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↣ sequel to tell me no lies ↢
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The trees flitter and shake between the howls of wind that gust through the nipping air. Somewhere between the chaos of blooming fall and the almost setting sun does a young man walk down the concrete path. He walks with a limp, a cane in his right hand guiding his steps. Trees stand stout yet tall on each side of the path that leads up to the hospital doors. The man pauses, a boxy smile peaking on his face as he cranks his face towards the window on the 5th floor, 6 windows to the right.
He pats the breast pocket of his black suede trench coat. There, he pulls out a pair of brown thick-rimmed sunglasses and fits them just above the broad end of his nose bridge where they sit snug over his chocolate eyes. He takes a forefinger to the left side of the temple where the screw holds the rim attached. His thumb rests on the apple of his cheek as the side of his index finger lightly turns the screw. He hears the soft buzz of the zoom, his vision through the sunglasses adjusting closer to the window. It’s his luck that the room is lit and the blinds haven’t been closed quite yet. He sees you, a tray in hand as you walk towards the man in the hospital bed. He continues to watch, observing the way the man smiles back at you when you set the tray of food down on the table that sits between the window and his bed. The observing man readies himself. His index now moves to the top of the screw where a button is present. He sees you face the window now, stretching your arms to the top of the curtains. The man hovers over the button, pressing down only halfway for the image to come into focus. For a moment, he thinks you may have seen him when it seems like you’re looking directly at him. He promptly presses down on the button, a quiet click sounding as it would on an actual camera.
“I’ve got you now.” He says to himself, his smile growing to an eerie grin as he watches you drape the curtains closed.
Time moves fast in hospitals– or at least it feels that way to you, sitting in the Doctor’s office with your legs crossed, glass panes gleaming and sunlight too bright to bear. It's been over a year since Jungkook walked out of your apartment and into the autumn night. Some days it feels like yesterday; most days it feels like a lifetime ago.
“I swear time couldn’t go any slower right now,” Namjoon drags out the words laced in frustration. You sit in stunned silence at how he protests to even your inner thoughts. He leans back in his chair with a groan, the toe of his shoe tapping impatiently against the sterile tile floor. The clock above the door ticks loud enough to grate on your nerves, each second dragging longer than the last. You try to count them, but lose track somewhere past thirty, your eyes drifting instead to the maze of reflections in the glass panes.
Just as Namjoon opens his mouth to complain again, the door finally clicks open. The doctor steps in, clipboard tucked under his arm, his face carefully arranged in that unreadable mask you’ve come to dread.
He offers a polite nod. “Sorry to keep you both waiting,” he says, settling into the chair across from you.
Namjoon exhales through his nose, a strained smile barely covering his impatience. “What do you have for us, doc?”
The doctor gives a sympathetic dip of his head before glancing down at his notes. His voice softens. “The experimental treatment given to Mr. Jung Hoseok was… mostly successful.”
“What do you mean mostly?” Namjoon almost hisses.
"Well– the first dose of the trial medication stabilized his vitals, but the results weren't as consistent as we had hoped." The doctor shifts in his chair, tapping the edge of the clipboard. "As you know, we were only able to identify the mass during the third round of imaging, it took us far longer than we'd have liked. The treatment has slowed its progression, but there are side effects and we won't know the extent of them for another few months. For now it's fatigue, muscle weakness… but he is awake."
The words hang in the air, heavy. You don’t realize you’ve been holding your breath until it rushes out. You lean forward. “Awake?” Your voice cracks. “A-as in- he can talk to us?”
The doctor nods once. “He’s conscious, responsive. Though he’ll need assistance for now.”
And that was enough for you all, until it wasn’t anymore.
The months that followed blurred into a rhythm of hospital visits and hollow routines. You moved through them the way you moved through water. It’s slow, heavy, and you never quite reach the surface. Some nights, you didn't reach it at all.
You think if you close your eyes hard enough, maybe just maybe you’d cease to exist.
3.
2.
1.
You let out all the air in your lungs, and your eyes bulge out. When the panic settles, you’re at complete and utter peace. But it doesn’t last for too long. Just as your vision goes dark and you let the water fill your lungs until there is nothing left of you, you wake up with a loud gasp.
“Woah, bad dream?” The voice seems distant yet all too familiar. It’s the voice of your very dear friend. It’s the voice of Hoseok.
You remember where you are again when your eyes hit the panelled ceiling. The metal grids give way to beaming lights subdued by frosted plastic, reminding you of the place you have basically called home for the last year. For as much money as it is to keep him here, you would be the first to admit Hoseok definitely has the best room in this hospital.
“I guess.” You let out a shaky breath and push up, palms flattening against the mattress as you swing your legs over the side. Bittersweet. Hoseok watches you with that careful tilt of his head, like he’s cataloguing your frayed edges. You don’t know that he’s wondering when your spirits had gotten so low. To him, you’ve always been the light of the group, though little did he know, you’d think the same of him.
You sigh once more and face towards him, brows now strewn together, a serious expression crossing your face until a question lodges in your throat.
“Are you afraid to die?”
It’s a heavy subject you’ve introduced, and you feel the room grow silent as Hoseok ponders over your question. Perhaps it’s because he’s so close to death itself that he doesn’t have to give it much thought for too long. He simply purses his lips and shakes his head ‘no’ in response. Maybe proximity to the edge makes it easier to answer; maybe he’s already rehearsed this.
Not a day has gone by since he woke up that you haven’t thought about how to say goodbye to Hoseok. Your friend is still very ill. Maybe that’s why you’ve grown so much resentment towards the world. It’s hard to wrap your head around but you try not to think about it often because he’s here right now, conscious and most importantly alive.
Hoseok’s hospital bed is quite different from the hospital bed the nurse put in the room for you. It’s quite different from yours as it’s actually hooked up to something- a lot of somethings at that. A nasal cannula is stuffed up his nose, attached to two giant tanks of oxygen and for a brief moment, it pangs you to see him like this. You’ve lost count of the wires that seem relentlessly stuck to his body, working tirelessly just to keep him afloat. Sometimes you wonder if it would have been better to let go than to see him struggle like this. But you’d never share this thought out loud, shuddering at yourself for even thinking it just now.
“It’s inevitable, _____.” A weak hand waves in the air as he tries to continue explaining his thoughts. “If not now, it’ll happen eventually- to all of us, so why be scared?” His voice is airy, quiet and less vibrant than you remember it being.
“The after-stuff,” you prompt. “What do you think happens after?”
He smiles the kind of smile you remember from before the sickness. It's small, stubborn and heart-shaped. “The after-stuff is whatever you want it to be.”
It’s then that Namjoon chimes in as he walks into the hospital room, a tray of hospital food in his hands. You already know whatever he’s about to say will be utter rubbish. “Well, _____ some people swear you’ll wake up in paradise, rivers of milk and honey, endless peace. Others think you’re reborn, spinning through life again and again until you finally get it right. There are even people who say we just…merge with the light, some kind of cosmic energy.” He pauses, smirking as he shifts the tray in his hands.
“Or if you’re like me, you know that there’s nothing waiting. There’s no heaven, no reincarnation…just dirt and silence.” It’s said in poor taste, and you see Hoseok frown in response.
“I didn’t realize I was asking you.” You say, deadpan at how ridiculous he sounds. Leave it to Namjoon to kill the mood. “And I didn’t realize the Christopher Hitchens was a part of our friend group.” To this, Hoseok snorts weakly and reaches over for the remote that controls his bed. You watch as he pushes a button that allows the headboard to elevate, letting him sit up in bed. Namjoon strides towards him, swivelling the tray attached to the hospital bed in front of Hoseok before placing the steaming bowl of rice porridge on the tray. A side of white kimchi follows, but Hoseok merely pushes it aside. Your stomach growls in response, realization setting in that you haven’t had anything to eat today. Granted, you haven’t had much of an appetite for a while.
Namjoon simply ignores you and stretches out a hand. “Come, _____, we’ll grab you something to eat too.” You reluctantly agree and take his offering hand. Though your stomach is angry, rumbling the weight of Thor’s hammer itself. You can’t find the strength to leave Hoseok alone for even 10 minutes.
It strikes you as you walk the hallway that it's only two of you now. The halls feel wider without Jimin's nervous energy filling them. He stopped answering the group chat three months ago. He moved cities, changed his number, and you don't blame him, not really. After the heist, the guilt ate at all of you differently. Jimin just let it swallow him whole. You just regret not thinking of doing it first. Then again, you don't think you'd be able to leave even if you tried.
When you reach the hospital’s food court with Namjoon, it hums with the low chatter of visitors and the clatter of trays. By the windowsill, Yoongi sits hunched over his laptop, brows furrowed and a tongue pressed against his cheek. You know that it means he’s deep in code or trouble– maybe even both. He’s always damn up to something. He hasn’t noticed you yet, fingers tapping in sharp, relentless bursts. A knot of unease coils in your chest.
Namjoon doesn’t hesitate, steering you toward him. “C’mon,” he mutters, nodding at the empty chairs. Yoongi glances up as you approach, eyes narrowing briefly before he snaps the laptop half-shut. You can't help but notice it's like he’s guarding secrets. Still, he kicks out a chair with his foot in silent invitation.
Namjoon orders a big bowl of pasta for you, sliding a tray into your hands before you can protest. It’s a rose cream pasta and the first bite is so rich and velvety it almost knocks the air out of you. For a brief moment, you forget everything. You forget Hoseok’s laboured breaths, the sterile walls and the gnawing fear. You just sit there savoring the food. Who knew hospital chefs could cook up a mean pasta? Enough about the pasta. You tell yourself as you stab into it. Then you look at Namjoon, at Yoongi, at the two constants who’ve dragged you through hell and back, and you can’t help the bitter thought: it’s crazy that you still keep these sacks of shit as your friends after everything they’ve put you through.
You twirl another forkful of pasta, pretending not to notice how Yoongi keeps one hand planted on the lid of his laptop. What has him guarding it like a vault? Curiosity prickles at you.
“So…” you start carefully, tilting your head. “What’s got you looking like you’re about to declare war on that keyboard?”
Yoongi smirks faintly but doesn’t answer you right away. He leans back, eyes flicking to Namjoon. “She doesn’t know?”
Namjoon sighs, running a hand down his face. “Not yet.”
Your fork clinks against the bowl. “Know what?”
Yoongi drums his fingers on the table, weighing his words. “Another job.”
Your stomach lurches. “You’ve got to be kidding.” And just like that, you’ve lost your appetite. The pasta might as well be ash on your tongue. You shove the bowl forward, porcelain clattering against the tray, and the screech of your chair rips through the food court as you push back in one frantic motion. A few heads turn but you don’t care as you grab your tote bag and storm off past the rows of tables, through the automatic doors, and out into the back courtyard. The air hits different here. It’s crisp, carrying the faint scent of disinfectant masked poorly by trimmed hedges and damp grass. Patients wheel slowly along the paved paths, loved ones trailing beside them with soft voices and careful hands. It's a cruel contrast to the storm churning in your chest.
You drop onto a bench beneath a bare tree, the tote bag slumping against your feet. You feel sick.
“_____!” You groan out loud, the sound ripping from your chest as you shove yourself up from the bench. Twisting toward him, you see Namjoon striding across the courtyard, hands jammed into his pockets like he’s trying to anchor himself.
“Are you fucking serious, Namjoon?” The words spill out harsher than you intend, but you don’t reel them back. “After everything? After the mess you dragged us into already? Are you out of your fucking mind?” A couple nearby patients turn their heads, but Namjoon doesn’t slow. His jaw tightens and his footsteps steady until he stops just a few feet away from you.
“We need the money.” Namjoon’s voice is flat, but there’s a tremor under it.
“Fuck the money!” You snap, springing to your feet. Your palms ball into fists at your sides. “No wonder Jimin fucked off to wherever the fuck— I’m surrounded by a bunch of selfish—”
“Selfish?” Namjoon’s voice rockets up to match yours, and suddenly neither of you gives a damn who’s listening. He takes a step forward, chest heaving. “You’re calling me selfish? After everything? After the nights we slept in shifts keeping him breathing, after the loans we sold our souls for? Everything we’ve done has been for each other. For Hoseok. Just because your little fling got complicated doesn’t change that.”
You point, the finger shaking. “Hoseok is dying, Namjoon!“ Silence drops between you. It's heavy and oh. so suffocating. It's only broken by the squeak of a wheelchair rolling past and the low murmur of a caregiver. You think you'll be kicked out of here soon if you guys keep talking like this so publicly. But you can't help it. How else are you supposed to react? “The money didn’t fix him before and it’s not going to fix him now.” You hate that you’re a crier when you’re angry and you hate it even more that you’re now crying in public as the words spew without reason. “And don’t you dare minimize what happened. You’re lucky Jungkook didn’t put us in jail.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Namjoon snaps back, eyes rimmed with exhaustion. “Do you remember what the oncologist said? The treatments found what's been killing him and they slowed it down, yeah and guess what? He’s awake. Has been for 8 months. Time and medicine cost money. This isn’t about some adrenaline rush anymore. This is about buying him time to be lucid one more week, one more month. You’d rather let that slide because what? You feel guilty about Jungkook?”
Your shoulders sag and your bottom lip quivers as you look at him, defeated.
“I’m not minimizing it,” he says quieter, too tired to keep yelling. “But does that mean we bury Hoseok because we can’t live with our choices? Is that the line you’re gonna draw?”
“So we become worse thieves for one life?” You sit back down, dragging the heel of your hand across your cheek to wipe the tears away. “We used to have purpose. Now it’s just… wrong. All of it. We’re clutching at a thread that’s already frayed.” You meet his eyes. “I can’t do it anymore, Namjoon.”
For the first beat, something like shame flickers across his face. Then he clasps his hands together like he’s trying to hold himself in. “It’s not logic,” Namjoon admits and the words are raw. “It’s desperation. And yeah, maybe it’s stupid. Maybe it’ll ruin us. But if I had a choice between sitting in this courtyard pretending we did the right thing or giving him a chance to walk again– I’ll take the chance.”
Around you, a nurse huffs past pushing a cart. Yeah, you're definitely going to get kicked out. Life goes on indifferent to how you break. You want to argue until your voice shreds, but the furious words dissolve into air. The truth is bitter, small, and undeniable. It settles between you both and the reality is that you’re all out of clean options. Hoseok is dying, and Namjoon’s grasping at straws to save his best friend.
Namjoon straightens, jaw clenched. “I can’t promise it won’t hurt us more. I can’t promise anything but we have to try. We do this one right, and then we get out. No more risks after. I swear it to you.”
You look at him. In his face you see sleepless nights, math done in the dark, the same stubborn loyalty that once made him the one you could lean on. It’s not enough to make you agree. But it’s enough to make your anger hiccup into a different kind of ache.
“How much money is it this time?” You ask, your voice small.
“Half a billion dollars.”
Your mouth goes dry.
“How the fuck are we going to do that?”
An hour later, you're back in the hospital room, sitting by the window across from Namjoon, who's excitedly bouncing back and forth as he explains.
“It’s this thing called Obsidian and this shit, _____, it works. It really works, and the best part is, it’s completely untraceable.”
You nervously look over at Hoseok, who's sound asleep in the center of the room. You don't understand why this is being discussed right now but here you are. You can't lie, his excitement is undeniably contagious but despite it all, it's crazy.
Yoongi, who'd been quiet until now, looks up from where he's been fiddling with his phone. His tone is flat. "No one gets a magic bullet. Obsidian adds obfuscation layers, but there are still technical limits, market realities, people trying to map transactions. Nothing's foolproof."
Namjoon waves his hand as if swatting at Yoongi’s caution. “Still. Compared to bank transfers or the usual rails, this is the closest thing to disappearing a trail. If we move smart, if Yoongi can work the ledger-side…we can buy ourselves distance.”
You stare at them both, the words twisting in your chest. Hope and dread tangle when you realize the plan feels like a lifeline and a razor at once. Hoseok shifts faintly in his sleep, machines humming softly around him.
“We’d be gambling on a lot more than just code,” Yoongi says finally. “Half a billion moves markets. There are legal heats, exchanges, and people who make a living unpicking this stuff. What I'm trying to say is that it won’t be clean.” The uncertainty in his tone makes your stomach drop.
Namjoon swallows and, for the first time, his bravado flickers. “We don’t have clean options,” he says, quiet. “Not anymore. This is just…our best shot.”
Silence settles over the room. It's thick and so suffocating, your head feels like it's caving in on itself.
You drag a hand down your face before looking back up at them. “So what’s the plan?” Your voice is steadier than you feel. “Because we can’t afford messy. Not with this kind of money.” You glance at Hoseok, then back at them. “Jail would be the least of our problems.”
Namjoon and Yoongi exchange a quick and loaded look.
“It’s not a smash-and-grab,” Yoongi says. “It’s a transfer. It has to be quiet and scheduled.” He taps his phone, then turns it so you can see a grid of timestamps, nodes- something far too complex to fully grasp. “There’s a window. It's eight minutes or maybe less but it's where their system mirrors itself for auditing. That’s the gap.”
Namjoon leans in, voice dropping. “It’s happening during a private event. It's invitation-only and high security. It’s the kind of place no one questions money moving because everyone there has too much of it.”
Your brows knit together. “What kind of event?”
Yoongi hesitates for just a second.
“A gala,” Namjoon answers instead. “Investors, executives, elites…people who think they’re untouchable.” He laughs a bitter laugh. "Who knows, maybe they are untouchable." He's not doing any favours absolving the uncertainty.
A bad feeling creeps up your spine. “And we just…walk in?”
Namjoon doesn’t answer right away.
Yoongi does. “We don’t all walk in.” His eyes lift to meet yours. “We need one person inside. Someone who can blend. Someone who won’t get flagged. Someone who’s invited.”
The room feels smaller. “And you think that’s me?”
Namjoon’s silence is answer enough.
Your stomach drops. “Why me?” The question comes out sharper than you intend. It feels like déjà vu, and you’re so damn tired of being the guinea pig in their plans.
Another look passes between them and this one you don’t miss.
Yoongi exhales through his nose. “Because of who’s hosting it.”
Your pulse spikes. “Who?”
Namjoon finally says it.
“Jungkook.”
The name hits like a physical blow. For a second, you swear the machines in the room grow louder. Hoseok shifts in his sleep, completely unaware of the way your world just tilted.
Oh god. Oh no, no, no-
Namjoon presses forward and now there's urgency bleeding into his voice. "After the Gemini merger went through, GFC exploded. He's not just running a production company anymore– he's sitting on a media conglomerate. The gala is for his parent fund. He's tied to the company moving the funds, front-facing, the whole deal. What matters is you have a way in that none of us do."
“A way in?” You let out a hollow laugh. “I stole nearly three million dollars from him– actually, we did, Namjoon– and now you want me to steal from him again?” Your voice rises despite yourself before you force it back down. “Are you guys out of your damn minds?”
“Exactly,” Yoongi mutters. “Which means he remembers you.”
“That’s not a good thing!” You snap, exasperated.
“It means you won’t be invisible,” Namjoon says. “And right now, invisible people don’t get into rooms like that. Plus he sent an invitation.”
You stare at him, disbelief morphing into something sharper. “So your plan is to walk me into a room full of elite, powerful people– his room– and hope he doesn’t decide to ruin my life on the spot?” And you think why would Jungkook invite you? Is this a humiliation ritual? Are you dreaming again?
Namjoon doesn’t flinch. “My plan is to get you close enough to access what we need. Eight minutes. That’s all.”
“Eight minutes,” You repeat. “We failed last time. How can I trust you this time? And what if he recognizes me?”
“He will,” Yoongi says bluntly. Your throat goes dry as your gaze drifts back to Hoseok.
Your fingers curl against your sleeve as you watch him breathe. The idea hits you before you can stop yourself from speaking.
“…Then I have a condition.”
Namjoon stiffens. “This isn’t exactly–”
“It is,” you cut in, quieter now, but firm. “If I’m doing this, I’m not doing it your way.” Quite frankly, you're allowed to ask for this.
Yoongi studies you. “What do you want?”
You don’t look at them when you say it.
“Hoseok comes with me.”
The silence that follows is different from the others. It's not heavy with guilt or grief but bewildered and almost offended. You can feel Namjoon's stare boring into you without looking.
"He can barely stand," Namjoon says slowly, as if explaining something to a child.
"I know what he can barely do." You snap, your sharp eyes finally meet his. "But if I'm walking back into that man's life to rob him again, Hoseok is going to know exactly what we're doing and why. No more secrets. No more pretending this is noble while he sleeps through it." Your voice doesn't waver. "He deserves to see what his life is costing us. And if he tells us to stop, we stop."
Namjoon opens his mouth and then closes it. His jaw works like he's chewing on glass.
Yoongi is the one who speaks. "That's a hell of a condition."
"It's the only one I've got."
It takes you three days to work up the nerve.
Three days of rehearsing speeches in the shower, of mouthing words into the bathroom mirror that dissolve the second you try to hold them. Three days of sitting at Hoseok's bedside, watching him sip broth through a straw, laughing weakly at whatever variety show is playing on the mounted TV and swallowing the confession each time it crawls up your throat.
On the fourth morning, you arrive earlier than usual. The hallway is quiet and the nurses mid-shift change. You carry two cups of vending machine coffee that you know Hoseok isn't supposed to have. It's a peace offering or maybe a bribe. You're not sure there's a difference anymore.
He's already awake when you nudge the door open with your hip, propped up against the elevated headboard with his eyes fixed on the window. The morning light catches the hollows of his cheeks, the sharpness of his jaw that used to be softer. He looks like a pencil sketch of the person you grew up with, with all the right lines but now, thinner.
"You're early," he says without turning. His voice carries that raspy quality it has before noon.
"Couldn't sleep." You set both cups on his tray table, nudging one towards him. He eyes it, then eyes you, with a lifted brow.
"Is that coffee?"
"It's a vending machine's best interpretation of coffee."
He takes it anyway, wrapping both hands around the paper cup like it's something precious. You watch his fingers as they appear thinner than they should be, the knuckles more pronounced. He catches you staring and you look away too quickly.
"You've been weird," Hoseok says.
You blink. "What are you talking about?" You say it with a scoff.
"Weird. Weirder than usual." He takes a careful sip, wincing at the taste but drinking again anyway. "You keep looking at me funny. And you chew your lip when you're holding something back– you've been doing that since high school." He gestures vaguely at your mouth with the cup. "You're doing it right now."
You release your bottom lip from between your teeth. Damn him.
A silence stretches, filled only by the rhythmic beep of his heart monitor and the distant squeak of a cart rolling down the hallway. You pull the chair closer to his bed, the metal legs scraping against the floor. When you sit, your knees are almost touching the bed rail.
"Hobi," you start, and the nickname alone shifts something in the room. His expression doesn't change, but you notice the way his fingers tighten around the cup. "I need to tell you something. And I need you to let me finish before you say anything."
He regards you for a long moment, lips pressed together, before he gives a single nod.
You don't start where you expected to. You thought you'd begin with the plan, with Namjoon's blueprints and Yoongi's flash drives and the clinical structure of it all. Instead, what comes out is Jungkook's name.
"I fell in love with someone." The words feel foreign and familiar at once, like a language you used to speak fluently. "His name is Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook. He's– he was my boss. CEO of a film production company." You pause, tracing a scratch on the bed rail with your thumbnail. "I was supposed to be a distraction. That's all. And those were Namjoon's word, not mine. Just get close, earn his trust, keep his attention somewhere else while Yoongi and Jimin did their thing."
Hoseok's brow furrows, but he stays silent to honour his promise.
"But I fell for him, Hobi. Completely. Stupidly. The kind of falling where you don't realize it's happening until you're already at the bottom." You swallow hard. The coffee in your hand has gone lukewarm but you grip it tighter. A breath shudders out of you. "He told me he loved me, and I said it back, and I meant it. I meant every syllable."
Something akin to a mimicking ache shifts behind Hoseok's eyes.
"And then I robbed him."
The words drop like stones into still water. You watch the ripple cross Hoseok's face. It’s confusion at first, and then a slow, dawning understanding that rearranges his features entirely.
"We took two and a half million dollars," you continue. Your voice feels flat and mechanical because if you let yourself feel it now, you'll never finish. "The Gemini Pictures merger… Jungkook's company was about to become one of the biggest production firms in the industry. We stole the deal. Yoongi hacked the system, Jimin and I broke in at night. I used a secret entrance Jungkook had shown me in confidence. I used his password, which was the date we first met, to access his computer." You pause. "He'd changed it to that date because it mattered to him. And I used it to steal from him."
Hoseok's jaw tightens. He sets the coffee cup down carefully, deliberately, the way you set down something when your hands need to be free.
"He found out with security cameras we missed. He showed me the footage over a dinner I cooked him– sat across from me with flowers and an envelope and watched me unravel." You're not crying yet, which surprises you. Maybe you've cried it all out. Maybe the numbness has finally won. "He didn't press charges. He just… left."
The heart monitor beeps and in the silence that fills between the both of you, it beeps again.
"Why?" Hoseok's voice is barely above a whisper. It's the first word he's spoken, and it cuts deeper than any sentence could.
You look at him, really look at him. At the nasal cannula, the oxygen tanks, the constellation of wires that tether him to the machines keeping him alive. At the boy who used to outrun all of you, who danced until his shoes wore through, who laughed so loud it filled whatever room he was in.
"For you."
The next onslaught of silence that follows is not like the others. It doesn't settle, it detonates. Hoseok's face doesn't crumble the way you expected. It hardens into something ugly. You watch something cold move across his features, something you've never seen directed at you in all the years you've known him.
"For me," he repeats. There's no question mark attached to it, only a plain statement.
"Your medical bills were–"
"I know what my medical bills are." His voice is quiet, but the edges of it are bladed. "I see the invoices. I'm sick, _____, not blind." He shifts in the bed, the movement costing him visible effort, and you instinctively reach forward to help. He stops you with a look. "Don't."
Your hand hovers, then retreats.
"So let me get this straight." Hoseok's breathing has quickened, the cannula hissing faintly with each inhale. "You, Namjoon, Yoongi and Jimin— my best friends— decided to become thieves. To steal from people. To ruin someone's life." He holds up a trembling hand when you open your mouth. "I said let me finish."
You press your lips shut, the irony of your own request being turned against you.
"You fell in love with this man. And then you robbed him. While he was falling in love with you." He lets the words breathe, each one more clipped than the last. "And the whole time, I was unconscious. You just decided—all of you— that my life was worth more than your souls and you never once thought to ask me if I agreed."
The tears come now. Of course they do.
"Hobi–"
"Who asked you to do that?" The question snaps out of him with a force that startles you both. The heart monitor spikes briefly and a nurse peeks through the window before Hoseok waves her away with a shaking hand. He waits until the footsteps recede before he speaks again, quieter now, but no less sharp. "Who asked any of you to do that for me?"
"Nobody had to ask!" Your voice breaks open. "You're our family, you were dying, Hoseok, and we couldn't just–"
"You turned yourselves into criminals for me," he says, and the way he says it is almost disgusted and that disgust mirrors itself in you. "You destroyed a man who loved you. For me. And I didn't even get to have a choice."
A sob wracks through you. It's so ugly and uncontrolled. You press the heel of your palm against your mouth, trying to contain it, but it spills through your fingers like water. Hoseok watches you cry. He doesn't reach for you. He doesn't soothe you. For the first time in your friendship, he lets you sit in it.
When your breathing steadies to something resembling functional, Hoseok speaks again. "And now?" He tilts his head, eyes narrowing with a sharpness that reminds you he was always smarter than any of you gave him credit for. "You didn't come here just to confess. There's something else."
Of course he knows. The realization almost makes you laugh– a watery, broken thing. You drag your sleeve across your face.
"Namjoon has another plan. And it’s bigger, way bigger." You force yourself to hold his gaze. "Half a billion dollars. And it’s tied to Jungkook's company." You watch his eyes widen, his lips parting. "I told them I wouldn't do it unless you knew. Unless you were there. And unless you had the right to tell us to stop." You tell him everything about the plan, as much as you can remember from Yoongi's technical terms to the fact that there's a gala hosted by Jungkook they want you to attend.
Hoseok stares at you for a long time. Long enough for the light in the room to shift, the morning sun climbing higher past the blinds, painting warm stripes across the foot of his bed. His jaw works, lips pressing and releasing. You can see the war behind his eyes and the fury wrestling with something else, something softer and more complicated.
"You want to take me to a gala," he says slowly. "Me." He gestures at himself with the wires, the tubes, the hospital gown. "Looking like this."
"I don't care what you look like."
"That's not the point and you know it." He exhales, the sound rattling in the way that makes your stomach clench. He looks towards the window. "Do you still love him?"
The question catches you off guard, an ambush from a flank you hadn't defended. Your mouth opens and then closes. You think of the carnival, the Ferris wheel, fireworks reflected in Jungkook's dark eyes. You think of Lyara the penguin, waterlogged and drenched on your apartment floor. You think of the blue plastic ring.
"Yes." It comes out barely audible and the confession itself even startles you. You haven't been able to even admit it to yourself. "I don't think I ever stopped."
Hoseok closes his eyes. The heart monitor beeps its steady rhythm, indifferent to the weight of what's unfolding.
"Then you need to know something." He opens his eyes, and when they meet yours, the anger has dimmed. What remains is the Hoseok who held your hair back at parties, who proofread your essays at 3am, who once drove four hours in a thunderstorm because you called him crying. "If I let you do this… if I agree to be part of whatever the hell this is– it's not so you can steal from him again."
Your brow creases. "Then what—"
"It's so you can tell him the truth." His voice is firm despite its fragility, carrying a conviction that his body can no longer match. "About me. About why. About everything." He holds your gaze, unyielding. "You said he asked why, and you couldn't answer. This is your answer, _____. I am."
The simplicity of it winds you.
"If we walk into his world," Hoseok continues, "I'm not going as your alibi or your excuse. I'm going so he can see what you were trying to save. And then he can decide for himself whether it was worth what you took from him." He pauses, chest rising with a laboured breath. "That's my condition. Not Namjoon's money. Not Yoongi's code. The truth."
You stare at him, this man held together by machines and sheer will, and you realize that in trying to save his life, you forgot to account for who he actually is. He’s not a cause nor a justification but a person. One with more moral clarity in his deteriorating body than the rest of you have managed with your healthy ones. It's the Hoseok you've been fighting to keep alive.
"And if I tell him the truth," you say quietly, "and he still hates me?"
Hoseok's expression softens. For the first time since you started talking, you see the ghost of his heart-shaped smile but it’s not the full thing– just the scaffolding of it.
"Then at least he'll hate you for who you really are. Not for who he thinks you are."
You exhale. It feels like the first real breath you've taken in a year.
"And if Namjoon…"
"I'll deal with Namjoon." There's a glint in Hoseok's eye, something almost mischievous buried beneath the exhaustion. "He's not going to like it. But the last time I checked, it's my life you're all wagering with. I think that earns me a seat at the table."
You look down at your hands. They've stopped shaking. When you look back up, you reach for his hand gently, careful of the IV line taped to his wrist. He lets you take it this time. His fingers are cold, but they tighten around yours with surprising strength.
"I'm sorry, Hobi." The apology sits differently now. It's not the performative kind you've been rehearsing. It's genuine.
He squeezes your hand once. "I know." He regards you carefully and you wonder what he must be thinking. "But you owe that apology to someone else more than you owe it to me."
You nod, because he's right. He's so devastatingly right.
Outside the window, behind the curtains neither of you can see past, the autumn wind picks up. Somewhere on the path below, a young man in a black suede trench coat tucks his camera glasses into his breast pocket and pulls out his phone.
He dials and the line picks up on the second ring.
"She told him everything," he says, his boxy smile pulling wide. He pauses, listening. Then: "No, not yet. But she will."
A voice on the other end is quiet.
"Understood, Mr. Jeon. I'll keep you updated."
The line goes dead. Kim Taehyung pockets his phone, adjusts the grip on his cane, and walks back towards the parking lot. The first leaves of autumn skitter across the concrete behind him, carried by a wind that seems to know exactly where it's going.
Namjoon doesn't take it well.
You expect this, of course. You've known him long enough to read the weather patterns of his anger. The tight jaw comes first, then the nostril flare, then the deadly calm that precedes the storm. What you don't expect is for Hoseok to be the one holding the umbrella.
It happens the following evening. You're the one who texts Namjoon, a simple 'come to the hospital.' With no context. He arrives within the hour, Yoongi trailing behind him with his hands buried in his hoodie pockets and his laptop bag slung over one shoulder. They enter Hoseok's room expecting a logistics meeting. Instead, they find Hoseok sitting upright in bed– truly upright, not the half-reclined slouch he usually settles for. The TV is off and the overhead lights are turned to full. It feels less like a hospital room and more like a courtroom.
"Sit down," Hoseok says.
Namjoon glances at you. You're already seated by the window, arms crossed, offering nothing. It feels like when you're younger and your sibling is about to get in trouble. You can only watch from a distance and although it will be satisfying, it will also suck. He pulls up a chair, the legs squealing against the tile. Yoongi claims the far corner, perched on the windowsill with his legs dangling.
"She told me." Three words. Hoseok lets them land without a cushion, watching the impact register on Namjoon's face. To his credit, Namjoon doesn't flinch. But you see it, the barely perceptible tightening around his eyes and the way his fingers flatten against his thighs.
"Told you what?" Namjoon asks. It's not denial. It's a test– he wants to know how much.
"Everything." Hoseok holds his gaze. "RED Hotel. Jungkook. The two and a half million. The fact that four people I'd take a bullet for became thieves while I was unconscious, and nobody thought to mention it once I woke up."
The room goes vacuum-sealed. You hear the oxygen tank hiss beside Hoseok's bed, marking time in soft, mechanical breaths. Namjoon's jaw works. You recognize the motion as he's building an argument, assembling it brick by brick behind his teeth.
"Hoseok–"
"I'm not done." Hoseok's voice carries an authority you haven't heard from him in years. It's faint, sure and it’s carried on compromised lungs and thinned breath. But the steel in it is unmistakable. Namjoon's mouth closes. "I know why you did it. I understand the reasoning. I even understand the math." He gestures faintly toward the machines flanking his bed. "Trust me, nobody in this room is more aware of what it costs to keep me alive than the person it's actually costing."
The guilt hits all three of you simultaneously. You see it in the way Yoongi's gaze drops to his sneakers and Namjoon's throat bobs with a hard swallow.
"But you didn't give me a choice." Hoseok's eyes are glassy now, though nothing falls. "You decided my life was worth whatever it cost and you took that decision away from me." He pauses, the effort of sustained speech visible in the rise and fall of his chest. "I'm the one dying, Joon. Don't I get a say in what people destroy to keep me here?"
Namjoon leans forward, elbows on his knees, head dropping between his shoulders. For a long, terrible moment, you think he might cry. Namjoon doesn't cry. You've seen him through breakups, through his father's funeral, through the night Hoseok collapsed and the ambulance took twenty-three minutes to arrive. He didn't cry then. He’s organized, he’s planned, he’s calculated. Crying was a luxury he never permitted himself.
He doesn't cry now either. But it's close. When he raises his head, his eyes are red-rimmed, his voice stripped of its usual command.
"What was I supposed to do?" The question is so raw, so unlike the Namjoon who always has an answer, that it physically hurts to hear. "Watch you die? Sit in that waiting room and count ceiling tiles while they told us you had weeks?" His voice cracks on the last word. He catches it, swallows, presses on. "There was no version of this where I did nothing. I couldn't– I can't do nothing. Not when it comes to you."
The confession unpins something in the room. Yoongi turns his face toward the window, his reflection caught in the glass with a tight jaw and distant eyes. You wonder if he's thinking the same thing you are: that Namjoon never once framed this as anything other than a mission, a plan, a stratagem. Never once admitted that underneath the blueprints and the bravado, it was just a man terrified of losing his best friend.
Hoseok exhales a long, thin whistle through the cannula. "I know," he says, and there's no anger left– just a bone-deep weariness. "I know you can't sit back and do nothing. It's the most annoying thing about you." There's the faintest crack of a smile but it's gone as quickly as it appears. "But here's what's going to happen."
Namjoon straightens. You see him shift instinctively into listening mode, the same posture he adopts when a plan is being laid out. Old habits.
"I'm going to the gala," Hoseok says as if he's announcing he's going to the cafeteria. It's so matter-of-fact and decided, it surprises you again. "Not as a prop. Not as your sick friend who justifies everything. I'm going because _____ owes someone the truth and she's not going to do it alone." His eyes find yours and hold. "And I'm going because if this is what my life is costing, I want to look the price in the face."
Namjoon opens his mouth–
"I'm not finished." Hoseok's hand raises, trembling but firm. "The job goes forward. I'm not going to pretend I can stop you, you're all too stubborn and too stupid for that." The faintest ghost of warmth in his voice. "But the truth comes first. Before Yoongi touches a keyboard, before anyone transfers a single won, _____ tells Jungkook why. She shows him me. And if after he knows, if after he sees what you were trying to save, he still wants us gone? We go. We walk away. No arguments. I don't want to hear it."
"That's—" Namjoon starts.
"Non-negotiable." Hoseok meets his stare, unflinching. "You stole two and a half million dollars from that man to pay for my heartbeat. I think the least I can do is show him the heart."
The silence that follows is so absolute, you can hear the fluorescent lights humming above you. Namjoon sits motionless, eyes locked with Hoseok's. Something passes between them that you've only ever witnessed a handful of times. It’s a form of communication that predates the rest of you, rooted in a friendship that started before any of yours did. They were friends first. Before the group, before Jimin, before Yoongi, before you. That foundation carries a weight none of you can overrule.
Namjoon's shoulders drop but not in defeat, in concession. He nods once. "Okay." The word costs him more than the half a billion ever could.
Yoongi speaks for the first time. "For the record," he says from his corner, still facing the window, "I think this is the best idea any of us has had in two years." He turns, and there's something close to respect in his gaze when it settles on Hoseok. "You should've been calling the shots the whole time."
Hoseok smiles and it’s the real one this time, heart-shaped and warm, though it sits on a face too thin to hold it properly. "Yeah," he says. "I should've been."
Two weeks before the gala, your life becomes a choreography of preparation and pretense.
Yoongi sets up a command center of sorts in Hoseok's hospital room, much to the displeasure of the nursing staff. His laptop occupies the guest table, flanked by two additional monitors he smuggled in inside instrument cases. The wires snake across the floor like veins, taped down in haphazard lines that one particular nurse has tripped over three times. You've started leaving her apology chocolates at the nurses' station.
"The system mirrors for exactly seven minutes and forty-three seconds," Yoongi explains one afternoon, pointing to a diagram on his screen that looks like a subway map designed by a lunatic. The lunatic being Yoongi. "During that window, the auditing protocol creates a duplicate ledger. We intercept the mirror, redirect the funds through a series of Obsidian wallets layered on the platform’s blockchain, and by the time the mirror collapses, the money's been scattered across so many nodes it would take a forensic team six months to trace a single transaction."
"And you can do all of that in seven minutes?" You lean over his shoulder, squinting at the screen.
"Seven minutes and forty-three seconds," he corrects. "And no. I can do it in four."
"Then why do we need eight?"
"Because four minutes is for the transfer." He taps a second diagram. "The other four are for you."
You frown. "Me?"
"You need to physically access a terminal at the event. The system requires biometric confirmation from an authorized user to initiate the mirror. A fingerprint scan." He looks at you over the rim of his glasses. "Jungkook's fingerprint."
Your stomach bottoms out. "You want me to get his fingerprint."
"I want you to get him to touch a screen," Yoongi clarifies, pulling up an image of what looks like an ordinary phone. "This. It's a modified device, looks like a standard tablet. The screen captures biometric data on contact. All you need to do is get him to interact with it. Hand it to him, show him something on it. Thirty seconds of contact is all I need."
"You want me to hand Jungkook, a man I robbed and whose heart I broke— a tablet. And have him casually press his finger to it."
"Ideally his thumb." Yoongi's tone doesn't change. "Index works too."
You stare at him until he has the decency to look uncomfortable. From across the room, Hoseok snorts.
The suit fitting happens on a Tuesday.
Namjoon arranges it through a contact, someone who doesn't ask questions and makes house calls to hospitals. The tailor arrives with a rolling rack and a measuring tape draped around his neck like a stethoscope. The irony isn't lost on any of you.
Hoseok hasn't stood unaided in months, but he insists on being upright for the measurements. It takes both you and Namjoon to help him from the bed, his arms draped over your shoulders, legs finding the floor like a newborn colt. The tailor politely pretends not to notice the IV stand trailing behind his client.
"Charcoal or navy?" the tailor asks, unfurling fabric swatches.
Hoseok studies them with more intensity than a dying man should reasonably dedicate to colour theory. "Black," he says finally.
"Black wasn't an option," Namjoon mutters.
"It is now." Hoseok stands a little straighter, the effort whitening his knuckles where they grip the bed rail. "If I'm going to a party to show some billionaire what his money paid for, I'm not doing it in charcoal."
You press your lips together to keep from laughing, but the sound escapes anyway, a wet, breathy thing that's half humor and half grief. The tailor measures him with clinical efficiency: inseam, shoulders, waist. Each number feels like a subtraction, a quantification of how much of Hoseok has been whittled away. His waist is narrower than yours now. The tailor doesn't comment.
When it's your turn, the process is quicker. Namjoon has procured a gown that’s floor-length, deep emerald, with a neckline that suggests elegance and a back that suggests intention. You try it on in the bathroom, standing in front of the mirror under fluorescent light that does no one any favours.
You barely recognize yourself, and it’s not because of the dress, but because of the eyes staring back at you. They're harder than you remember. You wonder if Jungkook will notice. You wonder what will happen when you see him again and if you truly are prepared. You're most likely not but whatever, you're used to flying by the seat of your pants.
When you step out, Hoseok is back in bed, but he wolf-whistles, breathy and weak and absolutely ridiculous. And for a single, perfect moment, it feels like old times.
"Stunning," he says. "He won't know what hit him."
You smooth the fabric over your hip. "That's what I'm afraid of."
The days leading up to the gala pass in a strange twilight of hyperactivity and dread. Yoongi runs simulations, Namjoon drills contingencies and Hoseok practices walking.
This last part guts you more than anything else. Every morning, you watch him grip the parallel bars the physical therapist set up along the length of his room, knuckles bone-white, jaw set, legs quaking beneath him as he forces one foot in front of the other. The cannula trails behind him, the oxygen tank wheeled alongside by a patient nurse who's learned to match his agonizing pace. Ten steps the first day. Twelve the second. By the end of the first week, he makes it to the door and back.
He doesn't complain. Not once. Not about the pain, not about the exhaustion that collapses him back into bed afterward, not about the indignity of a twenty-six year old man celebrating the fact that he walked fourteen steps. When you catch him grimacing after a session, he flattens his expression the instant he notices you watching.
"Stop looking at me like that," he says one evening, breathless and sheened with sweat.
"Like what?"
"Like I'm going to break."
You hold his gaze. "Are you?"
He considers this for a moment, genuinely, then shakes his head. "Not yet."
By the second week, he can manage twenty steps with a cane. It's enough. It has to be.
Fifty kilometres away, in a penthouse suite that overlooks the city from the forty-second floor, Jeon Jungkook stands at the floor-to-ceiling window with a glass of whiskey he hasn't touched.
The city below pulses with light and arterial reds of brake lights, the gold spill of storefronts, the cold blue wash of office buildings still lit past midnight. It's beautiful in the way that expensive things are beautiful: perfectly maintained and utterly soulless.
He hears the elevator chime behind him but he doesn't turn.
"She told him," Kim Taehyung's voice carries across the marble floor, accompanied by the rhythmic tap of his cane. "Everything. The first heist, you, the money. All of it."
Jungkook's reflection stares back at him in the glass, translucent, ghostly against the cityscape. He's changed in the year since he walked away from her door. His hair is shorter, cropped close at the sides and pushed back from his forehead. The softness that once rounded his cheeks has sharpened into angles. He looks older. Not in years but in something harder to quantify.
"How did he react?" Jungkook asks. His voice is even, controlled. It’s the voice of a man who's spent twelve months learning how to discuss her without flinching.
Taehyung settles onto the leather sofa behind him, stretching his bad leg out with a wince. "Angry. He didn't know any of it. They kept him in the dark the entire time." He pauses.
Jungkook is quiet for a long time. The ice in his untouched whiskey has melted, the amber liquid diluted to pale gold.
"He's dying. Has been for a while." Taehyung's voice loses its professional edge, softening into something more human. He and Jungkook are friends before they are business associates and have been since Taehyung took a bullet in Busan five years ago that left him with a permanent limp. Jungkook paid for his rehabilitation without being asked. Loyalty between them is a currency that predates money.
Jungkook closes his eyes. Behind his lids, he sees her. What he doesn't see is the woman who sat across from him at the dinner table, leafing through surveillance photos with trembling hands, but the woman he fell in love with ice cream on her lip, laughing at something he said.
"I hired you to find out why she did it," he says quietly. "I hired you to get them close enough so I could look her in the eye and understand. That's all I wanted. An answer." He finally lifts the glass, taking a sip of the watered-down whiskey. It's weak and bitter, and he grimaces but drinks again anyway. "I didn't plan for this."
"For what?"
"For a reason that makes sense." He sets the glass down on the sill, harder than necessary. The sound pings across the silent penthouse. "It was supposed to be greed. Something I could be angry at.” He swallows. "Not a dying man in a hospital bed."
Taehyung watches him carefully. "Does it change anything?"
Jungkook doesn't answer immediately. He reaches into his pocket and pulls something out— a small, circular object that catches the city light. A bright blue plastic ring. The paint has faded, chipped in places, but he's kept it. This entire time, he's kept it.
He turns it between his fingers, studying it the way one studies a relic from a past life.
"It changes everything," he says finally. "And nothing. She still lied." He pockets the ring again. "But now I know she had a reason. And that might be worse."
"Worse?"
Jungkook looks at Taehyung, and for the first time, the mask slips. Underneath is not the CEO, or conglomerate head- hell, it's not even the man with his name on buildings and gala invitations. Underneath is a boy with doe eyes who fell in love with the wrong person and hasn't figured out how to fall back out.
"Because I could've helped her." The words land like a confession of their own. "If she had just told me about her friend, about the money, about any of it— I would've helped. I had the resources. I had the means. She didn't have to steal from me." His voice frays at the edges. "She chose to rob me instead of trust me. And I don't know which one hurts more."
Taehyung is silent for a long time. "The gala is in six days."
"I know."
"Namjoon's team is prepping. Your security detail has their profiles. We can intercept at any point."
"No." Jungkook turns from the window, eyes hardened with resolve. "Let them come. I need them to do this for me.”
Taehyung nods, rising from the sofa with a lean on his cane. He studies Jungkook for a moment, then turns for the elevator. He stops halfway, speaking over his shoulder. "For what it's worth," he says, "I don’t think you’ve left her mind."
"Maybe." Jungkook's voice is barely a whisper. "But eventually she’ll have to leave mine."
The elevator doors close. Jungkook stands alone in the penthouse, the city sprawled beneath him like a circuit board, every light a connection, every dark space a severance. He thinks of a password he once set: eight digits, a date, a beginning. He wonders if endings have dates too.
The night of the gala arrives the way all inevitable things do, too quickly and not quickly enough.
You're in Hoseok's room, the emerald gown pooling around your feet as you sit on the edge of his bed, holding a tube of lipstick you can't seem to apply with steady hands. A garment bag hangs from the curtain rod, Hoseok's black suit pressed and waiting.
Namjoon arrives in a charcoal suit that fits like an apology. He hasn't said much in the days since Hoseok laid down his terms, operating with a quiet efficiency that you've come to interpret as his version of penance. He runs through the plan one final time with Yoongi over comms, voice low and clinical, stripped of the bravado that used to characterize these briefings. Something has changed in him. The desperation is still there, but it's been tempered, reined in by the leash of Hoseok's conviction.
"Comms check," Yoongi says from behind his monitors, an earpiece tucked into his right ear. He'll be stationed in a service van two blocks from the venue, running the operation remotely. "Radio silence unless absolutely necessary. _____, your frequency is channel 3. Namjoon is on standby at channel 7. If anything goes sideways—"
"It won't," Namjoon interrupts. He meets Yoongi's stare. "It can't."
Yoongi holds his gaze for a beat, then nods.
The hardest part is getting Hoseok ready.
It takes forty minutes. You help him into his shirt first, guiding his arms through the sleeves with the gentleness of handling something irreplaceable. Namjoon handles the trousers, steadying Hoseok's legs as he steps into them one at a time, both of them pretending it's not a struggle. The jacket goes last, and when Hoseok is finally dressed, standing between the two of you in his black suit, cane in one hand, cannula removed for the first time in months, you almost lose your composure entirely.
He looks beautiful. Devastatingly, impossibly beautiful. The suit hangs on his diminished frame in ways the tailor couldn't fully compensate for, the shoulders a touch too wide, the waist pinched with an extra fold of fabric. But his face– his face is alive. His eyes are bright, focused, burning with a determination that his body has no business supporting.
"How do I look?" he asks, adjusting his cuffs with fingers that only shake a little.
"Like hell," Namjoon says.
Hoseok grins fully, heart-shaped and radiant. "Perfect."
A portable oxygen concentrator has been arranged that’s small enough to fit in a bag and discreet enough to pass unnoticed. The doctor fought against this expedition with considerable force, relenting only when Hoseok signed a release form with the calm resignation of a man who's already made peace with every possible outcome. The nurse attached a pulse oximeter to his finger with a look that said everything her professionalism wouldn't allow.
The car waits at the hospital's rear exit. Namjoon drives. You sit in the back with Hoseok, his hand in yours, his cane propped between his knees. The city slides past the tinted windows in streaks of light and shadow. None of you speak. The silence is too full for words and weighted with everything you're about to do, everything you've done and everything that can't be undone.
Hoseok squeezes your hand once. You look at him.
"Whatever happens in there," he says quietly, "you just need to tell him the truth." His eyes hold yours, steady despite the exhaustion pulling at their edges. "Promise me."
You squeeze back, a nervous smile settling across your face. "I promise."
The car pulls to a stop and your heart beats louder. This is it.
Through the window, you see it, the Grand Meridian Hotel. Its façade bathed in gold light, a procession of black cars depositing glittering figures onto a red carpet that bleeds into the lobby. The building reaches into the night sky like a monolith, its upper floors disappearing into low-hanging clouds. Security lines the entrance in tailored suits, earpieces catching light.
Namjoon kills the engine. In the rearview mirror, his eyes find yours.
"Eight minutes," he says. "That's all we need."
You hold his gaze. "No," you say quietly. "That's all you need."
You step out of the car first, the autumn air biting through the silk of your gown. You turn and offer your hand to Hoseok. He takes it, rising from the car with a controlled effort that costs him more than anyone watching would ever guess. His cane clicks against the pavement. He steadies himself, lifts his chin, and for a moment, just a moment, you see the Hoseok from before. The one who lit up every room. The one who made you believe that sheer force of joy could outrun anything, even death.
The two of you stand together at the base of the steps, staring up at the golden doors. Music drifts out with a string quartet, something classical and expensive. Laughter follows, the tinkling kind that belongs to people who've never had to choose between rent and groceries.
Hoseok glances at you. "Ready?"
You think of Jungkook somewhere inside those walls. Of the love you once shared, although now one-sided. You don't know how you're holding your composure but it's now or never.
"No," you answer honestly.
He smiles. "Good. That means you care."
Together, you climb the steps. Hoseok's cane taps a steady rhythm against the stone, one, two, one, two- a metronome counting down to something neither of you can predict. Your hand stays on his arm. The doorman opens the gilded entrance without a word.
Warmth engulfs you. Light, sound, perfume, the shimmer of crystal and the murmur of a hundred conversations layered over strings. The ballroom opens before you like the throat of some magnificent, glittering beast. Chandeliers hang like frozen constellations. Men in tuxedos and women in gowns orbit each other in practiced elegance, champagne catching light in their hands. It’s the kind of wealth that you only see in the movies.
A waiter materializes at your elbow with a tray of champagne flutes, and you take two without thinking, pressing one into Hoseok's free hand. He accepts it with a look that says he has no intention of drinking it and every intention of using it as a prop.
"Smile," he murmurs, lips barely moving. "You look like you're calculating an exit route."
"I am calculating an exit route."
"Do it while smiling."
You smile. It feels like something you're wearing, like the gown, like the earrings that are already beginning to pinch. Hoseok's arm is warm beneath your hand, and you focus on that, on the solidity of him, as you move deeper into the ballroom's current.
The room works the way these rooms always do, pulling people into its orbit through some unspoken social gravity. A couple drifts past you, trailing perfume and quiet laughter. A man in a tuxedo gestures broadly at nothing, making a point no one will remember. Somewhere to your left, a woman's necklace catches the chandelier light and throws small stars across the ceiling. You feel so out of place walking amongst the wealth like an imposter that you get caught off guard mid thought when your ear piece goes off.
Yoongi's voice arrives in your ear, low and even. “Perimeter looks clean. Security rotation is every four minutes on the east corridor. Namjoon's in position near the main stairs. You have time.”
You search the crowd of elites and suck in a breath when you see him.
Across the room, half-turned from you, a glass of something dark in his hand. His hair is shorter than you remember, pushed back from his forehead in a way that sharpens the line of his jaw. He's mid-conversation with a silver-haired man, nodding at something being said, his posture carrying the easy authority of someone who owns the room and every wall around it.
Your body responds before your brain can intervene. Heat blooms across your chest, your pulse spiking in places that have nothing to do with fear. You know this reaction, in fact you know it intimately. You know it from every time he walked into a room, every time his hand found the small of your back and every time he had you pinned underneath him with slow, deliberate drags of his– no. You can’t go there. A year of distance has done nothing to rewire it. Your body still recognizes him as something it wants, and the betrayal of that recognition makes your skin burn.
Your breath catches and your fingers tighten around Hoseok's arm.
Jungkook hasn't seen you yet. Or maybe he has. You can't tell from here whether the slight tension in his shoulders is for you or for the conversation. That is before a woman joins in. She’s breathtakingly gorgeous, a red gown ten times more luxurious than the one you’ve adorned. Her dark hair falls behind her open back in curls, and what takes you most aback is the way Jungkook lights up when he sees her- gently placing a small peck against her cheek.
Something sharp and ugly twists in your chest. You have absolutely no right to feel it, and you feel it anyway.
Hoseok follows your gaze across the room. He studies the man who funded his heartbeat without ever knowing it. The man you robbed, loved, and lost. Or you suppose, loved, then robbed and then lost.
"He's tall," Hoseok observes quietly.
You can't bring yourself to respond. Your heart is hammering so violently, you're certain Hoseok can feel it through your arm.
And then, as if summoned by the weight of your stare, Jungkook turns.
As you loosen your grip on Hoseok’s arm, you’re met by the vibrant and bright chocolate doe eyes of Jeon Jungkook while he holds her the way he once held you.
And the world goes quiet. The music fades. The chatter dissolves. There is only the distance between you, forty feet of marble floor, a year of silence, and every unspoken word that fills the space between.
The look he gives you isn't anger but isn't warmth either. It's the look of a man taking inventory of something he lost. His gaze traces from your eyes to your mouth, lingering there for a beat that makes your skin prickle, before dropping to the emerald neckline and back up. You feel it like a physical thing, like fingers dragging across your collarbone or how soft and careful his kisses were, and you have to remind yourself to breathe.
He doesn't move. Neither do you.
The woman in red places a hand on Jungkook's arm, saying something you can't hear. He doesn't look at her. His eyes stay on yours, and whatever she says dissolves into the noise of the room, unanswered.
"You should go," Hoseok says.
"I'm not leaving you standing alone."
"I'm not alone." He nods toward the column. "I have this very sturdy piece of architecture." A beat passes. "And Yoongi will talk my ear off if I ask him to."
“He's not wrong,” Yoongi says in your ear, and you almost laugh despite everything.
You look at Hoseok for a moment longer than you mean to. He's watching the room with those bright, tired eyes, his cane resting against the column, champagne held loosely in one hand. He has spent so much of these last months becoming smaller, quieter, reduced by increments. But here, in this borrowed hour, he has made himself enormous again through sheer will alone.
You squeeze his arm once, and he nods without looking at you, and that's enough. You turn. You begin to move through the crowd.
You catch Namjoon by the main stairs as Yoongi mentioned. He's not just standing there; he's working. You catch him mid-handshake with a man in a navy blazer, his smile sharp and practiced, and as the man turns away, you see Namjoon's left hand slip something small and flat into his inner jacket pocket. A cloned access badge. He's already halfway through his own mission, running a parallel track you can only glimpse in fragments. His eyes cut to yours for half a second with a flicker of acknowledgment, a silent status report and then he looks away. The sight of it settles something cold in your chest, the reality of it all.
Eight minutes, he'd said.
Your heels click against the marble. One step. Then another.
Jungkook watches you come.
He moves before you've fully decided to. Or perhaps you move first. Later, you won't be able to say with certainty. What you'll remember is that the distance between you simply begins to close, pulled shut by something older and more stubborn than either of your intentions. And then there are only a few feet of marble between you, and then there are none.
Up close, he is worse.
That's the only word for it. Worse. More real. The year that stretched between you like an ocean has done nothing to blunt the specific way he occupies space, the breadth of his shoulders, the slight asymmetry of his mouth, the way his eyes catch light and hold it longer than they should. He is exactly as you remember and entirely different and both of these things are devastating in their own register.
The woman in red has drifted away. You caught the movement in your periphery, some acquaintance pulling her into a separate orbit, laughing at something, her dark curls disappearing into the crowd. She doesn't know she's given you anything. She doesn't know there is anything to give.
Jungkook's glass is still in his hand. He hasn't looked away from you since you started moving.
"You’re here," he says.
It's not what you expected. You don't know what you expected, something cooler, something with more architecture to hide behind. But those two words come out slightly uneven, fractionally too quiet for the room, and you watch him register that he's said them wrong before his expression closes over it like water over a stone.
"I was invited," you say.
Something moves behind his eyes that you can't quite read. Then again, it's been a while. "You were."
The space between those words and his next ones is too long. He fills it by dropping his gaze briefly, just a half-second, taking in the emerald gown, the earrings, the lipstick you finally managed to apply with shaking hands in the car. When he looks back up, his jaw is set in a way you recognize. It's the look he gets when he's decided to be careful.
"You look—" He stops and starts again. "It's good to see you." It isn't what he was going to say. You both know it.
The string quartet shifts into something slower. Around you, the room continues its elaborate performance of itself, glasses lifted, laughter rising and falling in practiced waves, none of it touching the two feet of charged air between you and the man you robbed. The man you loved. The man who is watching you now, like he's trying to solve something.
Your pulse is very loud and you want to ask him why he invited you but instead you call to him.
"Jungkook," you begin, because you promised Hoseok, because there is a clock somewhere running down eight minutes that has nothing to do with why you're really here, because the truth has been sitting in your chest for a year, and it is very heavy. "There are things I need to say to you."
His chin dips slightly. An acknowledgment that isn't quite permission.
"I know," he says.
Something in his tone stops you. Not the words, but the texture of them.
Your eyes search his face. "What do you know?"
He holds your gaze for a beat that lasts too long. His fingers shift around his glass. In another life, in another version of this night, you think he might have reached for your hand instead.
"That you're here," he says finally. "That's enough for now."
It's not an answer. You file that away somewhere and let it sit, because Yoongi's voice is a low murmur in your ear, reminding you of timelines. And across the room Namjoon is still performing his own careful theatre, and Hoseok is leaning against a column with a champagne glass he won't drink from, and you made a promise.
But Jungkook is looking at you the way he used to, underneath the composure, underneath whatever careful thing he's built around himself this past year. Like you are something he thought he'd finished grieving. You feel like you might break under his gaze. The onslaught of emotions hit you harder than that night he left your house. And you can’t help but crave his touch again.
You look away first. You have to.
There's a pillar to your left and you fix your gaze on it for exactly two seconds, long enough to find the floor beneath your feet again.
Then you look back at him, because you promised.
"Can we go somewhere quieter?" you ask. The ballroom feels like it's shrinking, the string quartet and the laughter and the perfume collapsing inward.
Jungkook studies you for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then he tilts his head toward a corridor beyond the grand staircase. "There's a terrace."
You nod, and he moves first, setting his glass on a passing waiter's tray without looking. You follow a half-step behind, close enough to catch the scent of his cologne. It’s different from what he used to wear– it’s something darker and woodier. You hate that you notice.
As you pass the staircase, your eyes catch Namjoon's. He's watching you move toward the corridor, his jaw tightening. You give an imperceptible shake of your head of a "not yet". His gaze holds yours for a beat too long before he turns back to his conversation, the tension in his shoulders broadcasting everything his face won't.
"She's moving to the east terrace," you hear Yoongi murmur through the earpiece, talking to Namjoon rather than you. "Timeline still holds. Let her work."
The corridor narrows, the noise of the ballroom dimming behind you like a radio being dialled down. Jungkook pushes through a glass door, and the autumn night hits you, sharp and clean against the heat of the gala. The terrace overlooks the city from a height that makes everything below look insignificant.
Jungkook walks to the stone railing and rests both hands on it, his back to you for a moment. You watch the way his shoulders rise with a breath, then drop. When he turns, he leans against the railing, arms crossed, and the posture is so deliberately casual it hurts. He's armouring himself.
"So," he says. "Talk."
The word is blunt but underneath it, you hear the thing he's actually saying: I've been waiting a year for this. You straighten your spine. You think of everything, every version of the speech you've prepared but you go off pure gut instinct.
"The night you came to my apartment," you start, your voice thin against the open air. "You showed me the photos. You asked me why." The memory is a blade. You distinctly remember his flowers, the envelope, the surveillance stills scattering across the table. "I couldn't answer you then."
"I remember." His voice is flat but his eyes aren't. There's something deep and restless moving behind them.
"I'm answering you now."
Jungkook doesn't speak. He waits the way a man waits for a verdict he's already tried to accept.
"His name is Jung Hoseok." You say it clearly, giving the name its full weight. "He's my best friend. He's been my best friend since we were fourteen years old." You take a breath that shakes more than you'd like. "He got sick two years ago, and nobody knew what it was. The doctors ran every test, every scan, and came back with nothing. Then the bills started. You can't imagine what it costs to keep someone alive when medicine doesn't even know what's killing them."
Jungkook's expression hasn't changed, but you see the shift. There’s a fractional loosening around his jaw, like a door being unlocked without being opened.
"We were drowning," you continue. "Student loans, medical debt, the cost of keeping him in a hospital that could actually help. Namjoon– you remember Namjoon?" You don't wait for an answer. "He came up with the plan. The first one. Then the second." You swallow. "The second one was you."
A muscle feathers along Jungkook's jaw. His arms stay crossed.
"I was supposed to be a distraction. Get hired as your assistant, keep your attention occupied while they handled the technical side." You force yourself to hold his gaze. "That's all it was supposed to be."
"But it wasn't." His voice is quiet.
"No." The word catches in your throat. "It wasn't. I fell in love with you. I fell in love with the way you held doors open and remembered dates and how you loved me without condition." Your eyes are burning, but you refuse to blink. "I didn't plan on any of it. I didn't plan on you."
Jungkook uncrosses his arms. His hands find the railing behind him and grip it, knuckles whitening. The movement pulls his shirt taut across his chest, and you hate yourself for noticing and hate that even now, even mid-confession, some traitorous part of your brain is cataloguing the way his jaw catches the moonlight, the column of his throat above his loosened collar. You're telling him about the worst thing you've ever done, and your body is remembering the best things he's ever done to it.
The silence between you is different from the ballroom silence, from the hospital silence, from the silence that fell when Jungkook walked away from your apartment a year ago. This silence has oxygen in it. It has room to breathe.
"March 14th," Jungkook says, very quietly.
"March 14th," you repeat. "I typed it into your computer to steal from you, and I hated myself for knowing it." You look towards him. "He's here," you say. "Hoseok. He's inside."
Something crosses Jungkook's face that you can't fully read; surprise isn't quite it because it moves too quickly. It's quickly replaced by something more complex. Recognition, maybe. Like a piece sliding into a puzzle he's been working on in the dark.
"He signed himself out of the hospital to be here tonight. He can barely walk. He has a cane and a portable oxygen concentrator in a bag, and he's wearing a suit that doesn't fit because his body is half of what it used to be." Your voice breaks on the last part, but you keep going because you promised. "He's twenty-six years old, and he's dying, and he's standing in your ballroom right now because he thinks you deserve to know that his heartbeat is the reason I broke yours."
The wind picks up, carrying with it the faint sound of the string quartet from inside, something melancholy, something in a minor key that has no business being this appropriate. Jungkook's chest rises with a deep breath, his fingers releasing the railing.
"Where is he?" he asks.
The question shocks you into stillness. You expected him to still be angry, cold or even dismissal. You expected the same venom that lacerated you at your dinner table a year ago. You had prepped yourself to brace for impact. Instead, he's asking where Hoseok is.
"By the east columns," you manage. "Near the entrance."
Jungkook pushes off the railing. He takes a step toward the door and then stops to turn back to you. The city lights catch the silver of his cufflinks, the sharp line of his jaw, the look in his eyes that you've never seen before.
"I would love to meet him," he says. "Not for you. For me."
He holds the terrace door open for you, and you walk through it feeling as if you've just stepped off the edge of something with no certainty of where you'll land.
As you pass him in the doorway, the space is narrow enough that your arm grazes his chest. The contact lasts less than a second. It’s silk against cotton, your bare arm against the warmth of him– and you feel it everywhere. His breath catches. Or maybe yours does too. You don’t look at him. You can’t. If you look at him right now, with your defences stripped and his chest warm against your skin, you will do something you can’t take back. You keep walking as he follows.
Yoongi's voice returns in your ear, sharper now. "Fifteen minutes to mirror. _____, where are you? I need confirmation you're moving to the terminal."
"I need a minute," you say to both of them, though only one can hear you.
The ballroom swallows you both back into its machinery. Jungkook walks beside you but not with you, a deliberate distance maintained. You're aware of every inch of it.
You're halfway across the floor when it happens. A sharp voice cuts through the ambient noise.
"Wait– don't I know you?"
You freeze. The woman in the red dress you saw earlier with Jungkook has stepped into your path, head tilted, eyes narrowing with the specific intensity of someone rifling through their memory. She's even more beautiful up close with expensive jewellery and the kind of face that attends a lot of industry events.
"You worked at GFC, didn't you?" she says. "Jungkook's assistant?"
Your blood goes cold. Beside you, Jungkook stiffens almost imperceptibly.
"I think you're mistaken," you manage, your voice remarkably steady for someone whose heart has just relocated to her throat.
The woman squints harder. "No, I'm sure of it. The holiday party, two years ago? You were handling the guest list. I remember because you—"
"Mrs. Ahn." Jungkook's voice slides in, smooth and warm, and the interruption is so seamless. He steps forward with a smile that reaches exactly as far as it needs to. "I'm so glad you could make it tonight. Have you met the team from Hana Ventures? I believe your husband was asking about their sustainability portfolio. They're just by the bar." Oh. She’s married. You can’t help but feel relief.
It's a redirection so elegant it borders on art. Mrs. Ahn's attention pivots to Jungkook entirely, her recognition of you dissolving into the social gravity of a CEO's full attention. She brightens, adjusts her necklace, and allows herself to be guided toward the bar with a delighted "Oh, wonderful!"
Jungkook glances back at you over his shoulder as he walks Mrs. Ahn away. The look lasts one second. In it, you read: Stay. I'll be back.
You press your back against the nearest column, heart hammering, and wait. Jungkook returns within two minutes, his composure fully restored.
"Thank you," you breathe.
"Don't thank me yet." The words carry a weight you don't fully understand. "Come on. Show me your friend."
You navigate the remaining distance to the east columns. Hoseok is where you left him, still propped against the column with his untouched champagne. His cane is hooked over his forearm while he's watching a couple dance. His expression carries a wistfulness that makes your throat close. From this distance, in this light, in that suit, you could almost forget he's sick.
Hoseok senses your approach. His gaze shifts to you, then past you to the man walking in your wake. His eyes sharpen. He straightens with a conscious effort, drawing every reserve of energy he has to meet this moment upright. He sets the champagne glass on the column's ledge, frees his cane, and faces Jungkook fully.
The two men regard each other across a narrowing distance. You step to the side, because this isn't yours anymore. This is between the man whose life was bought at another man's expense and the man who paid the price without knowing.
Jungkook stops three feet from Hoseok. He takes him in, the ill-fitting suit, the too-sharp cheekbones, the way he leans on the cane with practised subtlety. You watch Jungkook's eyes trace the details the way he used to study you. It’s as if he’s cataloguing, absorbing, trying to understand.
"Jung Hoseok," Hoseok says, extending a hand that trembles just slightly. His voice is steady despite it. "I believe you've been keeping me alive.”
You see the impact land on Jungkook's face like a wave of something cresting and breaking behind his careful composure. He looks at Hoseok's extended hand. He then takes it warmly.
"Jeon Jungkook," he replies, and his voice is thick. "I wish we'd met differently."
"So do I." Hoseok's grip tightens before releasing. "But if we'd met differently, I'd probably be dead. So I'll take this."
The bluntness catches Jungkook off guard. You watch him blink to recalibrate. Hoseok does that to people and has always done that. Even diminished, even tethered to machines and measured in borrowed months, he has a way of cutting straight to the marrow of a thing.
Hoseok shifts his weight onto his cane, glancing at you briefly before returning to Jungkook.
"You're quite handsome," he says conversationally. "No wonder she's in love with you."
The floor drops out from under you.
"Hoseok!" His name comes out strangled.
"What?" He turns to you with an expression of perfect innocence that has absolutely no business existing on a man in his condition. "It's true."
You look at Jungkook who is already looking at you. You look away with flushed cheeks and another wave of warmth spreading across the back of your neck.
"He's been on an extraordinary amount of medication," you say to no one and everyone. "Practically braindead. Medically speaking."
"Medically speaking, I have excellent observational skills," Hoseok replies, entirely unbothered. He takes a small sip of the champagne he was never going to drink and grimaces at the taste.
Jungkook lets the silence sit for exactly long enough that you feel every degree of it against your skin. Then, with a grace that costs him something you're certain of, he lets it go.
He turns to Hoseok.
"How are you feeling tonight?" The question is genuine, stripped of the social reflex that usually props up that particular phrase. He means it. You can tell he means it by the way he waits for the answer.
Hoseok glances around the ballroom, at the chandeliers, the gowns, the ancient indifferent wealth of it all. "Great. I haven't been anywhere in months, years some would say. Everywhere starts to look like a hospital ceiling after a while." His eyes return to Jungkook. "This is a very good ceiling."
Jungkook looks up despite himself. The chandelier throws fractured light across his face.
"It is," he agrees quietly.
Something passes between them that you don't entirely have access to. Two people negotiating the strange territory of a connection that has no map, no precedent and no name for what they are to each other.
"I wanted to meet you," Hoseok says. "That was the other reason I came tonight." He pauses. "She didn't know I was going to say that. She'd have talked me out of it."
"I absolutely would have," you confirm.
Jungkook's gaze moves to you then, briefly, warm in a way that undoes something small and load-bearing inside your chest, before returning to Hoseok. "I'm glad you did."
Hoseok nods slowly, as if this confirms something he suspected. He studies Jungkook for a moment with those bright, tired eyes, the same way he studied the ceiling of his hospital room on bad nights.
"You should talk," Hoseok says, looking between you both. "Really talk." His eyes flick almost imperceptibly toward your earpiece before coming back. "Because you owe it to each other."
A chill rolls through you. Time is ticking and quite frankly, you can’t think of how you’re going to pull this off.
"I'm going to find a chair before my legs stage a mutiny," Hoseok says, straightening with effort. He gives Jungkook a final look. It’s warm with a shot of exhaustion he can no longer mask. "Thank you for meeting me. Whatever you decide…about her, about all of this, I wanted you to know that your money bought time. And I used that time to wake up." He smiles, the heart-shaped one. "That's not nothing." He turns, cane tapping a steady beat against the marble, and you watch him walk toward a chair near the far column. A waiter approaches and Hoseok waves him off politely.
You turn back to Jungkook. He's watching Hoseok too. His expression is caught between something shattered and something mending.
"Jungkook–" you start.
"Not here." His voice is rough. He drags his gaze from Hoseok's retreating figure back to you. His eyes are wet. "Come with me."
He doesn't reach for your hand. He simply walks, and you follow.
Jungkook takes you through a service corridor that the guests don't see. It’s past stacked chairs, and folded tablecloths, and the muted clatter of the kitchen beyond a swinging door. The noise of the gala dims to a muffle. He stops in a narrow hallway lit by bare bulbs.
He turns to face you. In this light, stripped of the ballroom's gilding, he looks younger. Closer to the boy you met on March 14th. His collar is still open, and in the bare light you can see the faint sheen of sweat at the base of his throat. You wonder if its nerves, or the heat of the ballroom, or something else entirely. You force your gaze upward.
"I need to tell you something," he says. His voice is steady but his hands aren't. You see them at his sides, fingers curling and uncurling. "And you're not going to like it."
Your blood cools. "What?"
He meets your eyes. "This gala. The invitation. You being here tonight." He pauses for a moment. "It wasn't coincidence."
Your stomach folds in on itself. "What are you talking about?"
"I know about Namjoon's plan." The words drop like stones against marble flooring. "I've known for weeks. The Obsidian transfer, the eight-minute window, the biometric scan. All of it."
The corridor tilts. You feel the wall at your back before you realize you've stepped into it. "How?"
"Because I'm the one who gave it to them."
Silence. It’s the kind that has a sound with a high, ringing pitch that fills your skull.
"I hired someone," Jungkook continues, his voice measured and careful. "After that night at your apartment... I hired a private investigator. I needed to understand why. You couldn't tell me, so I went looking for the answer myself." He swallows. “He found your team. He found Namjoon."
Your mind races, tripping over itself. "Namjoon doesn't know," you say, the realization bleeding through the shock. "He thinks this job is real."
"It is real." Jungkook's jaw tightens. "The funds exist. The transfer window is genuine. Everything Yoongi built, everything Namjoon planned, it works. I just made sure I was on the other end of it."
"Why?" The word comes out shredded. "If you knew– if you've known this whole time…why let us get this far? Why let me walk in here and–" Your voice breaks. "Why let me tell you about Hoseok like you didn't already know?"
Jungkook flinches. It's the first true crack in his composure, a visible wound. "Because I needed to hear you say it." His voice drops. "I needed to know if you'd actually tell me the truth this time. Or if you'd just steal from me again."
The words land like a hand against your cheek. It’s not a violent slap per se, more devastatingly soft. Like the way he used to cup it before planting a kiss on your lips.
You stare at him, tears sliding silently, and the worst part isn't the betrayal. The worst part is that you understand. You understand because you would have done the same thing. Maybe you already did.
"So this whole time," you say slowly, "you've been watching us. Watching me. Planning this the same way Namjoon planned the first heist." A bitter laugh escapes you, wet and fractured. "You out-heisted the heist."
"I didn't want to." The urgency in his voice surprises you. He steps closer, and the distance between you shrinks to something dangerous. You can feel the warmth of him, smell the cedar and something underneath it. It’s something that's just him, unchanged and achingly familiar. Your back is against the wall and he's close enough that if either of you breathed too deeply, you'd touch. But neither of you breathes too deeply and neither of you steps back.
"I didn't set out to trap you," he says, and his voice is low enough that you feel it more than hear it. It’s a vibration that moves through the small space between your bodies. "I set out to understand you. And then Taehyung told me about Hoseok, and how you sleep in a bed next to his almost every night." His voice wavers. "And I realized you weren't a thief. You were desperate. The same way I was desperate to know why."
His eyes drop to your mouth just for a second. It's just long enough for you to feel it like a physical touch. You press your back harder against the wall, as if the concrete can anchor you, because every nerve in your body is screaming at you to close the distance and every rational thought is screaming at you not to.
"There's more," he says, pulling his gaze back to your eyes with visible effort. "The half billion you came here to steal, it's not mine."
You blink. "What?"
"The parent fund, GFC Capital,” he starts. “My name's on it. Every press release, every letterhead. But the money inside it isn't clean." His jaw tightens with controlled fury. "Three board members have been siphoning funds through shell companies for two years. Foreign accounts, fabricated invoices, phantom subsidiaries. By the time my forensic auditors flagged it, they'd already moved close to $400 million through channels I couldn't touch without exposing the entire fund which includes the legitimate investors who'd lose everything."
"Your own board has been stealing from you."
"From everyone. Pension funds. Institutional investors. People who trusted GFC Capital with their futures." His voice is cold now, but the coldness isn't aimed at you. "And I couldn't go public because the moment I do, the fund collapses, the stock craters, and thousands of people lose their retirement savings. The corruption has to be excised without killing the patient."
The medical metaphor isn't lost on you.
"So you need someone to move the money," you say slowly, the architecture of his plan assembling itself in your mind. "Someone outside the system. Someone untraceable."
"Someone who's already proven they can get in, take what they need, and disappear." He holds your gaze. "I didn't pick your team because of our history. I picked them because they're good. Yoongi's Obsidian protocol is better than anything my security consultants could design. And Namjoon's operational planning is…" He pauses, a reluctant admission pulling at his mouth. "Annoyingly brilliant."
"So we're not robbing you."
"You're robbing the people who robbed me. And the $500 million you redirect through Obsidian doesn't vanish. It gets funnelled into a forensic trust that my legal team uses to build a case. Every transaction Yoongi routes becomes evidence, every node, every wallet, every timestamp." You realize it's a paper trail that looks invisible from the outside but reads like a confession from the inside.
You stare at him. The magnitude of it settles over you in layers. First, it’s the relief that you're not betraying him again, then the fury that he manipulated you into it, then the grudging, bone-deep recognition that it's exactly what you would have done.
The relief that floods through you is so disproportionate to the moment that it embarrasses you. You press your lips together, looking at the ceiling, and you hear him exhale.
Jungkook’s expression sobers. He reaches into his jacket pocket. His hand passes close enough to your hip that you feel the displacement of air, and what he pulls out makes your breath stop.
A bright blue plastic ring. It's faded, chipped and absolutely ridiculous that it's here in front of you. It's the one you won him at the carnival, the one he wore for the rest of the night because it matched his shirt.
He holds it between his thumb and forefinger, studying it in the bare light. You watch his hands, the same hands that held you, turn it slowly, and your throat tightens with something that isn't only grief.
"I could've helped," he says quietly. "If you had told me about him from the start, I would have helped." His voice frays. "You just had to trust me."
"I know," you whisper. Because what else is there? He's right. He's been right this entire time, and the most excruciating part is that some desperate, frightened version of you from two years ago knew it too and chose theft over trust anyway. That's what it was at the end of the day, pure desperation.
His hand rises almost involuntarily and his thumb grazes the edge of your jaw. It's featherlight and barely there, gone before you can lean into it. The touch lasts less than a second, but it sends a current through you that buckles your knees. He pulls his hand back like he's been burned, fingers curling into his palm.
"Sorry," he says. He doesn't look sorry. He looks wrecked.
"Namjoon and Yoongi," you manage, dragging yourself back from the edge. "Are you going to—"
"Nobody's getting arrested." He says it firmly. "I told you before, it was never about the money. It's still not." He exhales. "But the transfer needs to happen tonight. The way Yoongi designed it."
In your ear, Yoongi's voice returns, oblivious. "Four minutes to mirror window. _____, I need you at the east wing terminal. Where are you?"
You close your eyes.
"What do you need from me?" Jungkook asks you. He looks at you for a long time. The bare bulb flickers once, casting his face in a brief strobe of shadow.
You look down at the purse hanging off your shoulder and unclip it open. From there, you pull out the small tablet Yoongi placed earlier with the calibration screen already on display for his fingerprint.
“Preferably your thumb or index finger.” You repeat Yoongi’s words.
As Jungkook registers his fingerprint, you stare at him. You stare at the ring still in his fingers, the boy underneath the CEO, at the man who kept a worthless piece of plastic in his pocket for over a year because it was the last honest thing you’d given him.
"Go," he says softly, turning the tablet back to you and creating space between you as he steps back. "Clock's ticking."
You go but before you do, Jungkook grabs your wrist and spins you toward him and then his mouth is on yours and every carefully constructed thing inside you comes apart at once.
It isn't gentle. It isn't the kind of kiss that asks permission or makes apologies. It is a year of silence compressed into something urgent and graceless and completely beyond either of your better judgments. His free hand comes up to cup the side of your face with a pressure that says stay even as everything around you is screaming go. You feel the cold of his ring against your jaw and it undoes you further.
You kiss him back. Of course you do. You kiss him back like you've been holding your breath for over twelve months and he is the only available air. Your fingers twisting into the lapel of his jacket, pulling him closer.
He makes a low sound against your mouth. His hand slides from your face to the back of your neck, thumb tracing the line of your jaw on its way. It’s unhurried despite the chaos assembling itself on the other side of the ballroom. You feel the warmth of his palm against your bare skin and your brain goes briefly, completely white.
Then his forehead drops to yours. Both of you breathing, the fraction of space between your mouths charged and unbearable.
His jaw tightens. "I couldn't make myself believe you were only that."
"Jungkook–"
"Go." His voice comes out rough at the edges. He pulls back, not far, just enough to look at you, and what's on his face is the full version of everything he's been carefully not showing all evening. Raw and steady and terrifying in its patience. Like a man who has decided he can wait a little longer now that he knows there's something worth waiting for. "Come back when it's done."
It's the come back that breaks you open.
You release his lapel. You smooth the fabric with your palm out of some automatic instinct toward repair, and his hand falls from your neck slowly but his fingertips last. It's like he's reluctant to confirm the absence.
You step back. Then another step. Your heels find their purpose again.
"When it's done," you repeat. A promise shaped like an echo.
His eyes hold yours until the crowd swallows you.
The east wing terminal is exactly where Yoongi's schematics said it would be, tucked behind a service door at the end of a corridor branching off the main ballroom. Namjoon is already there, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, his charcoal suit jacket unbuttoned. He straightens when he sees you.
"Where the hell have you been?" His voice is a controlled hiss. "Yoongi's been—"
"I know." You cut past him and approach the terminal. A sleek console is embedded in the wall, its screen dark waiting. "I'm here. Let's go."
Namjoon studies you and you hope he doesn’t notice the distinct flush of your cheeks. He has that look, the one that precedes an interrogation. But there isn't time.
"Yoongi," you say into the mic. "I'm at the terminal."
"Finally." His relief is audible. "Placing the tablet on the scanner now, biometric should authenticate in three… two…"
A soft chime. The screen illuminates, casting blue light across your face.
[BIOMETRIC AUTHENTICATION: ACCEPTED]
"We're in." Yoongi's voice accelerates, the flat effect giving way to focused energy. "Mirror sequence initiating. Seven minutes forty-three seconds. Starting the Obsidian routing, first tranche moving through Node Alpha." Whatever he said is all gibberish to you as you watch numbers cascade down the terminal screen too fast to comprehend.
Your palms are slick against the console's edge. A bead of sweat tracks down the back of your neck, disappearing into the fabric of your gown. Every sound is amplified, the hum of the terminal, your own breathing and the distant echo of the ballroom.
Then you both hear footsteps in the corridor behind you.
You spin. Namjoon's hand shoots to your arm, pulling you behind the terminal alcove. You both press flat against the wall, heartbeats competing. Through the crack in the service door, you see a security guard pass with an earpiece in, flashlight sweeping in a lazy arc. He pauses at the junction, tilts his head like he's listening to something on his radio, then continues down the opposite corridor.
You don't breathe again until his footsteps fade.
"Security sweep, east wing," Yoongi reports, his voice tight. "Routine. You're clear. Five minutes remaining."
Namjoon steps back to the terminal, eyes fixed on the screen. "It's working," he breathes. For the first time in months, you hear something in his voice you'd almost forgotten. It’s unguarded, uncalculated hope. "It's actually working."
You feel sick.
"Namjoon," you say quietly, your eyes still on the screen. The numbers keep cascading. Four minutes left.
"Not now."
"It has to be now."
Something in your tone makes him turn. His brow creases, then furrows, then drops into the expression you've come to associate with the moments before everything goes wrong.
"What did you do?" he asks.
"It's not what I did." You finally look at him. "It's what Jungkook did."
The name hits him like a slap. His eyes narrow. "What about him?"
"He knows, Joon." You say it plainly, the way Hoseok told you the truth deserved to be said without cushion. "He's known the whole time. The job, the Obsidian protocol. He's the one who set it up."
Namjoon goes very still. It’s not the calculated stillness of a strategist processing variables its the stillness of a man whose operating system has crashed.
"That's not possible," he says.
"The investigator who fed you the job, he works for Jungkook. Has been the whole time."
You watch the sequence unfold on Namjoon's face. It's disbelief, analysis, and fury. Each phase is distinct and each lasting exactly as long as it takes for the next to overwhelm it. His hands ball into fists at his sides.
"He played us." The words come through his teeth.
"He guided us." You echo Jungkook's word deliberately. "Namjoon, the money we're moving right now is not Jungkook's. It belongs to corrupt board members who've been embezzling from his fund for years. We're not robbing him. We're helping him clean house."
"I don't give a damn whose money it is!" Namjoon's voice rises, bouncing off the corridor. "He manipulated us and he used us like fucking tools—"
"The way we used me?" The question leaves you before you can measure it, and it lands with surgical precision. Namjoon's mouth snaps shut.
Two minutes left. The numbers keep falling.
"He's not pressing charges," you say. "He never was. He built this so we could do what we're good at and so the people who actually deserve to be caught get caught."
Namjoon's chest heaves. He looks at the terminal, at the cascading numbers that represent everything he's spent months planning, and you watch the terrible realization settle over him: his masterwork was never his. Every contingency he mapped, every variable he accounted for, every sleepless night spent perfecting the plan– all of it ran on tracks that Jungkook had laid first.
"Ninety seconds," Yoongi reports. "Third tranche routing clean. No flags."
Namjoon stares at the screen. His fists unclench, finger by finger.
"Does Yoongi know?" he asks quietly.
"Not yet."
He nods. Something shifts behind his eyes. "The board members," he says. "Who are they?"
"Jungkook has the details."
"Of course he does." A bitter exhale. Then, quieter: "Is the evidence actually solid? If this goes to prosecution–"
"He has a forensic team. The Obsidian routing creates the trail. Every transaction we move tonight becomes a timestamped record."
"Thirty seconds," Yoongi's voice. "Final tranche clearing now."
Namjoon watches the last numbers fall. When the screen flashes [TRANSFER COMPLETE — MIRROR SEQUENCE CLOSING], he lets out a breath that seems to carry years in it.
"So we just helped a billionaire take out his own trash," Namjoon says flatly.
"We helped a man who could've sent us to prison choose to give us a second chance instead."
Namjoon's jaw clenches. He doesn't look at you when he speaks again.
"I want to talk to him. Directly."
"He's in the ballroom."
"Fuck. Okay." Namjoon pushes off the wall, buttoning his jacket with sharp, precise movements. He pauses at the corridor entrance before half-turning to you.
"For what it's worth," he says, his voice stripped of its usual command, "I'm sorry. For putting you in the middle of this. For making you the weapon." He swallows. "You deserved better than that."
Before you can respond, he's gone.
You stand alone in the corridor. The terminal screen has gone dark. The earpiece is silent, Yoongi running post-transfer protocols in focused quiet surely.
You lean against the wall and close your eyes.
When you return to the ballroom almost thirty-five minutes later, the scene that greets you is one you couldn't have predicted.
Hoseok is seated at a table near the east columns, his cane propped against the chair beside him. Across from him sits Jungkook, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He's listening to whatever Hoseok is saying that has Jungkook's complete attention. It’s not the typical polite, half-engaged attention of a CEO at a networking event, but the focused, full-bodied attention of a person hearing something that matters.
And Hoseok is laughing.
It's not the full, room-filling laugh you remember from before. It's thinner, breathier, punctuated by pauses where his lungs catch up. But it's real. And Jungkook is smiling. An actual smile, slightly crooked, crinkling the corners of his eyes.
You stop mid-step, afraid that moving closer will break whatever fragile thing is happening between them.
Hoseok spots you first. He waves you over, and as you approach, you catch the tail end of whatever story he's been telling.
"—and she just stood there with spaghetti sauce on her face, trying to convince Namjoon that Italian cooking was her hidden talent." Hoseok wheezes slightly on the last word, pressing a hand to his chest. "She burned the garlic bread so badly the smoke detector went off twice."
Jungkook's eyes flick to you as you reach the table, and the amusement in them is so unexpected it winds you. "Sounds familiar," he says, and there's a warmth there that has no business existing tonight. "She tried to make me dinner once. I think I'm still recovering."
"Slander," you manage, sinking into the chair between them. "Both of you."
Hoseok's laughter fades into a cough but it’s just one and it's enough to remind everyone at the table of the stakes. He waves off your concern before it reaches your face.
Then Namjoon appears.
He approaches the table with the measured stride of a man who has reorganized his entire worldview in the span of a hallway walk. His eyes move from Hoseok to you to Jungkook, where they settle.
"Mr. Jeon," Namjoon says. His voice is level.
Jungkook rises from his chair. He stands a full inch shorter than Namjoon, but the height difference isn't what fills the space between them. It's everything else.
"Kim Namjoon," Jungkook says. Neither extends a hand. "I've heard a lot about you."
"Apparently not as much as you already knew."
A moment passes. Then, impossibly, the corner of Jungkook's mouth twitches. "Your operational planning is impressive. Taehyung's words, not mine."
"I'll be sure to thank the man who conned me," Namjoon replies, dry as bone. But there's no venom in it- just pure exhaustion and grudging respect.
Jungkook gestures to the chairs. "Sit down. We have a lot to discuss."
Namjoon glances at you. You nod.
He sits.
And from his chair, cane resting against his knee, oxygen concentrator humming quietly in the bag beneath the table, Hoseok watches the architect of his survival sit down across from the man whose money built it.
He reaches for his water glass, takes a slow sip, and closes his eyes.
For the first time in a very long while, he isn't counting breaths, he's just breathing.
Jungkook speaks quietly. "The board members, Park Chansik, Lee Minho, Kwon Jaesung– my legal team has everything they need as of forty minutes ago. The Obsidian routing created a clean timestamped trail. Prosecution is already in motion." He looks at Namjoon evenly. "No one at this table will be contacted by law enforcement. That was never the intended outcome."
Namjoon is quiet for a long moment. His hands are flat on the table. You watch him work through it, the last of the resistance, the pride that has kept him upright through years of operating in margins and shadows. You watch him set it down.
"You could have done this without us," Namjoon says.
"Yes."
"But you needed someone who wouldn't leave a trail back to you."
"I needed people who were good at what they do," Jungkook says. "There's a difference."
Another silence. Then Namjoon exhales through his nose, slow and controlled. "If you ever need anything," he says, each word measured, "done legitimately." He pauses. "You know where to find me."
It isn't quite gratitude. It isn't quite an apology. It is, you think, the closest Namjoon has ever come to either in a single sentence.
Jungkook nods. "I do."
Namjoon stands, straightening his jacket. He looks at you and something passes across his face that's complicated, brief and genuine.
"Take care of yourself," he says.
Then he's gone, swallowed by the ballroom's glittering current, and you think that wherever he ends up next will be somewhere worth being.
Jungkook turns to Hoseok.
He doesn't ease into it. You've come to understand this about him, that he reserves gentleness for his delivery, not his honesty.
"I'll be covering your treatment going forward," he says. "Full continuity of care. Whatever the next stage requires." He holds Hoseok's gaze. "No debt and no condition attached to it."
Hoseok is quiet. The ballroom moves around you three in almost slow motion.
Then Hoseok slowly nods in the way you'd accept something you'd almost stopped believing was possible. His jaw works briefly and then steadies. His eyes are very bright but nothing falls.
"Okay," he says softly. The same word Jungkook gave you earlier, carrying the same impossible weight. There's no reason to say thank you. What's done is done and he can only be internally grateful.
Jungkook nods back. The matter is settled in the way that only truly important things are, in the space between two people who have decided to mean what they say.
Under the table, you find Hoseok's hand and press it once. He squeezes back and doesn't let go for a long moment. He’s going to be okay.
You take Hoseok out through the east corridor, away from the crowds, his cane tapping its familiar rhythm against the marble. At the rear exit, where the town car is already waiting, you both stop.
The autumn air is sharper now. Hoseok tilts his face up toward the sky, eyes closing briefly, and you watch him breathe it in deliberately.
"Hoseok—"
"Don't," he says gently, eyes still closed. "Don't do the thing where you cry and then apologize for crying."
"I wasn't going to cry."
"You absolutely were." He opens his eyes and looks at you, and the smile that follows is the full radiant one, the one that has survived everything. "Go back inside. Yoongi will ride with me." As if summoned, your earpiece crackles.
“Already on my way down,” Yoongi says, flat and fond in equal measure. “Go back inside.”
You look at Hoseok for a long moment. At the ill-fitting suit and the too-sharp cheekbones and the eyes that are still, despite everything, the brightest thing in any room he enters.
"You planned this," you say quietly. "All of it. Getting me here, saying what you said to him."
"I have limited time and unlimited audacity," he replies serenely. "It seemed efficient."
A sound escapes you that is almost a laugh. You step forward and press your forehead to his, carefully, the way you handle things that matter. His free hand comes up to the back of your head and holds you there for a moment.
"Go," he murmurs. "Be happy. That's an order."
You pull back. You smooth his lapel and he lets you.
The ballroom has thinned. The late hour has winnowed the crowd to its most committed members, small clusters of people with nowhere better to be. The string quartet is replaced by something low and recorded. The chandeliers are still burning but they feel softer now.
You find him where you somehow knew you would. Not waiting dramatically or posed. He’s simply there, standing near the tall windows at the far end of the room, looking out at the city below with his jacket unbuttoned and his glass long since abandoned. Like a man who has finished the work of the evening and is simply existing in what remains of it.
He hears your heels before he sees you. You watch his shoulders shift slightly, just a fraction, the body registering something before the mind catches up.
When he turns, his eyes find yours immediately.
"Hoseok?" he asks.
"With Yoongi. And Namjoon."
His expression softens. "Good.”
He looks at you across the remaining distance, and there is nothing careful in it anymore. The composure that has been doing its careful architectural work all evening has finally, quietly, stood down.
"My suite is on the fourteenth floor," he says.
It isn't a question and it isn't quite an invitation. It is simply a fact, offered plainly, leaving the rest entirely to you.
You cross the distance between you.
"Then take me there," you say.
The elevator ascends in silence.
You're aware of everything. The warmth radiating off him where your arm almost touches his. The slight unevenness of his breathing. Your own reflection in the mirrored doors, the emerald gown and the lipstick worn down to almost nothing. It’s the evidence of a night that has taken you apart and put you back together in a different order.
His hand finds yours somewhere between the eighth and ninth floor. It’s not dramatic but it does knock some kind of breath out of you. It’s the way his fingers slide between yours like they belong there and they remember the divots.
You look down at your joined hands. You don't say anything and neither does he.
The doors open.
His suite is at the end of a quiet corridor, all muted carpet and low light. He unlocks the door and holds it open and when you step through, you hear it close behind you. The sound of the latch catching feels like the period at the end of a very long sentence yet your heartbeat quickens. You can’t believe you’re here with Jungkook. After everything, the year of inner turmoil and hospital stays.
You turn and Jungkook is already looking at you.
And then there is no more careful distance. No more city full of people between you and this.
He reaches you in two strides and his mouth finds yours, and it's nothing like the kiss downstairs, which was urgent, surprised and compressed. This is slower and more devastating, his hands cupping your face with a pressure that says I have been thinking about this for a very long time and his mouth moving against yours like he intends to be thorough about it.
"I've thought about this," he says against your mouth, low and rough at the edges. "More than I should have."
"Tell me," you breathe. His mouth feels so good on you.
He pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes dark and intent. What's on his face is the unguarded version, the one with nothing between you and it.
"Every version of how it should have gone," he says. His thumb traces your jaw, slowly, deliberate. "Every version where you stayed."
Something in your chest cracks cleanly open.
You pull him back to you.
He finds the zip at the back of your gown with careful hands, drawing it down slowly, like he's unwrapping something he plans to take his time with. The silk loosens around you and he peels it from your shoulders with a patience that borders on unbearable, pressing his mouth to each inch of skin he uncovers. He starts at your shoulder then moves along the curve of your neck to the line of your collarbone.
The gown pools at your feet.
He looks at you. Really looks, in the low warm light of the suite, with an expression that makes your skin feel like it belongs to you differently than it did before.
"God," he says softly.
You reach for his shirt buttons. Your fingers are steadier than they were this morning with the lipstick and you're obscurely proud of this, working each button open while he watches you with that lustful, patient attention. His hands rest at your hips as if he's restraining them.
You push the shirt open and run your palms flat up his chest, feeling him pull in a slow breath.
"Your turn," you say.
It seems as though his patience reaches its limit as something shifts in him.
He walks you backward to the bed, not roughly but with a decisive authority that makes your breath catch, his mouth finding your neck, your shoulder, the curve of your ear, cataloguing you the way he always did.
When the backs of your knees meet the mattress he lowers you onto it and follows, bracing above you. The weight of him bracketing you feels like the answer to a question you've been carrying for over a year.
"I missed you," you say. The words come out unplanned.
He goes very still above you. His doe eyes find yours in the low light.
"I know," he says. And then, quieter, his forehead dropping to yours: "I missed you every single day."
The words dissolve whatever was left of the distance.
What follows is desperate in the way that only reunion can be, the kind of desperate that isn't frantic but deep, the satisfaction of finally filling a space that has been hollow too long.
He starts at your throat.
His mouth drags slowly down the column of your neck, and you feel the graze of his teeth at your pulse point before he soothes it with his tongue. Your fingers go into his hair automatically, the muscle memory of a body that never forgot him even when you were trying to. He makes a low sound of approval against your skin that vibrates all the way down your spine. His hands map you like he's reclaiming territory. Palms sliding up your sides, thumbs tracing the undersides of your ribs, learning the topography of you with an unhurried thoroughness.
He cups your breasts through the thin fabric of your bra and watches your face when he does it, taking in your reaction with those dark intent eyes.
"Still the same," he murmurs, more to himself than to you, unclasping your bra and drawing it away. He looks at you in the low light of the suite for a long moment, chest rising and falling. It’s like he’s learning you back like a language he was afraid he'd forgotten. He then dips his head and takes one nipple into his mouth and you arch off the bed with a sharp inhale.
He is not merciful about it. He takes his time, his tongue circling and his teeth grazing, one hand attending to what his mouth isn't. By the time he moves lower, your hands are fisted in the sheets and you have entirely abandoned any pretense of composure.
His mouth traces down your sternum, your stomach, pausing at your hip to press a kiss to the bone that is soft enough to undo you in an entirely different way. His fingers hook into the last of your underwear and draw it down slowly. He looks up at you from where he is and the expression on his face is dark, patient and wanting. It makes your breath stall completely.
"Jungkook—"
"I've got you," he says quietly. And then his mouth finds the most sensitive part of you and every coherent thought you had evaporates.
He is meticulous. Devastatingly and deliberately meticulous, like he has all night and intends to use it. His tongue works in slow controlled strokes against your clit while his hands hold your hips with a firmness that makes it clear he'll set the pace, not you. You try anyway, your hips rolling, chasing, but he presses down until you still beneath him.
"Stay," he says against you, the word more felt than heard.
You make a sound that is almost his name.
He takes you apart with a patience that borders on cruel, bringing you to the edge twice and pulling back. He reads your body with an attention to detail that makes you feel known like he did back then. By the time he finally lets you fall over it, you've said his name so many times it's lost all meaning and found a new one.
You're still catching your breath when he kisses his way back up your body. He tastes of you when his mouth finds yours and you feel it everywhere. His weight settles over you and you reach between his legs, wrapping your hand around the thick and warm cock. You feel him shudder against your throat.
And then you flip him.
He lands on his back with a slight exhale of surprise and you rise over him with intent. There’s a look on his face when he registers what you're doing. Surprise cedes to something darker and more interested, sending heat flooding through you all over again.
You take your time the same way he did, because you have your own year's worth of thinking about this. Your mouth traces his chest, his stomach and the deep cut of muscle below his hip until his hand fists in your hair and his breathing has gone ragged.
"_____." His voice is strained. A warning and a plea at once.
"Stay," you say against his skin, throwing his own word back at him.
He says something under his breath that might be a curse.
You take him into your mouth and his whole body goes taut, the hand in your hair tightening. A low broken sound escapes him that you feel in your chest like a struck chord. You are thorough about it in the same way he was thorough about you. You're being carefully slow and attentive. You're entirely in control.
His grip in your hair tightens further and he pulls you up with a firmness that makes it clear the balance of power has shifted again.
He rolls you back beneath him in one fluid motion.
"Enough," he says roughly, and his voice has lost all its careful edges. He looks at you with his hair disheveled and his chest heaving and every last layer of composure completely dismantled. He truly is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. "I need to feel you."
"Then feel me," you say.
He does.
The moment he presses into you for the first time you both go very still. His forehead drops to yours. Your hands grip his shoulders. The room is completely quiet except for both of you breathing.
"Okay?" he asks softly.
"Yes," you breathe. "Yes."
He begins to roll his hips back before thrusting forward.
It's slow at first, deep and measured with each movement deliberate. You haven’t had sex in so long, it feels like the first time again. The uncontrollable way your skin buzzes with need makes your hands slide down his back and pull him closer. It’s urgent and he obliges, the pace building in increments that winds you tighter with every thrust.
His mouth finds your neck, your jaw, the corner of your mouth. He says your name once, quietly, like it's something he's been holding carefully for a long time. You can’t help the onslaught of moans that bleed past your lips. Feeling him like this again is so sinfully beautiful.
Then the slowness runs out.
What replaces it is urgent, consuming and entirely mutual. His hands grip your hips and yours grip him back, both of you chasing the same thing with equal desperation. The headboard and the low sounds he makes against your throat is everything that has been held tightly finally, completely releasing. You feel it building at the base of your spine, tightening. He must feel it too because his hand slides between you and finds exactly the right place to be. You shatter with his name in your mouth and your fingers in his hair as he drags his thumb in circles around your sensitive bud.
He follows moments later, his whole body going rigid, your name broken apart on his lips as he buries himself deep and holds there.
The feeling of it, of him, of this, of all the right pieces finally back in place, is so complete that your eyes sting with something that has nothing to do with sadness.
Afterward the room settles around you like an exhale.
He gathers you against his chest without a word, one hand moving slowly through your hair. Your ear is pressed to his heartbeat and you count it without meaning to. It's the way you've been counting Hoseok's breaths for months, the habit of holding onto proof of life.
His heartbeat is steady and real and yours again.
The suite holds you both in its quiet, the city burning silently beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, all that distant light doing nothing to touch the stillness in here. His hand moves through your hair in slow, absent strokes. Your fingers trace idle patterns on his chest without deciding to.
This is the part you didn't let yourself imagine. Not the wanting, you'd lived inside that for twelve months without permission. But this. The after. The specific peace of lying in the wreckage of everything that was held too long and finding it habitable. Finding it, impossibly, like home.
"I have something to tell you," he says eventually. His voice is low and unhurried. It's the voice he uses when he's simply finding the words for it.
You tilt your head up to look at him.
"Tonight at the gala" he says, his eyes on the ceiling. "When you walked across that ballroom toward me." A pause. "I'd been planning every variable for months. Every possible outcome." His jaw shifts. "And then you were just…there. In that dress. Walking toward me like it cost you something, and I couldn't remember a single thing I'd prepared."
You're quiet for a moment. "Good," you say finally. "That means you care." Echoing Hoseok’s words.
He looks down at you.
He exhales something that is almost a soft laugh, and presses his lips to the top of your head. You feel him settle more completely into the mattress beneath you, some last residual tension finally locating the exit.
"I want to do this properly," he says. "Whatever comes next. I want to do it right."
You think about what right means, after everything. After the theft and the year of silence and the gala and Hoseok. After Namjoon's careful penance and Yoongi running an operation from a service van two blocks away because that's simply the kind of person he is. After all of it.
"Right doesn't look the same as it did before," you say carefully.
"No," he agrees. "It looks like this. Like whatever this is." His arm tightens around you slightly. "I just want it to be honest."
You press your palm flat against his chest, feeling the steady beat beneath it.
"Then we start there," you say.
He turns his head and finds your mouth in the dark, slow and soft. It’s the kind of kiss that isn't going anywhere because it doesn't need to.
You fall asleep before you mean to, somewhere between one breath and the next, his heartbeat counting you down into something that feels, for the first time in a very long time, like genuine rest.
Spring arrives quickly, the days in winter blurring into one giant thing.
Hoseok's new facility is twenty minutes from the city center, close enough that you can visit twice a week without rearranging your life around it. The room has a window that faces east, which he requested specifically because he has developed strong opinions about morning light now that mornings are something he's decided to keep having.
He looks different. Not restored to before but present in a way that was once uncertain. The sharpness has softened back into his face by degrees. He laughs fully now, the room-filling version, and his lungs mostly cooperate.
Today he's sitting up in the chair by the window when you arrive, a book open in his lap and Jimin cross-legged on the floor beside him, arguing about something with the comfortable ferocity of people who have known each other long enough to mean nothing by it. That’s right, Jimin is back and his hair is blond now. It came as a text on a random Tuesday to let him into your house and he never left again since.
"She's here," Jimin announces without looking up. "Tell him he's wrong about the ending."
"I'm not getting involved," you say, setting the takeout containers on the table.
"You're already involved," Hoseok says. "You brought food. That's a political statement."
Jungkook arrives twenty minutes later, still in his work shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The sight of him in this room, standing in the doorway of the place his money is keeping lit and warm and full of morning light, does something to you that nine months hasn't made ordinary.
He crosses to you first. Presses a kiss to your temple. His hand rests at the small of your back like it lives there, because it does now.
Hoseok watches this with the expression of a man who has been right about something for a very long time.
"I'm not going to say I told you so," he announces to the room.
"You absolutely are," Jimin replies.
"I told you so," Hoseok says serenely.
Yoongi arrives last, because Yoongi always arrives last, sliding into the remaining chair with a convenience store coffee and the flat affect of a man who finds this entire situation both deeply chaotic and exactly correct. He looks around the room. At Jimin on the floor. At Hoseok in the light. At you and Jungkook and the space between you that has finally, completely closed.
He takes a sip of his coffee.
"Good," he says simply.
And it is. It genuinely, completely is.
Namjoon sends a message that evening, while you're in the car going home with Jungkook's hand over yours on the console. A single line, no context, typical of him.
Started something new. Legitimate. Thought you should know.
You show it to Jungkook. He reads it and smiles.
"Good for him," he says.
You lean your head against the window. The city moves past in its familiar blur of light and shadow. Jungkook's thumb traces slow circles on the back of your hand.
Nothing was returned to its original shape. That's not how any of this works. People don't unbreak, they rebuild differently. The seams show, and that's fine. That's more than fine.
You turn your hand over from under his and lace your fingers together.
Outside the window the city burns on, brilliant and ordinary and alive.
it's been a long wait my friends but i hope it was worth the 6 year wait. i hope this closes a chapter you all have been waiting for and as always, i hope you enjoyed tmnl jungkook again (: i promised it would be a happy ending xx
thank you for your patience and thank you for continuously supporting me after all this time. i love you to no end ♡
Where do I even beginnn to start ?? This has singlehandedly been the best read since I’ve gotten back on tumblr 🥲 funny story, I’ve been an active reader of yours since 2020 and SO remember wanting to read ‘tell me no lies’ but saw thru the comments that it had a sad ending and the sequel was not yet released (yes, I spoiled myself). Thus, I purposefully decided not to read it to save myself a bit of the heartbreak.
Years later, deciding to check on some of my favorite authors, LO AND BEHOLD I SEE YOUR UPDATE!!! The immense joy and excitement I had was just unmatched. I am so incredibly happy to see that you’re back, especially because your blog was such a regular for me to check out and read your works all those years ago.
Your writing is absolutely beautiful and just as good as I remember it, it makes me emotional 😭😭 the angst, the smut, the heartbreak, the tenderness… I could feel every emotion of the characters through my screen. I love how beautifully written Jungkook and oc’s relationship progressed, fell apart, then put back together in the end- the closure they both needed and deserved 🫂 I felt so so so complete at the end. First fic to make me cry in a loooonggg time so thank you and it was def worth the wait 🫶🏻
The 80s were a time of choices. Which perm was right for you? What color neon would you wear next? None of these choices, however, were more questionable than a certain deal you made with Jeon Jungkook.
A/N: Bitchin’ is a multichapter fic, surprise!! This fic was inspired by To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. Thank you to @junqkook for letting me use her likeness and helping me with Yara’s character overall.
01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10
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PART ONE
12:16 pm.
The time on the clock was glaring at you, a silent caution that today’s lab was going to totally suck.
You could feel irritation start to eat away at you. You and your best friend, Yara, had a deal. She would show up to the dissection today and, in exchange, you would gladly do all the work. But given that class would start in four minutes, you had a sneaking suspicion that Yara was going to in fact skip class after all.
You let your chin sink down into the comfort of your open palm, eyes flickering once again towards the black and white clock that was perched up above the classroom’s blackboard. Usually, you could hear each small tick of time, but seeing as this lab was more exciting, every student in the room was currently chatting amongst their peers, covering the clock’s sound.
You considered for a moment making conversation with your professor. That idea was quickly squashed once you realized that he too was preoccupied – his attention set on the clock as well, allowing the minute hand to make its final journey before beginning the class.
Suddenly, you realized that not only had Yara left you alone, but she had also left you without a partner to do the dissection. You glanced around the room, frowning as you saw that every other table was evenly numbered, meaning you would be forced to join a random pair to make a group of three.
Wicked.
“Good afternoon, everyone.” Mr. Kim began, pausing to take a swig from his coffee mug. “I hope everyone read the email I sent out yesterday in regards to proper attire. If anyone isn’t wearing actual shoes, then I suggest you beat it unless you’re particularly amped at the idea of losing a toe when someone accidentally drops their scalpel.”
A few isolated giggles rang out, but no one made any move to leave.
“No one? Radical. Feet are gross anyway–”
The sound of the classroom door suddenly being pushed open stole away everyone’s attention. The late boy that walked in froze momentarily, clearly not expecting all eyes to fall onto him, but quickly regained his composure as he flashed a smile.
reblogging for maybeeee the 100th time because this fic changed the trajectory of my life no joke 😭!! i hold this one so dear to my heart as a reader 🩷
>>pairing: jungkook x reader / dilf jk x grocery store clerk oc
>>genre: strangers to lovers, friends with benefits, smut, fluff
>>status: on going
** snacks are drabbles that can be read as stand alones. they are not relevant to the plot. they are not written chronologically, but i order them as such as i go **
most recent work will be labeled: !! NEW !!
you find a baby in your store and in turn, a dilf finds you
❥⁞ part one: the art of wanting - 10.3k words, (m)
you find a baby in your store and in turn, a dilf finds you.
❥⁞ snack: the art of caring - 4.7k words, (m)
jk picks you up after a fight with your roommates… he and nari are better company anyway!!
❥⁞ snack: gardening/pool day drabble - 1.2k words, (pg)
nari plays in the dirt while jk gardens and you make a bet
❥⁞ part two: the art of playing - 6.3k words, (m)
costumes are a must for jk’s work party… they come with the cutest heart-shaped cuffs… now what could they be used for?
❥⁞ part three: the art of craving - 6.9k words, (m)
jk takes you to a bbq at his friend’s house. the tri-tip is good but the creampie is even better.
❥⁞ snack: the art of waiting - 3.9k words, (m)
jk comes back from his business trip and he’s wearing new pjs… you must get his face between your legs.
❥⁞ part four: the art of doubting - 17k words, (m)
seeds of doubt are planted and unfortunately they grow faster than love. things with jk fall apart.
❥⁞ part five: the art of yearning: pt 1 - 15.7k words, (m)
jungkook wants you as much as he misses you.
❥⁞ part six: the art of trying - 29.3k words, (m) !! NEW !!
you’re trying to forget about jungkook, but he’s trying to make sure you remember why you shouldn’t.
a 7 part jjk drabble series
based on the explicit version of ‘seven’.
how it will work:
each day of the week is assigned a different lyric from the single ‘seven’ by jjk. each drabble will feature its own environment & kink(s) that correspond to the associated lyric.
series masterlist:
1. monday: sęx in the workplace • july 20th
- “got you skipping work and meetings”
2. tuesday: sęx in a car • coming soon
- “its the way that you can ride”
3. wednesday: sęx outside • coming soon
- “i kiss your waist and ease your mind”
4. thursday: sęx in a hot tub / bathtub • coming soon
- “you know night after night, i’ll be fuckin' you right”
5. friday: sęx in a secret space • coming soon
- “so break me off another time”
6. saturday: sęx while gaming • coming soon
- “you wrap around me and you give me life”
7. sunday: sęx in the kitchen • coming soon
- “wind it back, i’ll take it slow, leave you with that afterglow”
pairing: seven!jungkook x f!reader (afab)
genre(s)&au(s): non idol, slice of life, established relationship, smut, fluff, minor tiny angst
warnings & smut warnings: all drabbles will come with their own warnings upon release
w/c: all drabbles will come with their own word count upon release
rating: 18+
banner: @caelesjjk
taglist [open]: - comment below!
- ageless & empty blogs will not be included & minors will be blocked. update: AGELESS BLOGS WILL BE IGNORED
note1: this is something new that ive never tried before, so i do hope people will show it some love ♡
note2: thank you to my sarah for not just the banner but for also listening & sharing ideas over the last 2 days to create this series
“when you decided to meet up with taehyung for dinner to reconnect, you didn’t expect to see jungkook, your ex, on a date with his current girlfriend and not to mention, end up fake dating taehyung.”
warnings: cursing, reader feels very guilty in this one, alcohol consumption (nothing major/bad though)
playlist: happier - ed sheeran, just asking - aquilo, my tears ricochet - taylor swift, one last time please - dodie
a/n: uh, super nervous to post this because ive never written so much before, but i had a ton of fun and i hope you guys enjoy it! if you guys have any problems reading, liking or reblogging it, please let me know! im not sure if tumblr can handle such a word count, so id appreciate it if you guys would tell me if something doesnt work and ill figure it out! anyway, hope you guys enjoy this as much as i enjoyed writing this!
→warnings: mentions of bad sexual experiences, nickname you guys might find cringey (sorry babes), praise, a little degradation, a little manhandling, oral sex (f recieving), fingering, squirting, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, forced orgasm, very brief mentions of anal play, brief mentions of sex toys and masturbation, spitting, titty sucking, protected sex (hes a hoe but not a dummy), jk is kinda a himbo (scratch that last side note), jk running through twice members lmao sorry girlies, pining, maybe unrequited love, maybe not, ill let u decide, oc is in denial in the beginning, oc has that lemon water coochie!!, daddy kink + daddy kink slander (not seriously!), slight corruption kink
→summary: You usually spend Friday nights on your own. Tonight, however, your friend and campus fuckboy, Jungkook, decides to pay you a visit.
→notes: hi friends!! i’m back with my second fic!! i posted this last night but miss ting had a bad case of the typos rip </3. so I had it beta'd by my bby @kookstempo pls go give her love >:((( ! i found the smut a little easier to write this time. still not that good lol but not as mentally taxing! oc is totally definitely not a little bit of a projection of me haha thisficwassexuallycathartictowrite i hope you guys like it! i would love to know your thoughts! also would be v cool if you checked out my masterlist here. love u bye!!
→series: | pt. 1 | pt. 2 | pt. 3 |
It’s 10 p.m. on a Friday.
The night of the week that lures college students out of their suffocating dorm rooms with the promise of parties and alcohol. After days of classes, hours of studying, and minutes of sleep, most people your age spend their weekends unwinding, hopping from frat house to frat house.
One of the many perks of living on campus is the social life. Being surrounded by young adults is exciting. It also means that everyone is horny. Ravenously so. Seriously. Anything with a hole or phallic-shaped appendage is a prime candidate for getting fucked.
Anything and everyone, except you.
It wasn’t that you couldn’t get fucked, per se. Although abundant, your options were limited. Given the environment, it was difficult to find a guy you actually felt comfortable with. He didn’t have to be in love with you, but he did have to respect you if he wanted to get anywhere near your sugar walls. With that being said, it was slim pickings.
You coped well, for the most part. But it was hard to shake the lonely feelings that bubbled in your chest from time to time. And the feral ones. Nothing a quick rub from your petite, manicured fingers couldn’t satisfy, you suppose…
Besides, all men do is disappoint you. The only two sexual partners you’ve had thus far were subpar, to say the least. Greedy. Disgusting. Selfish. Not an ounce of concern for your pleasure. As embarrassing as it was to admit, you’ve never orgasmed from sex. Not even close. That left a sour, lemony taste in your mouth. Ever since then, your pussy was on hiatus, locked away in the highest room of the tallest tower, until a worthy knight came to save it from this tortuous dry spell.
You sigh, peeling the honey-drenched sheet mask off your face and tossing it into the trash with vigor. You eye yourself in the mirror with a scowl. Fluffy, freshly plucked brows knit together as you examine your appearance. You’re wearing a cropped white tank top, nipples poking through the little animated cherubs printed on the front. The baby pink Sailor Moon pajama shorts on your thighs left little to the imagination. White kitty ears headband keeping those annoying baby hairs out of your face.
You’re cute, right?
Atleast you tried to look cute.
Your roommate, Mina, was visiting family for the weekend, leaving you the dorm to yourself. Without your extraverted lifeline, you decided it was the perfect opportunity to stay in and pamper yourself.
You’ve already waxed your body, head to toe, with that expensive sugaring wax Mina begged you not to get. ‘It was worth it,’ you thought to yourself when you had spread your peach-scented lotion on the smooth canvas of your legs after the shower.
You even gave yourself a facial. Extractions and all. Much cooler and more productive than partying and getting laid.
You take your headband off, ruffling your thick hair until it falls into place. You reach for your candy-flavored Laneige lip mask, spreading it across your plump pout with your middle finger. Another overpriced purchase.
You exit the bathroom, shuffling towards your twin-sized bed and then falling face first into the plush, ivory duvet. So comfy. It wasn’t even midnight and you were ready to hit the hay.
You had planned to study a bit before knocking out, but the warm shower left you sleepy. Plus, the past week has been hell. Two papers and an impromptu quiz from your least favorite professor. You were a good student. A great one, even. But you were an overachiever to the core, and still found yourself stressing over assignments you knew you aced.
You let out a small yawn, squinting at the brightness around you. Along the wall beside your bed were vine garlands, embellished with little fairy lights and pink roses. They were such a pain in the ass to put up. It took you and Mina nearly three hours, and a mental breakdown on your behalf, to stick them against the drywall in the right position. High maintenance, but cute, nonetheless. Kinda like you.
The lights dim as your mind turns hazy, eventually turning into a silent black as sleep clouds your vision. Sweet, blissful sleep. You were teetering into the REM phase when-
Knock. Knock.
The booming noise startles you awake, rattling the brittle wood of your cheaply built door. The wall hangings flutter in its wake.
Maybe you were being dramatic. The knocks were actually soft and melodic. Almost cheerful as they followed the rhythm of a made-up song. But you were pissed. Even the most heavenly sound would ring demonic and evil in your ears at the moment.
You shove yourself off of your bed with an exaggerated groan, stomping towards the door and yanking it open, fully prepared to yell at whoever was behind it.
Jeon Jungkook.
His expression is blank, doe-eyes widening as he takes in your expression. Your body language radiates hostility and violence. The silver barbell glimmers as his thick, dark brows twitch in confusion. He blinks before opening his mouth. “Hey,” he utters hastily.
Under different circumstances, you would be ecstatic.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Jungkook?”
“Woah, someone’s cranky,” he laughs hesitantly. “I was bored. Figured you were, too. Mina is gone, right?”
“Are you drunk or something?”
“What- no,” his plump lips form a pout, the matching silver ring on the bottom corner shining as well.
You sneer at him, pupils darting over his outfit. Oversized gray hoodie, white t-shirt peeking from the unzipped portion at the top. Gray sweatpants. Your gaze lingers on the tight pull of the material in the front. He doesn’t seem drunk, and he isn’t dressed in his usual party attire.
“I just want to hang out with you. Why are you acting so sus?”
You roll your eyes, doing everything in your power to exaggerate your irritation. “Why are you here?”
“Oh, come on, Bambi. Don’t be like that.”
Bambi.
That stupid nickname.
You and Jungkook had met at a party after you were peer pressured into a game of beer pong. The super boisterous, super attractive stranger ended up being your partner by default.
"What do you mean you’ve never played before?" He questioned you, voice laced with devastation when he realized you were about to cost him his undefeated streak.
Despite Jungkook’s best efforts, Mina and her boyfriend, Taehyung, mopped the floor with you.
"You know what, I like you. You’re a little bitchy but-,” he slurred at the end of the night, helping you gather the discarded solo cups, "Also innocent. Kinda like a baby deer. What the fuck was that movie?"
You answered him curtly with a scowl.
"Bambi! Right… I can’t wait to ruin you." He was so wasted that night he ended up vomiting off of the second-floor balcony and onto the class president’s Honda Civic. Not drunk enough to forget the awfully humiliating, yet adorable nickname he had bestowed you.
“Give me one good reason why I should let you in.”
“I have pancakes,” he beams with pride, bunny teeth peeking out. He raises both arms, showing you the crinkled takeout bags in his hands. “Chocolate chip-”
“That’s disgusting,” you scoff.
“And blueberry,” he retorts with a squint. “Please? I won’t be annoying, I promise.”
You let out a contemplative noise. It wasn’t what you had planned for the night, but you guess company wouldn’t hurt. Especially his company.
If only you could mute your evil brain.
“I thought you had plans with whatsherface,” you question, stepping aside to let Jungkook enter your room.
He kicks his slides off at the door, something you’ve drilled into his head with violent words and empty threats. You remember him texting the groupchat a screenshot of his calendar, tonight being marked ‘PUSSY APPOINTMENT’ with the woozy face emoji next to it. The same one that was inked on his middle finger; it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why. Tonight was one of many slots in his month with the exact same title. That picture was deleted from your phone as soon as you received it.
“Sana,” he corrects, face unimpressed like he expected you to keep a mental catalog of all his flavors of the week.
You did. Every time a new name was added to the roster, your heart sank. You would never admit it though.
“I did, but I guess she has a boyfriend now or some shit?” He plops down onto the baby pink area rug beside your bed, immediately digging through the takeout bags.
“How dare she?” You gasp sarcastically, taking the styrofoam container that he held up for you and sitting criss-cross on your bed.
“I know, right? That’s what I’m saying,” he laughs, opening a syrup packet and pouring it over his pancakes.
You cringe, foreseeing a sticky, impossible to clean mess all over your floor. “Please don’t fuck up my rug, Jungkook.”
“I won’t,” he mumbles halfheartedly, bringing the pad of his thumb to his mouth. The tip of his tongue pokes out to kitten lick at the sugary liquid before wrapping his plump, pink lips around it.
He sucks gently and then pulls off with a tiny smooch.
Wow.
Are you really that far gone? There was no denying that Jungkook was attractive. But were you really that touch starved that you were drooling over every minuscule, minute movement he made?
“Maybe she was sick of you stringing her along,” you comment, trying to cover up the fact that you were totally just gawking at him.
“Nah,” he murmurs through chubby cheeks, mouth full of pancake. “She knew it was just sex.”
“Did she though? What about Dahyun?”
“Well aware.”
“Jihyo?”
“Yep.”
“Nayeon?”
“Are you slut-shaming me?” He points his plastic fork at you, bringing the opposite hand to his chest in feigned offense. “Because I feel very attacked right now.”
You playfully nudge his shoulder with your thigh-high sock-clad foot, deciding to drop the subject. To be fair, he wasn’t wrong. Jungkook had a reputation on campus. Every girl who involved themselves with him knew what the outcome would be. He was very blunt about his desires and disinterests. Sex being the prior. Commitment being the latter.
But you suppose remaining detached was easier said than done. Something about him was… magnetic. He was bold, yet soft. Obnoxious, but endearing. A sweet talker for sure. And easily the freest person you’ve ever known. Add sex into the equation, and it must be nearly impossible not to fall in love with him…
Hm. That’s enough thinking for the night.
You need background noise to keep intrusive thoughts at bay. He peeps an ‘I don’t care’ when you ask him what he wants to watch. You take it upon yourself. Sailor Moon it is.
The pancakes keep him preoccupied for a while. You glance down at him every now and then. His eyes sparkle as he watches the cartoon on your phone screen. There’s a little speck of chocolate on the corner of his mouth. His tongue makes an encore appearance, licking it away before fidgeting with his lip. How sinful.
He starts getting squirmy about halfway through the episode. Antsy hands pull at the strings on the border of the carpet below him. Every now and then he draws a shape and erases it. One of the shapes is a penis, something you’d see on the back of a middle school textbook.
He scoots with a sigh, pressing his spine against the edge of your bed, and then bending his head back. Fluffy dark strands tickle your legs as he peers up at you. “Can you play with my hair?”
“Why would I do that?” You huff, hot and bothered by the sudden contact.
“It helps me stay still. Please?”
“Oh, um- okay,” you oblige, gulping like you’ve dry swallowed a huge pill. You cautiously card your digits through his hair. It’s so soft and healthy.
He purrs and closes his eyes.
He's silent once again, enjoying your touch, even pushing into it a bit. Very cat-like.
That lasts for about three minutes. His inability to not speak every single thought that enters the void of his mind takes over.
‘I just realized they’re all named after planets.’
‘Wait, the moon isn’t a planet, is it?’
‘Why are they dressed so sexy to fight space monsters?’
“Jungkook, shut up!”
“But I’m bored,” he whines. “Is this really how you spend your Friday nights?”
“Excuse me, I’d like to see you take STEM classes for a week and then tell me how you feel,” you contend, leaning over to grab your phone off the nightstand. You don’t miss the way his gaze lingers on your nipples. It makes your palms clammy. “Sometimes, it’s nice to just chill.”
“You don’t masturbate?” He asks calmly as if he had just inquired about the weather.
You give him an exasperated look.
“What? That’s how I destress,” he continues, shrugging nonchalantly. “Don’t you have a vibrator?”
“I- no! Why are you asking all these questions?” You shriek, absolutely mortified.
“What do you mean ‘no’?” He lifts his head off of your lap, craning his neck so you can see his appalled expression, your answer leaving him equally as mortified. “Damn, that’s wild,” he tuts in disapproval.
“I would rather not have to smuggle a sex toy into my dorm room, Jungkook,” you retort.
“You can borrow mine,” he smirks, turning his body to face you, obviously relishing in the reactions he’s pulling out of you. “It’s a Hitachi. It’s really strong too, like, most girls don’t even last five minutes.”
“Why do you have- you know what, nevermind actually!” You clench your eyes shut, poking your fingers into your ears and shaking your head dramatically. Your reaction is mostly out of embarrassment and partly because the thought of him pleasing women who aren’t you hurts for whatever reason. “I’m done with this discussion!”
“Seriously?” He wheezes, thoroughly enjoying your tantrum. He wraps his long, nimble fingers around your wrists, pulling your hands away. Your skin burns under the touch. “I want to get to know you more.”
“Yeah, but you don’t need to know-,” you rip out of his grasp, flailing your hands around in circular motions, “-those things.”
“I’m just trying to make conversation,” he frowns.
“About?”
“Anything.”
“Okay, um...” you look around the room nervously, searching for the right thing to say. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Black. What’s your favorite position?”
“Jungkook!”
“I think missionary is my favorite. Very underrated,” he says, tapping his chin like it’s an answer only an intellectual would’ve given. “The kind where her legs are pushed alllll the way back,” he emphasizes the ‘all’ by balling his hands into fists and lifting them up by his head, showing you exactly where he likes them. “You hit the g-spot perfectly that way.”
You level him with a scowl, crossing your arms over your chest. Unamusement written all over.
“Why are you so mad?” He laughs. “What? You’re embarrassed to talk about sex?”
A pause.
“You’re not a virgin, are you?”
“Jungkook, no…” you sigh, rubbing your temples in frustration. “I’m just not like you, okay? I don’t like sex as much as you and everybody else on this fucking campus does!”
He hesitates for a moment as he processes your sudden outburst. The first time you’ve ever seen him rendered speechless. You can picture the cogs turning in that thick skull of his.
He inhales sharply, eyebrows raising up to his hairline as if something clicked. His tongue pokes at the inside of his cheek, cute dimple peeping out from the pull. His head drops as he huffs out a laugh.
“What’s so funny, Jeon?”
“Ah, I see now.”
“See what?” You groan, bothered by his vagueness.
“Here's what I think, Bambi,” he mumbles in a low tone, sitting up from his spot on the floor so his gaze is aligned with yours. His palms are on either of your crossed legs, fingers curling into your white blanket. Forcing you to make eye contact with him- his pupils are black, nothing like the soft brown you’re accustomed to. “You’re so uptight because you haven’t had sex in a while- good sex, at least.”
Your breath catches in your throat. You say nothing.
“The guys you fuck don’t know how to treat you, am I right? They can’t make you cum?”
Crickets.
Your lack of response tells him the answer.
When you do speak, your words come out shaky. “Well, what makes you any different?”
He shuffles closer, knocking his forehead right against yours, invading your space. He’s so close that you feel claustrophobic. Your heart pounds in your chest.
“I always make the girl cum.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhm,” he hums through curled lips as he nods, silver hoops swaying at the motion, nose brushing against yours. “More than once.”
His dilated pupils scan over your body, pausing at your chest for a moment, and then continuing their descent. A hand slides up your bare thigh, the warm touch leaving goosebumps in its wake. He grabs the hem of your shorts between his index and middle fingers, tugging gently. “These are cute.” He licks his lips, making them pink and glossy, like he’s ready to eat you. “I’d like them better somewhere else though.”
“Jungkook…”
And then he's kissing you.
It’s soft, like he’s afraid to scare you away by putting too much pressure into it. Little does he know you’ve been thinking about this for a while.
All your protesting and fighting up until this point was futile. Your hands unconsciously make their way to his cheeks. You swear you feel him smirking. It’s like he can read your mind, knowing exactly how bad you’ve wanted this.
He prods his tongue against your bottom lip, urging you to let him in. You do. He wraps an arm around your waist and guides you down, hovering over you.
“You taste like candy,” he whispers against your lips, hot and needy. Take that, Mina. A sneaky hand cups you through your shorts, right where he knows your clit is. The thin material does nothing to conceal how wet you are. “Do you taste like candy here too? Can I try?”
You’re anxious, but you can’t stop. Not when he’s so enticing. Not when the rumors of his sexual prowess are swimming around in your mind. Jungkook could ask anything of you and you’d gladly obey. You give him a small nod.
“Don’t be nervous,” he teases through an airy laugh, breath fanning across your face. It smells like chocolate and syrup. He turns his head and presses a gentle kiss on your fingertips. You swoon.
Hooking his thumbs into the sides of your shorts, he pulls them below your butt. He dips his head down, biting into the side of your thigh. A predator sinking its teeth into its prey. Not hard enough to hurt. It’s just enough to rip a whine from you. “Fuck,” he grumbles, pulling your shorts completely off. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this.”
He’s been wanting this, too?
“Let’s leave these on though,” he sighs, speaking in reference to your socks. It was something you knew he found sexy, overhearing a graphic conversation with Taehyung about kinks and other filthy things. That may or may not have been the motivation behind your purchase.
You cringe. Being naked in front of someone for the first time in a long time was nerve-wracking.
“No panties?” Jungkook asks, looking at you quizzically. “Dressed so skimpy, Bambi. All for me?”
“I didn’t know you were gonna show up...”
“Oh shit, you’re right,” he chuckles, caressing your legs with his large thumbs. You appreciate the gesture.
Cool air brushes against your exposed core when he parts your thighs. His gaze locks onto your dripping center. You whine and cross your arms over your face. Maybe if you squeeze hard enough you’ll revert back into yourself and escape this dreadfully vulnerable feeling.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…” he starts, words dying out because his attention is elsewhere. Jungkook has seen a lot of pussy throughout his life, but yours has got to be the, “prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen. So fucking wet.” He settles back onto his knees, hooking his limbs around your thighs and pulling you to the edge of the bed.
Jungkook watches in awe as he spreads your lips open with his thumb and index fingers, stealing a peek at your shiny center. He takes a long, languid lick from your pussy to your clit. He moans when the wet muscle dips between your folds, eyes scrunching as his feature contorts into a scowl. You recognize that face. That angry face he makes when he tastes something he finds incredibly yummy. It’s the same one he made when he ate his pancakes.
Have you really studied him so much that you’ve picked up on his subtle habits? Nevertheless, the fact that he actually seemed to be enjoying going down on you was jarring. You’ve never experienced this before. It felt so fucking good. You were already close and he has barely touched you. You let out a whimper.
“Mm, you’re so responsive,” he notes, absolutely loving the little sounds you’re peeping. Much different than the blaring moans and screams he is used to. Despite the ego boost they give him, your shy whimpers are a welcomed change. Each one makes his cock twitch, forcing him to bring a hand down, palming himself through his sweats. “When’s the last time someone ate you out?”
“Never…”
“I don’t see why not,” he coos sympathetically, shaking his head in disapproval. He gives you another lick, tongue pressed flat against you. “You taste like lemonade, so sweet.”
That had you absolutely drenched.
You move up onto your elbows, watching as he throws your legs over his broad shoulders. He licks the pad of his thumb, this time actually sinful. He presses it right to your bud, rubbing it before pulling the sensitive skin taut, lifting the hood and exposing your clit.
He tuts his tongue, whispering something so quietly you barely catch it, only making out a breathy iteration of the word ‘tiny’. Heavy eyes flicker up to yours as he places two soft pecks on it, then blows delicately.
“Jungkook, please…”
“Sorry,” he chuckles, “I won’t tease-,” sentiment interrupted with an open-mouthed kiss, “I know how bad you must want it.”
He circles the tip of his tongue on your clit before suctioning his lips around it. You gnaw onto your lower lip, face twisting up in pleasure.
This is easily a far better form of self care than what you had planned.
It’s obvious that this is something Jungkook does a lot. He is a photography major, and has never struck you as someone who is incredibly bright, but the way he touched is strategic. He has spent the better part of the past decade perfecting his craft, studying the way women move their bodies when he applies a certain amount of pressure. The beautiful noises they make when he stimulates them in certain spots. He has the exact equation to make you fall apart.
There is a pattern to it. He latches onto your swollen nub, cheeks hollowing with a few harsh sucks, before licking over it, letting his tongue dip into your entrance. You can’t help the subtle thrusts into his mouth with every glide of his tongue. The consistency had your stomach doing somersaults.
He sinks further down, lapping at your folds, never straying too far from your clit, burying himself so deep into your pussy that the tip of his nose nudges against it. A big palm slides up your torso, reaching under your tank top to grab at your chest, thumb flicking over your hardened nipple.
“Jung- fuck!” You croak, high-pitched and desperate. “I’m close.”
You expect him to pull away. He, instead, acknowledges you with an ‘mhm’, nuzzling even further into your cunt.
You can’t help the instinctual, or more so learned, shame bubbling in your stomach. Your hips jerk away. Legs close tight around his head, attempting to save him from the brunt of your orgasm. He simply pries them back open, nails digging into your inner thigh. You grasp onto his hair, tugging it back as you curse under your breath.
He doesn’t like that.
He pops off of your clit with a sharp, annoyed growl. “Can you stop?” The stern edge in his voice makes you flinch, releasing your grip immediately. “You don’t have to control every situation. Just relax.”
“I’m sorry,” you squeak.
His gaze softens immediately. He didn’t want you to apologize and he definitely didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. “You can touch me, Bambi,” he grabs hands and places them back on his head, encouraging them to tangle in his tresses once again. “Keep me here, though. Wanna make you cum in my mouth.”
It’s strange, being pampered during sex. Taken care of.
You peer down at him. His mouth and cheeks are dewy, covered in your arousal. Even the tip of his nose is wet. He’s not uncomfortable in the slightest.
You push him down, giving him the green light to continue. The descent is quick. Starting in your stomach before it shoots through the rest of your body. You throw your head back, teeth digging into your lip as you desperately try to stifle the lewd moans threatening to escape.
Jungkook guides you through it, slowing down towards the tail end of your orgasm. He pulls away with a satisfied hum, standing up from his spot on the floor. “Taste?” He asks, squishing your cheeks with his big hand. His tongue licks right against yours when you stick it out, lips closing into a sloppy kiss. “Good, right?”
You don’t really taste anything, but you nod anyway. Maybe a slight hint of citrus. Or maybe you were delirious after the best orgasm of your life. The only partnered orgasm of your life.
His eyes are scrunched, but you can still see the stars in his dark pupils as he smiles down at you. You mirror him with the opposite expression, irises wide and blown out. He giggles, nuzzling into the side of your face and then nipping at your cheek. “You’re like a space girl,” your heart melts at the Sailor Moon reference. “So clueless. I wanna do everything to you. Teach you everything.”
“Like what?”
“Have you ever squirted before?”
You freeze. “No… I don’t think everyone can.”
“That’s not true. Everyone can squirt with a good partner and the right mindset,” he proclaims enthusiastically, shooting you a thumbs up. The tent in his pants on full display.
“Right mindset?” You giggle, raising a brow at him.
“Yeah, it’s pretty intense.” He grabs a half-empty water bottle, your water bottle, off the nightstand, taking a big sip. “I can get you there,” he states, a droplet of water dripping down his chin. “You have to listen to me, though. You can continue your ‘girlboss’ bullshit after I’m done with you.”
You roll your eyes. If any other man said that to you, you would be livid. You would literally rain hellfire upon them. But it’s Jungkook. You know he’s joking, and the soft spot you have for him prevents you from ripping him a new one.
He smiles when you agree, pecking your cheek before unzipping his hoodie and shrugging it off his shoulders. You watch his muscles work. Toned, firm biceps exposed for your viewing pleasures. He recently recolored the tattoos on his right arm.
You remember him venting about his parents’ disapproval of them, and his major, when he walked you to your dorm after a party a few weeks ago. It was the only time you’ve ever seen the fun-loving, jovial man feel melancholic. You coin that night the night you developed... whatever it was that you have for him now.
“Alright,” he gestures to the cotton sweater, now spread out on your bed. “Lay here.”
“Why?”
“I mean…” he looks at you like you’re stupid. “You don’t want to get this wet, right?” He counters, pinching your blanket.
Cockiness just oozes out of him. It makes wetness ooze out of you.
You comply, laying down on the soft material. It’s warm and smells like the delicate linen cologne he normally wears. You bask in the scent.
“I usually use lube for this, but…” he clicks his tongue, knowing you don’t have any. “We can make it work.” Leaning down, he lets a string of spit land on your clit. It tickles as it trickles down your folds. He’s quick to collect it with his fingertips, smearing the moisture all over.
“Take your top off, please. I wanna see those pretty tits.”
It’s barely a top. The jagged, raw hem only conceals half of your perked nipples. How ironic is it that you’re wearing an angel print tank while being absolutely defiled. You sit up, taking it off easily and tossing it on the floor before laying back down.
“It’s not going to hurt, is it?” You wonder, reflecting on his earlier statements.
“Why, you nervous?” He teases with a lopsided grin. It drops when he sees the apprehensive look on your face. “It shouldn’t hurt, but if it does you’ll tell me, right?”
“Right,” you moan, another drop of saliva hitting your pussy.
“Hold your legs up, keep them open,” he orders, sucking back the extra spit with a hiss.
Pink nails curl under your thighs, bringing them up to your chest just as Jungkook instructed. He pops his middle and ring fingers into his mouth, bringing them down to tease at your entrance before slipping in, palm facing up.
There’s an adjustment period, his fingers being much bigger than your own. You’re so aroused that the tenderness subsides quickly. “Fuck,” you yelp when he starts gently petting at your g-spot.
He doesn’t jam his fingers into you carelessly, an unpleasant sensation you’ve been subjected to in the past. His digits never leave you. Instead, they move in a sensual curl that makes you purr. Every touch is focused, intricately placed on that delicious spot.
“Pussy so wet,” his voice comes out as strained as his pants. He sounds so turned on and filled with lust. It makes you clamp around his fingers. He lets out the tiniest moan, using his free hand to grab yours, sucking three fingers into his mouth. “Touch your clit for me.”
You bring your hand down, rubbing side to side. “Uh-uh, circles.”
Immediately, you follow his command. You look so delicious he can’t help himself, bending at the waist to latch onto one of your nipples.
“Please, Jungkook, more…”
“Yeah?” He mumbles against your chest, sending vibrations through the sensitive skin. You nod frantically. “I usually don’t give in this easily, but I think you deserve it. Been such a good girl. You can have more, Bambi.” You know it’s just sex talk. A stream of consciousness fueled by his horniness. All the blood leaving his head to fill his cock, making him more dumb than usual, but you can’t help but feel special.
“It’s going to build up fast, okay?”
You mumble a small ‘mhm’. How bad can it really be?
Jungkook starts moving his hand rapidly, fingers thrashing up and down. There's so much force behind his movements that your hips lift and dip.
You’re overwhelmed. Constant, vigorous stimulation right to your g-spot. A strange swelling feeling starts pooling in your lower stomach. High-pitched whimpery moans and wet squelching noises fill the room.
“J- daddy, fuck!” It is so intense you can’t form a coherent sentence. There’s faint laughter in the background. “No, no, no…” you plead, wrapping your hand around his wrist, nails digging into his skin. It’s too good. So good that it made you scared.
His movements halt. “Am I hurting you?”
“No, too much… fuck!” You shout when he continues at the same intensity, your body thrashing wildly. You feel out of control.
“Shh,” he whispers softly. “You can take it. Just let it happen.”
You inhale sharply, doing your best to calm down. It’s difficult when he keeps touching you like that. Your fingers curl into his sweater, bracing yourself. As soon as you stop fighting that full feeling, as soon as you loosen the tense muscles, it’s going to hit you.
You relax and a wave of the most intense pleasure you’ve ever felt ripples over you.
There’s an intense, world-shattering, euphoric release.
And then nothing.
Your head is empty. Your ears ring. Your vision is distorted by white splotches.
Complete solace.
Your senses come back after a few minutes of heavy breathing. It’s fuzzy, but you can see the ceiling fan swirling above you.
There’s a metallic taste on your tongue.
You can feel droplets trickling down your inner thighs, a damp puddle under your butt, and a warm set of lips on your temple.
“Welcome back to planet Earth,” Jungkook jokes, pushing away the wispy flyaways that stick to your forehead. You blink absently as you slowly make out his features. You swear there’s a glowing aura around him. “You good?”
“So good,” you confirm halfheartedly. “You’re so good.”
“You came so much,” he hums in satisfaction, placing a few pecks against your jaw. Jungkook was actually surprised at how much wetness he coaxed out of you. You just kept on cumming. The prettiest waterfall he’s ever seen. Damp fingers brush up and down your bicep, a comforting gesture. “You called me daddy.”
“Shut up,” you groan, covering your face. “Don’t talk about it.”
“I won’t, it was fucking gross,” he laughs, smiling down at you so genuinely that it reaches his eyes. This was just a hookup, you assume, but he’s just so pretty. You can’t stop yourself from pressing a sweet kiss to his lips. He reciprocates. It feels so intimate. Too intimate for a pair of friends. You’re so tired but you want more. Everything.
“Take this off, please,” you ball the white fabric of his shirt into your tiny fists, mimicking his words from earlier. “Let me see those pretty tits.”
He quirks a brow at you, standing up straight and pulling his shirt off by the collar. It’s discarded onto the floor, with all the other useless, bothersome items.
His tits are pretty. Chest flushed red from exertion, nipples pink and tiny. His body is fit, but not overly muscular. Lean and toned. Just what you like.
You snake your legs around his cinched waist, constricting his pelvis flush against yours.
“Is it my turn now?” He says, loving your sudden burst of confidence. His jaw goes slack when you start grinding on his clothed cock. There’s a slick spot where your bodies meet, heather gray turning dark as the fabric dampens. Jungkook lets you play with him for a bit, rutting against you until he physically cannot stand it anymore. “I’ve never wanted to fuck someone so bad.”
“Then do it,” you whimper, growing impatient. He sighs, hand coming down to fiddle with the sweater underneath you. You crane your neck, watching curiously as he pulls a square packet out of the pocket.
There’s a sharp pain in your chest when you see it. “Did you plan on us hooking up?”
“Maybe,” he contends playfully. All the amusement in his face disappears when he flicks his bangs back and sees yours. Hurt and disappointed. “I always keep condoms on me, you know that,” he explains, voice soft and wary.
It makes sense. He was sexually active. Very much so.
That scares you. You could possibly be just another girl he’s sexually active with. A last ditch effort to get laid because the first option bailed. The puzzle pieces start coming together.
You look him in the eyes. His pupils are brown again. They look pleading, concerned for your wellbeing. Afraid they’ve tarnished something so delicate. You can’t tell if it’s just your delusions, post-orgasm bliss. All you know is you never want him to stop looking at you the way he is right now.
“Can I put it on?” You ask, pointing at the condom in his hand, desperate to break the tension.
“I- sure,” he retorts, exhaling deeply like he was holding his breath, relieved. He gives it to you, using his other hand to pull his pants by the waistband, stopping mid-thigh. Too rushed and eager to take them off completely.
He didn’t have underwear on either.
You squint, trying to read the white font on the packet. Large.
You glance up, eyes bulging out of your skull when they land on his cock. It’s big. So aroused that it points straight up, resting on his abdomen. The tip is bright pink, standing out against the background of his smooth milky pelvis. It’s shiny with precum, a little bead sitting right at the slight. Your gaze trails up the veiny underside, following the acute upward curve. You gulp.
“You good?”
“Yeah,” you say, jittery hands tearing open the foil packet. You cautiously wrap your hand around the shaft. It’s so firm. Rock solid and touch starved. It jumps in your palm as you slip the sticky rubber down, making sure to stroke him along the way. “Big, thas’ all.”
He nods, the corner of his lips pulling up in a smirk. He can tell your words are equally as worried as they are complimentative, though. “I’ll be gentle,” he promises, holding on to your ankle to lift your leg, kissing it through your white sock. Gaze locked on you, making sure you’re watching and that you know he can be soft with you.
He bends both of your knees up to your chest, tapping your outer thigh, indicating he wants you to hold them again. Tattooed knuckles wrap around the base of his cock, laying it flat against your pelvis. “Fuck,” he mutters under his breath when he sees the tip reaches just below your belly button, knowing exactly what to envision when he’s inside you. His cock so deep it’s in your stomach.
He smacks the shaft between your folds. Filthy, wet slapping noises overpower your coos and purrs. The tip tickles your entrance, rubbing up and down your folds, before he brings it to your abused clit again, flicking it up and down like a light switch. Watching your face intently to gauge your reaction, looking for any prick of discomfort.
“Put it in,” you frown, growing impatient.
“So needy,” Jungkook teases, gripping his cock right under the crown and pushing in. Only the tip. He uses his fingers as a buffer, trying not to give too much too fast. Pulling back agonizingly slow and then diving back in, giving you a little bit more length this time. It was only an inch or so, but the stretch burned. You catch your bottom lip between your teeth, trying to hold back the tears that are threatening to spill.
He repeats this process, working you open little by little until he’s buried to the hilt. He lets out a pained grunt, overwhelmed by the way your warm wet walls just suffocate him. “Fuck, tightest pussy ever.”
You clench your eyes shut, trying to ease the feeling of getting impaled. Jungkook is so big. The veins that run along his shaft, the thickness, the curve. He leans down and pecks your nose sweetly. His thumb, rubbing tight circles against your clit, provides a decent distraction. You focus on the pleasure instead of the pain.
“Feel okay, Bambi?” He coos, feeling you relax under him. “Can I move?”
With furrowed brows, he pulls out a few inches before thrusting back in slowly. Heavy eyes glued on the way your lips petal around him when he gives you more. The way they resist when takes his cock away. “Good girl,” he praises, voice raspy as he tries his best to maintain a slow, shallow pace. “You take it so well.”
Any pang of discomfort is gone. He prepped you so well that there’s no friction, just seamless glides in and out of your leaking cunt. The upturned tip of his cock tickles that sweet spot in you. You moan, digging your almond-shaped nails into your thighs, arching your back for more.
Jungkook sees your body language. He knows what to do in this situation. One of the most useful sex tips he’s ever learned. He leans forward, pressing his chest against yours, swollen lips latching onto your neck. They suck a sore spot that his tongue quickly soothes over. “Hold on to me,” he commands, wet pout smushed to your skin.
You let go of your thighs, leaving little crescent indents on the surface, and throw your arms around his shoulders. Hooking your knees into the bend of his elbows, Jungkook hoists you up effortlessly, supporting your weight with his large palms on your ass. The change in position spreads you even further, slides him in even deeper.
“Mmm, f-,” you moan, words cut short when he starts bouncing you up and down on his cock.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Mmm, I knew it,” he chuckles sadistically, right into your ear. “I knew you were just waiting to be ruined. So fucking high-strung and- fuck!” He can feel your arousal dripping down to his balls. “Controlling.”
Arguing is pointless. You swear he's in your head, the tip of his cock scrambling your brain around so that you can’t even think straight. All you can think about is him.
You cling to him, resting your cheek against his shoulder as he lifts you in the air. Letting him have his way with you. You’re never felt more alive.
‘Orgasms are the pinnacle of the human experience,’ you recall Jungkook telling you one day at the library. At the time, you rolled your eyes. Now, you know exactly what he meant.
“You just needed some dick, huh? My dick?” You nod, drooling against his skin. “Doesn’t it feel good to let go?” All you can get out is a little moan.
A glint flickers in the corner of your eye. Mina’s mirror. It’s leaning against the wall right in front of you. You can see the expanse of his back. The taut skin on his shoulder blades. Biceps bulging as he moves you. His pants slid down to his knees, so you can see his cute butt dimpling when he thrusts up. Muscles working to make you cum.
“Okay,” he huffs, more to himself than you. Your pussy was so good that it derailed his original plan. Jungkook tosses you up a little, getting a more secure hold as he wraps an arm around your waist. The motion makes his cock slip out, the loss of contact makes you whine.
His free hand tosses his soiled hoodie out of the way. You cringe, making a mental note to mop tomorrow morning.
He places one of your fancy, cooling-gel pillows on the edge of the bed, laying you down on top of it. Your hips are elevated, tilted upwards. Giving him a clear view of your glowy core. He catches a glimpse of the only place he hasn’t destroyed.
“What about this?” He coos, pressing the pad of his thumb right against your clenching hole.
You squeak, shaking your head. Baby steps.
“Alright,” he chuckles, hand retreating promptly. “Maybe next time.”
He wants to do this again. Your heart flutters.
You watch as he guides himself back in, stuffing you to the brim in one swift motion. Much less cautious than earlier. His cock hits your g-spot perfectly. The pillow and his curve doing wonders. Your eyes roll back as your head hits the bed. “Like that, right?” He laughs, snapping into you.
“Yeah, Jungkook,” you moan out, gripping your ankles and bringing them up by your head, just how he likes. “Don’t stop.”
He could’ve busted right then and there.
“Fuck, keep saying my name,” he groans, eyes glancing up to your perky tits, jiggling freely with every snap of his hips. His pupils sneak down further, watching his cock plow into your tight, wet cunt, leaving it dewy and red.
You call his name like a metronome, ‘Jungkook, Jungkook, Jungkook’. Voice airy, following the rhythm of his hips. It makes him move harder and faster, feeling that familiar pooling at the base of his shaft.
Just like everything about him, his strokes are fluid. His hips aren’t locked and stiff. They move in a dip and roll that makes your toes curl. His pelvis mushes against your clit when he thrusts all the way in, balls smacking against the curve of your ass. It feels delicious. Your third orgasm of the night is approaching fast.
“You cumming, Bambi?” He hums, already recognizing the way your thick brows pull together when you're close. The way your hips rut a little, naturally guiding you to your orgasm.
“Mhm, make me cum Jungkook,” you mewl.
He hovers over you, placing his hands on top of yours, bending your legs back farther. Taking long, violent plunges into you. So close to a piledriver. He’s basically fucking you into the mattress, bed frame cracking against the wall beside it. One of your vine garlands falls down, but you’re so close you can’t even bring yourself to care.
Your climaxes blend together. You first, clenching and unclenching around his length. Moans coming out sporadic and your shoulders off the bed. Legs trembling in his hands.
His orgasm is stunning.
“Ah- fuck. I’m cumming,” he croaks through snarled teeth, head dropping to watch where you connect. Something he does often, you notice. He doesn’t stop, even after he spills into the condom, fucking you until he’s completely drained. You whimper, sensitive from the overstimulation.
“Damn,” Jungkook huffs out a laugh, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck. You fist the wavy strands at the back of his head, a little damp.
“Thank you,” you speak shyly.
“I know you’re new to this,” he lifts up and looks at you quizzically, amusement tickling his features, “But that’s kinda a weird thing to say after someone fucks you.”
You laugh with him, eyes darting over his face. He has a small scar on his cheek, something you’ve never noticed before.
“No, I just mean-” you cringe when he pulls out of you, feeling empty. “You’re the only guy who’s ever… I don’t know. You’re just different.”
He smiles with twinkling eyes, tying a knot at the end of the condom and tossing it into the pink trash can beside your nightstand. “You’re different, too,” he mirrors, plopping down onto the bed next to you. “Special.”
Special.
You sigh into his lips when he gives you a soft peck, thumb brushing against the newfound mark of his face. “I’m sorry that I made you do all the work.”
“Nah, don’t worry. Making you feel good makes me feel good.” His words are sweet but there’s a naughty glint in his eyes. “Besides, you can think of this as a practice round.”
“Practice round?”
He hums in conformation, tapping your ass lightly, making it ripple against his hand. “Alright, go take a leak before you get a UTI.” He laughs when you push his shoulder. The same old blunt, shameless Jungkook.
He stops you before you disappear into the bathroom. “I hope this won’t make things awkward between us. Like, we’re still friends, right?”
Friends.
It takes all of your strength to give him a nod. You ponder over his words as you clean up in the bathroom. Why did you feel so... conflicted? You’re so happy, but you’re also kinda sad. It’s like your mood solely depends on Jungkook. His words have the power to pull you in whatever direction he pleases. You stare at yourself in the mirror.
All these emotions must mean you have a crush on him.
You sigh, flicking off the light and then heading back into your room.
Jungkook is hunkered down in your sea of pillows, soft snores leaving his parted lips. Chest rising and falling steadily. Hair messy, fanned around him.
He looks so beautiful and peaceful.
You tilt your head at the sight. He always told you that he never spends the night after a hookup.
The blanket is only covering his pelvis, strong legs poking out from underneath. His sweats are still on his ankles. You giggle, attempting to slide them off without waking him.
“Bambi,” he mutters sleepily, opening his big arms. “C’mere.”
You feel your cheeks heat up. You shuffle into bed, throwing the covers over both of your bare bodies.
He wraps his arms around you, pecking your forehead before drifting back into slumber.
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