Welcome back to my second taehyung fanfic list! The last time I updated the list with Taehyung was in 2024… it took me a long time, didn't it? But I hope to make up for the wait. I asked for it, and the universe delivered only the best and most refined pieces of literature!
It also took a while because, no joke, I went through my likes all the way back to March to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything (it was a long two and a half days 😮💨)
But here we are! And this time I wanted to show that graphic design is my passion, so I made this banner which I think turned out particularly beautiful. Just saying 💅 (I was happy to have achieved a result that pleased me)
And last but not least: I would like to thank and acknowledge every fanfic on this list. Thank you to each author for bringing these works into the world. Show them some love.
with love,
your tangie <3
don’t forget to check my masterlist if you liked this one!
🌟Mascot by @matchastwb | pairing: taehyung x reader | genre: high school au, fluff, mutual pining, humor | completed
summary: when you're somehow roped into being the school's temporary mascot for a basketball game, star player kim taehyung (aka the guy you've had a massive crush on for the past two years) mistakes you for his friend and reveals a secret you'd never be able to guess.
🌟Day by day by @hueseok | pairing: taehyung x reader | genre: fluff | smut | strangers to lovers au | a dash of supposed one-night stand au | eventual established relationship au | completed
summary: as surprising as it sounds, you and taehyung didn’t just meet after a considerable amount of drinks, shameless dance floor grinding, and a one-night stand turned legit relationship—because as it turns out, you two have met each other approximately three more instances in the past, every encounter building up until finally, the universe decided it was time.
🌟Your husband really wants a baby! by @cookieebutter | tangie note: This isn't specifically about Taehyung, but I took artistic liberties and made it so | genre: smut | completed
🌟Under All That Shy by @mrsvante | pairing: taehyung x reader | genre: office au, coworkers to lovers, fluffy and filthy | two parts completed
summary: introducing the softest man alive who’s been in love with you since the day you offered him half your highlighter pack and smiled like it meant something. he fixes the printer without being asked. brings you the wrong coffee order on purpose and blushes every time you say thank you.
for years, he’s loved you quietly. from a respectful distance. never daring to hope you might look at him the way he’s always looked at you—like you hung the moon. But now? there’s a chance. And taehyung, who has never been bold, never been reckless, decides this time… he has to be. because some things are worth the risk. and you’ve always been one of them.
🌟The chapter that got away by @vesipha | pairing: ex!taehyung x reader | genre: angst + fluff | completed
summary: you said you were done with your ex, kim taehyung. that was before the strawberry soju, the fire-lit arguments, and the kiss you didn’t see coming.
🌟All I Want for Christmas (Is You) by @mytaegiheart | pairing: taehyung x reader | genre: fluff | completed
summary: Jin’s annual ugly Christmas sweater party is supposed to be all laughter, chaos, and questionable fashion choices. But when Taehyung sneaks you away from the googly‑eye disaster in the living room, the night turns into something far more unforgettable. Three years of love, laughter, and late‑night ramen lead to one velvet box wrapped in Charlie Brown paper—and a proposal that makes even the ugliest sweater look beautiful.
🌟Maybe i do by @chateautae | pairing : ceo!taehyung x reader | genre: arranged marriage!au, ceo!tae, s2l!au, eventual smut, fluff, angst | completed
summary: maybe you love each other, maybe you don’t. when a deal between your fathers leaves you forcefully wedding kim taehyung, arguably seoul’s most powerful CEO, you’re prepared for a loveless marriage of eternal regret and unhappiness. but maybe, it doesn’t turn out that way after all.
🌟Marshmallows and Report Cards by @untaemedqueen | pairing: Single Dad!Taehyung x Teacher!Reader | genre: Strangers to Lovers!AU, Fluff, Smut | completed
🌟Under the sun by @yourfavtangerine | pairing: Surfer!Taehyung x reader | genre: Strangers to lovers to strangers, one night stand, smut | completed
summary: You came at the beach to relax and take a break from your tiring work. Your plan? Spending the day doing nothing. But it changes when you meet him, a sexy surfer named Taehyung.
🌟Ex-husband taehyung head canons by @mrsvante | pairing: ex husband!taehyung x reader | genre: angst | completed
summary: our ex-husband is and was always in love, he just couldn’t properly expresss it. it comes to him too late, and he respects your wishes and agrees to the divorce; then you tell him you’re pregnant.
🌟Pretty little mess by @cigarettesuga | pairing: taehyung x reader + ot7 examples | genre: smut | completed
summary: in which you ride their thigh and they watch you come undone
🌟Too Long; Didn’t Read by @fortunexkookie | pairing: taehyung x reader | genre: AU: College + Enemies to Lovers AU, Comedy, smut, Fluff | completed
summary: This is the story of how you trolled your way into Taehyung’s heart.
🌟Boyfriend Taehyung by @cheeseceli | pairing: taehyung x reader | genre: fluff, headcanons | completed
summary: "can you write dating taehyung headcanons?"
🌟LINES CROSSED by @chimcake | pairing: fuckboy!taehyung x reader | genre: enemies to lovers, smut | completed
summary: desperate for a roommate and drowning in rent, you make the worst possible choice—kim taehyung, the campus fuckboy who hasn’t stopped bothering you since you rejected him.
🌟“Why do we keep pretending we don’t want to kiss each other?” by @belleeebelleee | pairing: taehyung x reader | genre: fluff | completed
🌟After midnight arrangements by @yourfavtangerine | pairing: older man!taehyung x young!reader | genre: smut, age gap, friends with benefits/fuck buddies trope | completed
summary: "Can you make Taehyung smutshot with Age gap and breeding kink"
Tangie note: sub!taehyung agenda below - I LOVE THIS FANFICS SO SO MUCH
🌟TO MY OFFICE, MR.KIM! by @seokbite | pairing: office sex nerdy!taehyung x boss!reader | genre: smut | completed
🌟Like a Reflex by @layover-mp7 | pairing: nerdy salary man sub!tae x dom fem!reader | genre: smut | completed
summary: Taehyung was every mother's dream son-in-law. He worked hard at his high-paying IT job; he woke up early to go to the gym, ate dinner at the exact same time, and went to bed early. You, on the other hand, are not one to settle down; you are young, gorgeous, smart, and independent. He’s disciplined in all areas of his life, except when you’re around. When he runs into you again on a night out with his friends, he knows that he’s about to be a puddle in your hand: you're the only one who can bring out the type of man he really is.
don’t forget to check my masterlist if you liked this one!
So… are your bellies full? Did I feed you well? I hope so 😏
Rainy Days
Idol Taehyung x Ex-Trainee OC Fic | Part 1
Author's Note: I was feeling a bit stuck writing the final part of royal romance, so I decided to write a long two part fic because something is seriously wrong with me. This is the first part, part 2 can be found here comment to be added to the tag list. Thank you for your time!
Synopsis: This is a story about two people who knew each other before they knew themselves, finding each other again on the other side of everything they've lived through. About the kind of feeling that doesn't announce itself, it just settles, quietly, like someone who has decided they're home.
What follows is slow and careful and full of the kind of tension that lives in almost-touches and late-night texts and two people who have both gotten very good at not saying the thing they mean. She is practical, whereas he is patient.
But then everything falls apart at once, the way it sometimes does, without warning and without mercy. And he is simply there. No conditions, no questions. Just stay.
Genre: Idol Taehyung x Ex-Trainee OC, friends to lovers, old crushes being revisited, Taehyung is down bad, Jimin gives a lot of romantic advice, tooth-rotting fluff
Word count: 28K
If you prefer reading on AO3, you can find it here
Taehyung was on a mission. He parks the car smoothly in the basement, checks his cap and mask to keep himself incognito. He walks in and the mall is buzzing, somewhere a child is constantly crying with soft mall music playing. Distracted by a tie display, he calibrates and makes his way to the chanel store.
Opening his texts, he goes back to the texts between him and his sister.
Dongsen 2: This one, in the brown, she was talking about this one
Dongsen 2: Also this one in pink for me, please oppa, I’m graduating soon
Taehyung: Graduating and starting working, you need a more practical bag
A sales person doesn’t approach him right away. The brand wants the client to come in without being accosted, look around and then have one assist them. She watches from three steps away, his fingers brushing against a few bags.
“Anything I can help you with?” Her voice is the first thing that takes his attention, then is her face. The realization strikes right away, he blinks to check if he’s not seeing things. He’s not. It’s ___.
“I am… um-” Taehyung clears his throat, suddenly aware of how strange he must look. “I’m looking for a specific bag. This one.”
He fumbles with his phone, then holds it up a little too close to her face, the movement awkward and rushed, like he’s trying to anchor himself back to the purpose he walked in with.
But his eyes don’t leave her as she leads him even further into the store. He’s too busy following her voice when he almost bumps into her when she stops.
“I am…um, so sorry,” he mumbles quickly, his voice lower now, almost embarrassed.
“Please, don’t be,” she says with an easy laugh, turning back to him. “I’d be starstruck in a Chanel store too.”
The joke is light, meant to ease him, and it works, at least enough to let him breathe again. She gestures toward the display in front of them, effortlessly slipping back into her role.
“So, this, flap bag in patent lambskin with gold-tone metal, dark brown.”
Her fingers hover just above the bag as she speaks, careful, precise. The lighting catches the glossy finish, making it gleam under the soft store lights. He scratches his hair, wondering why she’d pick this.
“My mother doesn’t like a finish like that” Taehyung shares, his fingers rubbing against the glossy finish. “She prefers something with a more soft finish, like a suede or soft leather” Taehyung is more focused on finding the correct bag now, his mother only turns 50 once.
“Okay…where on her hand does she carry her bag?” ___ asks, turning to fully face him. Taehyung pauses, caught off guard by the question. He searches his memory, replaying familiar images, his mother stepping out, adjusting her bag without thinking. Absent-mindedly, he mimics the motion himself, sliding his own bag lower along his arm, letting it rest near his elbow.
“Like this… I think.”
She watches him closely, something like fascination flickering in her eyes, not just at the answer, but at the way he unconsciously mirrors someone he clearly cares about. And then, almost instantly, something clicks.
Her expression brightens, subtle but certain. “I think I have just the thing,” she says, turning and reaching for another display.
She lifts a bag with careful hands, presenting it with quiet confidence. “This one’s suede,” she explains, her fingers grazing the soft texture. “It’s more structured, so it holds its shape… which makes it sit beautifully on the arm.”
The material absorbs the light instead of reflecting it, rich and understated, elegant without trying too hard. And for the first time since he walked in, Taehyung actually smiles, his raised cheekbones indicating so.
“Sir, is this for a special occasion? We could include a card” ___ offers as he stays seated while the bag gets packed. He’s gone back to observing her, she is the same ___ he trained with some 14 years ago.
“Uh…Can it be empty, I want to make my brother and sister write on it” he asks and she smiles widely, this is the best kind of customer on a Tuesday morning.
“Sure sir.” She disappears again, his eyes on her till she’s gone and again when she appears. It’s the same steady walk.
“We’ve included multiple cards,” she says, glancing back at him as she leads the way to the billing counter. “In case each of you wants to write her an individual note.” There’s a softness in the way she says it, thoughtful, deliberate.
Taehyung follows quietly, hands slipping into his pockets for a moment before he pulls out his card. The sleek black surface catches the light as he taps it idly against the counter, once… twice… a quiet rhythm while the bill is being processed.
“Is it her birthday?” she asks, making easy conversation as someone behind her prepares the receipt. “Yes,” he replies, a hint of warmth slipping into his voice. “Her fiftieth.”
His eyes give him away again, bright, almost boyish in a way that doesn’t match the composed figure he’s trying to maintain. She notices.
“Fifty is special,” she says with a small smile, glancing at him briefly before looking back at the bill. “She’s going to remember this one.”
And somehow, the way she says it makes it feel less like a purchase, and more like something that matters.
“Jimin-ah, wait up” Taehyung catches up to a very fast leaving Jimin. “Wait…god why are you running out of here” “I have dinner plans” Jimin offers lightly as they continue to walk towards the elevators.
“Do you remember ___?” Taehyung asks as the elevator doors close behind them, Jimin look at him for a second, trying to place that name to a face till it clicks. “The one that we trained with?” Jimin asks, adjusting his bag.
“Yes, I saw her at the Chanel store a few weeks ago” Taehyung adds and Jimin waits, but Taehyung doesn't elaborate, just stares at the elevator doors like they owe him something. "...And?" Jimin presses.
"She works there. And she didn't recognize me." Jimin is quiet for a beat, then lets out a short breath of a laugh. "Of course she didn't, you had that mask on, you look suspicious when you go out like that." He shifts his bag to his other shoulder, unbothered. "Good for her though, Chanel's not bad."
"That's not-" Taehyung starts, then stops.
Jimin glances at him sideways, something flickering behind his eyes. A slow smile creeps onto his face. "You know," he says lightly, "every single one of us had a thing for her back then." He lets that sit in the air between them for exactly a second too long. "Every. Single. One."
The elevator opens. Jimin walks out first, hands in his pockets, still smiling. “You should have introduced yourself then, she used to be your dance partner after all” he continues as Taehyung trails a step behind him.
“Say what, hey, this is the guy that you turned down when you were 17, nice to see you again?” Taehyung says. This finally makes Jimin stop. He turns slowly, the smile spreading into something more deliberate. "No, no, no," he says, holding up a finger. "You go, remember the guy you turned down at 17? Now I'm a mega successful celebrity." He gestures grandly, like he's presenting a prize.
Taehyung stares at him flatly. "That's embarrassing."
"You getting rejected at 17 is embarrassing," Jimin corrects, already walking again. "Walking into a Chanel store, recognizing her, buying a bag, and then just… leaving without saying a word?" He tilts his head. "That's tragic"
Taehyung says nothing, which is answer enough. Jimin slows just slightly, letting him catch up. "She turned you down and you still remember it fourteen years later," he says, quieter now, the teasing softened just enough. "Maybe go back and buy something else."
"I don't need anything from Chanel." "No," Jimin agrees simply. "But maybe you want to, do you still have a thing for her?” Jimin asks, his curiosity peaking. “No, it was just nice to see her again”
“Oppa why are we not going to the place closer to your office?” his sister asks as he drives around the same mall parking lot. “I get better service here,” Taehyung adds simply.
“You are V of BTS, you get the best service everywhere” Haerin mentions flatly, waiting for her brother to park the car before they can head out. It was very close to closing time when he called, hopefully they can get the bag before he changes his mind.
The mall hums its familiar quiet around them as they walk in, and Taehyung's pace, just barely, quickens. “I’m still not sure so as to why you need a designed bag?” Taehyung asks once again as they walk into the store, his eyes immediately darting for her.
“For surviving college,” "Four years, oppa. Four years of early mornings and group projects with people who don't pull their weight and professors who act like their class is the only one you're taking." She pauses in front of a display, touching nothing, just looking. "I survived. I deserve a bag."
Taehyung opens his mouth. "A nice one," she adds, before he can. He closes it again.
The store is quieter now, the soft lighting warmer against the near-closing hour. A staff member acknowledges them from a distance with a small nod, the brand's usual choreography of unhurried attention. And then he sees her, moving between displays with that same steady walk, adjusting something on a shelf with careful hands.
Something in his chest settles and tightens at the same time. His sister, who notices everything, notices this too. She follows his eyeline, then looks back at her brother. "So," she says quietly, the word carrying far more than it should. "The service here really is better."
"Hi, you came back." ___ doesn't clock him right away, but something about the dress shoes — same style, same careful polish — pulls at her memory. "How can I help you today?"
"He's buying me a graduation gift," Haerin announces, stepping forward with the easy confidence of someone who has never once in her life been shy. "Something beautiful. Something that says she suffered and she deserves this."
___ laughs, warm and genuine, the kind that can't be practiced. "I think we can work with that." She turns slightly. "Is this your-"
"Sister," Haerin and Taehyung say at the same time. He says it quietly. She says it loudly, with feeling, like she's correcting a public record. "His sister," Haerin repeats, just to be thorough, already drifting toward the nearest display with wide eyes. "Not girlfriend. Never girlfriend. He has terrible taste in-"
"Haerin-ah." "I'm just looking."
___ smiles and follows her, the two of them falling into easy conversation as Haerin lifts bags, holds them at arm's length, tilts her head and declares each one almost before moving to the next. She is bright and loud and fills the quiet store with a warmth it doesn't usually hold at closing time.
Taehyung hangs back, watching. At some point, without quite deciding to, he reaches up and pulls his mask down. ___ is mid-sentence when she turns back toward him to ask something, and then she stops. Just for a fraction of a second, a small, almost imperceptible pause, like a skip in a record. Her eyes move over his face once, carefully. It’s Taehyung.
He looks back at her with complete, practiced calm. Neutral. Polite. The expression of a man who has absolutely no idea what she might be thinking.
"Sorry," she says, recovering smoothly. "I was going to ask if she prefers a longer strap or shorter."
"Longer," Haerin calls from across the store, holding a bag above her head to check the chain. ___ nods and turns back. But in the brief moment before she does, Taehyung catches it,the slight press of her lips together, the quiet recalibration happening behind her eyes.
She knows. And he pretends, very convincingly, that he doesn't know that she knows. The next few minutes have a particular texture to them. ___ moves through her role with the same quiet professionalism as before, pulling options, explaining finishes, asking Haerin the right questions. But there is something different now, a slight carefulness in the way she doesn't look at him directly for too long.
Haerin, to absolutely no one's surprise, is not. She bounces between displays, draping chain straps over her shoulder, asking ___ with complete sincerity which colour makes her look most like someone who has her life together.
"This one," ___ says, holding up a classic flap in soft ivory without missing a beat. "It's understated enough to be serious, but it's still beautiful. Like you've arrived, but quietly."
Haerin stares at her. "I want you at every important moment of my life." ___ laughs again, and Taehyung watches the sound leave her like it always did, easy, unguarded, the one thing about her that the years haven't changed at all.
He looks away before she can catch him.
She finally gathers the courage to talk more directly with him at the billing counter, the staff waiting for them to be done so that they can finally close. Haerin is still looking around, just collecting information for the future as Taehyung taps on the counter in the same way.
“I don’t know if you remember, but we used to be trainees together” she shares with a polite smile. Then he tilts his head slightly, like he's searching. Playing it out just a little longer. "Trainees," he repeats, as if turning the word over. And then, with the most natural timing, he lets it land. "Yeah… yes, I remember you, ___ right?"
Not I recognized you the moment you opened your mouth. Not I've thought about this exact conversation for three weeks. Just, I remember you, measured, easy. The careful reveal of a man who has been holding his cards the whole evening and is only now choosing to show one.
___ exhales, and the polite smile softens into something more genuine, the relief of not having imagined it. "I wasn't sure if you would," she admits. "It was a long time ago."
"It was," he agrees. A beat passes between them, quiet and full. "You were good," he says then, simply. "Back then. I remember that."
She looks at him for a moment, something flickering behind her eyes that she doesn't quite name. "So were you," she says. "Clearly." The corner of his mouth moves. Just barely.
“I knew you guys would always make it big” she comments softly, pushing the shopping bag towards him.
The staff behind her have already noticed.The store sees celebrities often enough, actors, athletes, the occasional idol, but Taehyung has never walked through these doors before tonight. At least not as himself.
He takes the bag, his fingers closing around the handle. "Did you?" he asks, and there's something genuinely curious beneath it, unhurried.
"You guys were always the most committed people in the room," she says, straightening the counter slightly, hands needing something to do. "Some people work hard because they're afraid. You guys worked hard because you actually loved it."
She says it the way someone says something they've never said out loud before but have somehow always known. Taehyung looks at her for a long moment. The bag is in his hand. The store is minutes from closing. There is absolutely no logistical reason for him to still be standing at this counter.
"What about you?" he asks quietly. "I'm afraid I was the first," she says. "Working hard because I was afraid I wasn't good enough." A small pause. "Which, as it turns out, I wasn't." She says it candidly, without self-pity. The way you can only say something like that after you've sat with it long enough.
Taehyung doesn't rush to fill the silence with a contradiction, which is the kindest thing he could do. He doesn't say that's not true the way people reflexively do, turning someone else's honest moment into their own discomfort. He just listens, and lets it be what it is.
"I think," he says finally, carefully, "that not making it and not being good enough are different things."
She looks up at him. "Some things aren't just meant to happen, no matter how much we want them," he continues, his voice dropping a few octaves lower now. "And in the longer picture, maybe it's always for the best."
The softness in his voice is the same one she remembers, she realizes. Underneath everything, the years, the fame, the careful public composure, that part of him hasn't changed at all. She holds it for just a second longer than she means to.
"Well," she says then, straightening, the professional warmth sliding back into place like a coat she knows how to wear. "That's comforting." A genuine smile, smaller and quieter than the ones she's given all evening. "It was really great seeing you again."
"You too," he says. And he means it in a way that is difficult to explain and impossible to miss.
He picks up the bag. He turns to call for Haerin, who materializes immediately from behind a display, which means she has been standing there listening for some time now.
"Go back around, ask her out or something? God you're so bad at this," Haerin says the second they exit the store.
"I am not bad at this," Taehyung states clearly, pulling his mask back into place. "You are." She turns to face him, walking backwards with complete confidence. "If she's an old friend or something, just ask to take her to dinner. It's not complicated. Go."
"Haerin-ah-" She puts both hands flat on his chest and pushes.
He stumbles back two steps, directly into someone, his hand instinctively reaching out to steady and then ___ is there, her own bag caught against her side, her keys in her hand, clearly on her way out. The staff pull the door shut behind her with a soft, definitive click. The lock turns.
They are standing very close. "Hi," she says, slightly breathless from the near collision.
"Hi," he says.She looks at him. He looks at her. Somewhere behind him, Haerin makes absolutely no sound, which is the loudest thing she has ever done.
"I-" he starts. "I was going to ask-" she says at the same time. They both stop.
"Let me buy you dinner," he says, before he can think better of it. "If you're not busy."
She looks at him for a moment that lasts considerably longer than a moment. "I'm not busy," she says.
Haerin, to her credit, excuses herself with remarkable efficiency. "I have dinner plans," she announces, already backing away, her new bag swinging at her side. "You didn't mention any dinner plans," Taehyung says flatly.
"I'm mentioning them now." She gives ___ a smile that carries an entire paragraph of meaning inside it. "It was so nice to meet you." And then she is gone, disappearing into the mall with the satisfied energy of someone who considers this their greatest achievement.
The car is quiet in the way that cars get quiet when two people are still deciding what version of themselves to be with each other. Taehyung drives without music, which feels like a choice. The city moves past the windows in amber and white, the late hour thinning the traffic to something almost gentle.
___ sits with her bag in her lap, hands folded over it. "She's lovely," she says. "She's a menace," he replies, and the fondness in it is so obvious it doesn't need pointing out.
A comfortable silence follows.The kind that is still figuring itself out. "You never said anything," she says eventually, eyes on the window. "The first time you came in."
He keeps his eyes on the road. "No."
"Why?" He considers this honestly, the way he does with questions that deserve it. "I wasn't sure you'd remember me."
She turns to look at him then, and something in her expression is very quiet and very certain. "I remembered you," she says. "You’re not someone that can be easily forgotten"
Taehyung has his mask off completely now, and without it, without the cap, without the careful incognito of the mall, he is simply himself across a table from her.
It takes approximately one drink for his shoulders to drop and when they do, she follows.
The conversation finds its rhythm the way good conversations do, not all at once, but gradually, one thread pulling another until neither of them is quite sure how they got from one topic to the next, only that they don't want to stop.
He tells her about the military service, recently finished, the particular strangeness of returning to a life that had continued without him. "You come back and everything is exactly the same and completely different," he says, turning his glass slowly. "You have to relearn how to be yourself again."
He tells her about LA, the upcoming album, months of work condensed into a timeline that would exhaust most people. His eyes change when he talks about the music, that same quality she described in the store, the person who stays after everyone else has left, who works from love rather than fear. It's still there, just larger now. Grown into itself.
"All seven of you?" she asks. "All seven," he confirms, and the smile that comes with it is uncomplicated and warm, the smile of someone who means it when he says he's grateful.
She rests her chin in her hand, watching him. "You really did love it," she says softly. "Even then." "Didn't you?" he asks, and it's gentle, not a wound, just honest curiosity.
She's quiet for a moment. "I loved parts of it," she says carefully. "The dancing I loved. The rest of it-" she tilts her head slightly. "I think I loved the idea of it more than the reality."
"And now?"
She smiles, the smile of someone who has made peace with a particular version of their life. "There are realities, the bills keep coming no matter how passionate you are. I just decided that if it didn’t happen till I turned 19, it probably never would”
She reaches for her glass. "It wasn't dramatic," she continues, and he can tell this is something she has explained before, to people who expected more grief in it. "No breakdown, no big moment. I just woke up one day and thought, this is taking more than it's giving. And that was that."
"And Chanel?" he asks, genuinely curious. She laughs softly. "An accident, honestly. A friend worked there, they needed someone, I needed something stable." She pauses, considering. "And then I found out I was good at it. Really good at it."
There's a quiet pride in the way she says it, "Reading people, knowing what they actually want versus what they think they want." She tilts her head slightly. "Not so different from performing, when you think about it. You're still in a room, still reading an audience."
Taehyung is quiet for a moment, something turning over behind his eyes. "You're good at it," The candle flickers between them as she quietly takes the compliment. Names surface like old photographs, faces they haven't thought about in years, some of them familiar enough to find online if they tried. The girl from Busan who could sing but couldn't take direction. The choreographer who smelled strongly of instant noodles at every single morning session without exception. The particular shared misery of a certain vocal coach whose feedback was always technically correct and delivered as though she personally found their existence disappointing.
"She told me my facial expressions were too much," ___ says.
"She told me mine were not enough," Taehyung replies.
"She wasn't wrong about either of us," she concedes.
"No," he agrees. "She was not."
The laughter between them is easy now, the kind that builds on itself, one memory pulling another until the restaurant is nearly empty and neither of them has noticed. The candle has burned considerably lower.
“We’ll this is me” ___ shares as the driver stops right as instructed. Her steps are a bit unsteady, the flowing drinks are to blame but she gracefully exits the car. The door closes behind him and he's simply there, on her pavement, hands in his pockets, in the quiet of a street that doesn't yet know what to do with Kim Taehyung standing on it at this hour.
"You didn't have to-" she starts. "I know," he says simply. She looks at him for a moment, the streetlight catching the angles of his face, and decides not to argue with that.
They walk the short distance to her building entrance slowly, unhurried, neither of them particularly eager to leave. The night air is cool and she pulls her coat a little tighter without thinking about it.
At the door she stops and turns to face him. "I had a really good time," she says, and means it without complication.
"So did I," he says, and means it. "We should stay in touch," he says then, casual, easy. "If that's alright."
She looks at him for just a moment, reading it the way she reads most things, carefully, practically. People say that. At the end of a good evening, when the wine has been generous and the conversation has been better than expected. It's the polite thing. A graceful way to close a door that was only ever opened by coincidence.
"Of course," she says, and takes his phone when he offers it, typing her number in with steady enough hands. He saves it without looking at what she's typed, slips the phone back into his pocket.
"Goodnight, Taehyung-ah," she says, and there it is again, that name, informal and easy, like something remembered rather than chosen. "Goodnight," he says.
She turns and goes inside, and he waits until the door has closed completely before he walks back to the car.
He looks down at his phone once he's seated. She's saved herself simply, just her name. No punctuation, no emoji, nothing added. He sits with it for a moment in the dark of the backseat. His focus from his phone is stolen by the rain outside, suddenly a loud outpour. Taehyung bites his lip, his best attempt to contain his boxy smile.
He lets the wine take the lead as he types a simple message,
Taehyung: It rained the last time I saw you as well
___ is still reeling from the night, her coat half off her shoulders, shoes barely abandoned by the door, when her phone pings. The speed at which she dives across her bed to retrieve it would embarrass her enormously if anyone witnessed it. No one does. She doesn't care even slightly.
She reads it once. Then again. She sits with that for a moment, her coat still hanging off one shoulder, the city still loud with rain outside her window. He remembered, not just her, he remembered the specific weather of a specific day fourteen years ago.
She could say did it? She could say I don't remember that. She could give him nothing, the way she gave herself nothing on the walk to her door when she decided it was just the polite thing to say, staying in touch, people do that, it doesn't mean anything.
But the rain is loud against her window. And it's past midnight. And she remembers.
___: I remember
She sends it and immediately places the phone face down on the mattress, which lasts approximately four seconds before she flips it back over.
She lies back against her pillow, phone resting on her stomach, rain filling the silence of her apartment. "Don't," she tells herself quietly, to no one. But she's smiling at her ceiling, and the ceiling, at least, keeps her secrets.
The texts don't stop when he leaves. That's the first thing she notices. She'd expected them to taper naturally, the way things do when real life gets busy. A few days of back and forth, gradually longer gaps, and then the comfortable silence of two people who had a nice evening once and left it there. Clean and uncomplicated.
Instead, her phone lights up at 7am on a Tuesday with a photo. No caption. Just the LA sunrise from what appears to be a very high window, all burnt orange and hazy pink bleeding into each other over a skyline she recognises from films.
She's standing at her coffee machine when she sees it.
___: It's 3am there
Taehyung: I'm aware
___: Why are you awake?
A pause. Long enough that she's poured her coffee and is halfway to her couch before it comes.
Taehyung: Studio ran late. Just got back. Couldn't sleep.
She looks at the sunrise photo again. The light in it is extraordinary, the kind of sky that feels almost unreasonable, too much colour for one morning.
Taehyung: How's your morning?
She looks around her apartment. Small and familiar, grey Seoul morning pressing against the windows, her coffee steaming in her hand, the quiet familiar to early weekdays.
___: Ordinary
Taehyung: Tell me anyway
She tucks her feet beneath her on the couch, coffee warming her palms, and finds herself typing. The coffee shop downstairs that gets her order wrong with such consistency she has started to suspect it's intentional. The woman on the third floor whose small dog has recently developed strong opinions about Tuesdays. The particular quality of Seoul light in the early morning, which is nothing like his photo and somehow still beautiful.
She doesn't realise how much she's written until she's already sent it. His response comes just as she's pulling on her coat for work.
Taehyung: I can picture all of it
This keeps happening. That's the second thing she notices. He texts from the studio at hours that make no sense, time difference rendered irrelevant by what appears to be a complete disregard for sleep. She texts him during her lunch break, sitting in the small staff room, and he responds immediately despite it being somewhere around 4am in LA, which she stops questioning after the first month.
He sends her things without explanation. A song he's listening to on repeat. A restaurant he walked past that reminded him of somewhere he couldn't quite place. A single photo of Jimin asleep on a studio couch with the caption “he did this to himself" makes her laugh loudly enough that a colleague comes to check on her.
She sends him things too, carefully at first, then less so. A photo of the rain against her window one evening with no caption, and she doesn't need one, and he doesn't ask for one.
Taehyung: Two more weeks here
She reads it on her lunch break, weeks after he left.
___: How's the album coming?
Taehyung: Slowly. Then all at once. You know how it goes.
She doesn't, not really, but she thinks she understands the feeling.
The sound of his luggage being wheeled in fills his apartment, the space feeling too big just for himself. He feels like that maybe because he spent the last few months living with his members again, the particular comfort of perpetual noise and company making his own silence feel larger than he left it.
He lets the 4am wash over him as he shuffles around the apartment, checking his fridge for all the food his mother left him. Tupperware stacked with quiet, careful love. He stands in the cold fridge light for a moment, grateful in a way he doesn't have words for.
He flops on the sofa, knowing full well he needs to get some sleep before the busy week hits him all at once. Press, recordings, schedules stacked on schedules. But the apartment is too quiet and his body hasn't caught up with the time zone yet and his mind is doing that thing it does when it's too tired to be sensible.
He picks up his phone.
Taehyung: You wanna listen to a few songs from the album?
He shuts his eyes, letting the tiredness pull at him, when his phone buzzes.
___: of course!
Taehyung: Are you waking up or didn't go to sleep?
___: I'm still out
A picture comes through before he can type. A mirror selfie, bathroom lighting, her in a low cut top, hair loose and a little wild like it's been a long and good night. She's not quite looking at the camera, mid-send, unbothered.
He stares considerably longer than he means to.
___: Went out after work
Taehyung: Clubbing? I haven’t been clubbing in ages
___: It’s fun, I took like right shots
___: eight, nine now
Taehyung: Which club?
___: why, you coming?
He stares at that for a second.
Taehyung: Maybe
The three dots appear immediately.
___: I got excited for a second, you aren’t in the country :(
___: I gotta go and flirt for a cigarette
He reads it once and sets his phone down on his chest, staring up at the ceiling of his too-quiet apartment. Outside, Seoul is doing what Seoul does at 4am, living quietly and all at once.
He picks the phone back up.
Taehyung: Text me when you reach home
He locks the screen. Closes his eyes. Sleep, when it finally comes, takes its time.
"Can you guys not be so weird, just act normal," Taehyung instructs, pacing the length of the studio for what is probably the seventh time. Jimin and Jungkook occupy the couch with the relaxed energy of two people who have absolutely no intention of acting normal.
"We aren't the weird ones here," Jungkook comments simply, not looking up from his phone. "You're pacing," Jimin adds helpfully.
"I'm thinking." "You're pacing and thinking, which is worse." Taehyung stops, points at Jimin and says nothing. He just starts pacing again.
"I still follow her from my private instagram," Jungkook mentions, with the casualness of someone dropping a very small grenade into a very quiet room. "She posts nice stuff-"
"What, where?" Taehyung's hand is already extended, and Jungkook's phone is already gone before he's finished the sentence.
"Yah—" But Taehyung has already found it, scrolling with a focused expression that he would deny in a court of law. Jimin leans over, trying to see. Taehyung angles the phone away from him specifically.
"She's pretty," Jimin observes anyway, from memory, smiling at the ceiling. "She's always been pretty," Jungkook agrees. Taehyung puts the phone down. Face down on the table with finality.
"Normal," he repeats, pointing at both of them. "When she comes in. Normal human behavior. From both-" His manager appears first, then a beat behind her, ___. She's in something comfortable, clearly came from work or somewhere close to it, her bag on one shoulder, taking in the room with the same quiet, reading-people expression he remembers from the store.
Her eyes find Jimin first, then Jungkook, and then Taehyung, and she smiles, warm and genuine and slightly disbelieving at the situation she's found herself in. "Hi," she says to the room.
"Hi," Jimin says, standing immediately, the perfect picture of normal human behavior. Jungkook waves from the couch, also normal.
Taehyung, who has been pacing for twenty minutes and confiscated a phone and threatened physical removal not thirty seconds ago, leans against the desk with his arms crossed and says, with complete composure, "You found it okay?"
"I did," she says. "Good," he says. Jimin, behind him, presses his lips together very firmly.
"You don't have to be careful about my reaction," she says, looking between the three of them. "I'm not a critic, just a huge fan"
"He's nervous," Jimin says, gesturing at Taehyung. "I'm not nervous." ___ looks at Taehyung as she tries very hard to not smile. He looks briefly at the ceiling and nods at Jungkook to play.
They go through the tracks one by one, sometimes twice when she asks, which she does more than once. She doesn't perform her reactions, doesn't rush to fill the silence at the end of each song with praise. She just sits with it, and says something when she has something to say, and the members find themselves leaning toward her responses without realizing it.
Somewhere around the fourth track Jungkook's phone buzzes. He glances at it, then stands, stretching with the exaggerated ease of someone making a departure look casual. "I have to—" he gestures vaguely toward the door.
"Mm," Taehyung says. Jungkook pauses at the door long enough to catch Jimin's eye. A look passes between them, the entire conversation happening in under a second. Then he's gone.
Jimin lasts another two tracks. To his credit he makes it through a full song before his own phone becomes suddenly and urgently important. "I told Hobi-hyung I'd-" he's already standing, already moving. He stops at the door. Turns back. Points at the speaker. "The third one," he says to ___. "That's the one. Remember that one."
"I will," she says warmly. Jimin leaves, the door clicks softly behind him. And then it's just the two of them, and the music, and the low studio lighting that Jungkook had dimmed at some point and nobody had thought to change back.
Taehyung plays the remaining tracks without commentary, sitting on his end of the sofa, one leg folded beneath him. She's on the other end, her own legs tucked up, head resting against the back cushion, turned slightly toward the speaker.
By the second to last track her eyes are heavier than she means them to be. The couch is comfortable. The music is warm. It's been a long day and the studio has the particular hush of a room that exists outside of regular hours. Her eyes close. Open. Close again.
Taehyung notices. He doesn't say anything. He just reaches over quietly and turns the volume down by two, barely enough to register, just enough to be gentle. He lets her drift, her head bobbing from one side to another, the movement causes him to move closer, close enough for her head to rest against his shoulder.
Taehyung’s eyes are focused, too focused as he looks at her with this kind of closeness, he could count her number of eyelashes if he tried. He notices the way she's grown into her features, the softness of her trainee years having given way to something more defined. The chubbiness in her cheeks is gone, replaced by high cheekbones that catch the low studio light cleanly.
Her features are a little pointed but smooth, the kind of face that sharpens with time rather than hardens. Like a swan, he thinks, and then feels slightly embarrassed by the thought, which doesn't stop him from thinking it.
The last track ends and the room settles into a quiet that's only the ambient hum of equipment.
She stirs, her eyes flutter once, twice, and then open properly, and for a moment she simply exists in that soft in-between place before full consciousness reasserts itself. Then it does, and she sits up slightly, and the embarrassment arrives right behind it.
"I'm so sorry," she says immediately, pressing a hand briefly to her face. "That is…genuinely not a reflection of the music, the album is wonderful, I just-" she pauses, exhales. "It's been a long day."
"I know," he says simply. His eyes drifting between the wall and her, he can’t look at her for a second too long.
She looks at him, and she wants to be honest, "I was at the hospital this morning," she says, quieter now.
"Are you sick?" The question comes immediately, and so does his hand, reaching over without thinking, pressing lightly against her forehead to check her temperature. The impromptu touch freezes her for a second, the warmth of his palm against her skin, casual and careful at the same time.
He seems to realise what he's done approximately one beat after doing it. His hand drops.
"No," she says, once she remembers what they were talking about. "Not me. My mother." The air in the room shifts slightly.
"She was recently diagnosed with MS," she continues, her voice finding its steadiness again. "They caught it at a stage where there are still options, which is… good, they keep telling us it's good." A small breath. "They're trying her on a new trial treatment. So there's a lot of hospital visits, a lot of waiting, a lot of information coming at once that we're all trying to absorb and then go home and act normal afterward."
"Which is why I fell asleep on your couch. In your studio. To your unreleased album. Just because I’m tired not because it isn’t good, because it is"
The corner of his mouth moves. "There are worse ways to hear it for the first time."
She laughs softly, and it's tiring than her other laughs but more real somehow, the kind that comes out when the guard is fully down. "I really am sorry." "Stop apologising," he says, and it's gentle but certain.
She looks at him for a moment. Then nods, once, accepting it.
Taehyung looks at her for a moment in the low studio light, this person he had known who lives a completely different life now, and feels something settle in him that he doesn't examine too closely.
"Are you hungry?" he asks. She blinks. "What?"
"You've been at the hospital, then here. Have you eaten?" She opens her mouth. Closes it, thinks about it genuinely. "Not really."
He stands. "Come on." "You don't have to-"
"I know," he says simply, already moving toward the door. He glances back at her with an expression that is patient and completely immovable. "Come on."
She looks at him for one more second. Then she unfolds herself from the couch, finds her shoes, and follows.
“I’m still in the middle of packing to move,” Taehyung shares as he pushes open the door to his apartment, the long doorway leading them to a massive, beautifully decorated living room. Taehyung suggested having a takeaway dinner at his apartment rather than a restaurant, she clearly doesn’t have the energy to go out.
“Come on, this is more clean and organized than my apartment after I spend a day cleaning it” ___ comments as she places the bag of take out on the dining table, “Well I have a cleaning lady so it’s not fair to you” Taehyung notes as he disappears for a minute too long.
She stands by the dining table, the takeout bags in her hand, not quite sure what to do with her hands. She doesn't want to sit without being told to, doesn't want to wander without being invited, the particular awkwardness of being in someone's private space for the first time, even someone you know, especially someone you're still in the process of knowing again.
She looks at the art on the walls instead. It's good. The kind of good that means something to the person who chose it.
"What would you like? Wine or beer?" Taehyung calls from somewhere deeper in the apartment.
She follows his voice, which leads her through the living room and into the kitchen, and she stops in the doorway. It's a good kitchen. He's standing in front of an open wine fridge with the focused expression of someone taking the question seriously, which she appreciates.
"Beer," she says. Then immediately, "No, wait." She looks at the takeout bags she's still carrying. "What pairs better with sushi?"
He looks at her over his shoulder. Then at the bags, then back at the wine fridge. "White wine," he says, with the quiet certainty of someone who has thought about food pairings more than the average person.
"Then white wine," she agrees, setting the bags on the kitchen counter and beginning to take the containers out, which feels like a natural thing to do, and then she's doing it before she's decided to.
He pulls out a bottle, checks the label briefly, sets it on the counter beside her. Reaches past her for the opener in a drawer he knows without looking, close enough that she catches the scent of whatever he's wearing, something warm and understated.
"You can sit," he says, nodding toward the kitchen island. "You don't have to unpack all of that." "I'm already doing it," she says. He looks at the neat row of containers she's already organized and says nothing, just reaches into a cabinet for glasses.
"Do you always do that?" he asks. "Do what?"
"Make yourself useful when you're uncomfortable." She pauses with a container in her hand, looks at him. He's pouring the wine with his back half turned, not pressing it, just asking.
"Yes," she says after a moment. "Probably."
"No, the latest season wasn't any good, it's like they know people are waiting so they'll put out any kind of crap," ___ comments, gesturing with her chopsticks for emphasis.
"The third season was perfect," Taehyung agrees, with the conviction of someone who has opinions about this and isn't embarrassed by that. "They should have stopped there."
She laughs, and they move on the way their conversations do, one thread pulling naturally into the next, nothing and everything, the wine making the edges of the evening soft and unhurried.
He tells her about the tour. Next year, multiple countries, the kind of scale that sounds abstract until he starts describing the specifics. the production, the setlist debates that have been ongoing for months, the particular chaos of moving that many people across that many time zones with that many moving parts.
"But sleeping in a different hotel room every week is exhausting," he says, turning his glass slowly. "You stop knowing what city you're in before you open the curtains. Sometimes after." A pause. "The rooms all smell the same."
"That sounds incredibly lonely," she says, honestly.
He looks at her. "It can be," he says, just as honestly. "But then you get on stage, and" he stops, and something shifts in his expression, the particular animation of a person arriving at the thing they actually want to talk about. There's a glint in his eyes that she recognises, the same one from the store when he talked about his mother, but bigger. Brighter. "We get to perform," he says. "Which is always worth it."
She watches him say it, the way it moves through him when he does, uncomplicated and total, and she thinks about what she said to him that first night at dinner. You worked hard because you actually loved it. She was right then.
"What does it feel like?" she asks. "On stage. In front of that many people."
He considers it genuinely, the way he does with questions that deserve it. "Like the only place where everything makes complete sense," he says finally. "Like the volume of the world goes up and down at the same time." He pauses. "Like being entirely seen and entirely free, simultaneously."
The kitchen is quiet for a moment.
They move to the living room once dinner is done, the takeout containers cleared away with the easy shared efficiency of people who have stopped thinking about whose kitchen it is. The wine glasses migrate to the coffee table.
"What are we watching?" she asks, her voice already carrying that particular softness of someone fighting a losing battle with sleep.
"I'm not sure yet," Taehyung admits, still scrolling. "What do you want?" "Something I've already seen," she says.
She knows it's late. She is aware, in the rational part of her that's still functioning, that it is well past midnight and that staying any longer tips the evening from something that can be explained simply into something that requires more thought. She doesn't move.
Taehyung settles on the other end of the sofa, not close, not far, and the opening credits of something roll quietly across the screen. She doesn't catch the title. It doesn't matter.
The blanket is warm. That's the first problem. The movie's score is gentle, something understated in a minor key, and the low lighting from the single lamp in the corner does the rest. Her eyes go heavy. She is aware of this. She makes a reasonable internal note to sit up straighter.
Taehyung notices the exact moment it happens. The slight change in her breathing, the way her hand loosens around the stem of her wine glass. He reaches over carefully, takes the glass from her fingers before it can tip, and sets it on the coffee table without a sound.
He looks at her for a moment. He reaches for the blanket that has slipped slightly off her shoulder and pulls it back up. Gently, without waking her. Then he turns back to the movie, volume barely audible now, and stays.
It's the early grey light that wakes her. She sits up slowly, the unfamiliar ceiling registering before anything else, and then everything registers at once. She sits up carefully.
Taehyung is asleep at the other end of the sofa, head dropped back against the cushion, one arm along the back, legs stretched out in a way that cannot be good for his spine. The television has gone to a quiet screensaver.
She looks at him for a moment in the grey light. Then at the time. 6:08am. She should go, quietly, before it becomes a conversation. But she looks at the angle of his neck against the cushion and winces slightly on his behalf.
"Taehyung-ah," she says quietly. Nothing. "Taehyung-ah." A little firmer. He inhales slowly, head shifting, not quite awake.
She reaches over and touches his shoulder once, brief and light. "Hey." His eyes open. Unfocused at first, then finding her, and for just a moment, in the unguarded space between sleep and waking, he smiles. Small and unthinking, the smile of someone whose first conscious sight is something they don't mind at all.
Then awareness catches up and he straightens, clearing his throat. "What time is it?" "Just past six," she says, already pulling the blanket off her lap, reaching for her shoes. "Your neck is going to hate you. Go sleep in your bed."
He rubs a hand over his face. "You don't have to leave."
"I have work," she says, finding her bag on the chair. The lie arrives smoothly, practiced in the two minutes she spent deciding it before waking him. She doesn't have work. He lets it be what it is. "I'll drop you."
"You don't have to, the subway will get me home just fine." "___-ah"
"It's six in the morning, I'm not having you drive across the city." She pulls her coat on, finds her keys in her bag. The performance of someone with somewhere to be. "Go to bed, properly"
He looks at her from the sofa, sleep-rumpled and unhurried, making no move to argue further, "Text me when you're home," he says.
"I will," she says. And because she will, it's not a lie.
She lets herself out quietly, and the door clicks softly behind her, and she stands in the hallway for just a second before she moves toward the elevator.
In the apartment, Taehyung stays exactly where he is for a moment. Then he reaches over and pulls the blanket she was using toward him, not thinking about it, and closes his eyes.
"Hyung you have to come, how often do I throw a party?" Taehyung grumbles over the phone, pacing the length of his half-packed living room. Boxes line the walls, art has been taken down leaving clean squares on the paint where they hung, the apartment already halfway between what it was and what it's becoming.
He hears a long sigh from the other side. "Ahhh why Thursday though," Hyunsik complains, the sound of him already opening something in the background. A calendar app, probably. "I'll have schedule in the morning."
"So do I," Taehyung says. "Then why-" "Because that's the only day she's free." He says it like it's the most reasonable thing in the world. "And it was her idea, sort of, and it sounds nice. A house cooling party. A proper way to say goodbye to the place before I move, a celebration-"
"Taehyung-ah." Hyunsik's voice is warm and full of teasing. "You're doing a lot to impress a girl."
Taehyung stops pacing. "I'm not… it's not about impressing anyone, it's a house cooling party, people have those"
"People who are trying to impress someone have those." "Hyung" "Who else is coming?" A pause. "A few people. Mutual friends." "Which members?" A longer pause. "We have stuff scheduled next morning"
"Taehyung-ah." The warmth in Hyunsik's voice edges into something that is dangerously close to fond. "You're throwing a party on a Thursday, with schedule the next morning, that none of your members can attend, because she's only free on Thursday and it was sort of her idea." A beat. "And you're telling me this isn't about impressing her."
Taehyung looks at the half-packed boxes. The clean squares on the wall where the art used to be. The apartment that is already halfway gone. "Are you coming or not," he says flatly.
Hyunsik laughs, long and genuine. "I'll be there at eight. Should I bring anything?" "Food, possibly the kind that works well for a party"
"And maybe a camera, to document whatever this evening becomes." "Goodnight Hyungggg"
He hangs up and stands in his quiet half-packed living room for a moment. Then he picks his phone back up.
Taehyung: Thursday still works for you?
Her response comes quickly.
___: Yes! Should I bring anything?
He looks around the apartment. At the boxes. At the walls. He probably shouldn’t have had all the art work removed before the party.
Taehyung: Just yourself
He sends it and puts the phone in his pocket before he can watch himself wait for her response.
“I can’t believe that you’re making me prepare for a party that I can’t even attend” Haerin complains as Taehyung explains, it’s strange that everyone’s first response to the party is to complain.
“Because you tell embarrassing stories about me, I don’t need that. What I do need you is to pick up everything that I might need, what stuff do people need for a party? Liquor, food?”
“You’ll need disposable glasses, no real food, more snacks, stuff people can eat just with their hands, tissues, lots of them, lemons and other mixers for drinks, and some dessert, cupcakes or brownies, and flowers for the house” Haerin raps off and Taehyung wouldn’t admit but he’s a little impressed.
“Flowers for the house” “Oppa it’s a house cooling party, have you not been to any of those?” Haerin asks, “I heard about them for the first time a week ago” Taehyung confesses as he parks his car. “How do you know all of this?" Taehyung continues as he places his phone between his shoulder and ear.
"I have friends, oppa. Normal friends who do normal things like have house cooling parties." A pause. "Unlike you, who apparently lives in a cave and only recently discovered the concept” Haerin is getting ready to leave as well, it’s going to take multiple trips to get all the supplies.
“Since, I’m the one buying and paying for everything, I am coming to the party” she adds and Taehyung groans, wondering if it’s too late to cancel the party. “I pay your credit card bill, I’m the one paying for this-” “I’ll see you tomorrow oppa!”
By nine thirty the apartment is already louder than he planned.
He's not sure exactly how this happened. Hyunsik arrived at eight as promised, then brought two people Taehyung didn't invite but knows well enough. Then someone called someone, and that someone apparently told someone else, and now it is ten o'clock and his half-packed apartment is full in a way he did not entirely anticipate.
He's not complaining. The energy is good, the kind that builds on its own without needing to be managed, conversation layering over music layering over laughter, the apartment feeling generous with it all despite the boxes along the walls.
He tops up a few drinks without being asked. He laughs at something someone says across the room and crosses to join that conversation without it feeling like an interruption. He takes a photo with two people who ask, easy and unbothered, and then pivots back into the evening without missing a beat.m.
His phone buzzes in his pocket. He checks it without breaking the conversation.
___: I'm so sorry, I'm outside, the elevator isn't working, which floor was it again?
He's off the counter before he's finished reading it. "Excuse me," he says to no one in particular, already moving through the living room toward the front door with the unhurried ease of someone who simply has somewhere to be.
Taehyung fixes his hair one last time before the elevator opens, he should have played it cool and just waited inside but he’s a few drinks in and doesn’t care about being nonchalant at all. The ting of the elevator sobers him a bit, the doors open slower than usual, or at least he thinks so.
“Oh…Hi!” ___ looks up at a well dressed Taehyung, his shirt barely buttoned and his hair styled for the evening. “Hi, didn’t want you to get lost, you got flowers?” he asks, neither of them has moved, which causes the elevator to close before she can answer.
“Come on, before this closes again” Taehyung chuckles as the door opens again, this time she does move quickly, her dress swaying as she does. “For the house and wine, in case you were running low on liquor” she adds as he walks beside her, she almost takes a wrong turn, that’s when he redirects her with his hand.
“I don’t think I’m going to run low on alcohol for the rest of my life” Taehyung notes as he leads her down the corridor, his hand firmly placed on the small of her back.
"Just a heads up," he says, reluctantly moving his hand as he steps forward to open the door. "There are a bit more people than I anticipated."
"Fun," she says, moving closer to be heard over the noise bleeding through the door, her voice low and warm near his ear. "It sounds really loud." Her breath brushes against him lightly as she says it, close enough that he goes very still for just a fraction of a second.
He holds her gaze for one more second. Then he pushes the door open, and the warmth and noise of the party rushes out to meet them both, and he steps aside to let her in first, his hand finding the small of her back again without any negotiation whatsoever.
"Come one, give a toast Taehyung, say a proper goodbye to the house!” Hyushik yells across the room, grabbing everyone’s attention. Taehyung vehemently nods a no as he downs the rest of his drink.
"Toast! Toast! Toast!"
It starts with Hyunsik but it doesn't stay with Hyunsik. The room picks it up, not everyone, but enough, the playful rhythm of it filling the apartment, and Taehyung looks around at the faces. His eyes find ___ across the room without meaning to.
“Alright, alright, I will, there’s no mics around, so listen carefully” Taehyung speaks to the group as me moves more towards the center, trying to make sure everyone can hear him, making sure ___ can hear him.
“I moved into this place, god, three years ago? It’s seen me through a shitty break up and military enlistment. On some days, coming back home was all I could think about” He pauses. The room gives him a pause.
"It's strange, packing it up," he continues, quieter now, the toast becoming something slightly less like a toast and slightly more like the truth. "You don't realize how much a place holds until you start putting it in boxes." His eyes move across the room, seeing faces he knows well and some he barely knows and landing, briefly, on her. "People change in spaces. I changed in this one. I think for the better, mostly." The corner of his mouth moves. "Ask me again in a year."
"So, to the apartment I bought to live with my ex girlfriend-" The room reacts immediately. Someone cackles. Someone else chokes on their drink. A collective noise of delighted disbelief laughter through the gathering, the kind of reaction that has its own momentum.
Taehyung laughs too, because what else is there to do, shaking his head slightly at himself. "-who I broke up with before I could ask her to move in," he finishes, which makes it worse, which makes everyone louder.
"Cheers!" someone calls from the back, drinks are immediately clicked and downed again. Taehyung moves swiftly, making his way back to ___ who had been entertaining a few people even he didn’t remember at this point.
He arrives at her shoulder. "Come on," he says, close enough that it's just for her, his hand finding the familiar space at the small of her back. "I want you to meet someone."
She turns to the group with a warm smile. "Excuse me," she says, easy and unhurried, and lets him guide her away. "Who?" she asks, as they move through the apartment.
"Old friends," he says. "You'll like him."
“Oh my god, I am a big fan” ___ fangirls out loud as she barely shakes Hyushik’s hand, who in turn is very pleased by the turn of events. “So am I, suggesting a house cooling party, exactly the kind of thing Taehyung needed” Hyushik teases a Taehyung who stands behind her as he rolls his eyes.
“___-si, you are the reason I get to attend a legendary Kim Taehyung party, I am a bigger fan I think” Hyushik continues, they’re still weirdly shaking their hands, Hyushik now holding her hand with both his hand to express his amount of gratitude.
“I suggested? I thought I reminded you?” ___ asks, turning slightly to talk to the host. "Suggest, remind," Taehyung says, with the easy confidence of someone building an argument on a very weak foundation. "It's all the same."
"It's really not," she says. "Semantics." "That's not what semantics means."
Hyunsik is watching this exchange with undisguised joy, still holding her hand, which at this point everyone has simply accepted as the situation. “Did you eat something ___-si?” “You can just call me ___” she responds almost immediately, Hyushik finally releases her hand as he removes his phone.
“___ how about you give me your number so that we can plan the house warming party for the new-” "Hyung." Taehyung's voice is pleasant. Perfectly pleasant. "Didn't you say you had to leave by eleven?"
Hyunsik looks up from his phone. "Did I?" "You did. Very specifically. Eleven o'clock." Taehyung glances at his watch. "Look at that."
Hyunsik looks at his own watch with the slow deliberation of a man who is enjoying every second of this. "So it is," he says. He pockets his phone without any apparent urgency whatsoever. "___, it has been an absolute-"
"You said early schedule," Taehyung continues,"Very early. Didn't want to be tired." "I did say that," Hyunsik agrees, nodding thoughtfully. "Very responsible of me." He turns to ___ with the full warmth of his considerable screen presence. "It was so lovely to meet you."
"You too," she says genuinely, and then, because she has clearly picked up on exactly what just happened and finds it extremely funny.
“Yes, of course, we should plan dinner” Taehyung’s voice booms in the entryway, the party cleared out by 1 am, it’s a working day tomorrow for most people and people that are lying about it. “Byeeee” Taehyung waves gladly, he is kinda glad that he threw this party, he needs to celebrate more often in life.
He sighs with a bit of exhaustion as he runs a hand through his hair, he walks right in the living room, hoping to find her there. When she isn’t, he walks to the kitchen to hope to find here there. But when she isn’t even in the kitchen he finally calls out her name, “___?”
“I’m in here!” she yells from the service kitchen, where she seems to be packing up all the leftover mixers. Taehyung finds her arranging all the empty bottles, capping all the bottles and putting away all the lemons, so so many lemons. “Why are there so many lemons?” she asks as she turns around.
What she wasn’t expecting was a quiet Taehyung who’s leaning against the doorframe as he looks at her, with intensity that makes her want to look away. “Haerin thought it would be funny” Taehyung’s voice is low, his eyes a bit dazed and hooded but still on her.
“Come on,” Taehyung says as he brings forward his hands, “You don’t need to do all this and we need to go somewhere” she looks at him with scepticism but takes his hands away, watching him walk her out awkwardly till she stops for her jacket and purse.
“We’ll come back, just trust me” he says, his hand finding hers again with the easy certainty of someone who has stopped negotiating with his instincts. "Just trust me."
She looks at their hands. Then at him. "Okay," she says quietly and she follows him out into the night.
Taehyung is a few steps behind her, watching him from a distance as she takes it all in. A short taxi ride later and they’re staring at the Han river from his new apartment, new even bigger and more gorgeous apartment.
Floor to ceiling windows. All of them. The Han River filling the entire view like it was placed there specifically, the water dark and wide and catching the city lights in long broken lines, Seoul spread out on either side of it in every direction.
She doesn't say anything for a moment. Then she straightens, clears her throat, and turns around to face the empty living room with the expression of someone making a very important assessment.
"So," she says, clasping her hands in front of her. "This is the main living area." Taehyung blinks. "What."
"Generous square footage," she continues, taking slow, deliberate steps across the empty floor, looking up at the ceiling, nodding thoughtfully. "Good ceiling height. Natural light should be excellent in the mornings." She turns. "A duplex?”
“Yes it’s a duplex ma’am, the apartment is broken down into a north and south wing” Taehyung answers as he plays along. “I like that, I can start my morning in the north wing and end the day in the south one, which wing is the primary bedroom in?” ___ asks with all seriousness and Taehyung can’t help but chuckle.
“The south wing” Taehyung answers as his eyes follow her walking towards the wrong side, “This way ma’am” he redirects her and she chuckles like she knew what she was doing.
He steps ahead of her, pushing open the door to the primary bedroom, then steps back in the manner of someone who has done this many times and knows to let the room speak for itself. "This," he says, "is where the magic happens."
She walks past him into the room. He is not prepared for how much of her back is visible in this dress. He has spent the entire evening with her in this dress and somehow this particular angle, in this particular doorway, in this particular light is too much. He looks at the ceiling briefly. Then back.
"Where the magic happens," she repeats slowly, tilting her head. "As in-" she turns, her expression completely straight- "where you find out that your husband is committing financial fraud and cheating on you with multiple women."
Taehyung stares at her. "In the primary bedroom," she continues, gesturing around the empty space with great seriousness. "Classic setting for that kind of revelation. The proportions are right. Good acoustics for the confrontation." She nods. "I've seen it many times in this price range"
“Husband? I thought it was just you ma’am” he continues the joke as he reaches over by the door to turn on a few lights, maybe the lights will sober him up a bit. “Of course, only a husband committing financial fraud can buy this kind of place, or if you’re a super successful pop star. Those are the only two categories can can afford this ridiculous view”
"Ridiculous," he repeats. "Obscene," she confirms.
"Oh thank god because I was almost a bit worried about financial fraud" he says, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, looking at her with the particular attention of someone who has had enough drinks to stop pretending they're not paying attention.
She looks at him for a moment, the lights catching her face, and tilts her head slightly. "Well," she says, "I haven't checked your finances." "Clean," he says. "That's exactly what someone committing financial fraud would say."
He laughs, and she smiles at the sound of it, the real estate bit dissolving at the edges into something warmer.
"So," she says, looking around the lit room now, seeing it properly for the first time. The ceiling height. The window. The way the river sits just beyond the glass, dark and wide and patient. "This is really going to be your bedroom."
"In a few weeks, yes." She's quiet for a moment, something settling in her expression. "It's a good room," she says simply. No performance in it. Just the honest observation of someone who reads spaces the way she reads people.
She nods slowly. And then, quietly,"I think you're going to be very happy here, Taehyung-ah."
He looks at her rather than the window when she says it. "I think so too," he says.
"What is the new guy's deal?" Arin asks, leaning toward the mirror with a mascara wand, her eyes not leaving her own reflection but her attention entirely elsewhere. "Are you guys dating? Is he your boyfriend? Or is it just sex?"
___ turns around, a bit flustered, her fingers working at the ties of her halter neck. "None of the above," she says. "We're just friends." Arin says nothing, she goes back to applying her mascara with great concentration.
"We are," ___ adds. "I didn't say anything," Arin says.
"You made a face." "I'm doing my mascara."
"Arin-ah." Arin caps the mascara and turns to look at her fully, with the particular expression of a person who has known someone long enough to have earned the right to be direct. "You came home at four in the morning," she says pleasantly. "From a party that ended at one."
"We went to see his new apartment." "At two in the morning." "It has a Han River view." "I'm sure it does." Arin turns back to the mirror, reaching for her lip liner. "And how long did you look at this Han River view?"
___ opens her mouth. "Together," Arin adds. "At two in the morning. Just the two of you. Just friends."
The halter neck ties are taking considerably longer than usual. "It wasn't like that," ___ says. "It was just-" she pauses, trying to find the word. "Easy. It was easy to be there with him."
Arin looks at her in the mirror. "Mm." "That's not… that doesn't mean anything, things can just be easy-"
"When was the last time something was easy with someone?" The question lands and sits there. ___ looks at her own reflection for a moment, her hands stilling on the ties.
She doesn't answer, which is an answer. "Just friends," Arin says sarcastically, turning back to her own reflection. "Okay."
"Okay," ___ agrees, with slightly less conviction than she started with. They finish getting ready in the comfortable quiet of two people who have said what needed to be said and are now moving on gracefully, and ___ does not think about the river or the empty room or the way he said I think so too while looking at her instead of the window. Not very much, anyway.
“Well, it’s Paris fashion week, there’s not much I can do” “You were seated next to Anna Wintour that’s not nothing” ___ squeals over the phone as she steps out for a smoke. She works at the club as a server some weekends, just to make some extra cash, not that people need to know about this job.
Taehyung is quiet for a second, taking in all the sounds from her side, the sound of her taking a drag, the people around her, the loud music that thumps quieter and quieter. “Have you been keeping tabs on me” he teases as he rumples the bed even further.
“It isn’t very hard,” she says, smoke letting out of her mouth as she leans back against the cool brick wall. “You’re all over my reels.” He huffs out something that almost resembles a laugh, but there’s a flicker of something else in it, something quieter, harder to name.
“Don’t get too excited,” she says lightly. “There’s still a lot of cat videos too”
“Cute” “Mm,” she hums, a bit distracted from how tired she is. “Keeps you humble.”
There’s a small silence that follows, but it isn’t empty. It settles between them easily, like something familiar finding its place without needing to be asked. He turns his head slightly on the pillow, staring at nothing in particular, and then asks,
“What are you doing right now?” he asks. He’s tempted to ask where are you? Who are you out with? Why is it so loud but he goes forward with the simpler option, an option that a friend can ask.
“Just out,” she says, after a second. “Sort of.”
He catches it immediately, the slight deflection, the way her answers sometimes come angled instead of straight. “Sort of?” he repeats.
She glances back at the club door, the bass vibrating faintly through it, the life she hasn’t explained waiting just on the other side. “Just… helping out a friend,” she says, easy enough to pass. “Weekend thing.”
Another drag. Another pause. “And you?” she adds, shifting the attention back to him like she always does when things get a little too close. “Lying in bed after being important next to Anna Wintour?”
He smiles this time, properly. “Something like that.” His voice dips, quieter, more honest than the answer itself. “I think I liked hearing you be more impressed than the actual event.”
She blinks, caught off guard by that. The cigarette burns a little lower between her fingers.
“I got you something, well it’s more for the house” are the first words out of ___’s mouth the second the elevator opens directly in the apartment. She excitedly kicks off her shoes as he jumps over to him.
“I tried to make something, failed and tried again, failed, but the third time around, they suggested that I just buy the mugs” she continues the explanation as she falls into the sofa beside him, he’s not said a thing yet, mostly because he’s too busy taking in her excitement.
There’s something about her like this that catches him off guard every time. The way she fills a space without trying. The way her presence shifts the air, makes the apartment feel less like something staged and more like something lived in.
He leans back slightly, one arm draped along the back of the sofa behind her, his gaze still fixed, quieter than hers but just as present. “You made something,” he repeats finally, slow, like he’s piecing it together rather than questioning it. “Or… attempted to.”
She turns her head toward him, narrowing her eyes just slightly. “That’s the part you focused on?” “It’s impressive,” he says, the corner of his mouth lifting. “You trying three times.”
Taehyung quietly unwraps the gift, two mugs placed inside, the kind of earthy tone mugs that people drink their artisanal coffee out of. “These don’t look hand made” he comments as he picks them out of the box, his long fingers running over them as he flips it over, to find his house number engraved to them.
“Because these are the bought ones,” she says quickly, watching his face a little too closely. “The messed up ones will be used by me to drink water out of, well, one of them.” A small shrug. “The other one is leaking.”
He lets out a quiet breath that almost turns into a laugh, still looking at the engraving like he didn’t expect it to matter as much as it does. “You kept them,” he says.
“Obviously,” she replies, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “I suffered for those. I’m not throwing them away.” He hums softly at that, placing the mug down with a little more care than necessary, like it’s already found a place here.
There’s a brief pause before she shifts, tucking one leg beneath her as she looks around the apartment again, this space that’s still more ideal than lived-in reality. “Is this your first night here?” she asks.
He leans back into the sofa, one arm stretching along the backrest, his gaze flicking from the mugs to her. “Yeah,” he says simply. First night, empty house, boxes still somewhere in the corners. No real imprint of a life yet.
And then without much thinking, he asks “Stay for dinner” It comes out easy, natural, like it didn’t take any thought at all. But there’s something in the way he looks at her after, steady, waiting that gives it away.
She hesitates just for a second. “I can’t,” she says, softer now, the refusal gentle but firm. “I have dinner plans.” His expression doesn’t fall, not obviously “With?” he asks, casual enough to pass.
“My younger brother,” she says, reaching for her bag again, fingers brushing over the strap. “He just got free from college. First time in months.” A small smile tugs at her lips, different from the ones she gives him, familiar, fond, rooted somewhere older. “I promised him.”
Taehyung nods once. “Right,” he says. And he means it. There’s no pushback, no attempt to convince her otherwise. Just an easy acceptance that makes it harder to leave than if he had argued.
She glances at the mugs again, then back at him. “What are your plans for the weekend?” she asks, the couch feels like a cloud right now, she could just fall asleep on it again.
“I have a shoot on Sunday” “No plans for halloween?” ___ asks and he turns to fully look at her, he’s noticed one thing, she likes to live life by celebrating it, house cooling parties, halloween, half birthdays.
“So,” she adds, shifting slightly to face him more, her hair falling forward over one shoulder, “you’re telling me Kim Taehyung has no Halloween plans?”
“I didn’t realize that was a requirement,” he replies, one brow lifting slightly. “It is,” she says immediately. “You have a reputation to maintain.” He huffs out a quiet laugh. “And what reputation is that?”
She tilts her head, pretending to consider it seriously. “Mysterious. Artistic. Handsome man that knows how to party” He studies her for a moment, really studies her, the way she says things so lightly but means them just enough to matter.
“And what would you suggest I do,” he asks, voice quieter now, “to maintain my reputation?” She smiles, slow this time, and a little dangerous. “Come to my halloween party”
“Do you think I’ll have to be in costume for a halloween party?” Taehyung asks the stylist who’s very patient with his hair. Before she can answer, Jimin speaks from the chair beside him, “Yes, 100%, probably should have discussed with her if you want to match with ___”
“She’s being super secretive about who she’s going as so we can’t match” Taehyung adds as he continues to look at his phone, trying to find an outfit in approximately six hours.
“So, you go as someone sexy, like V of BTS, you tell exactly as you do and you tell people that you aren’t V of BTS, just pretending to” Jimin adds and he finds the image of Taehyung lying to a room full of people funny.
The stylist lets out a small, surprised laugh before she can stop herself, “I can have someone from wardrobe pick out something, maybe go as batman or a cowboy?” she suggests
“Yes, thank you for the sane advice, something that possibly covers my face-” “___ just invited us to a party” Jungkook's voice arrives before he does, filling the dressing room with the particular energy of someone delivering news he finds excellent. He appears in the doorway a beat later, phone in hand, still smiling at whatever she sent him.
Taehyung goes very still, not obviously, just enough. "Us?"
"Me and Jimin hyung." Jungkook drops into the empty chair like he lives there, scrolling back through the message with the unbothered ease of someone who has no idea what he's walked into. "She said you're already coming and that we should too, if we have the time." He looks up, grinning. "She's hosting it in an art studio. How cool is that?"
The mirror gives Taehyung away before he can help it. Something moves across his face, quick and controlled, but Jimin catches it. Jimin always catches it. He presses his lips together and says nothing, which is somehow worse than if he'd said something.
"She just," Taehyung starts, then stops. Picks up his phone, sets it back down immediately. "She texted you directly?"
"Yeah," Jungkook says simply, already typing back. "She said the more the merrier." He pauses, reads something, laughs quietly to himself at whatever she's replied to. "She's funny."
Taehyung watches him laugh at his phone for a second too long. "She is," Jimin agrees, from his chair, with the serene expression of a man enjoying himself enormously.
Taehyung looks back at his own reflection. The stylist resumes her work with the quiet professionalism of someone who has learned, in this industry, that the correct response to dressing room tension is to simply continue doing the hair.
"Fine," Taehyung says. "The more the merrier." He says it the way someone says something they do not entirely mean.
___: Hey, I know I said 10 but you still aren’t here :(
___: got caught up with something?
She pockets her phone and makes her rounds. The studio is loud and warm and full in the best way.
"Three pieces sold," Hyunwoo appears at her shoulder, drink in hand, looking at the wall across the room with the expression of someone who still can't quite believe it. "Three."
"I told you," she says simply. "You told me it was a good idea. You didn't tell me people would actually-" he gestures at the wall, at the small red stickers that have appeared on three of the tags. "I need to call the artists tonight."
"Call them tomorrow," she says. "Tonight, just enjoy it." He looks around the space, his grandfather's space, loud and full and lit with candles his girlfriend insisted on. "Yeah," he says, quieter. "Okay."
Hyunwoo had inherited the space from his grandfather three years ago and done absolutely nothing with it since, which was the tragedy, because the bones of it are extraordinary. High ceilings, original brick, light fixtures that look like they were installed sometime in the 1940s and never needed replacing.
Taehyung: Sorry, Jimin’s outfit took too long
Taehyung: Are we supposed to just walk in? we’ll be there in about 5 minutes
___: I’ll be waiting for you in the front
The door opens before she reaches it. Jungkook comes in first, helmet under his arm, looking around with open curiosity. Jimin follows, hat slightly tilted, immediately clocking the art on the walls. And then Taehyung, last, hands in his pockets, suit jacket open, the Superman logo catching the warm studio light as he steps inside and finds her immediately.
Taehyung goes very still. She watches it happen, the fraction of a second where his expression does something unguarded before he collects it. "Hi," she says.
"Hi," he says. His eyes move over her once, quickly, the way people look at things they're trying not to look at.
"Woah," Jungkook says, with complete sincerity, which makes her laugh and breaks whatever was just happening. "You look-" Jimin starts. "Amazing," Jungkook finishes, still looking. "The feathers are real?"
"Some of them," she says, turning slightly so he can see the back, the feathers worked into the fabric along her shoulders. Jungkook reaches out and touches one with one finger like it might dissolve.
Jimin tips his hat. "Ma'am." She laughs again and curtsies, which is exactly the right response to a cowboy hat tip. "Welcome," she says, stepping back to let them properly in. "Come on, I'll show you around."
She turns, and Taehyung falls into step beside her, close enough that his shoulder nearly brushes hers. "Clark Kent," she says quietly, just for him, nodding at the logo.
"It was low effort," he says. "You look very handsome," she says, her eyes still ahead, navigating them through the crowd with the ease of someone who knows every corner of this room. "Very much the kind of guy I'd want to save me."
He looks at her immediately. She doesn't look back. "Do you need any saving?" he says, a beat later. "Black Swan?"
She turns to look at him then, fully, and the studio lights catch the dark sweep of her eye makeup and she smiles, slow and deliberate. "I’d get into trouble on purpose just to be saved by you"
The noise of the party continues around them completely indifferently. Taehyung can’t shake off the weird feeling he has in his chest, the kind that wants to close the distance between them every time she says or does something like this.
“No, come on we can’t just talk to each other-” “Well we also don’t want to hijack ___’s party by being the awkward famous people” Jimin interrupts as they continue to wait by the bar for his drink. Taehyung isn't listening to either of them. His eyes have found her again across the room, she's talking to a man he doesn't recognize, a tall, easy smile, leaning slightly toward her in the way people do when they want to be heard over the music. She says something and he laughs, loud enough that Taehyung can see it from here.
He picks up his drink. "Who's that?" he asks, keeping his voice completely level.
Jimin follows his eyeline. "Don't know," he says pleasantly. "Probably a friend," Jungkook offers, helpful as always.
"Mm." Taehyung takes a sip. Watches the man lean in slightly closer to say something in her ear. She tilts her head to hear him better, a small smile forming at whatever it was. Taehyung sets his drink down. Picks it back up and downs it entirely.
Jungkook had another party to attend afterwards, a gentle goodbye, a brief hug for ___ when she surfaces long enough to find them, and then it's just Jimin and Taehyung left. She finds them every now and then, appearing at their shoulders between rounds, slightly breathless from moving through the room, her feathers intact against all odds. Each time she arrives she brings someone with her.
___ walks away with a very handsome Sculptor, the one who offered him his arm as they walked away. Jimin appears at his side with a fresh drink and the serene expression of a man watching something unfold exactly as he expected. "She pays attention to you too, you know," he says.
Taehyung takes the drink. "Don't." "I'm just saying."
"Jimin-ah." "I'm not saying anything," Jimin says pleasantly. "I'm just standing here." A pause. "Looking in this general direction."
Across the room the sculptor leans in to say something close to her ear, his hand finding her elbow briefly as he does. She listens, nods, glances up at him with that small private smile.
The thing in Taehyung's chest does something it has no business doing. "I need another drink," he says.
"You have a drink," Jimin points out. Taehyung looks down at his very full glass. "I need a different drink, much stronger"
"I am king of pool!" Taehyung announces loudly to the room as he wins yet another match, both arms raised, cue still in hand, with the complete conviction of a man who has never been more certain of anything in his life.
"You've won twice," Hyunwoo says. "Twice as king," Taehyung confirms, setting the cue down with great ceremony.
Jimin, perched on a stool nearby with a glass of water he is nursing with intense focus, looks up at the ceiling briefly. He is drunk. He is aware that he is drunk. He is trying very hard to be the responsible one, which is significantly more difficult when the room keeps tilting slightly.
"Okay," Jimin says, sliding off the stool with more dignity than the situation warrants. "Okay, I think-"
"Another round," Taehyung says, already reaching for the cue. "Taehyung-ah-"
"Jimin-ah, I am king, kings don't stop-" "Taehyung."
They both turn. She's standing in the doorway of the small back room where someone had the excellent idea of setting up a pool table, her arms crossed, taking in the scene with the expression of a woman who has assessed worse situations and handled them efficiently. The feathers at her shoulders are slightly ruffled now, the night having caught up with the costume. She looks devastating anyway.
Taehyung's face does something immediate and helpless at the sight of her. "You're here," he says, with the uncomplicated delight of the very drunk.
"I'm here," she confirms, stepping into the room. Her eyes move to Jimin, who gives her a look that communicates volumes in under a second. She nods once. "How many?"
"Many," Jimin says. "I'm not," Taehyung starts, then reconsiders. "I'm a little." He holds up two fingers very close together. "Just a little."
"He is not a little," Jimin says. "I won pool," Taehyung says to her, as evidence. "Twice."
"I heard," she says. "Very impressive." She moves to his side, and he turns toward her with the easy gravity of someone drawn without thinking. Up close she can smell his cologne underneath the warmth of the evening, and his eyes are soft and dark and fixed on her with an attention that has no filter left on it.
"Okay, we need to go," Jimin says, straightening, which would be more convincing if he didn't immediately reach for the wall. "I'm. I'll get a car, I just need a." He gestures vaguely. "A minute."
"Come on," she says instead, her hand finding Jimin’s arm. "Let's get you home."
“Jimin sit straight, and enough with the water” ___ speaks from the middle seat as she snatches the water away from him, the car hits a speedbreaker at the same time, only making Taehyung hold on to her arm even tighter.
“Did you guys just have a car waiting the whole time?” “Yes ___ we’re BTS and for the times that we go out for a party, twice a year, the company has a car waiting for us” Jimin brags, which doesn’t land as intended.
“Only twice a year?” “Well we don’t go out very often, actually rarely, we get invited but don’t end up going till a pretty girl is involved” Jimin rambles as the car takes a smooth turn. The car slows at Jimin's building first. She helps him out with the focused attention of someone completing a task, making sure he has his phone, his keys, his water bottle which he immediately tries to leave behind and she puts back in his hand.
"Text when you're inside," she says. "Yes mother," Jimin says warmly, then turns, and even in this state, he finds Taehyung's eyes over her shoulder for just a second. Something passes between them, brief and complete, the entire conversation happening in under a moment.
"I am so sorry to leave like that," she says. "I just had to take care of something."
"Something or someone?" Hyunwoo teases from the other end, warm and unbothered, the party noise still humming behind his voice. She exhales, and turns, almost instinctively, to look at that certain someone sitting beside her.
Taehyung is already looking at her. He doesn't look away when she catches him, which is its own kind of answer. He just holds her gaze with the unhurried calm of a man who has run out of reasons to pretend he wasn't looking.
"I'll call you tomorrow," she says into the phone. "Sure you will," Hyunwoo says pleasantly, and hangs up first. She lowers her phone slowly.
"You're cold," Taehyung says. Quietly, simply, like he's been sitting on the observation for some time and has only now decided to do something about it. His eyes drop briefly to her arm, bare in the costume, and then back up.
"I'm fine," she says.
"Your arm is cold." He says it the way he says most things he's decided, not a question, not quite a statement, just a fact he's already acted on by the time it's out of his mouth. He shifts, closing the distance between them on the seat, his shoulder solid and warm against hers.
“Come on, stand still” Taehyung instructs her as he stills his phone against a plant. It’s like she realized that she had gotten him home safely and the drinks were starting to hit her. “I am still” she complains as she pops her hip off as they try to pose.
He laughs, quiet and genuine, and steps in beside her, close enough that his arm presses against her shoulder. She tilts into him slightly, not quite meaning to, and neither of them adjusts.
"Okay," he says, reaching forward to tap the timer on his phone. "Don't move." "I'm not moving." "You're swaying." Taehyung states as his hand comes around her waist, an attempt to still her. He moves forward, with her in his arms to take another picture, he’s not sure if the drinks will let him remember this, but he is going to capture this moment.
He reaches forward one more time, taps the timer, and pulls her just slightly closer as it counts down, his chin dropping near her temple, her feathers brushing his jaw. She lets him.
The phone clicks. She turns her head slightly to say something and finds his face very close to hers, closer than the photo requires, and whatever she was going to say doesn't quite make it out. She looks at him. He looks back. The timer goes off again behind them, capturing something neither of them has named yet, the particular quality of two people standing at the edge of something and not quite stepping forward and not quite stepping back.
She faces forward again. Clears her throat softly. "I should go," she says. "You are fine now right?"
He looks at her with the patient expression of a man who has never been less fine. "No ___," he says simply. "I am still extremely drunk. I took six shots of vodka." A pause, during which he appears to be doing some internal accounting. "Maybe seven."
“And I don’t want you going home drunk like this and dressed like this either. It’s too sexy for the streets of Seoul” he says as he pulls her by the arm, taking her through the apartment.
“Come on, let's get you into bed before you start saying more stupid stuff” ___ deflects as she takes the lead, walking through his dark apartment. “I am not saying stupid stuff ___, this is the truth” Taehyung’s voice is low as it booms, she turns around briefly as she waits for him with an open door.
“Which way is the closet?” ___ deflects again as she pushes him towards the bed, he falls with a gentle thud, “And do you have makeup remover? The makeup is starting to irritate me” ___ adds as she looks around while he simply looks at her.
"Come here," he says quietly. He reaches over to the bedside table, unhurried, and picks something up.
She walks over, and before she's quite decided how she's standing or where this is going, his hands find her waist and pull, gently but with complete certainty, and she is sitting in his lap. He shifts beneath her, adjusting so she's settled properly, and then opens the makeup remover pad he pulled from the nightstand and holds her chin lightly with two fingers, tilting her face toward the window light.
She lets him. He is very careful. That's the thing that undoes her slightly, the carefulness of it, the way he starts at the corner of her eye and moves slowly, gently, the way you handle something you don't want to damage. His touch is light and certain and he's watching what he's doing with complete focus, his brow furrowed slightly in concentration.
She watches his face instead. Up close like this, in the quiet of the bedroom, she can see the tiredness around his eyes, the way the evening has softened him, worn down the careful composure he carries in public until what's left is just this, just him.
"You're going to have to do the other side," she says softly, because she needs to say something.
"I know," he says, without looking up. He reaches for another pad, opens it with one hand, tilts her chin the other way. "Hold still." "I am still."
"You're breathing too loud." "That's not a thing." "It's distracting," he says, and the corner of his mouth moves, just barely. She exhales deliberately, loudly, directly at him. He closes his eyes for a second with the patience of a saint and then continues, his thumb brushing her cheekbone as he works, careful and slow.
Taehyung pulls back slightly to look at his work, still holding her face, his thumb resting at her jaw, and something in his expression goes very quiet and very focused in a way that has nothing to do with the makeup anymore.
She looks back at him. "Better?" she asks, her voice coming out softer than she intended.
He looks at her for a long moment. Her face bare now, the swan stripped back to just her, just this, just the two of them in the dark of his bedroom. “Can you help me with the dress too? It’s suffocating me” she mutters what she’s wanted to do for a long time.
"Turn around," he says quietly. She shifts in his lap, turning so her back is to him, her spine straightening automatically, the dancer in her. His hands find the back of the dress. She can feel him locate the zip, his fingers careful, unhurried, moving her hair over one shoulder first so it's out of the way. The small deliberate gesture of it.
Then the zip, slow, the sound of it very loud in the quiet room.
The corset loosens and she exhales, long and involuntary, the relief of it immediate. "Better?" he asks, his voice low near her shoulder.
"Yes," she breathes. "God, yes." he slightly shifts behind her. His hands rest at her waist for a moment, light and still, not moving, just there.
"Find me something to sleep in," she continues and he simply takes off his shirt for her.
Taehyung has always been an interesting sleeper, he settles for holding a pillow, he’s lucky if it’s a person, especially a girl who smells lightly like vanilla and cigarettes. His arm tightens slightly, not dramatically. Just the small unconscious adjustment of someone who has found exactly what they were looking for without knowing they were looking.
She stirs, just barely, somewhere between asleep and not. She registers the arm. The weight of it, warm and certain across her. She registers the slow steady breathing behind her, close enough to feel. She should move, that's the practical thought, the sensible one. She doesn't move.
Instead she settles, just slightly, and closes her eyes again, and the city glows softly beyond the curtains and the clock ticks and Taehyung sleeps with his face near her hair and his arm around her waist like she is something he found and intends to keep, and she lies there in the warm dark of his bedroom and stares at the ceiling for approximately forty five seconds before sleep takes her too.
Taehyung has the big three on his night stand, his phone, keys and wallet, those are the first things he looks for when he jerks awake. What registers finally is the missing woman from his arms, at least the one he was dreaming of.
“Shit” his voice is coarse as he runs a hand through his hair, the hangover already making him sick. He gets startled when he breathes out, immediately walking over to brush his teeth. She was definitely here, as evidenced by the makeup wipes on the floor.
“She just left and she’s not responding to my messages, I fucked up, bad” Taehyung groans into his phone as he gets startled by the sound of a toaster. “What would I have possibly done, told her I liked her and she freaked out?” he continues as he struggles with the fridge door.
“Dude,” Jimin groans finally, voice thick with sleep, somewhere under a pile of blankets. “Can you stop spiraling so loudly? I am too hungover for your girl problems.” Taehyung ignores that completely.
“She wouldn’t just ghost me,” he says, quieter now, more to himself than to Jimin. “She’s not like that.” Jimin shifts again, finally rolling onto his back, staring at the ceiling like he’s been unwillingly recruited into a crisis.
“Or,” Jimin says slowly, “she woke up, realized she was cuddled to sleep by Kim Taehyung, and needed a minute to process her life choices like a normal person” Jimin exhales as he tries to gather all the strength in him to stand up. “What did you two do, kiss? Sex? Please tell me that we got this drunk for you to finally tell her how you feel?”
“I don’t know how I feel-” “You don’t know?” he repeats, incredulous. “Taehyung, you obviously like her. No one throws a party and then attends another one just for a friend-” “I’d do that for you,” Taehyung cuts in immediately.
“I know you like me,” Jimin shoots back without missing a beat, already pushing himself to stand and immediately regretting it. He steadies himself against the wall, eyes closing briefly. “Focus. On your feelings for ___.”
Taehyung opens his mouth again, but nothing comes out this time. “Just call her,” Jimin says in all seriousness as he hangs up the phone. He goes back to eating his dry toast as he looks at the messages he sent her.
Taehyung: Where are you?
Taehyung: Sorry if I said or did anything that crossed a boundary last night
Taehyung: Please call me
He types the last one too fast, thumb slipping slightly against the screen. Still nothing.
“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, he doesn’t wait this time, he hits call. The ringing feels longer than it actually is. Each second stretching just enough to make his chest tighten. He leans forward, elbow on his knee, pressing his thumb harder against the edge of the phone like that might speed it up.
One ring, two, three. He’s just about to hang up-
“Hello?” He freezes, her voice is rough. Coarse. Like she just woke up or hasn’t slept at all.
“___?” he says immediately, sitting up straighter. “Where are you? I’ve been- I thought-”
“I’m at the hospital,” she cuts in, voice still low, a little uneven. Everything in him stills.
“What?” His grip on the phone tightens. “Why? Are you okay?” “I’m fine,” she says quickly, like she’s already been asked that question too many times this morning. “It’s my mom. There was an emergency early in the morning.”
The words land all at once. The panic in his chest doesn’t disappear, it just shifts. “What happened?” he asks, softer now, all the urgency still there but redirected.
“They think it’s a reaction to the treatment,” she says, and there’s a quiet steadiness to her voice that wasn’t there a second ago. The kind that sounds practiced. Held together. “She’s stable now. They’re just… monitoring.”
Taehyung exhales slowly, leaning back, one hand coming up to press against his forehead. “She’s okay,” he repeats, like he needs to hear it again to believe it.
“Yeah,” she says. A small pause. “She’s okay.” Another silence settles between them, but it feels different now. Not avoidance. Just… exhaustion.
He swallows. “I thought I did something,” he admits quietly. “You just-left. And then you weren’t answering.” There’s a shift on the other end. Fabric moving, like she’s sitting down.
“I didn’t even think,” she says after a moment. “Dad called and I just… left. I was going to text you, I just-” she exhales softly. “I’m tired…“I’m sorry,” she adds anyway, quieter now.
“Don’t be,” he says, firmer this time. “You don’t have to apologize for that.” He takes a sharp breath before he talks again, “You should have woken me up,”
Taehyung: When can I see you again?
___ pockets her phone as she re-reads his message. It’s been a busy couple of weeks, with her mother and working and with Christmas approaching, a lot more people want to buy handbags. She hasn’t been ignoring him per say, they’ve been talking, a few messages here and there, but not much.
She moves through it automatically, like she’s done a hundred times before. Smile when needed. Nod at the right moments. Wrap, bill, repeat.
“Step away, Joowon, I am not interested,” she says, already attempting to move around him, her patience thinner than usual.
“Come on,” he insists, falling into step beside her as she pushes the door open, “one date. Let me show you a good time.” The cool air outside does little to ease the irritation building in her chest. She exhales sharply, turning to face him properly now, hoping clarity will do what subtlety hasn’t.
“I’m stepping out for five minutes, not agreeing to anything with you,” she says, her tone firm but controlled. “You’re wasting your time.” He doesn’t seem discouraged, only amused in a way that makes her jaw tighten slightly.
“You say that now,” he replies, shrugging, “but you haven’t given me a real reason to stop trying.” She almost responds, almost shuts it down properly this time, but the moment shifts before she can.
“___?” The familiarity of Taehyung’s voice cuts through the conversation instantly. She turns, and there he is. Taehyung stands a short distance away with a few of his friends, though they’ve already faded into the background the second his attention settles on her. There’s no immediate reaction written across his face, no obvious assumption, just a brief glance toward Joowon before his gaze returns to her.
“Can you go back in, they still need someone to make the drinks” ___ physically pushes Joowon back in as Taehyung’s friends still keep walking, wanting to make it to the restaurant in time for their reservation.
“This is why you’ve been rejecting me? You could have just said-” “I don’t think I need to give you an explanation so as to why I’m rejecting you and go back inside”
There’s no room left for negotiation in the way she says it. After a moment, he exhales in mild frustration but gives in, stepping back into the bar, the door swinging shut behind him with a loud thud.
The noise from inside fades again, leaving the street quieter than it was a minute ago. She turns back and he’s still there frozen. “I pick up a few shifts sometimes, waitress, bottle girl, whatever the club needs”
She exhales lightly, then adds, “I pick up shifts sometimes. Just when they’re short-staffed.” There’s a small pause, not uncomfortable, just filled with the quiet awareness that this is the first real conversation they’ve had in weeks that isn’t filtered through a screen.
“I don’t have a college education or any real skills, per se,” she continues, filling the space before it can turn into something else. “So I just take whatever work I can get.” The words come out more matter-of-fact than defensive, but there’s still something in them that feels like explanation, like she’s offering context before he can form an opinion.
Taehyung doesn’t respond immediately. He starts walking instead, closing the distance between them at an unhurried pace, his attention still fixed on her in that same steady, unreadable way. He stops a few steps in front of her, close enough now that the space between them feels intentional rather than incidental.
“Okay,” he says. It’s simple. Too simple, maybe. She searches his face briefly, like she’s trying to figure out what he’s doing with everything she just told him, whether he’s dismissing it, accepting it, or quietly judging it in a way he won’t say out loud.
“Okay,” he repeats, a little more deliberate this time. “I have dinner plans and you have to go back I’m assuming?” “Yes I do” “Okay then, hopefully I’ll see you soon?” Taehyung asks, not placing a lot of expectations in his words.
“Come on, go back, we can go to the club” Wooshik stands up the moment Taehyung’s done explaining it all. “Sit down, she didn’t tell me about this all this time because she didn’t want to, I’m not going to show up at a club she works at” Taehyung adds calmly as he goes back to reading the menu, that’s when his phone vibrates and the rest of the table looks at him curiously while he checks the message.
___: I get done around 1, you think you’ll be around by then?
___: or whenever works for you
___: I have wanted to see you again since halloween
“Come on, text her back” Hyushik pleads as Taehyung just locks his phone, not ready to respond yet.
They don’t see each other that night, or any day after. He texts, something about being busy, a week full of shoots and with the new year and album release coming closer, that has been a lot to do. There has also been a lot to think about.
“So, management has decided. They’ll be shutting down one store as it doesn’t make sense to have three stores in the same area. Since ours is the smallest location, this will be the one that gets shut down” the store manager announces before the store closes.
The words settle heavily, not dramatic, just final. No one reacts immediately, it’s the kind of information that takes a second to register properly.
“A few of the sales associates will be moved to other locations,” the manager adds, already moving into logistics, into something easier to process than the decision itself. “The rest will be receiving severance.”
Someone exhales under their breath. Someone else asks a quiet question that doesn’t really get answered. The space feels smaller suddenly, like the walls have shifted closer without warning.
___ doesn’t say anything. She just stands there, arms loosely crossed, her expression unreadable in a way that almost looks like calm if you don’t look too closely. Because this isn’t new, not really. Uncertainty, temporary work, things ending without much notice. Still, her mind moves quickly, already calculating, already adjusting.
She thinks about texting him on her way back home, she doesn’t work on that instinct, she’s too tired to act on it. She does what she does on all bad days, pick up an extra spicy order or tteokbokki and go home, put on something she’s watched a couple times and just fall asleep.
Her final straw is the broken down front door, like someone broke into her place. She freezes for a second, not knowing what to do till she calls the police, someone could still be in there. Her gaze never leaves the door as the line rings, her body tense, caught between the urge to run and the need to stay, just in case.
“We think it was a random break-in,” the officer explains later, his voice steady, practiced in a way that makes it clear he’s said this before. “Someone drunk, or desperate enough to try their luck without much of a plan.”
She stands a few feet away, arms folded loosely, watching as another officer moves in and out of her apartment, gloves on, careful, methodical. The door now hangs open in a way it shouldn’t, the inside of her space suddenly unfamiliar just because it’s been seen by someone else first.
Yellow tape cuts across the entrance, enough to make it feel like she doesn’t belong there right now.
“We’ll collect CCTV footage from the surrounding area,” he continues. “See if we can identify anyone.” She nods once. “You shouldn’t stay here tonight,” he adds after a moment, his tone softening just slightly. “Find somewhere else. Parents, friends?”
The question lingers. Her parents would have been the first call she made, but she is in no mood for another lecture about why she chose to live away from home and her lack of a stable job. Her brother lives at the dorms, that’s a no go. Most friends still live with parents and this would be a lot of explaining. She pulls out her phone and calls the one person she knows who’s not going to have any follow-up questions.
“Hey.” Taehyung's voice comes through slightly breathless, like he picked up in the middle of something. On the other end, Taehyung steps away from the set, one hand still loosely holding his phone as the director calls for a reset behind him. He’d almost missed it, the screen lighting up in his pocket just as they were lining up for the final shot of the day.
“Hey,” she murmurs back, her voice quieter than usual, stripped of its usual steadiness in a way that’s subtle, but there. He notices immediately.
“You okay?” he asks, already moving further away from the noise, his tone shifting without hesitation.
There’s a small pause. She doesn’t answer right away.not because she doesn’t want to, but because saying it out loud makes it real in a way she hasn’t fully processed yet.
“My place…” she starts, then stops, pressing her lips together briefly before trying again. “Someone broke in.” The words settle between them, Taehyung stops moving for a full minute before he responds
“What?” The confusion is immediate, followed quickly by something sharper. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she says. “I didn’t go in. I called the police.They're here.” He exhales, tension shifting but not disappearing. “Are you safe?” “Yes.”
“They said I shouldn’t stay here tonight,” she adds, more quietly this time.
He doesn’t hesitate. “Come to mine.” It’s immediate, certain, like this was the only option to ever exist.
“You don’t have to-” she starts, out of habit more than anything. “No ___ I have to, someone broke into your place, it’s clearly not safe” he cuts in, not harsh, just firm enough to stop her. “Please just take my help instead of pushing me away”
She exhales softly, her grip on the phone loosening just a fraction. “Okay.” On the other end, he nods to himself, already moving, already thinking two steps ahead.
“I might be a little late,” he says, glancing back toward the set where people are still resetting for another shot. “We’re wrapping up, but it’s running over.” He continues. “My manager will be there, he has a key. He’ll let you in.”
She hesitates for half a second at that, the idea of walking into his space without him there settling a little strangely, but she doesn’t question it.
Taehyung is practically running off set once they’re done, he knew he’d be a bit late, not 2 am late. But he still manages to make his way back home, the door making a noise behind him as he walks in. The entire place is dark, like she wasn’t here, even if his manager informed him that she was very much inside the house.
He flickers a few lights on and finds her not where he was expecting, asleep on the sofa. He exhales quietly, something in his chest easing at the sight of her, and walks over, slower now, the urgency replaced by something more careful.
He crouches slightly beside the sofa, his voice low when he says her name. “___… hey.”
She stirs, but doesn’t wake fully. He watches her for a second longer, taking in the tension still lingering in her expression even in sleep, before trying again, softer this time. She blinks slowly, her gaze unfocused at first, then settling on him, and the moment recognition clicks into place, something in her expression shifts so quickly it almost startles him.
“You’re here,” she says, her voice rough, barely above a whisper, like she’s still not entirely convinced he’s actually in front of her.
“Yeah,” he replies immediately, softer now, his tone grounding in a way that’s meant more for her than the words themselves. “I’m here.”
That’s all it takes. Her face tightens before she can stop it, her breath catching in a way that has nothing to do with sleep anymore, and she sits up too quickly, like she needs to close the distance between them just to make sure he’s real.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she says, the words coming out uneven, not held back, not measured the way she usually is. “I just stood there and I couldn’t even go inside, I just-” she pulls him closer, wanting to feel another heartbeat just to make sure this is all real and not a bad dream. She grips him tightly as she lets the tears loose, she can’t breathe anymore, holding all this in.
She cuts herself off as she pulls him closer, the movement instinctive, almost urgent, like she needs something solid to hold onto just to ground herself. Her grip tightens around him, fingers clutching at his shirt as the tears come all at once, unrestrained now, her breathing uneven in a way that makes it hard to catch up.
“And then I got fired, and this has to be that guy from the bar, it has to be, and I should’ve told the police earlier, I should’ve said something when he kept showing up, I just-” “___,” Taehyung interrupts, his voice firm but low, close enough that she has to hear him through the spiral she’s slipping into.
She doesn’t stop immediately, her words overlapping with themselves, her thoughts running faster than she can keep up with. “I didn’t think it was serious, I shouldn’t have been so rude with him”
“___,” he says again, more deliberate this time, one hand coming up to steady her, not forceful, just enough to anchor her where she is. “Look at me.”
It takes a second, but she does, her breathing still uneven, her grip on him not loosening. Taehyung shifts as he moves her along with him, placing himself on the floor and her in his lap. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, softer now, his voice close enough that she feels it more than hears it.
One of his hands comes up to the back of her head, not forcing, just resting there, fingers threading lightly through her hair as he pulls her in just a little closer, tightening his hold around her like he’s making sure there’s no space left for her to feel like she’s alone in this.
And then, without overthinking it, he presses a quiet kiss to her temple. Just gentle, grounding, something steady in the middle of everything that isn’t. “Breathe,” he adds under his breath, his lips still close to her skin, his hold not loosening even slightly. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Her breathing is still uneven, still catching in places, but the rhythm of it begins to shift, slowly syncing with something calmer, something steadier than the panic she was caught in just moments ago.
He stays like that, holding her as close as he can without overwhelming her, one hand moving slowly along her back in a quiet, repetitive motion, the other still resting at her head. He doesn’t rush her to stop crying, doesn’t pull away, just holds her there, as tightly as she needs, like he’s not going anywhere.
The morning settles in quietly, the kind of soft, early light that filters through the curtains without asking for attention, turning the room a muted gold. At some point during the night, the TV has gone silent, the screen dark, leaving only the steady rhythm of her breathing and the faint hum of the apartment around them.
It’s that same rhythm that pulls Taehyung awake. Not abruptly,just gradually, his awareness returning in pieces, the first thing he registers being the weight of her against him, still tucked into his arms exactly where she had been hours ago.
He doesn’t move immediately. For a moment, he just stays there, letting himself wake up fully, his hand still resting lightly against her back, rising and falling with each breath she takes. Carefully, he tilts his head slightly to look at her properly.
Her face is relaxed now, the tension from the night before gone, or at least softened enough that it doesn’t sit so visibly in her expression anymore.
As gently as he can manage, he shifts, testing the movement first to make sure it doesn’t wake her. When she doesn’t stir, he slides one arm more securely beneath her, the other supporting her back, lifting her carefully from where she’s been resting against him.
She barely reacts. Just a small shift, her head turning slightly toward him, like she’s settling more comfortably rather than waking up.
He pushes his bedroom door open with his foot, lowering her onto the bed with the same care, adjusting the pillows slightly so she doesn’t wake from the movement. For a second, he considers stepping back immediately.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he pulls the blanket over her, pausing just long enough to make sure she’s settled, his hand hovering for a moment before resting briefly against her arm, like a final check that she’s still there, still okay.
When he walks back into the living room, he’s met with the quiet clatter of dishes from the kitchen. Mrs. Lee looks up as soon as she notices him, a small, knowing smile already forming before she says anything.
“You’re up early,” she comments, though her tone suggests she’s already noticed more than just that.
Taehyung runs a hand through his hair, still waking up, still not entirely adjusted back to the normal rhythm of things. “Couldn’t really sleep in,” he replies, his voice kept low out of habit now. He’s used to Mrs Lee letting herself in and getting started with work on most days.
Her gaze flicks briefly toward the hallway, then back to him. “So,” she says, a hint of curiosity slipping through despite her otherwise composed demeanor, “your girlfriend is still asleep?”
The word lingers, he should correct her. But the explanation feels… unnecessary. Complicated in a way that doesn’t fit the quiet simplicity of the morning.
So instead, he just nods. “Yes,” he says easily, like it’s the most natural answer in the world.
Mrs. Lee smiles, satisfied with that, already turning back to what she was doing. “She must have been very tired.” “She was,” he replies, glancing briefly toward the hallway again without meaning to.
“Can you make something simple for lunch? Some kind of soup with some rice?” Taehyung suggests as he moves around the kitchen, getting some water for him and ___. “If she’s going to be here more often, you’re going to need real groceries, not just diet food” Mrs Lee suggests as she gets started on the rice.
“We’ll go grocery shopping then, I want her to be happy and comfortable here” Taehyung talks candidly, the words come out easily, like he hasn’t stopped to consider how they sound out loud.
Mrs. Lee pauses just briefly, glancing at him with a quiet sort of approval, though she doesn’t make a big point of it. “How about I make some quick breakfast, a little breakfast in bed for her?” she suggests and Taehyung stops mid-step at that, turns slightly back toward her, considering it for a second longer than expected.
“That might be a bit too much,” he says finally, not dismissively, just careful. “I think it might overwhelm her.” Mrs. Lee studies him for a moment, like she’s measuring how much thought he’s putting into this, how deliberately he’s choosing what not to do.
“I need to go back, at least pick up some stuff,” ___ reasons over lunch, Taehyung needs to leave soon, but he also wants to make sure that she won’t leave in the meantime.
Taehyung had been watching her, making sure she was actually eating, and the moment she says it, something in his expression shifts, not sharp, not tense, just more focused. “I can have it picked up for you,” he offers, the response immediate, like the idea of her going back there herself doesn’t sit right with him.
She shakes her head lightly, already expecting that. “You’ve already done too much,” she says, softer this time, almost like she doesn’t want it to sound like rejection. “I’ll just stay with Arin for a bit. She said I can come over until I figure something out.”
“___,” he says, quieter now, and when she finally looks up, he’s already leaning a little closer, his hand coming up without hesitation, resting gently against her cheek. Warm, steady, his thumb brushing lightly along her skin in a way that makes it difficult to look away from him.
“You can stay here,” he says, and this time it’s softer, but more certain. “As long as you want. As long as you need.” Her breath catches just slightly at that, just enough to show that it landed somewhere deeper than she expected.
“I suppose Arin doesn’t have a guest bedroom?” he adds, his tone lighter, but his hand doesn’t move away, still there. “She doesn’t,” she admits, her voice quieter now. “But she has a floor. And an extra mattress.” He huffs a faint breath at that, something almost like disbelief, but softened by the way he’s still looking at her.
“And that sounds better to you?” he asks, not pushing, just trying to understand. “It’s easier,” she says. His thumb stills for a second against her cheek before moving again, slower this time.
“For who?” he asks gently. She doesn’t answer right away, her gaze dropping for a moment before returning to him, like she doesn’t have a clean answer to give. “For me,” she says eventually, though it sounds uncertain even to her own ears.
He studies her for a second, something in his expression softening further, like he’s seeing past what she’s saying into what she’s trying to protect. “You don’t have to do that,” he says quietly.
His hand shifts slightly, cupping her cheek a little more fully now, his voice lowering just enough that it feels more like something meant only for her. “Let me take care of you.”
The words don’t come with expectation, they don’t feel heavy. If anything, they feel really simple, like he’s not asking for anything in return, just offering.
“Okay” It comes out softer than she expects, but there’s no hesitation behind it this time. “Okay,” he repeats, something easing in his expression almost immediately, like that was all he needed to hear.
He lets his hand fall from her cheek without lingering, and just as quickly, he shifts gears, finishing the rest of his lunch with a quiet kind of efficiency that feels almost deliberate, he can’t be late after leaving early yesterday.
“Okay,” he says again, more to himself this time, as he pulls out his wallet and steps back toward her. “This is the one you’ll need for the building and the elevator.” He places it in front of her, not quite handing it over, just setting it down.
“I’ve texted you the pin for the apartment,” he continues, glancing briefly at his phone. “So you can come and go whenever you want.” She nods slowly, still watching him, trying to keep up with the way he’s moving through all of this so naturally.
“And this-” he adds, pulling out another card, pausing just slightly this time before holding it out to her, “credit card”, Her brows knit immediately. “Taehyung-”
“Just for groceries,” he says quickly, though there’s a faint hint of something lighter in his tone now, like he can already see the protest forming. “Or whatever you need.”
“That’s too much,” she says, quieter now. He watches her for a second, then exhales softly, something shifting in his expression before he tilts his head just slightly, a glint of something playful breaking through the seriousness.
“Come on,” he says, nudging the card a little closer to her. “Let oppa take care of you.” The delivery is so sudden, so completely at odds with everything he’s said so far, that it catches her off guard. For a second, she just stares at him. Then she lets out a small laugh, genuine, unguarded, the kind that hasn’t shown up once since the night before.
“Did you really just say that?” she asks, shaking her head, the tension in her shoulders easing just a little.
He shrugs, like he has absolutely no shame about it, though there’s the faintest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth now.
“If that’s what it takes,” he replies easily. Because the sound of her laughing, even just a little, feels worth making a fool of himself for.
“You’re not staying here tonight.” Hyunwoo says it while pulling open a drawer that’s already half-empty, like the decision has been made somewhere between showing up and stepping inside the apartment.
“I’m not planning to,” ___ replies, folding a sweater with more focus than necessary before placing it into the open bag on the bed. The place still doesn’t feel like hers right now, even with the police tape gone, even with everything technically “cleared.”
Arin moves around more carefully, picking things up, setting them down, like she’s aware of the shift in the space without saying it out loud. “Still creepy,” she mutters under her breath, glancing briefly toward the front door before turning back.
“It’s fine,” ___ says automatically. “It’s not,” Hyunwoo counters just as quickly, not even looking at her as he checks another drawer. “Someone broke in. That’s not something you just call ‘fine’ and move on from.”
She doesn’t argue. Instead, she zips one section of the bag closed and reaches for something else, keeping her hands busy so she doesn’t have to think too much about the fact that they’re right.
“So,” Arin says after a moment, her tone shifting just slightly, lighter but not careless, “this guy you’re staying with…” ___ exhales quietly. “Arin-”
“I’m just asking,” she insists, though there’s a small smile tugging at her lips. “We’re packing your life into a bag, I feel like I deserve a little context.”
Hyunwoo snorts faintly at that. “Yeah, at least tell us if we need to be worried.” “There’s nothing to worry about,” ___ replies, a little more firmly this time, though she still doesn’t look at either of them.
“That’s not an answer,” Hyunwoo says, finally turning to face her, leaning back against the dresser. “That’s you avoiding the question.” She pauses for a second, a shirt still in her hands, before folding it a little more slowly than necessary.
“I’m staying somewhere safe,” she says finally. Arin tilts her head slightly. “With someone.” Hyunwoo watches her for a second, something more protective than teasing settling into his expression. “Do you trust him?” he asks.
She nods simply with no hesitation. Arin notices immediately, exchanging a quick glance with Hyunwoo before looking back at her. “And you’re… comfortable there?” she asks, softer now.
___ hesitates for half a second, not because the answer is no, but because she hasn’t fully said it out loud yet. “I’m staying in the guest room,” she says instead. “He just… didn’t make it complicated,” she says finally.
Hyunwoo frowns slightly at that. “Meaning?” “Meaning he didn’t ask questions I didn’t want to answer,” she explains, quieter now. “He just made sure I had somewhere to stay.”
Arin’s expression softens at that, understanding settling in a little more clearly now. “I’m liking this guy already and he gave you his credit card, should we buy something ridiculous, like lingerie?” she teases as she reaches over for the card, ___ swats her hand away.
“It’s for groceries” Arin gasps softly, pulling her hand back like she’s been personally offended. “That’s such a waste of potential.”
“He just-” she starts, then pauses, the memory catching up with her a little more clearly now, and before she can stop herself, a small laugh slips out.
“He said…” she starts, already smiling a little, “he said, ‘let oppa take care of you.’” Arin freezes, completely, her mouth actually falls open as she stares at ___ like she’s just been handed life-changing information. “He did not.”
“He did,” ___ says, covering her face briefly with one hand, “And he was so serious about it too, like-” She drops her hand and, without even realizing it, mimics his tone just slightly, softer, lower, “-‘just take it.’”
Arin lets out a strangled sound, somewhere between a gasp and a laugh, grabbing onto the edge of the bed for support. “Oh my god, I love him.”
“You don’t even know him,” Hyunwoo cuts in, though there’s a hint of disbelief in his voice now. “I don’t need to,” Arin shoots back immediately. “That’s confidence. That’s commitment. That’s-”
“That’s embarrassing,” Hyunwoo interrupts, shaking his head as he stands up straight. “Who actually says that in real life?”
___ is still laughing quietly, the tension from earlier softened now, her shoulders more relaxed than they’ve been since they walked in. “He said it like he meant it,” she admits, a little more softly this time.
“Is ___ okay?” Jimin asks the second Taehyung pushes the door open to the practice room, not even giving him the chance to step in properly before the question is out.
Taehyung pauses just inside, adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder, already looking like he’s had this conversation more times than he can count.
“Yes, she’s fine,” he says, a little too quickly, like he’s reciting something at this point. “It’s been a week, she’s told me she’s fine at least a hundred times, and she got irritated when I was about to ask her again over breakfast-so,” he adds, pointing briefly at Jimin like he’s setting a rule, “do not ask her if she’s fine.”
Jimin blinks. “…Okay,” he says slowly, holding his hands up slightly in surrender. “Noted.” From the corner, Jungkook lets out a quiet laugh, glancing up from where he’s been stretching. “You sound like you got scolded.”
“I did,” Taehyung replies without hesitation, dropping his bag and crouching down to re-tie his shoes like he needs something to do while saying it. “Apparently, asking someone if they’re fine every two hours does the opposite of helping.”
Jimin snorts. “Yeah, no way.” Namjoon shifts slightly, watching him with more curiosity now. “So what are you allowed to ask?” Taehyung tightens the knot on his laces, then straightens, thinking about it for a second longer than expected.
“…If she’s eaten,” he says finally. “That one’s still acceptable.” Jimin lets out a laugh at that. “Wow. You’ve been given a script.”
“Pretty much,” Taehyung replies, grabbing his water bottle. There’s a small pause before Jimin’s expression shifts again, something more playful creeping in. “So… she’s moved in?” he asks, clearly unable to help himself.
Jimin glances at Jungkook, then back at Taehyung, a slow grin spreading across his face. “You know, most people go on a first date before moving in together.”
“She’s not moved in,” Taehyung replies instantly, turning back just enough to correct it. “She’s staying. Temporarily.” “In your house.” “In the guest room,” he adds, like that detail matters.
“It does not help as much as you think it does,” Namjoon mutters. Taehyung runs a hand through his hair. “Nothing’s happening, okay? She just needed somewhere safe.”
Jimin watches him for a second, then nods slowly, the teasing easing just a little. “She just ran into oppa’s arms, how romantic” “I’m never telling you anything ever again” Jimin lets out a laugh at that, completely unbothered.
Taehyung lets out a quiet huff at that, he wants the teasing to stop, but he also wants to confide in them. “I just-” he starts, then stops, like he doesn’t know how to phrase it without it sounding worse than it already does. “We haven’t even gone on a proper first date.”
Jungkook chokes on his water, “You’re kidding.” “And she’s staying at my place,” Taehyung adds, like that somehow makes it easy to explain.
Namjoon presses his lips together, clearly trying not to react too strongly. “That is… an unconventional order of events.” “That’s what I’m saying,” Taehyung mutters, running a hand through his hair again.
Jimin stares at him for another second, then breaks into a grin. “This is great,” he says, clearly entertained now. “You skipped all the easy parts and went straight to domestic life.”
“It’s not domestic,” Taehyung snaps back immediately. “She’s in the guest room.” “Ah, yes,” Jimin nods seriously. “Very professional. Roommates with emotional tension.”
“I hate you,” Taehyung mutters. Jimin grins wider. “No you don’t.”
“Hyung,” Jungkook cuts in from where he’s stretching, more focused than the others, his tone steady. “Just tell her how you feel. How do you feel?”
“At first, I thought it was just…” he pauses, searching, “seeing her again. You know? Like…someone you knew, someone you were close to, and you’re just glad they’re back.” Jungkook nods slightly, following.
He exhales, leaning back slightly, like he’s giving in to the fact that he has to say it properly. “I like her,” he says. Then, more honestly, “I like her a lot.” Taehyung huffs out a small breath, something almost like disbelief in it. “Now she’s in my house,” he says. “Sleeping in the guest room like we’re strangers trying to be polite, and I’m acting like this is normal.”
Jimin lets out a quiet laugh, softer this time. “That’s because you’re trying not to mess it up.” “And that’s exactly why I’m not just saying something without thinking it through,” Taehyung adds, glancing between them. “Because it’s a delicate time for her, she needs me more as a friend”
Namjoon watches him for a second, then nods slowly. “Okay. Then be that.”
Jimin tilts his head, considering it, then shrugs lightly. “Yeah… just don’t get stuck there.” Taehyung frowns slightly. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Jimin says, a little more serious now, “don’t wait so long trying to do the right thing that you end up not doing anything at all.”
Taehyung smiles the second he steps inside, the familiar sight settling something in him almost instantly, her curled up against the sofa, the TV casting a soft glow across the room, the quiet no longer feeling empty the way it used to after long days.
He doesn’t just disappear into his room anymore.
“Hey.” She turns at the sound of his voice, shifting slightly as she looks over at him, “Hi.”
He steps further in, dropping a few things on the table, his eyes lingering on her for a second longer before he speaks again. “Why are you still up?”
She blinks at him, like the question doesn’t make any sense. “Because it’s eleven,” she says, a hint of amusement slipping into her tone as she sits up a little straighter. “I don’t work in the morning, and I’ve barely seen you all week.”
“Have you eaten yet?” she asks casually as she stands up, her dress falling by her ankles. “I haven’t, have you?” “I made something,” she adds, like it’s not a big deal, like it didn’t take any effort at all. “Just… something simple.”
He watches her for a second, a little caught off guard as she moves into the kitchen, already reaching for plates. This, when she’s getting dinner set up while he washes his hands, it’s these domestic fleeting moments, there have been too many of these over the last two weeks.
“I called my mom for the recipe,” she says, a little faster now, like she’s filling the space without thinking about it. “And I’m not a good cook, but I’m good at following instructions, so I figured that should count for something. And if it’s bad, we can just order food, it’s really not a big deal-”
Taehyung lets out a soft chuckle, cutting through her rambling just enough. “I’m sure it’s fine,” he says, glancing over at her as he dries his hands.
She looks at him like she doesn’t entirely believe that, but she doesn’t argue, just sets everything down and gestures toward the table. “Sit.”
“So, you have a couple days off, wanna do something fun?” ___ suggests as he serves the food for both of them, the tofu jjigae is exactly what he needed on a cold November night.
“We could go for a run and grab breakfast-” “Hey, us normal people enjoy our day offs by sleeping in till afternoon, the words run and breakfast don’t exist for us” ___ interrupts as she serves the rice for them, filling his bowl a little too much.
“What do you, normal people do then?” he teases her as she scoffs, quietly waiting for him to take a bite, he sighs with delight as he takes the first bite, that’s all the approval she needed.
“We watch movies,” she continues instead, like she’s getting back on track. “Or… there’s this winter wonderland thing happening nearby. Lights, food, all that festive stuff.” She pauses mid-bite, something clicking a second too late. “Wait,” she says, looking up at him properly now, “can you be out with me in public like that?”
The question hangs there, quieter than everything else. Taehyung doesn’t answer immediately, finishing his bite before setting his spoon down, like he’s actually thinking it through rather than brushing it off.
“I can,” he says finally, calm, steady. “We’ll just have to be a bit careful.” She studies him for a second, like she’s trying to figure out what careful actually means for him.
“For you,” she says slowly, “or for me?” He meets her gaze without hesitation. “For both of us,” he replies.
“Other stuff us normal people do is apply for jobs, you don’t even know what Linkedin is do you?” ___ accuses him with a serving spoon as he laughs packing away the leftovers. “I do, it’s like a professional instagram?”
She stares at him, how amazing must life be with no pressure of losing a job “…That might be the worst description of LinkedIn I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s not wrong,” he defends, sliding the lid onto a container. “You post achievements, people like it, you pretend everything’s going great, same concept.” “That is deeply concerning,” she mutters, shaking her head as she sets the spoon down.
“Thank god you won’t ever have to apply for a job”, she narrows her eyes at him slightly. “That must be nice.” “It has its perks,” he admits, a little too casually.
She huffs at that, but there’s no real irritation behind it, just the faintest edge of disbelief. “Meanwhile, I’m out here tailoring resumes and writing cover letters like my life depends on it.”
He glances at her again, this time a little more attentive, the humor softening just slightly. “Do you want help?” he asks.
She pauses at that, like she wasn’t expecting it. “With what?” she asks, a little more cautiously. “Anything,” he shrugs. “Resumes, applications… or just complaining about it.” That earns a small laugh out of her.
“You helping me with a resume sounds like a disaster waiting to happen,” she says. “Wow,” he exhales, feigning offense. “No faith in me at all.”
“You just called LinkedIn a professional Instagram,” she shoots back as she moves closer to him.,“You set yourself up for that.” He smiles at that, shaking his head as he finishes putting things away. Closing the fridge to find her standing against the counter.
“What do you think, a tattoo, bangs or getting my hair colored, which substance should I abuse?” ___ asks as they make their way to the theater. They’ve seen too many movies at home, so it was time to watch one in a theater.
“Substance to abuse?” she gestures vaguely, a wide sweep of her hand that somehow manages to encompass the job, the apartment, the break-in, possibly the last three months of her life, "I need to do something. Anything. Something that feels like a decision I actually made."
She drops into her seat, the theater is quiet at this hour, midweek, nearly empty. Taehyung had booked the seats on either side of them without mentioning it, a detail she doesn't know and he has no intention of explaining.
"Or a piercing," she adds, like she just remembered it was an option. He settles into his seat beside her, stretching his legs out, already reaching for the popcorn she'd insisted on buying even though he'd tried to pay. "Where?"
She turns to look at him, a little surprised he asked instead of redirecting. "I don't know," she admits. "Somewhere that would make my mother cry a little. Nothing serious. Just enough."
The corner of his mouth moves. "Nose," he says. "You could pull it off." She blinks. "Yeah?" "Yeah." He says it simply, like it's obvious, already looking back toward the screen as the lights begin to dim. "You have the face for it."
She faces forward too, but something about the way she does it, the slight pause before she settles, suggests she's filing that away somewhere. "Bangs would be cute too," he adds quietly, in the dark.
“But all I remember is the last time you got bangs and how much you cried” he notes and ___ hits his arm a little, “I was 15, I didn’t know what kind of bangs would be right for my face, no one told me."
"I feel like the mirror told you." She hits his arm again. He's smiling now, she can see it in her periphery, the kind he tries to keep small and mostly fails at.
"They were very short," he says, like a man with no survival instinct whatsoever. "They were a mistake," she agrees, flatly. "One mistake. That I was very young for. And you're still bringing it up fourteen years later, which says a lot more about you than it does about me."
He finally looks at her then, and the smile has stopped pretending to be small. "You cried in the practice bathroom for forty minutes," he says. "Jihoon had to go get you."
"Jihoon didn't have to do anything, I was fine." "You made her stand outside the door."
"For moral support-" "For forty minutes."
She faces forward again, pulling her coat tighter across her lap with great finality. "I'm getting bangs," she announces. "Tomorrow. First thing."
"Okay," he says, reaching for the popcorn.
"And a tattoo." "Sure."
"And a piercing." "Nose," he confirms, like they've already agreed on this. Because they have. She doesn't say anything after that, but the corner of her mouth has done something she's hoping the dark is hiding. It isn't.
"One of the best feelings in the world is walking out of a movie theater," Taehyung shares as they push through the double doors, the cold air meeting them all at once. "You feel like a different person."
She considers this, their shoulders bumping lightly as they fall into step together, the corridor still emptying around them. He doesn't shift away. Neither does she. "What are some other good feelings for you?" she asks.
He doesn't answer immediately, which she's learned means he's actually thinking about it rather than reaching for the obvious.
"The first hour back in Seoul after a long trip," he says finally. "When the car comes out of the tunnel and you can see the city properly. Every time, without fail." She hums, tucking her hands into her coat pockets.
"The specific silence right before a concert starts," he continues, more slowly now, like he's finding the words as he goes. "Sixty, seventy thousand people and somehow it's the quietest moment of the whole night." He pauses. "A really good first date”
She laughs at that, quiet and genuine. "That's a very specific list." "You asked." "I did," she agrees. Their shoulders bump again, the pavement narrowing slightly around a corner. "What else?"
He glances at her briefly, then back ahead. "Waking up and realizing you don't have anywhere to be," he adds finally.
The receipt comes through to his phone at 5 pm.
He's in the middle of a vocal warm-up when he sees it. One americano. From the exact coffee brand whose advertisements he had spent three days filming in October, his face currently on every cup sleeve in the country.
He stares at it for a second. Then he smiles, slowly, the way you smile at something you weren't expecting to find charming. There’s already a picture from her before he’s done typing. She has the cup sleeve close to her face.
___: Letting oppa take care of me
___: why is the coffee kinda bad
___: brand ambassador do something
He laughs, quietly, to himself, in the middle of the practice room. Hoseok glances over from across the room and decides not to ask.
Taehyung: I don’t even drink coffee
___: You’re a fraud, thank you for the coffee none the less
Taehyung: You’re welcome, how did the interview go?
He sends it and goes back to the warm-up, but he's already watching the screen from the corner of his eye. The three dots appear, disappear, appear again, which means she's rewriting it, which means there's more to the answer than she's deciding how much to give.
___: They gave me a part time role so something is better than nothing
___: what time do you get home? I might go out with friends for beer and chicken
Taehyung: Around 9ish, I might have friends coming over today
___: okay… should I just stay at Arin’s tonight?
Taehyung: Hyushik hyung was kinda looking forward to seeing you again
Taehyung: But you can come home or stay out, whatever you feel like doing
He reads it back. It's casual enough. Gives her the option without making it into something. Doesn't say come home the way he wants to, doesn't make it obvious that Hyunsik hadn't actually mentioned her today and that he'd brought him into this entirely unprompted as cover.
The three dots appear.
___: lol he barely knows me
Taehyung: He held your hand for six minutes at my party
Taehyung: He knows you well enough
___: okay, I will get home by 11
___: should I ask Mrs Lee to cook some dinner for you guys?
He stops mid warm-up. It's such a small thing, a completely reasonable, practical, thoughtful question that anyone might ask. And yet something about it, the casualness of it, the way she's already thinking about his evening while planning her own, the fact that she knows Mrs Lee's name and has her number and has somehow in the space of a few weeks become someone who asks questions like this, lands somewhere in his chest and just sits there.
Taehyung: I think we’ll be ordering, half of us don’t even eat dinner
___: That isn’t the healthiest, but okay, I’ll see you soon
___: Text me if you need me to pick up anything on my way
Taehyung: I will, see you
“See this is how you know a girl is living with you” Wooshik comments as he picks up the blanket from the sofa, “See” he points to the flowers in the vase by the dining table.
“I bought those” Taehyung comments as he walks to the kitchen to get them plates. “And these?” Seojoon talks in the background as he picks a plate of food from the dining table, "Hyung, don't touch that," Taehyung calls, already hearing movement near the dining table.
Too late. Seojoon has found the covered plate, lifting the cling wrap with the careful, investigative energy of someone who has stumbled onto something interesting. A sticky note is fixed to the top, neat handwriting, her handwriting, which Taehyung has gotten used to finding on things around the apartment.
Seojoon reads it aloud.
"Brownies. Real butter, real sugar, real consequences. Eat in case of emotional distress or late night cravings. You're welcome."
The room is quiet for exactly one second. Then Hyunsik, from the couch, lets out a long breath. "I like her."
"We all like her," Wooshik says, already reaching for a brownie with zero hesitation, press tour entirely unconsidered. He takes a bite. His expression shifts immediately into something bordering on reverent. "Taehyung-ah."
"I know," Taehyung says, setting plates down. "No," Wooshik says, holding the brownie up. "I mean she can actually bake" Taehyung quietly pockets the sticky note while setting the plates down.
The dinner chaos has settled into the comfortable wreckage of a good evening. Pizza boxes stacked unevenly on the coffee table, sushi containers pushed to one side, someone's ramen half finished and abandoned. Hyunsik has claimed the armchair entirely, legs draped over the side, a brownie in one hand and his phone in the other.
"Okay so flights," Hyunsik says, squinting at his screen. "If we leave Thursday we get two full days before the weekend hits and everything gets crowded."
"Thursday is tight," Wooshik says. "I have something in the morning." "How long is something?" "Two, three hours."
"So Thursday afternoon," Seojoon says, with the calm finality of someone who has been solving logistical arguments between the same people for years. "Thursday afternoon," Hyunsik agrees, already typing. "Taehyung-ah, you're good from Thursday?"
"I'm good from Thursday," Taehyung confirms, leaning back against the sofa, more relaxed than he's been all week.
They've been going around like this for twenty minutes, the comfortable, unhurried momentum of a plan that's mostly already made but enjoyable to keep discussing anyway, when Taehyung hears it. The soft beep of the elevator. The quiet click of the front door.
“I’m just… I’ll be back” Taehyung mutters when he can sense her taking too long with her boots. He’s amused by what he finds, ___ struggling with her boots as she’s bent over. “Need some help?” he asks as he’s already bending over.
"Oppa," she says, against his shoulder. He pauses, she's never called him that before, not seriously, not outside of the joke he'd made about the credit card. Something about it, quiet and unguarded and slightly slurred, lands somewhere he doesn't immediately examine.
"I am drunk drunk," she continues, with great solemnity. "Like, genuinely. I don't think my legs are working properly." A pause. "Should I just sleep here?"
"On the floor," he says. "It looks comfortable."
"It's not." "You don't know that."
"I do know that." He gets the second boot free and straightens, finding her head still against his shoulder, apparently unconcerned by the change in angle. He looks down at her, the top of her head, the loosened hair, the coat that's half fallen off one shoulder. She is, as she has accurately reported, drunk drunk.
He smiles, widely, in a way he's glad she can't currently see. "Come on," he says.
"I'm serious, the floor-" "You're not sleeping on the floor."
"Just for a few minutes-" "___-ah." He straightens up properly, and she makes a small noise of protest as her head loses its resting place. He takes her coat the rest of the way off her shoulders, hanging it by the door, then turns back and offers his hands with the patient expression of a man with nowhere else to be. "Come on."
She holds his arm instead, both hands wrapping around it, her grip slightly tighter than strictly necessary. "You're very tall," she observes, as they start moving.
"I'm the same height I've always been." "It's more noticeable right now," she says. "Everything is more noticeable right now."
He says nothing to that, just keeps them moving at a pace she can manage, which is slow, but steady. From the living room, he can hear the conversation continuing, someone laughing at something, the comfortable noise of an evening still going without him.
There are rules to this living situation that she’s made for herself. Unspoken, but still very much there. Number one being don’t go into his bedroom. Everything between them has stayed carefully within shared spaces, the kitchen, the living room, places that don’t blur lines too much. They haven’t even stepped into his office, let alone this.
She knocks, expecting him to not answer when the door pushes on itself, not having been closed properly. Taehyung looks up from his phone, seeing her frozen by the door.
Taehyung looks up from his phone, the movement catching his attention instantly, only to find her standing there, still, like she’s unsure whether she should step in or back out. For a second, neither of them says anything.
“I didn’t mean to just disappear earlier,” she says finally, breaking the silence, her voice softer here than it usually is, like the room itself demands it. “I thought I’d come say hi but you guys were already gone.”
“It’s fine,” he replies easily, sitting up a little straighter. “They left a while ago.” She nods, though she doesn’t move further in immediately, her fingers tugging absentmindedly at the sleeve of her sweater before she finally steps inside, the door pushing a little more open behind her.
“I just didn’t want to seem rude,” she adds. “You weren’t,” he says, watching her a little more closely now as she walks closer. She exhales, something in her easing just slightly, and then, almost casually, she stretches, arms lifting above her head, back arching just enough, the sweater shifting with the movement.
Just enough to reveal it. Subtle, intentional, but his eyes are fixed on her face as she walks even closer, stopping just an arms distance from him while he sits against the headboard.
Taehyung’s still looking at her, but not there, not catching it the way she expected him to. Her lips press together, a flicker of frustration crossing her face before she tries again, shifting slightly, adjusting the sweater just enough,
Still nothing. “…Are you serious?” she mutters under her breath.
“What?” he asks, genuinely confused. She stares at him for a second, then gestures vaguely toward herself. “You’re not noticing anything?”
His brows knit together slightly as he looks at her again, more deliberately this time, like he’s trying to figure out what he missed. “…No?”
She lets out a small, disbelieving laugh, shaking her head before finally just giving in, tugging the hem of her sweater up slightly. “I got a piercing” His gaze follows her face, he’s still confused when she lifts her sweater even further, the two dainty diamonds now more clear than ever.
His expression changes almost immediately, confusion giving way to something quieter, more focused, his gaze dropping and staying there this time, like now that he sees it, he can’t quite look anywhere else.
“…Oh,” he says, slower now, like he’s catching up all at once. She lowers the sweater just slightly, not all the way, watching him this time instead of the other way around, her earlier frustration easing into something more curious, more aware of the shift she just caused.
“Took you long enough,” she mutters, though there’s no real bite to it. “I didn’t expect you to just-” he starts, then stops, exhaling softly as he shakes his head, his attention still not fully leaving.
“You didn’t expect me to what?” she presses, a faint challenge in her tone. “Walk in and casually show me that,” he finishes, his voice lower now, more measured in a way that wasn’t there a second ago.
“I didn’t casually show you,” she argues, though she knows exactly what she did. “You just weren’t paying attention.” “I am now,” he replies, almost without thinking.
His gaze flickers up to her face briefly, then back down again, like it’s taking effort to pull it away at all, like the room has narrowed in a way neither of them is acknowledging out loud.
“Does it-” he starts, then hesitates, like he’s choosing his words more carefully than usual, but his hands aren’t as causal as they circle her waist, holding up the sweater for her “does it hurt?”
“Not really,” she says, her voice softer now, the earlier teasing changed to something more shy. “It did for a second, but it’s fine.”
He nods, almost absently, like he’s listening but not fully processing the answer, his attention still caught somewhere between what she’s showing him and the fact that she’s standing this close in his room of all places.
She swallows lightly, her fingers tightening just slightly at the edge of her sweater, like she’s aware of how close this is now, how different it feels standing here compared to every other space they’ve carefully stayed within. How warm his hands feel, how his fingers move every now and then sending electric shocks through her.
“I thought it was going to be a nose piercing?” Taehyung finally speaks up as he looks straight at her, “I barely have a job, I don’t want to become harder to hire-” she’s startled when he softly pulls her even closer, his hands moving from the sides of her waist to the small of her back.
“Well,” he says, quieter than before, like the words are coming out without much thought, his gaze still fixed on her waist, “it… looks really good.”
Her fingers hover for a second before settling lightly against his arm, like she needs something to ground herself in the moment, like she’s not entirely sure what to do with the way this feels now.
“Yeah?” she asks, softer than before, something more uncertain threading through it. He nods once, slower this time, his hands still where they are, steady, like he hasn’t realized he hasn’t let go. “Yeah.”
“When do you leave for Hawaii?” ___ asks, taking in a sharp breath as she moves away, his hands dropping immediately as he realises what they’ve done, the boundary he’s crossed.
“Um…next thursday, I should be back in a week” Taehyung answers as he straightens himself, he watches as she takes another step away, regretting the invasive touch now. “You okay to stay all by yourself?” he asks when she just nods, her eyes briefly flickering to the bed, right where she was the last time she was in this room.
“I’ll be fine, I’ll probably visit my parents and explain the whole thing, I just need to be ready for the lecture” “I should-” she starts again, gesturing vaguely toward the door.
“Yeah,” he nods, sitting back in his bed comfortably. She lingers for half a second longer, like she might say something else. But she doesn’t. “Goodnight,” she says instead. “Goodnight.”
___ moves through the morning routine without thinking about it.
The kettle. The lemon, halved on the chopping board. The honey jar that she'd moved to the left side of the counter two weeks ago because it was easier to reach from that side, and that Taehyung had never moved back, had just quietly started reaching left for it too.
She's already squeezing the second lemon before she registers what she's doing.
Two mugs. Both of them. Side by side on the counter, the same way she'd set them every morning. She stands there with the lemon in her hand and looks at the second mug for a moment. He's somewhere over the Pacific right now. Or past it. She isn't sure of the exact time he reaches Hawaii.
She puts the lemon down, and doesn't move the mug. Just pours her own and leaves his sitting there, empty, which is somehow worse than if she'd just put it away.
She's on the sofa, both hands around her cup, when she hears Mrs Lee's key in the door. "You're up early," Mrs Lee observes, stepping in and taking in the scene with the quiet efficiency of someone who notices everything and comments selectively.
"Couldn't sleep in," ___ says, which is true enough. Mrs Lee moves into the kitchen, and ___ hears the familiar sounds of her beginning to work, the soft clink of things being organized, the tap running briefly. Then a pause, just long enough to be meaningful.
"He asked me to make sure you eat properly while he's away," she says, in the same tone she might use to report that the groceries had been restocked or that the dry cleaning was back. Completely matter of fact. Like it's simply information.
___ looks up at her. "Left a note," Mrs Lee continues, moving back into the kitchen. "With a list. Your preferences." A small pause, the sound of the refrigerator opening. "He was very specific."
She sits with that for a moment. "He didn't mention it," ___ says, not quite to Mrs Lee, not quite to herself.
"No," Mrs Lee agrees, from the kitchen, the sound of something being set on the counter. "I don't think he meant to make a fuss of it." A brief pause, as Mrs Lee thinks about what she’s about to say, "He's been different, you know. Since you moved in."
___ doesn't say anything, just turns her mug slightly in her hands.
"I've worked for him for two years," Mrs Lee continues, her voice carrying through from the kitchen, the tone of someone sharing an observation rather than making a point. "He kept strange hours. Very late nights, very late mornings, sometimes I'd come in and he hadn't slept at all." She pauses. "You can tell when someone isn't sleeping properly. It stays on their face."
The refrigerator closes. "He’s been waking up before I arrive, most days. Eating breakfast." A small beat. "Real breakfast." ___ looks at the empty mug on the counter.
"I didn't do anything," she says quietly. "I just make the lemon water in the mornings." "Mm," Mrs Lee says, in the particular tone of someone who finds that response both accurate and entirely beside the point.
She appears in the doorway again, wiping her hands on a cloth, looking at ___ with the warm, level expression of a woman who has seen a great many things in a great many households and knows exactly what she's looking at.
"He has someone to come home to," she says simply. "That's not a small thing." ___ doesn't answer. She looks out at the picturesque view,, her hands still around her mug. The second mug sits empty on the counter behind her.
Mrs Lee goes back to the kitchen without pressing it, the soft sounds of breakfast beginning to fill the apartment, and ___ sits with everything she's just been handed and doesn't know what to do with, which is its own kind of answer.
summary: An emotional turmoil led you running from your lover, before finding solitude in your new friends-turned-lovers. Yet mistakes were made, and you are bound to take all the punishments that you deserved. And you’ll take it all, trusting that your lovers will be there to kiss it better.
⟶ title: Bed & Boyfriend(s) 2: Kiss It Better
⟶ pairings: Taehyung x female reader; Jungkook x Yoongi; Jungkook x female reader x Yoongi; Jungkook x Yoongi
⟶ genre: established relationship!au, polyamory!au, swingers, smut (with a little angst), BDSM
ratings & warnings: +18 / M for Mature; PWP (porn with very little plot), this story contains BDSM theme/elements, including Dom!Taehyung, Dom!Yoongi, Sub/Brat!Reader, Sub/Switch!Jungkook, MMMF foursome with additional male x male action, hint of jealousy and possessiveness, swearing, mention of safe word, voyeurism, dirty talk, teasing, manhandling, slight humiliation kink, mild degradation, stripping, nudity, rubbing, grinding, shower sex (more like a foreplay), body worshipping, breast/nipple play, fingering (vaginal, female receiving), clit play, punishments, pet names, praise/praise kink, pain kink, begging, neck kissing, bondage/restraints, blindfold, edging, oral sex (both female and male receiving), clit sucking, anal, anal play, anal fingering, ass licking/rimming, pussy spanking, spanking, handjob, light choking, biting, face riding, hair pulling, double penetration, triple penetration, deepthroating, spit roasting, make-up sex, unprotected sex, rough sex, cock riding, orgasm denial, orgasm control, overstimulation, headspace, creampie, aftercare (implied, not shown).
⟶ fic drop date: Feb 2nd, 2026 | read on AO3 | main masterlist | mailbox | feedback | ko-fi | divider credit
⟶ word count: 19,740 words
⟶ story note: This story was originally planned as part of a commissioned work, but life had other plans and writer’s block got in the way of me finishing this on time. While I still wrote this based on the request and the ordered commission, I had to make this as part of my writing game event last October to have my readers help me finish drafting the final piece. I’m sorry this took so long to finish, but I hope everyone will enjoy reading this. This story may be connected to the original version, Bed & Boyfriend(s), which was released years ago, but you can read this as a standalone. You can still read the first one for more context about the characters and their relationship if you’d like, but skipping it or reading them out of order shouldn’t change your reading experience. Lastly, thank you for commissioning me and thank you all for helping me finish this! (Ps. This story has gone through many revisions since the first draft, so you’ll see many changes since the first version I shared here!)
How did I end up here?
You’re standing awkwardly in the middle of the living room, arms wrapped tightly around yourself. It does little to fend off the cold, nor does it stop the shivers that ripple through your body—but it feels grounding, at least. Something solid to hold onto, when everything else feels like it’s slipping out of control.
You force yourself to look around, searching for a distraction. The cabin is meticulous, neat, and undeniably cozy. Every surface speaks of warmth and care, yet none of it reaches you—not with the unease clinging to your chest, the same restless weight that’s followed you since you left home.
When the feeling swells again, you turn toward the window.
This mountain cabin is nothing like Taehyung’s summer place—smaller, yes, but no less comfortable. Quaint. Homey. The kind of place meant to soothe. Outside, the surrounding woods blur beneath sheets of rain, a view that should evoke peace.
But all you see is the storm. The same storm which accompanied you all the way here, as if trying to stop you from getting further away from home.
Less than an hour ago, one just like it raged inside you—chaos tightening in your chest, a deep chasm forming until escape felt like the only option.
What was it again?
Yes, that’s right. A fight. That was what sent you away from home.
You can’t even remember how it started. The details are gone, blurred by adrenaline and hurt, but the pain remains sharp and unmistakable. The look on Taehyung’s face. The way it lodged itself somewhere beneath your ribs.
It feels almost silly now. Maybe no sillier than your current state—soaked from head to toe, hair plastered to your skin, makeup ruined. The surprise you’d so carefully planned for him was washed away by rain and impulse. That’s what happens when you run out into a storm and drive across the city without thinking.
A chill tears through you at the memory, your arms tightening instinctively. You’re just wishing for a blanket—something warm, something safe—when footsteps sound from the hallway.
You turn just as Jungkook appears with a folded towel in his hands. The moment he takes you in—standing there like a drenched, unsteady cat, barefoot on the floor—his easy smile fades. “I told you to sit on the couch,” he says, approaching.
You gesture weakly at your dripping clothes. “I didn’t… want to get it wet.” Your voice trembles, betraying the cold you’re trying to ignore.
His brows knit together as he opens the towel and drapes it around your shoulders. “Here,” he murmurs, his voice as gentle as the way he tucks it around you.
Warmth blooms—partly from the towel, partly from him stepping closer, close enough that his chest nearly brushes yours. You look up before you can stop yourself, breath catching when you realize just how near he is.
“Is everything okay?” he asks softly, his face etched with worry.
The question stirs something dangerous. Unbidden memories resurface—last summer, Taehyung’s cabin, the heat of shared nights. Jungkook’s slow approach at the hot tub. His sweet, yet commanding whispers. The way your body had learned and memorized every one of his touches and how easily they sparked a reaction in you.
Heat unfurls through you, vivid and unwelcome. His gaze darkens, the same way it did back then—when he watched you give yourself over to pleasure, whether by his hands or someone else’s. The memory makes your cheeks burn, your skin hum with need.
Last summer feels like another lifetime.
The four of you haven’t been together since, yet there were nights when you’ve been reliving it silently through your dreams.
Jungkook lets out a soft chuckle, as if he knows exactly where your thoughts have wandered. “Why don’t you go and change first?” he says, voice lowered, causing the heat inside you to swirl wildly. “You can use the bathroom. I’ll find you something to wear.”
“Right… okay.” This time, your stammer has nothing to do with the cold.
Still, you don’t move. If anything, you lean closer, telling yourself it’s just the warmth you crave. But there’s something deeper stirring—something reckless.
His hands come up to steady you when your body sways. “Does Taehyung know you’re here?”
You shake your head. Your throat tightens as flashes of the fight come back to you, and the knowing look on his face falters.
“Something happened,” he says gently.
“We fought,” you whisper, tears pricking your eyes. Guilt floods back in, sharp and heavy, when you remember the look you saw from Taehyung as you fled. “I said things. So did he. I had to leave before either of us started saying the wrong things.”
“And you came here,” Jungkook says. “Why?”
“I… don’t know.” You exhale slowly. You try to recall everything that went through your mind as you were driving through the rain. Clearly, you weren’t thinking straight. But as your mind continued to drift towards your lover, one thing was made clear. “I was driving… Then I remembered Taehyung telling me you’d be here until the end of spring. I guess that’s what led me here.”
“Well,” he says quietly, brushing his fingers along your cheek, “I’m glad you did. It’s better than getting lost in that storm.”
You smile faintly. “Yeah. Probably not my smartest decision.”
“Call him,” Jungkook says after a moment.
You shake your head. “Not yet.” You’re not sure if you’re ready to face him yet. Not even to hear his voice. Because you will break down the moment you do.
“He still needs to know that you’ve come here,” Jungkook reassures you. “I know he must be worried.”
He’s right. But still. “I know. Just… not yet.”
Seeing the look on your face, Jungkook seems to understand what you’re thinking. Instead of insisting on it, he only nods and steps back, taking the warmth with him. “We can figure things out later,” he says, “Get out of those clothes first. We don’t want you getting sick.”
With a sigh of relief, you nod, telling yourself that it would be best to do as he says. You’re about to move when a sound cuts through the rain—sharp, sudden, unmistakable. Both of you freeze on the spot as you realize what’s happening.
A car pulls into the driveway, its tires screeching over the wet gravel before coming to a full stop right in front of the cabin. Car doors open and close. Heavy footsteps echo from the front porch. Then, moments later, the front door flies open. Wind and rain burst inside, and you flinch as a figure rushes in.
His eyes are wide as he sweeps across the room, searching, until he finds you inside the living room. The relief written on his face mirrors yours — because it’s only Yoongi.
Yet your relief is short-lived when he calls over his shoulder, “Told you she’d be here.”
Your breath catches as Taehyung appears at the doorway. His gaze locks onto you instantly, noticing your tremble, the towel on your shoulders, and then Jungkook’s hands that are placed on your upper arms. Jungkook pulls away as if burned, though he doesn’t step back.
Sensing the tension in the room as Yoongi closes the door behind them, Jungkook lingers by your side. “I promise, I didn’t call him,” he whispers, and you turn to him with a small smile.
“But you called Yoongi, didn’t you?”
“I—”
“No, he didn’t,” Taehyung cuts him off before Jungkook can answer. His gaze remains locked on you as he kicks his wet boots off and dumps them at the door. “I picked up Yoongi at work, and he suggested that you might come here if you knew that Jungkook was at the cabin.”
Jungkook looks between you and Taehyung, looking unsure. But then he looks at Yoongi, and guilt fills his eyes as their gazes meet. “I was planning to call you, I swear,” he says to his boyfriend. “I was going to wait until she changes, and—”
“Don’t be mad at him. I told him not to call anyone,” you try to explain to Yoongi. The last thing you need is to cause trouble for others, when you were the one to bring your problems into their home.
Jungkook throws you a smile to show his gratitude before approaching his lover, allowing Taehyung to take his place. Once again, the room tightens with tension as Taehyung steps closer, his eyes studying you closely. “Why are you soaking wet?”
You roll your eyes. “It was raining,” you snap, even as your heart pulls in the opposite direction.
One look at his face, and your anger sparks a new urge to fight him. To argue and act like a brat to annoy him. But at the same time, seeing him here makes you want to jump into his arms instead of running.
“Why haven’t you changed yet?” He asks, annoyed. You can see it in the way he is looking at you—brows knitted with worry and exasperation—and hear it in his voice. “You know you’ll get sick if you stay like this.”
“I—” You try to argue back, only to lose your voice.
Oh, damn him. Why does seeing him so angry please you so much?
It stirs warmth inside your chest. Something that you shouldn’t be feeling when you’re still mad at him. Yet, it’s impossible to fight it. “I haven’t been here long,” you explain instead. Your voice comes out small, and your eyes are downcast as you gesture to the thick towel wrapped around your shoulders. “Jungkook just got me these to help dry myself up.”
“You made us both worried,” Yoongi says, calmly, as if trying to ease the tension. “He drove like a madman when you wouldn’t answer your phone.”
“I’m sorry—” You fight the smile that’s threatening to show as you picture Taehyung rushing to get you. But it seems like Taehyung is seeing it the wrong way, when he catches the smile that comes together with the soft voice, which wasn’t meant for him.
A soft growl draws your attention back to your lover. “Come on. We need to get you out of these clothes,” Taehyung says, his voice tight. But it’s not the snarky tone of his voice that you’re paying attention to, as he begins peeling off his coat from his shoulders.
As he struggles with it, with water dripping from the tips of his clothes, you’re quickly reminded that he would’ve had to run through the rain like you did to get here. Then your gaze trails upward, seeing his shirt sticking wet on his chest.
Oh yeah, you’ve definitely forgotten how good he looks with his shirt clinging to his broad chest.
Fuck, that’s so distracting.
Before you can get lost in his charm, you shake it off and look straight into his eyes to ask, “Excuse me? Who’s we?”
But any chance of arguing ends there when Yoongi cuts in. “I say both of you need to change,” he says. “Use the en suite in the master bedroom to wash up. It’s the only one that has hot water running.” He signals Jungkook to follow him to the kitchen while promising, “I’ll make something to help warm you guys up and grab some change of clothes.”
“Wait—”
“Let them go, kitten.” Taehyung steps closer, blocking your path as the pair leaves the room. His voice drops.
“Now,” he murmurs, “are you going to be good and listen… or should we do this the hard way?”
You adjust the towel around your shoulders and lift your chin, meeting his gaze instead of retreating. “Why should I?” You challenge him. “Who says you get to boss me around?”
Taehyung’s mouth curves—not sharp, not amused, but slow. A knowing grin lifts. “Really?” he says lightly. “Alright. If that’s how you want it.”
You barely have time to process the words before he moves.
“Taehyung—!” Your squeal cuts off as he ducks and sweeps forward, his shoulder pressing into your stomach as the floor disappears beneath you. In the next breath, you’re hoisted up, draped over one of his shoulders like you weigh nothing.
“You asked for this,” he mutters, already walking, his hand firm against your thigh to keep you steady. “Now stay still.”
You don’t—panic has you kicking, arms flailing uselessly. He responds by delivering a light slap to your backside.
The sting is fleeting, more surprise than pain—but it steals the fight right out of you.
“At least don’t drop me,” you mutter weakly, scrambling to secure the towel before it betrays you.
A soft chuckle rumbles through him. “You know I never would, kitten.”
That does it.
You go still, surrendering with a sigh as your body relaxes against his. There’s no triumph in his silence—just certainty, as if this outcome had never been in question.
Your gaze drops to the floor as he carries you down the hall, the shift of rooms barely registering until warm light spills over tiled floors. The air also changes around you—with light steam, a musky scent of cologne, and the faint trace of shower gel.
This is the en suite bathroom.
Taehyung lowers you carefully, hands firm and sure as he sets you back on your feet. You sway, disoriented, and immediately his arm slips around your waist, anchoring you. Only once you’re steady does he reach up and pull the towel from your shoulders, tossing it aside without even a glance.
“Strip,” he says quietly. Not with a command raised in volume, but with one lowered in tone. “Let’s get you out of these clothes.”
You look away, lips pressed into a stubborn pout, suddenly at a loss for words. His gentle voice—so at odds with the firmness of his command—knocks the fight right out of you. There’s warmth in his eyes now, threaded with concern, and it seeps into you, thawing something tight and knotted inside your chest.
Before you can respond, Taehyung reaches for the buttons of his shirt.
Any words you might have had dissolve as you watch him peel the damp fabric from his body. The way he moves—unhurried, deliberate—draws you in completely. When his shirt falls away and he stands bare-chested before you, it feels like the air is punched clean out of your lungs.
He moves to unbuckle his belt, fingers already working at the clasp, when your silence finally registers.
“Come on, baby,” he murmurs, voice low. A dark glint flashes in his eyes as he drops his hands and steps closer. The heat radiating from him makes it harder to breathe; his presence feels overwhelming as he closes the space between you. “Or should I do it for you?” he adds softly. “You know I won’t be gentle if I take over.”
The words snap you out of your daze.
You inhale sharply, irritation flaring—not at him, but at yourself. At the way your body betrays you so easily. Heat stirs low in your belly, your skin prickling with awareness, already aching for his touch. You shouldn’t feel like this. Not when you’re supposed to be angry.
And yet, you don’t step back.
If anything, you sway toward him, drawn in despite yourself.
“Well?” he prompts, when you still don’t move, your arms tightening around yourself instead, like a warm, protective shield that is blocking him from getting closer.
Damn it.
Even now, you can’t deny the pull between you—the need humming beneath your pride. “Fine,” you mutter at last. “But I’m doing it myself," you add, knowing the risk of letting him help and what it means for him to take over.
His grin is slow, unmistakably pleased. “I thought you liked it when I ripped your clothes off.”
Your cheeks burn. “Not this time,” you argue, though your voice lacks conviction. “This is my favourite blouse. I’m not letting you ruin it.”
A chuckle vibrates from his chest, warm and low. It fades into a quiet hum as you let your arms fall to your sides and reach for your blouse. You glance up, savouring the way he goes still, struck silent now as you undress at your own pace—each movement deliberate, unhurried.
When the blouse comes off, you slip out of your bra, breathing a little easier. As you reach for your pants, Taehyung suddenly lowers himself to his knees.
“What are you—”
He looks up at you, a soft smile playing on his lips, eyes never leaving yours as he carefully guides the wet fabric down your legs. You steady yourself with your hands on his shoulders, heart racing as the chill of damp cloth leaves your skin, one ankle at a time.
“See?” he murmurs lightly, tossing your pants aside. “I can be gentle too.”
His gaze drifts lower, darkening as it lingers on you. Your lace panties cling to your skin, soaked and nearly transparent beneath his scrutiny. “Need help with these as well?”
“N-no, I’ll do it,” you manage, voice rough as you step back and slip out of them yourself.
Taehyung rises slowly, hands returning to your bare waist as if drawn there by instinct. “Feel better?”
You let out a breath. “Maybe.”
Your body shivers then, the cold finally catching up to you. He notices immediately, tightening his hold, drawing you closer as if to shield you from it.
“You’re freezing,” he says quietly. “I know how to fix that.”
“You keep making promises,” you whisper, the last of your resistance slipping away. It had started the moment you saw him walk through the door—and now, with nothing between your skin and his gaze, there’s almost nothing left to hold onto.
“You know I keep them,” he replies, breath warm against your lips.
You think he’s leaning in—until you realize it’s you who’s closed the distance.
You know you should stop. Say something. Pull back. But instead, you rise onto your toes and kiss him, silencing the last protesting thought in your head.
He responds instantly, hunger flaring as his hands settle firmly on your waist. In the next breath, you’re lifted again, your body cradled against his as he turns and carries you toward the shower.
Your lips still tingle from the kiss when he breaks away from it, lowering you to the floor. Your mind is hazy. Yet his touch continues to anchor you to him, his arm around your waist to hold you steady against his chest while he reaches around you.
Warm water begins cascading down your bodies, drawing a soft gasp from your lips. He bends down, silencing your voice with another kiss, though it only draws a soft hum when he gently rubs his hands down your skin.
You are just starting to lose yourself in his kiss when he pulls away.
A loud clink prompts you to open your eyes, and you witness him stripping out of his pants, which he tosses away without care. But you can care less about the last item of clothing he just discarded. Not when your attention is drawn somewhere else.
His hair, now wet, frames his face perfectly, drawing your focus to his eyes, now smouldering with heat that would be able to scorch your skin. His lips, plumped after the kiss, are lifted into a small grin, knowing, as he follows your gaze that keeps drifting lower.
Your eyes trail down his broad chest. The water running down his body makes his skin glisten, and you follow the toned lines trailing down his chest, his abs—then the magnificent sight of his hard-on catches your eyes. It leaves you breathless and hot inside; the urge to reach out and touch him quickly overcomes you.
“Come here, kitten,” he calls you, and your body moves as if enchanted, taking a step forward to melt into his arms. His mouth captures yours so easily, while your arms find their place around his shoulders. Pressed against him, you feel his stiff cock kissing your stomach.
A heated pulse rises at the touch. Your hips move in response. Before you realize what you are doing, you are gently moving, rubbing yourself against him, until his hands come to your waist to stop you.
“Easy now,” he murmurs against your lips. “We can visit this later. Let me take care of you first.”
You protest with a whimper, yet it melts into a soft, relaxed hum when Taehyung begins washing your back, his fingers pressing gently against the tight knots under your skin. His touch sends the warmth all the way underneath your skin, swirling in your belly, melting together with the warmth building in your center.
“Good?” He asks, earning another hum coming out of your lips.
You hear his low chuckle and you open your eyes, only for him to slowly turn you around. “Just relax,” he whispers when he feels you growing tense under his touch. “Let me help warm you up some more.”
His bare chest presses against your back, letting you feel his steady heartbeat vibrating through his warm skin. He bends down, pressing his lips on the base of your neck. It tingles, yet you feel grounded as he starts leaving a trail of gentle kisses on your skin. It feels good, comforting, and you can’t resist it when your head falls back against his shoulder as you grow lax.
With his lips continuing to graze the side of your neck, he moves his hands around you, caressing your skin gently as he makes his way to the front. Then you feel his hands on your breasts, kneading the soft flesh for a brief moment, before his fingers find the hardened tips. He starts rubbing and pinching them, drawing a myriad of sensations that send your head spinning.
Your eyes flutter close when it gets harder to ignore the heat now thrumming between your legs. You’ve missed this maddening taste of his touch to begin with, so it’s not surprising how your body is so quick to give in.
Suddenly, you are turned back around to face him. You barely have the chance to look at his face when he bends low, burying his face between your bare breasts.
“Taehyung…,” you gasp when you feel his mouth wrapping itself around your now sensitive nipple, your back arching into him as he devours the flesh between his lips, nibbling on it. You writhe against him as he swirls his tongue around the hardened nub and then starts suckling on it. He continues for a while, then moves his lips to the neglected nipple on the other side, doing the same thing while his hand continues his work on the other.
“Don’t be tense, kitten,” he murmurs against your skin, his breath brushing against your nipple.
With a sigh, you do as he says and do your best to relax once again, to enjoy what he is doing to you. When your hands come to his shoulders, they are not there to push him away, but only to steady yourself when you start swaying with the electric current slowly coursing through your body.
You look at him through heavy eyelids when his mouth returns to the tip of your breast, devouring you with a hum. Keeping one arm pressing the small of your back, he lowers his other hand, palm pressing your stomach, before he gently glides it down, heading towards your pulsing center.
As his palm falls flat against your heat, you spread your legs just a bit wider to welcome him. His fingers are gentle as he slides them against your folds, opening your nether lips for him, yet it still sends a wave of scorching heat through your body.
“Oh, God…!” You gasp as he begins sliding his fingers back and forth against your slick heat, his palm pressing and rubbing on your clit. His move is slow, gentle. His touch feels delicate, yet still enough to light up the sparks flowing through your body, and you soon begin rocking against each stroke of his hand.
“I love the way you respond to me,” Taehyung chuckles, his lips still attached to your nipple. Gently, he sucks the bead one more time and straightens up to his height.
“Tae…” You let out a gasp when he pulls you close, bare chest to bare chest, while he presses harder into your heat, going deeper, until you feel the wave of pleasure shooting through you, going straight up your chest.
But the moment you look into his eyes, a flash of pain strikes through your heart, reminding you of the resentment you felt for him. So you hold back, not allowing yourself to give in to the pleasure so easily.
When a sharp inhale of breath leaves your lips, Taehyung takes a closer look. He can feel it when you are holding back, see it on the look on your face that you are trying to fight it, even when the pleasure comes. It’s obvious to his eyes that something is still holding you back from letting go.
So he slows down, pulling his hand away from your heat, and presses his forehead against yours. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, sighing. You look up to see his gaze softening. A gentle smile spreads across his face when he says, “I shouldn’t have said what I said while we were arguing. I was the one who made the mistake and made you angry. Let me make it up to you.”
The tightness in your chest eases. But it doesn’t stop you from wanting to show him how you feel. “Well, I’m not taking back what I said,” you stubbornly argue, rather unconvincingly. It’s hard to stay angry when he looks at you the way he is doing it now—with a gaze so deep, knowing, as if he finds it intriguing that you are defying him even when you’re in a situation where he is holding all control.
“Is that so?” Chuckling softly, he tilts your chin up to look at him. “You think it’s okay for you to talk back at me because I did you wrong?”
You swallow hard, your chest is fluttering with the promise hidden in his question. “If I say yes, then what are you going to do about it?”
“I can always choose to remind you how to behave.”
“I thought you wanted to make up for your mistakes?” You scoff, pouting. At the same time, your cheeks grow warm at his words. You know exactly what he is implying.
“Oh, I definitely am planning to do just that,” he says, with a smirk that tells you how right you are. As if that isn’t enough, he makes his intentions clear by pressing his palm on your bare bottom and giving your flesh a light squeeze. “But that doesn’t mean this part”—he gives your flesh another squeeze—”won’t come later.”
Gasping at his touch, you can feel the light pressure reaching deep inside. So deep, you feel a pulse rising in your core, your hot walls throbbing against the emptiness his fingers left behind. As it happens, Taehyung looks down and reaches between your legs.
“What’s this?” he teases, as his fingers come across the slickness between your folds that feels nothing like the warm water running down your bodies. “Did the thought of being punished make you grow excited, kitten?”
“Hmmh…”
You bite your tongue before the word ‘no’ slips out of you. A part of you wants to deny it so badly, but that would only mean defying him further, while the rest of you wants to be honest with him.
Even your body is honest. You realize this as you tremble at the touch of his fingers, your heat rising as he slips a finger between your folds and into your pulsing walls. A sharp cry leaves your lips when he touches your sweet spot, drawing a wave of pleasure rushing through your body. You bite your lips to stop yourself from moaning when he moves his fingers, in and out, and he continues touching the same spot, pressing just a bit harder each time he pushes his way in, making you feel more pleasure rushing in.
“What do you want me to do, kitten? Tell me,” he whispers, as he slows down, fingers still teasing against your heat, but not enough to relieve your needs. “Tell me how to make it up to you.”
Gasping, you grab his shoulders tightly and beg, “Please…”
“Yes?” He kisses the tip of your nose. “Say it.”
“Please touch me…I want…it feels good. I want more…” You continue to beg, unable to stop yourself. As much as you want to continue feigning anger, you feel a stronger need for his touch. For pleasure. “Please, Taehyung.”
As he bends, you feel his smile pressing on your lips. Then, “Your wish is my command.”
With that promise, he pushes his fingers into your heat. He rubs against the pulsing walls as he drives his fingers in and out of you, pressing the right spots. It doesn’t take long before you feel the waves of pleasure rising, drawing soft gasps and moans out of your lips when you start riding on them.
“Don’t hold back, kitten. Let me hear your voice. Tell me that I make you feel good,” he coaxes you with a smile, drawing a whimper out of you as you continue to try to keep your voice down. “It’s okay. No one is listening to us.”
Like a spell, his words manage to get you to stop holding back. A cry leaves your lips, echoing through the walls around you, as he pushes his fingers deeply into your heat, pressing against the intense pulse that has been building inside. As the pressure inside you rises, your knees begin to fail you, and you fall helplessly against Taehyung’s chest.
“Wrap your arms around me,” he instructs you as your hands begin to slip from his shoulders. “Come on, kitten. I don’t want you to fall. You can be mad at me all you want, but I want to be the one making your pretty butt sore.”
Biting back a groan, both from the sensations you feel inside you and the promise in his words, you push back against the overflowing bliss and raise your arms, wrapping them around him. Now you’re clinging hopelessly against him, with only his arm around your waist to keep you up, and the fingers lodged inside you keeping you anchored to him.
“Good girl.” His praise sends the flutters in your chest straight down, heightening the pleasure. You know that he can sense it when he adds more tension, more speed. Then he presses his thumb against your clit, rubbing it in circles to send you close to the edge.
“Oh, yes!”
With only a couple of more strokes, you feel as if you are floating, going so high that you feel as if you are blinded by the pleasure. The feeling is overwhelming, almost daunting, yet you want nothing more than to embrace it. Cries after cries leave your lips with each wave sending you further to your peak. And when you feel it happening, the last coil in your core is tightening and swelling until it almost bursts, and Taehyung is there to help you welcome it.
“That’s it, kitten. Feel it. Let it go.”
And you let go, allowing yourself fall freely into your climax. You welcome it with a loud cry, as your body trembles and quivers along with it. The fingers in your depth continue moving steadily, helping you ride the pleasure. The sweet words Taehyung whispers into your ear, with his lips ghosting close to your skin, become the ones guiding you back to him before you find yourself lost completely in oblivion.
You remain in this heightened bliss for a while longer, until you feel his fingers slowly leaving your pulsing heat.
Keeping your eyes closed, you savour the waves of pleasure still rushing through your body. It feels conflicting; when you can still sense the vexation you’ve had of him hanging far in the back of your mind, yet your muscles are lax, and your body continues to give in to the delightful touch and the pulsing pleasure you feel coursing inside you.
You feel warm, not just on the outside, which comes from the water still running down your skin despite slowly losing its heat. But you can feel the warmth settling down inside, caused by the swirls of pleasure that are taking their time winding down.
Your eyes flutter open at the touch of his lips, as they trail up the column of your neck, across your chin, then upwards to capture your mouth in a slow, languid kiss. Through your hazy eyes, you see the room is now full of fog, just as thick as what you have inside your head. Then, everything disappears as your eyelids grow heavy, and he deepens the kiss.
In your dreamlike state, the touch of his hands feels faint and far, though they still ignite the dancing flutters under your skin as his fingers make their way down your hips. Then his hands continue travelling further until he gets a hold of your thighs and begins to lift.
With a gasp, you find yourself floating again. This time, not metaphorically.
You open your eyes, and the fog around you slowly clears as he takes you out of the shower. A cold surface touches your skin when Taehyung gently places you on top of the counter.
"I know you just love showing off," you mutter as he carefully dabs your body with a new towel, wiping off the dripping water from your skin.
"I'd like to think of it as making use of the hours I spent working out," he chuckles, and wraps the towel around your body. He grabs another towel and makes a quick work of drying himself off, then discards the towel when he is done. "Come here."
When he kisses you again, you no longer feel any urge to push him away. You simply lean in, wrapping your arms around his neck as your mouth meets his in a soft, lingering kiss. His hands settle on your waist with a gentle hold. Just when you think he's going to pull you to him, he moves your legs to wrap them around his waist, and once again, with no warning, Taehyung lifts you and starts carrying you out of the bathroom.
"You'll regret it once I get used to this," you sigh into the kiss, drawing a low chuckle from him.
"Only more reason to keep working out."
Your eyes are droopy, so you sense it rather than see it when he walks into the bedroom. The air around you smells like a mix of vanilla and cedarwood, a familiar scent that reminds you of Yoongi and Jungkook together. Your heartbeat speeds up as you think about being in their private space, the same way they did when you spent the summer nights with them in yours.
Humming into the kiss, you breathe in the comforting scents, just as Taehyung slowly lowers you back on the bed.
You fall back against the sheets, breaking away from the kiss. The towel falls off, exposing your body to his eyes.
"Damn, baby," he muses, groaning deeply while running his gaze down your body, taking in your bare breasts, your nipples still puckered after the shower and from his relentless nibbles, and your center all damp and swollen from the way he played his fingers until you erupted.
With a gentle grip around your thighs to keep your legs spread, Taehyung moves to join you. He crawls up the mattress with his eyes locked on you, while your eyes travel down his body, still naked and partly soaked, his cock dangling hard and firm. His move is deliberate, like a predator stalking its prey. It makes you feel exposed and small, your heartbeat racing, yet something in you just wants to open up further and present yourself entirely to him.
As he hovers right above you, his hands begin to move upwards. You let out a gasp as his palms move to your bottom, cupping each soft cheek with a firm grip, making your skin tingle with the ghost feeling of a sting which he promised to give you.
"Tae…baby…"
“Right here,” he whispers, his deep voice rumbling with a sound that comes out almost like a low groan as he presses his palms harder into your skin, “I should mark this spot right here to make up for all the scare you put me through.”
You whimper. “You wouldn’t dare,” you protest, though your words fall flat to your own ears.
Grinning wickedly, Tae leans in to kiss your lips and says, “Oh, I would, and I know there’s someone else who was just as worried as I was and would love to do it too.”
You react with a gasp the moment it registers to you what he is trying to say.
"They should figure out by now that we're done showering," Taehyung says, gesturing with his chin at the two cups of tea sitting on the bedside table, steam still floating from each one. Right next to them, you see a couple of loose T-shirts and sweatpants that both you and Taehyung can change into.
Immediately, your cheeks burn hot when you realize that either Yoongi or Jungkook—or both—had been here, and they could easily hear everything that was happening in the shower.
No wonder Taehyung made sure you couldn't keep quiet about it.
"They're probably waiting outside," Taehyung teases you with a kiss, "Should we call them in?"
Before you can answer him, you hear someone knocking at the door, and Jungkook’s voice calls out.
“Is everything okay with you guys in there? Do you need anything?”
Taehyung’s grin deepens. “Answer him,” he whispers as he leans down, pressing his lips on your earlobe. “Make a decision, kitten. Do you want to call him in?”
We’re fine.
Those words should be the ones leaving your lips. But something inside you stirs. The need that Taehyung had awakened is now boiling hot, and the words come out of your lips before you can stop them.
“Ca…can you guys come in?”
Taehyung smiles. As if he is pleased with your choice, he kisses your lips gently and murmurs, “Good girl.”
Your heart flutters as his praising words, and it grows more intense when the door opens with a click, and both men slowly enter the bedroom.
Jungkook comes first, his eyes finding you with a sharp gaze, drifting low the moment he notices your state of undress, while looking vulnerable under Taehyung’s arms. Yoongi follows close behind, his eyes immediately following Jungkook’s gaze as he closes the door behind him.
“Did you need us, princess?” Yoongi asks as he slowly approaches the bed.
Taehyung gives you a brief kiss and moves to your side, before gathering you in his arms, situating you until you are sitting against his chest while facing the other men. “Our sweet princess here wants to make up for causing all the trouble, and I suppose she wanted you guys to get involved, seeing that she made each of us worry.”
Your gaze drifts to Jungkook as a soft groan slips out of his lips. It seems that Taehyung’s words have shifted something inside him, which makes his eyes grow dark with a look of hunger—as if he wants to devour you. It’s a look that you rarely see coming from him. Not since that summer, when he looked at you the same way.
And you can see that he is struggling to keep it down.
But it’s Yoongi who speaks on behalf of both of them. “Is that so?” A slow, deep chuckle comes out of him. Licking his lips, he tilts his head and looks at you closely. His gaze makes your skin tingle, as if he is touching you with his eyes. “Looks to me like she wants to run away.”
“Really?” Taehyung asks, turning to you. “Are you thinking of escaping us, kitten?”
Words fail you when the tension in the room grows heavy. Your throat feels tight with nerves, with a mix of other emotions swirling inside you. You feel them coming from the heat of their gazes. The only thing you can do is shake your head.
“Maybe we should tie her up to the bed while we punish her for being bad today?” Taehyung continues. He acts as if he is making a good offer to his boys, yet you can sense that the question is directed solely at you. “What do you say, kitten?”
For a moment, you deliberate your choices. Exhaustion has begun to set in—your body is welcoming it as the stress you felt earlier has been lifted out of you. And yet, being in the center of attention, with all their deep gazes locked solely on you, the heat of your desire is slowly coming back to life.
“Alright, f-fine,” you finally answer, crossing your arms around yourself while feigning annoyance. But there’s no denying the way your body heats up at the thought of what’s to come, your skin tingling when you picture yourself being under their care.
Taehyung presses a kiss on your bare shoulder and pulls your arms away, peeling your protective shield off your body. “I promise not to hurt you, kitten.”
“It’s still going to hurt.” You let out a whimper.
But then his kiss returns to your shoulder, easing your mind a little bit more. Your body reacts by rocking against him, feeling his cock pressing against your back. The feel of his hardness awakens the throbbing need inside you, but it fades under the shadow of the sting on your skin that suddenly comes to the surface just by thinking of what he is going to do to you.
What everyone is going to do to you.
“Only for a moment,” Taehyung touches your chin, tilting your face to the side as he reassures you with a kiss. “And if you behave, once you’ve shown us that you’re truly sorry, you’ll get a reward right after.”
You hear a hum of approval coming from Yoongi and Jungkook, both still keeping their eyes on you. Even when their heated gazes have slowly turned warm with care, helping you feel less self-conscious and vulnerable, it still doesn’t stop you from feeling nervous about what’s happening.
Pouting, you try not to think too much of it, yet take this time to protest. “I still think it’s unfair. You were the one who made us fight.”
“I know, and I’m still sorry.” A small, regretful smile lifts across his face. “I promise that you’ll get your turn to punish me later for misbehaving.”
His promise makes you smile. “You mean it?”
“Of course, kitten. Anything for you.”
You hear Yoongi chuckling from the side. “That’ll be interesting to see.”
“I’m sure you’d think so,” Taehyung groans.
“Should we put a blindfold on her while we’re at it?” Jungkook suddenly suggests with a smile, which surprises you.
Usually, Yoongi would be the one to take the lead between them, and you can see him as the one suggesting this kind of thing. Just like how you know that he is the dominant one between the two lovers. But Jungkook’s playful gaze shows you that this is something that he wants from you as well.
“We can play a little game and see if you can guess whose turn it is.”
Once again, you whimper. Being tied down and blindfolded at the same time will make you feel even more vulnerable.
It’s not that you hate it. And it’s obvious that the boys are loving the idea too. You’re just not sure if your body can take it all at the same time.
“That’s actually a good idea,” Taehyung chuckles. He leans back, and a tiny scarf manifests in his hand. As if they’ve already prepared it beforehand. “Well? Blindfold on, or off?”
You bite your lips, considering it for a moment. It feels intimidating, yet intriguing at the same time. You take one look at Jungkook, and the answer slips out of your lips before you can stop it.
“Yes,” you sigh. “I can take it.”
“Good girl. Then let us get you ready,” Taehyung says. “Let’s start by tying up your hands first.”
Yoongi moves to the bedside table just then and opens the drawer. When he pulls out a bundle of silk rope, you realize that’s where Taehyung had gotten the silk blindfold from. Yoongi returns to the bed while unwinding the rope to get it ready for you.
You can’t help but be mesmerised as you watch his skilful hands work the rope; his fingers are delicate, yet they move methodically to make it appear as if the rope is dancing in his hold.
“It won’t hurt you,” Jungkook suddenly says, his voice gentle. You turn to him, meeting his smile. He must’ve noticed you looking at the rope in Yoongi’s hands so closely and thought that you felt intimidated. “We’ve used the rope during our time together,” he adds, while running his fingers up his wrist. “And I can promise you that the silk will feel soft on your skin.”
Just as he says those words, an image appears in your head—of Yoongi and Jungkook having their playtime in this room, with the same silk rope binding one of them to the bed.
Picturing them together makes your body grow hot. It takes you back to the summer night when you watched them together, embracing pleasure side by side with you and Taehyung.
Your legs twitch. You try to press your legs together to ease the pulse that suddenly appears in your heat, only for Taehyung to press his palm on your lower belly, prompting you to rock your hips into the mattress instead.
“Patience,” he whispers, his lips brushing against your earlobe. “Give me your hands.”
Sucking a deep breath, you put your wrists together, which he gathers gently with his strong hand. He keeps them together as he lifts them like an offering. Yoongi climbs onto the bed right after, kneeling on your left side, before he wraps the rope around your wrists to bind them together.
The fabric feels soft on your skin, just as Jungkook promised. It takes away the uneasiness you feel of being bound and your control taken away.
But the feeling only stays with you for a fleeting moment.
Taehyung tugs at the rope to make sure that it’s secured, then slips his fingers between the silk and your skin to make sure it isn’t too tight. Once he is pleased, Taehyung gently lifts you from his lap and slips aside.
“Lie back against the pillows,” he instructs you as he sets you down on the mattress.
You do as he says, wiggling against the sheets to get comfortable before lying back.
“Good girl,” he says. He kisses your lips and steps away, leaving the bed altogether and taking away the last warmth that’s been protecting you from their eyes.
Jungkook climbs the bed just then, settling down on your right. His eyes are transfixed on you as he moves closer. And when he takes your tied hands in his, bringing them to his lips, your heartbeat races. He kisses your wrist, right at the part of skin which isn’t covered by the rope, and carefully begins guiding you to lift your arms.
“Arms up, beautiful,” he says, his voice gentle.
You have your eyes looking straight into his when you follow, moving your arms above your head, your tied hands getting close to the headrest. He then takes the remaining length of the rope and brings it upward, before tying it to the headrest to restrain you. Once he is done, he pulls back to watch his work.
“Should we tie her legs to the bed too?” He asks, his eyes glinting with hunger and never leaving you.
Taehyung hums as he thinks about it. “No, that won’t be necessary. I want to be able to move her around a little bit,” he says, much to your relief. Until he adds, “But you’ll be a good pet and keep your legs spread open for us, won’t you?”
With a whimper, you nod your head. Then you remember that your lover prefers to hear your voice. “Yes, I can do that.”
“Good. Bend your knees and keep them up, then open your legs for us.”
Your legs feel a bit stiff when you try to move, almost as if you are not in control of them. They tremble when you bend your knees up, and Jungkook has to lend a hand to help you spread your legs open, wide enough to feel the chill breeze brushing against your pulsing heat.
“Perfect,” Taehyung murmurs, as he climbs back up from the foot of the bed and kneels between your legs. His praise heightens everything that you’re already feeling once you are settled.
In this position, you feel vulnerable. Lying naked on your back, your legs spread open, and your most intimate parts on display for three pairs of hungry eyes. The way Taehyung is towering over you on the bed while you are bound to the damn furniture makes you feel small. The feeling that is surprisingly welcomed, knowing that you are no longer in control of all the mess that you’ve created for yourself.
Yet you don’t feel any fear when Jungkook’s presence on your right side exudes calmness, and Yoongi is giving you comfort from your left. Their hands, all delicate and gentle and deft, begin tracing up and down your thighs, your hips, your waist, giving you all the soothing touches you need, which only further inflates the heat inside you until it soars.
“Please…”
You whine, begging, even if you’re not entirely sure what you are asking of them.
“What is it, kitten?” Taehyung asks with his deep voice, his hands spreading your legs wide. “Tell me what you want.”
Opening your eyes, the hunger you feel comes rushing in, taking over your senses. And you want more. You want them.
You want everything.
Taehyung lowers himself right as the others shift, settling back on either side of you and giving him space. He covers your body with his own, pressing down with his heat as his lips find your earlobe to give a light bite. “Use your words, kitten. Or are you ready for your punishment?”
Your breath is caught in your throat. The threat of his punishment makes your skin tingle. At the same time, heat begins to form right at the center of your legs.
“Yes, I’m ready,” you whisper, nearly breathless as your heartbeat picks up. Yet you hold your gaze on his when he looks down at you again, once again pleading with him, “Please punish me, Sir. I’ve been a bad girl.”
A collective sound of deep groans and low chuckles answers you. Seems like they all enjoy hearing your response.
Your attention is briefly drawn to Yoongi when he begins stripping out of his clothes. He catches your gaze as he throws his shirt away, leaving his chest bare. His hair—that has gotten longer—looks unruly as it falls against his face, and you itch to run your fingers through the soft strands.
You look away from his knowing grin when Taehyung moves. You watch him hand over the blindfold to Jungkook, who takes it after taking off his shirt. “Ready?” He asks as he turns to you. When you give him no answer, too distracted by the sight of the pretty inkwork on his broad chest and arm, he then reassures you, “You trust us, don’t you?”
Forcing your gaze away from his toned body, you look into his eyes and nod. “Yes.”
“Good,” he says. “And remember that you can put a stop to this anytime you want.”
You know this, but his reassurance continues to put you at ease.
“Do you have a safe word that you can use?”
Glancing at Taehyung, you nod. “Yes. It’s red.”
“Okay,” Jungkook says with a smile. “Use it if you feel like it’s too much and you feel like you can no longer take it. We’ll make sure that you’ll feel safe with us, but always let us know if you want to stop. All right?”
You nod to answer, but then you remember to use your words. “Okay. I will.”
This pleases Jungkook and the others. Then Jungkook moves closer. “Close your eyes, beautiful,” he gently instructs you.
You follow his words and close your eyes, immediately hating it when you can no longer see them. But you say nothing as Jungkook carefully puts the blindfold on you. His fingers gently graze through your hair as he secures the silk at the back of your head.
“Is this too tight?” He whispers, his voice sounding much closer than you realize.
“No, it’s okay,” you answer with a whisper, your heartbeat picking up again now that you are in complete darkness.
But as you lose one sense, your other senses heighten. You can feel the movements from both sides of your body as Yoongi and Jungkook pull away. Then you hear the shuffling sounds that tell you they are shedding every piece of clothing they wear, followed by the soft thuds of fabric falling on the floor. You can also hear the steady breath coming from your front, as Taehyung continues to sit still. Watching. Waiting.
Yet neither of your companions makes a move to return to you and touch you.
For a lingering moment, they remain still. And you wait, allowing the anticipation to build up. It doesn’t make you feel tense. In fact, it only heightens your senses further. It feels as though your body, your skin, is slowly growing more sensitive with each passing second you are being denied their touch.
Just when you are about to beg them to touch you, to give their attention, to do anything, you feel a dip on the mattress, right between your legs. Taehyung returns to his previous position and lowers himself over you.
“How are you doing, kitten?”
His deep voice vibrates through his chest. His lips feel close. You tug at your restraint, wishing that you could pull him down to you so you could kiss his lips. But any effort you make will be futile. So you simply clench your hands against the bind and whisper, “I’m okay. I need you, baby.”
Taehyung chuckles, then you feel his lips pressing against the column of your throat. “I’m here, kitten,” he says.
He pulls back, then you feel him running his hands down your body. Starting from your chest, which arches into his touch, to your waist, then his strong palms settle on your hips. They stay there for a moment before he starts moving his hands lower.
You feel him shifting on the bed, changing position. And when his hands continue travelling down your thighs, he carefully guides your legs down to the mattress. They quiver in his hands as he moves them, and you struggle to keep yourself steady—your body has grown quite stiff, yet much attuned to his touch after the long wait.
“Easy, baby,” he murmurs. “Now relax and let me move your body.”
Before you can process his words, he grabs a strong hold of your hips and flips your body around as if you weigh nothing, drawing a gasp out of you.
Taehyung pulls your hips up until you are on your knees, your face hovering slightly above the pillows, and your bare bottom facing up. The restraints around your wrists tighten, and you feel like your gravity is distorted as you are bent at such an angle. Yet Taehyung’s firm hold on your hips keeps you grounded.
“Get those legs wide,” you hear him say, his voice sounds deep and low.
You struggle to keep your knees apart, feeling yourself sinking into the mattress with each move you make. But Taehyung grips the tops of your thighs firmly and pulls them open, parting you wide enough to his liking. You can barely feel his presence from this angle, yet you can feel it when he moves, the mattress dipping lightly as he bends forward, his warm breath on your skin gives away his intention before it happens.
The press of his fingers on your bottom cheeks steals your breath away. Then he draws a breathless cry from you when he licks into you, his tongue sliding between your legs, parting your nether lips before tracing your slick slit.
You cry out as he continues to lap every drop of your arousal, tasting you, and then tonguing your clit. Your thighs begin to quake, yet his firm grip keeps you steady. Then he starts dragging his tongue up to your behind, finding your puckered rim where he licks, just as he slaps his palm between your legs.
The cries leaving your lips are sharp, yet the sound is more needy than in pain. It urges him to continue, spanking your wet center as he licks your anus.
“No…no more…oh my God. I can’t…”
Instead of stopping, Taehyung spanks harder, faster, until you start feeling the telltale of your orgasm shooting from the depths of your core. You suck a deep breath, bracing yourself for climax. The moment Taehyung notices this, he stops and pulls back, denying your release.
“Please, Taehyung.” Whining, you push back against him, only to be rewarded with a rough squeeze on your bottom cheek to stop you from moving.
“Not yet, kitten. You still have to finish taking your punishment.”
When you say nothing in return and simply stop pushing back, fighting against the urge to sway and rock your hips to meet his touch, you hear Taehyung humming his appreciation.
“Do you trust me, kitten?” Taehyung asks, his voice firm.
“Ye-yes…”
“Do you trust us, princess?” Yoongi takes his turn to ask. You feel his hand rubbing gently on your back, while you feel another touch coming from the other side, as Jungkook gently tucks your hair back, exposing your face and neck.
“Yes, I do,” you sigh, then their warmth fades as their hands leave your body.
Taehyung hums. “Good. Now, hold steady. Hold yourself up for a minute and try not to fall,” he orders you, before his hands disappear from your body. “And remember to breathe.”
“Yes,” you find yourself answering, as your mind is floating in a daze. You feel overwhelmed with expectation. “Yes, Sir.”
The next thing you hear isn’t a response from Taehyung, nor a command, but the sound of a hard slap, skin against skin. The sting comes later, as if your brain needs time to register the pain, now that your body has grown used to the mix of sensations he made you feel with his touch—when your body is still filled with a blissful current running through your veins.
Your head is in another space, almost as if everything is happening outside of your body. Then another slap lands on your other side.
“That’s for making me worry,” Taehyung says.
“This is for running out when we weren’t done talking." His hand crashes down three times before you can wiggle your ass to seek relief. “This is for driving off in the middle of the rain and putting yourself at risk.” Then another spank. “This is for being a brat and refusing to listen.”
As he continues listing the things you did which warrant his punishments, his spanking gets harder, faster, until the pain slowly morphs into something else. You continue crying out, your voice barely recognizable when you hear yourself crying in a wanton, needy sound that contradicts the pain you are feeling.
He keeps spanking, still with the list of your offences. “This is for not listening to me and talking back when I was trying to take care of you.”
Your bottom cheeks burn with the pain he inflicts on you, but it feels so right. The sensation building up in your body is exactly what you have been craving for the most. You need this pain—you’ve needed something to ease the pressure building inside you since the fight.
Something to distract you from the cracks that still reside inside your chest.
When the pulsing pain courses straight towards your center, you try to squeeze your thighs together, trying to ease the throb in your swollen sex. Taehyung continues spanking you with a steady beat. As the pain begins to set in, you squeeze your muscles and writhe against the restraint, trying to dodge his touch when his hand comes back to you.
“Taehyung,” you gasp when you feel his palm pressing against your skin, not with another slap, but with a gentle brush. Your ass still tingles and burns, yet it only intensifies the sensation building between your legs.
“How are you doing, kitten? Okay?”
“Hmmmm,” you can only hum as you savour the calming touch he is giving you, helping soothe the pain, and slowly turning them into pleasure.
“Use your words, kitten.”
“Ye-yes. I’m okay.” With each word you give him, your heat throbs with hunger. With a dark need that shouldn’t be there with all the painful ministrations he’s given you. “Please, Sir.”
Taehyung answers you with a deep groan. “It’s not over yet, kitten,” he says with a deep voice. "You know what comes next, don’t you?"
You open your mouth, yet words fail you. A whimper escapes you when he gently rubs his palm across your skin. He kisses a trail down your back, further distracting you. Then the mattress dips on either side of you, and you are quick to find your answer.
"It's our turn, beautiful," Jungkook promises with his gentle voice.
Before you can respond, Yoongi chimes in from the other side, instructing you, "Take a deep breath, princess."
They leave no chance for you to speak, as two separate slaps land on your skin, coming almost simultaneously. The first comes from your right, landing on your plushy, now overly sensitive butt. The second one comes from your left, a little bit more gentle, landing on the top of your thigh, yet close enough to your pulsing center, that the pain shoots right through your core.
You gasp at the sudden strike, your body swaying, as if trying to shake the pain away. A pair of gentle hands comes to your hips, holding you still. "Easy, baby. We're just starting," Yoongi's deep voice mutters.
You feel another hand brushing against the sting, briefly soothing you, before another slap lands on your other thigh.
"Oh…!"
"I’ll try not to hurt you too much, beautiful," you hear Jungkook say as you feel his fingers tracing the spot that stings after his touch. "But this is only the beginning—for making us both worried."
Another slap lands on the back of your thigh, staring from the upper side, then going lower, coming on your right side once, then on your left. It happens so rapidly, you can barely register what's happening or where they will be coming from next. The only thing you can focus on is the glorious pain surging across your body, while their voices as they list out your misdeeds sound almost faint.
"This is for almost giving me a heart attack when neither Tae nor I could contact you," says Yoongi as a slap lands on the bottom side of your butt, where it’s already sensitive to the touch.
"And this is for running through the rain when you could've waited," Jungkook’s voice comes next, driving his spanks lower, focusing on your thighs to avoid the spots that are still pulsing from the previous assaults—starting from the back of your right thigh, to the left, then he slowly drives his palm towards your inner thigh.
A memory of your arrival comes flashing through your head while the strikes continue to come at you—of how you ran out of the car and into the cabin seconds before Jungkook could run out with an umbrella to cover you from the rain.
You inwardly argue that some of these misdeeds that they are listing for you don’t even warrant your punishment. But as you remember the panic in Jungkook’s eyes when he welcomed you at the door, completely drenched, with your tears melting together with the rain, guilt plagues you, and you choose to keep your mouth shut.
Your wandering thought breaks as a sharp slap comes between your parted legs, not more than an inch away from your pulsing heat.
The sudden strike of pain nearly does it, once again triggering your impending climax to push forward. Trashing back against your bind, your head falls back, knees buckling. You try to snap your legs close, pressing against the rising pulse of your climax. But a hard body leans down against your back, pressing on your skin, hands pulling your hips back before you can escape.
"Steady, princess," you hear Yoongi's voice whisper to you. He caresses your neck and moves your hair aside to bite your ear. "You've done so well. Isn't that right?" Basking in his sweet praise, you lean back as he trails his lips at your nape. But you know that the question isn't intended for you.
"She did a good job taking her punishment." Jungkook praises you, and you feel his lips on the other side of your neck, leaving soft kisses that make your chest flutter.
They continue soothing you with their touches and kisses for a bit longer, until you nearly forget about the pain. Until your soft whimpers turn into delicate sighs of need.
Your body trembles under the hands exploring your body. Every inch of your skin lights up. With your hands still bound to the headrest, the feeling heightens, and there's nothing else you can do but feel it. Your upper body bends over the pillow, barely keeping a good distance from the mattress as you struggle not to fall over. Your knees are quaking beneath you, a fragile foundation, yet they are the only things keeping you up, as your hips move languidly to ride the pulsing pain.
"I wish you could see yourself, kitten," Taehyung murmurs. "You look so good, taking it all like a good girl."
A pair of lips comes pressing on your back. Warm kisses trailing down your spine, stopping at the small of your back and ghosting across your bruised skin. His fingers take hold of your hips when the other hands slowly disappear from your body. Then, your world suddenly tilts over, as you are flipped around until you are lying on your back once more.
The twisted rope loosens once you are settled back into the pillows, just enough to allow your blood to flow back to your fingers. Your body flinches briefly as your back hits the cold sheets, which soon grow damp with your sweat and from the water dripping from your hair. But as your head rests against pillows, you breathe a sigh of relief, and your muscles grow lax.
Yet the relief doesn’t last, as your bruised skin meets the sheets, and the sting shoots right through you.
“Everything okay?” Taehyung asks. “Try to relax. Can you do that?”
With a groan, you twist your body, moving under the restraint to find a comfortable angle that doesn’t inflict pain when your tender skin rubs against the sheets beneath you. “Yea…yes,” you hiss, earning a deep chuckle that vibrates through Taehyung’s chest.
You try not to strain against the bind as he runs his fingers down your waist. Each lingering touch tickles your senses. You feel his grip on your hips, and just when you think he’s about to stop there, Taehyung runs his hands down your thighs. He grabs a hold of your flesh and carefully lifts your legs up, and keeps going up, until your lower body is suspended upward, before he slowly pushes your thighs towards your chest, nearly folding you in half.
It feels weird to remain in this angle. Bound to the bed and blindfolded, you have absolutely no control over your own body.
And now you are feeling a greater sense of losing that control, when Taehyung keeps a tight hold of your legs, keeping them open, your sore butt floating above the mattress, and your slick pussy completely exposed as he keeps your center open while facing the ceiling.
You hear a deep hum and almost feel the touch of his gaze as Taehyung takes a moment to marvel at the work of his and his friends’ hands. “Someone seems to be enjoying the punishments too much,” he murmurs, as he lets go of one leg and runs his fingers between your folds, finding slickness.
You suck a deep breath at his touch, which ignites the sparks beneath your eyelids. You should be feeling embarrassed, ashamed, for being exposed as someone so wanton to enjoy these punishments that you nearly climaxed more than once while they kept striking you.
You’d wished that neither of them caught on. But it seems that nothing could pass Taehyung’s attention, no matter how hard you try to hide it.
“Are you looking forward to your reward? Do you want to come?”
“Yes, Sir. I do…I need it,” you start to beg, when all you feel now is nothing but a numbing pain on your tender skin. And with him holding you like this, you cannot help but pay more attention to your center, where your arousal seems to have been building up without you realizing it.
It’s hard to ignore it now, when you feel every pulse, every drip of your arousal, which feels cold against your warm skin.
Taehyung clicks his tongue. “For some reason, I want to tease you some more,” he muses, and his fingers slip between your folds, causing your hips to twitch when he presses against your heat.
“Do you think you can handle just a bit more, kitten?”
You open your mouth, yet are unable to answer. Can you really take more?
Biting your lips, you relive what had just happened to you. The punishments they gave you have been intense and harsh, yet your body seems to welcome the pain so openly. It’s proven through the slick sound of your arousal, which you can hear as Taehyung slowly moves his fingers in a barely-there touch, just to feel your arousal building up further.
Your body trembles with each touch, your breath quivers. Your core pulses. Then Taehyung moves his fingers away from your center, smearing your arousal across the area on your inner thighs, which he has yet to touch.
“I’ll need to leave a mark here,” he muses with a deep, growling voice that would have made your knees grow weak, if only you were standing on your feet. “What do you say, kitten? Will you let me?”
Your throat feels dry when you try to answer. You didn’t realize how much you’ve been screaming and wasting your voice. The thought of more punishments also puts fear into your chest, stealing your words. But the strong need for release, and the promise of pleasure that you are expecting to gain once it’s all over, prevent you from using your safe word to put a stop to this.
Instead, you steady your breath and answer him calmly, “Yes, Sir. I can take it.”
“Good girl.”
Taehyung lets go of your legs. Before you have the chance to lower them or feel the relief of being freed from his restraint, two hands come to take his place.
Jungkook's fingers wrap themselves on your right calf, while Yoongi takes hold of your left knee, both working together to keep your legs up without adding more restraint that may hurt you.
“Remember to breathe,” comes the reminder from one of them, before a slap lands on your inner thigh, its sound echoing around you, the pain shooting up to your spine, and into your heat.
Another strike lands on the other side before you can react, stealing your breath and drawing a stifled gasp when he follows up with another slap, moving just an inch away from the previous spot he touched.
"This is for trying to steal an orgasm from us," Taehyung says as he spanks you right above your folds.
Your pussy throbs against his assault, while your cheeks burn, chill runs down your spine.
He knows, you wonder with a gasp. Shame runs through your blood realizing that you’ve been caught.
"Oh, God!" You squeal in pain as his large hands come down on your bare center, causing your entire body to arch and quiver.
He gives your pulsing heat a few more spanks before stopping, once again timing it perfectly right before you erupt into an orgasm. "Please, Taehyung. Baby, I need to cum."
Taehyung pauses, then gives your inner thigh one more hard slap before he pulls away, followed by the hands that have been keeping your legs hanging, allowing you to finally find relief as your lower body falls to the mattress. You immediately start kicking your feet and humping your hips into the sheets, feeling wild for something more, something less, for everything.
Your body is still feeling the sting of pain and pleasure and the desperation of not being able to touch yourself, when a tug on your wrists draws attention to your limbs, which have grown sore and numb at the same time.
Suddenly, the rope that binds you falls. Gentle fingers pry your hands apart, freeing you completely. Warm lips come pressing at your wrist, kissing them one at a time, as if to soothe the numbing ache left behind by the tight bind.
As your arms fall back to your sides, the bed dips, right between you and Jungkook. You feel Taehyung shifting, pulling you up the mattress easily as if you are nothing but a ragdoll, and pulls you up to sit on his lap, facing away from him. He parts his knees, dragging your legs out wide.
“You still want more, kitten?” His breath is scorching hot on your ear. “You’re going to get this pussy spanked one last time for trying to sneak an orgasm when we’re not looking, so you’ll remember not to repeat it. Then you’re going to give our friends a little show to reward them for keeping you safe before I got here.”
You nod, unable to find your voice. Taehyung wraps a firm arm around your waist and brings his hand down between your legs. A swift, yet firm spank lands on your pulsing center.
“Ooh, ooh!”
You let out a squeal at the impact. The sensation feels like an explosion of pain and pleasure that shoots through your body. It feels too much, but you leave your knees open, though you are powerless to stop your hips from moving to ride the feeling.
He slaps again, lighter this time. And with his other hand, he crushes your breast, massaging your sensitive flesh that’s been abandoned just a little bit too hard. After the third spank against your dripping folds, you are practically sobbing with need. Thankfully, his fingers remain where they are and cup your dripping mounds. You squirm against them, needing friction. He screws one finger in, and you grab his hand to urge it deeper.
“So wet for me.” He groans, his voice filled with hunger and need.
Taehyung cups your jaw and gently lifts your face as he tugs the blindfold off. The light in the bedroom was dimmed while you were left in the dark, and it takes some effort to be able to see through the haze.
You inhale sharply as you feel his finger softly probing your opening, just barely inching inside. The walls of your pussy tighten, anticipating the impending invasion. But he doesn’t go deeper—not yet.
Taehyung swirls the tip of his finger in lazy, minute circles just inside of your opening. Your skin grows even hotter as the gentle sensation begins to cause a reaction inside of you so quickly. His finger slips with effortless ease with how slick you’ve become, how ready your muscles are to welcome him.
You begin squirming as the tickling feeling becomes almost unbearable. His gentle touch felt nice at first, almost soothing, but now, it feels almost irritating with how much he is holding back, as if teasing you. You want nothing more—no, need—than for him to either put his finger in deeper, or touch you harder.
And then he finally does, pushing his finger deeper into your heat, while he murmurs to your ear, “Or are you perhaps wet because you have eyes here watching you unravel, kitten?”
You open your eyes with a gasp, meeting both Jungkook and Yoongi’s deep gazes. Those deep, intense gazes that are filled with hunger. Your gaze trails down their bodies, noticing the thin sheen of sweat on their skin, the rise and fall on their chests as they watch you closely, taking in the way you are responding to every touch, every sensation that your boyfriend is giving you.
And then your gaze continues to trace down the length of their bodies, falling on their hard cocks, all fully erected, ready and needy that you can almost feel the heat without having to touch them. You lick your lips, wishing for a taste, and you feel Taehyung’s chest pressing on your back as he whispers,
“Touch them, kitten. You’re the only one getting punished right now, so you need to take some responsibility.”
His command takes a few minutes longer to sink in. Then you need another moment to order your body to move, still too overwhelmed, too stimulated, that your brain seems to have grown numb.
But then you manage to move your hands, reaching out to each of the men who have joined you on the bed.
Your eyes meet Jungkook’s as you wrap your fingers around his cock, watching his eyes flutter close at your touch. You feel his cock twitching against your palm when you begin to move your hand, sliding it up and down his shaft at a slow and steady pace.
Keeping your grip steady and your strokes light, you turn to Yoongi. Your eyes are locked on his when you cover his stiff cock with your other palm. His erection feels hard and rigid. His blood pulses against your touch. And when you begin stroking him, keeping the same pace as what you are giving to Jungkook, his jaw clenches, and a deep groan slips from his mouth that falls open at the pleasure he is feeling.
You briefly pause to lick your palms, hoping to add some lubrication to avoid hurting them. Then you continue, stroking them simultaneously, up and down, keeping a steady pace. You look between them, watching their expressions change; how Jungkook closes his eyes when he feels the pleasure rising, while Yoongi keeps his eyes on you the whole time, with his jaw clenching, holding back a groan.
Your hands are still sore from the bind they kept you in earlier, your fingers still feeling the tingles from the blood now flowing back into each digit, so it doesn’t take long before you feel the exhaustion. Your wrists are beginning to grow sore, your strokes unsteady. Just when your movements become jerky, Yoongi covers your hand with his own, gripping it to guide you to keep the same pace as you continue.
A groan comes from Jungkook, and soon he is doing the same thing. His fingers encircle your hand, giving it a firm grip as he guides you to stroke harder, faster, until you hear his soft moans in the air around you.
It leaves you feeling mesmerized for a moment as you watch them coming close to unravelling under your touch. Beads of precum are leaking from the tips of their cocks, making you salivate for a taste. When you feel them twitch and their cocks hardening, their groans getting louder and deeper, you know that they’re getting close to finding release.
But instead of reaching it, you feel their grip loosening, then with a groan, Yoongi opens his eyes and firmly says, “Enough.”
Gently, they pry your hands from their hard-ons, both throbbing and hot, so close to climaxing. Jungkook looks at you with his eyes dark and hazy, his smile tired and amused, then kisses the inside of your wrist before letting you go.
Yoongi lets out a soft hiss when you release him, cursing under his breath when he seems to have trouble fighting the pleasure rushing in his body.
“W-why did you make me stop?” You meekly ask, disappointed. You were marvelling at the fact that you were giving them pleasure, and had wanted nothing more but to help them find release.
Jungkook smiles. “You made us feel good, beautiful,” he reassures you. Then adds, “But we both prefer to cum while we’re deep inside you.”
His confession makes you gasp, and you fall back against Taehyung’s chest, which rumbles as he lets out a deep chuckle. “You like the sound of that, don’t you, kitten?” He whispers to your ear, his arms still on your waist, while he reaches between your legs, dipping into your slickness. “Did touching them and watching them go crazy from your hands make you feel excited?”
You sigh. “Yes, it did.”
His hand slides across your throat next, fingers tightening just enough to draw a gasp from your lips. "Do you think you deserve that reward now?"
"Yes. Please, Sir. I need to cum," you answer breathlessly, wishing his hands would move down to touch you right where it tingles. Your heat has been pulsing with need, and any touch would be enough to light you right up.
A movement catches your eyes, and you let out a sigh when you see Jungkook kneeling between your parted legs. His dark eyes are locked on you as he spreads your legs wider, exposing your hot center to his eyes.
"Fuck, she's dripping so hard," Jungkook murmurs with a sigh. He runs his tongue across his lips and grins. "I think she's ready for us."
"I bet she is," Yoongi chuckles. "Stop torturing the poor thing. She's been doing so well."
"I agree," Taehyung says, much to your relief. "And I think Jungkook is eager to taste you first." Your eyes move back to Jungkook, who has lowered himself with his fingers moving to your center. "Would you let him, kitten?"
You groan softly. "Yes…"
Jungkook doesn't waste any more time. Dipping low, his mouth latches onto your inner thigh, biting hard enough to leave a bruise. You whimper at the pain, hips jerking, yet the sting only intensifies the pulsing you feel in your core.
Jungkook moves his hands up your waist, holding you down as he gives a slow lick across the pain he inflicted, soothing your skin until you are no longer tense. You feel the warmth of his breath across your folds, his fingers parting your nether lips, then his lips press down. A sharp gasp leaves you when he drags his tongue up your slit, stopping just before he reaches your clit.
You groan in frustration, bucking your hips, wishing that he would put that wickedly hot tongue of his over your clit and suck. "Beg for it, beautiful," he murmurs against your folds, his lips ghosting over your heat.
Taehyung tightens his grip on your throat and whispers, "Do as he says, kitten."
"Please," you gasp, "Please, Jungkook."
"What do you want him to do to you?"
"I…" you gasp breathlessly, your cheeks flushing with humiliation when a thought crosses your mind. Yet the words come out easily, "I want Jungkook to lick my pussy and suck my clit. Hard."
"I love it when you call my name and beg like a good girl," Jungkook teases, drawing a soft groan from you as his praise warms you inside. And then his mouth returns to your heat, capturing your clit between his lips while flicking his tongue mercilessly until your legs start shaking around his head.
"Damn, she tastes so good," he murmurs against your heat. You barely feel him pulling away when his lips continue to devour you, tasting and sucking, making you lose your mind.
You start bucking on the bed, your hips rolling back and forth against his face while he devours you. Taehyung keeps his hold around you; his arm keeps you still, while his hand keeps a steady restraint around your throat, restricting your need for air. Once again, the sensation you feel growing in your body is intensified, and the sparks seem to erupt wildly inside when you feel another set of hands reaching out, touching your breasts.
Your eyes flutter open to see Yoongi on your other side, his hands roughly playing with your breasts, kneading and pinching at your nipples until they grow hard again. He seems to be lost in a trance as he watches your body rocking against Jungkook’s face, riding him, with your head falling back against Taehyung's chest, and your hands sinking into the sheets beneath you.
You cry out when he pinches at your puckered nipples, feeling overwhelmed with everything you feel rushing through your body. His lips slowly lift to a grin, and he leans closer to whisper to you, "Do you think you can take us, princess?"
A moan escapes you as an answer, and he murmurs to you again, "You're going to take all three of us. One at a time, together, until you can't take anymore."
As Yoongi puts the image inside your head—of you being ravished by the three of them, together—your entire body shudders. You’ve dreamt about it ever since that summer, pictured it whenever you had to sleep at night, and have been longing for it for as long as you can remember. With a sharp inhale of breath, you remember sharing your desire to Taehyung once or twice, who had only responded with a smile and a promise, “Anything for you.”
"Answer him, kitten." His grip around your throat tightens, briefly, snapping you back into focus. “Isn’t that what you want? To have all of us giving you attention and care. and make sure that you’ll feel good?”
"Yes,” you moan. “I do. I want all of you."
"Good girl." Yoongi rises to his knees, his hand stroking his thick cock and slapping its tip against your cheek. "Open your mouth, princess."
You open your mouth willingly, while Taehyung slowly releases his grip on your throat. Yoongi's cock slides in smoothly, going deep as he fills your throat in one swift thrust. His hand moves to the back of your head, pulling you up to him while you gag around his thickness, tears forming in your eyes when his thrusts keep knocking the air out of your chest.
Taehyung shifts behind you, straightening his back so you can lean on him better, with his hand reaching down between your legs. He slides his fingers down your center, and Jungkook pulls back just so Taehyung can push his fingers into your tight, pulsing walls. Feeling him pressing deeply, your back arches. You nearly choke on Yoongi's cock, yet he doesn't stop thrusting into your mouth, as if your reaction and the sounds you are making only continue urging him on to keep moving.
"I think she's close to cumming," Jungkook teases with a low chuckle, his warm breath brushing against your pulsing center.
"Yeah," Taehyung groans. "I can feel it."
And both of them are right.
You can feel yourself burning from the inside. You are feeling delirious, feeling too many things at once; the cock in your throat, the fingers moving inside you, the hands touching, owning, and dominating every inch of you.
Your walls clamp down on the fingers pounding in and out of you. But just as you are about to come to your climax, both Taehyung and Yoongi move simultaneously to stop it from happening. As Taehyung pulls his fingers out of your heat, Yoongi pulls out with a gasp, his breath unsteady and his cock pulsing as if he was also close to his release.
Taehyung lets you go, and Jungkook takes over. You open your eyes as he turns you around, gently positioning you on Taehyung's lap as the latter sits back against the headrest, his arms opening to welcome you as you sit facing him. Your eyes grow wide as he impales you slowly on his cock. You cry out in a mix of relief and pleasure, feeling gloriously filled as he stretches you to the edge.
He grabs your hips, lifting you and slamming you back down. The sound of your screams fills the bedroom, echoing against the walls.
"Oh…oh, God! You're too rough, baby. So hard."
"You can take it, pet," Taehyung groans as he slams your ass down on his thighs, burying his cock deep with each ride.
"Such a good girl. You like it rough, don't you? Does it feel good to have his cock pounding your pussy?" Jungkook mutters from behind you as he kisses and bites your shoulder. His hands move around your chest, palming your breasts, making you even more delirious.
"Oh…yes…yes…!" You scream, barely coherent.
"Might want to quiet her voice a little," Taehyung groans, although he's not making any effort to slow down.
"I might just have a way to make that happen," you hear Yoongi speak, then the bed dips slightly as he moves. He grabs the back of your head and turns you to face him. You see the tip of his cock right before your eyes, and you open up for him, welcoming him back into your mouth.
"That's it, princess. What a perfect little pet," he groans, as he once again buries his cock deep in your throat while Taehyung continues pounding into your pussy.
With his hands resting on the back of your head, Yoongi starts rocking his hips, fucking your mouth as if he is fucking you deep in your pussy. He does it so rapidly as he pushes deep that you nearly choke around his girth, and you struggle to breathe. But once you begin to adjust to his width, you manage to swallow him without gagging. You even start using your tongue, flattening it against the underside of his length as he moves back and forth, in and out of your mouth and throat.
“You love being fucked in your mouth, don’t you?” Taehyung says. You can’t see his face, yet you can hear the smile in his voice when he teases, “You’re getting even wetter, kitten. You’re absolutely drenching around me.”
You moan around Yoongi’s cock, not only from his words, but also from his touch, when he reaches between you to give pressure on your clit.
Your body shudders, your breath unsteady. Then, things become even more intense when Taehyung picks up his pace, going the same rhythm as Yoongi. It almost sends you off to climax, making you cum with how intense they are fucking you together.
As Yoongi pushes deep into your throat, Taehyung keeps pounding you, hard and fast. Your body is jolted up and down, back and forth. Taehyung’s hands on your hips keep you centered, but Jungkook’s fingers that are playing with your breast do things to your brain that make you feel like you are lost in another space, where there’s nothing but pleasure around you.
There’s nothing you can do but ride the waves, allowing them to take over your body. You are so lost in the moment, with your climax rolling and slowly unfolding within, that you almost miss it when Yoongi speaks with deep grunts, “Fuck, I’m close. Her mouth feels so good.”
Even the sounds that come next—Jungkook’s soft murmurs as he responds to his lover, the loss of his hands on your skin, and the click of a tube opening—barely register in your brain. Until Yoongi suddenly stops, merely moments before you can embrace your release. With his fist on your hair, he slowly pulls your head back, and his cock falls out of your mouth with a pop.
You look up with bleary eyes, seeing his grin when he says, “I need to be inside you when I cum, princess.”
Before you can respond, Yoongi moves away from your sight. Taehyung guides you to face him, then gently pushes you forward until your chest are hovering on top of his. He continues thrusting in and out of you, slowing down, but still enough to distract you from the movements happening around you. Yet you certainly feel it when fingers come down to part your bottom cheeks, delicate against your still-tender skin, then something cold is being rubbed on your rear opening.
The sensation makes you gasp, and the hand that’s touching you doesn’t stop there.
“Deep breaths, princess,” Yoongi whispers in your ear, and it's the only warning you get before you feel him push his finger through your puckered rim.
“Oh…Oh!”
Yoongi begins moving his finger in and out of your hole, drawing more sounds from your lips. It feels odd to be stretched out like this, to be invaded from behind while you are filled from the front with Taehyung’s thick shaft.
But the lube helps.
It doesn’t take long before his ministrations flow smoothly. And once you are stretched enough, he adds another finger. Then another. From two fingers, become three. You let out breathless moans with each intrusion, while your body starts moving on its own, your hips grinding on top of Taehyung as you welcome each thrust of fingers, driving you to ride your lover’s cock steadily.
Then the fingers are removed. It happens so suddenly, cutting off the steady rise of your climax. You push your ass back to get them back, but a steady hand stops you, then you feel something larger pressing against your opening.
You finally realize what Yoongi meant earlier: that he wants to fuck you from behind while you are riding Taehyung’s cock.
Your body tenses for a brief moment, not sure if you’re ready for it when you’re already overstimulated. But your lust-filled mind wants it, and your body seems to crave it, when you pulse around Taehyung’s width just at the thought of it.
As Yoongi pushes his way in, you lean forward to give him better access and try to relax. You feel the head of his cock spreading you, stretching you further than his fingers did. Once he’s passed the rim, you feel his width filling you up and let out a cry. He struggles with a groan when your body tenses up, both around his cock and Taehyung’s, who also lets out a strangled groan.
That’s when Jungkook moves in. Gently, he places his palm on the back of your head, guiding you to look at him. “Focus on me, beautiful,” he says, smiling. Then he bends down to capture the tip of your breast with his mouth.
He gently sucks and licks around your nub, drawing shivers through your body. It helps take your mind away from the intrusion coming from behind.
Your body gives in, then slowly relaxes. When you are no longer tightening your muscles, Yoongi continues. He moves to push until he is a few inches in, then pulls back. He repeats it a few more times, making use of the lube again when he struggles. Within a few more strokes, he is finally buried in your ass, and he settles in your depth with a sigh.
“You feel good, princess,” he murmurs against your skin as he kisses your shoulder.
Jungkook pulls away, and the two cocks inside you begin to move, quickly picking up a rhythm. They go in and out, moving simultaneously, with one filling you deeply when the other moves back. You let out cries and moans with every stroke, every thrust, as the pleasure rushing in your body rises rapidly.
Taehyung lets out a deep groan when his body tenses, his cock pulsing hard inside you. “I think I’m going to cum.”
“Me too,” Yoongi groans, as he pushes as deep as he can, nearly causing you to topple onto Taehyung’s chest.
“Yes, come inside me,” you cry out, already feeling your own release coming. “Give it to me.”
Your words send them both into climax. Yoongi picks up speed before spilling his release inside you. Then, as he slows down, Taehyung lets out a groan, and you feel his warm load filling you up. Having their cum inside you puts you straight to the edge, and you are more than ready to embrace it, even though neither of them has yet to say a word for you to come.
You close your eyes, let your head fall back, getting ready for it. Yet, seconds before your climax explodes through you, Yoongi pulls out of you, and Taehyung grabs you by the hips to pull you off his cock.
“No…no, please!” You beg, as you are lifted off his lap and turned until you are beneath him. Cum spills out of your front and back, with your muscles spasming around emptiness, and your body is shaking from being denied your own release. “Please, I need to cum.”
You struggle in Taehyung’s hold; the dire need for release is making you impatient. You manage to squirm out of his grip, only for him to tackle you back onto the bed, catching your wrists and pinning them down into the pillows over your head with his large palm.
Taehyung rises over you. Dark determination is written clearly in his expression.
“I see that you tried to sneak an orgasm under our noses again,” Taehyung teases, his voice growling deeply.
“I just need to cum. Please, baby. I’m so close,” you whine, your body twitching, the spasms of your denied orgasm pushing from your core.
“I know, baby,” he says, leaning down to kiss your lips. “But you must’ve forgotten that there’s still one of us who hasn’t cum yet.”
Eyes wide, you remember with a gasp that there’s someone who hadn’t joined you. Taehyung moves away, and Jungkook quickly takes his place. He grabs your calves, opening your legs for him, and takes his position between them.
Your eyes follow his hand as he starts stroking himself, though it’s clear that he’s more than ready to take you.
“Ready to take me, beautiful?” He whispers, his lips ghosting over yours in a barely-there kiss, drawing your eyes away from his hard-on. “You’re not too sore to let me in, are you?”
“Hmmmh…no,” you whimper, barely managing to let the words out. “Please, I need you inside me.”
“Your wish is my command,” he groans.
You inhale sharply as you feel his finger probing your opening, just barely inching inside. Your inner walls tighten around him as Jungkook swirls the tip of his finger in lazy circles just inside of your opening, teasing you, testing your soreness. Cum drips around his digit, its slick sound reaches your ear, making your cheeks flush with warmth.
It causes new sensations that immediately elicit a reaction from your now overly sensitive body, as your muscles pulse and spasm around him, and your hips start rocking, needing him deeper. Then he pushes, and his finger slips with effortless ease.
His gentle touch makes you squirm. You welcome it when a sigh as he starts moving his finger in and out of you, adding more force with each thrust. Yet it doesn’t feel enough. After all the rough fucking, and the way the other men handled your body, you need him to bury his finger deeper and to touch you harder.
The ghost of your denied orgasm is still there, still palpable, though it no longer feels like your body is going to erupt at the slightest touch. And Jungkook’s finger is rousing it back to life—very, very slowly.
When he pulls your legs up, your body tenses. Your muscles are aching. You feel soreness in various places, with barely a feeling in your trembling legs, and you’re not sure if you can take rough handling of your body anymore.
But then he drops forward, resting his weight fully on yours, and pulls your legs up around his waist. It gives you a small sense of relief, only until you feel his warmth pressing on your skin, and his hardness meets your soaked sex.
Your heart thrums rapidly in reaction to his hard, hot cock as it rubs up against your folds. He moves gently, almost as if he is trying to be careful enough not to hurt you, yet still insistently, sliding along your ever-increasing slickness. His slow movements ease the soreness you feel in your core, leaving only intense ripples of pleasure each time his hips come full circle.
The soft moans you make let him see this, and he continues grinding his hard cock against your wet clit with the perfect amount of pressure to make you feel it even more. Your core throbs on the inside, and the need to be filled overcomes you once again.
“Easy now, beautiful,” he says, as he lines up the tip of his cock against your pulsing heat. “Hang on tight with me just a bit longer.”
Jungkook puts his arms beneath your shoulders, crushing your body against his hard chest. Then he moves his hips back. When he pushes forward, his cock slides right into your hot pussy, filling you up with a force that makes you cry out sharply.
The slight pain of his entrance doesn’t go unnoticed, when it knocks the air right out of your chest, and you can feel the force of his thrust so deep in your chest, your walls pulsing and tightening around him like a vice once he goes deep. Yet there’s a pleasurable gratification of being stretched and thoroughly filled that takes away the tension, the ache, and the soreness you felt.
You cling to him desperately, taken over by the urgent need to have him buried inside you, and keep him there. But then Jungkook begins to move, rocking his hips and moving his cock in and out of you, and you soon cling to him to stop yourself from unravelling beneath him.
His thrusts are fast, hard and relentless. Unlike how you normally see Jungkook, his movements seem almost uncontrolled. Rapid and undisciplined, almost as if he has gone crazy with lust.
You whine each time he pulls almost the way out, and you squeeze your muscles, tightening your pussy walls around him as hard as you possibly can, afraid that he might slip out from how slick you are, leaving your desire unattended and hanging on the edge once more. But each time he comes back, he always comes with a force. Jungkook bucks his hips against yours with more force than you’ve anticipated. Enough to send the bed beneath you rocking back and forth violently against the wall, following each movement he makes.
In your blissful fog, you realize that Jungkook is truly taking you, ravishing you, almost like he is trying to possess you, and is using your body as the sole object of his pleasure. The moment you feel ready to fully accept his rough fucking, to embrace being ravished completely by him, you begin to relax in his arms, though only briefly.
Because he continues pounding into you, while you continue moaning and screaming beneath him, letting out sounds that only increase his need and desire for you. You grab his hair and tighten your legs around him, feeling the tingle rushing through your body. Jungkook notices the shudder running through your body, then continues to hit the same spot over and over, until you feel as if something explosive is about to happen from within.
Lost in the pleasure of being roughly taken by the gentle-hearted Jungkook, you let your head fall back into the pillows, your eyes closed shut. When Jungkook suddenly grows tense above you, your eyes fall open, and you see Yoongi moving behind him. You catch his eyes, drawing a smile on his face as he starts stroking himself lazily, his cock springing back to life under your gaze.
You swallow and moan softly at the sight, feeling more turned on by watching him.
Just as you watch his cock twitching, you feel your rear rim tightening, pulsing with the pleasure he made you feel when he was inside you. You wonder if he's planning to take a turn taking you from the front, and it makes you shudder. You don't know if you can handle being taken by him again—don't know if you can take all three of them for endless hours of the night.
Jungkook tilts your chin, turning your attention back to him. He slows down, taking you gently, and that's when you hear the click of the tube snapping open. You sneak a glance at Yoongi as he covers his length with the lube and continues jerking himself, before lowering behind Jungkook.
Then, after giving you a teasing wink, Yoongi grabs Jungkook's hips and thrusts into him. You let out a gasp as you watch in a daze while the two lovers connect. Your gaze flutters to Jungkook's eyes, seeing him closing those eyes of his in pleasure as Yoongi buries himself deeply inside him from behind. You hear the sound of your moan mixing with Jungkook's low groan as he stills his movements inside you, his grip on your hips tightening as he braces himself to take Yoongi deeper.
You cannot take your eyes away from them, completely turned on with what's happening, as Yoongi grinds himself against Jungkook's bottom, pumping himself slowly into him.
With a sharp gasp, your attention is drawn to your own heat, where you can feel Yoongi's steady movements vibrating through Jungkook's shaft, going straight into your core. You let out a moan, throwing your head back as you feel Yoongi drilling into Jungkook, sending secondary thrusts through you with each rock of his hips.
When Jungkook begins moving again, rocking in rhythm to Yoongi's steady thrusts, you nearly lose it. Somehow, it feels like you are being fucked by two guys at the same time, as their energies collide so that you can feel Yoongi pounding into you through Jungkook's hard thrusts.
You feel fuller than ever before, a sensation which sends your mind swirling. Then, once you are getting used to their movements, with your body welcoming the pleasure they ignite inside you, they begin increasing their speed, moving in tandem, sending shudders of blissful pleasure through your shaking frame.
As the pleasure rises, it's getting hard for you to keep your eyes open. You are completely wracked with pleasure, yet you force yourself to continue watching them as they also begin embracing the pleasure rocking through them.
Your entire core spasms with pleasure, your clit tingles against Jungkook's pelvis as he continues rocking against your heat, and you squirm beneath their weight to try and milk your orgasm. Noticing this, Jungkook lets out a growl, his hands gripping your hips to keep you still.
"You only get to cum when we do, beautiful," he groans, followed by the most arousing sigh falling out of his lips as Yoongi thrusts deeply into him, with a pair of hands gripping firmly on Jungkook's hips. "Ah, fuck," Jungkook curses, his voice sounding desperate as he, too, starts pleading for his own release.
Watching them move together, both with a shared look of pleasure written on their faces, while they continue drilling into you, feels like torture. With each deep thrust Yoongi is giving to his lover, he keeps sending Jungkook deeper inside you. Each thrust comes with a force that rocks your entire body, the pleasure building up until you find it hard to breathe. It feels maddening, when you can feel your impending orgasm hanging so closely, so overwhelming that you can feel it slowly swallowing you alive, only to be denied.
This time, not only from their words, but also because your body has been programmed to react only to their command.
"Please," you hear yourself beg, which only seems to trigger something else from Jungkook as he opens his eyes, pausing his thrusts briefly to slap your clit. Your body jolts from the contact, then the pain shifts into an intense pleasure when Jungkook continues pounding into you again.
It feels so good, yet so unbearable. You are so damn horny. So damn close. You cannot even see straight anymore.
“I’m coming!” You hear Jungkook moaning, then feel his body shuddering wildly against you as he takes the rough pounding coming from behind. His own thrusts become rapid and unsteady. He is slowly losing control as the waves of his climax are coming through him.
“Fuck…!” Yoongi cries out. “I’m also close.”
Jungkook’s back straightens, his rocking becomes more unsteady and rough, and it feels like he keeps pushing himself deeper with each thrust. The sound of his sharp gasp becomes your warning before he explodes inside you; his guttural moans of pleasure echo around you as he fills you up with his warmth.
Then Yoongi soon follows when his climax comes with a shout. With one last deep thrust, he releases inside Jungkook, which sends the latter to another smaller orgasm, his cock throbbing inside you, pressing against your walls.
“Please, let me cum. Please, I can’t take it anymore!” Your begging melts into incoherent cries, which you can no longer recognize as your own voice.
The wave of your climax is coming to you rapidly. You know that you should push it back, but you feel powerless. You know that there’s no stopping it this time when it comes.
Thankfully, as if Taehyung hears your plea, you feel him crawling closer. He trails kisses down the side of your neck and nibbles on your ear. Scraping his teeth against your earlobe, he slips his fingers between you and Jungkook to capture your hardened nipples. He pinches your nipples, hard, while demanding, “Now come for me, kitten.”
At the same time, Jungkook pushes against the haze of his orgasm and reaches down, pinching your clit to set you off.
Your orgasm rolls through you not as a wave, but an explosion. You feel an eruption on the inside, and you cry and cry until your voice grows hoarse. It feels powerful, yet also with relief. Your screaming fills the bedroom, yet you can only focus on the pleasure that is taking over you, the way it rocks your body and tilts your world upside down at the same time.
Wave after wave of electric currents surge through your veins, across your skin, flowing through your entire body. You feel it going to your head, when you feel like you are floating away. The white-hot intensity of your orgasm takes over all of your senses, almost blinding you, and each time you are about to come down from it, Jungkook’s slow, insistent rocking only makes it last longer, as if it will never stop.
And when you start feeling the current running through your body slowly coming steady, your entire body relaxes, before everything disappears.
You wake up feeling warm all over.
Inside, outside, even the air you breathe feels warm.
You feel drowsy. Your body feels heavy, as if it’s no longer your own. When you try to move, your limbs are languid and stiff. There is soreness spreading everywhere, and you notice the presence of a dull ache between your legs. You try to shift on the bed, only to find restrictions.
There’s a heavy weight on your waist; an arm resting there, keeping you in place. Both your sides are blocked with hard chests, though you are pressed only on one side, while the other is lying next to you with barely a touch.
Sighing, you try to move your legs. They feel numb, but as you try to stretch them, your attention is drawn somewhere else. Your skin was stinging with pain the last you remember, after all the spanking you received, and you are supposed to feel it as your skin rubs against the sheets.
Instead, your skin feels numb and delightfully cooled, the sting of pain almost faint. As if someone had lathered some kind of ointment or cream across your tender skin. And instead of feeling all sticky with sweat and cum dripping from your center, you feel your skin cool and smooth, almost as if you had been cleaned with a warm cloth.
I must’ve blacked out, you realize, finding your memory a bit fuzzy.
The last thing you remember is feeling an intense orgasm, with Jungkook lodged inside you and Yoongi pressing his weight from behind his lover to push him deep inside you, and Taehyung’s touch toppling you over the edge. You faintly remember when Taehyung reached in and gathered you in his arms when everything was over.
And they must’ve cleaned all the mess and taken care of me while I was completely out of it, you wonder with a sigh, feeling warm inside.
“You’re awake,” you hear Jungkook hum from beside you, snapping you to wake up completely.
Your eyelids are heavy, but you force them open to look at him through the haze, only to give up and let them close again.
“I can’t move,” you whine and sigh as you shift to lie on your side, with Taehyung’s heat pressing against your back, slowly dragging you back to sleep. “I don’t think I want to.”
“Then sleep, baby,” Jungkook murmurs as he bends closer, trailing lazy kisses across your collarbone.
“But I’m hungry…” You continue to whine. “You guys have completely drained me. I need sustenance to survive.”
“Yoongi made dinner earlier,” Taehyung whispers while he moves his fingers in circles across your belly. His warm breath falling on your skin feels distracting, yet you manage to whisper anyway,
“Hmmm…bet it’s gone cold.”
“I can always heat it up, princess,” Yoongi chimes in, and you let your eyes flutter open to see him looking all drowsy, just as sleepy as you are. You can barely see his full face as he lies behind Jungkook with his arms around his boyfriend.
Always the small spoon when they are together, you wonder with a small smile.
“I don’t want to leave the bed. It’s too comfortable.” You let out a sigh and briefly close your eyes. You really are sleepy, but your stomach has been rumbling for the past few minutes.
Jungkook pulls back, his eyes are heated even when he is just as tired as you are. “What if we heat up dinner and bring it here for you? We can feed you while you rest.”
Yoongi pushes himself up on his elbows. “Good idea. You won’t even have to lay a finger.”
“Or one of us can carry you out to the dining table while the rest prepare dinner,” Taehyung murmurs. “Your choice, baby,” he continues to offer with his lips dragging on your skin, “as long as we get to have you for dessert.”
You let out a groan. “You are insatiable. All of you.”
“Guilty as charged,” Yoongi chuckles, while Jungkook tilts your chin up and sweetly whispers,
“But you know you’ll feel good when you’re with us.”
Taehyung tightens his arm around your waist, pulling your attention back to him as he asks, “So? What do you say, kitten?”
You turn to lie on your back and look between the three of them. The looks of anticipation written on their faces are adorable; it makes you want to tease them so badly.
But something else crosses your mind, making you smile. “I want to stay in bed. It might be messy, but it’s better than having to move around too much,” you suggest, drawing a smile to everyone’s faces. Seems like they all share the same idea with you.
But they obviously won’t be prepared to hear what you have planned.
“Besides,” you add, as you reach back to cup Taehyung’s face with your palm. “I believe I was promised a chance to give someone a punishment for causing my plans to fail today.”
Taehyung’s eyes widen, while the two other occupants filling the bed share a chuckle.
“Well, better to leave you guys to it, then. Let’s go, babe,” Yoongi teases, pulling Jungkook with him as he leaves the bed.
“Well?” You turn to Taehyung once both boys are out of the room, smiling. “You’re not going to back down from your promise, are you?”
Chuckling deeply, he shifts to lie on his back and puts his wrists together to offer them to you. “I’m all yours, kitten. Punish me all you want. I’ve been a terrible boyfriend, after all.”
Not long after, when Yoongi and Jungkook return with the late dinner meal—all reheated and served on a wooden tray—they find Taehyung’s hands tied up against the headboard, his chest rising and falling rapidly with breathless groans slipping out of his lips, while you are bent over him, taking his cock deep in and out of your mouth while he squirms helplessly against the bind.
“Remember,” you murmur as you pull back to catch a breath, using your palm to stroke his length, “You can’t cum until I tell you to.”
Taehyung lets out a grunt and nods. Holding back a playful grin, he answers with a strained voice, “Yes, mistress.”
author’s note: Thank you for reading and for getting this far. Please kindly leave likes/kudos if you enjoyed the story, help boost the story by reblogging the post, and also feel free to leave comments and questions if you have any. Any kind of feedback is also welcomed. Thank you again for reading!
So looking at you both is just like seeing two best friends having fun around each other
And honestly, that might be the cutest thing of your relationship
He is currently taking you on random dates
"There is this place where you can take care of ducks. We should go there"
Okay??
He truly just sees anything and he's like "oh I should go there with my partner"
Just because wherever he goes he needs you by his side
That leads me to my next point
He always includes you
In conversations, no matter with whom, he'd always say "we"
Someone randomly says "taehyung, would you like to go to this new cafe" and he's like "We would love to go"
Because he's always including you
Since he started dating you it's never simply "I", it's always "we"
And if you both go to some place where there is live music
Like a restaurant or you were just walking down the street and someone is playing guitar there
Be ready because he will call you to dance
Always with a knowing/teasing smile, he will hold your hand and just starts slow dancing with you
"But what about the people watching" nah he's not thinking about it
He's only thinking that if he has any opportunity to have you close, he will have you close
Also sings to you randomly
If we're talking about a scenario where he's an idol, he would like to keep the relationship private
He doesn't think the world should have a place in your relationship. This is about the two of you only, and it should stay like this
He'd only want to make the relationship public the moment you get married, because then he'd need to explain the sudden ring on his hand
But he sets boundaries very quickly. Not the fans, not the media, not the company, NO ONE will dare to put themselves between the two of you
You become the topic of his songwriting
Makes a whole album for you fr fr
If you allow him, he'd put one of your voicemails in the song. It becomes his favourite song
TAKES PICTURES OF YOU
He has like a few albums of photos of all these pictures (there are a lot of them)
This guy is a kisser
You will be kissed every day every hour, be prepared
Gives you a lot of hand made gifts as well
And gifts for no reason at all, he just wanna cherish you just because
He also gives you flowers
And takes you to meet his family the moment the opportunity arises!!
He can't wait to see you with the people he loves the most
And he's also incredibly happy when you're with the boys
Although I have this feelings that he would take you to meet the most important people to him the moment you become his crush
Silence with him is very... Comfortable
There is no need to fill the silence, it's not awkward
I feel like you can just turn his brain off with him and simply enjoy
This is just a very fresh relationship you know
His love is kinda like a sunny day
It's bright, warm, it makes you happy...
And it's also simple
You never have to overthink around him
His love also heals your inner child
Loves when you visit him at work
The boys are never able to tease him because he doesn't care lmao, he's just happy you're there
He also LOVES when you call him "my boyfriend"
He's just so proud of it lol
And if you call him "my husband", he's ready to risk it all and just propose to you on the spot
Talking about that lmao
I feel like he'd be the fastest of the boys to get married
Six months into the relationship and he already bought a ring
He's just waiting for you to be ready
Masterlist I you'll probably like: what their love feels like
Reminder this is just fiction!! I'm not trying to portray real life and you shouldn't believe that this is how the members actually are. This is just for the vibe and the delulu!
no bc I was literally thinking the same thing! So, here is blurb 🐙
Meet Cute [kth x reader]
Synopsis: The first time you meet Kim Taehyung
Warnings: blurb!, idol! Taehyung, in the industry! Reader, Taehyung love at first sight, oblivious! Reader?, big! Taehyung
A/N: this isn’t edited or proofread, there might be mistakes, oh well 🤷🏻♀️ I’m at work when I wrote it hahaha
-
Season three of Jinny’s kitchen had been a demand from many fans across the world.
It was a simple concept. Na PD had a small group of well known individuals from South Korea find their way in running a Korean cuisine restaurant in a location where you probably couldn’t have found any authentic Korean food otherwise.
Actors, actresses, and sometimes a k-pop idol were suddenly navigating customer service, food, money, and a language barrier as they introduce locals to their home cooked foods.
México was a gamble that became a huge success, allowing Na to launch season two in Iceland! Familiar faces, same concept, and one new guest filled the season with winter weather and warm delicious food.
You had seen both seasons, loving every second and looking forward to whatever came next for the team and production crew. You had been lucky enough to be on one of Na’s other shows, a big fan of his work for a while now, and even more of a fan of his silly games. And the time you got to film under Na’s production was absolutely fun, your personality shining through out as you got along with the friendly producer.
So, it really shouldn’t come as a shock when he sends for you, inviting you to his season three cast. You had met Seojoon in passing, the only one you were somewhat familiar with and it weirdly gave you comfort that you’d recognize at least one person in the project.
And with that thought, you happily accepted.
Nothing prepares you two months later to be sitting across him. Kim Taehyung is back from the military and reprising his role on the team for season three with charming smiles. He’s more gorgeous in person, you had only really ever seeing the idol on billboards and magazines, but now he’s sitting across from you in a soft light corner of a restaurant as Na PD debriefed the plans for season three of Jinny’s kitchen.
Yumi is happy to have another female on staff with her, she huddles close to you, talking enthusiastically that she is almost successful in distracting you from Taehyung but not quite. You can feel his eyes keep flickering over to you, his gaze burning over you until you feel warm under your simple cardigan and slip dress.
It’s two hours of drinks, food, and introductions as you give the group a smile that dazzles. “Thank you for this opportunity, I hope to work hard for you all!” You are still coming to terms with the fact that you were about to be with these people for the next month in a foreign location, but with everyone matching your smiles you’re more excited than nervous by the end of the night.
And it’s when you’re hugging Yumi good bye that you notice him again. Taehyung has his hands in his pockets, standing just off to the side that you almost miss him. His long sleeve shirt hugs his bigger frame, the service in the military shaping his muscles to be more defined against the thin material, and you’re wondering what he’s doing. His head is tilted back, eyes trained up to look at the stars in the night sky, and he distracts you so much you don’t realize it’s just the two of you, until his gaze flits towards you, catching you red-handed in staring at him.
The restaurant is closed, everyone’s left, and you’re about to turn and leave in embarrassment when he speaks up. “I didn’t get the chance to properly introduce myself,” he hums and his entire body faces you. His eyes meet yours and root you in place while his lips curve up into another charming grin, his hand reaching out for yours.
It’s so simple, so ordinary, but your eyes stare at his out-reached hand with a held breath. You’re not sure why, but you have the strangest feeling that your world is about to flip completely upside down the moment you take his hand.
And when your hand eventually slips into his, he holds you like he never plans to let you go. He holds your hand firmly while invading your space, stepping closer until you have to look up at him to meet his chocolate brown eyes. It’s then, that you see the way his pupils dilate, his gaze flickering down to your lips and then back up. His smile grows into one of amusement, he looks like he knows something you don’t and you’re almost flushed against his body by this point. “My name is Kim Taehyung, it’s nice to finally meet you.”
Genre: romance, slice of life, established relationship
Trigger warnings: fights, yelling
Word count: 2K
MASTERLIST
You don’t remember how the fight started.
Maybe it was the way he walked past you without looking up. Maybe it was the pile of clothes on the couch that he said he’d fold three days ago. Maybe it was the silence at dinner, his eyes glued to choreography videos while your food went cold.
Or maybe it was all the little things that built themselves into something too heavy to ignore.
All you know is that you’re standing in the living room with your hands shaking, and Taehyung is staring at you with those tired, gentle eyes that only make the frustration burn hotter.
“Can you at least pretend you’re here?” you snap.
He exhales, slow. “Y/N… I’m trying.”
“No, you’re not. You’re physically here, but you’re not here. I don’t even know the last time you looked at me like I mattered.”
His jaw tightens. “You know how busy we are right now. The comeback…”
“I know,” you cut him off sharply. “God, Tae, I know. I’ve been understanding every single comeback, tour, fan meeting, rehearsal, crisis… You act like I’m asking you to quit BTS. I’m asking you to show me you care.”
He drags a hand through his hair. “That’s not fair.”
“Neither is being in a relationship with a ghost.”
His head lifts at that, and something in his expression flickers, hurt, exhaustion, frustration, all tangled in a way you’ve never seen before.
“Maybe I’m tired of feeling like nothing I do is good enough,” he mutters.
Your breath catches. “That’s not what I…Tae, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Yes, it is. You’re telling me I’m failing you. And maybe I am, but I’m doing my best. I’m stretching myself so thin I can’t even recognize myself anymore.”
The fight has jumped tracks, spiraling into something neither of you meant to say. The air feels too tight, suffocating.
And suddenly, you can’t do it. Not like this. Not while anger is clawing at your lungs.
“I need air,” you choke out, grabbing your coat.
“Y/N… don’t walk out,” Taehyung says, stepping forward.
But you’re already at the door.
“If I stay, I’ll say something I can’t take back.”
“Y/N.” His voice cracks just slightly.
And you leave anyway.
The rain hits you before you even realize it’s raining.
Cold droplets soak through your clothes, your hair sticking to your face as you walk aimlessly down the dim street. Your pulse is frantic, breath shallow, thoughts looping like a broken record.
How did it get this bad?
You hug your arms around yourself, barely noticing the water pooling in your shoes. Cars pass, distant and blurry through the curtain of rain. Everything feels numb, except your chest, which feels like it’s being torn from the inside.
You stop under a flickering streetlamp, bending over with your hands on your knees as frustration burns in your throat.
“He wasn’t listening,” you whisper to no one. “He never listens anymore.”
But the moment the words leave your mouth, guilt twists painfully in your stomach. He does listen. He tries. He’s just drowning too, maybe more than you realized.
Lightning cracks somewhere far away. You shiver.
Then you hear footsteps splashing through puddles.
“Y/N!”
You don’t want to turn around. If you see him now, soaked, exhausted, worried—you might break apart completely.
But his voice comes again, closer, breathless. “Y/N, please… stop.”
You turn.
Taehyung is running toward you, hair plastered to his forehead, shirt drenched and clinging to him. He’s panting when he reaches you, hands braced on his knees as he tries to catch his breath.
“Why…” He inhales sharply. “…did you just walk out like that?”
You swallow hard. “I told you. I needed air.”
“In the middle of a storm?” His voice wavers between anger, fear, and relief. “Do you know how scared I was when I saw it pouring outside and you weren’t answering your phone?”
You blink. “I didn’t even realize it was raining.”
“That’s worse!” he bursts out, throwing his hands up. “You’re shaking, Y/N. You could get sick. You could… just… God.”
His voice cracks again, this time from something that sounds like genuine fear.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” you say softly.
He steps closer, rain dripping from his eyelashes. “You did.”
You look down. “I’m sorry.”
He exhales shakily, looking up at the sky before his gaze settles on you again. “I’m sorry too.”
For a moment, neither of you speak. Rain patters on the pavement around you.
Then the fight picks up again, not as sharp, not as fiery, but still raw.
“You think I’m not present,” he begins.
“That’s not what I meant…”
“Y/N.” His voice is firm but gentle. “Let me finish.”
You nod reluctantly.
He steps even closer, his voice quieter. “I know I haven’t been good at showing you love lately. I’ve been overwhelmed, and when I get overwhelmed, I shut down. I didn’t realize I was shutting you out too.”
Your throat tightens. “I don’t need much, Tae. I just need to know I’m not an afterthought.”
“You’re not,” he says immediately, as if the words are pulled straight from his ribs. “You never are. You’re the person I think about when I wake up and when I go to sleep. I’m just so damn tired I forget how to say it.”
Tears mix with the rain on your cheeks. “I’m tired too, you know.”
His expression softens, breaking open. “I know. And I haven’t been making it any easier for you.”
He lifts a shaky hand, hesitates, then cups your face gently. His thumb brushes your cheek, warm despite the cold rain.
“You’re allowed to need me,” he murmurs. “And I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t.”
Your chest aches. “I shouldn’t have walked out.”
“I shouldn’t have let you. I should have pulled you into my arms and listened instead of reacting.”
You huff a wet, broken laugh. “We’re such a mess.”
“We are,” he agrees softly, leaning his forehead against yours. “But we’re ours.”
You close your eyes, breathing him in—rain, cologne, warmth. Everything familiar. Everything home.
His voice drops to a whisper. “Can I hold you now?”
You nod.
Taehyung pulls you into his chest, arms wrapping around you so tightly it almost hurts in the best possible way. You cling to him just as desperately, soaking wet and trembling, but together.
The fight dissolves somewhere between your heartbeat and his.
After a long moment, he pulls back slightly, brushing wet strands of hair from your face. “Let’s go home, yeah? We’ll shower, warm up… talk properly.”
“And not yell,” you add.
He smiles, soft and lopsided. “Not yell.”
You lace your fingers through his. “I still love you, you know.”
He squeezes your hand, eyes shining even in the dim rainlight. “I never doubted that. I just… need to be better at showing you I love you too.”
“You are,” you whisper. “You will be.”
“And you’ll tell me when something’s wrong. Before it becomes a storm?”
You glance at the rain around you. “Symbolic, don’t you think?”
He laughs, a low, warm sound that curls around your heart. “Very dramatic. Very us.”
He kisses your forehead, lips lingering like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he pulls away too fast.
“Come on,” he murmurs. “Let me take you home.”
You walk back together, steps splashing in puddles, fingers intertwined. The rain keeps falling, but it feels different now, cleansing, soft, almost hopeful.
And you realize something as Taehyung gently pulls you closer against his side: maybe storms aren’t there to tear things apart. Maybe they’re there to wash everything clean.
hi! i dont know if ure accepting request atm, but its something thats been on my mind, so i wanna let it out
how abt tae and reader, who promised each other that they will marry each other at 28 when they were kids, and now they're 28, def single, and im thinking of idiots who dont realize they're feelings with each other even their own feelings until this topic comes out one day, and boom, idk, do ur magic
sorry if this was too specific, and thank u in advance!! sorry for my bad english, i've gone through ur masterlist and its so so good!! hope u have a good day, today, tomorrow, and for more days to come 🫶🏻 love yaa 🤍
pairing; taehyung/reader
genre: fluff, childhood friends to lovers au!
warnings: swearing, self-doubt, slight pining
word count: 2.2k
synopsis: you and taehyung promised each other that you would get married at twenty-eight if you were still single. well, you're both now twenty-eight and single. the only thing is, you claim you’ve both forgotten, but feelings are still there.
⊱ ────── {⋅. ♪ .⋅} ────── ⊰
You had begun to lose hope in your capabilities of the progression of your life when the first couple in your friend group announced their marriage, at the right age of nineteen. And you weren't the only one. You had a large friend group that always planned to go out to karaoke or Korean barbeque.
The friend group had originally started with you and your childhood best friend, Taehyung. It expanded over time due to the friends you made in your separate classes in high school. Even in college, a surprisingly large number of you ended up there, having sadly lost touch with the ones who separated from you.
But now here you were, twenty-eight years old, sitting on the couch at one of your friends' houses, who were celebrating the future arrival of their third baby.
Taehyung sat next to you, bouncing his leg to the beat of the music, arm slung over the back of the couch casually. You were leaning against him, lost in your own thoughts of how you had progressed in life.
"You're doing it again," Taehyung's deep, silk-like voice whispered into your ear, his hot breath fanning against your neck.
You hummed, not having heard what he said. You absentmindedly played with a strand of your hair, letting it curl and fall through your fingertips.
A sharp poke to your side makes you jump. You turned to glare at your best friend, who held your gaze. His chocolate eyes held mischief, stoic expression forming into a smug look.
"What was that for?" you pouted, rubbing your side.
Taehyung tilted his head, a single eyebrow raised. His dark hair fell over his eyes with his movement, which you casually pushed out of the way with your fingers.
"You weren't listening to me," he responded.
His arm moved from the back of the couch to your shoulder, pulling you in closer. His breathing was steady, and both of you looked at one another in silence. Taehyung moved forward, his nose pressing against your forehead.
"You can't keep comparing your life to our friends."
Taehyung could always read you. He knew everything about you, when you were unhappy or nervous. He was quick to be by your side, comforting you or supporting you with whatever decision was made.
"It's hard not to when everyone is getting married or having their, like twentieth kid," you whined, pulling away from him.
Taehyung hummed at your saddened expression, patting you on the head soothingly. Pulling you back into him, he gave you a tight squeeze, rocking both of you back and forward.
"Ew. Can you two stop being so gross?"
You both turned, looking at Jungkook. He looked at you with distaste, pretending to gag at your cuddling. You shifted out of Taehyung's arms and smacked the younger boy on the back of the head.
"Ow! What the hell!" he pouted.
Taehyung chuckled, sitting up in his seat and leaning forward to look at his friend.
"You're just jealous you don't have a friendship like me and Y/n," Taehyung taunted playfully. Jungkook snorted.
"The only thing I'm jealous about is that you get to feel Y/n's breasts-"
"Okay! That's enough," Seokjin interjected, placing his hand over Jungkook's face and pushing him away so he lay back on the couch. Jungkook struggled against Seokjin's grip, eventually pushing his hand away, exhaling dramatically.
"I could have died, Seokjin!" Jungkook scowled.
"Please, if anything, you're nose is slightly flatter now," Seokjin waved him off.
The older man's gaze shifted to you and Taehyung, both of you stifling your laughs.
"Kook does have a point, though," Seokjin continued, stopping your laughter. "His implication of 'can you two stop being so gross' means stop acting like a cute couple."
You choked on your own saliva at his comment, coughing loudly, hunching over. Taehyung rubbed your back, patting it every now and then to help.
"Excuse me?" you coughed out, looking between the two men.
"You guys act more like a couple than most of the couples in our group," Jungkook pointed out, raising his eyebrows.
"Which brings me to my second point. Didn't you guys say when you were kids, you'd agree to marry if you were both single by twenty-eight?" Seokjin questioned.
"I completely forgot about that," Taehyung mumbled.
"Yeah, me too," you confessed.
Though it was a lie. Both of you remembered, too scared to bring it up. You had pinky swore that you would marry one another at twenty-eight if you hadn't found someone else.
Neither of you realised, though, that you had been holding out for each other the whole time.
You couldn't think of anyone else you'd rather spend your life with than your best friend. He was there for you whenever you needed him, and when you fought, you would both admit your mistakes and make up.
You didn't know you had developed feelings for him until recently. Thinking that the butterflies that danced in your stomach when he'd show up unannounced, holding pizza and soft drinks, were normal. Something that just happened between friends who loved each other so dearly.
Or how he would hold you when you cried, often doubting yourself and feeling as though you were falling behind in life, in comparison to the rest of your friends.
Taehyung thought differently. Ever since you were kids, Taehyung knew he didn't want anyone else. All the late nights, calling, cuddling up to one another during movie marathons, and lying on the couch together in silence. It was peaceful. It was something Taehyung yearned for.
He wanted nothing more than to always be by your side. Waking up with you next to him, the sun rays shining through the cracks in the blinds and hitting your radiant skin. He couldn't help but let his mind wander to a future he could have with you. Yet, not knowing how you felt, he would never bring it up, scared he would drive you away.
"Well, looks like we're getting married, Tae," you beamed looking over your shoulder to him, eyes shining with excitement.
Taehyung's heart fluttered at the nickname. He had heard it a thousand times from his friends. But with you, it was always different. Your voice was always angelic to him, his name sounding perfect when it fell from your lips.
"It seems so, but at least let me propose properly," Taehyung teased.
You hummed, nodding in approval at his request. In that moment, Taehyung understood that when he proposed, he would finally confess his feelings. After all the years of yearning for you, he was determined to express himself. He wanted you to know that this marriage held significance for him, even if it didn’t mean the same for you. That was a promise he made to himself.
⊱ ────── {⋅. ♪ .⋅} ────── ⊰
Taehyung stood at your door, holding flowers for you, and in his pocket sat a small box, encasing a silver ring. He had dressed up for the occasion, palms sweaty as he waited for you to open the door.
You swung the door open, smiling brightly at your friend. He was wearing a beige suit, with the jacket slung over his right shoulder. He held a beautiful arrangement of lilacs and primroses, smiling shyly.
"Hi," you breathed, opening the door further.
You wore a simple sage dress, which stopped at your ankles. Cream open-toe heels complemented the dress, simple yet beautiful. Taehyung entered, handing you the flowers as he passed.
"Hey," he attempted to sound casual.
"Look at you," you teased, playing with his brown tie. "You tidy up nicely."
"Not too bad yourself," Taehyung shot back.
You pouted, but giggled. Moving into your kitchen, you had a vase prepared on the countertop. Removing the string that held the flowers together, you carefully placed each stem into the cool water one at a time, being careful not to ruin the display.
Taehyung waited, his heart racing, thinking of every possible way this could go. What if he confesses and you decide that marrying him is a bad idea? Or that you'll laugh at him.
The sweat in his palms worsened, and he ran his hand through his hair as his nerves increased. You returned at that moment, vase in hand. You placed it down onto the coffee table, beaming at him.
Taehyung's heart melted at the sight of you. You were simply breathtaking. Your smile, your eyes, everything about you was perfect. He coughed, then proceeded to pull his trouser leg up slightly and get down on one knee.
You played along, feigning a gasp. You laughed, watching as he took your hands in his. Taehyung's face suddenly became serious, which you took notice of immediately.
Your expression softened, and you gently ran your hand through his hair comfortingly. You had no clue what had suddenly made him so serious; it confused you.
"We don't need to do the big theatrics, Tae," you soothed.
"I want to. I need to," Taehyung breathed.
You stood, waiting for him to continue.
"Y/n. I understand that if I say this, it could quite possibly ruin our friendship forever. But I know if I don't do this, I will never forgive myself."
You grew worried at his words, quickly wanting to speak, but Taehyung held his hand up.
"Please. Just let me say what I need to say, then you can decide from there."
Taehyung paused, trying to calm his breathing. But he knew if he didn't speak now, he never would.
"Y/n, I have known you since we were five years old. Our friendship has meant everything to me, and it still means just as much. But I must confess..."
You waited, but he didn't say anything. Kneeling down to his height, you lifted his head so he would look at you. Tears ran down his face, making your heart break. You caressed his cheeks, wiping his tears away and giving him a reassuring smile. Taehyung let out a shaky breath.
"I have loved you from the day we first met. I knew I didn't want anyone but you to be by my side, to be my forever."
You moved to sit down cross-legged, stunned. You watched him with wide eyes as he sniffled, before continuing.
"When we made this deal, to marry if we were both still single, I made sure I wouldn't be with anyone, because waiting for you, no matter how long... I know it will be worth every second of the future we would have together."
You began to cry at his confession. You couldn't understand how it had taken you so long to realise his feelings. You felt guilty for having made him wait all these years, so that the only time he felt as if he could properly confess was during a deal you made when you were five.
"I want nothing more than for you to be happy, Y/n. And I want to be the man in your life who provides you with that happiness. I want to be able to hold you when you're sad. Kiss you when you need reassurance. You are all I want, and all I could ever want, no one else but you."
Taehyung felt as if he could finally breathe, eyes downcast to the floor. He did not dare look at you, scared of your reaction. Silently, you wiped away your tears and stood up. He sighed, knowing he had now ruined everything.
"Well, are you going to propose or not?"
Taehyung looked up at you, shock evident. Your eyes were glassy with tears, but you smiled. He mimicked your expression, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the small black velvet box.
"Y/n. Will you do the honour of being my wife?"
"Fucking hell, yes," you choked out.
Taehyung stood pulling you in to him by the waist, not wasting a moment to press his lips against yours. It was soft and gentle, but it had so much love and passion.
You both laughed into the kiss, tears still continuing to roll down as you embraced each other. Pulling away, you rested your head against him. He hummed lightly, the vibrations in his chest relaxing you.
"I love you, too, Tae. I always have," you confessed.
"Well, now we must feel really stupid having waited twenty-three years," Taehyung joked.
You laughed, looking up into his eyes, which held so much love.
"It's alright, we'll have plenty of time to make up for those lost years."
⊱ ────── {⋅. ♪ .⋅} ────── ⊰
ahhhh!! thank you so much for requesting this! I felt if I wrote too much about their obliviousness, it would begin to be a bit familiar to the jungkook one I wrote.
i really hope you enjoyed and I also hope this is along the lines that you were looking for! I did want to make this a little shorter as I tend to go off rambling! so I do hope this has been to your liking!!
and honey, please don't apologise for your english, it's perfect! better than me I must say, I can barely function as it is haha <3
i do also want to apologise for not uploading over the weekend, I was away at a wedding so I was away from my pc!
if you've made it this far please take a look at my other works. or you're interested in making a request please look at the links below!
masterlist | requests | request rules | prompt list
