and Brussels has its yellow glow outside the terrace door.

His arm is heavy across your waist. The award is still upright on the table, which feels like an achievement worth noting. "What time is the appointment," he says, into your skin.

"Eight-thirty," you say. He makes the sound of a man receiving genuinely terrible news. "You agreed," you say.

"I agreed before you tried to kill me with your good intentions," he says.

"You seem alive," you tell him. "Medically debatable," he says, and tilts his head up to look at you with the expression of someone attempting pathos. "You have a concert tomorrow," you say. "You need the imaging."

"I need seven more hours of this," he says.

"Those aren't mutually exclusive," you say.

"One of them ends at eight-thirty," he says.

He shifts to rest his chin on your chest and looks at you, and his face in this light, peaceful, finally, is one of the things you've been carrying across the Atlantic without knowing how to describe it. "Are you happy?" he asks.

Not was that good, not do you love me. Happy. You think about the folder on your laptop.

The two cities. The calendar that doesn't add up yet.

The library that doesn't have an address.

His next year already spoken for. Yours expanding in directions you can't fully see. All of it still true, still unresolved, still slightly terrifying. And his weight against you, and no alarm, and all the time until eight-thirty, and the way he just asked the question like the answer genuinely matters to him, like your happiness is something he keeps track of.

"Yes," you say because it is true.

He closes his eyes. "Me too," he says, and presses a kiss to your sternum and doesn't move again for a long time.

You stay awake after his breathing slows, looking at the ceiling. You think about the library.

You think about I made peace with that and the way it wrecked him, and you think that you have spent a very long time believing that being someone's was the same as disappearing, and you think that it isn't, that you are still entirely yourself in every room you walk into, and that choosing him is just the thing you do with the part of yourself that has room for it.

He is warm and heavy and his hair is doing seventeen things and tomorrow is going to involve medical imaging and a museum and a concert and approximately one thousand logistics, and you have no idea what the year after that looks like. You pull him a little closer anyway.

You let that be enough.

The morning begins with Namjoon attempting to negotiate with medicine, which goes exactly as well as you would expect for a man whose primary qualification is poetry.

"You said eight-thirty," he says, facedown against the pillow, voice muffled by Egyptian cotton he is absolutely not going to appreciate once he's vertical.

You are already dressed, caffeinated, and standing beside the bed in another dress which is the only thing you packed for today, a fact that seemed reasonable in Los Angeles and feels slightly less reasonable now, given the way he looked at it for fourteen hours yesterday.

"It is seven-twelve," he continues, with the specific energy of someone presenting evidence at their own trial. "The center is twenty minutes away."

"Then you have six minutes to find your pants."

He turns his face enough to look at you with one eye, hair making commitments in at least four different directions, a mark near his collarbone that you are not going to acknowledge because acknowledging it means acknowledging the chain of decisions that led to it.

He looks, objectively, like a man who has not slept enough, and also like someone you are going to have a very difficult time being stern with, and you have made peace with both of these things. "You kept me awake," he says.

"You participated," you say. "Enthusiastically," you add, when he opens his mouth. He closes it.

You pull the blanket off in one clean movement. The sound he makes is genuine betrayal, the exact sound of a man who has survived world tours and military service and is now being undone by thread count.

"I'm injured," he says, sitting up with the wounded dignity of someone who used that ankle very deliberately last night and has chosen not to reflect on the hypocrisy.

"You are being evaluated for an injury," you say.

"Those are not the same thing," he says.

"No," you agree. "One of them requires pants."

He is dressed in five minutes. His flannel shirt is buttoned incorrectly — second button in the third hole, the collar pulling slightly to the left — and you look at it for a moment and decide this is not your department.

His his glasses are on, his hair has been run through with his hands in a way that has solved approximately thirty percent of the situation. He looks like himself, which is to say he looks like someone who could walk into a museum or a stadium or a medical center and command the room in any of them, and is currently doing none of those things because he is locating his second shoe.

The medical center receives you with the careful energy of an institution that was told Dr. Van Acker's award-winning colleague was coming and has since been informed that Dr. Van Acker's colleague arrived with RM of BTS, which has required some internal recalibration.

The physician is professional and thorough and makes excellent eye contact with you and slightly less excellent eye contact with Namjoon, which you respect.

You switch to French almost immediately.

Namjoon watches you from the examination chair like has now discovered, in a medical context, that you have been holding back an entire language, and finds this specifically unfair. His manager straightens when he realizes the conversation has moved into territory he cannot monitor, then un-straightens when he realizes from your tone that monitoring it would not help him.

"You're making me sound reckless," Namjoon says, to your profile. You continue in French. The physician glances at him with the specific expression of someone who has just received comprehensive context and has updated their assessment accordingly. "

She is making me sound reckless," Namjoon tells the room. Nobody responds. The physical therapist finds something on the wall very interesting.

The imaging shows no new fracture, no structural damage — inflammation from overuse and what the physician calls, with diplomatic restraint, inconsistent rehabilitation engagement.

You are relieved in the private, internal way of someone who was more worried than you said. This does not improve your expression.

Namjoon, his manager, and the physical therapist arrange themselves in front of you in a configuration that is technically coincidental and atmospherically a disciplinary hearing, and you look at all three of them and think about the interview clip saved in your camera roll and feel very settled about what happens next.

"You will complete every session," you say, and watch all three of them nod with the synchronized energy of people who have made a unanimous decision about their survival. "And every assigned exercise between them." More nodding. "You will send proof." The physical therapist blinks. "Video," you clarify.

Namjoon looks at the ceiling with the expression of a man composing himself. "Is that medically necessary?" he asks.

"It is necessary because you told an international publication about your ankle before you told me," you say, "which suggests that accountability requires an audience, so I am providing one." His manager opens his mouth. You look at him. He closes it.

"If any member of this team permits a performance against medical advice," you continue, in the pleasant tone you use when you mean every word precisely, "I will be discussing negligent endangerment with the attorneys currently employed by both the Dodgers and my father, who is a cardiothoracic surgeon with thirty years of expert testimony and a personal grudge against people who ignore rehabilitation protocols." The room goes very quiet.

Namjoon nearly inhales his own tongue and makes a sound that might be your name and might be a small prayer.

"Too much?" you ask him. He looks at you with an expression that is approximately forty percent horror and sixty percent something else entirely.

"A little," he says.

"Did it work?" you ask. Every member of his team nods.

Namjoon looks around at them. "Traitors," he says, with feeling.

Outside, he descends the three stairs to the street with the biomechanical precision of a man who is suddenly very aware of being watched by someone who went to medical school. Every step is considered. Deliberate. Correct. You watch his gait and say nothing, which is its own kind of comment, and he knows it.

"You threatened my company with litigation before nine in the morning," he says, falling into step beside you, his blazer slightly rumpled at the shoulder where you were holding it at midnight.

"I clarified their legal obligations," you say.

"You used the phrase negligent endangerment," he says.

"I used it accurately," you say. He mutters something about poets being systematically persecuted by the medical establishment and you decide not to dignify it, which he also knows is its own kind of comment.

The museum is his reward. You don't tell him this because he would become insufferable about it, so instead you simply don't object when he leads you through the entrance with the focused delight of a man who has been saving this for you.

Namjoon moves differently in museums — slower, lighter, like he has decided that each piece deserves whatever time it came to say. He's changed out of the dress shirt into something softer, a dark sweater, his glasses catching the gallery light, and he looks comfortable in a way he doesn't always look, the public version of him set down at the door. He shows you the Magritte — the one he mentioned in the museum yesterday, before everything — and then stands beside you with his hands in his pockets, waiting, and you feel his attention more clearly than the painting.

"It looks like the moment before you realize you misunderstood something," you say. He goes quiet in the specific way he goes quiet when something has landed correctly. "What?" you ask.

"That's better than what I had," he says.

"What did you have?"

"Something significantly more pretentious involving the nature of perceived reality."

"That narrows it down very little." He laughs, warm and low, and kisses your temple in the casual way of someone who has stopped remembering to check whether he's allowed to, and you let him, which is also something new, the not-checking.

In the museum shop he buys you a ceramic heart, and shows it to you with the energy of a man presenting a masterpiece. You look at it. It is anatomically accurate in a way that suggests the artist either worked with a cardiologist or has a very specific personal situation. The left ventricle is slightly enlarged, which is correct. The major vessels branch with unsettling precision, which is also correct.

"The artist consulted a cardiologist," Namjoon says, and you think: of course he did. "I thought it could go in your office," he says.

"You want professional athletes to encounter a ceramic heart on my desk," you say.

"It communicates warmth," he says.

"It communicates a fixation," you say, turning it carefully in your hands, feeling the weight of it, thinking about the fact that he found this in Brussels and wrapped it in six layers of clothing in his suitcase and carried it across three countries to give to you in a museum gift shop. "I love it," you say. He studies your face. "A little," you add. He smiles, and you put it in your own bag yourself, carefully, the way you put things you intend to keep.

Backstage is controlled chaos with better music.

The corridors move with the specific momentum of a concert day — dancers stretching against walls, stylists navigating garment bags through cable carts, radios cracking updates in three languages, someone running with athletic tape in quantities that suggest either a medical emergency or architectural ambitions.

Jungkook finds you before you've fully oriented, and the hug he gives you is brief and genuine and he smells like stage prep and energy drink, and then he pulls back and looks at Namjoon with the expression of a younger brother conducting a welfare assessment. "He's cleared," you say.

"But?" he says, because he does know you.

"But I'm watching," you say.

Jungkook nods with the gravity of someone accepting a field assignment. "Me too," he says. Namjoon looks between the two of you with the expression of a man realizing the oversight situation has expanded beyond his original projections.

Yoongi is on the sofa with his phone, which he holds up without preamble to reveal a message from the physical therapist with a video attachment.

In the video, Namjoon performs one of his prescribed exercises while looking directly into the camera with the expression of a man who has been asked to perform for his captors. "First proof of life," Yoongi says, in the tone of someone who is enjoying this at a cellular level.

Hoseok takes the phone and watches it twice and laughs the second time harder than the first. Taehyung leans over his shoulder. "Why do you look like a hostage?" he asks.

"I was," Namjoon says.

"You were doing lateral band walks," Taehyung says.

"Under threat of litigation," Namjoon says.

Jin arrives mid-explanation, listens to the part about negligent endangerment with the focused attention of a man filing information for future use, and then looks at you with the specific expression of someone whose opinion of a person has just improved significantly. "You threatened management," he says.

"I clarified their obligations," you say.

"With legal terminology," he says. "With accurate legal terminology," you say. He nods once, the nod of a man who has spent fifteen years managing the relationship between art and institution and has strong feelings about accountability.

"My wife," he says, "is going to love you."

"She already does," Namjoon says, from across the room, with the proprietary satisfaction of a man who considers this a personal achievement.

That's when you notice her.

A group of dancers moves past the open door and the woman at the front has a headset around her neck and a tablet in one hand and is giving corrections with the focused calm of someone who knows exactly what she wants and has no particular interest in repeating herself.

You recognize the authority before you recognize the face from a profile picture in certain group chat you are a part of — the way the room reorganizes itself around her, the way the dancers adjust without question, the way she demonstrates a sequence once, only once, and it's enough.

You understand, watching her, several things at once.

Jimin is three feet to your left, very interested in something on his phone that is not his phone. His jaw is set in the careful way of someone managing their expression, and he is not looking at the screen at all — he is watching her through his peripheral vision with the intensity of a man who has been doing this for a long time and has gotten good at hiding it from everyone except, apparently, orthopedic surgeons who pay attention to things.

"I understand why you're in love with her," you say quietly.

He turns so fast the phone nearly goes with him. His face moves through denial, calculation, and something closer to being caught, in rapid sequence. You raise one eyebrow. He opens his mouth. Closes it.

Looks back toward the rehearsal floor, and the careful expression softens into something that isn't performed at all — just a man looking at someone he loves with the knowledge that he has been seen and has decided, for once, not to argue with it.

"You didn't hear it from me," you say.

"I didn't say anything," he says, and the smile that follows is the real one, slow and undisguised. "Namjoon says you think loudly too," he says.

"Namjoon is wrong," you say.

"He says that too," Jimin says, and turns back toward the rehearsal floor with the settled look of a man who has been given something he wasn't ready to reach for himself.

The concert is something you are not entirely prepared for, which you accept as fair because nothing about Namjoon fully prepares you for RM. You have seen him perform before.

You understand, conceptually, what it means for sixty thousand people to want to be in a room with one person. But knowing the man who misplaces his passport while holding it and learning the names of his favorite Pokémon as an act of love and woke you at three AM to read medical terminology aloud — and then watching him walk onto a stage and become enormous, watching the crowd answer him before he's finished the sentence, watching him carry that much collective feeling without being crushed by it — these are two experiences that do not resolve into one neat understanding.

You watch with two sets of eyes and can't stop either of them.

The girlfriend one notices the way he smiles at his members between songs like the whole thing still belongs to the seven of them before anyone else. The surgeon one monitors his gait, his weight distribution, the angle of his foot on every landing, and tenses every time the choreography accelerates.

Jungkook appears at your shoulder during a transition and gives you a discreet thumbs-up. You don't return it, because this is not a game. He nods like he expected that and disappears back into the wings.

Halfway through, Namjoon finds you at the side of the stage. You know the exact moment — his gaze sweeps the wings and stops, and his expression changes in the specific way it changes when it stops being RM's expression and becomes his, the one that belongs to the parking garage and the conference room and your chest at midnight.

He looks at you for one deliberate second, and then, with full eye contact and complete awareness of what he is doing, shifts his weight onto the injured ankle. Your eyes narrow. His shoulders shake.

You point two fingers at your eyes and then at him, and he grins with the unrepentant energy of a man who drove across California for twenty-three minutes and considers getting away with things a primary love language.

The sixty thousand people in the stadium interpret his reaction as belonging to them, which is technically true and mostly not.

What matters is that you watch him move back toward center stage and see the adjustment — the slight shift in how he carries the weight, the restraint in the landing, the listening.

Not fixed. Not performing wellness. Actually listening, the way he listened in the conference room when you said that wasn't your decision to make, and changed.

The warmth that moves through you is not about controlling him. It's about being heard, which is the thing you spent years deciding you didn't need and have spent this year learning you do.

He looks for you one more time near the end, during the last song, when the stadium lights have gone soft and sixty thousand people are singing something he wrote in a hotel room at three in the morning in some city he may not remember, and you don't look away. You watch him stand in all of it — tired and present and still healing and entirely himself — and feel the uncomplicated truth of it settle somewhere you've stopped trying to protect.

His ankle holds. So does he. So, apparently, do you.

You gave him the book about medical miracles a month ago.

You found it between two journals in a medical library and read the first chapter standing up because you didn't have time to sit, then took it home and read the rest in one night because you did.

It's about cases that shouldn't have resolved the way they did — fractures that healed beyond what imaging suggested possible, recoveries that outpaced every clinical projection, bodies that decided, against all available evidence, to do the thing nobody expected.

As a doctor you know the rational explanation for most of them: the body's capacity for repair is extraordinary and frequently underestimated by the people tasked with facilitating it.

You've seen it in operating rooms, in follow-up imaging that makes you look twice because the numbers don't match the prognosis. Sometimes you do everything right and it still doesn't work.

And sometimes — and this is the part that still surprises you, after thousands of procedures, after years of building your career on the premise that medicine is a science with predictable outcomes — sometimes you do your part, and then you stop, and you let the body do what bodies were designed to do, and it does something that feels, for one unscientific moment, like a miracle.

You think about this now, watching Brussels go quiet outside the terrace door with Namjoon's arm heavy across your waist and his breathing already slow.

Two enormous careers. Two cities that aren't the same city.

A future without clean lines that requires renegotiation every time something shifts, which is always, because both of your lives are the kind that don't slow down for logistics or feelings or the reasonable human desire to be in the same room as the person you love for more than twenty-three minutes at a time.

The Olympics are still two years away and still only a possibility. His next year is already spoken for. None of that has resolved itself into something manageable just because you spent a weekend in Brussels being honest about it.

This is real.

You're not pretending otherwise.

But here is what the book is actually about, underneath all the case studies: miracles don't happen instead of the work. They happen because of it, and then beyond it.

You do the procedure, you set the bone, you follow the protocol — and then you reach the limit of what intervention can do, and you have to trust the body to carry the rest.

To do the quiet, unglamorous work of healing in the dark, without your oversight, simply because that is what it was built to do. You have always found that part the hardest.

The stopping. The trusting. The acceptance that some things cannot be controlled into recovery, only accompanied through it.

You don't do feelings.

That was the policy, once, in a hospital room that smelled like cedarwood where a man with a hairline fracture looked at you like you were the most specific thing he'd ever seen.

It turns out you do them — completely, at considerable cost to your previously functional emotional temperature and your ability to remain unmoved by Pokémon merchandise.

You fell. That part you know.

What comes after the falling is slower and less dramatic and considerably harder: the recovery, the long non-linear work of choosing someone in the complicated middle, where the logistics are real and the future is a thing you're building without a blueprint in two languages across multiple time zones.

You stop trying to calculate the prognosis.

You trust the thing to heal.

That's what happens when you fall in love, not just the falling. The staying after.

The quiet, daily, completely unglamorous miracle of that.

Author's Note:

surprise. it's me. hi.

okay so. I have been very open with you all about the fact that this has been a genuinely hard year. mentally, emotionally, in ways I'm still figuring out how to carry. and that means my writing comes in waves — sometimes I write an entire episode in one sitting because something cracks open and I can't stop, and sometimes I stare at a blank document for a week and produce approximately ninety words and a headache. you have been patient with me through both versions of that and I don't take it lightly.

here is the thing about this episode. I had a version of it done and ready to post.

I read it back before posting, the way I always do, did my line edits, gave it to the only person in my real life (besides my sister) who knows I write fanfiction — and she said it's good. and I sat with that. and I knew she was right. it was good. it was also sappy and a little flat and if I'm being honest with myself, it wasn't true to who these two people are. because they are both enormous in their own worlds. they live in different cities. they have careers that don't slow down for love, no matter how real it is. and I didn't want to write the comfortable version of that. I wanted to write the true one.

so I rewrote it. and then it became a monster.

a two-part monster with a medical conference and a parking garage callback and a ceramic anatomical heart and a conversation in a locked conference room and brussels at night and a shower bench situation that I will not be elaborating on further in this note. I was crying by the end of it — the good kind, the kind that means I got it right, or at least got it closer to right than the first version. I felt like this is who they are. this is where the sequel starts. this is the relationship I want to follow.

and I finished it during a few days that were, to put it mildly, not easy. and I'm proud of that. I'm allowing myself to be proud of that.

what comes next: I'll be posting the next part of the space between us and then the next part of don't look at me like that, because Jimin has been waiting long enough and frankly so have I. and then Jin's special episode — and yes, before anyone asks, I am absolutely giving Jin and his wife Paris. of course I'm giving them Paris.

thank you. genuinely, from the bottom of my overcomplicated heart, thank you for reading every word, for your patience, for your messages, for loving these people as much as I do. it means more than I know how to say on a good day and everything on a bad one.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I loved writing it. 🖤

— Ria 🫀 Tag list: @whoisbts @sexytholland @btsevxn @kacythecarat @granataepfelchen @goawaysha @unknownbeknowst @joonmonjagi @cherryblossom1234567890 @blamgyuuuu @swagtimemachinecherryblossom @leftmensh @mikrokookiex @busanbby-jjk @jungkook97l @singularitypromise @angelarin @cherrycheolie @proudnoona @leeknowsbigtoe @pleasantheartsworld @lobbera @pinklasagna04 @jnshjjt @mar-lo-pap

[riaarivic]

Hey I just wanted to know if you will reveal who caused the havoc in namjoon's story - was it someone of consequence of released her photos and found contract and contacted the ex or we are to just assume it's a random paparazzi?

okay I love that you asked this. 🖤

short answer: yes — and you'll get more of it when I release the Namjoon POV chapters (after the all main series end, I KNOW, I know 😭 but those chapters reveal information that would spoil pieces of the other stories if I gave it away too early).

My usual long answer is this 🤭

yes, it's someone of consequence — but not in a huge conspiracy, evil mastermind kind of way. it's someone close. close enough to know the right amount of truth to twist into something that sticks. honestly that's the part that should be scarier than a random paparazzi — it's not a stranger with a long lens, it's someone who had real access and made a choice.

the reason WHWYF never names them is because for reader, in that moment, the who genuinely doesn't matter as much as the what it meant. she's deep in her own storm — discovering what she feels, what it costs, realizing she was used as a tool to hurt someone she loves. that's the part she can't get past. not who did this to me but someone did this to him, through me, and I let it happen without knowing.

this is the part where her logical brain finally catches up:

"Someone paid for this.

Someone paid for this the old fashioned way — cash in an envelope, a tip quietly delivered, a source who decided that close to the situation was worth whatever fit inside a ginseng bag and wouldn't show up in a bank statement.

Someone looked at Kim Namjoon at the peak of everything he has built and decided that this was the moment, and this was the angle, and this was the woman they could attach to it to make it stick.

You are the weapon.

You were selected to be the weapon."

And the rage that arrives at this realization is so clean and so complete that for approximately thirty seconds it displaces everything else — the jealousy, the grief, the seventy-two hours she has left in this city, the suitcase in the corner and the book on the desk and the yes she sent that she cannot unsend. Just rage, pure and clarifying, the specific fury of someone who has watched their own life be disassembled and packaged and sold to a machine that has never once been interested in what was true.

in Namjoon's POV this changes a lot. because for him the who is the whole problem. it's not abstract — it's someone he trusted had this kind of access. someone close enough to do this, did this. we'll get his version of betrayal, his version of who can he actually trust, and the specific horror of realizing that his own success — the thing he built, the thing that's supposed to be his — is also a weapon that can be pointed at the people he loves.

thank you for asking this 🥹 WHWYF means so much to me and part 4 is genuinely my favorite part of the whole story. 🖤

[anonnie-in-wonderland]

Home Calls the Heart

Summary: Twenty-year old L/N Y/N realizes she might be, okay, is a little bit of a social pariah. But there’s not much she can really do about it. Until a dreary winter day, when a determined, persistent dog hybrid named Taehyung shows up and declares that he’s interested in adopting her for himself and the rest of his lonely pack.

chapter: five

Word Count: 8.9k+

rating: T (uh, once again none I can think of this time)

genre: romance | hurt/comfort| magic AU

tags: bts x reader | ot7 x reader | hybrid | poly| FM!reader

Emperor Penguin!Seokjin, Golden Retriever!Taehyung, Coyote!Hoseok, Mountain Lion!Yoongi, Wolfdog!Namjoon, Kingfisher!Jimin, Holland Lop!Jungkook

prev//next

Author’s Note: Thank you everyone for your patience. I really thought I’d have had time to put this out a lot sooner than this, but it was just too busy. But I hope this can be like a holiday gift maybe!

The rabbit stood stiffly off to the side as his family (and their guest) prepared the table. Like Namjoon, everyone had been both surprised and relieved to see him out of the room and willing to join them, greeting him with smiles and a few hugs.

 They backed off quickly though, probably scared they were going to overwhelm him if they made a big deal about it for too long. Jungkook supposed it made sense they would treat him as fragile, he was the youngest so it was already a given they babied him for years. Then when Gramps left them suddenly he did kind of check out.

Admittedly, when Jin-hyung mentioned a guest staying overnight, Jungkook hadn’t thought about it. The information slipped away almost as fast as it registered. He had more important things to wallow about think over. And, even if he had been paying attention, the pack maknae would have just come to the conclusion it was someone they already knew. 

The neighboring farms, spread out as they were, had known about Gramps. They sent condolences or a few dishes for the boys to eat while the lawyer helped break down his will and the hyungs made funeral arrangements. Why would any of them bring a new person around when they were all still mourning?

Clearly, a lot had happened since he’d shut himself off, because the human girl among them was brand new to him. She had to have been new to the others too, because they didn’t keep secret friends from each other. 

“Um, so, anywhere in particular I should set this?” the newcomer was asking Jin. She held up the plate of eggs she had been given. (Y/N). Namjoon-hyung said her name was (Y/N).

“Somewhere near the middle is fine,” Yoongi answered instead, walking by with a big, chilled pitcher of orange juice to place. “If any of these uncivilized heathens want some, they’re not shy about taking their share.” 

Even Yoongi-hyung was acknowledging her? Jungkook barely held back his look of surprise. Being that Yoongi was born a wild hybrid, and had spent a portion of his childhood that way, he was more wary of new humans than most. 

Gramps and a few of the old man’s associates that came around over the years and were trustworthy were about the only exceptions. Every other non-hybrid person that came into their space got the cold shoulder for the most part.

“Speaking of that, (Y/N) you fix your plate first.” Jin instructed, finally setting down the amazingly fluffy, mouth-watering stack of pancakes. “I made more than usual but I still doubt there’ll be any extras.” Jungkook’s nose twitched as the warm steam wafted into his nostrils, carrying the sweet and gooey fragrance of cinnamon rolls. 

His hyung was definitely a culinary genius. Fusing breakfast pancakes and dessert should have been a crime, it was so good. 

“It’s been so long since hyung made these,” Taehyung stated, tail wagging. “I don’t think I can hold back.”

“Do you ever?” Namjoon muttered, though there was a small smile on his full lips. 

Once everything was out and set up, everyone scrambled to take their seats. Jungkook went for his usual spot slowly, noticing that (Y/N) hung back, looking painfully out of place. She was still wearing Taehyung’s coat, though it was open, revealing Jimin’s pajamas. 

The minute he had seen that, Jungkook grew more curious than ever about who she was to the others. Yeah, sometimes if one of their friends came over and spent the night they might borrow a change of clothes, but not a female friend. 

“Wait,” Taehyung brought attention to the same thing he noticed, absently placing his hand on Namjoon’s wrist before it could bump his glass. “(Y/N) hasn’t sat down.”

That was when everyone turned their attention on the awkward female standing by, then glanced around the table. All the spots had been set but one, and Jungkook had taken up his usual one. 

There was only one seat left, and there was something about it that made offering it up wrong. Gramps. Gramps’ spot remained empty and untouched, chair tucked neatly in. Evidently, even their guest could sense that was not a seat for the taking, as she had opted to just stand around instead of sitting there. 

“Oh, it’s no big deal,” she assured them. “I can eat at the counter…”

“You don’t want to sit with us?” Taehyung pouted, the puppy eyes in full effect.

“It’s not that!” She said quickly, “I just…”

“Just grab an extra chair and we’ll all scoot down.” Yoongi mumbled, “It’s not that big of a deal. I’m hungry and ready to eat.”

Blinking, the others nodded slowly, seemingly okay with that suggestion. 

(Y/N) made her way to an available stool just as Jimin got up to fetch it for her, ever thoughtful. Their hands landed on it at the same time, and they both paused, then shared a brief chuckle.

 “Let me,” Not taking no for an answer, Jimin picked it up easily and brought it to the table, placing it between his chair and Hoseok’s. (Y/N) thanked them and sat down, allowing breakfast to continue. 

While it was true he’d only been nibbling at his meals the last week, suddenly the low hunger pangs in his stomach were making him regret that. His fingers loosely gripped the silverware, waiting a little impatiently as a girl he had never seen before got to take her time preparing her own plate at Jin and Taehyung’s insistence.

Finally she was done, and just like that, everyone sprang at the food simultaneously, the loud clambering nearly drowning out Jin’s scolding about having some manners. Jungkook was so used to it, he didn’t even bat an eye, holding his own just fine against his hyungs as he secured a stack of pancakes, eggs, and a few links of sausage. Jin didn’t cook Western often, and he wanted to savor it. But his stomach had other plans, and when he stuffed the first few heavenly bites in his mouth, the bunny would admit he wasn’t sure he tasted it until after it went down. 

“So, what do you think?” Hoseok asked (Y/N) conversationally, keeping an eye on his plate in case anyone got greedy and snuck a few bites. They loved each other, but everyone in the household knew all was fair in food and war.

“Good,” she hummed, having another bite after swallowing the first. “Really good. Thank you for letting me share this meal with you. It beats the energy bar and coffee I usually wolf down in the morning.”

“It’s nothing,” Jin smiled, clearly pleased with her approval of his cooking. “It’s the least we can do since you put up with this one’s insolence,” he waved his hand at Taehyung, who tucked in closer to his plate and avoided Jin’s eyes, “And helped with Jilju this morning.”

Jungkook perked up at that. He hadn’t planned to say much unless someone addressed him directly, still equally curious and cautious of the girl among them, but he couldn’t ignore anything that had to do with his horse. Outside his hyungs and Gramps, she was the one he was closest to on the farm. “Jilju? What’s wrong with Jilju?”

“Oh, nothing now.” Namjoon popped some eggs into his mouth, grinning deeply in a way that brought out his dimples. “(Y/N) was able to take care of it. It was very impressive.”

(Y/N) sank down a little, trying to hide a small blush in her shoulder. “Just doing my job.”

“How’d that go, by the way?” Jimin urged, cutting up his pancakes into neat pieces the way he always did before eating. “What was wrong?”

He turned to (Y/N) curiously, and Jungkook watched her closely as well, head full of questions. 

“Well…where to start…” she paused, lowering her fork with sausage on the end. “She was a little anxious, for one. I think I got through to her. I reassured her that she’s doing the best she can by Jungkook, and that there’s no need to worry about losing her connection to him.”

“Why would she think that?” Jungkook frowned, then turned to his nearest hyung, Yoongi. “How would she know that Jilju thinks that?”

“Because,” Yoongi had opted for coffee instead of juice, and the strong smell of the brew singed the hairs inside Jungkook’s nose a bit. How his hyung chugged that stuff black he would never know, “Our new friend here has magic, and her gift is understanding the emotions of animals.”

“And hybrids,” Taehyung added proudly.

Jungkook only stared at the girl, who squirmed slightly, awkward smile in place. “Magic?” He repeated.

“Mhm,” Namjoon nodded, “You know, the rare individuals who are born with a special ability? I’ve read a book on it that—”

“I know what it means, hyung,” he said, then cringed inside when Namjoon’s ears drooped. His hyung was always so genuinely excited to share what he learned with them, and they all listened indulgently, even if they had heard him rambling about it a hundred times. He really hadn’t meant to sound like he didn’t care, he was just struggling to understand. 

How had his colony come across a human with magic? Did she come just to check the animals then? They had all acted like they understood that Gramps wasn’t coming back, so he wouldn’t be surprised that it had impacted their moods. “Sorry…” he mumbled at Namjoon. “I just don’t get it. Why would Jilju tell you what was worrying her if she didn’t tell me?”

“Sometimes it can be…hard…for animals to communicate some things to us, even when we share a strong bond. Sometimes they deliberately try to avoid worrying us,” she said patiently. 

Jungkook shoveled more food in his mouth and tried to avoid pouting. When his hyung’s food tasted so good, it was normally hard not to be happy but right now…he was a little annoyed. Some stranger turned up and it felt like she understood his friend better than he did. 

“That’s…not all.” (Y/N) shared, smiling as everyone looked at her curiously. “It turns out Jilju is also expecting.”

“What?” Jimin gasped, speaking in unison with Jungkook, who dropped his fork.

“Yeah…” Namjoon rubbed his neck. “It surprised me too. Remember when one of the horses from Mr. Lee’s farm escaped and we found him the next morning?”

“Jilju’s pregnant?” Jungkook couldn’t believe it. His horse? Was going to be a mother?

“Apparently,” (Y/N) chimed in, “Surprise, and um, congrats!”

Jungkook said nothing, still processing that information.

“We’ll have to make sure she has enough rations,” Yoongi mused. “She’s eating for two now.”

“And we’ll keep the stable comfy-cozy for her,” Hoseok sang. 

“You’re an uncle, Jungkook!” Tae clapped, the faint thump of his wagging tail easy to pick up with his sensitive ears. “And we might not have found out so soon if I never met (Y/N) yesterday. I knew I picked a quality human.”

“Yesterday?” Jungkook was a rabbit, not a parrot, but it felt like all he could do was squawk out every word that blindsided him. “You met her…yesterday?”

Taehyung nodded. 

“Then why is she here?”

“Jungkook,” Jin huffed, “That was a little rude, don’t you think?”

“Not really,” (Y/N) disagreed, “it’s fair.”

“Why did you say ‘picked a quality human’?” He said, ignoring her. The longer she was here, the more Jungkook felt his discomfort grow. What was going on?

“Because—”

“Long story. Not Tae’s most well thought out decision, either.” Yoongi smoothly disrupted whatever the dog was about to reveal, and Jungkook glared a bit.

 “Can’t you just tell me what’s going on?” The bunny insisted, aware he sounded the part of the petulant youngest brother, but also irritated with being kept in the dark. “Who are you?” he asked (Y/N).

“Tae’s heart was in the right place…” Jimin sighed, “He just didn’t think it through, like hyung said.”

“Taehyungie brought (Y/N) home, because he thought having someone new around could cheer us up.” Hoseok explained carefully, to which the younger canine hybrid nodded in agreement.

That explained…a little bit. They loved Taehyung and his spontaneity and eccentricity, but sometimes it caught everyone off guard. “Why her, specifically?” Jungkook pressed, “Because she’s got magic?”

“I didn’t even know that when we met, actually.” Taehyung admitted, hiding in his curls sheepishly. “She just…seemed nice. I got a good feeling.”

Their hyung had brought a random human back to them, when they were all still so upset at losing their main caregiver and father-figure, off of a ‘good feeling’? 

The rabbit could feel his foot tap irritably. “What?” His voice came out flat, unimpressed. “That’s stupid, hyung.”

“Yeah, it was,” Yoongi rolled his eyes, stabbing into his pancakes with extra force. “But we’ve been over that already. We talked, we fought, some of us cried…” His glittering emerald eyes slid to Taehyung. “It was a whole thing.”

“I haven’t been over it,” Jungkook protested, “I’m not over Gramps! I…I thought none of you were either!”

“We’re not,” Namjoon said calmly. “All our hearts are still broken.”

“Right now it doesn’t feel like that, hyung.” he hissed, full on glaring at (Y/N), making her flinch. “I don’t care how special a human she is. She’s not Gramps.” 

“Here we go again…” He heard Yoongi say.

Jungkook began to collect his food with the intention of retreating upstairs, because like hell he’d be able to enjoy it like this, and there was no way he was leaving it or throwing it out either.

 (Y/N) also lurching to her feet at the same time was the last thing he expected, and he instinctively stilled, cradling his plate protectively while making himself bigger. 

Thanks to Gramps indulging him years ago when he said he wanted to work out and get stronger, the youngest hybrid was well aware he wasn’t built like an ordinary bunny. 

They were genetically predispositioned to petite or average frames, and because of their prey genes, putting on muscle—except maybe in their legs—did not come as easily for them as it did for predators. 

But with dedication and hard work, Jungkook had made himself someone to be reckoned with, and now when they went out, predator hybrids gave pause as they tried to size him up.

 His scent was still recognizable to them as rabbit, if they got close enough, but he didn’t get intimidated after living and growing up with several of his natural predators.

 Plus his size helped him stand toe to toe with the snake, cat and fox hybrids out there who might try making him uncomfortable.

Needless to say, an average human like (Y/N) had no chance. He could tell her first instinct was to back down. But she swallowed it down in the next second, her eyes determined, “Wait, please don’t leave.”

Jungkook stopped, unable to help himself. What could she want to say? Nothing was going to change his mind about her not being a suitable replacement for Gramps. No one was.

“You weren’t at the meal yesterday, so you didn’t hear it but…I’m sorry.” One minute she was speaking, the next minute she was bowing deeply. “I’m sorry for your loss, and I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable. It doesn’t matter about what the circumstances were that brought me here, it still ended up causing pain, and that’s my fault.”

“(Y/N),” Taehyung sounded like he wanted to object, but she straightened, shaking her head.

“It’s the truth.” She said firmly. “The choice to follow you here, even when I learned you wanted a new family member, that was on me. I should have used common sense and stopped you, especially knowing you didn’t live alone.” Nervous energy poured off of her as she played with her sleeve. “Also I…I lost someone too.” Judging by the silent reactions, this was information none of the others had heard before. “Not as recently as you did, but he was a very dear friend to me, and the eight months I’ve spent without him have been really hard.” (Y/N) bowed her head mournfully.

Jungkook looked at her, really looked at her. He would have never assumed she was also missing someone as deeply as he was missing Gramps, but then he’d only just met her, and how she felt wasn’t his priority so much as wanting her to go away.

Oblivious, or ignoring everyone’s staring, (Y/N) kept talking. “So I relate to that pain you’re all going through right now, and I’d never disrespect your bond to a member of your family by trying to force myself into that dynamic or think I could fill a hole that large in any of you. Everyone we ever love is special. Different.”

 Her voice cracked on the last word, so briefly only a hybrid could have heard it. “I’m glad I could help solve your problem with Jilju, and thank you for letting me stay the night and even have breakfast, but if my clothes are dried, I should go. Everyone here’s been great, but you deserve your home back.” Cleaning up her spot hastily, (Y/N) stood in the kitchen doorway and gave them one last bow, eyes full of sincerity, then scurried out of sight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She came down the stairs, almost dreading running into anyone. Why did she have to keep making a mess of things with these hybrids? They’d probably be glad to be rid of her.

 Who wouldn’t want to free themselves of a pest. Gathering the meager things she had arrived with, neatly folding Jimin’s borrowed pajamas after changing back into her clothes, and stripping the sheets (knowing how sensitive hybrids were to smell, and figuring Jungkook wouldn’t want her scent in the middle of his room), (Y/N) was pretty much ready to go.

Creeping down the stairs, she found it was quiet, and glanced around unsurely. While she wanted to be out of their hair, leaving without saying goodbye would be…rude. But so would wandering around their house in search of someone.

Luckily, the sound of voices conversing in another room gave her an indicator about where everyone might be, and she mustered up her courage to go find them.

Peeking her head in, she found Namjoon, Jin, Hoseok and Yoongi talking amongst themselves at the kitchen bar, though they all looked up immediately. Damn. No way to go undetected when super hearing was in the mix, huh?

“All set?” Jin asked.

(Y/N) nodded. “I am. Thanks to you, and sorry again for the trou—”

“Apologies are played out, don’t you think?” Yoongi interrupted, appearing bored as his long tail swished lazily. “We’re not interested in hearing any more of them.”

“This hyung’s always so shy about showing new people how he feels.” Hoseok giggled, pinching Yoongi’s cheek affectionately. “But he’s just trying to say none of us think you have anything else to apologize for. It’s been talked over, and in the end it was just a misunderstanding, right?”

(Y/N) frowned, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “But, Jungkook—”

“He’ll be okay.” Namjoon reassured her, his ears flickering. “In time anyway. Right now he’s working out to blow off steam instead of holed up in Gramps’ room again. That’s big progress.”

“Plus he ate all his food.” Jin practically swooned. 

“Yeah, kid’s gonna be back to eating us out of house and home in no time.” Yoongi chuckled, the fondness in his voice clear.

“See, no permanent damage done.” Hoseok concluded.

“Well…that’s a relief.” (Y/N) grinned weakly. “Anyway, I really should get—”

“Hyungs!” Taehyung’s excited shout made her jump, but the four hybrids siting around the bar didn’t appear surprised at all.

“No one listens to my rules,” Jin groaned. “I say no running. I say no yelling in the house. I say put your clothes in the hamper and not on the floor. Am I talking for my health?”

“At this point…” Yoongi mused, though he didn’t finish when Taehyung burst in. 

“Oh, (Y/N)!” He greeted her, face lighting up as soon as their eyes met. “I’m glad you’re still here.”

The pup still kind of gave her whiplash, but somehow, (Y/N) thought she might have been getting used to it. “How come?”

“Cause the lake’s frozen,” he said gleefully, “And you know what that means?” He asked his hyungs. They glanced between each other, quiet. “We should play outside. Have a snow day. We haven’t done that all season, and—”

“Tae, you brat,” The airy voice of Jimin complained from behind them. (Y/N) turned to see him wearing a scowl and trudging through the front door the dog had left open. “Why’d you take off like that? And after I helped you get your tongue unstuck from…oh.” His eyes widened when he noticed the crowd in the kitchen and doorway. 

“What’d he get his tongue stuck to?” Hoseok pressed curiously.

Taehyung shrugged, “Jimin dared me to lick a sheet of metal.” He tattled nonchalantly.

“I didn’t think you’d do it!” The avian hybrid exclaimed, throwing up his arms, wings rustling. 

“You two can’t be left unsupervised for more than ten minutes.” Yoongi sighed. “You were supposed to be making sure all the animals had enough blankets and fresh hay.”

“We did,” Taehyung’s tail was slowly gaining speed and his ears had a slight lift, “Then I noticed what a good snow day it’d be. C’mon hyungs, please?” (Y/N) had not been around long, but she absolutely knew what was coming next, and turned to preemptively shield her eyes just as Taehyung made his bigger, rounder and more innocent pitiful. “You should join us too, (Y/N).”

Gah, oh no! He turned the force of his gaze on her, and gently clasped one of her hands for good measure, trying to tug the other one down. 

“Hmm…I guess all of us haven’t been outside much besides tending to the farm.” Hoseok murmured. “We use to roam the property and play outside all the time. Maybe it’d be okay to indulge the pup this one time,”

“One time’s enough for a fun time,” Taehyung cheered.

“‘One time’ is enough to make it a habit.” Yoongi corrected. “You think we met you yesterday, pup?”

“Still, what’s it hurting?” Jin added his two cents. “Winter weather feels great to me.”

“Hyung, that’s a given,” Namjoon pointed out, “But okay, I guess a little time outside wouldn’t be so bad.”

Taehyung clapped, “Meet you all out at the shed!” He put a hand on (Y/N)’s shoulder. “You can come wait for us near the ice.” The next thing she knew, she was being steered towards the door.

“Hey, hold on,” Jimin huffed, “Don’t just drag her around without letting her decide for herself. And she’ll need a coat, hat, gloves and boots if she’s coming out with us. She’s not resistant to the cold.” he ended, rolling his eyes at the dog’s impulsiveness. 

“I…thanks for the invite but I don’t wanna get in the way…”

“Please,” Taehyung not only used the eyes this time, but hit her with a very puppy-like whimper, and (Y/N) crumbled like a sandcastle kicked over.

“Okay…just a little while though.”

Taehyung gleefully brought her to the hall closet so she could borrow some winter layers again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The glistening lake caught the weak sunlight of the winter sky, sparkling like a diamond that had just been given a polish. 

The farm really was an idyllic winter scene right now, (Y/N) marveled. The trees were bare and the snow was heaped up all around, but it was still manageable to get around the property.

She waited patiently by the lake, which was conveniently next to the shed Taehyung had mentioned. It could have been its own little house, and even boasted a small porch. The boys had ran right into it, promised they’d be back shortly, and closed the door. 

‘I didn’t see Jungkook join them though.’ (Y/N) couldn’t help but think about the last person she had blindsided, staring off into the distance, where she could make out the main house.

 Was he still exercising? Did he know they were going to play outside? He shouldn’t have to miss a time to have fun with his family just because she was being included. Doubts about staying started to creep up again, but before they could consume her too much, the shed’s door creaked open, and out waddled a very impressive, tall emperor penguin.

(Y/N) gasped, gazing at the proud bird in awe as it bobbed over to her, stopping a short distance away as if waiting for her to be done admiring him. “S-Seokjin-ssi?” It had to be him, right?

The flightless bird bowed his head in confirmation, turning completely around once so she could see all of him. His sleek body was beautiful, and perfectly designed for this element.

 (Y/N) had only seen penguins on TV and once from behind a glass at the zoo. Nothing did justice to Seokjin’s impressive form. And when he stepped onto the frozen lake and gracefully began skating around, (Y/N) was even more gobsmacked. “Wow…”

A bark disrupted her admiration of Seokjin’s moves on the ice, and she found a familiar golden dog bounding towards her. 

Taehyung got into a playful crouch as he approached, tail fanning high behind him. (Y/N) giggled, bending to meet him. “So this is what you had in mind?”

He yipped, spinning in circles and then taking advantage of her proximity to lean up and lick her cheek before lunging away.

(Y/N) put a gloved hand over the spot, jaw dropping as she watched Taehyung run and roll around in the snow. More of the hybrids emerged from the shed, two more canines following him.

 There was a slender but well-muscled coyote that trotted out calmly and sat on his haunches to watch Seokjin skating and Taehyung playing. Followed by a large, bi-colored canine of intimidating stature with intelligent eyes. Namjoon for sure.

 His thick, black coat was streaked through with silver, something (Y/N) doubted was from age. It looked like a natural pattern, and a cool one at that. His thick tail waved once, and then he stopped next to Hoseok and observed too. “All your animal forms are so beautiful.”

Hoseok’s ears went back and his eyes got round, a smile on his muzzle. He was the normal golden brown of a coyote, but with a russet undertone more prominent now that he had shifted than it was before. He tilted his head back at the shed and barked, sounding like he was beckoning someone.

A short, feline snout popped out, and then slowly a whole head. (Y/N) watched the big cat watch them, until he decided to place one paw outside the structure, and then another.

 Soon a mountain lion was stalking silently from the shed with all the languid grace of an apex predator. (Y/N)’s heart skipped a beat as his gorgeous green eyes found her, then turned to his fellow hybrids as if to say, ‘I’m out here, now what?’

Taehyung quickly took care of that, seizing on his opportunity once he saw his hyungs and running straight for them. Yoongi grumbled, lifting a paw as if to stop him. It didn’t even make the dog break stride, and he tumbled into the other hybrids, licking them all mercilessly in the face and yipping cutely as if to thank them.

 (Y/N) had to hide a giggle when Yoongi swatted at him with his tail and Taehyung caught it in his mouth, tugging on it and trying to pull him in closer by it.

Although that seemed to annoy the mountain lion, his tugs to reclaim his appendage were half-hearted at best. Hoseok joined in, though he seemed to be on no one’s side but his own.

 One minute he was pulling Yoongi’s ear and gently getting cuffed for it, the next he was nosing at Taehyung’s sides like he was trying to tickle him, and it got the dog to let go and show his belly, evidently still ticklish no matter what form.

(Y/N) almost didn’t notice the last presence, one hovering close to her face, until the cutest little chirp drew her attention. 

A deep blue bird was flying right next to her, and when she studied him, he chirped again. “Ohh, Jimin-ssi, your plumage is so shiny.” The bird landed on her shoulder, puffing out his chest in pride as she grinned. So little, so cute.

Seokjin, noticing the rough-housing happening on the snowbank, glided over to join everyone. 

Soon five hybrids were chasing each other around, occasionally someone getting tackled and going down with a face full of snow to show for it. (Y/N) stood and watched, not sure if she should be joining or keeping out of the way. 

Jimin had flit from her shoulder and was egging the others on, tugging at their fur and then darting away when they looked over their shoulder. He’d peck someone and then zip up into the air before they could even think about getting him.

 But given that he was so small and delicate in this form, (Y/N) couldn’t imagine them playing with him the way they were playing with each other.

Taehyung slid into her legs as he failed to skid to a stop in time, and she watched him roll onto his paws and shake off. He barked, tugging at her pants and whining when she only blinked. “Are you asking…”

He barked again more urgently, tilting his head at the others, who were all peeking over at them. “How would I join in?” She asked, genuinely curious.

Seokjin kicked snow with a foot, honking. 

Squinting, (Y/N) watched him clumsily mold snow into a lumpy ball and then point at it with a wing. “You can’t really be asking me to have a snowball fight with you.”

Taehyung swooped down on Jin’s snowball and lobbed it as best he could, hitting Namjoon in the ear when Hoseok ducked. Namjoon growled, snatching up a mouthful of snow without bothering to mold it and trying to return fire. 

Jin squawked as Taehyung hid behind him, refusing to abandon his living shield no matter which direction the penguin turned in. 

Raising a brow, (Y/N) quickly made a snowball and threw it at the dog. He yelped as it hit his flank, his large blue eyes full of betrayal. Though it almost made her feel bad, (Y/N) grinned at him. “Sorry, sorry, but it was only fair, right?”

Namjoon took the opportunity to pile on, flinging another snowball he had made while they were distracting that Taehyung took under the chin.

 The light tweeting Jimin did sounded suspiciously like laughter as the dog barked dramatically, picking up snow in his mouth and chasing his hyung with it. 

The fast wolfdog ducked behind Yoongi, who nearly got bowled over by Taehyung. The big cat took that as his sign to join in, pinning the dog down and making him swallow the snow he was holding.

 There was nothing but vindication in those sharp emerald eyes, and (Y/N) watched in interest as Hoseok brought a snowball he had made to her and then ruffed quietly. “Are you saying we should team up?” she whispered.

 Jimin flew down and landed on the coyote’s head. “And you want to be on the team too?” He confirmed with a chirp. “Think we can really take them all on?” The two hybrids nodded in determination. “Alright, then let’s get some distance first. Come up with a plan of attack.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heart pounding after his workout, Jungkook removed his boxing gloves, swiping his bangs from his eyes and grabbing for his water bottle. He had forgotten how good the burn of his muscles after an extended session in the gym felt.

The rabbit hybrid sighed, not hearing any sounds in his vicinity, and guessing everyone must be downstairs. He shuffled into the hall’s bathroom and began to strip out of his sweaty workout gear. 

Better to get clean now before Jin-hyung caught a whiff of him later and complained. Besides, sometimes a warm shower helped loosen up the sore muscles and made the whole post-workout come down feel even better.

Adjusting the water to the right temperature and waiting patiently, Jungkook glanced in the mirror. He looked at the circles beneath his eyes, and touched a piece of hair that had fallen into his face. 

It’d been a while since his last official haircut. Gramps used to give them himself, but once they got older and started to complain about wanting to look more fashionable, he began taking them into town for a professional to do it. Lately, Jungkook had been thinking of growing it out though. 

Maybe his bangs could use a touch up, but the ends of his hair feathered past his ears, just the way he wanted it. His floppy, velveteen ears could use some attention and grooming as well. 

They had always been soft and silky to the touch, according to his family. But Jungkook could tell the difference. Dragging himself to shower every other day or so for the last week meant the texture had fallen below his usual standards. To him they felt oily. Nothing a quick shower couldn’t remedy now, though.

He lathered his hair in the lightly scented shampoo already there, letting the water run over his muscles and trying to piece together what had happened downstairs. 

So, while he was alone in Gramps room, Taehyung had met (Y/N). A human girl from the park nearby. She was…pretty normal, except the having magic part. If it were any other time, he might be kind of intrigued, but he was still put out by how she had come to be in their house.

When she left, he would talk more about it with his hyungs, and they would reassure him that no one would be allowed to come in and join their family so suddenly. Especially not some silly girl from the park. Everything would be alright…

Eventually, his shower concluded, and he made the short trip down the hall to his bedroom. It had been a while, Jin or someone else normally bringing a change of clothes for him to Gramps’ room. 

So he was unprepared by the unfamiliar scent that buffeted his nose as soon as he walked in. He took a sniff and his nose instantly crinkled. What…was that? Who was in his room?! The last sheets were off the bed, bagged up and ready for the laundry. A clean set had been put on tidily in their place.

But Jungkook could practically taste it in the air. That new scent. (Y/N).

They really let her use his room? All his hyungs knew how sensitive he was to scents. 

Technically, all hybrids were scent-sensitive, but having spent his early life the way he had, it was particularly amplified in Jungkook’s case.

Sliding on some clean clothes quickly, the bunny hurried to his bedroom window and wrenched it open. The crisp winter air flowed in immediately, sending a chill down his neck. Relieved, Jungkook stuck his head outside and breathed in the clean mid-morning air with his eyes closed.

Nature smelt so good. The world was blanketed in a soft layer of snow, on the fencing separating the path from the fields and the roof of the barn and even on the shed way out by the lake. It was probably frozen. Jungkook squinted out in that direction, seeing several figures darting around, seemingly having a great time. 

A fond memory surfaced, Gramps taking his hand and leading him out onto the ice, teaching him how to skate when he was very small. Then Taehyung came sliding into them, and everyone went spinning across the ice like newborn foals.

Come to think of it…someone had poked their head in the gym and told him they were going out to play in the snow for a little while, and that he was welcome to come along. But Jungkook had been so focused on his workout, it really hadn’t registered. 

Hesitating there at the window, he watched the four-legged creatures bounding around each other, able to make out most of his hyungs. Jimin was impossible to spot from here if he was shifted, though. 

Joining in did seem tempting. He was still hurting, of course. That was unlikely to change soon. But Gramps wouldn’t want him holed up inside all day. Maybe it was fine to get out, get some fresh air and enjoy the company of the others…

All those thoughts came to a crashing halt when he made out an extra figure, up on two legs and running amongst the animals in the snow. Wait, was that…?

(Y/N) again. Didn’t she go home already? For a second, Jungkook contemplated not even going out there. Avoiding her until she left seemed like the best bet.

 Then, he thought about the fact that he was letting some new person who wasn’t even staying keep him from spending time when his hyungs, and he had missed them. 

Defiantly, he went digging in his closet for a warm hoodie and his snow boots.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Laughing, (Y/N) went down hard, falling to her knees and placing her arms over her head. It didn’t stop the onslaught. She was repeatedly pelted from behind by sizable snowballs, the hybrids having gotten quite good at making them without hands. 

Hoseok brushed by her, barking, darting around Namjoon and distracting him with seemingly innocuous play. At some point the strategy had kind of fallen apart, and they were improvising. 

Though that meant it was hard to tell who was winning. She, Hoseok and Jimin had taken the others by surprise, but not for long. 

Who knew they would have such a vicious competitive streak? Except maybe Yoongi. Kind of just seemed like he was only riled up because he kept getting pelted every time he tried to shuffle off to the side and watch.

“Tactical…” (Y/N) said through her giggles, “retreat!” She went crawling away, dragging herself to the shed with the hopes of getting a moment’s reprieve. 

Her cheeks had to be as red as a cherry by now, and her throat burned a little from rapidly inhaling the cold air. Even her fingertips felt a little numb, despite the borrowed gloves. Still, it was the most active she had been in a while, and the game was a lot of fun.

 Lurching up on her hands and knees, (Y/N) dove behind the shed, taking cover (and the opportunity to catch her breath) with a grin. She wiped some slush from her eye, peeking behind her to see Hoseok trying to dodge the opposing team and join her, with Jimin’s little body no where in sight amidst the larger hybrids and snow flying everywhere.

 Hopefully he was safe and up high. (Y/N) sighed, wondering if she should be planning a rescue, barely containing a startled squeal when she nearly came nose to nose with a very…large…rabbit.

Its black nose twitched, and the big golden brown eyes watched her steadily. The animal was what (Y/N) would most certainly class as ‘a unit’—a wall of muscular fluff. She’d never seen a lop-eared bunny so big and defined. “Um, hello…” she whispered, “Did you come to see what was going on?”

The rabbit eyed her down, unmoving and somehow, unamused. A loud growling-bark sounded from just behind her as Namjoon tumbled from a well-timed push, and (Y/N) moved to protect the smaller animal on instinct. Big bun or small bun, she still didn’t want him squished. 

What she hadn’t counted on was the rabbit reacting like it did the minute her hand moved to bring him in close to her chest.

 (Y/N) hissed, immediately retracting her hand, eyes widening as her fingers throbbed where his teeth had sank into them through the glove. She didn’t think he’d broken skin, but his powerful little jaw had moved quick as lightning with a warning bite. 

He turned his back to her, his long back legs kicking snow in her direction, and the action felt almost scornful. Then he hopped away, out into sight of the others, who stopped and made excited cries as if to welcome him to their game.

‘Duh, of course that’s Jungkook.’ (Y/N) winced, easing her glove off to inspect her hand. ‘I probably overstepped just now. I wouldn’t want a stranger touching me without warning either.’

There was a light tap on her shoulder, and (Y/N) twisted her body to see Jin towering over her. He honked, tilting his head and appearing puzzled. “Are you asking me if I’m okay?”

His sleek head bobbed.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said hurriedly. “I guess I’m tired. That was a long, intense game, right?

Taehyung trotted over, dipping his head as he studied her and then whining loudly. “Let’s say your team won, huh? That was fun. Thank you. I think I really should get going though. Gotta check on my car and all.”

Shaking himself off, the dog ran into the shed with a loud crash. “Wait,” she heard him shout from inside, voice echoing through the cracked door. “I’ll get dressed and walk with you.”

More hybrids walked into the shed, (Y/N) heard a chorus of voices and some light squabbling. “Don’t you think you’ve clung to her enough already? One of us could also walk her back.”

“But!”

“I think one of us tagging along is a good idea. Taehyung would just stall on purpose.”

(Y/N) inwardly smiled. However short her time had been with them, they had made her life more lively than it had been in a while.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The crunch of the snow beneath her feet felt extra noisy. In comparison, her two escorts were silent as they all reached the parking lot. (Y/N) found there wasn’t anyone around, and no other cars left unclaimed, so it was easy to spot her vehicle, half buried under a mound of accumulated snow, but intact.

Huffing, she marched over, careful not to trip, digging out her key and unlocking the driver’s side door. “Well. This is my ride.” She told the two hybrids, smiling gently. “Thank you for seeing me back safely, and for hosting me too. I wish there was some way to repay your generosity.”

“It was the least we could do.” The older hybrid gave a single rough pat to Taehyung’s head, “Don’t mention it.”

The dog stepped forward, bangs falling slightly into his wide blue eyes, “So this is goodbye?”

“Uh, well…for now?” (Y/N) stammered, unsure why she felt so overwhelmingly guilty. “But you know, maybe not forever.” She extended a hand toward him, “You’re a nice guy, Taehyung, and you’ve got a good family. No matter how it happened…I’m glad we met.”

After staring at her hand, he slowly grasped it, giving it a firm squeeze. It wasn’t quite a handshake, but a parting offer of comfort. Sadness flowed through the touch, but not like she had felt before. It was touched with…hope. “Take care of yourself, okay? And don’t approach just anybody eating a hamburger on a bench anymore.”

A faint smile tugged at his lips briefly, “You take care too, (Y/N).”

Leaving Seokjin and Taehyung in her rear view mirror felt a lot like abandoning an opportunity to finally have some new friends.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hold him steady!” One of the zoo staffers yelled. Several grown men groaned and grunted as they wrestled with the belligerent kangaroo (Y/N) was supposed to be seeing. 

The feisty animal twisted, eyes screaming murder as he managed to smack one of the people restraining him with the thick tail attached to his backside. Before (Y/N) could get any closer he had broken free with one mighty kick, leaving the poor zoo keeper dazed and sprawled on the ground, clutching at his ribs.

She winced, hoping he would be alright. “Tae-hui,” she called. “Please stop. I know we’ve never met, but I’m here to help.”

 The kangaroo was clearly still rearing to go given his body language and the way he was bouncing around, so (Y/N) dared not press her luck until she saw if she got through to him.

Why couldn’t all animals in need be as easy to work with as Jilju? The horse had just needed some patience and understanding words, and she was compliant by the end. Thinking of her last encounter using her gift outside of work brought back memories of the farm. 

And the boys. 

How were they doing now? Was the grief of losing someone so dear to them any better, or just ramping up? It had been about a week, and she still regretted not at least suggesting they keep in touch.

 Then again, what if they didn’t want to? How could she explain she was lonely and desperate for companionship? They might think she was a pushy creep.

“Yah!” Someone yelled. 

Tae-hui was coming her way, someone comically trying to hold him still again with the kangaroo paying no real mind. (Y/N) braced herself, ready to get out of the way if needed. Just another day in the life for her…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lips twisted lightly, (Y/N) used her thumb to scroll down the page pulled up on her phone, trying to check what ingredients the recipe called for while steering the shopping cart. The last thing she wanted was to run over anyone’s toes in her quest to try cooking pad see ew. It was worth expanding the palette every now and then. Or maybe even she was tired of her own cooking and needed something new.

Either way, (Y/N) was determined to give it a go. If only she could find what she needed. “Did they change the store’s layout around?” she mumbled to herself. “The noodles should have been on that aisle I just passed…” Continuing on, she did manage to find and grab some of the sauces the recipe called for. A few evening shoppers also milled about, (Y/N) passing an older woman deliberating over two brands of soup, an impatient youngster standing near by. “Halmoni,” the boy sighed, “My feet hurt. Can we please have dinner?”

“Ssh,” she hushed absently, waving a hand without looking at her grandchild.

Quietly walking by them, (Y/N) reached the end of the aisle, veering her cart sharply to avoid a store clerk who was mopping up a spilled mess from a broken jar.

She heard the gasp in time to avoid running into the woman who was coming out of the aisle she was entering, a shopping basket dangling on her arm. “Oh, sorry.” (Y/N) mumbled. “Are you alright?”

The woman said nothing, making unnerving eye contact and then slowly squinting, “Wait…(Y/N)? (L/N) (Y/N)?” Heart skipping a beat at the recognition, she tilted her head, trying to recall where the woman could possibly know her from.

“…Yes?”

“It’s me,” the lady gasped, moving a bit closer with a smile. “Gosh, how long has it been?”

“I…I don’t…”

“Do you really not recognize me?” She whispered. “It’s Choi Taeyeon.”

“C-Choi Taeyeon?” The name immediately elicited very vivid memories, some more pleasant than others. “I…” (Y/N) took a deep breath, pasting on a grin that was hopefully more excited than awkward looking. “It’s been so long. How are you?” Choi Taeyeon had once been her best friend. A proper greeting was the least she could do, right?

Finally having been acknowledged properly, she beamed, a pretty, gleaming white smile ringed in a blush shade of lipstick. Taeyeon’s stylish bob fell neatly around her shoulders, and her pink cashmere trench coat was cute and fashionable. She looked great.

 In comparison, (Y/N) stood in her normal work attire: khaki pants and a polo-shirt, bundled up with a sweater and coat for layering. There was no dressing glamorous when working with animals. Who knew if she would be slobbered on, clawed at, peed around, or otherwise get dirty.

‘I probably look like a drowned rat!’ (Y/N) suppressed the urge to reach up and smooth down her hair.

“Busy as ever.” Taeyeon sighed, “I’m afraid it’s starting to show on my face.” Of course, it was just fake humility. They both knew she looked excellent. “I followed my dreams and moved to Busan to work a nice job at a news station for the last two years. Now I’m back in Seoul and I’ll be covering national events.” 

“That’s awesome,” (Y/N) remembered when they would talk of their dreams together. Taeyeon had at first wanted to be a weather girl, but by graduation her sights were set much higher. “I’m not surprised.”

“What about you? What are you doing these days?” (Y/N) cringed inside, hoping they could politely go their separate ways after exchanging pleasantries. They hadn’t exactly parted ways on the best of terms… Once a painfully shy girl with a stutter, Taeyeon had hit it off for (Y/N), the class black sheep, in elementary school.

 After all, they were both excluded in activities by their peers, or picked last, or avoided. Sensing a kindred spirit, (Y/N) eventually befriended Taeyeon, and they had stuck together from then on.

When her power surfaced for the first time, outside her father, Taeyeon was the first person she told. Months later anyway. Although they shared everything with no secrets between them, magic was not as usual anymore, and people who had it could face a variety of reactions from others. The last thing she wanted was for her closest friend to see her differently.

The guilt of hiding something from her unsuspecting best friend left a throbbing pain inside. When she finally felt ready to share the truth, Taeyeon had listened with fascination. Relieved that she no longer had to hide, (Y/N) never imagined the way it would all change when they reached high school…

“I’ve been…around. I work with animals.” She explained vaguely. 

“Oh, that sounds like you,” Taeyeon giggled with a nod. “Same old (Y/N), huh?”

(Y/N) smiled weakly. “Yeah…same old me.” When could she be on her way? The longer she looked at Taeyeon the more she wanted to cry, all the memories rushing back. And that was not acceptable.

“Well. It was nice to see you,” Finally, that sounded like the end of a conversation if she ever heard one! “Maybe we could have a coffee date, catch up someti—”

Taeyeon stopped talking, mouth parting a little. (Y/N) quirked a brow, confused by her sudden awe. A large hand landing on her shoulder nearly made her jump, and she squealed, chopping at the stranger behind her, only to come face to face with a pair of bright blue eyes she had seen in her mind all week.

“T-Ta-Taehyung?” She breathed.

“(Y/N)!” The dog hybrid said, voice full of happiness. “I knew it was you. I told you it was, hyung.”

Jin and Hoseok were there too, both of them staring at her with surprise and then smiling. “How’s it going, (Y/N)?” Seokjin greeted, “Long time no see,”

“Y-Yeah,” (Y/N) was smiling so hard her cheeks hurt, almost forgetting all about Taeyeon still gawking behind her. “That’s crazy, running into you guys here.”

“We don’t normally shop here.” Hoseok admitted, “But the pup insisted,” he motioned to Taehyung.

“I told them this was a grocery store a lot of people go to on this side of the barrier, and maybe you shopped here too, so every time we need anything I ask to come here.”

(Y/N) gaped. “Y-You had no idea if I’d even be here tonight.”

“I had a feeling I’d get lucky,” he countered, pride twinkling in his eyes. 

“U-Um,” Taeyeon shuffled into view, tugging at her coat. “You know them?”

She was looking at them like she was in the presence of celebrities, and it struck her then that they were all very good-looking. “Hi, I’m Choi Taeyeon.” Her former friend bowed. 

Taehyung eyed her curiously, then turned to (Y/N), who shrugged uneasily. “I’m Taehyung.” He said. “Those are my hyungs,”

“Jin.” Seokjin nodded politely.

“Hoseok.” Hoseok put in.

Neither of them were acting as taken with Taeyeon as she was expecting. Since her transformation in high school, Taeyeon always had her pick of the boys wanting to date her.

“Well,” she fluffed her hair. “I’m an old friend of (Y/N)’s and I’m back in town for the first time in a few years. I was just suggesting we go for a coffee date, but maybe you’d like to join us?” She asked, her voice lowering into a subtle purr.

(Y/N) wanted to hide her face. All this and all she wanted was to get her ingredients and make dinner. Although she was over the moon that she happened to see the boys again.

“I’m sorry,” Seokjin apologized. “It’s not the best time for us to have social engagements. We recently had a death in the family and are still in mourning.”

“O-Oh!” Taeyeon gasped, “I’m so sorry! I didn’t…my condolences!” She slid a hand into her purse and took something out which she passed to (Y/N). A business card. “Let’s arrange something later (Y/N). I won’t hold you any longer.” She bowed, then waved with a cute smile at the boys. “Maybe some other time when things are better for you.”

(Y/N) blinked, hiding her surprise. When Taeyeon had finally walked away, it felt like all the tension went with her, and her shoulders slumped as she leaned into her shopping cart. “That was…exhausting,” she whispered, forgetting she was in the presence of beings with superior hearing.

“Yeah, we could hear your heart thumping a mile away.” Hoseok said sympathetically. “Are you alright.”

“Yes,” she said truthfully. “Now I am. Thank you.”

“Was she giving you a hard time?” Taehyung questioned. 

“Not exactly…” (Y/N) thought of how to put it. “It’s just…we were old friends a long time ago and we parted ways not on the best of terms. I wasn’t expecting to see her here.”

“Friendships that end awkwardly can be tough,” Seokjin hummed. “Though it really is a pleasant surprise to run into you again. This one was sulking for days because he wanted to reach out to you but didn’t have your phone number.”

Taehyung reached into his hoodie, eyes bright and hopeful. “This time, can we exchange numbers?”

“Wait, really?” (Y/N) couldn’t believe it. He felt the same way she did. “You wouldn’t mind?”

“I told you that I like you, (Y/N).” The dog said patiently. “And Jiminie said you promised to be his friend, so why can’t you be mine too?” The accusing whine went straight to her heart, and before she knew it, she was handing him her phone. 

Author’s Note:  I promise Jungkook is a sweetheart. lol It’s just that he’s finally at the place in the mourning process where he comes up for air, and then there’s a big change shoved at him right away, so he’s a little overwhelmed and uncomfortable. And taking it out on (Y/N). Things do get better between her and our bunny boy (in time). Also a gentle reminder that if you change your handle, please let me know or me tagging you may not work! I tried my best, but some people’s blogs or gone or they just cannot be tagged now for some reason.

**TAGLIST IS CLOSED**:

@sunoosult @hesmyphenominiall @taradevonne @childfmoonn @stcrwhiz @ghostkat23 @colourlyhobbit @juju-227592 @iconicjk @cestlabellemort @squishyturtle @singukieee @jcrml @neyneythepainaway @emu007 @mojojojothegreat @daydreambrliever @dinorahrodriguez @cosmos-d-clouds @blackrockshooter780 @hydroyaksha @tinyoonsblog @toughbook @4evahevah @7dilemma7 @yoursoontobestepmom @jiminie-08 @black-rose-29 @malewife-supremacy @do-as-you-dont @yoonseok-jjang @mageprincess7 @pipminnie @sinceritythatcouldntbedelivered @kodzuskook @doublebunv @nonbinaryidiot @silscintilla @amarokofficial @bangtanxberm @kimsaerom @aurorasymphonies @kawaiikpoplover268 @anacbm

[anonnie-in-wonderland]

Home Calls the Heart

Summary: Twenty-year old L/N Y/N realizes she might be, okay, is a little bit of a social pariah. But there’s not much she can really do about it. Until a dreary winter day, when a determined, persistent dog hybrid named Taehyung shows up and declares that he’s interested in adopting her for himself and the rest of his lonely pack.

chapter: three

Word Count: 6.2k

rating: T (mentions of death and mental illness/depression, a brief moment of social etiquette cringe from reader, who is too awkward for life)

genre: romance | hurt/comfort| magic AU

tags: bts x reader | ot7 x reader | hybrid | poly| FM!reader

Emperor Penguin!Seokjin, Golden Retriever!Taehyung, Coyote!Hoseok, Mountain Lion!Yoongi, Wolfdog!Namjoon, Kingfisher!Jimin, Holland Lop!Jungkook

Author’s Note: Hello everyone, it’s been some time since the last update and I apologize about that but appreciate the patience. The taglist has grown considerably longer so I put it at the bottom. There are about 6 slots left open, but to keep it from getting to be a mile long I will close it down when I hit 50 people. Sorry in advance that I accidentally ended up back on my angst BS again this chap. Next one will likely be fluffier. 😭

prev/next

There was an undeniable awkwardness in the air, and (Y/N) couldn’t help but feel she was entirely to blame. Maybe she should have been more insistent about declining Taehyung’s offer to meet his family. It was evident to her now that they were indeed completely blindsided, though no one was overtly rude about her crashing their dinner.

On the contrary, the black-haired man who had taken one look at her and then fussed to get her a hot cup of tea was trying to make light conversation as he put the finishing touches on the evening meal.

Yoongi— the mountain lion, and Jimin and Taehyung’s hyung— had mostly focused on silently helping him after he shooed off Taehyung and told him to go let the others he had worried know he was back.

Jimin had cast her a small smile and a wave before joining the golden retriever. Which left (Y/N) with the two older men, sitting on a stool at the kitchen bar and feeling painfully in the way despite being physically well removed from the spot they were cooking in.

“Warming up any?” asked the broad-shouldered man, peeking at her from over said shoulder.

(Y/N) was quick to nod, now realizing just how lost she had been in her steaming cup of liquid. “Oh, um yeah, it’s doing the job really well.” She licked her lips, tasting the honey and chamomile of the tea, “Thank you.”

“That’s good. Let me know if you want more. It was probably freezing out there for you in just that sweater.” She had assumed that all of the others Taehyung lived with were hybrids as well, but to be completely honest, she had no idea what species of hybrid this man could be at a glance. And it was far from appropriate to ask when they had only just met.

“Taehyung let me borrow his scarf too.” She put in feebly, shrugging a little bashfully. (Y/N) had never planned to trek through the snow in such flimsy covering, but she had, and she felt foolish for it.

For the first time since resuming his spot next to the other man, Yoongi looked up and scoffed. “Which did exactly what for you? What you needed were layers.”

He was right, of course, but (Y/N) felt a little rankled by his tone. Was he blaming her or was he just gruff by nature?

“I’m sure she didn’t expect our pup to ambush her like that. You know how headstrong and impulsive Tae can be. Then there’s that big blue puppy eyed thing to contend with. It’s not a fair playing field.”

“Right?” (Y/N) agreed, happy someone was aware of the power of that puppy eye agenda. “I don’t think I stood a chance.”

“Try living with him.” He laughed, his full lips pulled into a bright smile. (Y/N) smiled too, a little bit of her nervousness melting away. His dark eyes twinkled, seeming to deem her reaction as a positive response, until something dawned on him. The loud gasp that came from him had Yoongi nearly losing his grip on the handle of the wok he was cooking with.

He gave the black-haired man a glare that went unnoticed. “Oh, I can’t believe I forgot to introduce myself in all this.” He frowned, placing a hand to his chest. “I’m Seokjin, or just Jin. The charming one.” Much to her amusement, he brought his thumb and index finger up to his chin, pushing his lips out a little and wiggling his eyebrows.

(Y/N) wanted to introduce herself as an automatic response, but she was pretty positive he had heard the other boys say her name already. Still, it didn’t hurt to be polite. “(L/N) (Y/N), nice to meet you.” She giggled. “And sorry for turning up unannounced.”

“It’s alright,” Seokjin reassured her, staring down at the meat he had been preparing and then nodding in satisfaction. It smelled heavenly, and despite (Y/N) not wanting to intrude on their dinner, she couldn’t deny that if offered a plate, she would probably eat. From what she could tell they were having stir fried rice and lamb skewers. “It’s not the first time Tae’s gone out and brought a friend back.”

(Y/N) tilted her head curiously at that, hoping the mysterious dog hybrid wasn’t collecting strangers at the park whenever the mood arose. Someone was going to assume he was a kidnapper.

“He brings home injured animals that need looking after every once in a while.” Yoongi clarified. “A whole human is a different story.”

(Y/N) once again felt somewhat unwanted, playing with her empty cup, unsure what to say.

“Don’t mind him, he gets a little flustered with company if he feels unprepared.” Jin rolled his eyes. “He’s probably nervous about you liking his cooking.”

(Y/N) wasn’t so sure it was that simple, but before Yoongi could reply, someone gave an exaggerated sniff, groaning as he sauntered into the kitchen area. “Ohh, lamb’s on the menu tonight.” The girl turned in her seat, trying not to stare too openly as yet another handsome hybrid showed up. In spite of her crappy best efforts, he caught her looking, staring back with intrigued brown eyes. “Hi, TaeTae’s guest, right?”

(Y/N) swallowed, her mouth dry at the warmth he oozed, barely managing a nod. He was wearing a baggy white t-shirt, black joggers and socks with matching slides. His hair—an interesting mixture of rust brown with some intermittent streaks of gray—looked soft, parted in a fringe that showed his forehead.

(Y/N) had never given a great deal of thought about how attractive a forehead could be, but here she was, checking one out. “I’m Hoseok, everybody’s hope.” he winked, two pointed canine ears flicking up. “Including yours now.” Despite his casual greeting, the position of his ears would suggest he was equal parts curious and alert. She couldn’t exactly blame him when a new face showed up unexpectedly in his space.

“(Y-Y/N)…” she waved stiffly, mentally smacking herself for being such an introverted dork at times. Hoseok only grinned a little wider, leaving her awed that his lips naturally formed the shape of a heart when his perfect white teeth were on display.

“Hobi here is our happy pill.” Jin said proudly. “It’s hard to be grumpy with him around. Right, Yoongi-yah?”

Yoongi grumbled something unintelligible, but his eyes were noticeably softer the minute he saw Hoseok, so there was definitely some credence to Jin’s claim.

“I heard a little already from Jimin,” Hoseok said, skirting around behind where she was seated and into the kitchen. “But Taehyung latched onto you at the park, huh?” He reached up into a cabinet and handed Jin a platter. (Y/N) tried not to stare too much as the man piled the plate high with perfectly browned meat.

“Something like that…I was having lunch and I noticed a really pretty golden retriever that was unaccompanied wandering around. When he came over to me I just felt for him I guess,” (Y/N) toyed with an old ring on her pinkie finger, one that had once belonged to her mother. “No one likes being out in the cold all alone.”

(Y/N) wasn’t entirely sure if she was speaking about Taehyung or herself there. It wasn’t a stretch to say her mind was muddled when the hybrid had come trotting over to her.

“You have to admit, following a hybrid you don’t even know back home is kind of risky.” Hoseok tilted his head, eyebrows pulling up as if he was trying to discern what would make her do it.

“We’re nice people,” Seokjin huffed, making quick work of setting the table once Yoongi scraped the rice out of the pan. “(Y/N)’s got nothing to worry about.”

“Not like she knew that when she walked through the door though,” Yoongi turned to her. “In the future, be a little more cautious, for your own sake. The last I checked, small humans like yourself are fragile.”

It sounded well-meaning enough, like concern, in his own way. So (Y/N) chose to take it as a friendly(ish) reminder. “Not that fragile…” she sniffed. “I took a few years of jiu jitsu as a kid. I was a purple belt.”

The feline hybrid stared blankly, as if silently asking what that was supposed to mean to him exactly. Flustered, (Y/N)’s chest deflated, “Right, noted. I’ll be better about paying attention to my surroundings in the future.”

“Okay, okay.” Hoseok sang out, “How about we lay off a little. She’s a guest. No need to go scaring her off, hyung.” In a move that looked incredibly brave from (Y/N)’s vantage point, Hoseok playfully leaned into Yoongi’s face, squishing his cheeks together until they resembled dumplings. For a fleeting second, (Y/N) wanted to coo. At Yoongi. The grumbly, so-far-solemn mountain lion.

His long tail came up, lightly slapping against Hoseok’s wrist, making the other man step back with a fond smile. “Just call the rest, would you? Tell them food’s done.”

“On it!” Hoseok bounced away with a cute little smile and a salute. Jin shook his head, but there was nothing but affection on his face.

“(Y/N), grab a seat,” He pulled out a chair, beckoning her over to the table. (Y/N) blinked, a little surprised. If anything, she would have expected to eat at the counter. There was plenty of space. What if by sitting at the table, she took someone’s seat? No way she was about to put someone out when these men had already let her come in out of the cold, despite her being a total stranger.

Seeming to notice her dilemma, Jin’s eyes grew warm and reassuring. “Don’t worry about taking someone’s spot.” The rectangular table had eight chairs set around it, all of the places set except the seat at the head, something she didn’t feel comfortable commenting on. “Our youngest is probably going to eat upstairs again tonight,” Jin sounded a little disappointed by the prospect, but that too was something (Y/N) was hardly going to pry about. Some people didn’t do well with surprises, like unexpected company at dinner. Who was she to subject someone antisocial or painfully shy to her presence?

Slowly, she slid from her stool at the counter, clutching her empty teacup until Seokjin noticed she still had it. “Oh here,” he took it from her, setting it in the sink, probably thinking he was being nice. Little did he know that the teacup and its happy bunny pattern had been something to physically cling onto, keeping her nerves at bay just slightly.

“Thanks,” she said, not wanting to explain that. (Y/N) took the seat she was directed to, her stomach giving an involuntary gurgle with the meat and bell pepper skewers right in front of her eyes. The rice accompanying the protein and veggies cooked to perfection too.

“Poor thing, you sound hungry.”

(Y/N) blushed. Of course Jin would have heard it. Which meant he was a hybrid after all then. Yoongi likely heard it too. He just didn’t deem it worth commenting on, taking his spot diagonal from hers across the table. Thundering footsteps kept there from being a need for strained attempts at conversation (luckily), Jin’s handsome features puckering into a sour expression as several boys slid through the door all at once, nearly toppling each other over. “Yah, have you all lost your minds, running in my kitchen?”

A chorus of “Sorry hyung,” in different voices had (Y/N) smiling to herself as they filed through the kitchen with more composure. Taehyung made a beeline for her as soon as he saw her, his tail wagging as he plopped down beside her, their shoulders brushing.

His eagerness to be near her eased her nerves just a little, making her feel less awkward as the rest of the hybrids filed in. There was only one she didn’t think she had met, a tall, tanned hybrid with dark rectangular ears similar to Hoseok’s, if not slightly larger. They met eyes, (Y/N) getting swept into his deep, inquisitive gaze.

“Joon-hyung, this is (Y/N).” Jimin introduced, also finding his place at the table. The avian hybrid looked very cozy in a striped long-sleeved shirt that fell over his hands, baggy sweatpants nearly covering his bare feet. From so close, she found his wings twice as gorgeous as before. Such a striking shade of cobalt blue, every feather groomed just so as the feathery appendages stayed tucked against his back. She had never seen a winged hybrid before, come to think of it. A slew of questions she was too shy to ask stayed balanced on the tip of her tongue. Were his wings heavy? Did he have to clean them in a special way? Was it uncomfortable keeping them tucked in like that?

All of these things were pushed to the wayside when she realized the hybrid she didn’t know was talking to her. “Nice to meet you,” he nodded at her, voice deep and expression cordial. “I’m Namjoon.”

“Hi Namjoon,” she swallowed, not sure why her palms felt a bit sweaty. It was probably just that he had such a commanding presence, though she wasn’t uncomfortable. “Likewise.”

As he made his way toward a seat at the table, his black and silver tail swept out when he turned, knocking into and nearly turning over a cup full of liquid there. Only Hoseok’s fast reflexes saved it, Namjoon whirling around with a small gasp, eyes startled and then sheepish. “Oh I…I didn’t mean to do that.” He muttered, causing the man beside him to laugh brightly, patting his arm. “We know, Joonie.”

“Just sit down.” Yoongi clicked his tongue.

The burly hybrid quickly lowered into his seat, looking as though he was trying not to draw further attention to himself. His shoulders were hunched in and his ears were down as he picked up his cup with concentration and took a delicate sip. (Y/N) softened, his display of clumsiness cutting his intimidation factor cleanly in half. Besides, they had only just met, and he hadn’t done anything to her besides tell her his name. The young woman mentally scolded herself for letting her nerves get the best of her.

Jin whisked by out of the kitchen holding a plate of food. “I’ll take Jungkook his dinner.” He announced, “There better be enough for me when I get back! And (Y/N) be sure to go ahead and dig in. You have to be quick when you’re eating with a bunch of animals.”

She blinked, “Okay…”

“I’ll help you,” Taehyung offered, taking her plate for her and beginning to put rice on it. He added three lamb skewers to it and presented the food to her with proud eyes.

“T-Thanks, it looks great.” (Y/N) directed the compliment at Yoongi as she carefully took the plate. He nodded silently, eating the fruits of his and Seokjin’s labor.

Although she readied her chopsticks, (Y/N) still paused, having the sense of having barged in on their quiet family meal, despite the circumstances that had brought her to their doorstep.

“Everything okay?” It was Jimin who’d asked, tilting his head in her direction curiously as he bit into the skewer of lamb in his hand.

It felt like all eyes drifted her way, and (Y/N) bobbed her head in a nod, clearing her throat. “Uh it’s just that,” she laughed nervously. “I’m a vegetarian.”

All the sounds of activity around the table stopped, the hybrids staring with bulging eyes, except Yoongi, who lifted a brow.

“She can’t eat this, hyung,” Taehyung reached for her plate, expression serious. “What else do we have that’s—”

Before he could completely tug it away, (Y/N) grabbed his wrist, wincing. “Sorry, sorry. That was just…it was a really crappy attempt at a joke. I’m not a vegetarian. I’m just an awkward dumbass that didn’t know how to explain I was too nervous to take a bite. I didn’t know what to say and I blurted that out, so just…sorry.”

As the hybrids processed her words, everyone sank back into their chairs, panic fading. “Some joke.” Yoongi huffed.

“So…you like bad jokes?” Taehyung asked thoughtfully. “How do you feel about puns?”

(Y/N) shrugged, “I’m not eggxactly opposed to a good one.”

Several of the men groaned, Hoseok chuckling across the table from her. “Oh, Jin’s gonna be over the moon excited.”

Any lingering awkwardness and tension died down, the sounds of eating filling the room. Taking that as her cue, (Y/N) tentatively dug in, feeling self-conscious even as the others around her ate heartily. That first bite of the tender lamb was like her tongue being serenaded by the perfect blend of flavors. It had been so long since she’d had any, especially seasoned to perfection. Her pleasure must have been written clearly across her face, the tip of her a finger startling her as it poked her bulging cheek. Taehyung watched her in amusement, a knowing look in his eyes. “Good, right?”

“Uh-huh,” If there was one thing bound to make her lose any bashfulness with new people, it was great tasting food. “So good,” Was she drooling? Hopefully not. It was the kind of meal that tasted so amazing that it was tempting to go for another big bite before the first had even been chewed and swallowed. “Compliments to the chefs.”

“You like it?” Jin had stepped back into the kitchen, sans the plate he had been carrying, at that exact moment. “It’s nothing much really.”

“Listen to him, pretending to be modest.” Namjoon smirked. “We all know you’re proud of your cooking, hyung. Well, (Y/N) didn’t, but now she does.”

“Aish,” Jin scolded, “Don’t tell on your hyung! People like a little feigned modesty every now and then.”

(Y/N) found herself further relaxed, taking a sip of the juice she’d been given. Taehyung sighed happily, “This is going better than I thought it would. See, (Y/N)? Everything’s fine.”

“Speaking of (Y/N), not to put you on the spot, but I still have a few questions.” Namjoon spoke again, and the girl urged him to go on with a nod. “When did you meet Taehyung? I thought we knew all of his friends, and most are, well…hybrids.”

Taking her time wiping sauce from the corner of her mouth, (Y/N) tried to formulate a proper answer, sensing that more than just Namjoon was curious about her. “I was having lunch by myself in the park earlier today, and I noticed a pretty dog walking around, looking for someone to play with.”

Yoongi fixed Taehyung with a pointed stare at this. “Wandering up to strangers without wearing your collar? Do you realize what the consequences of pulling a stunt like that could be?”

Taehyung’s ears folded down against his fluffy hair, avoiding his hyung’s eyes. “It was the easiest test I could think of to find a nice human. I figured I’d know a good one when I found them,”

“Why were you looking for a ‘nice human’?” Hoseok prodded, shooting (Y/N) a quick smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Whatever kind of animal instincts he had, they seemed to be on alert in regards to her. “Not that you don’t seem like one.”

“No, no I get it,” (Y/N) assured, putting a bit more rice in her mouth. “I turned up at your house kinda suddenly.”

“Answer the question, pup.” Yoongi said.

(Y/N) could feel Jimin tense up beside her, his wings making a quiet sound as he shuffled in his seat.

“I wanted…to find one who’d be willing to join our family.” He confessed. “Nothing’s been the same without Gramps.” His deep voice cracked, raw with emotion. “So I just thought maybe…”

“…Are you serious?” Yoongi said. (Y/N) had been staring at her plate, but she risked a peek in his direction, and immediately wished she hadn’t. Those limpid feline eyes, so green, were shiny with emotion. Rage? Sadness? Shock? All of the above? It was hard to say. “He’s been dead one fucking week, and you bring someone home with the intention of replacing him, without even consulting us?”

Just like that, all the tension taut enough to steal the air from her lungs was back. Taehyung looked ready to get up as Yoongi made to leave the table. “Hyung, it’s not like that—”

Yoongi rounded on him with startling grace. “Then tell me what it is like, Taehyung.” The big cat demanded. “Tell me what was going through your head, to feel the need to rush out and drag home some weird girl, sit her down at our table, and tell us this out of the blue.”

(Y/N) couldn’t look at a single one of them. Hearing that she had been brought to visit so soon after what sounded like a severe loss made her feel immensely guilty. The eighth spot that wasn’t set, Taehyung’s loneliness and sadness when she touched him, the wariness some of the hybrids displayed towards her. It all made sense. They were fresh in their mourning, and here she was, an intruder who had no right to be among them.

“You’ve got to admit, you didn’t think it out.” Hoseok’s voice wasn’t as sharp as Yoongi’s, but it caused her to flinch nonetheless. There was an undercurrent of disappointment that ate into (Y/N) even if it might not have been directed at her. “Gramps was…he was an amazing human. We all know that. What other person would be crazy enough and compassionate enough to take in a group like us, and raise us like his own kids?”

“I’m not trying to replace him at all!” Taehyung sounded so desperate for them to understand, his words pleading. “I swear I’m not. I know how much he meant to us,” he was starting to tear up, his pain, all their pain making (Y/N) rub at her chest. Sometimes, when animals in the vicinity were hurting enough, she didn’t need to touch them to feel their emotions. Apparently it was the same for hybrids. The grief all of them had over their departed caregiver was obvious, a palpable weight in her chest. “He saved me that day…he meant everything to me too.” As he broke down, scrubbing at his eyes as he began to sob, Jimin stood, walking around (Y/N)’s seat and encircling him in a fierce hug, his wings spreading a little to shelter his friend.

“Did you know?”

The tight, raspy voice belonging to Yoongi startled her from her dazed state of silence.

“Did I…know?” She croaked.

“That he wanted you to join our family? Did you know we’d only just lost our human?” He clarified. “I thought it was weird, you just up and following our pup home. I know Tae’s charming, but it was so abrupt.”

Throat itching, wrapped up in all the melancholy that had overtaken the six of them, (Y/N) felt the need to speak up, explain her side of things. She hadn’t meant to be hurt them, wasn’t trying to be complicit in rubbing salt in what she now knew to only be a week old wound. From losing Ha-Kun, (Y/N) was perfectly aware that the loss of someone dear took much, much longer to start closing than that. Right now their anguish was an exposed nerve, and she had stepped on it.

“I…um, yeah.” (Y/N) admitted, sounding tiny even to herself. But, undoubtedly they heard her just fine. “He told me not long after we met.” Yoongi’s features curled in disdain. “But I didn’t come here because I agreed.” she rushed to add, “It’s not because I’m trying to replace anyone. I would never diminish the grief you must all be feeling by assuming I could come in and sweep away the memory of a man who was clearly very dear to you all.”

“It’s not…not (Y/N)’s fault…” Taehyung lifted his face from Jimin’s neck to explain. “I was pushy. M’ sorry hyungs…Jiminie…I didn’t think about your feelings. And I’m sorry to you too, (Y/N), for dragging you into this.” He whimpered, and without thinking too much, (Y/N) reached over and placed a reassuring hand on his arm.

“Well, I still agreed to come home with you, didn’t I?” she mumbled. “I thought I could help you deal with some of that pain I felt, but that might have been really presumptuous of me. I didn’t even know the full situation.” Rising to her feet, she bowed deeply to all of them. “I can’t thank any of you enough for letting me into your home, and even feeding me. I think I’ve done enough harm, though. I should go.”

“No!” Taehyung cried, snagging her sleeve as she pushed in her chair.

“Taehyung, I’m sorry, but I—”

“Wait,” Namjoon’s commanding tone was enough to halt her in her tracks. “What did you mean when you said some of the pain you felt?”

(Y/N) hadn’t even realized her slip. Not that her power was anything she necessarily hid. But it also wasn’t something she went around volunteering at random. However, given that it was largely responsible for how she had ended up in her current predicament, maybe it was best to come completely clean.

“Oh, that’s because I kinda…have a special ability.” Her eyes darted from one male to the next, gauging their general reaction. “You know, magic. Empathic magic. Since I was little, I’ve been able to feel and understand the emotions of animals.”

Yoongi narrowed his eyes, “We’re not—”

“And hybrids too, I think.”

“So when we met at the park…” Taehyung was clearly beginning to piece it together. “You…you…”

“I felt what you did.” (Y/N) confirmed, a warm tear sliding from her eye.“I couldn’t leave you like that, so I told myself whatever I could do to step in and help, I would. I kind of do it for a living. I’m an animal behaviorist. I try to help animals express themselves and guide people towards understanding their emotions.”

“I’ve read about humans like you.” Namjoon informed her. “They’re pretty rare these days. Only something like one in every two hundred thousand has a gift, right?”

“Something like that.” (Y/N) said lightly, gripping the back of her chair hard, instincts still urging her to run away. “I’ve never met anyone else with a gift in my life, to be honest.” Pausing, she considered another possibility, “Or maybe I have, and they were being discreet.”

“Either way, none of us have ever met someone like you before.” Hoseok said.

“Yep, I’m not a garden-variety weirdo.” she joked weakly. “I’m a rare weirdo.”

That broke the tension, just a little, several of the hybrids staring in soft amusement. “Anyway, I’m really sorry for any trouble I might’ve caused, and sorry for making dinner…this.” she gestured around. “I uh, my condolences too, for your loss.”

“Thank you.” Seokjin smiled.

(Y/N) scrambled away from the table, heart hammering as she felt Taehyung’s burning stare follow her. ‘I know I gave up before I even tried. I’m sorry I let you believe I was someone special who could help.’

Surprisingly, it wasn’t the golden retriever—who looked every bit the kicked puppy—that called out to her first.

“(Y/N), hold on.” Jin approached slowly, as if trying not to corner a startled animal. She blinked. Wow, she must look really uncomfortable and desperate to escape. “How far away do you live? There’s supposed to be a cold front with heavier snowfall coming tonight. If you plan to walk, then I’m going to have to put my foot down.”

Walking back to the parking lot to retrieve her car was exactly what she had planned to do. “I’m sure it’s not too bad.” She tried, but the older man was having none of it.

“It’s too dangerous, and you don’t even have a proper coat or boots.” Seokjin disputed, “You aren’t going.”

“Listen to Jin,” Yoongi huffed. “If you think you caused so much trouble now, think of how much more you’d be causing if you went out in that storm and got lost or froze to death. This one’s already about to cry.” He pointed to Taehyung, who indeed appeared ready to shed tears.

“Stay the night.” Jin offered, patting her shoulder. “I’m sure Tae would like that.”

Taehyung’s tail was wagging hard, his sterling blue eyes hopeful as he remained beside Jimin. “C’mon (Y/N), at least until the storm passes?”

(Y/N) mentally weighed her options, glancing out the kitchen window to see the snow coming down in a flurry. No way would she be able to see to make it back to her car safely. It would be just fine parked where it was overnight. No one was going to risk getting buried in the snow to go bother it. “You make a tempting offer gentlemen,” she finally conceded. “I don’t think I have much choice.”

“Now that that’s sorted out, everybody sit down.” Jin ordered, shooing everyone who had stood back toward the table. “If my cooking isn’t appreciated, I’ll be the next person crying.”

Taehyung maintained a firm grip on one of her hands throughout the rest of the meal, but after the dramatic turn things had taken there, the empath couldn’t find it in herself to complain.

~~

“Seriously, I don’t have any trouble sleeping on the couch downstairs.” (Y/N) uselessly repeated for the fourth time. It was pointless, because Seokjin was hearing none of it.

“Oh hush,” he rolled his eyes. “The couch is alright for naps, but it can get a little drafty down there in the winter. I could turn on the fireplace,” he considered, turning down the sheets. “But wouldn’t you rather be nice and cozy up here?” The man, who she had found out was also a bird hybrid, patted the bed enticingly.

“It looks amazing, especially after the long day I’ve had, don’t get me wrong,” (Y/N) assured him, “It’s just…this is clearly someone’s bedroom.” The space was far too lived in to think otherwise. There was an open sketchbook with doodles on the writing desk near the bedroom’s window, and a vintage camera close to it. Whoever owned the device knew what they were doing, a cork board of pinned photos of happy smiling faces and serene skylines displayed there. Not to mention the partially opened closet full of male clothes and the set of weights in the corner. “Where are they going to sleep?”

“Jungkookie? Don’t worry about him. He’s sleeping down the hall tonight anyway.” Jin explained. “He knows we have a guest, and I don’t think he’ll be too upset about you using his room for the night,” Finished switching out the sheets, the bird hybrid tucked them neatly away in a dresser drawer.

“The more of your hospitality I use up, the worse I feel.” (Y/N) perched herself on the edge of the bed, having to silently admit that it was very comfy. If it felt this good just to sit down on it, laying there on her back was bound to feel even better.

Seokjin sat beside her, placing his hands on her shoulders to focus her attention on him. “(Y/N), it’s alright,” he said earnestly. “I know things got…intense downstairs. And it’s true we were caught off guard. But that doesn’t mean we’re putting you out in the cold just because Taehyung did something impulsive. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong, so stop sulking.” Her heart skipped a beat as he leaned in a little, “In fact, stare into my handsome face until it’s imprinted into your head. Then when you fall asleep, you’re guaranteed to have good dreams.”

(Y/N) gave an unattractive snort, quickly covering her lips and then tittering into her hand. Seokjin said it like he was trying to hypnotize her into obeying. What a goofball.

“Yah, there’s nothing funny about a face this good looking.” He fussed, “Are you rejecting my offer?”

“Of course I’d never turn down an offer so generous.” (Y/N) sobered, though it was hard to fight the grin edging back onto her lips. “A face that beautiful, and I get to look at it for free? Lucky me.”

“That’s what I’m saying.” Jin agreed. In hindsight, him being an emperor penguin made a lot of sense. He carried himself with a certain self-assured elegance. “Anyway, you should be all set now. There’s a bathroom just down the hall to the left if you want to shower before bed.”

He got up to leave, telling her where he would be if she found she needed anything else in the middle of the night. (Y/N) was grateful, but imposing again was the last thing she planned to do. She would cause as little disruption as possible and then trekk back to her car after saying the proper goodbyes in the morning.

Although…a hot shower might help with her nervous energy. (Y/N) looked down at herself with a light frown. If she wanted to shower she would have to put the same clothes back on for the night… Sighing heavily, the girl decided maybe she wasn’t getting that shower after all. Her fingers had only just started to peel back the sheets when a knock came at the door. Snapping upright, she tried to tamp down the unnecessary feeling of guilt, like she was somewhere she shouldn’t be. “C-Come in,” she called.

The door creaked open, a blue head slowly peeking in. (Y/N) met Jimin’s eyes, a little smile on his face. “Good, you’re still awake. I wanted to bring you these,” he trotted in the room with fabric draped over his arm, holding it out to her. “To borrow for the night.”

(Y/N) carefully accepted the bundle, realizing he had brought her a pajama set. Unfolding them and holding them out, she surmised it should fit pretty well. Jimin was taller but there shouldn’t be any issues of them being too large.

“You didn’t have to,” she said, “I could have just slept in what I’m wearing.”

“You could’ve, but now you don’t have to.” The hybrid insisted, his tone edging on sassy.

“Well thanks,” (Y/N) relented easily, because truth be told she still wanted that shower and now she had a change of clothes. “I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” When he smiled, his cheeks were so cute. “Tae wanted to come say goodnight anyway, but he’s busy with the hyungs. So I said I’d do it.”

(Y/N) winced in sympathy for the poor dog hybrid. “How’s he holding up? They’re not going too hard on him, are they?”

“My hearing isn't as good as some of the others, but I know he’s getting an earful.” Jimin revealed, playing with his fingers. “Oh, but don’t worry about it,” he added when he saw her frown. “It’s TaeTae, so they won’t be mad for too long.”

(Y/N) supposed that was all she could hope for. At the end of the day, Taehyung had been trying to help his family, as unorthodox as his idea was.

Jimin looked back, eyeing the door he’d left cracked, and then studying her with big, soft eyes. Not for the first time, (Y/N) was mesmerized by how positively angelic he was. “Can I tell you something?”

(Y/N) was so captivated by how pretty he was, she nodded without hesitation. He could tell her about the stock market report and she would listen dutifully. “Keep it just between us…” he started, licking his lips, “But I’m glad you’re here. I hope you can help Jungkookie, and the hyungs too.”

“I’m not,” (Y/N) hesitated, “Sure they really want my help. And if you mean the Jungkook that Jin mentioned, I haven’t even met him.”

“You might if you want to stick around…” he whispered, staring down at his slipper clad feet. “Gramps was home. Some of us don’t remember where we came from before, and some of us got ripped away from our families and then tossed around like property up for grabs. Gramps was never like that. Maybe he had magic too. He just felt that special.” (Y/N) listened solemnly, letting Jimin wipe at his watery eyes. “I understand what Tae was trying to do.”

Tentatively, (Y/N) stuck out her hand. “I don’t know if I can become your human so suddenly, but would it be alright if I became your friend?”

His face lit up, and (Y/N) thought she might melt at the way his eyes disappeared into his full cheeks when he was beaming. “That’s perfect.” He said, accepting her hand.

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