#bts jungkook police officer au

[jeonstudios]

dextrocardia | 15

Dextrocardia. Originally a medical term, but also a way to describe someone who's got their heart in the right place.

"She's been moved to another operation to help out. This pairing is necessary because you'll be undercover as spouses. I know you two can be professional about this."

"What?!" It's Jeongguk's upset voice that sounds, and for once, you share his displeased opinion.

Spouses.

pairing: cop!jk x f detective!reader

genre: undercover cops, fake marriage, e2l au, angst, fluff, (smut?)

word count: 6k

warnings: self-esteem issues, feelings

rating: NC-17 – Adults Only

masterlist

part 15/? 

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© dextrocardia is copyright jeonstudios. this fic can not be modified, re-posted, or translated without my permission.

The ride home lasts ten minutes, during which you’re holding back tears the entire time. It’s only when you’re finally inside your own apartment that you let them fall. It doesn’t help to see Fenrir’s collar and leash hanging next to your jackets, or his bowls still on the floor. In a way, it feels like you’re back at square one. 

You know you promised Jeongguk you’d call Jihyo, but you don’t, knowing she’d disapprove of you being on your own probably just as much as he does. Still, realizing that sooner or later you’ll need to either get back to work or find another job, you send her a text, asking if there’s any case for you to work on remotely until you’re ready to return fully.

The first night back is emotional, but you’re relieved to finally be home.

“I don’t think it matters how hard you throw it,” a worried Jimin watches Jeongguk hurl a dart at the dartboard. “Actually, I’m pretty sure you’d see better results if you didn’t throw it like an Olympic javelin thrower.”

Jeongguk doesn’t reply, just rolls his eyes and grabs another dart. The music around them is surprisingly quiet, drowned out by the chatter of the bustling bar.

“So, care to tell me what’s up with him?” Jin asks, nodding toward Jeongguk as he sets the three pints of beer on the table and takes a seat. 

“His little lady left him,” Jimin explains sadly, sliding one of the pints closer to Jeongguk.

“Oh. Why? You weren’t a couple, were you?” Jin asks.

“No,” is all Jeongguk mutters before he heads over to the dartboard to retrieve the darts. He has three of them, but only one actually hit the board; the other two embarrassingly stuck to the wood-paneled wall. From the marks already there, he’s at least not the first terrible dart-thrower. When he returns to the table with all the darts in hand, he pushes his designated pint back toward Jimin. “Can’t drink.”

Jimin meets his eyes, looking defeated. Jeongguk already explained that when you’re not with him, he can’t risk being drunk in case you need him. If you called, saying Hoseong had found you, Jeongguk would not hesitate to get on his bike or in his car, no matter how much he’s had to drink, and driving under the influence is something he’d rather avoid.

“She’s scared of me,” he repeats what you told him a few nights ago. Hearing the words from his own mouth stings less, but his heart still aches and his blood boils. He throws another dart but misses the board, and it sticks to the wall a few inches left of it. 

“Wait. What do you mean?” Jin asks, confusion written all over his face.

“Yeah. Although I’m pretty sure she hasn’t ruled out that I’ll just snap one day and kill her, she’s mostly scared that I’ll want to hurt her emotionally.”

“But why would you? I thought you two were doing alright? I mean, she’s been living with you for, what, the last month?”

“We were. Or at least, I thought so. She kissed me, and we were… getting closer, but I guess it freaked her out.”

“Why?”

“Remember how I told you I was horrible to her before I found out what Hoseong had done? Yeah, the things I said… they were inhumane.”

“What did you say?”

Jeongguk throws another dart, swinging his arm and using way too much force. “What haven’t I said? I’ve told her that she’s too ugly for me to look at, that she needs to stop eating, that she’s incompetent, and that she basically deserved being trafficked if only the traffickers would take her. That’s the short version.”

“Fuck, man,” Jimin breathes in disbelief. Jeongguk told him what happened ages ago but not explicitly what he’d said to you.

“Yeah. I just��� I wanted her to hurt, to pay for what I thought she’d done, but she never seemed affected. I’d call her something, and she’d flip me off or glare at me or call me an idiot or whatever, but she never… I thought she didn’t care, so the next time I saw her, I said something worse. But I wouldn’t have, obviously, if I… If I… knew.”

Jin puts his glass down, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. “I mean, I haven’t met her, but isn’t she, like, objectively very pretty? From what I’ve heard?”

“Yeah, she is,” Jeongguk sighs. “Which is also why I didn’t think she’d take it to heart, ‘cause what I said isn’t true in the slightest.” 

“But can’t she see how pathetically in love you are? No offense,” Jimin asks. “I mean, I take it you’ve apologized and probably told her what you really think? She doesn’t trust that?”

Jeongguk falls silent as he retrieves the darts again, shamefully avoiding eye contact with his friends on his way back.

“Wait, you haven’t apologized?”

“Of course I have,” he argues before lowering his voice. “I just kinda… fucked it up.”

He feels the confused stares of his friends. “I’ve apologized many, many times for how I treated her, and she seemed to kinda accept that? But I never explicitly apologized for the things I said. Nor have I told her how I actually feel about her.”

He sees how Jimin is about to tell him exactly what he thinks about that, but Jeongguk cuts him off before he's able to.

“After I somehow convinced her to stay with me, I thought carefully about how to act around her. I thought that it would be better to apologize for… everything. I thought ‘I’m sorry for how I treated you’ would cover it. And I didn’t want her to second-guess my intentions, so I didn’t actually tell her what I really think.”

“You mean ‘second-guess your intentions’ as in…” Jin trails off.

“As in think that I chose to help her because I was interested in her. I didn’t want her to think I had an agenda or to feel like she’d owe me in any way. She hasn’t had the best experience with men—men in law enforcement, especially—so I wanted to be as… safe, I guess, as possible for her. I didn’t realize she was still thinking about it, taking what I said as the truth.”

Jimin sighs. “So she thinks you might still consider her the ugliest creature to walk the earth is what you’re saying?”

“Apparently. I tried to convince her before she left, but of course, it didn’t seem genuine. I don’t blame her.”

A bit more optimistic, Jin tilts his head. “You don’t think she’ll believe you if you just tell her exactly what you just told us?”

But Jeongguk lets his shoulders slump. “I don’t think so. She told me I scare her because I have a desire to hurt anyone who wrongs me, and she doesn’t feel like she can read me. And I believe her. I wanted to hurt her, and during the mission, I had to pretend to love her when I really didn’t, so I kept switching up on her.”

The atmosphere shifts from frustrated and sad to just sad as Jeongguk runs his thumb over the dart in his hand.

“I lose either way. If I tell her that what I said back then was true, then I think she’s ugly, and I wanted to hurt her by saying so. But if I say that I lied and that she’s really the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, then I still wanted to hurt her. And after everything she’s been through, she doesn’t want a man with a desire to hurt.”

“But like you said, you didn’t mean to hurt her to that point, more so to be taken down a notch? And it got out of hand?”

“Is there a difference? I’ve hurt her, probably beyond what is salvageable, and she thinks I’m still capable of that; that if we disagree on something, I might turn on her.”

With a deep breath, you pull open the doors to the police station one chilly Monday morning, the sky outside gray and heavy with the threat of snow. It’s been three weeks since you came home, and though Jihyo put up a fight, she eventually agreed to let you stay.

Since months have passed, and you still haven’t caught Hoseong and his crew, you figure you might as well try to get back to normal. So you started planning your return to work, but then Christmas came, which you spent at your mother’s, two hours away.

Jihyo also agreed not to tell Jeongguk about your living arrangements, per your desperate request. You’d rather not deal with his savior complex, and you know he’d park outside your building if he thought you were in danger. You scoff to yourself, but almost immediately, guilt settles in. A savior complex isn’t why he’s worried about you; he’s just a good guy. You know that. Still, you don’t want him to know.

Walking through the station at nine a.m.—on your way to Jihyo’s office to discuss your new assignment—you almost hold your breath. Some officers glance your way, still not used to seeing you back, and maybe even less used to seeing you without Jeongguk. Or maybe they know you had a “falling out?” Would he tell anyone here? Jihyo, maybe, if she didn’t already know, but you’re not sure if he’d tell anyone else; his closest friends besides Jimin don’t work at this station anyway. And Jimin probably wouldn’t gossip about you either.

Jihyo is waiting for you when you reach the door to her office, calling out for you to come in as soon as you knock.

“Hey,” you say, closing the door behind you.

“Hey. Want a donut?” she asks from behind her desk, happily pointing to the open box, a half-eaten donut in hand and what you assume is part of the other half in her mouth.

“Nah, I’m good,” you grin, sitting down in front of her.

“Alright,” she says, swallowing and wiping some crumbs from her lap. “So, I’ve been looking over your request and proposed methods.”

You watch as she pulls her laptop in front of her, setting the donut down on the table, and starts scrolling.

“And I’d say it’s very reasonable if we’re okay with the risks.”

“I don’t think there are any risks at all, actually,” you argue softly. “We parted on good terms.”

“Yeah, I know. And they played a part in your survival. But I’m still gonna need to have a risk analysis performed. Who would you want to go with you? I could assign Sana, I think, if you want her? She’s on an assignment right now, but we’re hoping they’ll be done by Wednesday, give or take.”

“Yeah, that would be great. Thanks.”

“No problem. I’m glad to see you back and wanting to work on what matters to you. I know the chief—ex-chief—did his best to be a pain in the ass for you.”

“Yeah. I can’t wait until the investigation’s finished, honestly. He deserves to rot in jail.”

“Agreed. I haven’t heard anything else from the higher-ups, so they’re probably still elbow-deep in it. Anyway, if you have any details you’d like to show me, I’m all ears.”

Your smile grows, and you reach into your bag for your laptop and notebook.

“Thanks,” you smile, standing up an hour later with your bag in hand. But before you exit her office and close the door behind you, you glance back at Jihyo. “By the way, I’m so glad you got the job. You deserve it more than anyone.”

“Thank you. It’s been… rough, these last couple of months. A lot to do and a lot of stress and pressure, but I think it’s worth it. And I’ve had help, making it easier for me to adjust.”

You know who she’s talking about; you don’t need to hear a name.

“He asks about you, you know.”

Holding onto the door, you look away. You’re well aware of what Jeongguk has done for not only you but also Jihyo, Sana, and the entire police station. 

“Let me avoid him for at least another month. Then you can tell him whatever you want, and I can try to be a better colleague. But now? I can’t… I don’t…”

Jihyo looks at you, seeing the pain well up in your eyes when you think about the reason you left his house that night. If you can just have another month to force the warm, yet invalid and hurt feelings you have for him back into the box they broke out of when you first kissed him, you can try to be more civil with him. Hell, you’ll even work with him if he can keep it professional as well.

Jihyo nods, sad but understanding. After all, she had a front-row seat when he used to tear you bloody.

For another hour, you sit at an empty desk, excitedly looking over the preliminary plan that starts on Thursday. You can’t believe it’s about to actually become reality.  

Step one:

Preliminary timeframe: Thursday. 

Possible obstacles and risks: Low risk of hostility or danger. 

Safety measures: Two detectives, civilian clothes, civilian car, concealed firearms.

Step two: Plan A or B, depending on what you find, if anything.

With your notes full of prepared questions, you rise from the chair, deeming it time to leave the station for the day. As you stand there, organizing your papers, movement catches your eye, and you look up just in time to see Jimin enter the big room. And of course, who does he have in tow if not Jeon Jeongguk, dressed, like so often, in the academy's navy crewneck and uniform pants?

Meeting both of their eyes, you’re saved by your phone’s ringtone, a sound that seems to stop even Jeongguk from taking an impulsive step toward you.

Fishing the phone out from the pocket of your black pants, you swipe your finger across the screen to answer. It’s Sana.

“Hello?”

“Hey! So I talked to Jihyo, and she said that your request got pre-approved? I’m a little busy at the moment and for the next few days, but send me anything you’d like me to look over in preparation.”

“So you’re up for it?” you ask, a wide smile forming. Out of the corner of your eye, you watch Jeongguk reluctantly follow Jimin further into the room, where they start talking to two other officers with their backs turned. If you were more of a hopeless romantic instead of a realistic one, you’d describe the glances he sends your way as… yearning. To avoid his gaze, you focus on the notebook lying on the desk.

“Of course! You and me, just like old times.”

“Old times? It’s only been like a year since we worked on a case together.”

“You know what I mean. Anyway, I gotta go. See you.”

“I’ll send the info tonight. See you.”

Discreetly, you end the call and gather your things, quickly but quietly heading for the exit. But in the corridor, you hear a call of your name. You shut your eyes for a second before turning around. It hurts to see him, to walk these halls, avoiding him just like you used to. Only this time, it’s a different kind of pain.

The shame creeps in at the same rate Jeongguk approaches. It’s the same shame for how he sees you, but also for how you’ve reacted. You can barely look at him, yet you’re ashamed for not giving him a chance, even though he’s the one who made the bed he’s now tossing and turning in. He's so handsome, looking so warm and strong as he approaches, his black hair looking soft, shiny and just a little longer than last time. A part of you wishes he’d close his eyes so that you could throw your arms around his neck and breathe him in.

“Can you please leave me alone for a while?” is what you ask instead, clutching your notebook to your chest.

Now standing right before you, he looks down at you with sad, desperate eyes. “I’ll be quick, I promise. Two minutes is all I need.” 

You’re not sure why, because you’re not an immature person, but you press your lips together, trying to suppress a smile. Noticing the shift in your expression, Jeongguk thinks back to what he said, smiling as well. “I set that one up pretty well, didn’t I?”

You turn your head, trying to stifle the smile, but you find that it fades easier than expected. 

“And you think I’d wanna fuck that?” he snaps, eyeing your body with disgust. 

Your gaze locks on the lower part of the wall. You wish someone would lend you the cloak of invisibility so that you could hide yourself from him and the world.

“Look at me,” he instructs, but you don’t. The more you think about his eyes on your body, the more you want to leave. 

“Look. At me,” he repeats, firmer this time but still without sounding angry. 

So you do.

“I get it if you don’t want anything else to do with me, but I can’t have you walking around, believing what I said is true.”

Although you don’t cry, you reluctantly let him see just how hurt you are.

“You were right. I wanted to hurt you. I said those things because I was angry, and I wanted just… some kind of justice. When you instead seemed so… unfazed, I let it get the best of me, and somewhere along the way, I lost myself. But I was wrong and although I wanted payback, I didn’t mean to hurt you to this degree. I was only looking for a reaction, anything that showed me that you were paying for what I thought you’d done. If I’d known how I really made you feel, regardless of if you were innocent or not, I would’ve stopped.“

“So you’re just a man, after all?” you ask, and maybe it’s uncalled for, maybe it’s not.

Jeongguk takes half a step back, appearing lost for words, and with enough pain in his surprised eyes for you to think he looks hurt.

He blinks and lowers his voice. “Yeah. Just a man. But listen to me—the things I said were. Not. True. Okay? You hear me? I cannot let you go around thinking you’re anything like what I told you.”

“I find that hard to believe. How else would you know exactly where to hit? What to say to cause maximum damage? Talking about my cellulite and my… weight and…”

“I said what I figured any woman would be scared to hear.”

“Yeah, sure,” you dismiss. 

It doesn’t matter what he says now—he did know exactly what to say, which means he must have looked at you, inspected your body and found every single one of your flaws. It makes you nauseous, as if some of those flaws didn’t exist to the world simply because no one other than you had noticed or mentioned them. Then Jeongguk and his friends scrutinized every inch of you, uncovering them all and putting them on display.

“I think you’re gorgeous.”

“You would’ve told me.”

You really think he would have. The Jeongguk who wants you to sleep in his bed, holding you from behind, who asks to hold your hand, and who puts frosting on your lips as an excuse to kiss them—he would have told you if he liked you. If he thought you were beautiful.

“I didn’t. I thought–incredibly dumbly–that if I told you what I really think of you, you’d think I was hitting on you. If things were different, if we ran into each other somewhere without all this… baggage, I would’ve hit on you, but all I wanted at the time was for you to trust me as a friend and to trust that I just wanted you to be safe. I didn’t want you to think I was looking to get laid or that I would… that I was anything like Hoseong. I didn’t know that you took my bullshit to heart—because again, it’s just not true—and so I chose not to say anything.”

“But we’ve been past that point for a while, haven’t we?” you ask, finding his explanation a little too weak to believe. “I trusted you enough to tell you about the worst moment of my life, I kissed you, and I told you how pretty I think you are, yet you couldn’t even…”

Frustration boils in your veins, mixing with the raw disappointment and hurt which cools you back down. You feel so… small, so defeated. “I don’t need compliments. Just… something. Something that would’ve shown me you weren’t being sweet only because you felt guilty.”

Jeongguk doesn’t know what to say to that. In retrospect, yeah, he should’ve told you, and thinking back to his joke about pretty being for girls makes him cringe with both shame and regret. Especially since he’d used multiple occasions to taunt you with the fact that you’re not a pretty girl. But it had been hard, finding a balance in showing his affection without scaring you off. When you reacted the way you did that night during the power outage, he... didn’t want to risk making you more uncomfortable or afraid. He’d decided to take a step back, let you lead, and he would follow. Of course, that backfired horribly.

You look at him, hurt still brimming in your eyes.

He searches for words, trying to explain himself better. “I should’ve told you, but I… I didn’t want to risk making you uncomfortable. I wanted to follow your lead and let you decide everything. You wanted me handcuffed and blindfolded—of course I realized you were nervous. But I thought you were more worried I’d do something to you, rather than what I would think of you. I didn’t want to influence you to do anything you would’ve regretted.”

You’re clearly not convinced, and you shake your head slowly.

“You could’ve just given me a ‘you too.’ That’s all I would’ve needed.”

Jeongguk can only watch as you leave, obviously still very much hurt by him. Ten seconds after your footsteps have disappeared, he heads back to the desk area, his head hung low.

Jimin looks at him, JJ and Min gone. The unasked question hangs in the air, and Jeongguk can see Jimin realize that no, it didn’t go very well.

“You gotta remember that she’s had a hectic few months and maybe wasn’t really able to process everything. You being an ass was probably the least of her worries for a while—until it wasn’t anymore. And healing isn’t always linear. I’m sure she’ll come around one day.”

Jeongguk sighs. “I don’t think she will, and I can’t expect that of her. I just… hate myself for what I did to her. I never even realized she was just walking around, bleeding from my words.”

You haven’t fixed your car since the last tampering, but fortunately, Jihyo agreed to lend you one of the station’s unmarked cars. A discreet black thing that you park outside the station at ten a.m. on Thursday to pick up Sana, who needed to retrieve some things and told you to meet her there.

Getting no reply, you lock your phone and step out of the car with a sigh. The ground is powdered white, your shoes leaving tracks as you walk up to the station’s main entrance.

Warm air envelops you as you step inside, the doors falling shut behind you.

“Good morning!” Sana rushes over, a coffee in hand. “Sorry, I’ll be done in a minute, I just gotta ask Mark something.”

She gestures for you to follow, and you do, trailing behind her into the sea of desks. The place is unusually crowded with officers, so you decide to wait near the wall, leaving her to weasel her way into the middle on her own.

There usually aren’t this many people here when you’re around, but in your case, the problem isn’t necessarily people; it’s big, strong, law enforcement men. Though they’re not paying you much attention—they must be preparing for something big—you still can’t will your body to fully relax.

By instinct, you tug at your clothes, wishing you hadn’t left your jacket in the car. Since you decided to wear civilian clothes today, you thought you might as well dress somewhat according to your original mission’s dress code. Except adjusted for winter, of course. 

You’re wearing winter boots that reach your upper calves, a pair of those invisibly fleece-lined pantyhose you’ve seen all over social media the last few months, and a cream-colored knitted turtleneck dress. It’s been in your closet forever, but unfortunately, you didn’t try it on before you had to leave.

It feels too tight on your body. Not to wear into a ‘strangely religious neighborhood,’ but too tight to wear here. You pull at the hem where it ends at your mid-thigh, keeping your eyes down when people pass you and hoping no one is looking at you and taking note of how awkwardly shaped your body is.

You stand there for a while, avoiding people’s eyes while you wait for Sana.

However, when you—out of the corner of your eye—notice a uniformed man walking toward you, you look up. Jeongguk’s eyes flicker between you and the people walking past you, as if he’s seen exactly the shameful way you carry yourself around men—these men—nowadays. It’s gotten worse since you left his house; you know that, but when all of your confidence was fueled by anger and then denial, removing those leaves… not much left.

He comes to stand in front of you, looking down at you with frustrated eyes. He’s so broad, so imposing, and it’s very evident when he wears his navy uniform, the sleeves rolled up his veiny forearms.

“Listen to me—”

You look away, about to step back, but he grasps your hand—not just to stop you but to guide the two of you a few steps away from the path of officers and behind the tall panels of a cubicle.

“No. Listen to me. I’ll leave you alone after this if that’s what you want, but I need you to know that you are so incredibly beautiful.”

You sigh, looking at him and wordlessly begging him to just give up already. He’s quiet for a few long seconds, his frustration seemingly growing.

When he speaks again, his voice is calm, more earnest. “Do you remember the first time we met?”

“No,” you shake your head. You can’t recall the very first time you met him.

“I do. It was a rainy day—my fourth at the station—and I ran into you at the main entrance. The rain had wet your hair, and I held the door open for you. You thanked me, but you didn’t really smile much, just politely. I think you also bowed your head slightly. I remember thinking that you must’ve been cold from the rain, but I realize you were wary around the men here, even if you and I didn’t know each other.”

Sounds about right.

“And I thought that you were just so beautiful.”

You look down. It’s humiliating, and you feel like shit, hearing him throw compliments your way just to make you feel better. You can’t tell if he’s lying or not, but what else would he say? You can’t exactly say you expected him to approach you today to call you ugly.

Noticing your hesitation, he appears to be searching his mind for something, and you glance at him. 

Suddenly, his eyes widen slightly, and he reaches into the pocket of his navy uniform pants. It’s his phone that he pulls out, and he starts to scroll. He scrolls, and he scrolls, until he finally finds what he’s looking for.

“Look,” he says, handing you the phone.

Although you’re not too keen on entertaining whatever this is, you can’t help but be a little curious. What could he have on his phone that would convince you?

Accepting the device, you start reading the words on the screen. They’re text messages from an old group chat, dated years back, and though you can’t remember the exact date Jeongguk first showed up at the station, you assume it was right around then. The chat seems to have consisted mostly of him, Ryung, Hoseong, Seunghwan, and Junseo.

Seunghwan: Yeah, we’re excited to have you, just let us know if you need anything.

The next few texts are from the following day.

Jeongguk: So I just met the most gorgeous woman I think I’ve ever seen??

Jeongguk: Quick question, is there a work dating policy here? I can’t remember. 

Jeongguk: And if not, where do I find this woman again? Is she an officer? I’m not even kidding when I say that I’m absolutely head over heels from a three-second interaction, and she didn’t even really say anything. 

Jeongguk: I’d love to ask her out.

Ryung: If it’s who I think it is then you better stay away, man.

You read on, seeing how Ryung goes on to describe a woman’s features, which happen to align with yours. The length, color, and style of your hair, the color of your eyes, and your height. But also a very generous way of describing your face and the shape of your body.

Jeongguk: Yeah! Is she with one of you already? In that case, I apologize!

Ryung: No, but Hoseong did her briefly, and she’s absolutely mental. Pretty, but crazy

The next words are not very nice, the men urging Jeongguk to stay away from the woman who could only ever be you, promising to tell him what happened the day after.

“See,” Jeongguk says, “Even Ryung knew exactly who I meant; I didn’t even have to describe you, just say that you were the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen.”

You’re not sure. Yeah, the evidence points to that, and you can’t deny that you’re definitely feeling some form of relief, but… you can still hear his voice in your ears, see the anger and hatred in his dark eyes.

You hand the phone back, and Jeongguk looks around, sighing before turning his attention back to you. “You want me to be completely honest? Tell you exactly what I think of you?”

Your eyebrows knit together in confusion. “No? That’s the point? I know that I’m not your type. I’m full of flaws. I don’t have a body fat percentage in the negatives like you, I don’t always have the energy to shave every inch of my body, and I’ve never gotten flowers. No matter what you say now, I’m not someone you want.”

“You think I’m someone who would care about any of that?” he asks, his voice tinged with hurt.

“You look like someone who would.”

Jeongguk looks away, taking a second to gather his thoughts.

“I… wanted to ask you out that day, after I first met you. You looked so pretty out there in the rain, and I think my heart stopped for a while. I think that you’re cute—really fucking adorable—and charming, and you’re smart and kind, and you’re absolutely breath-taking and sexy as hell.

"Which was another reason I was so angry at you; I saw this… stunning woman, who appeared to live a very privileged life, yelling ‘sexism’ whenever something didn’t go your way to… I don’t know, avoid consequences and get ahead, not realizing what sexism truly meant for other women. I didn’t think there was that much harm in what I said because I thought you knew very well how goddamn pretty you are, so I gripped at every straw, trying to get a reaction.”

You listen to every word he says, still unable to decide. You want to believe him, but the deep wounds he carved into your skin are still bleeding.

“I was so conflicted during our mission. On one hand, I had to pretend to like the person who had shot one of my best friends, who got away with it and refused to be held accountable for it. On the other hand… I liked seeing you pretend to like me too. First, out of spite, but then I realized that I liked seeing you smile, and how nice you were to the people around you, except for me, of course, but I guess I always started it. Then you fell asleep in my arms at the barbeque, and I knew I was fucked. I felt like I betrayed my friends for… feeling something other than hatred for you. 

“But this little thing, that hated me so much, let herself be so vulnerable as to sleep in my arms. And I guess I looked at you differently after that. The more I realized that you might actually be a pretty decent detective; a decent person, the harder it was for me to be mean to you. After everything, and after I’d found out what had happened, I wanted to tell you how much I liked you and how pretty I thought you were, but I was scared you wouldn’t come with me if I did. I was scared they’d look for you at your apartment, so I kept quiet.

“Even after you came to stay with me, and it seemed like you started to trust me, even just a little bit, I had to convince myself to wait. And the more I got to know you, the harder it became. Do you have any idea how much I wanted to bury you in flowers? Hold you and kiss you silly? And you know why I was always up before you—or at least I tried to be—when you slept in my bed with me?”

You shake your head because you don’t know.

There's something else in his eyes when he holds your gaze, “Because I dream about you, and I wake up hard. But I remembered how I freaked you out when we made out back at the house, when you were on my lap and I got hard. I didn’t want to scare you or make you uncomfortable, so I made sure to wake up before you, just in case.

“I wanted to kiss you and hold you and really, it would’ve been my pleasure if you’d wanted to sleep with me. But more than that, I wanted you to be safe and feel safe, never doubting why I was doing what I was.”

He shuts his eyes for a short moment. “I guess that’s all I can say. I don’t need you to forgive me, I just need you to know that all I wanted was revenge; nothing of what I said was true.”

He opens his eyes again, looking into yours with his soft, brown ones and a gentle sincerity. Though it’s overshadowed by something else. “I have many regrets, but you are my biggest. What I did to you.”

Regret.

As if she’s been waiting for the right moment to make her return, you hear Sana call your name. When you turn around, you spot her approaching.

“I gotta go,” you excuse yourself.

Sana looks between you and Jeongguk, but when no one says anything, she shrugs and turns her attention to you. “So, Jihyo said you had a problem with your apartment? The door, was it? Cause I can call my brother, and he’ll fix it for free next week if you want?”

“You’re living in your apartment? On your own?” Jeongguk questions, his voice upset.

You turn back at him, “Yeah. Have been since I left your house. It’s fine.”

Despite the clear worry his eyes display, he makes no effort to follow you and talk you straight, probably realizing that there’s nothing else he can do; that was his last chance.

<previous | next> author's note: so there's that! thanks for waiting for it <3 this was the last puzzle piece of their past, i think, and i'd love to hear your thoughts on everything, but especially him lol <3<3

[hollyhomburg]

Before I Leave You (Pt.70)

(Omegaverse au, Mafia au, Bts x Reader)

Summary: The one where the pack goes on a group bender. 

Tags: Fluff, only a little hurt mostly just comfort, scenting, bathing, drinking, drunk characters, recovery from past abused, nightmares, trans! tae, dress up, girl on girl fluff, omegaspace, themes of forgiveness, vomiting, eating disorder mention but everything's good, Brief implied sexual content, Talks of mental disorders, murder,

W/c: 12.6k

Note: The part where it links to a playlist on youtube may be a little distracting if you do not like to read with loud music on! feel free to skip it and then go back to listen to it <3 although it is not the first song in the playlist- hot to go by chappell roan is the unofficial official song of the chapter <3

Previous part - Masterlist - First part

The pack spends the next three days getting drunk off their asses and trying their hardest to forget the last 3 weeks. Everything since you and Hobi found that body at the beach all those weeks ago.

There are no police officers at the door, no red and blue lights that cloud the air, or tense words spat between you. No plans devilish or delightful. Sometimes there are thin bands of sunlight that slip through the blinds and that's a big event. Other times- the big kitchen light shines brighter than any sun. Daytime and nighttime blend and blur together until you’re not sure what day it is or how many days it’s been since all of you became free.

Freedom. It feels like a dirty word.

Young, drunk, and honest, the days blend together. Drinking away the last few weeks might not be the best move, neither the healthiest nor the most productive decision to drink yourselves dizzy until it doesn’t matter that there’s a person buried in your basement, that Jin shot Jimin, or that you almost left them. The truth of love is clean compared to what you might do, what you have done- for the people you love.

For once no one judges, no one cuts you off after one or three or five drinks because it's too much for a pup like you. No one even stops Jungkook from getting giggly from champagne and drinking more than his seizures would normally allow. You deserve it, a few nights of fun, a few nights to live like the 20-somethings that you all are without the weight of trying to survive and secrets weighing you down.

It’s okay, if Jungkook has a seizure that will be the least of your worries.

The hours blend and blur. Jin submits his resignation paperwork for the FBI and has a quick video call with the director, the rest of the pack tries to be quiet but fails several times (once when namjoon pops a bottle of champagne and hits himself in the face with a flying cork, and again when he and Yoongi clink their glasses and predictably break them on accident sending champagne all over the floor. it's not the first glass that breaks that night but it is the first one that makes Jin laugh.)

You and Jungkook lay sprawl across his lap, just out of sight and giggling every few minutes. nuzzling under Jin's shirt to scent his sensitive stomach. Your fingers play with Jungkook's on Jin's hips, and you teeth listlessly at the soft skin just above his belly button, just so that you don't speak or let out an embarassingly needy whine. His hands and long fingers card through your hair and shushing your laughter just barely. Jin doesn't have the heart to tell anyone not to laugh, especially after the last few days no- Jin will drink down every bit of it.

The glass of very good and expensive wine in his hands just out of view of the camera lens, also gets drunk down, and very quick. Yoongi pauses to refill it once Jin's done, he drinks the second glass slower.

Hobi and Namjoon fill out their paperwork for emergency rut leave. Jimin doesn’t have to, already on emergency medical leave and cleared for his bodyguard job till the end of the month when spring will turn the ground lucid and heavy sweet. The winter won't be long now, although the cold pushes at the window and makes Yoongi put the thermostat up high just so that you can all lounge around in your pajamas and fuzzy socks.

Heat and rut leave, even though no one's in a rut or heat. You don't mind lying and abusing the system just this once. You just can’t think about leaving the house just yet. You need a few days to settle all of your instincts and remember that being alive- that surviving is a good thing. That surviving and being together is even better.

It feels like a good thing. It feels like this is the first deep breath you’ve taken in a long long while. Since long before Yoongi maybe- if you’re being honest.

You know you must be irritating your neighbors with the music- but it’s worth it when you get to sit on the counter and watch Yoongi and Hobi bicker over the playlist. Which song is better, which one has the better backtrack, the better lyrics, and the better vibe.

A big black block speaker sits on the kitchen island bumping and although Hoseok and Yoongi might be fighting, they're leaning further into each other with every over-exaggerated scoff like a pair of magnets. it might be midnight, it might be 4am, but no ones sleeping yet. you know too well what waits you when you close your eyes. The nightmares that will plauge all of you, so you keep them open.

It's kinda fun to watch them flirt, It's kinda your favorite thing to watch actually. sitting there on the counter sipping at your drink.

You stay close to Hobi just incase. He hasn't showed any sort of evidence of falling apart from seeing moonbyul yet, but you're ready and waiting if he needs you.

The long socks you wear have trouble staying up to your mid-thigh, thick and cozy, and falling down around your knee as you sit on the countertop, feet dangling and swinging as you look between Hobi and Yoongi. Jimin toys with them, pulling up and pulling down. Happy with the sensation of it. He's equally as entertained by the way that Yoongi and Hobi fight, half joking- half really not.

After the kind of fights you've had recently, you'll take it.

“Fuck you and your love for fucking tambourines- this song is not that good-” Your feet swish and Hobi bens in to peck your forehead and sneak a sip of your drink. You like them sweet and Jin's made each one extra sugary for you.

You don't know where Jin got the mini paper umbrellas from- but Hoseok has a red one tucked behind his ear and a green one in his drink, the same as your yellow one. They litter the kitchen counter along with the juiced rinds of lemons and limes and other mixers that the pack is chasing with their alcohol.

"Oh! Try it Tae, this is like- so you and so so pink" Tae tries your drink too, bending down to sip at it counter level and you watch Jimin swallow hard and fidget. he's so enthralled with the sight of her bending over and sucking that he misses her sneaky hand creeping around to his backside, pinching so hard he jumps.

Hoseok laughs and then does the same to Yoongi. "Oh my god what the fuck-" He's indignant, but Hoseok tugs him back to his side by his belt buckle.

Tae's eyes are nearly comically wide, she asks you what you're drinking, hand on your knee, fiddling with the ribbon on your socks. “I’ve never had a Miami vice before.”

Jimin’s growl is a near thing, a near purr, makes you giggle and tip into him, happy. “I’ll make you one babygirl.”

"Wait!" Tae snags Jimin around the waist before he sinks off to get her one, and even you can see the blush on his cheeks. It's a good sign, Jimin is recovering well from all the blood he lost.

"Help me sit on the counter first?"

Jimin had in fact, heaved you up there when you'd asked to sit, not that you couldn't get up there on your own- but the alpha’s like to do little things like that for you. Tae can definitely do it herself too but Jimin stoops to grip under her thighs, eye contact with her never ceasing, and almost drops her when she takes the chance to kiss him fully on the mouth and you giggle again.

Yoongi glances over at you, at the sound, and your giggle cuts off. cheeks the mirror of Jimin's.

The discomfort passes like it was never there, like he didn't look for the sound, like he's not keenly aware of just how many steps it would take to cross the room and kiss you firmly on the mouth. Yoongi's thinking all sorts of silly things like that.

It's not silly, it's not silly at all- Yoongi is just not quite sure how angry he is.

Yoongi’s all puffed up, swaying but somehow holding onto his whiskey. The counter digs into his hip where he leans and flips his hair like he doesn't know that Hobi's watching. Like Hobi's not biting his lip and staring. It's easier to look at Hobi than it is to look at you- easier to want Hobi than it is to want you right now. Easier to bicker and flirt than to actually initiate anything.

(Yoongi never did like sex or love when he's drunk, he's only ever loved love sober, drinking makes him- stumbly- less articulate than he likes, more rambly. Like his body and his mind are at two seperate tempo's and they won't mix).

“Like you’re any better with your fucking cowbell fixation. It does not add that much to a track."

“Hey! I am a millennial thank you very much, that was like such a meme when I was in high school- like people had shirts with that on it” 

their bickering is funny and it’s so much nicer than almost drowning, than fighting. Jimin’s stitches are still tender but you burrow into the front of his chest, hiding your face from view. Peeking over his shoulder to watch Yoongi and Hobi. 

Your mate tips his head, spits it almost vicious and slurry, “And I bet you had one of those fucking shirts, You and your fucking memes, just because a song has cowbell in it doesn't make it a good song-” 

Hoseok grins, teeth sharp looking and smelling so heady and rich that you tip your neck to the side, presenting your scent gland for Jimin and Tae to burrow into, between the two of them in a alpha sandwich. 

"You thinking about my shirt hyung? It's made of boyfriend material you know." 

Jin laughs from the couch in approval and tae groans but Yoongi's hand tangles with the front of Hoseok's shirt, black, generic. Pulling him closer so harshly that hoseok genuinely looks startled for a second. "I am thinking about your shirt- how it would look on my fucking floor." 

Jungkook swishes around his Miami vice from the couch, calling over to your little cuddle puddle, "Does anyone know what they're talking about?" 

Jin pipes up, almost undistinguishable from where he's pressed between Joonie and the couch cushion. "Are they angry at each other or trying to fuck?"

"Both?" 

"Both." 

You sigh at the same moment Tae nearly swoons, "Let them be."

"It's sort of hot to watch them argue," you agree.

“You and your fucking memes” Yoongi spits again, half a laugh, so in love that he purses his lips to keep from saying it and ruining the (admittedly fake) argument.

He pushes hoseok up agains the center island, lips colliding with his so sloppy and yet with so much love behind them that you see Hobi's knees go weak a little, watch your mates lips work in the way you are only too familiar with blushing and still peeking. As Hoseok's red hair mizes with Yoongi's black and Hoseok kisses back with just as much tension, finally snapping. Yoongi's hands on his hips. Kissing just to kiss. Pulling apart with a laugh because,

"Did you just fucking bite me?"

"And i'll do it again if you don't admit that my song is better than yours." They go back to kissing, and no one pays them heed.

Jimin’s scent swells sweeter and Tae touches the top of your head, long fingers threading through and long nails scratching gently behind your ears. 

"Feeling small pup?" She asks, all quiet and fond with it. Prepared to wisk you away upstairs or into the library room if you need a second of quiet, a second of less stimulation so settle you. you're a little quiet, a little less verbal- something she's come to expect from you in omegaspace.

You shake your head, words escaping you, eyes stuck on her fluffy sweater, the kind of mohair that leaves a pretty white halo, her shorts are more bloomers, ruffled at the hem and dove colored, the same color as your socks. Coordinating. Tae dressed you and she wanted couples outfits. Your hands fix on her sweater sleeves and you pet them once, twice, still shaking your head. 

"You sure?" Tae's lips quirk and you know that she doesn't believe you in the slightest. You press a kiss to her lips, slow soft, near reverent with how gentle you are with it. Her pupils dilate, and Jimin's' growl rumbles all the way to your fingertips.  

"M'okay, just a little sleepy but not like- sleepy sleepy yet." it is nearing 3 in the morning. Jimin's arms tighten around you protective and a little possessive, Tae's eyes go from your face to his. Apparently, she's learned a thing or two from Yoongi and Hobi because her tone is dripping with false displeasure.

“Stealing my pup from me Minnie?” She taunts, and you shiver at the sound of her voice, low, the most normal it’s sounded in days. You’d almost forgotten what it sounded like when Tae teased.

Jimin seems to have forgotten too, because he doesn't seem to understand that she's teasing, bullying you, nearly pushing you further into her with how quick he seeks to hand you over.  “Never.” He says softly, quietly. Like every syllable she says is treasured. It is. 

“Hey!” Jin flops over the edge of the couch. Jungkook and Namjoon near his feet. All but kissing up his thighs. Namjoon says something low and Jungkook giggles, almost tossing himself into the pack alpha’s shoulder. “Hey! If anyone is anyone’s pup, they’re- hic- mine!” 

Jin only manages to be serious for a second before he flinches, laughing and hiccuping again as Namjoon’s fingers dig into the meat of his heal. A carefully orchestrated reminder as the pack omega squirms and shrieks at the ticklish feeling. Swaying and almost toppling from the couch. You don’t think you’ve seen Jin look so young, act so young- in weeks. He ends up on the floor with Jungkook on top of him, blowing raspberries against his neck with a loud rippling noise. 

Your hands are healing slowly and Hobi’s bruises around his neck are beginning to yellow. The bruises on the back of Tae’s head have faded from painful to touch tender. You touch her there, oh so gently. Touching her hair as she touches yours, leaning into each other and giggling, touching, loving gently. Jimin watches blinking owlishly. Fingers flexing on the countertop.

Other wounds have faded that way too. Yoongi scoffs and turns to you. They've been lost in their own little world. Yoongi has his long hair in a top knot, his white teeshirt is so long it almost hides his shorts below. If basketball shorts could be coquettish- Yoongi would pull it off. The loose pieces of his hair fluff softly over his forehead as he huffs. 

“Okay. You can be the tiebreaker- which one’s better? This one or the song I showed earlier?”

Both of them look at you expectantly- watching and waiting, Tae curls a lock of your hair around her finger syrupy slow as you pause for a second. You turn to Yoongi already apologetic, “Okay- but Russian house music is like- kinda really really cool-” 

Your mate groans and all but smacks his head on the counter. “Oh come on!” Hoseok pumps his fist and almost hip-checks Yoongi across the kitchen. Your mate pouts, crossing his arms.

“Come on- epic high is a classic.” 

“Admit it hyung- she likes my playlist better than yours.”

At least Yoongi is sort of talking to you again. Sort of getting over it minute by minute. It’s hard. Namjoon watches you from where he's sprawled on the couch, holding a near-empty bottle of champagne by the neck while Jungkook and Jin wrestle on the floor, sort of making out, sort of scenting each other as they go. Jimin requests a song that Tae would like- and then Yoongi and Hoseok lean over Yoongi's phone to make her the perfect playlist. Happy to have something new and mundane to bicker over.

(Happy Pink Pup Time ▷ Play playlist?)

Morning is just cresting over the rooftops and the music is just turned down when Namjoon gets up from the couch, slowly, dizzy. You're perched on the counter in your pj's watching Jimin and Jungkook chase each other around the room. The need to scent and wrestle and get all your restless energy out near palpable.

Hoseok and Jungkook have a tiny paper drink umbrella tucked behind their ears, the same one that Jin stuck in your drinks so that you can keep track of whose drink is whose. He and Jungkook gang up on Jimin to stick one into his hair, the tiny little baby bun that Tae tied to match Yoongi.

You giggle as Jungkook gives up and just loops his arms around Jimin's neck, no technique to it and all body weight dragging the three of them to the floor. Sprawled next to the library room door, now open. Tae’s makeup collection spread out on the green shaggy carpet like the fallen petals of some red flowering tree. Nothing hidden in the room anymore, the lock will go unused forever. 

It changes from wrestling to tickling and then the three of them are getting up and surrounding Yoongi, a paper umbrella in their fingers, he takes it all with a huff and a surprisingly whiney, “guys.” 

You still when Namjoon walks over, the same way you'd still if a wild animal were approaching. He doesn't settle close, just stands next to you and pours himself the last melted bit of the drink in the blender. Pink and yellow swirling delicately. He makes a noise in his throat and looks at you like he hasn’t barely said a word to anyone in the whole last 24 hours, hasn’t barely said a word to you since you got off the phone with him and Moonbyul left the house. 

You sip at your drink, lips pursed around the straw and when you're done, Namjoon takes it from you and puts it on the counter. You think at first that he might be cutting you off but then he stares at the gauze around your hands.

"I should probably check these." You nod obedient, wordless, unsure what to say, you let him take your hands. 

Fingers prodding at the red skin, delicate but knitting itself together slowly. “How much do they hurt?” He asks. Eyes downturned, looking at them, not you. 

“Probably a two,” you rate, almost without thinking. His eyelashes still cling together from salt. Face glossy. You want to wash his face, blot across his cheeks gently the way that Jin does after you've been crying (something that you admittedly do a lot- the pack's resident crybaby). 

Namjoon sighs heavily, "So should I consider that a four or-" 

"No, this time I'm being honest." Namjoon stills, "It doesn't hurt when I touch stuff unless I'm not careful." Being honest about your hurts and pains has never been easy for you. But Namjoon has shown you time and time again that he's willing to take your hurts and fix them. You have no reason not to tell him the truth. 

Namjoon grips your palm, turning it over his hands again and again, looking down at your love line lifeline all tangled there before leveling you with a look that is neither angry nor resigned.

He holds your hand, “Do you notice?” He asks. You swallow, eyes itchy. 

“Notice what?” His finger presses to the center of your palm, the hollow there. 

“Still dry,” He says. 

You think of the mice. Of drowning. You don't pull your hand from  Namjoon's grasp, but you know he wouldn't Let you anyway. 

You think about the mice. Of dying. Of trying to stay dry despite the things that try to swallow you whole. Water is not gentle, water is hungry. The rain pitters against the dark glass and melts the snow outside. But you and Namjoon and the rest of the pack are dry and warm and safe in here. 

Your breath hitches, but you close your fingers around his hand and nod. Your heels hook around the back of his knees, pulling him closer to you. “Still dry.” You agree. 

Namjoon closes his eyes and breaks the tension and this distance between you. Letting you pull him between your thighs properly where you sit on the kitchen counter. Wrapping his arms around your shoulders to tug you to his chest, and breathing deep in the hollow of your throat. 

He pulls back just as abruptly. Hands resting on the counter on either side of your thighs. All up in your space and sour-smelling. It takes great effort for you not to turn away and keep his piercing eye contact. 

“Don’t do something like that again. Ever.” His jaw rolls and his scent spikes angry. But it's all temporary as you nose under his jaw to soothe him. Namjoon has every right to be angry with you for leaving, the same way Yoongi does. 

“Never. Promise.” You hold out your pinky and you mean it. 

Namjoon looks at you for a second, staring you down, waiting for you to look away. But then after a pregnant second, he loops his pinky through. 

~-~

Eventually, you get drunk enough to play dress up with Tae’s collection of designer clothes. You wake up sleepy and pupish, Namjoon and Jungkook guide you to the dressing room before youre really awake.

"Sorry to wake you, Tae just needed-" you make a sleepy soft noise, nuzzling into Namjoon's throat when they hand him off to you.

Instead of getting pulled into pajamas you get Tae and the dressing room, almost her whole collection of dresses taken out of their careful organization. piles and piles of clothes on the floor, and a silk scarf keeps her hair back from her face.

Gold eye patches on her under eyes that slide off when Jin tries to drag her in for a morning scent mark to soothe her. Tae's anxious, you can smell it on the air, distracting and sharp, you squirm and Namjoon sets you on the floor. "Sorry pup, Tae's just-"

Tae's cheeks were wet, frustrated holding a slip in her hands. sniffling softly. She'd looks at you a little guilty, looking down at you in the middle of her tornado and nearly burst into tears,

"I don't have anything to wear."

Hugging Tae is always so easy, easier when she needs your comfort. you're sleepy, but this is something you'd know how to do even in your sleep- loving her properly has always been so easy. Jimin stands silent and fidgety in between the hollow of her closet obviously having handed her dress after dress to try and soothe her.

"Jimin, give me that dress and that Crinolin."

"The blue one?"

"The one thats purple and pink, stat." You know better than to think this is just Tae having nothing to wear, this is dysphoria, the way it clings to her shoulders, makes her turn away from the mirrors. You straighten up and turn to your pack in the door each of them standing at attention.

"Namjoon, go downstairs and bring me up the case that's under Tae's makeup vanity, not next to it, the one under it. It's got her favorites." You turn to Hobi, "find Noodle, she needs a cat in her lap asap."

Tae sniffles, wiping her cheeks, grimacing but then admitting, "a cat would help."

They scatter. "What should I do?" Yoongi asks, rubbing the back of his neck with his hands.

You pause, hover. But Yoongi waits, willing to be ordered around. "you could make us a drink?"

Of course, you don't need to be drunk to play dress up on a good day, it's just that Tae needed a bit of liquid courage after Moonbyul's words, you expect that they've gotten under her skin a little more than she's let on. But if that's under her skin, you're happy to help her put something more fitting over it.

Skirts of tulle and beaded flowers and stars that glitter brighter than the whole sky. Fancy tambour embroidery that must be worth its weight in gold. Pulled gently, mother-of-pearl buttons get stuck in your hair. Expensive draping and diamond collars stitched high against scented throats. Velvet bows and metal boning are hidden by the softest silk.

It's fun to be a girl sometimes, most of the time. Especially when your alphas ask for you to twirl for them.   Which is how Namjoon ends up breaking the lamp by your couch by tripping over the floor-length bright pink dress that Tae’s put you in. fluffy tiers of it, bright and flamingo pink. Tae's feeling alot better now, after you'd done her makeup and let her swatch colors of lipstick up and down your arms. Let her choose your outfit and change you a dozen times to find the right dress for you.

You'd done the same with her, you'd put her in the red dress and blushed, and immediately asked her to change. And had pointedly not looked at the delicate daisy print bralette she wore under it, the white and yellow flowers that did everything for her skin.

You remember when that bralet was just hidden in her makeup room. Remember when she'd never worn it, too risky, too much of a confession to the nature of her soul underneath. When it had stayed just there- hidden in the library room, ready to be savored. Now- the yellow on the straps wears off white instead of lemony and you pull them up her shoulders, a kiss to the spot where it sits on her shoulders.

Hoseok sits on the edge of the couch- because all of them had tried and failed to fit on the pink tufted bench upstairs in the dressing room almost breaking it so you had to relocate back to the first floor. Hoseok buries his face in your hip, disappearing into the pink glittery fabric. Laughing and smiling up at you. "You should wear this all the time, you look like a fucking peony,"

"That would be like so impractical." Hobi's cheeks are dotted with kiss prints, "if you want to put makeup on me you better kiss it on" he'd teased, getting drunk quicker than the rest. his cheeks have several small kiss prints four from Tae and five from you.

All of you bear her touch, either by kisses on your cheeks, pink and mauve, or by the glitter that tae's demanded you all wear. You’ve giggled and dotted it across their cheeks to match. Tae has a lot of glitter to go through in her makeup collection, more than she ever logically will in her lifetime or even before they expire. It's okay to use them now.

She sits with Jin, the pack omega's arms full of swatches the same way yours were all those months ago, as Tae explains the merits of each and Jin chooses which glitter he wants on his cheeks. The reflects in this one that's green, not purple- or the pink one with extra little heart glittery bits- her favorite. Jin listens on an astute student, Jimin close at his hip, absorbing her words like they're gospel.

They are gospel. After spending the last few days debating survival strategies- debating glitters is so much better.

Jin lets Tae put his on (white, with extra chunky stars) while you put some on Namjoon's cheeks (champagne colored, almost translucent with how it blends into his skin) and Jimin’s fingers draw idle circles over Tae's back. Between the velvet ribbons that crisscross and tie her corset.

Tae's corset is a deep plumb, but the color of her silk dress fades to pink around her waist and then gauzy white on the floor. Her red toenails are only visible when she sways, "Minnie i'm ticklish there." Jimin just growls in response. Half a pur and half a plea.

Are the others thinking about it like you are? Thinking about Tae in a big white dress, a veil across her face? Are they thinking about how lovely she looks in white? Or how much they'd like to see her in a white dress for them? Just like you are?

Namjoon leans close, between your thighs too. All of them- all of your packmates sit in a line across the couch, ready to be glittered and made up because Tae had requested it. Doing all of their makeup. They'd been so willing, so loving about it. They'd even washed their faces and you'd gotten to clean the salt from Namjoon's cheeks just like you'd wanted. But now-

Now the 4th finger on your hand hums sensitive, Tae has glitter across her knuckles. You haven't thought about your wedding ring since you took it off, and haven't thought about marriage at all. Jimin well- Jimin will be Tae's mate- same way you're Yoongi's. But Tae's ring finger is empty, she doesn't wear a lot of jewelry but-

You don't think about your wedding alot, not at all really. Such a brief little bit of time that started easily the worst time in your life, but you remember the feeling of the dress, tight on your hips- how you couldn't move a full step without help.

Hoseok burrows into the fluff at your hip, really- it must have taken a mile or two of tulle to make a skirt so poofy. It sort of feels like you're wearing a cloud. With Tae's ribcage size and your chest- most of her dresses fit you comfortably. This one is probably the closest, and Tae chose it for you.

Tae chose it for you.

You sneak furtive glances over at Tae while you do Namjoon's makeup. Not much, just a bit of eyeliner and mascara for his sparse lashes. He looks up at you from the couch, eyeliner on one eye, almost masculine in the way it makes his eyes look sharper and dragon like. Concealer for the bags under his eyes.

"Your scent went a little sour then sweet, what were you thinking about?" You continue to put it on him, pat pat pat- quiet for a moment where you choose your words.

"I was thinking about my wedding dress."

Hoseok quiets where he's still burrowing into your hip, maybe more a little alpha-puppyish than you've seen him. You don't blame him, the stress of yesterday has you needing a bit of omegaspace yourself. Your back and shoulders all tense in the way that only ever relaxes when you're brought low and sweet by their care.

But not now- not tonight- maybe tomorrow you'll indulge in omegaspace. Tonight, none of you will sleep or be sensitive just in case something bad happens. Just in case Moonbyul's promises were too good to be true. It might be a good night (verging on morning) but none of you trust the quiet. The rain still pittering on outside. Creaking under the doors with cold damp fingers.

Namjoon's fingers dig warm into the spot under your thighs, the squishy bit of skin between your knees and your mid-thigh. Under the dress but firm, keeping you there in the moment and not sinking back through your memories. 

Hobi's eyes are shiny when they look up at you, pinching a bit of the pink tulle between his thumb and forefinger. "What was getting married like? What did you wear for your wedding dress?" Was it everything you dreamed of or could you want that dream again. Who would you want that with, could it be me?

(Hoseok won't have to wonder for long, although he will be disappointed, just a little)

"It was so- so not me- I'd much rather have worn something like this." The dress might be a monstrous concoction of tulle but it's still so cute- so much more- you than anything Geumjae ever put you in.

"Getting married was kinda a blur, alot of people, a lot of talking but- I have pictures of me in it somewhere, do you want to see?" Namjoon nuzzles into your waist, your sternum, and nearly your chest, but you let him. He answers in a purr before Hobi has a chance too. 

"No, I don't need to see, you look lovelier in this, I'm sure."

"I never thought a bit of whiskey would draw compliments out of you alpha," You tease, it's a bit of a change from how firm with you he was yesterday but you're not going to look gift horses in the mouth. Namjoon just shakes his head, rubbing his cheeks across your bodice more thoroughly, almost clumsy in his scenting.  

"I clearly haven't been doing my job if you think you need to get me drunk to compliment you- I'll happily do it again when we all get sober."

"Like that will ever happen again," Jin snorts, then ducks away from Namjoon's /////' We really shouldn't have that kind of mentality look. They can avoid their pack alpha and pack omega responsibilities and sensibilities for a few moments more. a few days more. 

Tae had decided you'd wear this, had picked it out from where it had hung towards the side and she'd even said please. Even if the skirt is so long that you nearly trip over it every time you take a step you'll wear it all night if that's what she wants. Walking is what heels and alphas are for anyway.

You don't look at Hoseok and Namjoon, you just look at Tae, thinking of your wedding. 'I'm gonna marry her one day.' You think.  

The whole pack bursts into laughter, and you realize that you've spoken out loud the same second that you trip, hands jerking to catch yourself on Namjoon's shoulders, regardless of the container of glitter that you hold in your hands. 

When you look Yoongi has more glitter covering him than a stripper would at Mardi Gras. More than they put on Edward Cullen in Twilight. Their laughter redoubles, and when Yoongi breathes out in a huff, his breath sparkles. 

"Jesus fucking Christ."  

Your cheeks are brighter than your skirt while Jin tries to clean off his thighs swatting the glitter onto the floor but everyone's laughing too hard to properly help. Yoongi repays their laughter by shaking his hair out over them much to their dismay.

Jungkook is hiccupping with how hard he's giggling, and you're all drunk and in love, and just- there is no harm in it, even as Yoongi sighs and Hobi teases, "You're like fucking Tinkerbell hyung." 

Tae doesn't do anything about your confession, doesn't do anything but laugh and tip her hip into yours, it's so much squishier, so much curvier than it once was. The hormones that have been doing her job in making her soft and supple. Curves that you can't help but feel a little bit later when she pushes you into the side of the couch, your dress and her dress mixing their colors.

"So, you wanna marry me huh?" She's so much taller than you, especially in the Versace pumps she put on. So tall and willowy it has you stammering. 

"Yeah," you say, a little breathless looking up at her. Gulping as she leans, pinning you there. "If Jimin will let me." 

Jimin hasn't seemed to notice that you're having any sort of conversation that should involve him at all, hasn't registered your words at all, too busy staring at Tae with an expression that can only be described as lovestruck, maybe utterly devoted. Your sentiment and want to marry her- hasn't struck him as strange at all. You guess you'll have to ask Yoongi first but when you turn, his cheeks are as pink as your dress. 

Jin lunges forward, miming the neck of a champagne bottle as a microphone, doing a silly voice. "Anything to report? any comment Yoongi- knowing that your mate wants to marry someone thats not you?" 

Yoongi huffs and it casts a new puff of glitter into the air, "she can marry whoever she wants. She's my mate but- if she wants to yeah-" His shoulders shiver, "we'll not anyone- obviously she's limited to the people in this room but-" 

Jin is giggling and so are you, rolling your eyes, "Obviously- not like I'd wanna marry anyone else than you guys-" Hoseok looks away and then back at you but it's a missed moment. Jimin tugs on the laces of Tae's corset and her slight intake of breath has you looking back up at her. 

“Did you have to do it so tight?” He asks, eyes on you. 

“That’s kinda the point of a corset alpha.”

And then- Hobi slaps the couch. A loud sound but a look says he's not angry, he's running his fingers through some of the glitters there, a little pile, uncovering the faint stain below. 

It's a blood splatter. Faded from where Jin poured a whole bottle of hydrogen peroxide over it, but it's faintly there still. Soaked through the fibers and the foam below probably. Maybe all the way to the base and the springs. 

They washed it as much as they could, but they still couldn't get it out all the way. The couch, like a few other things in the house like the curtains- will have to be dealt with and disposed of one day. It is a kind of evidence. There's probably enough DNA to pull from it to be worrisome. 

“Can we like- burn this fucking thing already?”

He’s progressed past normal drunk to not quite able to stand on his own, might fall over, drunk. The glass in his hand sloshing with every movement as he leans over the edge of the couch. Hobi’s already got some on his cheeks, bright yellow gold that crests the highpoint of his cheekbones and the inner corner of his eyes. It looks like sparks a bit- especially with his red hair. 

Jin grimaces, “It was like totally soaked with blood. I did the best I could." 

"No one's blaming you hyung-" 

"Yeah you did like such a good job. It's just- still kinda covered." Namjoon's always trying to ease Jin's discomfort, encourage him, and that's still true even drunk.

“It's probably still got Namjoon’s cum in it from his last rut too.” Half the pack cringes and scolds Jungkook, but he's recalcitrant. "What? It's probably got your cum on it too- we kinda ruined it before the whole murder thing just saying." 

Jungkook hasn’t been drunk in years, he has the lowest tolerance among the eight of you. He bounces giggly, jumping from packmate to packmate, looping his arms around your shoulders and leaning so much of his body weight that you almost topple over, just giggling. Yoongi huffs, a little endeared and a little worried that Jungkook will actually make you fall over.

Jungkook does this to you alot. He likes to overpower you sometimes- not that the hierarchy still needs settling Jungkook just likes to hassle you.

“Hey!” Namjoon chirps from the floor as Jin carefully sweeps up some of the glitter and a few shards from the lamp that Namjoon broke. He’s too drunk to be properly scandalized. 

Yoongi sits back against the cushions, drink in his hands swirling. Ice clinking. “Yeah, let’s burn it.”

And burn it you do. The alphas try to lift it all together and almost fall over themselves, barely moving it even an inch before Yoongi decides to cut it up with his power tools and carry it out piece by piece. It makes a fucking mess in the Living Room before you lug it out to the squishy backyard.

Piles of stuffing litter the living room floor like dust bunnies and noodle swats at them, playing.

Yoongi's got the kerosene and you've got the match and the whole thing goes up in seconds, much to Hoseok and Jungkook's whooping delight. Jin's bundled in a blanket, but even he grins at the flames and the bad memories that burn away with it.

Hobi almost throws his car keys into the fire too but doesn’t. Whooping and waving his arms as the flames climb higher and higher. Yoongi squirts more of the lighter fluid until Namjoon says "That's enough" because a trip to the burn unit isn't what any of you want tonight.

The eight of you stand around it and watch it burn and then when you go back upstairs, Seokjin drags the mattress from your old bedroom into the big room- just like you did during Namjoon’s rut. Jungkook’s reallocating all of the pack's nesting materials to make a fort on the ground floor. Yoongi gets up on a chair to measure out where the studs should be so that he can use nails to secure a sheet to the ceiling like a big circus tent.

“It’s a fort hyung! It doesn’t need to be structurally supportive.”

Yoongi just pecks at Jungkook's head from where he stands on one of the pack's dining room chairs, "Not gonna let the world fall down on top of you bunny."

Tae asks Hobi to play bubblegum pop and they’re just so happy to see her smiling and acting anything like herself that they acquiesce to even her most ridiculous requests.

Hoseok turns the music up loud and you all fucking dance. You and Tae twirl and bounce, your big long skirts heavy and all big. Stained with a bit of mud at the bottom of the backyard. Namjoon makes both of you twirl and snag around your waists as you spin past.

You and Tae hop up and down, screaming along to the lyrics so loud that when it quiets- your voices are rough and raw. Chests a bit lighter with each screamed lyric, something awful working its way out of you with every laugh, something necessary in it as you grip each other's arms and yell out your frustrations against the speaker.

And by then Jungkook asks to wear a dress too- and then you’re really all having fun.

Yoongi is wearing a pair of Tae’s fuzzy knee socks and is dancing slowly with Noodle who chirps in his arms- apparently recognizing that your mate is too soft and squishy at the edges to be worth the hissing. Hair mused from some very involved kissing that you know Hobi dragged him away for.

Noodle keeps his claws sheathed for now as Yoongi dances although he does look vaguely annoyed. Like he doesn’t want to enjoy Yoongi’s touch but does. Watching you and Tae show Jungkook how to walk in high heels with beady yellow eyes. Jungkook gets it quick, quicker than you did.

Tae just nips at his cheek, a little bitey and a lot drunk. Jin and Yoongi have run out of frozen fruit so the drinks are a little stiffer. You’ll probably run out of alcohol by morning.

Someone will offer to drive to the nearest liquor store which will immediately be met by shaken heads and refusals, just this once- you can have alcohol and food delivered. Leaving the house right now still feels too scary. Too nerve-wracking.

Why would you ever leave when you have everything you could ever need, everyone you’ll ever love right here in this room? Wearing glitter and dresses and matching pajamas worn at the edges from love and cuddles.

Namjoon is wearing your bottoms. The very first courting present he ever got you, pink with red hearts. They're a bit tight in the ass and more capris, but they fit him either way. You watch as Namjoon’s fingers toy underneath Seokjin’s hem, splaying and petting a little higher. High enough to show a bruise that you didn’t know existed that lies against Jin’s ribcage.

For now, you’re all safe, and Tae tugs Jungkook upstairs in the direction of your dressing room. “Come on kookie I’ve got the perfect thing.” You know she's not tired of playing dress up with just you- she's just happy to have another canvas.

Tae has 7 other canvases actually, once Jungkook gets in on the dress-up, Jimin follows like the puppy alpha he is, and then Hobi and your mate, Jin, and Namjoon because they want to know what you're shrieking about upstairs. And come up to find Yoongi sprawled out on the floor, a fluffy something stuck over his head kinda making him look like a lampshade.

"It's not my fault your waist is like- super tiny. My head's just big."

And that’s how everyone gets in on it. Dresses and fancy shirts, bedazzled belts strung low over Hobi’s hip, and a silk scarf tied around Namjoon’s neck in a big bow. Jin ends up in a silky shirt that actually makes your heart stop, a glittery broach at the collar that Jimin toys with and Jin lets him touch to his heart's content. Dancing and dancing and falling onto the nest that you’re all building so so sloppy. Earning your first real laugh you’ve let out in days.

“Joonie? Can you please- I’ve waited forever to get my ears pierced and you’re like a surgeon- and you just look it up on YouTube and do it,”

You slip on someone's spilled drink almost tumbling into Hobi who goes to snatch your waist but misses. Giddy and giggly, “I can do it! I pierced mine once in elementary school but they healed over!”

“I don’t know if drunk piercings are the best idea.” Jin says, at the same moment that Jungkook chirps, “I’ll do my belly button if you hold ice to it."

Namjoon is the one who ends up doing it, with his gloves and antiseptic and numbing cream. You check to make sure Tae’s are symmetrical and then Jimin’s because of course he wants to be matching with her, then Jungkook and Jin, because they can be giggly and ridiculous too.   They’ve got high-quality surgical steal and fancy earrings upstairs that Jimin bought Tae during his mad dash to get her all the girl things after she came out (you're still honestly going through all of it). You give Tae the hoops because you know they won’t tug and pull on her hair and Jimin these little studs with a star on them.

Namjoon does it with a kiss on her cheek and a tiny gauze pad with barely a drop of blood on it folded and thrown away. “Good baby girl, was I gentle enough?” he was, he always is gentle enough.

By the end of the night, you’ve got a secondary piercing, and Tae’s already dreaming about getting more. One at a time Namjoon says, the edge of a pack alpha command in his voice. 

~-~

You wake with a pounding headache and to mimosas and a mountain of pancakes that Hobi practically forces down your throat to keep off the worst of the hangover. Until you feel like you might be sick and the pack piles in around where you sit in the bathroom to keep you company through your nausea. A bit more panicky and serious and sober than you have been. 

They stroke your back and pile the big blue blanket around you to keep off the shivers. But you don’t vomit somehow, drinking the electrolyte drink that Yoongi practically shoves down your throat. Quieter now that he’s sober but still unable to watch you suffer. Hand on your chin making you drink. You fall asleep soon after that again, overly full.

You sleep for 12 hours, and wake to the sound of retching, but it's just Yoongi- in a similar position as you are. Apparently he Jin and Namjoon stayed up while the rest of the pack went back to bed and decided to play drinking games that have turned into a bad decision. he'll need a shower before long.

He's not the only one whose in a bad way. Hobi wakes from the nest room staring at the ceiling listless. Still wearing the fancy designer clothes that Tae put him in under one of his hoodies. and you know without having to ask that he's thinking about her, about Moonbyul. 

But getting over this is going to be a work in progress. Everyone is good one moment and then bad the next, only to be good in an hour, laughing like you were never crying. 

Hobi doesn’t want to move, staring blankly at the ceiling Noodle purring against his hip and kneading him, putting holes in his pants. He can’t move from the nest fort in the living room, half open like a clamshell curled away from the entryway. Can't move until Jungkook gets you and you come close and he finally tears his eyes from the ceiling to look at you. You don't have to say a word to him you just guide him into a sitting position and let him rest his face against the crook of your neck. 

You help him take off his sweatshirt and when he nods that he's  ready, guide him up to the upstairs bathroom where tae is already showering off the scent of fire and glitter. You helped her take off her corset just the same, tugging at the ribbon until it fell loose because Jimin complained that he didn't know how to take it off without hurting the dress.

You strip all of them- Hobi and Yoongi and tae, and get them side by side in the bathtub. A firm layer of foam on the top from Jungkook's favorite purple bubble bath, and have a go at grooming them with Jin and Jungkook. Every inch of your alphas is inspected and tested with teeth and purrs. Hoseok closes his eyes to listen to the sound of them, just after Jungkook man handles the rest of the pack into the deep tub that Yoongi installed for this specific purpose.

Jin's purr is deep, yours is musical almost, and Jungkook's is really similar to noodles. He feels a hand on his cheek and knows without opening his eyes that it's yours rubbing away the wetness there. 

"Not crying cuz I'm sad just-"  he doesn't have to explain, doesn't have to do anything but close his eyes and let you make it better. If hurts could come out in the wash- you'd be able to get them out. You of all people know how hard it is for him to feel clean, the grubbiness of bad memories and old hurts that stains his bones.

And yet, you still wash him.

You rub a cloth over his shoulders, the tense part of his neck, his spine all gentle. Again and again until he starts to squirm- nothing about the touch, nothing about the grooming selfish. You ask him if he's done and he says not yet so you keep going until the waters gone cold and everyone else has gotten out of the tub.

Namjoon forces about a gallon of water down yoongi's throat, but the worst of the vomiting seems to be over. yoongi sleeps too- out of sync.

Love feels so tight in his chest that Hoseok can't open his eyes. He falls asleep there until Jin starts to tug at him, and when he opens them, he finds that you're in one of Tae's slip dresses- the kind that she likes to sleep in, translucent and soap sudsy at the hem where you got wet washing him.

His voice is croaky but he asks, "Have you eaten?" The answer, of course, is no. But he remedies it easily for you once he's dressed and scented sweet. An eye for an eye, a hurt for a hurt, and a heart for a heart. 

You order a new couch somewhere on the third day, blue this time instead of grey- to match the tile backsplash in the kitchen. With fabric that’s comfier this time and actually designed to be turned into a nesting nook when you need it. 

Yoongi puts it together sober and then takes it apart just to put it back together again- claiming that one of the legs is squeaky and the middle edge isn't flush. He's feeling better, less hungover and less angry. Happy to have something for his hands to do.

He still doesn’t talk to you more than a few words but he does ask “Hold the flashlight for me?” While Tae is upstairs putting away her torn-apart dressing room with Hobi and Jungkook. 

And you do help your mate- standing in your matching pj’s with clean hair and clean minds for the first time in days. Thoughts unclouded by terror or anger or alcohol. 

You hold his phone while he tamps down on the leg screws. the sound of the others laughing upstairs, both of you quietly accept for the clink click of the socket wrench. You hold the flashlight, hold it even when Yoongi drops his hands, not looking at you, squatting. It's quiet, Noodle sleeps in a puddle of mid-afternoon sunlight by the front door but it's morning for you- all of you slept till noon. 

“I need a moment okay just- give me a second, give me a few days.” You gulp and look at him. But it's as much as Jin has said to you too. As much as any of them have warned. “Give him time pup, he’ll come around.”

“Let me know when you want the next screw.” He turns around, still kneeling before you, hand on your ankle. Circling it slowly and simply. Petting over the ball of your bone and your Achilles tendon. Looking up at you and not saying a thing until you speak.

“You know I’m sorry for it right? That I regret it right?”

“Yeah,” he says, lips downturned “I know. Wish it hurt less that way.”

“If there was something I could do- something that would make it better- you’d tell me right?”

Yoongi pauses, his lips part for a split second and then go closed, and this time his cheeks go pink. But he sounds stronger when he says,

“Yeah, I’d tell you.”

~-~

But it does hurt less this way. All of your secrets and all your shortcomings are out in the open. Day drinking is either a fantastic idea or a terrible one depending on how you look at it. Because for the first time ever you all talk about it instead of keeping it bottled up.

The eight of you are piled into the kitchen, a second food order sits on the fringes in brown paper bags that Hobi doodles on idly with a sharpie, drawing bunnies and noodle and diamond rings and flowers- endless daisies. and then moves to doodling on Yoongi's jeans. Five days in and still completely unwilling to leave the house- still too scary, too many unknowns that linger just outside your door.

The 7 of them sit stretched between the cabinets while you bounce around above them mindful of not tripping on their sprawled legs, cooking up your tiramisu because Hobi had bragged about it and now they all want a taste.

You spin and turn, ducking and dodging needy hands. Jimin leans forward to sneak a quick peck against your knee when you’re mixing some of the egg whites. Jin gets up eventually to help, disliking the way that you teeter too pupish without a reassuring touch and your favorite baking companion at your elbow. Jin ties his apron around your neck and says. “Tell me what to do” Cooking with him is the most normal thing you’ve done in months. You have enough energy for it once.

“You’re making like a double batch, right?” You’re drinking less, all a little less intoxicated, you’d woken up this morning with a headache that faded and now you don’t want to drink anymore, done for the week and maybe the month. Maybe your whole lifetime after almost vomiting- was that yesterday? Or the day before?

“Hyung when I tell you you’re gonna wanna have the whole tray it’s like- so fucking good-”

“You talk a big game Hobi.” Jungkook looks like he wants to be a part of Hobi's big game. Scent swelling sultry and sweet.

There has been surprisingly less sex than you thought there would be although you know that Tae dragged Jimin upstairs late last night for a bit of privacy. It’s nothing like Namjoon’s rut. Without the alcohol, the pack is getting touchier. It’s strange- you almost would have expected them to want more while drinking but it didn’t happen that way.

Now Namjoon’s hand skims your hip whenever you walk past. Stepping over his thick thighs, squishy where they're pulled together to give Yoongi enough room. His hand comes up to toy with the edge of your shirt, A casual yet claiming touch that you pay no mind. Pinching the chub there and murmuring a quiet "fuck."

You raise your eyebrow at him, a bit self-conscious but still willing to let him do what he wants, "having fun Joonie?" You taunt. He leans forward, nose nudging under your shirt, dragging his teeth over the small swell of your stomach in reply. It's nothing new (well you being a bit chubbier is- but you're learning to live with it).

the mood is light until Jin asks you how you did it, how you killed the don and his beta. 

Your recipe book is open in front of him- and that has to be part of the reason why it comes to him. It’s not a secret anymore. Yoongi doesn’t look bothered as the pack quiets down and you tell them everything.

How Moonbyul convinced you to help her do it, how you actually killed them, how she disposed of the evidence. All of it. Jungkook's fingers come up to skim over the scars on your back and you catch his hand gently, taking it away from them because you don't want him to touch them now. 

It's the first time you've addressed the elephant in the room in 5 days and it feels- 

It feels good to talk about it. To get it off your chest. 

You've always told yourself that you had to kill them, it was either them or you, and they were bad people anyway. Who knows how many innocents had fallen under their hands- certainly more than have fallen under Moonbyuls. 

You did what you had to do to survive and there was no way out. But part of you has always wondered if that was true. 

The pack makes you feel like it is the truth. That killing to survive was all you could do. 

But it’s Hobi who bends forward along with Jin, “hang on hang on- fucking cupcakes? You poisoned the head of the fucking mafia using fucking cupcakes?” 

You blush, and Namjoon drags his finger through some of the whipped cream you’ve already made for the tiramisu. You gave him the bowl after you were done with it and he lifts it up to lick at the bottom, practically putting his face in the metal bowl. Jungkook licks the spoon and Tae tries not to watch his lips pucker. He fidgets, Thigh-shimming where he squirms tucked into Hobi's side. 

Jin's hand on his chin guides the alpha to look up, checking to make sure that he's alright. You don't have to wonder why because last night- Hoseok woke up from nightmares again. 

It was just like your nightmares. One moment you'd been nuzzling into him in sleep, and the next moment his hands had been shaking pushing you off of him. Smelling angry- his caramel scent going burnt and off the more he woke, you'd stayed up with him and piled blankets into the bathtub until he'd fallen back asleep again. Yoongi waited on the fringes with water until Hoseok had fallen asleep fitful- but asleep. 

He'd woken up without an appetite, but when you'd asked him he'd said the only thing he might be able to eat was your tiramisu, so here you are. Nightmares are easy to deal with, Hoseok's nightmares are something you can handle. 

“I bet they were fucking delicious.” 

“Thank you Joonie, they were.” 

Jin and Jimin are staring at you open-mouthed. But there are more questions- clarifications that everyone needs to ask. It feels good to finally talk about this freely. 

“Wait wait wait let me get this straight- Jin’s been working for the FBI for how many years?” 

“Only 6” Jin says at the same time Yoongi says, “6 and ½” and they shoot each other looks before Jin nods, and agrees. Eyes still on Yoongi. Jin and Yoongi are looking at each other with more love than is necessary. And Yoongi answers everyone’s unsure glances.

“I knew from the beginning and it didn’t matter.” Jimin bristles like it should certainly matter but Yoongi squeezes his good shoulder. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” Yoongi furrows his eyes, looking at Jimin's shoulder, and asks Namjoon if Jimin's stitches are ready to come out. 

They are, so Namjoon gets his medical bad and Jimin takes off his shirt. A pair of forceps and medical scissors in his hands as he snips through Jimin’s stitches and carefully pulls them out one by one, wearing sterile rubber gloves but pausing to let Jin feed him more spoonfuls of whipped cream. 

“Yeah,” Jin says, contemplating. “It doesn’t matter. They were so like bureaucratic anyway." 

"You're not gonna miss it?" Jungkook asks, and Jin shakes his head.

"It's not worth it, I'll find something else to do, I've got like a stellar recommendation from them anyway." 

It’s not just that secret that you talk through; you also talk through jimin and yours. nothing hidden anymore. No reason to hide it.

“Of course, I recognized you Minnie- I met you before I met anyone else- Before I even met you Yoongi.” Now that- Yoongi really doesn’t understand. But Jimin is already explaining before he has a chance to ask. And by the end of it- Yoongi wants to drive hoseok's car into the wall, trembling with how angry he is at past you for being so stupid.

“A fucking bar? You met Jimin at a fucking bar and you didn’t even try and hide the fact that you wanted to kill my brother?”

“Well I wanted to hire an assassin and he was there so-“ 

“Of course, she was gonna hire an assassin hyung, her ex-husband was like a total dick- like even more of a dick than Moonbutt or whatever her name is.”

“Moonbitch Kookie.” 

You skim your fingers through Hobi’s hair, checking to see if he’s alright and he nods, catching your hand and pressing a fleeting kiss there. You need your hands to bake but Hoseok holds onto them a moment longer than is necessary.

“God that's so dumb” Jin slaps Namjoon's arm and he realizes what he just said, his shoulders curling in, “wait you are not dumb and I am just stressed because I’ve never made ladyfingers before- please don’t think I actually meant that-” 

Namjoon rolls his eyes, he’s well aquatinted to how punchy Jin can get when he's tired. That’s nothing new. Jungkook spills across Yoongi’s thighs in mock misery, but he doesn’t react beyond skimming a hand up Jungkook’s back, first over his tee shirt and then under it. 

Yoongi turns to you, where you hold a piping bag filled with creamy batter, taking even deep breaths as you pipe out the first few ladyfingers, showing Jin how to do it without getting bubbles in most of them. “You knew didn’t you?” He’s not accusatory. Just surprised. “That it was dangerous, you knew you could die and you did it anyway.”

You nod without pause, “I’d done more dangerous things by then, It was only a matter of time before someone figured out I’d killed the don and I wanted to make sure I got to see him die before they got to me.” 

Yoongi takes a sip of his glass, angry at you for making poor decisions back before he even knew you. Angry even though his anger has nowhere to go that's good. 

“You have to be more careful.” 

“All of us have to be more careful,” Hobi replies he doesn’t like the reproach in Yoongi’s voice. Doesn’t like the way he’s been talking to you. But all the anger and all the pain is healing (it's all just love with nowhere to go. All you have to do is give it time.)

The wounds on your hands are closing slowly- healed enough already that it doesn’t hurt when you hand over the piping bag to give Jin a chance to try. You've done the first 12 ladyfingers and he does the next two dozen to get the hang of it. When Tae asks, you show her how to pipe out a little heart, and then JK wants to make a dick-shaped one and you let him. He gets more of the batter on his sleeve, but you made extra just in case something like this happened. 

Jungkook sits up abruptly, wide bunny eyes dark and glassy upturned at you, glancing between you and Jimin, “What did- what does killing feel like?”

“Oh my god Jk you can’t just ask that.” 

“No, he can ask I just-“ Jimin swallows, and puts his hand down. He's holding a piece of gauze where Namjoon puts the small cut pieces of the suture. Tinged pink from a little bit of blood. His chest shines in the half-light, the little bit of antiseptic glimmering around the freshly pulled stitches on his shoulder catching the light. Jimin’s face twists in pain, but you know it’s not his incision that’s bothering him. Namjoon's gentle as he pulls the last one.

“I don’t want you to think less of me.” 

Everyone’s silent, no one rushes to reassure him, because the truth is that you don’t know. You put your hand over his squeezing- the best that you can offer. Jungkook pushes on, undeterred, “Tell us about the first time.”

“The first time was an accident- it was- before you guys just before Tae went to school- right when she started and I wasn’t thinking. Someone rushed at one of my private clients and I just-“ Jimin's eyes go dark and he picks at one of the stures until Namjoon pushes his hands away.

"You did what you were hired to do," Namjoon asks, and Jimin nods. You and Jin finish the tiramisu and Yoongi reaches out a hand to help you sit with the two big trays of it, portioning them out onto the plates.

"I protected them at a cost." Jimin stares down at his plate, the perfect square on it. and you nudge it until he eats it.   “That music executive” Tae blurts, eyes shining, connecting the dots “you were really quiet after you came back but then you got buys, I just thought-” She goes quiet when you feed her the first bite, letting out a surprised but appreciative hum, distracted by how good it tastes, "This is really good."   Yoongi huffs, rueful in his understanding. “All they really need is one kill on you and they’ve got you for good.” But that's all in the past now, Jimin is never going to have to kill someone again, even if he did get paid for it.

He lifts a fork to his mouth, pulling back after a second and furrowing his eyebrows. licking the cream from his lips slowly, eyes narrowing.

"Okay now I'm really angry, how have you never made this for me?"

"You never asked Yoongi."

"We'll I'm asking now, I can't believe you kept this from me for so long. Can you make it on my birthday?" You blush, bright red, and Jungkook leans over to press his nose into your flushed cheek.

Jimin answers Jungkook's question after a few bites. “It didn’t bother me, after a while it didn’t bother me at all" Jimin turns to Jin, eyes shining with unshed tears, "hyung, does that make me crazy? Does that make me a psychopath?”

Jin swallows softly around his bite of tiramisu, it really is quite good, top 5- if not top 3 on his list of favorite desserts you've made. “I’m not sure. There is an assessment as a part of the DSM-5. I could test you if you want. Although I’m not sure I could be totally impartial.”

Jimin looks winded, desperate from the line of hope that Jin dangles in front of him, a chance at salvation. Jimin has always wanted to know- in that same twisted way he’s always wondered if he and Tae were going to go to the same place when they died- if he was honest to god crazy. Jimin’s always wanted to know what makes him so different than other people. always looked for a reason and now jin might give him one.

“What do you mean by impartial?”

Jin sets down his fork. “Jimin, do you think any of us wouldn’t do what we had to do to survive I mean- Tae and Y/n killed someone over there 6 days ago. Do you think that makes them psychopaths? Do you think that makes them damned?”

Jimin’s chest heaves and he can’t answer Jin, But after a second, Jimin asks again, “You’ll assess me then?” Tae's fingers rub mindless patterns over the back of Jimin’s hand, her knuckles are still bruised.

“The next day we’re both alone in the house.” He grimaces, “It’s the least I could do after shooting you.”

Jimin whines, mood lightening. “Come on, you know I don’t take it personally.”

At the end of the day, the fact that Jimin’s a killer hurts less than you might think, although their pack has their own questions about it, Tae too, although her questions are limited, Jimin answers each of them truthfully and honestly. He'd never think of lying to her about this, not anymore, not again.

When it comes down to it there is a lot you’re willing to justify when it comes to the people you love and the people you choose. You’re all killers and liars and secret keepers. No true sinner and no true saint between the eight of you. It’s a good thing that you have more than enough love to go around.

Enough for a lifetime you think. You’ll have to wait and see.

“You realize everything you’ve said is insane right” Namjoon’s not angry, just tired and full as he sprawls out. Uncaring of everything that’s been said, unthreatened. “Like- actual mafia movie insane right? Are your names even your real name?”

Yoongi can’t keep in his snort. “Of course? What kind of question is that?”

You give them a look, “Actually…” The uproar is immediate, and everyone shouts their indignance and disbelief. All but roaring in shock, your laugh rings high and loud.

“Kidding! Just trying to lighten the mood!” Jin playfully drags you over his lap, swatting your ass playfully in punishment. Your laughing only gets louder. He leaves a coco-colored hand print on your white shorts.

Tae’s in more of a joking mood now, “am I allowed to use this for my next storyline?”

“Yes” and “Definitely not!” are mutual cries.

Maybe you don’t need to know everything about the person you love. Maybe love is just understanding someone’s secrets and loving them anyway. Maybe the biggest lie that Namjoon can tell himself- to preserve their family that they’ve forged through fire and fucking blood is that Jimin only ever had to kill when he needed to. He parts his thighs after he throws away his gloves- not even bloody, and Jimin slides in between them relieved.

His back resting against Namjoon’s chest, a happy growl grumble slipping out as he tests his hands, and Namjoon tests how far Jimin’s fingers can bend. “Pt starts tomorrow” Namjoon intones, a warning in his voice. Jimin nods, perfectly obedient.

“The rest of our lives start tomorrow too.” No one disagrees.

Jungkook is giggly and sits between Yoongi’s thighs, whipped cream on his cheek, they’ve already finished the first tray of tiramisu that you’d made and are making a serious dent in the second one. Cooking for them fills you with that same warm feeling as it always does. Cooking is a love language. food too. Your stomach is full of it.

“Hang on hang on- let me get this straight-“ Jungkook ticks them off one by one on his fingers. ���Jin’s an FBI agent. Jimin’s an assassin. And you almost were one too?”

You roll your eyes, but nod anyway. It's truth enough- it's pretty obvious to you that's what Moonbyul and Hyejin had to slated for (privately Jimin wonders what your moniker might have been. Would you have been the flower to his snake? The dove to Hyejin's bumblebee?)

Jungkook points his finger at Hoseok next to you, the two of you share a fork and a plate smudged with chocolate and whipped cream. Namjoon has completely given up on portioning out his onto a plate and goes at the tray with Jin, a fork between the two of them.

“Hobi’s exes are the current head of a fucking crime family- and Yoongi’s like the heir to some fucked up advice column throne thing- that I still don't quite understand but- Has everyone been keeping something from each other this whole damn time?”

“Does mine even count? It’s not like I knew my ex was like- a fucking mafioso or whatever-”

“I mean- I kept the secret that I was a girl for like- my whole fucking life so I feel like everyone else gets a pass.”

Jimin combs a hand through Tae’s hair, looking down at her and rubbing away a smudge of tiramisu with his thumb. And you hit Namjoon’s knees with your socked feet. Your socks have strawberries on them and a hole at the toe. “You definitely get a pass baby girl.”

“What about you Joonie? Any secrets up your sleeve?”

Your pack alpha shrugs. Eyebrow's furrowing as he thinks hard about it. “I think the only secret I’ve ever kept from you guys was throwing out the lease that one time-“

“Oh my god I completely forgot about that-”   “Yeah, Jin hyung was so so mad. Almost as mad as Yoongi is.”

Your mate spills his plate with you quick he leans over to pinch Hobi’s scent gland. “Hey, I’m working on it!” 

His last bite slips off his plate and plops onto the ground. Noodle darts forward, trying to get to it before you snatch him back. Unfortunately, no one thinks to do the same with Jungkook.

The hardwood floors have seen worse things in recent days than some whipped cream and everyone lets out belated 'No!' and Gross Jk' as Jungkook leans over to lick it up. You laugh as Hobi snatches Yoongi’s plate and holds it over his head, almost dropping it on himself with how Yoongi lunges. And Jin holds his plate of tiramisu out of reach of their roughhousing.

You rest your head on Tae’s shoulder and watch your pack bicker and then shoot it out for the last slice of tiramisu. Yoongi wins and licks the tray clean, getting a tiny spot of cream on his nose that Jin kisses off. She laces your hand with hers.

Both of you have lipstick swatches from yesterday still on the back of your palms, the faint imprint of the colors of your kisses that her fingers trace idly, gently. The memory there for now but not for long.   “What about you Kookie? Any secrets tucked up against your sleeve?”

Jungkook presses a finger to his lips, almost coquettish with how wide his eyes go. “What hyung? Me?”   Yoongi leans into his space, wrapping his arms around his knees. “Yeah, seems like everyone’s got a secret but you.”   “Hyung, you know if I’ve got a secret- it’s one I’ll never tell.”

~-~

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Notes:

Trying my hardest <3 I'm admittedly having a tough time right now, this chapter felt very nice to write because it's all about the beginning of the packs happy ending <3

i personally think they should have all fucked on the floor in tae's dresses, but thats just my personal thoughts about it all. this is one of the few times that i have pictures in my head of the dresses that tae and the m/c wear but i cannot find pictures online that match for the life of me!!!

The moonbitch moment made it into the chapter- idk who it was that commented that but 😂 i lowkey loved it so it made it in <3

What i've been trying to get at with most of the yoongi/m/c healing arc in this chapter is that they both need to be fully actualized and fully realized players in their relationship. yoongi does not and has not told her his wants and needs very often in the story- and that changes after this chapter- because in the moment they're putting together the sofa he realizes 'oh i actually can tell her what i need' it's important to note that the mc has healed to this point like- earlier in the story she might have taken any request from yoongi as criticism.

idk if anyone saw where i was talking about the eventual like 50 year end for the story like- where i think they all end up. but knowing that tae, hobi, and the m/c are the last packmates left alive into their 80's makes the conversation about the m/c marrying tae and not hobi all the more like...ah, sad maybe? i originally planned for tae and the m/c to be the last alive but maybe it should be the m/c and hobi- do you think they'd get married after tae died?

i love that tae and the m/c fit the tall and short lesbian niche that i am so so into like- i know i went on a bit about them but they are very in love and their love story has been some of my favorite in this book. i felt like this chapter needed a bit of glitter.

idk if i mentioned tae having her ears pierced before- but just pretend that i haven't!

i added the part with the m/c washing hobi at the last minute but let me tell you that part did almost make me cry so...

i ended up having to cut the after part of this chapter, but i kinda like it better that way because then yoongi doesn't forgive her right away. idk, that was the main part i wanted to work on for this chapter so its kinda good that i get to wait a little bit.

i've been...admitedly, dangerously depressed for the last two weeks, and i think working on this chapter made me realize that working on bily, writing stuff, is legitimately the only time i am happy and one of like 3 things that makes me feel okay, i hope it makes you feel okay too <3

Until next time!

[hellbornsworld]

JUNGKOOK FANFIC RECOMMENDATIONS(3)🎧๋࣭ ⭑🫧𖦹₊ ⊹⋆𓂃𓈒

✩₊˚.⋆��⋆⁺✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆

❥ AFTER LAST NIGHT | Bff!JK X Reader | @kooahae

❥ NIGHT CRAWLERS | drugrunner!jungkook x sugarbaby!reader | College AU | @alphabetboyluvr

❥ THE YOUNG WOLF | jungkook X reader | game of thrones au | @junqkook

❥ All I Want | JK X Reader | Side : Taehyung X Reader | War AU | Series | @ardentlyjae

❥ Taking Over You | yandere!idol!jungkook x fem!reader | Series | @go1denjeon

❥ what the fire gave us | shadow elemental!jungkook x water elemental!(f)reader | Supernatural AU | @gimmethatagustd

❥ rivers over stones | jeon jungkook x reader | @ichorai

❥ Miss. Vagabond | JK X Reader | Online Friends AU | @bubblesuga

❥ Redolence of Love | Blind!florist! Reader x Tattooist! Jungkook | Two shots | @starsinsky1999

❥ Rigor Mortis | Police Officer!Jungkook x Reader | @readyplayerhobi

❥ teacher’s pet? nah, professor!jeon’s pet. | Professor!JK X Bimbo!OC | @adoredcored

❥ (he)art thief | thief! jungkook X daughter!OC | heist AU | @latetaektalk

❥ idealizations concerning real life relations | fuckboy!jk x hopeless romantic!oc | One-Shot | @venusiangguk

❥ Little Wolf, Pretty Wolf, Your Wolf | Omega!Jungkook x Alpha!Reader | @readyplayerhobi

❥ Dystopia | Trainer!Jungkook x Initiate!FemReader | @streetlight11

❥ Obsesión | Yandere! Jungkook x Female! reader | @thvlouvre

❥ of honey and cinnamon | jungkook x reader | One-Shot | @ephemerlskies

❥ Deus Ex Machina | Android!Jungkook x Reader | @readyplayerhobi

❥ home is where the heart is | JK X Reader | Fantasy AU | @corajjk

❥ 𝓘𝓷𝓽𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓼𝓲𝓬 | Alien!Jungkook X Human!Reader | @bonny-kookoo

❥ High drive | JK X Reader | One-Sho7t | @journalwjoonie

❥ Crybaby | dom!JK X sub!Reader | One-shot | @lavishedinjimin

❥ 'I'm yours" | CEO!possessive!Jungkook x reader | @bethschamberoftales

❥ Commitment | Mafia!JK X Detective!Reader | Series | @eureka-its-zico

❥ kaiho | detective!jeon jeongguk x trophy wife!reader | toxic relationship | @99liners

❥ Ares | General!Jungkook X Spy!Reader | @littlemisskookie

❥ After Hours | fwb!JK X Reader | @lovelyglares

❥ The Turing Test |  Android!Jungkook x Creator!Reader | Series | @fortunexkookie

❥ “just an extension cord” | gamer bf!jungkook X gf!reader | @gywaruu

❥ Tebori Tapioca | JK X Reader | Love at first sight | @mypersonmyg

❥ hold me close | boxer!jungkook X girlfriend!reader | Rival Gang AU

❥ seasons don’t fear the reaper | reaper!jk x reader | @augustbutwinter

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆

OTHER POSTS:

JUNGKOOK FANFIC RECOMMENDATION(1)

JUNGKOOK FANFIC RECOMMENDATION(2)

JUNGKOOK FANFIC RECOMMENDATION(4)

ALL BTS MEMBERS WATTPAD RECOMMENDATIONS(1)

BTS X READER WATTPAD RECOMMENDATIONS(2)

[oddinary4bts]

Love is a Laserquest | choi san

☆summary: years after your break-up, Choi San comes to you for help. In an attempt to save his life, you escape to your uncle's cabin in the woods far from civilization. Will nostalgia and longing make you fall again, or is Choi San just spinning more lies to you?

☆pairing: gangster!Choi San x female!reader

☆rating: 18+ (minors DNI)

☆genre: gangster au, exes au, angst, smut, a smidge of the one bed trope

☆warnings: guns/gun violence (mentioned), knifes/stabbing (mentioned), a bounty over San's head, death of a minor character (named Jungkook my bad), blood, injuries, stitches, probably some wrong medical terminology bc optometrists don't stitch up people lmao, a panic attack, cursing, pet names, explicit content: oral sex (female receiving) -> face riding, let me know if I forgot any!

☆word count: 16.5k

☆a/n: Here's my submission for Outlaw: The Project hosted by @ssaboala. It is coincidentally my first time posting about another group than bts, so I hope this won't disappoint! I really enjoyed writing it (even though it's really sad oop). Also my first time making a moodboard so hopefully it works haha

☆a/n pt2: thank you to @moonleeai for being my ever-so faithful beta reader, love you lots <3

☆☆☆☆☆

And do you still think love is a Laserquest? Or do you take it all more seriously? I’ve tried to ask you this in some daydreams that I’ve had But you’re always busy being make-believe

Love is a Laserquest – Arctic Monkeys

☆☆☆☆☆

The diner is silent, unoccupied. It always is on late weekday evenings, when most patrons have gone to bed, the city falling under a carpet of hushed silence only night can bring forth. It makes the diner feel like it’s straight out of a 70s movie, and it makes for the perfect study sessions too.

Night isn’t always soundless in your part of town. Hence why you’ve been trying to escape, pursuing an education that has been leaving you penniless, but with a bright future ahead. If you make it out of med school at a certain point, that is.

Tonight, you fear the peace that night usually entails has been ruined for you – there were gunshots earlier, close enough for you to see the police cars racing past as the law officers made it to probably yet another gang fight.

There’s been a gang war on your side of town. The diner has always been safe, a refuge for both sides of the war, where they aren’t allowed to fight. To carry in weapons and hatred. No, the moment they cross the threshold of the diner, the gangsters become one family, sharing struggles that only poverty can cause.

You wipe a table clean before walking back towards the counter. Your open laptop waits for you, and you quickly read the study guide you’ve made for yourself, the cardiovascular system and its pathologies forming a maze in your mind that you’ve yet to decode. Luckily enough, you still have a week before the bloc ends and you have to take the exam.

Plenty of time to cram everything about the heart in your thick little skull, you’d say.

Your lips move in time with what you’re reading, attention solely focused on the bright screen when a thump is heard right outside the door. It startles you, and you turn around to see the empty street out of the glass door.

It takes you about ten seconds to notice the dark form sitting on the ground. They’re leaning against the door, head lolling to the side. You assume it must be someone that’s ended unhoused, something that happens far too often where you live.

You’ve always been kind. When you were younger, you were told your kindness would be your demise. Yet you’ve never been able to be anything but kind, even though sometimes it might put you at risk. So you can’t resist but walk to the front door, trying to push it open.

It’s useless – the weight of the person is keeping it tightly shut, though they do straighten a little, as if coming to their senses. They turn, and the moment their profile comes into view you’re brought back eight years in the past. To a time when the world was still a beautiful place, void of violence and cruelty. To a smile so sweet it made flowers blossom on your heart, and to eyes so sharp you knew they had read your soul.

Choi San is sitting outside the door, and the caked blood on his cheek tells you enough – he’s injured. He pushes away from the door before slowly getting up. He clutches his side as he does it, yet when he turns back towards you and faces your horrified eyes, he still offers you a smirk.

You push the door open, thinking about the years between then and now. You had dated him for a few months that had felt like forever, until you had realized in what kind of business he was getting involved with. You had tried to convince him to flee before it was too late, and he kept promising that he would.

Only he never did, hiding lies with beautiful words that made your teenage self swoon, until your parents had realized and forced you to break up. It had been a nasty break-up, filled with hatred and words you didn’t mean yet had needed to say for him to leave.

You remember breaking his heart like it was yesterday.

“Choi San,” you greet him, and when he lets go of his side, you notice blood on his hand.

Something runs cold inside of you, even though he still sports a smirk on his lips.

He says your name, bowing his head. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Months, in fact. Because he does come to the diner sometimes. He usually ignores you, and so do you, so it feels strange to have him speak to you. To hear his voice as his words are addressed to you.

“What…” you trail off, glancing down at the ripped fabric of his black tank top.

He’s got a mean cut on his ribs, and it’s only then that you truly realize that he’s badly injured. Because there’s more – one of his biceps has been sliced open too, though blood is barely oozing out of it in small rivulets. The blood on his cheek is from where you assume he’s been punched with rings, and there’s already an underlying bruise under his eye.

“Got beaten up,” he states the obvious, and you immediately open the door wider to let him in.

He limps in, heading towards the nearest booth, where he plops down and lets out a pained grunt. You make sure no one is outside before shutting the door and locking it, flipping the hanging sign on it so it says closed in case a patron decides to show up.

You take a few steps towards San, hands shaking slightly at your side. Because that’s a grown man, bleeding out on the leather seat of the booth, and his eyes are shut though he looks in pain. You don’t know what you’re supposed to do. You haven’t yet started your residency, haven’t really gone from theory to practice… Yet you’re studying to be a doctor, are you not?

“Why are you here?” you ask, though you’re pretty sure you know the answer.

“Didn’t know where else to go,” he says, wincing as one of his eyes opens. He tilts his head to look towards you. “Word around the block says…” he pauses, takes a deep breath before continuing, “that you’re studying to be a doctor”.

So you are right. He’s here because he needs your help, and you’re not quite sure how you feel about it.

“Why…” You look for words, and it takes you a moment to realize that it doesn’t matter.

For all the history between you and him, Choi San doesn’t deserve to bleed out to death on a cheap leather seat in a forgotten diner on the dangerous side of town.

He has the decency to chuckle at the start of your question, which only makes him wince in pain once again.

“Don’t move,” you tell him, and it’s a little stupid because clearly, he’s in no state to move.

He doesn’t question it, and you run to the kitchen to thoroughly wash your hands and grab the first aid kit. At night, no cooks stay around, and you usually only reheat food if needed, which doesn’t really happen. You haven’t had any client coming in at night in weeks… until San, that is. So no one is there to see what is going on, which you reckon is a relief. Because you have no idea what’s going on.

You return to the booth where San is waiting, patiently. He’s clearly wiped his hand on his face because there’s fresh blood on his forehead, and you almost balk at the sight of it.

“What have you done?” you mutter, more to yourself than to him.

It seems he’s still in sync with you because he still hears. “Got involved with the wrong crowd.”

You put the first aid kit down on the table, ignoring his eyes when they flutter open, and he rests his gaze on you.

“I don’t know if I can help you,” you say as you unzip the kit and throw it open. You spare his side a quick glance. “This looks like you’re going to need stitches.”

He makes an effort of looking down at himself, though it mostly fails as he doesn’t raise his head from the seat. “Right.”

You grab everything you think you might need – alcohol swabs to clean his skin, fresh linen to bandage his side and arm, and stuff for his cheek too. He carefully observes you, with that piercing gaze of his that used to make you go crazy inside when you were young and impressionable.

You vaguely motion at him, and he cocks an eyebrow. “What?”

“Are you able to sit up?” you ask. “I can’t reach you if you’re lying back like this.”

His pink tongue darts to wet his lips, and he nods curtly. “Let me…” he trails off, resting a bloody hand on the table while he grabs at the back of the booth to push himself up. It has new blood appearing on his side, and you quickly move towards him, putting some linen against it.

As if it’s going to do anything. He clearly needs stitches, and you’ve got nothing with you to stitch him up.

“Fuck,” he curses lowly as he’s finally sitting. You just keep the linen on his side, eyes a little wide.

Your gazes connect inevitably, and time slows. You think about how he used to smile, how his eyes used to hold a softness you haven’t had the chance to see again since he’s walked out of your life.

Or rather, since you kicked him out of your life.

“I don’t think I can help,” you whisper, and his eyes flicker to your lips.

“I can’t go to the hospital,” he admits, shame turning his features into a mask of regret. “They… If they find me, I’m dead.”

Dread fills every ounce of your being. “San, what have you been doing?”

He looks away from your insistent gaze, scoffing slightly. “You don’t want to know.”

He isn’t wrong; you genuinely don’t want to know. Because he means nothing good, even with all the memories you share with him.

“Is it going to put me in danger?” you ask, as he still obstinately avoids your gaze.

He seems to freeze in front of you, as if you’ve pressed pause to your favourite show. To avoid the awkwardness, you busy yourself with grabbing one of his hands so he can hold the linen in place before you start washing the cut on his arm. It’s not deep, but you’re pretty sure it’ll still leave a mean scar, especially considering he can’t go to the hospital.

The thought has a drop of cold sweat roll along your spine. People want him dead. People want Choi San, the man you know as a young, scared teenager just trying to find a way to make his life better, dead. You remember the innocence in his smile – has he smiled at all in the years apart?

“I should go,” he says flatly. He moves to stand, but you hold him down, two hands firmly placed on his shoulders. It makes him wince, and you quickly release your grip.

“Don’t,” you tell him. “Let me at least patch you up.”

His eyes shut again as his head hangs low. “I am so sorry.”

You don’t even know who he is apologizing to, or why he is. All you know is that it causes your heart to clench in your chest, stealing the breath from your lungs.

When you were younger, you believed San was your star-crossed lover. You believed your high school sweethearts romance would grow until you’d be old and grey and at the end of a very long road. You had dreamed of a future with him, the way only teenagers can dream – with no sense of reality. Because your reality had never been to end up by his side.

His choices had been proof enough of it.

You still remember the day you first kissed. Under an August meteor shower, with just the night sky as your witness. It had been hesitant, slow and soft, just like everything with San. And you had believed the lie, trusted it with every beat of your little heart, until your parents had found out the truth about him.

Until they had broken your heart, even before you had broken his.

If the stars had known then, what was going to happen to you and Choi San, would they still have shone through the night?

He lets out a pained sound as you gently dab at the cut on his bicep. You clean the skin around the wound in and of itself, and he watches you carefully, piercing gaze not missing how your face clouds with memories.

“How have you been doing?” he asks so softly you think his words are a gentle summer breeze on your features.

You can almost still smell the summer night air of that field where you had stargazed, where you’d always meet so long ago.

“I’ve been okay,” you answer, truthfully. Because even though you haven’t seen him, you have lived your life apart from him. Have evolved without him by your side. “Better than you, visibly.”

He didn’t expect the joke. It makes him snort, and then a soft smile grows on his lips, softening the edges of his hard features. “You haven’t changed.”

You have, and yet you haven’t. Like him, you think there’s a part of you that is still sixteen, and will forever be. A part of you that remained stuck in the moment when you watched him walk away in the rain, as if even the sky had to cry for his broken heart.

“Wish I could say the same about you,” you murmur, nostalgia a melancholic song in your words.

He chooses to remain silent, because the proof of how much he’s changed is sitting right in front of you, wounded and bleeding and hurt. The hurt is behind his eyes, in the shadows of the past that have also been obscuring your vision.

“Yeah,” he lets out, barely audible.

And then silence reigns between you, because as much as you once loved him, eight years have made you strangers. You don’t know anything about his life except the dirty, obvious darkness that surrounds him, and he doesn’t know anything except that you are studying to be a doctor…

Which leads you to wonder how does he know in the first place?

You ask him, as you’re wrapping the linen around his bicep to make a makeshift bandage. You’re proud of the result, though your fingers can’t resist but linger on the taut skin over his muscle, surprised at how soft it still is.

“I’ve heard you mention it,” he admits, as you take a step away to look at the material on the table, as if it’ll suddenly make stitches appear for you to put them in his skin. “One of the times I was here.”

“You never said hi,” you reproach him, unable to hide the ghost of a bite in your tone.

“Neither did you,” he points out, and he isn’t wrong.

All you can do is purse your lips as you finally decide to clean his skin. But for that, you have to rid him of his tank top, to make sure there’s no fabric in the wound. You look at him, cheeks somehow burning even though all you’re doing is taking care of a patient.

Though he’s not a patient, and you’re not in a hospital. You’re just a server at a dusty, old diner and he’s just your teenage lover, wounded by his dangerous actions.

“Should I grab scissors to remove your shirt?” you ask, though you’re speaking to yourself more than to him.

He still finds it in him to tease. “You want me out of my shirt?” he enquires, smirk gracing his lips again. “Say no more.”

He tries moving, but you hold up a hand to stop him. “Don’t,” you warn. “You’ll make it bleed more.”

He purses his lips, because nodding. “Right.” He glances at the first aid kit, before his eyes trail to your face again. “You got scissors in that?”

There are. You grab them, before turning towards him. It feels strange: you’ve never undressed him before. You had always wanted to wait, back then, before you slept together. You believed you were too young, and San had always respected it.

“Let me know if I hurt you,” you tell him as you take a step closer to him.

He slightly leans back, furrowing his eyebrows. “What do you plan to do with those that might hurt?”

You roll your eyes, playfully, before taking the two other steps leading to right in front of his legs. You notice that they are slightly parted, allowing you to come closer, and you take a steadying breath before reaching between you, pulling at the fabric of his tank top.

“Stay still and you shouldn’t get hurt,” you whisper, ignoring the heaviness of his piercing gaze on you.

It burns right through you, and you have to tame the beats of your heart at the feeling of the warm skin of his shoulder against the back of your fingers as you bring your other hand forward, until you’ve started cutting his shirt.

It’s stuck to his side where blood has dried, and he winces but remains still and silent as you keep going, pulling on it a little harder to be able to cut. The moment stretches into infinity, because you can’t help but take your time. It reminds you of how you’d used to run your fingers on his back, under his shirt, when you napped in the field in the summertime. In an idyllic world where gangs and violence and war were mere inventions of the media, and not a reality that surrounded you.

You’d loved the field. The wildflowers, the open air, the way it was just you and him and a few lazy bumblebees as clouds lazily crossed the sky above. You were so young then, so innocent. Hands unstained from blood, from his blood.

Because as you cut, the hand touching his shirt stains with blood. You pale at the sight of it, but you keep going, pushing through until you’re done, gently pulling the fabric from his body until he’s sitting there, shirtless, with a long wound on his ribs.

You can’t help but notice his toned chest and the defined abs on his stomach. Though blood mars his skin, turning it into a piece of violence, Choi San is still beautiful. Beautiful in a dark, dangerous way that has you glance outside, making sure no one is looking.

But the streets are empty, void of life at this time of the night. At least, they mostly always are.

“You will need stitches,” you state again as if you both don’t know already.

“I can’t…”

An idea forms in your brain. It’s a stupid idea, and you don’t even know why it crosses your mind.

Your uncle has a hunting cabin far in the woods. He’s a nurse himself, and he’s always kept everything over there in case someone got injured and he had to stitch them up. You haven’t gone in forever, but you still remember the tall trees, the deep forest scent that reminds you of autumn and leaves and grey days spent reading by the fireplace.

You never went hunting, but you did accompany your father when he went, needing an escape from the city once in a while. An escape from a life that was slowly becoming too real.

Your uncle is currently halfway across the country, so you know you’d be alone at the cabin. You glance at your laptop over your shoulder – you have three days off in front of you before your next class on Monday. Indeed, the Friday class is pre-recorded and to watch online in your free time, and you figure you can always watch it some other time.

So you turn towards Choi San, almost surprised that he’s real and he’s still sitting in front of you, honey skin cut open on his ribs.

“I might know a place where you can go,” you admit, with a small voice, surprising both you and him. Because you doubt he expects you to want to help, after tonight.

“What?” he asks.

“My uncle’s cabin,” you remind him, because you’ve told him about it all those years ago. “He should have all that I need to stitch you up.”

San looks down at himself. “You’ve just cut my shirt open.”

It sounds a little dumbfounded, and you can’t help the nervous laugh that falls from your mouth. Because even though it doesn’t look too deep, the wound still is terrifying in and of itself.

“I’ll bandage it,” you whisper. “Before we go.”

He seems like he ponders for a time. You watch the debate across his features, his eyes falling to a spot on your chin. He looks sad, troubled and defeated. “I can’t… I can’t do this to you.”

You ignore his words, carefully washing his side. You avoid the cut and try to be as gentle as you can, but his muscles still flex as he clenches his fists from the pain.

He’s strong. That much hasn’t changed. Because he doesn’t make any sound as you finish washing him and then patch him up with those same careful hands. And when you move to his face, cleaning the blood, his eyes flutter shut, and he sighs softly.

He looks so much like he looked then that your heart aches, and you find yourself blinking away tears for this man who’s had it so rough he believed joining a gang would save him.

“I should have come to you before,” he murmurs. “You’re much gentler than Hongjoong.”

You don’t know the guy he mentioned, and you don’t feel like asking. Don’t feel like acknowledging his words, so you just finish with his cheek before stepping away from the peaceful aura that was treacherously pulling you in.

Like all those years ago, you reckon.

“Let me make a call,” you say, turning away from him as you move to the counter. You feel the weight of his eyes between your shoulder blades as you get your phone from next to your laptop. You call your boss, and as someone that’s never called in sick before, you feel anxiety flush through you.

Because you’re not sick. And how could you tell him that you need to take care of your ex-boyfriend of eight years ago?

Seokhyun picks up on the first ring, voice groggy with sleep when he mutters, “Hello?”

“Boss,” you greet him. You scrape your throat and spare a look towards San who’s watching you curiously. “An emergency came up, and I have to leave the diner.” You swallow the lump in your throat that’s formed from lying, and then you add, “There haven’t been any customers all night, so I was wondering… would you be comfortable with me closing for the rest of the night?”

Your boss says your name, a little reproachfully. But then he sighs, because he knows just as well as you what a good employee you’ve always been. “Are you going to be able to come in tomorrow night?” he asks.

You pull at dry skin on your bottom lip, assessing San’s state. You could always come back to the city for work…

“You know what, I know you’ve got that big exam coming up,” your boss says, sighing into the phone. “Why don’t you take the next week off so you can take care of your emergency and focus on your studies?”

If Seokhyun wasn’t a fifty-three year old married and father of three children man, you think you’d ask him to marry you right now.

“That would be really helpful,” you tell him, gratitude dripping from your voice. “Are you sure that won’t be a problem for the diner?”

“The diner won’t lose profit if it closes for three nights in the week,” he points out. “I’ll see if I can get you replaced for the evening shift on Sunday.”

You thank him again as he grumbles that it’s nothing. He wishes you good luck, and when the line goes silent, you finally meet San’s gaze again.

“All sorted out,” you tell him, offering him a nod. “Let me just close the diner, and then we can go.”

He nods, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. He observes you as you do so, quickly closing the diner like you’ve done about a hundred times before, though this time you’re far more excited to go. You grab a plastic bag to put away the bloody swabs, and though he groans in pain, San gets up to help you clean the blood that stained the cheap leather of the booth.

Soon enough, you’re ready to go, and you walk outside with the plastic bag in one hand and your backpack on your shoulders as San chuckles, looking down at himself.

“Do you have a shirt for me?” he asks as he follows you out.

You lock the door behind you before glancing at him. He’s quite the sight, naked from the waist up and bandaged like he is, and you can’t help the small chuckle you let out as you glance towards your car, that’s luckily parked right in front.

Though it’s a deadbeat car, you trust it enough to know it’ll make the trip to your uncle’s cabin, even in the middle of the night.

“My ex left some sweaters on the back seat,” you admit as you unlock your car doors and open the trunk to put your backpack and the plastic bag in there. There’s no chance in hell you’ll leave a plastic bag full of bloody swabs near your work.

You see San nod from the periphery of your vision, and then he’s opening the door to the backseat. “Your ex, huh?” he mutters as he grabs a sweater you used to love wearing and that you haven’t convinced yourself to give back to Hyunmin.

He carefully puts it on, and you’re pretty sure just the motion is going to make blood seep through the bandage. Somehow, you don’t care that it might stain Hyunmin’s sweater.

Hyunmin was a cheater, and even though you never really loved him, it took you months before you found the strength to break up with him. Needless to say, he doesn’t deserve his clothes back.

“Yeah,” you flatly say as you move towards the driver’s seat. You sit, and San follows you, naturally, as if you’ve done it a thousand times before.

As you turn the keys in the engine, San asks, “Have you dated a lot?”

You bristle at the question, shooting him an embarrassed look. “Have you?”

“No,” he replies, features fully serious.

You purse your lips, focusing on the road as you start driving. You need to put gas in the car if you want to get to your uncle’s cabin, so you make your way towards the closest one. It takes you a moment before you register how San has stiffened next to you.

“Can we…” he trails off, and he sinks in the seat, trying to hide. “I can’t be seen here.”

You immediately press on the accelerator, and your car speeds down the street as you pass in front of the gas station. You glance at San only when you’re stopped at a red light. He’s pulled the hood of the sweater over his features, and he’s doing his best to hide.

“Where can we stop?” you ask.

“Next town over,” he answers. “I just can’t be seen in Bangtan territory.”

Right. You have no knowledge of how the gangs have divided your city, but you’re not surprised Bangtan has this part of town. It’s the industrial area, and you assume there’s a lot of money to be made around here.

“Sounds good,” you gently say, and then you’re driving again, the light turning green, allowing you to speed away into the night.

You drive silently all the way to the next town, watching your city disappear to be replaced by trees until buildings reappear. San is looking outside the window, and you can’t help but wonder how he’s been doing, truly. How he managed to get injured like he is right now, and mostly, if his dreams of running away still occupy his thoughts.

He had begged you, the evening you had broken up with him. Told you he’d make enough money to be able to move with you across the country and build yourself a nice little life over there. You had wanted to believe him for so long, until your parents had opened your eyes on just how he was trying to make money.

“Do you need anything?” you ask as you finally reach the gas station, pulling into the driveway. You park next to a pump, turning to face him only to find him already watching you.

“I don’t have money to pay for food,” he admits. He shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I lost my wallet in the… altercation.”

You gently put a hand on his forearm. “Hey, my treat. We have to eat.”

He inhales deeply, letting out the breath slowly, before he nods. “Alright. I owe you.”

You reckon he’ll owe you for a lot more than just food at a gas station, but you choose not to say it. Not when you feel like someone’s watching over your shoulder, watching you drive away in the night with the person they are looking for.

You know it’s paranoia. No one followed you out of the city and into this town. It just feels too strange to have him here, with you. In your car, on the way to your uncle’s cabin, as if eight years have gone out the window. As if you can still be young and innocent.

It’s stupid, because you can’t. Time has changed him; time has changed you. And in just a few years you’ll be a doctor, and you’ll finally get out of this hellhole of a city, of its dangerous streets.

Of its equally dangerous man, that you know could probably pull you back in with one of his many well-crafted lies, one of the dreams he weaved expertly, whispering it into your ear.

You take a deep breath before getting out of the car. You go into the station, grab snacks for the next few days and then head to the counter. The guy behind nods as you approach, and you pay for the food and for gas before wishing him a good night and returning outside. San is still squatting in the car, clearly trying to hide, and you put the food on the backseat before putting gas in.

You watch his profile as you put gas in the car. Back when you were dating, his features weren’t as sharp, as glass-cutting as they now are. He used to sport a rounder face, but today you wonder if you’d get a papercut on his jaw. You wouldn’t even be surprised.

When you’re done with gas, you sit back next to him, and you quickly bring the engine back to life before pulling out in the street. As soon as you exit the city, darkness falls on the two of you, tall trees standing on the two sides of the road again. San doesn’t speak much, and it doesn’t take you long to realize he’s dozing off next to you.

“Hey, everything okay?” you ask, suddenly worried that he might have lost too much blood. Which, you reckon, you should have thought about earlier.

He sighs, glancing towards you. “Just tired.”

“Don’t…” you trail off. “Don’t fall asleep.”

He chuckles. “You’re afraid I’m going to die on you?”

“Choi San,” you warn. “Don’t you dare say stuff like that.”

He smiles, but you reckon he’s a little pale. Or at least you think he is, in the silver light of the moon up above. “I think I’m fine. Just…” He offers you a weak smile, though you’ve returned your attention on the winding road. “Just exhausted. I haven’t slept in three days.”

Worry clutches your heart, and you nibble at some dry skin on your bottom lip. “What’s been going on?”

He slightly shrugs. “I can’t tell you. I don’t want to put you in danger…”

“Am I not already in danger by just helping you?”

The silence is telling enough. And it remains for a while until San finally speaks.

“I was in a gunfight a week ago. Accidentally shot the youngest member of the other gang. He didn’t make it, and the gang has put a bounty on my head. Ateez took my gun and told me to run; I laughed in their face and said I wasn’t a coward. Then I got attacked by two guys with knives earlier, and I made it to the diner because I had nowhere else to go.”

Now the silence is deafening, heavy, and you think you’ve altogether stopped breathing. You’re struck with an image of San in the summer sun, smiling wide as he put a flower behind your ear, claiming you were the most beautiful girl he had ever met. The contrast with who he is now – a product of night, shrouded in darkness with no hint of that smile on his lips – is stark. And you wonder when’s the last time he has seen the sun, when’s the last time his life wasn’t violence like this.

When you say nothing, he scoffs, resting his head against the window as if it’d allow him to escape. Because clearly he wants to escape – he’s just told you that he’s killed someone after all.

And you don’t know what to say. Don’t know how to react to someone confessing murder. All you can do is stare at the street ahead, hoping you won’t end up in a gunfight with San. Because where would that lead you, other than in the dramatics of death?

You don’t speak for the rest of the ride. You don’t think he sleeps either, and dawn is clinging to the far horizon when you get to your uncle’s cabin, in a secluded forest that seems straight out of a fairytale. Instead of bringing you awe like it usually does, the sight of it makes you think of all the murder mysteries you had been obsessed with when you were younger, before you realized how horrible the real world truly is.

Neither of you move, as you turn off the engine of the car, and you fall into even more of a tensed silence, though this time you can hear the chirping of the early birds. It’s peaceful, so peaceful you can barely even grasp how tangible the presence of San is next to you. The presence of his actions too, looming between the two of you like a sword of Damocles.

You move first. Putting a hand on the knob, hoping to escape the heaviness into the dawn. San speaks before you can though, and your heart stops in your chest.

“I never meant for him to get hurt,” he murmurs, and you think he’s speaking to himself more than to you. “Everything went too fast, my gun was in my hand and I just… in situations like these, you don’t have time to think.” He leans his head against the headrest, eyes closing. “All I can picture since it’s happened is him falling and blood. Like a fucking blossoming rose, all around him.” He rests his closed fist on his forehead, rubbing it hard. “I haven’t been able to sleep; I’ve been sick every time I’ve tried to eat…”

“San,” you interrupt as you break and break for him. Because this is the San you know. This is the young boy that just wanted to escape and live in a better world. You can almost taste his remorse, taste his regret and shame. It’s poisonous, treacherous, a slippery slope that can’t lead anywhere good. “Let’s get you in. I want to get that cut on your ribs checked.”

He falls silent, and for a moment you feel guilty. Because what if he had more to say? You don’t even think you would have been able to listen. You need the escape, and you know he’ll permit it. Because the man next to you is a broken man, a fracture of what he could have been.

You step out of the car, blinking away tears – from the anxiety, from the exhaustion, and perhaps even from the pain you feel for him. He follows you, wincing as he swings his legs out of the car. He stumbles a little as he stands, but soon enough, he grows steady on his feet, and his attention moves to you. You climb the stairs of the cabin, lifting the rug to find the small trap that leads to the spare key. The padlock is rusted, but it stands strong as you put in the code, and a click is heard when you pull on it.

A few seconds later, you’ve unlocked the front door, pushing it open to reveal the cabin as you remember it. Not a single item is out of place, though dust covers everything, a clear indication that no one has been here in years. You let San in, before going back to the car to get the food you bought, bringing it in and putting it in the fridge. Three full gas canisters hide under the counter, and you sigh in relief – you’ll be able to get the generator on for some electricity.

You motion to the kitchen table. “Have a seat,” you tell San, who somehow looks like a lost puppy. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”

He nods, remaining silent, eyes downcast. You only move when he’s seated, heading to the bathroom area of the cabin, where you startle a spider that almost makes you scream out loud. You keep it in, heart beating out of your chest as you get the kit before moving back into the main area.

San is leaning against the chair, eyes closed. He senses you approaching, and one of his eyes cracks open to watch you carefully, a little like he did earlier, at the diner. It looks so similar to how he used to look at you, when you joined him at the field, that you stop in your tracks, heart squeezing once again.

You don’t like the way Choi San is making you feel, that’s for sure.

“Take off the sweater,” you tell him, putting the kit down on the table. You put some clean linen next to it, to put what you need over it, before washing your hands with the disinfectant you find in the kit. You put latex gloves on after, and then you fish wire and a surgical needle from the first aid kit that you carefully put down on the linen once you’ve torn the packages open.

As you were doing all of that, San took off the shirt, struggling a little as it meant he had to lift his right arm, which pulled at the skin of his ribs, where the cut clearly has started bleeding again. Though, if you’re honest to yourself, you’re pretty sure he’s been bleeding this whole time, even though it probably was just some fine rivulets.

Indeed, the cut isn’t all that deep, you remind yourself. Mostly because you don’t want to even think about the consequences of the blood loss. As long as he stays awake, you figure he’s fine – he would have lost consciousness a while ago if he was losing a lot of blood.

You remove the bandage you had carefully put in place earlier, wincing at the sight of the blood that’s seeped through it. San keeps his eyes close, lets you clean his skin again in peace, and you feel sick to your stomach as you realize you don’t have any anesthetics for the pain that stitching him up will cause. Indeed, the pocket in which your uncle usually leaves the lidocaine is empty, and you remember that he’s had to use it for your dad when he accidentally cut himself with a machete last summer.

“Huh,” you let out. You chuckle nervously. “It’s going to hurt like a bitch.”

His eyes narrow, and he clenches his jaw. “Don’t worry about it.”

You worry at your bottom lip, holding his gaze as you gauge if he’s serious. When his gaze doesn’t falter, you offer him a curt nod, before getting the wire and needle ready under his watchful eyes.

You hand him some linen. “To bite on,” you explain as he just cocks an eyebrow quizzically. That makes his gaze widen a little as if he’s just now realizing how serious you were about it hurting, but he takes it nonetheless.

You think about the theory of how to stitch someone up. It was in your previous block – you watched hours of videos of it in an attempt to desensitize yourself to it. You don’t think it compares to the real thing, but at least you’re somehow confident of what you’re doing when you start.

San startles, groaning in pain, and you offer him a glare. “Don’t move, or it’ll be worse.”

A drop of sweat rolls down his temple, but he still nods. Even as you keep on stitching him, he remains as still as he physically can, though you don’t think he even notices how he’s trembling. Or maybe that’s you – you don’t even know.

Somehow, you make it through the whole thing. You think San might have passed out at some point, but he’s wide awake when you finish the knot to keep the stitches in place, looking up to meet his face.

He’s panting and tears of pain wet his waterline. He blinks them away as he takes the linen out of his mouth, dropping it on the table.

“Fuck,” he curses.

“Let me…” you trail off, mind set on getting something to at least help him cool off, because he’s clearly been heating up.

You grab a washcloth and a small bucket, and head outside to walk down to the lake. You fill the bucket halfway, and take a few seconds to observe the calm surrounding you, hoping that it can ease the nerves rolling inside your heart like dark clouds do on the horizon whenever a storm is coming. You feel it in your bones – you have a murderer in your uncle’s cabin.

You have to keep that in mind. To not let Choi San in like you did when you were a young impressionable teenager.

You sigh, closing your eyes to breathe in the fresh morning air. The sun is peaking over the horizon now, and you bask in its hesitant rays for all of twenty seconds before you convince yourself to go back in. You’ve got a patient to take care of, after all.

San hasn’t moved an inch while you were outside. The only indication that he hasn’t died on you is the groan he lets out as you put the wet washcloth on his forehead. You tap his cheek gently, as if to say, ‘suck it up, I’m just trying to take care of you’.

Which is exactly what you’re doing, isn’t it?

You watch him carefully for a few seconds before tapping his shoulder this time around.

“There’s a bed,” you remind him. “You’d be better passing out in a bed.”

He groans again, cracking an eye open. “I’ve just been repeatedly poked with a needle,” he drawls. “Give me a second.”

It makes you laugh. Because of the nerves, maybe. You’re not quite sure. All you know is that you’re laughing, and San opens his second eye to look at you as if you’re crazy. And you laugh for longer than you should – you’re exhausted after all, especially considering you haven’t slept since yesterday morning. So far, adrenaline has been keeping you going, but you can tell you’re about to crash.

“Sorry,” you apologize once you calm down. “This has just been…”

“A lot,” San finishes for you. “I know.”

You nod once before glancing at the doorway to the bedroom. It has no door, as your uncle and your dad usually come here alone and they don’t mind sharing a bed. It makes you realize that you’ll have to share it with San, which you reckon you should have thought about before. Because there’s no way in hell you’ll share a bed with him, especially after he’s told you why he’s being hunted.

There’s always the option of going into town later today so you can get a sleeping bag and floor mat to sleep on. But you’re far too tired right now to even consider driving, so you motion to the bed once again.

“Stick to your side; I’ll stick to mine.”

He smirks though he’s extremely pale. A lot paler than he was before, and you swallow a sudden lump in your throat. Because what if he dies? What are you supposed to do with him if he dies?

“You’ll have to help me to get to the bed ‘cause I don’t think I can move,” he says once his smirk dies. He curses under his breath. “I’m so pathetic.”

You put your hand on his shoulder again, reassuringly, eyes holding his. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re hurt. Everyone is pathetic when they’re hurt.”

He gulps before nodding once. It takes everything in you not to offer him more comfort because you feel like the slope would tilt forwards far too much if you did. Instead, you help him to get up, wincing as he puts most of his weight on you, clutching his side with one hand. You’re infinitely aware of how his skin is sticky with sweat, but you ignore it as you slowly walk to the bedroom.

You can only hope the stitches will hold because you don’t think he’d be able to withstand another round of them.

You finally reach the bedroom and help San sit on the side of the bed. He sighs, eyes shut tightly, and he doesn’t move for a time. When he does, it’s to stiffly lie down on his side.

“You might want to sleep on your back,” you inform him. “I don’t want you rolling around and messing up the stitches.”

He glares at you, though he looks like he’s already half out of it. You hold his gaze until he gives in, turning on his back with a deep sigh. You arrange pillows around him to make sure he’s not moving, and by the time you’re done, his breathing has already evened out.

For a moment, you just watch him sleep. You see him in the field where young love blossomed like a trillion wildflowers. You can almost breathe his pollen again, can almost feel the softness of his skin under your fingertips.

But he’s not what he used to be. Back then, you felt like you had discovered something new. Love, infatuation, affection, and desire, all in the form of the man sleeping next to you. You’d used to kiss, dance and sing to a song only your souls knew, and now you don’t think you recognize him anymore.

As much as he is him, he’s also but just the ghost of what he was. He’s trouble, danger in the shape of innocence, and you recall his words from earlier. You recall the despair, the regret and sorrow that haunted him after he told you. You can’t let him get to your head.

You reckon sleep might help. Though you’re afraid he’s going to waste away in his sleep, so you set up an alarm every hour, before climbing on the other side of the bed. You don’t pull on the covers, mostly because the cabin is warm, and you can imagine it’s just going to get hotter as the sun goes up and the summer heat slowly sizzles into the countryside.

It’s a good thing you put an alarm on. Because when it rings an hour later, you don’t even remember falling asleep. You’re pretty sure the second your head touched the mattress, you were out to the land of dreams. You groan, mostly because you’ve got a slight headache, but you power through it to make sure San is still breathing.

When you see his chest moving up and down steadily, you let yourself fall back asleep.

This goes on for the whole morning, and you only force yourself to stay up when your phone shows that it’s passed noon. As you had suspected earlier, the cabin has gotten extremely warm, so you force yourself out of bed to open all the windows, and then you use the washcloth from earlier to gently wash San’s face of the sweat.

He doesn’t even flinch in his sleep, but he’s still breathing and for now, that’s all that matters.

You head back to the main room, grabbing a pack of chips from where you had left the food earlier, and then you move outside to sit by the lake. Mostly because you need to put distance between you and San, but also just because the childhood memories of this place have you in their hold, and they’ve decided to make you miss the times when you’d swim around with your cousins before both of them had moved out of town.

One day, it’s going to be you too. You already know where you’d go – on the other side of the country, as far away from here as possible. You just want to forget all about the place you grew up in, and you know that, in a few years, you will have forgotten.

Though you’re pretty sure a certain piercing gaze will haunt you forever, especially after the events of today.

When another hour passes, you head back inside, putting the empty bag of chips in the trash before you check up on San. He’s still asleep, but this time he doesn’t look as pale as he did earlier. You assume it’s going to take him a while before he wakes, so you head to the nearest town to grab more food. Mostly to busy yourself, but also just because you know San will need a place to hide for a lot longer than just the weekend. Might as well make sure you have enough for him to survive a couple of days. In town, you also stop to eat at a small café on a small terrasse in the shade of a few trees, and then you grab the food you think you might need at the grocery store.

It’s the middle of the afternoon when you get back, realizing that you forgot to buy a floor mat. As you spy San, who hasn’t moved an inch since he’s fallen asleep, you figure that sleeping next to him tonight should be fine.

As long as his presence in your vicinity doesn’t drag you down memory lane again.

You bought some meat in town, so you head to the little shack outside where the generator is hiding. There’s a gas canister right next to it – also full – and you busy yourself for the next twenty minutes trying to figure out how to get it started. When it finally rumbles to life, you head back inside to put the meat in the fridge, which has finally come to life.

When you hear a groan, you quickly jog to San’s side, fully expecting to find him awake. Surprisingly, he’s still asleep, and you stay next to him for a full minute, thinking he might groan again, though he remains entirely silent.

If it wasn’t for his chest moving up and down steadily, you’d believe him to be dead. But now that a few hours have passed, you’re pretty positive he’ll make it, though he’s probably going to sleep through the day and possibly through the next one too.

Which leaves you in the most peaceful atmosphere you’ve been in for a while, with the opportunity to study as you listen to the rush of wind in the leaves of the tall trees surrounding the cabin. You sit outside, this time near the fireplace, and you study until your stomach grumbles, indicating that it is time for you to cook.

You cook the meat you’ve bought on the grill outside, feeling thankful that your dad once showed you how to use it. You go back in to grab a bottle of water before you eat, and you’re bent in the fridge when you hear San moan again, and this time it sounds like he’s saying something.

You gently close the fridge, making your way to the bedroom. San hasn’t moved, but his features are creased in a frown, and sweat is rolling down his temples. You wet the washcloth, gently wipe his face, and you’re about to leave when he moans again.

It takes you far too long to realize he’s apologizing. What for, you can’t really tell. Though you remember his troubled eyes this morning, you remember his story, and your heart breaks in your chest.

He’s haunted. You think the ghost of the dead guy will probably haunt him for the rest of his life. And suddenly you’re struck thinking maybe, maybe if you hadn’t broken his heart all those years ago, you could have saved him from the gang.

Maybe you could have opened his eyes.

You still remember the break-up like it was yesterday. You remember the rain, him leaving without once looking back, but mostly you remember the words you had uttered. Ghosts of their own, that feel more real now that he’s come back into your life.

*****

                “You’re going to get hurt!” you yelled. “You’ll get hurt, San. What are you thinking?”

He scoffed, shaking his head, and little droplets of water shot all around him. “I’ll be careful. We need the money if we ever want to make it out of this shit town.”

You blinked away tears, folding your arms on your chest as you tried to keep your heart from breaking. Though you reckoned it had broken when your parents had told you what they knew about San. When your father had mentioned Ateez, and you’d truly realized what it meant that he was part of a gang. San, your sweet, soft, and bubbly San, in a gang that had murdered someone just a few weeks ago.

“But that’s not a way to make money!” you screamed, hoping he’d understand. Hoping he’d hear the truth in your words, hoping he’d change his mind before it was too late. “Why don’t you get a part-time job, like me? Then we can go to college and get jobs in a nice city on the other side of the country!”

“It won’t work,” he drawled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I want to be out soon, not in a few years. I barely even have a roof over my head, Y/n…”

“Come live with me,” you choked out around the lump in your throat.

You both knew fully well that your parents would never let him come near you again.

“I can’t.”

You cried, hiding your face in your hands. You cried thinking of the field where you usually met, thinking about its beauty now fading into ugliness. You thought about the wildflowers, withered and dead as autumn had come. You thought about how you were convinced you knew what love was.

“What’s the point?” you asked then. “What’s the point of putting your life in danger? Life isn’t some sort of a game, Choi San. Worse, what if you have to hurt someone? Do you think you’ll be able to pull the trigger?”

He clenched his jaw, hard. “Do me a favour and stop asking questions.”

You closed your eyes, feeling sick to your stomach. Because it couldn’t be. Not San. Not your smiley San, who’d always weave dandelions crowns with you, as you’d pretend you were a queen and a king of that field you had found. An empty field, an abandoned farmland that was just yours and his to explore. That had been home to your first kiss, and all of those that had followed.

Now you wondered why he had always wanted to meet there in the first place. Was he trying to hide?

"If you love me, you’ll get out while you still can,” you said as your tears suddenly ended.

There was a weird sense of clarity in you, suddenly. You remembered the day you had fallen in love, the moment you had first kissed. You remembered the stars in the sky above, the meteors falling for the two of you. You remembered the music on the radio you had brought. Some Arctic Monkeys song about heartbreak, about moving on and failing to do so. As a joke, when it had ended, you had asked San, “Do you think love is a laserquest?”

His answer had been cryptic, mysterious, things that had made you believe he was the one. “Maybe. Maybe it is, and I’ve shot you in the back while you weren’t looking. Maybe I’m that annoying player that won’t leave you alone.”

“I’ll never find you annoying,” you had replied.

But today, watching the rain rolling down his face like tears, you realized that maybe, maybe you should have seen the warning behind his words. Because this betrayal, it came like he had shot you in the back – you didn’t think you’d be able to recover from it.

The past dwindled away as San spoke again, reminding you of the question you had just asked him. “It’s not a question of love, Y/n. I do love you. But it’s a question of survival.”

You laughed, coldly, and then you said, “You know what? You’re full of shit.”

“Alright then. Do me a favour and tell me to go away.”

“Go away.”

A long silence had lingered between you, voided of that summer warmth that had you falling in love. Like a piece was missing from the contract of you loving him, and him loving you. And you realized, maybe you had never really loved each other anyway.

He nodded once when you didn’t say anything else, before turning away. And you watched him walk away. You watched him thinking he was going to turn around and tell you this was just some twisted joke, the prank of the century. Only, he never turned around, and he disappeared behind the bend in the road, never to be seen again, cracking your heart open and splitting it in half.

*****

                The sun sets, like an ending to a dream. You’ve always liked the end – you think if you could choose, you’d want to witness the end of the world. The nostalgia, the beauty of endings… it’s something you understand now that you didn’t understand when you were younger. Because you and San ending, it had led to you focusing on high school. It had allowed you to get in the good college in town, with a scholarship that covered most of your expenses before you made it to med school.

There’s beauty in knowing losing San has allowed you to live out your dreams.

There’s less beauty in knowing that San has been sleeping for almost thirty-four hours now. Last time you checked, he was still breathing, but you’re starting to be afraid that he just won’t wake up. It’s irrational, you know – after the blood loss it makes sense that he’d sleep for a long time.

But it leaves you with far too much time on your hands to think and revisit the past. You’ve been doing it all day – thinking about the fight with your parents that had led to your break-up with San, thinking about that damn rainy evening he had walked away without once looking back. Thinking of the field, of sunshine and star falls and the sweetness of a first kiss. Thinking that, then, you thought you knew what it was like to be in love.

You haven’t dated anyone serious since San. Hyunmin was a distraction for a while, but you never were into it. Not like you were into San. There’s a guy in your class though, that you’ve been chatting with for a couple of weeks. He’s sweet, innocent, and the perspective of a future seems less scary with him around. He’s mentioned he wants to move across the country once too, and since then you’ve started talking more, the similarity of your wishes drawing you closer.

All day today you’ve been feeling like you’re slowly drifting away though. Slowly getting entrapped in a web you’re not sure you’ll be able to walk away from.

You decide to swim, seeking the fresh clarity only cold water can bring to you. You don’t have a swimsuit with you, but since San is half-dead in bed you figure it doesn’t matter. So you strip naked, feet making squelching sounds in the mud by the lake side as you step in the water.

The sharp cold has you holding your breath, but you don’t slow down. You’ve never slowed down in life – when you make a decision, you bring it to completion. And you’ve decided to swim, so swim you will.

The warm summer evening breeze catches in your hair as you take another step forward, the water now lapping at your thighs. You dread the moment it’ll hit your core, knowing that that’s the worst part, but you breathe in deeply, moving forward. Because there’s no moving backwards now.

When the water hits, your eyes flutter shut, and you hold in the wince that threatens to escape the mask of calm your features hold. Soon enough, you get deep enough to swim, and the movements bring welcomed warmth to your limbs as you flop on your back, tits out of the water.

Your uncle’s cabin is the only cabin in a fifteen miles radius. You know you won’t be interrupted, and so you let the water cool you down. Calm you down, hold you in its fresh embrace. It undoes knots in your back that have formed from worrying about San, but also from worrying about college.

From worrying that you will never be enough. You think it’s a normal anxiety to have, something most people must feel as they go through the trials of college, not knowing what to expect on the other side. A nice career, perhaps, though the perspective of failure is there too, looming over the horizon.

You sigh, and your eyes flutter open as your legs move mindlessly under you, making sure to keep you afloat. You look up at the azury ceiling over your head, so far away as it slowly turns gold. Out of touch, out of grasp. You watch the fluffy white clouds that are lazily crossing the sky, turning fiery in the sunset, as if they have all the time in the universe. And you wish you were them, up above. With nothing to worry about.

Without a Choi San on the brink of death lying about twenty meters away from you. You sigh, and you turn in the water, with the purpose of swimming again. Though your gaze catches movement by the cabin, and your head snaps towards it to see none other than the supposedly Choi San, standing on the deck with a hand clutching his side.

You shriek, looking down at yourself. Most of you is hidden, but you don’t know how long he’s been there. Don’t know if he’s seen you naked as you looked up at the sky.

He doesn’t move, only watches you where you’re swimming.

“Can you please look away?” you say from the water, and he has the nerves to lean against the railing, eyes still boring into where you’re swimming. You think his gaze might be so hot the water will boil, and it startles you into action.

You start walking out of the water, pointing towards the door. “You shouldn’t be up, Choi San.”

“I feel fine,” he says as you take another step forward, and the water barely hides your tits anymore.

That makes him turn around, as he offers you a little bit of privacy. You’re quick to get out of the water and wrap yourself in the towel you brought outside, and then you collect your clothes to head back to the cabin. San dutifully keeps his gaze away until you’re climbing the three steps leading to the deck, and it’s then that his eyes trail to you again.

“Thank you for the water,” he says, offering you a tentative smile.

You left water by his bedside earlier today hoping it will coax him to wake up. You’re strangely surprised that it worked.

“You should go sit inside,” you scold him, only half-heartedly. Because seeing him up and about reassures you, somehow.

He cocks an eyebrow, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “The weather is beautiful, I’d rather sit outside.”

You roll your eyes, but you do let him walk down the stairs to sit by the fireplace while you go inside to take a quick shower and get dressed. You decide to make some food for him, though you know he shouldn’t eat too much right now, after not having eaten for a while. He has to start slowly, and you don’t even know if he’s hungry anyway.

You settle for preparing a cup of chicken noodle soup for him, so at least it isn’t too heavy on his stomach. You bring it to him outside, as he’s just calmly observing the lake.

“Thank you,” he says, voice small as he grabs the cup and the spoon.

You sit next to him, trying not to watch him eat too much. His hair is sticking to his forehead in some places, and you have the distinct thought that he’ll probably need to shower. At least there’s plenty of rain water in the bucket for the water pump.

“What have you been doing while I was out?” he asks.

You spare him a quick glance before losing your gaze in the rocks of the fireplace. “I’ve studied. Checked up on you. Not much honestly.”

He chuckles. “I’d argue that caring for someone is a lot.”

You glance at him, cheeks burning at the sight of his teasing smile. “Not really.”

He chuckles again, but doesn’t say anything more before eating another spoonful of soup. He’s almost done with the cup when he actually does speak, asking, “How long was I out?”

“A day and a half,” you answer. “I’m actually surprised you haven’t slept longer.”

You can hear the smirk in his voice when he says, “I’m made of tough stuff.”

You snicker, but you don’t say anything, just focusing on where you’re kicking at the dirt. When he’s done with the cup, he puts it down on the ground next to him, before sitting back in the chair. He stretches out his legs in front of him, sighing deeply.

“I still feel out of it,” he admits, and you meet his gaze.

“You can sleep more,” you tell him. “I’d just like to check on the…”

You don’t even have to finish your sentence. He immediately turns so his side is to you, and you have to admit you’ve done a perfectly good job with the stitches.

“So?” he asks.

“All good.” You pat his shoulder. “You can sit comfortably again.”

He’s smiling when he does so, and his gaze wanders to the lake once again. “I’m sorry I…” he trails off, and he chuckles softly. “I’m sorry I interrupted your little swim earlier.”

You have the decency to flush furiously red, and you shrug your shoulders. “No worries, I wasn’t expecting you to be up so soon.”

You fall in a comfortable silence, surprisingly so. Rare stars dot the darkening sky up above, and all that can be heard for a moment is the flap of a bird’s wing as it moves from branches to branches in the trees by the water. The breeze picks up as you watch the little bird, and the leaves dance, loudly so. You’d think it’d be deafening in the silence between you and him, but it’s strangely reassuring.

As if, after all, you found your way back to the field. Only this time it’s completely different, as if decades have passed between you. At least, that’s how it feels like.

You notice San has dozed off in the chair next to you when you were about to speak to him again. To ask him how he’s truly been, in the years between then and now. Hoping to avoid mentioning what led to him coming to you, yesterday, a whole eternity ago.

You watch him, heart aching in your chest. Aching to reach out and brush his hair away from his forehead, aching to heal the cut on his cheek with a gentle swipe of your fingers. If only medicine was so simple…

It seems the peace of the early evening wasn’t going to stay around, because you notice dark clouds rolling in the distance, streaks of lightning cutting through them. Slowly inching closer, menacingly so, and you gently wake San up with your hand on his wrist.

He startles awake, hand shooting to his waist, finding nothing there. It startles you, and you both stare at each other for a moment until you realize what he was looking for.

His gun.

“San…” you let out and he runs his hand through his hair, eyes falling shut as he breathes in and out raggedly.

“Sorry.”

“San, I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t open his eyes, refuses to let you see the vulnerability you glimpsed behind his piercing gaze. Refuses to acknowledge that he’s terrified, deadly so.

“Let’s go in,” you tell him, softly. Because you’re afraid you’ll spook him, when he’s clearly been living in fear long enough. “There’s a storm coming.”

He nods, carefully getting up without sparing you a glance. He heads inside, hand clutching his side again, while you pick up the chicken noodle soup cup before following him.

You’ve refilled the generator before swimming, so you know it’s been charging the batteries for a while now. You don’t fear ending up in the dark with San, and there’s also always the option of using the lamps and candles your uncle always leave here in case of an emergency.

The storm doesn’t roll in until a little later. You’ve forced San to put a shirt on – mostly so your eyes would stop betraying you, dropping to his toned body whenever he talked to you. You’re currently sitting on the couch, and as the rain starts, hammering against the window behind you, you pull your legs to your chest, wrapping your arms comfortably around them.

“How hard do the storms hit here?” he asks, eyes trailed to the world outside.

You follow his gaze, right as wind picks up to make the water hit the window even harder, creating a cacophony that forces you to speak louder for him to hear. “Pretty hard.”

He nods, and he glances once at you. “Fun.”

You smile, because you’ve always liked storms. Have always found them electrifying, energizing.

“Do you remember when we used to go to the field when it rained?” San asks, taking you by surprise.

Making your heart clench so hard in your chest you have to take a wobbly breath in. If he notices he doesn’t say.

“We were always in that field,” you remind him. “No matter the weather.”

It’s his turn to smile fondly. “It got so pretty with all the wildflowers. But you were afraid of the bees.”

“Bees are scary!” You laugh, and he echoes it with a soft chuckle. “You’re the one that almost pissed yourself when we saw the rat.”

That makes him laugh, and he winces in pain clutching his side. “Gosh, is it supposed to keep on hurting like this?”

It douses your enthusiasm and your smile falls. “Well, it was a solid cut.”

His eyes get lost in the void as he takes on a wistful expression. “I’m surprised I didn’t die.”

You gulp, watching his profile carefully. “It wasn’t deep enough for that…” you trail off, even though you spent most of yesterday and today being convinced he’d die. “At least they didn’t… stab you.”

“They would have if… Wooyoung didn’t shoot.”

You remain silent, not knowing what to reply to that. San interprets that as discomfort, and he quickly adds, “He didn’t shoot them. Just… in the air. It attracted the police.”

You remember the cars zooming past the diner a lifetime ago, and you nod your head. “I heard.”

He seems surprised, and his gaze finally finds yours again. “You did?”

“Yeah.” You chuckle, a little awkwardly. “I hear a lot of shootings, in the diner.”

His eyes widen, mouth falling open cutely. “You do?”

You don’t know what he expected. The diner is right between Ateez and Bangtan territory, and as much as it is a safe space, it is also near enough to dangerous grounds, and you’ve heard plenty of shooting in your time working there.

“Always,” you admit. “It can get scary sometimes… but you also get used to it.”

He looks sad. Infinitely so, like a lost puppy. That’s when the first thunder hits, so sharp and sudden you startle. Not quite as much as San, who ducks, wincing in pain as he clutches his side.

“Shit,” he curses. “Sorry.”

“What’s wrong?” you ask, in time with another thunderclap, though this time it’s more of a rumble.

You watch his chest as he breathes in and out quickly. “Just… fuck.”

Now, concern grows in you, and you gently put a hand on his shoulder. “San…”

He meets your gaze, and there’s so much white in his it makes you think of a terrified prey. And then it clicks: he thought it was a gunshot.

“Hey,” you quickly say, moving closer to him. You’re on the side of the stitches, so you still keep a safe distance between the two of you, but you grab his hand nonetheless. “You’re okay.”

“Fuck,” is all he’s able to say.

“I promise, no one’s going to find you here.”

He remains silent this time around, eyes still boring into yours. You take that as a cue to continue, because you don’t want him to panic. You want his thoughts here, with you, and not miles away in a city he should have escaped from years ago. You wish he had, knowing the atrocities that he would have avoided.

Would he have escaped with you, had you stayed just a little longer?

“I killed someone,” he says, and you balk at the silver lining his gaze. “I fucking killed him.”

You don’t know how to help. All you can think to do is cup his cheek, right as he starts breathing even faster. “Breathe with me, San.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes fall to your mouth. You make a good show of inhaling slowly, before exhaling even slower. It takes him a moment but he eventually follows your lead.

It breaks when there’s another sharp thunderclap, and he flinches, eyes shutting instinctively.

“Hey hey hey,” you say again, even more gentle, softer than before. You move even closer, and when a tear slips out of his closed eyes, you pull him into a hug, careful not to brush his side.

His head falls on your shoulder, and one of his arms wrap around your waist. A thunderclap later, he starts sobbing, fist balling the fabric of your shirt in his tight hold, and you let him do it. You let him hold onto you, hoping it’ll keep him here with you. Hoping it’ll keep him afloat during the storm that’s raging both outside and in his mind.

“It’s going to be okay,” you breathe, and you feel like you’re lying to him.

Because how can he ever be safe from the ghosts inside of his skull? The ghosts wandering the halls of him, tainting his soul with their presence?

“He’s never going to smile again,” San chokes out. “Everyone loved him. Even in Ateez… Jungkook was the best of us. The only one who had a shot at getting out of it.”

You don’t know how good he could have been, if he was a member of Bangtan. In your mind, you’d always seen Bangtan as the bad guys, mostly because they weren’t with San. Even when you had been struggling to evade that life, you’d still rooted for him.

It’s strange how you just realize that now, as you’re holding him while he breaks.

“You didn’t mean to kill him,” you remind San, still speaking with the calmest voice you can muster up. “You didn’t want to, San. You’re not a murderer.”

“I’m still a killer,” he says. He sounds angry, and you reckon he might be angry at himself. Might be consumed with his actions, dragged to hell before his time as his mind gets stuck replaying the events.

“Maybe,” you answer. “But,” you quickly add when he stiffens in your arms. “But you can spend the rest of your life making up for it. Repenting.”

He doesn’t respond right away, as he breaks some more, sobs rocking through him. You’ve never seen him like this, not even when you were younger and in love. It makes your gaze wet, yet you hold on strong for him. You keep your head held high, and you allow him to break in the safe haven that your arms represent.

Because to him, you’ve never been tainted. You’ve always been the ideal he was trying to pursue, albeit the wrong way.

“I don’t know how to repent,” he admits when he calms down. He turns his head, and his nose brushes along the skin of your neck, slightly tickling you. You ignore the feeling, especially as he adds, “Ateez… it’s all I’ve ever known.”

You run a hand on his back, soothingly. “It isn’t.”

Because there was you, too. There was the summer field and the twinkling stars and Artic Monkeys on the radio. There was the two of you, petal-soft kisses exchanged in the dead of night and in the brightness of day. There were rainy days, and then there was rain. There was him walking away, and you hate yourself then.

You wish you had stopped him that day, had kept him from going on to become what he’s become now. A person he clearly hates, someone that has a bounty on his head. Someone that doesn’t even believe they’re allowed redemption and you reckon you don’t even know if he is.

You only know that seeing him break is bending your will, the way the wind outside is bending the trees. All you can hope is that, like the tall trees, you won’t break.

*****

                The storm calmed down sometime around midnight. San ended up falling asleep on the couch, as you’d reassuringly ran your hand through his hair, trying to keep him with you. Though you think he’s been slipping through your fingers, into his demons.

You’ll find a way to bring him back. You have to. Turns out it comes faster than you think, as the electricity runs out and you busy yourself with lighting some candles throughout the main room. When you’re done, you put a blanket over him, and you almost let out a startled scream as his eyes shot open.

“Hello,” you say, resting a hand on your heart to tame the wild beats.

You’re about to move away, but he grabs your hand, forcing you to sit next to him. You don’t really resist, though you think you probably should. You’re weak – weaker still when he murmurs your name.

“San,” you whisper in return, and you’re aware your voice carries too much longing. Longing for a past when life’s atrocities hadn’t changed either of you yet.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologizes, and a tear rolls on his cheek.

You dry it, fingers lingering there. “It’s okay.”

“Angel…”

The nickname brings you back to laser quests and favours and warmth creeping up your stomach for the first time in your life.

“I’m no angel,” you breathe.

“You saved me.”

You hold his gaze. There’s something hiding behind his pupils. The need, to forget. You don’t think you have the ability to run his mind through amnesia, but still you brush his cheek again.

“You deserved saving.”

His eyes glaze once more, though this time no tears fall. “It’s hard to believe it.”

“Do you still believe love is a laser quest?” you ask him, out of the blue.

As if you’re a line straight of that Arctic Monkeys song you listened to the first time you kissed.

“Maybe,” he says, a parallel to that first time you had asked the question. “Maybe it is.”

You can’t resist. You lean down, and you press the gentlest kiss on his lips. His are dry, but the way he sighs with you against him is soft, for your heart and for your mind, and you kiss him again. He lets you lead, follows the dance of your lips, lets you run your hand through his sweaty hair.

Even if you shouldn’t. Even if you know everything you’re doing right now is a mistake, you still find yourself deepening the kiss, opening your lips to slip your tongue out, teasing his mouth. One of his hands finds your thigh, and he squeezes ever so slightly as his tongue finds yours, and you let out a breathy sound.

When you pull away, eyes fluttering open, you find San’s gaze. You think about the boy he was then, the girl you were then. You think about who you were, together. And when he says, “Please make me forget”, you lean again, capturing his mouth in a languid kiss.

For a reason unknown, the summer sky and falling stars pale in comparison to this kiss. Maybe because it holds longing, nostalgia. Hope that life would have turned out differently. For a moment, you picture what it would have been like, without Ateez. With you and him in the field, in your family house, in a car driving by the beach, windows down as the sun sets and you sing along to the radio, wind blowing in your hair.

You see a whole life there, with you and him marrying in the field, under the sun that had been the host of your first love. You imagine growing up by his side, attending college with him in the big city. You imagine how he would have become the owner of his own construction company, like his dad before him. You picture kids laughing, running around the house he would have built for you. You see Christmas light, late nights antics by the firelight.

You see it all, and you know you’ll never have any of it. But if you can have tonight, then you’ll grab it before it slips through your fingers. Before he walks away in the rain again, only to be a memory you cherish in the deepest corners of your heart.

“How?” you ask him when you pull away.

Mostly, you’re asking how to make him forget. But you’re also asking how it is that the feelings are still there, even stronger now, as if they’ve grown up with you, yet haven’t changed like you have. Like they are a constant of an ever-changing universe.

“Kiss me again,” he asks, begs, and you give in. You kiss him wildly, always making sure not to touch his side and the stitches.

You know sex would be a stupid idea, especially with the fresh stitches. But also because he’s barely had time to recover. But he doesn’t really give you a choice, pulling you on top of him until you’re straddling him.

You sit back on him for a second, eyes trailing to the spot where you know the stitches are. “This isn’t a good idea,” you whisper through the ragged breaths caused by the ministrations of his mouth on yours and of yours on his.

“I’m fine,” he says, and you know you shouldn’t believe him. But when he pulls you down again, large hand holding the nape of your neck firmly so you don’t escape, you want to believe him.

Want to believe the beauty of his lies, like you had when you were younger.

From where you’re perched, you can feel the start of his erection pressing against you, and you moan softly in the kiss, rolling your hips. His mouth falls open, and you capture his tongue, sucking on it once before you pull away, leaving hot kisses on his jaw.

“Sit on my face,” he says, and he sounds out of his mind. Crazed, a little like you too feel at the moment.

“What?”

“Can’t get hurt if you sit on my face, angel,” he explains, and then hisses when you suck a hickey on his neck.

You let him pull your shirt off, unclasping your bra yourself as you sit back on his lap. He cups your breasts, rolling your erect nipples between his thumbs and indexes. You moan again, grinding your hips into his, and he hisses once more.

“You want to taste me?” you ask, head throwing back as he pinches your nipples hard.

“I’d fuck you, but you’re the doctor. Can’t risk fucking up my stitches, huh?” he replies, voice low and husky.

Your core heats up, pussy clenching around nothing. This is a side of him you’ve never seen, though you spy desperation beneath it. Like he thinks he doesn’t have forever, when it comes to you.

He’s right. Because tomorrow, you’ll have to go back into town, into the hellscape you call home. What will be left of the two of you then?

So when he tugs at your pants, you give in and get up, taking off your pants and panties in one swift motion. You step out of them, blood heating up by the way he’s looking at you through half-lidded eyes, gaze burning on you.

You have half a thought that you could probably ride him instead of his face, but when you see his pink tongue darting out to wet his lips, making them glisten in the candlelight, you need to know what it’ll feel like against you.

So you straddle his face as he guides you down, large hands pushing on your thighs until your pussy is a hairsbreadth away from his lips. He blows on it, and your eyes shut with sensitivity. You clutch the cushion of the couch, hoping it’ll help steady you, but the moment his tongue flicks at your clit, you realize nothing will be able to steady you. Yet you still hold onto it, especially as he dives his tongue between your folds, lapping up your juice. He moans in contentment, before moving to your clit again. And his tongue is wicked down there, like it knows exactly what you like.

You grab a handful of his hair, grinding into his face. You’re pretty sure he’s chuckling down there, and then he unleashes himself. Sucking hard, alternating circling motions to teasing you with his teeth. You’d expect the latter to hurt, but the way he does it just makes you see stars, and your pussy clenches around nothing again.

San is deadly good with his mouth. Both with crafting lies and pulling moans out of you, and your thighs tighten against his face as he sucks particularly hard, before dipping his tongue inside of you. His nose brushes your clit, and then he forces you to properly sit on him.

The way his tongue moves inside of you, lapping up your juices while opening you up, has you on the brink of an orgasm in no time. Especially as he makes you grind again, holding you tight into place. When one of his hands moves from around your thigh to reach your clit, you cry out, head throwing back.

He’s quick to rub at your sensitive clit, and you grab one of your breasts, massaging it mindlessly before you pinch your nipple, hard, right in time with a skilled swipe of his tongue. Your orgasm meets you there, shaking through you as it explodes in a blinding flash of light. You moan, loudly, something that resembles his name, and he keeps you going, guides you through your high until you cringe with oversensitivity.

Only then does he let you climb off from his face. You stand on wobbly legs, before deciding to sit next to him, and you catch sight of the smirk on his lips. It makes you blush, right as you realize what you’ve just done.

When you realize what kind of sinful activity he’s dragged you in, this time around.

“Gosh,” is all you manage to say.

He chuckles, clearly proud with himself. “That felt good?”

You worry at your bottom lip, eyes going down to the tent in his pants. You want to pleasure him too, to take him in your mouth and make him feel good, but he stops you with a hand wrapped around your wrist.

“Don’t.”

You still and you meet his gaze with slightly-widened eyes. “Why not?”

His features turn somber, haunted, and the heat of the moment passes so quickly you think it might have been a figment of your imagination.

Were you really riding his face just a moment ago?

“Please just lay next to me,” he says, barely even a whisper.

You don’t know a lot of men that would choose cuddling over getting a blowjob, but if that is what he wants, then you’ll give it to him. You lay next to him, glad that the injured side is closer to the couch. That way, you can cuddle up to him, resting your head on his shoulder while he wraps an arm around you.

“Angel,” he murmurs after a time. “You’re a fucking angel. I think you’re my salvation.”

You highly doubt you hold this kind of power, but you don’t want to tell him. Have never been good at weaving beautiful lies for him to believe.

“We should stay here,” he continues. “Forever.”

And you wish you could. Wish reality didn’t exist, didn’t call for you to go back to your regular life like you’ve never been here with him. But you know tomorrow exists, and you’ll have to leave.

“We should have stayed in the field,” you choose to answer. “Under the shooting stars.”

“I wished for a lifetime with you, then,” he admits. “I wished I’d never have to let you go.”

You’d wished for a similar thing, but life is far too cruel to allow a world of first loves.

“Why did you…” you trail off. The question has haunted your sleepless nights for a long time after the break-up. Even years later, you’d still think about it sometimes, wondering if nostalgia would choke you up. “Why did you decide to join the gang?”

He tenses next to you. But you start tracing a mindless circle on his chest, through the shirt, and it distracts him enough for him to reply. “I thought I didn’t have a choice.”

“Did you?”

His voice holds the weight of the world when he says, “I did. And I made the wrong one.”

You want to cry, but you’re older now. You’re not the teenager who thought she was going to die from losing him anymore. You know what living without Choi San is like, and as much as it hurts, you know that it’s doable.

“You made the one you believed was right,” you say carefully. “But I do wish you had made a different one.”

He holds you a little tighter, as if that will make it so tomorrow never comes. “Me too.”

There’s an eternity of flickering candlelight on the ceiling, of the circles you trace on his chest and of your breathings forming a melody. Outside, the wind has died down, and the world is silent except from an occasional cricket braving the world after the storm.

“Where will you go, once you graduate?” he asks, taking you by surprise.

Because he knows. It’s one of the few things that hasn’t changed.

“As far away from here as I can.”

“I hope you find peace, wherever you go,” he whispers. “I hope you forget all about how we grew up in a hellhole.”

Do you feel bad for saying it? Maybe. But you can’t help saying it anyway. “I will, San.”

And like that rainy day years ago, you think you can see him walk away.

*****

Seven years later

The winter sun is strangely bright, up above. You’d think it will warm you up, but the cold is relentless, violent, and it sneaks into your coat as you walk out of the hospital. You’ve just finished a thirty-hour shift, and you can’t wait to be home.

To take a shower and forget that you’ve lost a patient today.

But you’ve saved another. A young man, with a stab wound in his ribs that should have killed him. But you saved him, stabilized his condition to the point you don’t have to worry about him anymore. Which is the only reason why you’re allowing yourself to leave now.

You’re never able to leave until you know your patients are okay. It’s been that way since your first patient, in a cabin in the woods you’ve done your best to forget.

You’d let San stay, after that weekend. He had given you the number of one of his friends, so you could get some clothes for him, and you’d gone back the next weekend. Bringing him the clothes, making love to him under the moonlight as if that would change the ending.

The following week, you had gone back to find the cabin empty. He’d left a note behind.

I hope I can find you again, wherever you go.

You kept the note. It’s in your bedside table, back at home, in the nice apartment you’ve been able to rent for yourself with all the money you’ve been making now. Enough to pay back student loans from med school, enough to reassure you that never again will you struggle.

You’ve never seen San again after. He hasn’t found you, and you haven’t searched for him. Have only looked up his name a couple of times, in the months following his disappearing, scared you’d find out that he was found dead in a ditch. But his name never came up, and you wondered if he had managed to escape, if he had managed to find a place where Bangtan couldn’t reach him.

You found peace, on your side of the country. Life is kinder here, though it still holds the same atrocities. You wonder if it’s the novelty of the city, or maybe if you’ve just grown old enough to be able to withstand the bad that the world throws your way. It’s hard to tell – you haven’t kept contact with anyone from back home, except Jae-on.

Jae-on, who’s moved with you when you’ve decided to come here, like he said he would. Jae-on, who asked you to marry him in late October, and you said yes. The ring sits heavy on your finger, and you mindlessly play with it.

In another world, you would already be married to Choi San. Sometimes, you catch glimpses of that world – a piercing gaze in the morning, a smile and a kiss to your temple. Talks about angels, children screaming in happiness. In another world, you’d be pregnant again, waiting patiently to add another piece of you and him to this world.

It’s fun to think about, sometimes, but you’ve been good at forgetting. Like you told him you would – most times, you’ve forgotten all about Choi San.

But today, you had a patient that reminded you of him. So you allow yourself to feel, you allow yourself to think about that note tucked in the bottom drawer of your bedside table, hidden under the thick socks you never use.

You allow yourself to think about the cabin in the woods, about the field where you would have gotten married had you been in that picturesque world you like to imagine. You think about laser quests and first kiss and rainy days and meteors. You think about summer, about wildflowers and him.

You’re so lost in thought you miss your stop home, and you begrudgingly get out at the next one. You’re tired, and your hands are shaking as you pull your phone out of your tote bag, wanting to text Jae-on that you’re going to be home late because you missed your stop. You walk to the other side of the tracks, sighing when you see a five-minutes wait for the next subway.

At least the sun is high in the sky, even though it is dreadfully cold. You shiver, putting your phone back in your tote bag so you can hide your hands in your sleeves again, hoping it’ll preserve them from the cold.

In your exhaustion, you forgot your gloves back at the hospital, you realize. It’s strange that you only realize now, and you reckon you really need to sleep, because your brain isn’t even working right anymore.

You sigh, glancing at the display showing the time. Still four minutes to wait. You think at this rhythm you might freeze in your spot before the next subway comes. You try to hide your face in the lapel of your coat, but a movement on the other platform attracts your gaze.

A man is helping an older woman climb down the stairs. She’s speaking loudly, which might be what attracted your gaze in the first place. You follow them as they walk down the stairs, and then when the man turns towards you, you meet his piercing gaze.

He smiles, and you realize that maybe, all those years ago, he was not spinning lies to you after all.

☆☆☆☆☆

Gosh yeahhh rereading it had me ralize that it is a lot sadder than I remembered it to be. At least we got an open ending ... :') What did we think? Should I write about other groups more often? Let me know what you think! All rights reserved to @/oddinary4bts, 2023. Do not copy, repost or translate

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@btsborahaee

[99liners]

I missed you a lot here 💜 good to see you back!

I've been struggling with insomnia for a while now and I keep searching for soft ASMR or drabbles to fall asleep.

I have a soft taetaeme req (☠️) yeah I'll choose the most unusual genre of man to make you write fluffy drabble for me.

Kaiho!Jungkook (oops 🥹)

I want this inhuman to be like a human even if it's for a short span of time.

maybe could you write a fluffy drabble of him being all soft for her, back hugging her in the shower while she brushes her teeth half asleep with closed eyes but she woke up just to cook for him (even tho it's a sunday)

and he kisses her and maybe rewards her with sum intense oral uwu. You obviously do add and enhance according to your ideas.

Much love

Evie 🧚🏻‍♀️

opus kaiho, drabble number 3 / tatemae series 建前:

pairing: detective!jeon jeongguk x trophy!wife reader genre: fluff, smut, marriage!au, age-gap!au (7 years). words: 3.375. (cmon guys, it's been long established that i am incapable of understanding the meaning of the word 'drabble'.) warnings: i suck at fluff so brace yourselves for the second-hand embarrassment lmao, showering together, smexy times, eating out, fingering, pussy licking, orgasm (f), kaiho!jjk accidentally walks through a portal and becomes soft for a night ahaha, js. original one-shot: kaiho part of: tatemae; 建前 — a bts series a/n: i am sorry love that you are having sleeping issues. i have had insomnia since middle school now and at this point i have just given up on having a sleeping routine. i really hope you can return back to your rhythm very soon! i had to physically restrain myself from writing angst ahahah xD also, if it feels like jk is not that great at pleasuring his wife, it's intentional because although i wanted to make it super fluffy for you but kaiho!jk gotta stay true to his character to some degree uwu. hope you enjoy! <3

jeongguk unlocked the front door with the personal key attached to his car keys and his desk-locker key from work. his head coming in contact with the material of the door briefly while his hands manoeuvred the lock to finally open the door as he let out a soft sigh.

he hates summers, it is brutal. while the world is enjoying summer breaks, he is working double shifts due to the sheer number of officers submitting requests for vacations.

bam greeted his owner at the doorway, sniffing jeongguk's pant legs while his tail wagged. he can always smell the faint traces of the police labrador retriever dog from his owner's work clothes.

"there's my good boy," a smile appeared on jeongguk's otherwise tired face as he scratched bam's head affectionately.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.  

the detective made his way inside the house, with bam on his tail, taking off his jacket and discarding it on the kitchen countertop. he was expecting to see you in the kitchen, given you usually are arranging dinner at this time. finding the space empty, he meant to walk away to the bedroom but noticed two boxes of chocolate wrapped in a ribbon. they looked like they were about to melt so jeongguk stored them in the refrigerator before finally making his way to the bedroom.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.  

taking off his department badge, he kept it away on the nightstand but owing to his carelessness, the badge fell to the floor in the narrow space between the bed and the nightstand. he would have picked it up but his mind was preoccupied with the sound of the shower running. barely unbuttoning his shirt, jeongguk pushed open the bathroom door with a soft nudge of his feet.

there you were, taking a cold shower to fight the summer. you were facing the shower, just letting it wash away the heat while some pop song blasted through your mobile that you had propped somehow to prevent it from touching the water.

jeongguk walked in through the crack in the shower curtains with his work trousers still on, "hey baby," his hands slowly wrapped around your waist, closing in a wrap with one hand on top of the other right above your belly button.

you wringed the water from your hair, which trailed down jeongguk's chest, before turning to him, "hi," a lump in your throat from the inactivity. it has been way too hot these days and you refuse to go out anywhere, only ever stepping out if it is an utmost necessity.

(the game of 'do i absolutely need this?' 'is it absolutely necessary for survival?' playing way too often on your mind)

earlier in the afternoon you noticed that bam's dog food had finished so you made a trip to the local supermarket with bam. you love shopping with him, because although he is a ray of sunshine but a doberman still scares the shit out of people so the annoying salesmen stationed at almost every other aisle these days with their free samples never approach you; an all-in-all peaceful shopping trip.

while you were checking out the items, at the cashier counter there were boxes of chocolates stacked with the tag 'buy 1 get 1!'. you cannot recall seeing your husband eating sugary food as much, he mostly eats meals at home and you do not really keep track of what he eats while he is at work. you would not necessarily call him a dessert person. so the debate went on for a while before you finally got one box and checked it out too. you are not sure why you bought them but you just wanted to get your husband some chocolates? what is so wrong with it? why can't you just get your husband some chocolates? :/

"you are taking an early shower today," your husband mentioned from behind you, his chin coming to rest on your shoulder, letting the shower water run over him.

"gguk, it's 1am," you mumbled, your hands coming down to rest atop his. unspoken, your bodies started swaying slightly to the tune of the song blasting through your phone as a slow song came on the shuffle.

for a brief moment he stopped moving but then continued the motion, "right. i am sorry, it's been so tiring these days. i've lost track of time. did you have dinner?"

"no." you replied with bated breath, a part of you was waiting for him to initiate something. i mean given his past nature, isn't it a given that this is going to lead to sex?

but your husband lives to surprise you. his hands never unclasped from your waist, but instead stayed firmly in place.

"you don't need to wait for me if i'm late," his face nuzzled in the crook of your neck, inhaling the scent of your body wash.

"it's not fun eating alone," you finally released the tension, letting your figure slump back on his.

"mhm," humming, jeongguk closed his eyes.

"hey hey hey," your sprinkled some water on his face watching him scrunch his nose up which made you chuckle, "i know you are going to fall asleep. let's go eat."

"noooo," there was a whiny tone in his voice, as he only tightened his grip when you tried to break free.

"you need to eat, don't you have duty in the morning?"

"i am going to set fire to that precinct, every time i finish some paperwork, another pile of files just get dumped on my desk."

"wow, any other pyromaniac tendencies that i should know of?"

"please let's just stay like this, just for a while," jeongguk turned you around to face him this time, to stare into your eyes as intently as he had on your wedding day while reciting his vows.

"you'll catch a cold, sick gguk is a whiny little complaining brat," you chuckled, wrapping your arms around his neck, your bare chest coming in contact with his.

"i don't care," he kept swaying with you, his hold around you comforting as his arms enveloped you whole like a warm shawl.

"we shouldn't waste water," you suggested once more.

"i don't care," he reiterated again. there was not a single ounce of annoyance in his voice, he seemed at peace with his face nuzzling into your neck again.

a few moments passed before you reached your hand behind your back to turn the knob off, "i got you chocolates."

"huh? why?" again, he was not annoyed, just genuinely surprised.

"what do you mean why? i can't get my husband some chocolates?!" you pulled away from the embrace, your hands propped on his chest, the vein in your forehead pulsing; ready to throw hands.

"whoa whoa whoa, baby, calm down."

"no tell me why! why can't i just get you chocolates? what's so wrong in that?" you glared daggers at him.

"you..." jeongguk let a soft chuckle, "you are so tiny and cute."

"i got you chocolates and you are going to eat them."

"won't say i'm much fond of them but i guess it won't hurt to try."

"yes, you're going to eat them and smile and say 'thank you my dear wife, you're the best. what would i possibly do without you'"

"is that so?"

"yes and then-"

he cut you off this time, "and then i will return the favour and maybe eat you out for the dessert after dessert."

you hit his chest laughing before finally breaking free of the embrace this time, "wash up, i will get dinner ready."

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.  

"where are the chocolates?" you asked as you walked into the bedroom after warming up the dinner.

jeongguk was sprawled across the bed, his eyelids drooping down with sleep, the water from his semi-wet hair being soaked by the pillow cover, "i put them in the fridge," he yawned mid-sentence.

"well, the food's ready. let's go."

"you take out the chocolates and i will be there."

humming, you walked out to the kitchen and opened the fridge door but did not find the box anywhere. rummaging around the vegetables tray and behind the other tupperware boxes, you opened the freezer door just to be sure and lo and behold, he had put it in the freezer over the ice tray and now the packet was frozen and sticking to the ice tray.

"jeon jeongguk!" you speed-walked to the bedroom only to find him fast asleep, soft snores filling the silence in the room.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

next morning:

pressing on the volume up button, you quieted down the alarm blaring like a war horn on a beautiful sunday morning at 05:00. your husband gets early day offs on sundays but he has to clock into work early too.

putting on a headband to keep your hair away from the face, you walked to the washroom by muscle memory as your eyes were half-lidded from sleep. you reckoned if you had fallen asleep again, you might not be able to wake up on time so you pushed yourself off the bed. you squeezed the toothpaste tube on the bristles of your toothbrush, unsure if it indeed was the toothpaste or your facewash, you started brushing. your rhythm faltered every now and then as you kept falling asleep doing the mundane routine.

most mornings you wake up about half an hour before jeongguk has to leave for work. he is not a picky eater and eats whatever you put on a plate in front of him. actually, most mornings he is done making sandwiches by the time you wake up to make him something. you both then enjoy the sandwich he made as you see him off to work.

since he went to sleep last night on an empty stomach (and so did you, missy), you wanted to make him a heavy breakfast, something more than just two pieces of bread.

halfway through, you heard your alarm again and your eyes shot open. you must have snoozed your alarm instead of dismissing it and five minutes later it blared again. your brain must have lagged from the sleep because by the time you finally decided that 'oh hey i should turn off the alarm before jeongguk wakes up,' jeongguk already had woken up and appeared behind you.

"morning," he mumbled before walking inside to use the toilet.

you finally finished washing up and pat dry your face with the towel by the time your husband walked out, his eyes all scrunched up, his hand scratching an itch on his belly.

"why are you up so early?"

"to make breakfast for you," you said walking into the bedroom.

"i don't leave for like more than two hours, let's go back to sleep."

"i know," you hummed, fixing your hair.

before he could protest further and albeit successfully convince you to come back to bed, you walked to the kitchen and got the breakfast started.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

you served two bowls of naengmyeon and galbitang before returning to the cooking station to finish the last dish which you mean to pack for his lunch at work.

by the time you turned the stove off after giving it a last stir, the bibimbap was perfectly cooked. still standing there meaning to clean up, you felt jeongguk sneaking up behind you, hugging you close. this movement and position are slowly feeling so familiar to you; you can get used to this.

"who is going to eat all this?" he asked softly, placing soft kisses along the side of your neckline.

"you are," you asserted, wiping away the spills from the stovetop.

"but then what about my dessert?"

"the chocolates?"

"no, you."

your head had a whiplash with the way you turned to him.

"what? you thought i was rambling last night? i remember everything i say, baby."

"you have to go to work," shrugging, you casually mentioned the time restraint.

"it's worth to be late 'cause of that."

"get ready," elbowing him in the belly, you tried to pus him away but jeongguk was unrelenting today.

his lips were already on your soft spot, his tongue darting out to allow soft kittenish licks — you held your place but what definitely pushed you over the edge was his hand, wrapped around your lower stomach, slowly creeping down, his palm taking shape to sculpt your mound. the moment his hand came in touch with the sensitive bundle of nerves down there, your spine bent over — almost in routinely motion to such ministrations — giving way for your ass to attach snuggly and poke into his crotch area.

"your body is so soft and sensitive to my touch," your husband mentioned from behind you. he took a step back and helped guide you to the kitchen countertop on the other side of the cooking station, urging you — with soft touches and gestures of his hands to get on top of the counter. you did as he bid, getting on your knees on the counter, your ankles slightly falling off the edge but were firmly supported by jeongguk's hands which crept up the satin slip dress. it already barely covered your asscheeks, all he had to do was push it up by a few inches and he had a clear view of your panties.

"so delicious," he hummed, more to himself, as he lowered himself to come face to face with your heat. his hands which crept up to your hips moved towards the hem of your panties — hooking his fingers on either side, he slid the material down to your bent knees. a single string of arousal connected to the crotch of your panties stretched, extended to its limit and broke into thin air following that movement. jeongguk licked his lips, the corners of his mouth watering at the sight in front of him — he is hungry, both literally and figuratively.

he let his fingers massage your clitoral hood, the thin flap of skin moving in a rhythmic motion, sending incomplete jolts throughout your body. feeling the bit of arousal now on the pad of his fingers, jeongguk used his index fingers to hold the flaps open to expose the tiny nub of flesh full of nerve endings to the open air. it felt both cold and hot at the same time, making your toes twitch.

it felt like eternity but in reality it had been only mere seconds before jeongguk's tongue protruded out and flicked against your little nub, slowly at first before picking up a steady tempo — stimulating that tight bundle of nerves as they let out tension, becoming putty at your husband's expense. all this time, you held your lips tautly together, only letting escape soft hums of affirmation; 'nnngh' 'mmhm'. one of your palms was connected flat out to the marble top while the other was curled at the edge, holding on to the cold surface to maintain your balance.

jeongguk touched your vulva with the base of his tongue and slowly moved his head upwards from the bottom of your vagina to the top till the tip of his tongue passed over your clitoris. he repeated the motion a few times, breaking contact every time he reached the top and then starting over from the bottom till he started feeling the arousal now leak out on his tongue. to cover as much of your vagina, he kept his tongue relaxed, wide and flat, letting his head and neck muscles do the work while his tongue stayed unmoving. (the secret to that killer jawline.) he was able to maintain the pace for a few moments before speeding up his ministrations.

a soft 'ah' left your lips, finally verbalizing your moaning but much like female masturbation, speed only takes you over to the edge but does not bring about that much needed final release. looking forward, you glanced at the clock in the dining hall which read 06:59 and your husband has to leave by 07:30 for duty. letting your upper body lower down to the cold marble — your nipples becoming hard and sticking out in a painful stance — you let your dominant hand reach down to that little bundle of nerves and started massaging it, accompanying jeongguk's movements.

"yes, just like that," you almost regretted moaning that out because your husband quickened up his pace. you made a mental note to tell him later that just like that does not mean speed up, it always means keep that steady motion.

bursting away those thought bubbles, you let yourself drown in the overstimulation, feeling yourself reaching that edge.

"let it go baby, let me taste it all," he lapped his tongue at the arousal, making sinful noises echo throughout the walls. this time when he started over, you did not feel his tongue on your vagina next but his lips as he sucked up your clit — sucking and releasing.

"fuck," your toes curled up, eyes closed shut as your fingers picked up speed as well.

"mine mine mine, yes," he let a slap on your right asscheek.

just a bit more of his growing unsteady ministrations along with your fingers working that coiled nub and you came undone on his tongue, finally letting your upper body completely flat on the countertop, your lungs taking in the air.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

jeongguk took a quick shower and got dressed, trying to hurry up as he was going to be late.

"well what about the breakfast? i made all that for you!"

"pack it all, i will eat in the precinct."

"no you wont, i know your team will eat the most of it."

"i promise i will eat it."

"well you better, i am your wife and i made that food for you." you pointed your index finger and tapped at his chest.

"well of course you are my wife and yes that food is for me. now hurry up, baby," he gently spanked your left asscheek this time, making it even from earlier, after finishing buttoning up his shirt. you rolled your eyes walking out to the kitchen to pack the food.

jam-packing all of the food into bento boxes, you finished with keeping the box of chocolates on top of the insulated carry-on lunch bag.

jeongguk, now completely clad in his uniform, came out and took the bag from you in a hurry. well, it was 07:47 already so he was late, "bye," pecking your lips, he walked out.

after the door closed behind him, you took out last night's dinner and put it in the oven to warm it up since you still haven't eaten anything and just packed away all of the breakfast.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

it hadn't even been ten minutes when you heard your phone ringing.

"hey, what's up?"

"i left my badge at home."

"where is it?"

"i think i put it on the nightstand."

you were already in the bedroom looking for the badge by the time he mentioned it, "nope, it's not here."

"then i don't know woman, i need it."

"men," you rolled your eyes before cutting the call.

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

after finishing your breakfast and retrieving the badge with the help of bam, you walked into your husband's precinct with the badge in your hand when you noticed the team gathered around jeongguk's table.

making your way over, the smell of food wafted your nostrils and you watched as the team relished the breakfast while your husband had maybe bit of it.

minjun turned after swallowing the last spoonful of the bibimbap, "oh mrs jeon, thank you so much for the breakfast. it's great!"

you gave him a close-lipped smile, blinking a few too many times before turning to your husband who took a visible gulp.

after the crowd in front of your dispersed you slammed the badge down on his table and meant to walk away, but jeongguk got a hold of your wrist.

"look i saved the chocolates for myself."

"ahha? you mean the one that i see in yoona's hand?"

jeongguk stared down at his desk in panic, his eyes searching for the box of chocolates that he had kept aside to eat later, "those sneaky bastards."

"i am never cooking for you again, jeon jeongguk."

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

feedback is deeply appreciated. ✨

masterlist | bts masterlist | rules | ask box

- jaimie

© 𝟫𝟫𝓁𝒾𝓃𝑒𝓇𝓈, 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟥. 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐃.

[keen-li]

•°`°•BTS SERIES•°`°•

Namjoon <-°•

None yet

Seokjin <-°•

None yet

Yoongi <-°•

None yet

Hoseok <-°•

None yet

Jimin <-°•

None yet

Taehyung <-°•

None yet

Jungkook <-°•

|

\/

•What you need

best friends au, angst, fluff, smut, slow burn

everybody needs, but how do you define need? do you even know what you need.

->ep 00 . 01 . 02 . 03 . 04 .

jungkook x fem reader

•Clawed [on hold]

convict jk x investigator/police officer reader

->ep 01 . 02 . 03 . 04 . 05 . 06 . 07 .

•Renegade [completed]

junkie-ish jungkook x reader, pregnancy au

->ep 01 . 02 . 03 . 04 .

•Marmalade [on hold]

fuckboy jk x college student reader, brother's friend au

"in won't tell your brother as long as we keep fucking"

->ep 00 . 01 . 02 .

drabbles parts of this series

-> frozen marmalade: Xmas special

-> new year, new marmalade: new year special

•Only one [on hold]

psychiatrist jk x mental patient reader

->ep 01 . 02 . 03 . 04 .

<-°•<-°•♡<-°•<-°•

[star-my]

Vixen ~ Three (Final)

➼ Pairing: Jimin x OC (Shin Ara)

➼ Length: 6k

➼ Rating: pg-15

➼ Content: Arranged Marriage AU, CEO AU, Mafia AU | TW: Vague Threats of Violence; Kidnapping; Non-Graphic Violence (Fight Scene); Minor Discussion of Human Trafficking (not by BTS/SKZ members)| Ara and JK are so sibling-coded; Jimin ships Vixen and JK

➼ Thanks to @moonleeai for betaing! I had this posted at noon and closed tumblr but when I came back now somehow it disappeared into the cloud?? I'm so annoyed ;-;

➼ Taglist: @bangtan-famiglia-net@kookthief@otome-wandering@sarcasticbambi

➼ Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and in no way represents any member of BTS, SKZ, or any other K-pop group mentioned in any way beyond the face and name claims the author made for this work.

➼ Chapter 1 (13/10/23) ➼ Chapter 2 (14/10/23) ➼ Ao3 ➼ Masterlist

ARA, AGE 25, (PRESENT DAY)

A hand flopped around on the wooden table, finally locating the device making that infernal racket far too early in the morning.

“It’s too early for this,” Ara groaned, sliding the call button on her phone. “Yeoboseyo?”

“Princess? It’s Jimin. Sorry if I woke you…” Ara heard a sharp inhale as her husband realised the time. Still, he pressed on. “Um…you know how Park Wonshik adopted me after I was kidnapped?”

“Ye-ah,” she replied slowly, trying to figure out what was going on. Why was he sounding so awake after helping her break up the trafficking ring early this morning? He probably hadn’t slept yet, she realized. Hence, his too-early call.

“So, the police broke up this ring last night and saved a bunch of kids. They called me and asked if I’d mind talking to them, tell them that things are gonna be okay, y’know?”

Ara made some sort of agreeing noise, heading to the bathroom to gargle some mouthwash and maybe comb her hair and hope that putting her hair in order would simultaneously put her brain cells in order.

“So…one of my dad’s old friends was there and suggested maybe…we could foster one or two of the kids who are in need of a home until they get all the paperwork sorted out. A couple of the kids agreed to testify, so they’ll also need to stay close until the trials are over. What do you think? We have really good security, so they won’t need to worry about a repeat kidnapping, and I know we’ve got space and love. You mentioned wanting to help trafficking victims when I was telling you about my childhood…but…”

The longer her silence stretched out, the more Jimin rambled. He was so cute.

“Yeah, that sounds like a great, practical way to help,” Ara agreed after spitting her mouthwash out. “Just let me know how many you kids you drag back so I know how many rooms to get ready.”

“Thank you, jagiya.” Muffled conversation crackled through the line as Jimin paused to speak with an officer. “Sorry, I have to go. I’ll call later, alright?”

“Okay. Love you!”

“Love you!”

Ara put her phone down on the counter and stared at her reflection in the mirror. 

~~~

At 2:33 PM, Jimin arrived home with an eleven-year-old girl in tow. The police officer and Child & Family Services officer quickly checked the premises and living situation, then left, leaving Jimin, Ara, and the girl.

Ara smiled, crouching down to her height. “Hi, I’m Shin Ara. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hello, Mrs. Shin. My name is Kim Nabi,” Nabi bowed politely. “It is nice to meet you as well. Thank you for letting me live with you.”

Her shiny hair teased the tops of her shoulders as she moved. 

“I’ll show you to your room, then,” said Ara, motioning at the stairs. “I know you saw it already during the tour, but you can get settled now. My room is right across the hall, so my bodyguard will be close by if you feel unsafe. Have you met Jungkook yet?”

Nabi shook her head, then gave a small smile full of delight as she really took in her room.

Ara and Jimin’s gazes met as they exchanged smiles at her satisfaction.

The walls were a pale periwinkle reflected in the pale blue duvet, the trim white to contrast the wood furniture.

“I hope you like it,” joked Ara. “There are a couple of outfits in the closet, but I thought maybe you’d like to go shopping for some things your own style while you’re here. Jungkook and I will take you whenever you’re ready.”

Ara pulled the stuffed rabbit from the top shelf of the closet and held it out to Nabi. “I thought you might like a friend to talk to while you decide if you want to talk to me or someone else about what happened. I’ve told quite a few secrets to Cookie here, and he’s kept them all remarkably well. He also gives a pretty nice hug,” she smiled conspiratorially.

“Thank you very much, Mrs Shin, Mr Park,” Nabi bowed again.

“You’re welcome, Nabi. I know things have been tough, but you’re a very brave girl,” said Jimin. “We want you to feel safe and at home here. I remember how I felt after I was brought here by my adoptive father. If you want to scream, cry, maybe hit a couple of things, go for a run– whatever you’re feeling, we’re here for you.”

“Thank you,” Nabi said again.

Jimin kissed Ara’s cheek goodbye and left to finish his assistance at the police station.

Ara looked at Nabi, laid a soft hand on her shoulder, and said, “I think you’d like to be alone right now to settle in, but if you want company, my room is across the hall, and the door’s open. If you need anything, just walk in or give me a shout, ‘kay?”

Nabi nodded, and Ara crossed the hall to call Jungkook and explain the situation.

~~~

Ara softly knocked on Nabi’s door for the third time. When there was still no response, she twisted the knob and peered in.

Nabi was sound asleep in her bed, hugging Cookie tightly to her chest.

“Nabi, it’s ten to seven. Jimin-ssi will be home any minute, and supper will be ready. I’m sure you’re pretty hungry by now. Jungkook wants to meet you, too, so can you wake up and get up by seven?” As Ara talked soothingly, Nabi stirred and gradually opened her eyes. Ara opened the door a little wider to let the hallway light shine in, as Nabi had drawn her blackout drapes.

“Hello, Ara-unnie. I’m up now.” Nabi yawned and stretched, then slid off the bed.

“Did you have a good nap? I hope you’ll sleep tonight!” Ara stepped just outside the doorway so she wouldn’t stifle Nabi, who yawned again.

“Yes, I slept well, thank you.”

The two headed to the top of the stairs, where Jungkook awaited. 

“Nabi, this is my bodyguard and best friend, Jeon Jungkook. Jungkook, this young lady is Kim Nabi.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Miss Nabi,” Jungkook’s bunny smile shone through as he grinned at the girl.

“Thank you. It’s nice to meet you as well, Jungkook-oppa.”

Jungkook grinned even wider at Ara. “I’m her oppa already!”

Ara punched his shoulder gently. “Don’t let it go to your head; I told her she could call us that.”

The foyer door opened, signalling Jimin’s return home. He headed to the powder room to wash up, then joined the little group in the living room, brushing a kiss to Ara’s cheek on his way in.

Jungkook pretended to gag, wincing as Ara pinched his arm.

Nabi was quiet during dinner, her gaze bouncing between the three adults talking and laughing around her but not volunteering much. They drew her in when they could, but weren’t surprised that she didn’t immediately become a chatterbox. She’d been through a lot and was probably still deciding how much she could trust them. 

Ara did manage to get her to commit to going clothes shopping the next day, but that was it.

A large yawn cracked Nabi’s face as Jimin asked Jungkook to see him in his office after supper, so Ara said goodnight to the men and followed Nabi upstairs, just in case she forgot where something was or needed help.

Two nights later, Jimin was back at Vixen’s HQ, meeting with the woman herself. He’d showed up unexpectedly, interrupting her spar with Hyunjin, so she wasn’t in full Vixen gear like all the previous times he’d met her.

She’d donned the mask, but her hair was free, a neat brown-black braid falling down her back, a few wisps curled to her sweaty face and neck. 

“If you tell anyone you’ve seen more of me than my lieutenants, I’m sorry, but I’ll have to break our agreement,” she waved a finger at him.

“I won’t,” promised Jimin. More of her meant arms and feet, since she was only in a black tank top and workout leggings, her jacket having been tossed aside as she heated up.

Jimin noted interestedly that the gold eyes and red mouth was an indispensable part of Vixen’s persona, as they were still visible.

(As two of her most notable character marks, Ara made sure the lipstick and contacts were first in and last out when she switched between Ara and Vixen. He’d just proved her point—though he didn’t know it—that you should always be prepared for the unexpected; you never know when someone would drop in, either ally or foe.)

“So, you took care of the three men?” she asked.

Jimin nodded. “JK and I made sure they won’t be trafficking in the future…or committing any other crimes.”

She nodded approvingly. “Good.”

The tones of Vixen’s cell phone rang and she bent over, fishing the phone out of her pocket. Answering it, she turned around but didn’t move away; Jimin eavesdropped as best he could. “Vixen.”

There was a pause as her contact spoke.

“What? Stall him! Flag him down and tell him I have a visitor! Engage blade if necessary.” With an aggravated sigh, Vixen ended the call and pinched her nose, muttering something about stupid training, then turned with a smile that was clearly false.

“I’m going to need a minute, would you mind waiting in another room?”

Jimin complied, following her to a small room that reminded him of a cabin. She pointed to the twin bed and shut the door behind her. Jimin didn’t feel like a captive since there was a window large enough for him to crawl through, and there didn’t appear to be any bars or lasers to stop him from doing so if he wished. But he didn’t wish to; he was here for a reason, afterall.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway as someone came jogging up to Vixen. The tread was heavy, likely male, and the visitor greeted her in a male’s voice.

“Hey Vix, I found out where he keeps the goods- why are you frown- ouch! VIX-mmph!”

That male voice sounded awfully familiar. Jimin frowned.

“Shh! I’m gagging you because he’s. next. door!” hissed Vixen harshly. “If you’d checked outside before you snuck in, you'd have seen his car!”

Jimin strained his ears as the whispers softened and moved down the hallway. However, he’d managed to drop a bug on Vixen’s back as he followed her, so he pulled out his receiver and shamelessly eavesdropped.

“I came over the roofs tonight so I didn’t see. I’m sorry, VIx, that was careless; I should’ve known better. I’ll check 360 degrees next time, yakseokhae.”

That was definitely JK.

“Good. Yeesh, oppa, you almost gave everything away! I had Han ready to rush you with his knife to slow you down!”

Oppa?! Why was Vixen so close to JK?

“Sorry, Vixen. But I found out where he keeps the goods, and I’m getting mine tomorrow, so I need to make sure the others won’t be visible when it’s done.”

…the blacklight tattoos each member got when they were inducted into Bangtan? He’d thought JK was a reliable asset to Bangtan, so he’d invited him to get it. JK was obviously Vixen’s spy in Bangtan, but why?…most of JK’s time was spent on his bodyguarding duties with Ara.

Unless…Vixen was going to take out Ara to hit Bangtan and Grey? But both of them were allied with her, that didn’t make sense. And he knew JK would never hurt or let anyone or anything hurt Ara.

Clearly, more investigation was required.

“When are you going to tell him, anyways, Vix? Hasn’t it been long enough for you to trust him?”

Vixen sighed. “It’s a big secret–half my life. It takes time to open up.”

“I understand. I’ll be there when you’re ready. I’ll leave now…”

Jimin heard JK discover the bug when he hugged Vixen goodbye. 

There was a pause, crackling as the bug was moved, then a dramatic inhale.

“Vix, what’s this?”

“That’s not one of ours…that’s Jimin’s. I thought I felt his fingers on my back, but I didn’t have time to check.” Vixen cursed, and then all that Jimin heard was static as JK crushed the bug under his boot.

The door swung open, JK standing protectively beside Vixen, who crossed her arms and stared at Jimin.

“Fine. You discovered it. Jungkook is my spy in Bangtan. He helped me start Stray Kids, and he’s an honorary member, since he’s technically affiliated with Gray. I’m not plotting anything against you. Happy?” “Why do you care about Bangtan’s tattoos?” Jimin stared back at her.

“Because Stray Kids have blacklight tattoos too, and I didn’t want to out JK’s and my relationship because you picked a spot close to his previous tattoo to add yours. It’s moot now, I guess.”

“Relationship?” He glanced between the two.

“We’re just friends,” they said in unison, then looked at each other. “What he/she said.”

Jimin sighed. Sure. Just friends. Whatever you say.

“Okay, prove it. Do you have a blacklight around?”

Hyunjin entered with the light and JK unbuttoned his shirt, slipping it off one shoulder. The Stray Kids symbol glowed blue at the joining of his neck and shoulder. Along his left arm were eight small bands of moon phases, as well.

Vixen held the blacklight to her shoulder, and the vivid blue symbol appeared on the front of her left shoulder, slightly larger and thicker than JK’s. “Happy?”

“Alright, I believe you.” Jimin took the light from her and waved it over his left collarbone, showing Bangtan’s symbol in glowing purple-blue. “You can choose where you put it, but somewhere that allows for easy access is a good choice for easy ID,” he told JK before turning to Vixen. “Bangtan’s tattoos are secret for a reason.”

She nodded companionably. “Same with Stray Kids, hence, blacklight. JK and I won’t say anything.”

JK nodded as Jimin looked at him. “ I won’t say a word, boss.”

“You’re affiliated with three families, JK. Which one are you most loyal to?”

JK swallowed, his big eyes a bit rounder than normal at Jimin’s subtly threatening tone. 

“Yeah, JK, tell me who you’re loyal to,” Vixen buffed her nails against her shirt as she leaned against the doorway, the very picture of nonchalance.

“...I am equally loyal to them. My primary loyalty is to your wife.”

After several tense seconds, Jimin smiled approvingly and patted his shoulder. “Good.”

Vixen nodded at him for his diplomatic answer, then left to continue her spar with Hyunjin.

Jimin and Jungkook rejoined, watching the spar just as VIxen put Hyunjin in an armlock. He tapped out and Jungkook danced into the ring. “Still mad at me for my slip up, Vix?”

“No, we’re good. Foxtrot spar?” She added one of her many code words with him, requesting the use of martial arts plus blades.

Jungkook nodded, and the spar began.

Jimin leaned forward, closely following the pair’s movements. Their sheer grace and long practice of martial arts gave them the facade of a deadly dance, clearly used to practicing together.

Silver flashes gleamed as their knives slashed and parried, tucked away the next second for strikes and kicks.

Finally, JK saw an opening as Vixen slowed from fatigue, her previous spar with Hyunjin lowering her endurance. Caught in a chokehold, Vixen tapped out.

Bowing, the pair ended the spar. Jimin clapped, impressed. “You both fight very well.”

“Thank you,” they said in unison, leaning down to grab a water bottle, opening it, and chugging at the same time.

Jimin rolled his eyes. Totally “just friends”.

Two weeks later, two days before the beginning of the trials, Ara took Nabi to the mall to take her mind off the upcoming event. Nabi now had a varied wardrobe, but Ara was looking for formal dresses for them for a future party..

Nabi had settled in surprisingly quickly, becoming more talkative and outgoing as the days passed, though she was still a quiet child.

She had only been on the street a week since her mom died when she was kidnapped. No one knew who or where her dad was.

Ara had contacted a counsellor for Nabi to see when she was ready to talk about it, and she and Jimin had agreed they’d love to foster with intent to adopt. When Nabi was ready, they’d talk about it. So far, she seemed to love the house, and she often followed Jungkook around like a duckling when he wasn’t with Ara.

Jungkook casually browsed through the men’s section of the formalwear store while he kept an eye on other customers. Ara took Nabi to the womens’ changerooms to try on a couple dresses each. Stepping into the room beside Nabi’s, she froze at the reflection of the man in the mirror with the gun painted at her.

“Follow me quietly and you and the kid won’t get hurt,” he growled.

Tentatively, Ara turned around, hoping Nabi would stay in her changeroom.

Alas, that was not to be, as Nabi stepped out. “Unnie, my zipp-” she stared at the man and Ara calmly, though her eyes were wide with shock. Slowly, she crept behind Ara, keeping an eye on the man.

“Come quietly and you’ll both be fine,” threatened the man. They headed out the back way to the van idling by the door. 

Getting in, Ara felt the dull throb of a needle prick as everything faded to black.

~~~

Jungkook headed to the fitting rooms anxiously. Twelve minutes had passed with no sign of either Nabi or Ara. Normally, Ara asked for his opinion on formal fits; while he supposed she may have decided to ask Jimin’s opinion instead, he was still a little worried.

As soon as he saw the silver and jade hairpin Ara had worn that day on the ground, the needle pointing to the back exit, he knew something was up. Pulling out his phone, he began making calls.

~~~

Slowly blinking her heavy lids, Ara tried to focus her thoughts and make sense of everything. As she gradually became more clear-headed, her memories returned.

Pretending to still be unconscious, she strained her senses to check her surroundings.

So far, she could tell that she was likely in a warehouse (how original) in the industrial area by the Han River, with the smell of water and the faint industrial noises surrounding her.

Nabi was in the chair behind her, back-to-back, either still out or merely pretending, like herself.

Ara couldn’t sense any hostile presence around–evidently, they were still supposed to be under the drug’s influence for a while longer.

Carefully, she pressed her watch button in and twisted it, sending an emergency GPS ping to both Chan and Jin.

Clearly, the kidnappers didn’t expect much of a chaebol heiress; since she was untouched, her eight knives, two GPSs, and five impromptu weapons were still on her. Well, at least they were respectful. This meant she was likely not going to be harmed, at least at first, and they didn’t know she was Vixen. 

She could work with that.

“Nabi-ah, are you awake?” If she was, Ara would have to wait for her prince(s) in shining armour (unless the kidnappers tried something before then), but if Nabi was still out, Ara could fight her way out and then claim a rescue…

She felt Nabi’s hands brush hers, then– “I know you’re Vixen. Can you get us out of here before oppa comes?”

 How- how did this child– Jimin still didn’t know!

“I’ll try.” She wiggled a knife free and passed it through their bonds to Nabi. “Go for blood if you’re in trouble. Now is not the time for guilt or gentleness. Use your teeth and elbows if you have to. Aim for fleshy parts like eyes, groin, or disabling their arms and hands.”

“Got it,” Nabi whispered back. “You’re so cool, unnie.”

Ara smiled inwardly, then began tugging the knot of the rope around her hands loose.

Once she had undone the ropes, she slyly slid one of her knives from her thigh free, using it to cut Nabi loose. “Sit tight unless you’re attacked, okay? On three, I’m going to get our captors’ attention. I already sent a distress signal, so Jimin and Jungkook will be here soon,” she added to reassure her foster daughter.

On three, she ripped the blindfold off and stood up, sliding the knives tucked into her heels out and kicking them off, choosing to fight barefoot.

A quick slash up the side seam of her skirt, and she was ready to fight.

The kidnappers had noticed that she was awake, and five men dressed in black ran into the room. 

Good, no guns, yet. The illegal weapons left traces very difficult to clean up and explain away.

Silently she charged the row of three, using the first’s momentum to tumble the second and third like dominoes.

While they were still reeling, Ara began slicing at the fourth and fifth, incapacitating them by aiming for their thighs and shoulders.

One, Two, and Three regained their balance, and Ara hurled one of her blades into Two’s shoulder as she danced around Three, hitting pressure points to take him out.

On her way to One, she yanked the knife out of Two’s shoulder, jabbing it at his waist and thigh.

One appeared to be better trained than the others as he aimed for a pressure point on Ara’s neck. Unluckily for him, she grabbed his wrist, forced him to his knees, and kicked him in the groin.

Spinning back to Two, she hit his neck to temporarily paralyse him, watching him slump before repeating the motion on One.

Sighing, she brushed her hair out of her face, wishing she hadn’t dropped her hairpin at the store as a clue for Jungkook. He’d have found her soon enough through the CCTVs, and she could see better without her hair flying around if she’d kept it.

A second batch of five emerged from the hallway she assumed led to the boss’s control room, but this time the group was armed and better prepared.

Ara supposed the first group were the disposable, bottom-tier underlings who underestimated her.

Dropping into a crouch, she grinned ferally. Worked every time.

Two and Three charged her at the same time, so she simply crouched there, then uncoiled at the last second. Using Two’s knee as a springboard, she wrapped her legs around Three’s neck, sending Two sprawling and choking Three out.

On her way to meet One, Four, and Five, she gifted Two a knife to the thigh, dangerously close to the femoral artery. Oops.

Just before she hit One and Four, she dropped to her knees and slid by, taking their legs out. Rather badass a move of her, if she thought so herself.

Five grabbed her by the hair–rude, but smart— thankfully, it was long enough she could twist to face him and swipe at his knees, then grab his wrist and twist him around.

He released her hair, and she swiftly knocked him out, then headed back to the still-conscious Two, Four, and One.

A quick insurance stab to their dominant arms, and all ten opponents were incapacitated, if not unconscious.

Ara spun to the door, dropping into a defensive stance and re-gripping her blades tightly, only to relax in relief when IN and Felix showed up. 

“Oh, good, you’re the first ones here. Nabi knows– I’ll figure out how later– but as of right now, Jimin doesn’t know, so you two took out those assailants, okay? I watched you rescue me when I woke up halfway through the fight,” Ara quickly aligned their cover stories.

Clearly, she should tell Jimin about her…nightly business ventures, but now would not be the time.

“Yes, ma’am,” Vixen’s bodyguards saluted, then began dragging the kidnappers into a row and tying them up.

Ara reclaimed her knife from Nabi and sat back in her chair, holding hands with the girl.

“Jimin-ssi should be here very soon and we can go home, okay? You were so brave; I’m proud of you. It’s okay now, so I understand if you’re a little scared or overwhelmed. Do you want to talk about it?”

Nabi shook her head. “I wasn’t scared; I knew you’d keep us safe, and Jimin-oppa and Jungkook-oppa would come for us.”

‘’How did you know I’m Vixen, Nabi-ah? And I gather you figured Jimin and Jungkook out too.”

Nabi grinned, turning in her chair to face Ara. “Jimin-oppa doesn’t wear a mask. I recognized him from the night when you all rescued us. That pink hair is kind of distinctive. I thought Jungkook-oppa worked for Vixen, but then I saw him with Jimin at the police station. I didn’t know till you woke me up for supper the first night; the way you talked to me and approached me was just like Vixen. And then I saw you with Jungkook-oppa and you were close to him like Vixen was.”

“Is that why you were watching us all so closely?” Ara had a revelation. “I just thought you didn’t trust us yet.”

Nabi nodded proudly. “I was trying to figure out who knew what about who.”

Ara smiled at Nabi and smoothed her hair down. “You are a very clever girl– you’re the first person to figure out that Shin Ara and Vixen are the same person. Everyone else who knows, I told. Have you figured out what everybody knows by now?”

“I think so…you and Jungkook-oppa know each other and Jimin-ssi, and he knows Jungkook-oppa but not you?”

Ara nodded, “Good job, Nabi-ah. Jimin’s family and mine are allies, and Jungkook works for both of them, Gray and Bangtan. He also works for my –Vixen’s– family, Stray Kids. Jimin-ssi and my appa both do not know about me being Vixen, but I think I should tell them now, don’t you?”

Nabi nodded. “Secrets should be kept few and far between.”

“Wise wor-”

Their talk was interrupted by a group of armed men bursting in, guns in hand.

Ara and Nabi blinked back at Jimin’s wide gaze. “You’re safe!”

He holstered his gun and anxiously looked them over. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked, pulling Ara into a hug, then Nabi. “What happened?”

“We’re fine, Jimin. Nabi is probably a bit more anxious than she lets on, but we’re fine,” Ara ran her hand down his chest soothingly, feeling the rapid thumping of his heartbeat.

Jimin pulled back to examine Ara's face. “Why is there blood on you?”

“Oh, it's not mine, it’s…theirs…” Ara waved at the neat row of captives guarded by Felix and IN. “They took those guys out and rescued Nabi and me. Jungkook called them, saying we were in trouble.”

Ara had to have some last fun as Vixen, before she unmasked. Unable to resist, she asked in a loud whisper, “Why are there so many of you and why did you have a gun?!”

Jungkook coughed loudly to cover his laughter at Ara’s acting. Felix and IN exchanged grins, turning their backs to ‘guard the prisoners’.

The rest of Jimin’s squad of six looked awkwardly around, invested in the drama and wondering how their boss was going to get out of this jam.

Panic flashed through Jimin’s eyes. “Uh…why don’t we get you home and have a doctor look at you, jagiya. You must have been so scared, Nabi-ah. Let’s go home, hm? I think Mrs Lee was stress-baking up a storm.”

Jungkook slipped out to start the car and told Jimin quietly, but loud enough for Ara to get the message, “I called Dr. Hyunjin– he’ll understand. I have Lady’s men ready to help; I called her guys after you and Jin-hyung.”

“Thanks, JK.” Jimin escorted his girls to the car, leaving Jungkook to drive home while he fussed over them in the backseat.

Ara waited till Nabi showered and Hyunjin okayed her to do anything, much to her husband’s chagrin.

Nabi went straight to bed, and Hyunjin told Ara and Jimin that she was healthy, with no side effects from the drug used to knock them out, and was only stressed, though less so than he’d expected.

Ara was touched by Nabi’s faith in her and her guys. 

Hyunjin said good night and all the attention was on Ara. She willingly took a shower, conceding to that after adamantly refusing Hyunjin’s checkup.

Finally, so Jimin would stop worrying, she agreed to give him five minutes to reassure himself that she was indeed feeling 100%.

Ara perched on the counter in her ensuite, her towel wrapped around her neatly and another on her head to keep her hair from dripping in her face.

Cupping Jimin’s face in her hands, she looked him in the eyes.

“I’m sorry for worrying you, yeobo.”

“It’s not your fault, jagi,” Jimin protested immediately.

“Not the kidnapping, no, but the worrying, yes. There’s something I need to tell you. Please don’t freak out, okay?”

Jimin nodded warily, his eyes full of questions.

Ara grimaced, then said. “I know you’re Park Jimin, Head of the Bangtan mafia.”

His face jerked out of her hands. “What? No, I’m not– where did you–”

“Sh, I know, Jimin.” She cupped his face again. “I know Appa is Shin Jungok, head of the Gray mafia. I know my oppas work for you and him as mafiosos. I know your friends aren’t just your friends, they’re also mafia. I know my friend Minho is mafia. The reason I know all this is because…I’m mafia. I’m Lady Vixen.”

Jimin pulled his face away again to stare at her, his jaw slack and his eyes wide.

“I know I was never supposed to know who you all are, but I have since I was twelve. I started planning Vixen then; Kookie helped me. When I was seventeen and Kook was my full-time bodyguard and we could sneak around, I became Vixen.”

“I…don’t believe you.”

Ara hopped off the counter and exited the bathroom, heading for her closet. She changed into jeans and a blouse, then slid her shoes on. “Follow me if you dare.”

Jimin took her hand, confused and curious, as Ara led him to Jungkook’s bike in the garage.

They hopped on, Ara revved, and they sped off, Ara making evasive manoeuvres and pulling over randomly to ensure no one would follow them.

Ara casually strolled up to Vixen’s HQ, D9, and entered her fingerprint, eight-digit code, and eye scan after a moment’s pause.

She headed straight to the back, to Vixen’s room, waving briskly at the sparring members of her mafia gathered in the main room, and pressed on a panel in the wall.

The panel popped out and Ara reached in, removed a small package, and slipped her contacts and fangs in. A small tube of lipstick sat on a shelf, and Ara carefully applied a coat. The mask went on, the jacket was zipped up, and her boots laced up.

Dumbfounded, Jimin watched as his wife did a slow twirl in front of him, a smug smirk on her face. The entire transformation took five minutes.

“You’re really Vixen.”

“Yup.”

Hyunjin popped in with the blacklight again and Ara confirmed her SKZ tattoo on her shoulder. “Thanks, Jinnie. Can you ask the others to come see me in a minute, please?”

In the minute they were left alone, Ara sat behind her desk and kicked out a chair for Jimin to sink into. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you know sooner–for worrying you without reason. I was actually the one who knocked out the guys; Innie and Lix got there after. That’s why I was bloody.”

Hyunjin reentered with IN and Felix, handing Jimin a bundle.

He unwrapped it to discover six knives and two stilettos, which caused him to turn to Ara in confusion.

She smirked. “I never go out unarmed. I also have a GPS in each watch and a few of my larger jewellery pieces. I could also have utilized the belt on my skirt and my necklace as weapons, if I so wish. Unfortunately, I had to leave my hairpin behind, but I often wear my hair up in pins because they double as an excellent weapon in a pinch…especially if they’re modified. All this is to say, I’m sorry for worrying you earlier, and I can take care of myself, so please don’t worry if something like this happens again.”

Jimin stared at her, taking in this whole other side of his wife he’d overlooked before. “Wow, you really are a vixen.”

She tossed him a wink, a proper one, as Seungmin, Minho, Chan, Changbin, and Jisung entered. 

“Sup, Vix? Oh…”

“Yep, I told him. Thought he might like to know some of my most trusted men, so he can reassure himself about everything.”

Once her men gave a succinct explanation of their path to Stray Kids and left, the couple were left alone, silence blanketing Vixen’s office.

Jimin leaned back in his chair, exhaling slowly. “You’re really something, jagiya.”

The faint sound of people sparring elsewhere in the building filtered through the air while he collected his thoughts.

“I want to be angry that you hid all this from me, but I can’t really without being a hypocrite. Thank you for telling me now.”

Ara sighed in relief. “Thank you for accepting this part of me. Shall we agree to keep no more secrets?”

The two shook hands solemnly. “No more secrets.”

“Oh, by the way…Nabi figured you out the first night she stayed with us because you don’t wear a mask, and also because of your pink hair. She found me out because Vixen and Ara approached her the same way.”

Jimin sputtered and Ara giggled.

“We have a future menace to society and the underworld on our hands.”

Park Jimin and Shin Ara exited the courthouse, their bodyguards shielding them and their new daughter from the paparazzi.

Once the trial was over and the traffickers harshly sentenced, Nabi relaxed more and was able to enjoy life.

She’d readily agreed to Jimin and Ara’s proposal and was delighted to become a Park.

Secretly, she was dying to know which Family she’d join when she grew up, but wisely didn’t say anything about it.

Now, the papers were signed, sealed, and filed, and Kim Nabi was officially Park Nabi.

In honour of the occasion, Bangtan and Stray Kids had collaborated again to open Black Swan, a restaurant that would be Nabi’s future, if she so desired.

Bangtan and Gray had also collaborated to open Blue and Grey, the last bar in the Blue string owned by Jungok.

He’d been thoroughly shocked to find out his little girl had known for a long time about his secondary business, and how she had twisted his most trusted men around her little pinky (Jin and Namjoon had been glared at for weeks after Ara spilled the beans), but he was proud of her ambition and success, even though he wished she had stayed on the legal side of things.

~~~

Jimin crawled into bed beside Ara and flipped off the light, turning to pull her to him.

“How is everything going? You’ve been pretty busy lately,” she murmured, cuddling into his body heat.

“It’s calming down now, thankfully. The worst part is seeing you less.”

“Flatterer,” she said, but Jimin heard the smile in her voice. “I miss you too, when you’re busy like this.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, enjoying her angelic appearance as the moonlight fell across her face. They lay there, cuddling in silence for a while, until a thought struck Jimin. He’d been getting used to talking to Ara about his mafia issues, knowing that she’d understand him better now.

“Yoongi is looking for a wife.”

“Oh?” Sheets rustled as Ara pulled away a bit, turning to look at him.

“Yeah, for some reason he wants a wife who’s not in a gang. You know anyone?”

Ara made a noise of surprise. “Really? Hm…I might! You know how I’m allying with that gang, Seventeen, temporarily? I might find a way. I’ll look into it.”

TO BE CONTINUED…in Godmother: Tigress

A/N: Thank you all so much for reading my story! I hope you have a beautiful life<3

Some fun notes about the universe, if you're interested:

-> 22924514 = Vixen in Alpha-numeric code. It's Vixen's code for D9. D9 is a STAY easter egg.

-> Jimin and Jungkook were both part of the same trafficking/rescue situation. They weren’t together, though, and their memories are fuzzy and black out from that time. Eventually, they realise they have a connection and bond over it.

[ace-angel-judas]

A pack bts au with the bts girls, like a wolf au or something. I think it would be super cute to see the dynamics.

The Kim’s had been an alpha pack for as long as they could remember.

Namjoon and Jin had met in middle school, instantly forming a connection. Their friendship only grew as the years passed on, the two alphas becoming inseparable.

When they got to high school and picked up Taehyung, the awkward alpha boy, it all just felt right. Pack bonds weren’t uncommon but ones in groups of three or more were rare.

Yoongi was the odd one, the random alpha they’d picked up while working part time jobs before college. He was stand offish, aggressive and overall moody, but he fit into the pack.

Hoseok and Jimin were next, meeting the little pack during their college days. The beta and omega proved to provide some form of balance to the strong dynamic, helping organise who did what laundry and what to do when Namjoon kept breaking the plates.

Jungkook was next, in their second year of college, stumbling upon them drunk during a party. The last alpha was an absolute wild card, often getting into fights that Hoseok and Namjoon had to pull him out of.

But the seven continued nicely, their pack semi complete as they finished college.

Until Yoongi disappeared.

As a beta, Hoseok was tasked with keeping the alphas in line. Jimin was the caretaker, Hoseok was the balancing force. Yet dealing with four alphas while trying to fill in a police report was proving difficult.

“It looks like your pack mate just left,” The man shrugged, “Why are you filing a missing report?”

“Yoongi wouldn’t just leave!” Taehyung growled.

“He’s an alpha, he’s fine,” The cop shrugged.

Hoseok had to hold Jungkook back from jumping across the desk.

“I’d like to speak to your supervisor,” Hoseok pulled the Karen card, trying not to growl, “Now,”

“She’s busy-“

“Move,” A woman’s voice cut through the air and the six men snapped to attention at the sound of another alpha, “What’s the problem here?”

The woman was tall, dark skin and curly brown hair pulled into a neat bun. She radiated with alpha energy, her uniform neat and freshly pressed.

“I’m Captain Baillie,” She announced as she sat at the desk, shooing the other officer away, “I don’t appreciate four alphas trying to intimidate my men, that’s my job,”

“Your men seem a bit slack with their job,” Namjoon spoke before he could think.

“Slack?” Baillie raised an eyebrow, “You just happened to get the biggest idiot in the room, my apologises, fill this out,”

She slid a piece of paper in front of the pack, Namjoon instantly picking up a pen to write. Only he gripped the pen too hard, the plastic shattering and ink squirting out onto the desk and the captain.

“Oh shit..,” Namjoon whispered, “I’m so sorry..,”

Baillie just blinked, “I could class this as assault on a police officer,”

“We..,” Seokjin grabbed the alpha male, “We’re just gonna go..,”

Awkwardly, the six men left the desk and rushed out of the police station.

“Can you not break anything for two minutes?!” Seokjin lectured, “How are we supposed to find Yoongi now?!”

“He’s probably cooped up with some omega, his rut probably hit,” Jungkook spoke up, shrugging, “He’ll come home,”

“Yoongi’s never showed any interest in an omega,” Namjoon pointed out, “I was starting to think he was celibate,”

“Maybe we should look into a private investigator?” Taehyung shrugged, “Since Namjoon assaulted a police officer,”

“She was pretty!” Namjoon confessed, “I was nervous!”

[iamtaekooked]

Something like love || jjk

Genre: Fluff, cop!au / police officer! au

Word count: 8.4k

Synopsis:

It was meant to be a regular day at the hospital. That is until you get kidnapped in broad daylight. Meanwhile, the famous detective Jeon Jeongguk who also happens to be your best friend, just wanted a normal day free of world’s bullshit, but he couldn’t even have that.

A/N: Police officer Jungkook anyone??? idk about you but I needed it.  Let me know your thoughts and feedback! 

MASTERLIST

8:15 am “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN I CAN’T BE TREATED LADY?” You see a man pointing a gun at one of the nurses as soon as you arrive at the ER to start your day.

“Sir, I am going to ask you to put the weapon away” she shifts back hands poised in the ready position.   “Hey asshat” you yell, catching his attention, just enough for one of the security guys to tackle him and restrain his hands. Soon enough 3 gruff looking men enter immediately beginning to shout their protestations upon seeing the man handcuffed.     “You. White coat, help him. Now” says the shortest of the bunch as he walks towards you. He looks more like a cartoon character than someone associated with the mafia. The balding patch on his head, the protruding beer belly, and the thick French accent only helps to affirm the image in your mind.  The tallest of the three men nods in agreement. 

“No” you reply firmly, maintaining eye contact with both men, allowing your eyes travel between the two of them.   
 “What did you say bitch? Do you not see this gun pointed at you?” The man aiming the weapon at you speaks, as he clicks off the safety. An action meant to scare you.   “Or what?” you fold your hands over your chest, waiting for his response.   The lean man with blond hair walks towards you, each step predatory. The look on his face says it all and if he could he would have his way with you right then and there. There wasn’t anything stopping him, yet he had a reputation to uphold.   “Such a pretty little thing. Its a shame” he breathes onto your face, and all you can smell are cigars. Your heart beats frantically against your ribcage, the loud vibrations reaching your ears.   “Take her Cain” he gestures with the gun to the third man. He comes up behind you, and ties your hands with the rope, while everyone watches stunned.   “Shall we?” The guy with the blond hair winks at you, as the other man hauls you up on his shoulder despite your frantic kicking in the air, and punching. He walks in the front while the other 2 men follow behind him. You trail after them, hauled up on the man’s shoulder. On his way out the man with the blond hair points his gun at anyone he sees, and laughs as they flinch back.   Deranged and psychotic you think. He’d make a perfect case for the psychiatric ward and they would have a field day with him. However you are surprised that not a single cop car is waiting outside. You wonder if anyone present at the scene even called the police. You were screwed if they didn’t. Its a kidnapping in broad daylight, and Hoseok couldn’t care less.  

11:00 am   
 The bar is empty, silent except for the sounds coming from the tv.   “Hey Coby. Usual for me” Jeongguk takes a seat on the barstool as the bartender named Coby makes him a drink. He wipes the glass before pouring the whiskey in and sliding the glass towards Jungkook. He grabs hold of it and lifts it to his lips, chugging down the drink in one breath and slamming the glass back on the table. Taking his phone out, he swipes across the screen as he sees at least 50 missed calls from his chief. The name ‘Insufferable Git’ flashes across the screen as he slides the phone back in his pocket with a strained sigh.   “Rough night?” Coby asks him, and he nods while gulping down his second glass.   “You remember that whole deal about the Cassidy guy?” He leans forward, considerably lowering the volume of his voice, in case anyone was lingering around. He wasn’t exactly in a profession where he could afford the luxury of talking freely. People could be watching him, waiting for the right chance to pounce on him.   “Jog my memory. I am getting old,” the middle aged man says, mirroring Jungkook’s posture as he leans forward.   “He kidnapped that 3 year old girl, the daughter of Mr. Magnolia…” he searches the older man’s for any sign of recognition and then his eyes light up.   “Oh yeah. That one. What ‘bout it?”   “Caught the guy.” the smug look on Jeongguk’s face doesn’t escape Coby’s notice. Rightly so, after all he is the most famous detective in town. Famous enough to get shot at three times in broad daylight and survive. The first time it happened was at a supermarket. It was the most unsuspecting moment, even for a guy like him who watched everything with hawk eyes. The bullet had grazed his shoulder, and luckily enough it didn’t hit anyone. The second time it happened right outside of the police station. It was the bravest thing he has witnessed, but stupid too because of course the guy got caught. The third time was a week ago, in the middle of the busiest part of town. Lucky for him, the fates yet again supported him. He only got by with a scratch.   Being famous had its perks, because everyone knew him. He was the named as the most desired bachelor in all of the country, but he couldn’t care less. He didn’t even attend the celebration held in honour of that. For he was busy raiding Cassidy’s place and ensuring the guy would be locked behind bars for the rest of his life.   “Well hey. Only you could have done it. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know where this city would be. Next one’s on me” Coby begins to shake up another drink for him, while Jeongguk yet again tries to diffuse his superior’s efforts of getting a hold of him. He doesn’t really care for anything because he needs a day off. He needs a day to drink all of his stress away. He places his head in his hands, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palm. His phone vibrates in his pocket and he takes it out with the intention of throwing the phone across the room. But his hand stops mid air as he sees his sister’s name flash on the screen.   He picks it up with a sigh, his sister not even waiting for a response before she launches into a rant.   “Jeon Jeongguk! Do you know how worried we have been for you? We thought something had happened to you. You did not pick up any of my calls. I told you, check in periodically. Is that really so hard to do? I am not asking for anything big here--just a damn text saying ‘ok’ would be better than nothing at all asshole! Why can’t you do that?” She sighs heavily into the phone and he suddenly feels guilt wash over him.   “Me dying is always a possibility. You know that”  he says casually. “I do. But still stop being a dumb shit and do what I tell you to. Got it?”   “Got it. Now are you calling for something other than just checking up on me?” He asks with a roll of his eyes because he knows his sister very well.   
 “Oh yeah. Your chief called my number. Says he wants to talk to you. Sounds important.”   His initial response is a deep sigh, and a drop of his head on the bar counter.   “It’s always fucking important.” He whispers into the phone, feeling deflated because he can’t even get one fucking day of rest. After all he has done, he feels he deserves this much, but he knows its his duty too. Its a compromise.   “What?” His sister asks on the other end since she missed his remark.   “Nothing. I’ll call him back. And stop worrying about me. I’ll check in later. Promise” “That’s all I am asking for baby brother.” His sister sighs into the phone and it makes him smile because  he knows there will always be one person watching over him, while he watches for the safety of others. She’s the reason why he can do his job well.  

“Take care. Love you”   “Yeah. You too.” The dial tone rings and he puts the phone back in his pocket. He grabs his jacket from the back of the stool. He leaves several bills on the counter as he exits the bar, ready to head to the station.  

“50  missed calls. Do you know how much can happen in 50 calls? A whole city could get blown up. You know that right Detective Jeon?” The short bald man glares at him furiously.  

“Yes, sir” Jungkook replies, eyes trained on the ground and hands folded behind his back, robotically answering his boss's dramatic antics.   “I know you are popular man. Swarmed by people all the time, wherever you go. Hell its warranted because you have saved more people than I can count. But keep your head in the game son. We all need you. This city needs you” he pauses. “But right now a certain doctor needs you”  

His brows furrow in suspision as he meets the eyes of his chief. Doctor?  
 “Don’t stress that brain of yours. Let me explain before you say no” Being famous had another perk. Jeongguk was allowed to choose his assignments, unlike every detective sharing the same position as him.   “8:15. General Hospital, this morning. Jung Hoseok and his gang arrive at the ER, Doctor refuses treatment and he kidnaps her. Broad daylight. A care aid gets shot in the leg, not to mention the patients in the waiting area terrorized out of their minds. He’s reaching for it, but someone’s gotta set his ass back down. I recommended you for the assignment.” 

It doesn’t even seem interesting. Its a simple kidnapping. Anyone else could handle it. There is nothing thrilling about this, and without that added thrill he doesn’t want it. But then his eyes fall on the file sitting on the table behind the chief. 
 “I know what you want to say” the chief says and Jeongguk closes his mouth as he gets interrupted.   No, actually you don’t.   “Sir- I would-‘’he gets cut off by the chief’s hand.   “Take this son. We need to bring in this asshole and his gang. You’re the only one I can trust” he feels a hand on his shoulder as the short man stands in front of Jeongguk, looking at him from behind his moon spectacled glasses. He is a foot shorter than Jungkook, yet has a commanding presence.   “I was going to say yes” Jeongguk replies quickly before he gets cut off again.   “I mean I know- Wait what?” He looks at Jeongguk surprised, unable to believe the words coming of out the youngsters mouth.   “Yea I am taking this” his voice is one that is filled with an unusual amount of determination and his face expresses a never seen before level of commitment. Usually he just takes on cases that interest him, but he never actually looks serious about it. But now he does and the chief wonder’s what has changed.  
 “What changed your mind?”   He simply points the file on the desk.   “Her”  

“Do you know her son?” He asks in a gruff voice.   “Yea. I am taking this case and I respectfully don’t give a crap, whether it is a “conflict of interest” or not, Sir” he grabs his holster from the table and straps it around his belt. He pulls out a piece of paper from his pocket. It’s old and yellowing, ripped at the edges. Glancing over it once he puts it in his back pocket. “It can be cause for disciplinary action. You know that”   “How many times have I saved everyone’s asses?’ He steps threateningly towards the man, the veins of his neck bulging prominently as he grits his teeth. All sense of boundaries forgotten, he glares at the man in front of him and doesn’t even care to conduct himself in a professional manner.   “Too many times to count” the chief’s stare is just as firm as Jeongguk’s.   “So then I deserve this one. I am taking it as an honorary case. I missed that party so now I am making up for it” He puts the gun in the holster, and flings jacket upon his shoulder before walking out. He hasn’t completely stepped out of the door, when the chief interrupts him.   “How many men you want with you?” The chief asks.   “None chief. I am going solo in there” “Why do you want to save the girl so bad?” He asks because he is genuinely curious. He has never seen Jungkook this angry about anything. He has never seen him that fiercely concerned about anyone.   
 “ Because she’s my best friend and no one messes with her” he turns around with a murderous look on his face before turning back around and slamming the door behind.  

Hoseok has you tied up against a chair, masking tape slapped on your mouth to block your protests. You glare at him across the room, and he doesn’t back down either. “You are one feisty woman aren’t you?” He chuckles as he moves towards you, stopping only to crouch down in front of you and remove the tape.  
 “Oh you have no idea, you filthy piece of crap. I’ve dealt with your kind before. You all are nothing but cowards.” you struggle against the tight rope, but it only serves to leave red marks on your wrists.   “Ohhhh.. I like her” he looks at the tall man who had pointed a gun at you at the hospital, and they both begin to laugh sickeningly. While Hoseok is busy rambling on about shit you don’t really care for, out of the corner of your eyes you catch a shadow behind one the pillars. You quickly divert your eyes to your lap, so as not to alert him or the other men in the room to someone’s presence. But you hope whoever they are, they are here to save you. Because right now, a little saving would be nice.  

“Why the hell did you kidnap me anyway? What the fuck did I do?” you scream at him, face turning red.

“Sweetheart you should have just treated me. I don’t like being told no” you can’t believe the words that come of out of his mouth. But than again you were right.

Definitely psychotic. Manic and deranged as well. Jungkook, on the other hand watches the whole exchange from the shadows. He is just as shocked as you upon hearing the reason for you being kidnapped. But more so he is just confused because how does someone do that? He’s health with enough criminals to know there is something wrong, but this is a first for him. He tries to calm himself, but he finds it increasingly hard seeing as you are being held hostage. It’s pissing him off, but he has to wait for the right moment, or else he might get himself killed. Or worse you.  
 

His hand automatically reaches in his back pocket, from where he pulls out the crumpled piece of paper. He doesn’t think you would remember him. But he remembers you as clear as day. After all if it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t have become a cop, among other reasons.  
 

He remembers the day his whole life changed for him. 

It was a regular day like any other.   
 The bus was on its merry way to the camp, when an abrupt stop caused everyone to panic. Children began whispering to each other, while teachers were trying to calm them down. Jeongguk sat at the very back of the bus, his eyes trained on your scared form. He really wanted to give you a hug, but he couldn’t because his 10 year old self didn’t know how to.  
 

Plus, he had heard terrifying stories from his friends about how girls were blood sucking vampires and they could talk your ears off. So he had that fear too. But he watched as you looked out of the windows looking scared out of your mind. Biting his lip, with a racing heart he approached you. He stopped by the empty seat next to you, daring not to sit. You hadn’t noticed him sanding there until you heard a mumble.  

Turning around you found a terrified looking boy, staring at you with the brightest eyes you had ever seen. His eyes were refusing to settle at one spot, hands fidgeting with each other along with biting of his lip. As he pulled his lower lip between his teeth, you saw a small mole in the under his lips. The sight made you smile. It was cute.     “Do you want to sit down?” You asked him, and the corners of his lips turned up. He nodded eagerly before taking a seat next to you.  
 

“T-t-thanks” he mumbled, still playing with his hands. You studied him, and although you didn’t know much about body language at the age of 10, what you did know was that he was scared. But as much as you, maybe not. Reaching in your backpack, you pulled out a bottle and extended it towards him. He looked at you startled, almost looking alarmed by your gesture.  
 

“Its water” you offered.  
 

He took it shakily and gulped some of it down before handing it back to you and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes fell to your lap where you were playing tic tac toe.  

“Are you playing by yourself?” He asked and you nodded , shyly. 
 “Can I?” He looked at the pencil and you realized he wanted it. You handed over the piece of paper to him and he put a x right in the middle of it.  
 

“You scared?” you asked him, not knowing the reason for his fear was more you than anything else.  
 

“Y-yea. You aren't?” he turned towards you, suddenly interested.  
 

“Oh no. You see those men, they are looking for me” he was shocked by how calm you were. He was half expecting you to get hysterical and cry like most girls. But something told him you weren’t most girls. He leaned over you to peek out of the window and saw some men walking towards the bus. 

"W-why are they looking for you?" He asked feeling a sense of admiration towards you because of how calm you were. 

"My mom said my dad borrowed money from some bad guy and now he wants it back. So she said I have to be brave because they might come looking for me" you smiled at him, smoothing the creases from, your dress. 


“Aren’t you scared they’ll hurt you. I- I just mean you know, t-they don’t look nice” he retreated back to his seat, all the while looking at you.  

“No. My daddy will protect me. He’s a cop you know. And everyone says he’s badass” you smiled at him and despite his best efforts to resist he found himself smiling.  
 

“So, you like cops then?” He asked, waiting with anticipation for your answer.   “I do. Cops are the best. They are my heroes” a smile yet again tugged at the corner of his lips, but it fell immediately as the men forcefully entered in the bus and grabbed you harshly, dragging you behind them. You looked back at him, still smiling. In that moment he had never feared for anyone’s safety like he did yours. In that moment he wished he was a grown up so he could protect you. He wished that the men who tried to hurt you would be struck with a spell that caused them to be stuck with the sensation of 100 lost sneezes, or even just diarrhea. He hoped their hair would fall out, and they would never be able to pee again.   Of course that was when he was 10. He didn’t know better. But what he did know was  he would grow up one day and become a cop. So as he reached for the paper of tic tac toe that you left behind, he drew a little heart at the top of the page.  


 He gently strokes the piece of paper he has carried with him for 15 years. He never once let go of it and never let you in on his secret either. This and the other that of course the reason why he decided to become police officer was because of you.  
 

He pokes his head out from behind the shadows, inspecting the scene in front of him. Hoseok and another guy were the only ones left. Its too easy for some reason and it strikes him as odd. You almost gasp as you see a man whose face isn’t visible, wearing a police vest, peeking out from the behind the pillar. Hoseok looks at you suspiciously and you compose yourself back to a neutral expression. He looks around, eyes full of caution. You try to act normal because you don’t want that officer killed because you couldn’t hold it together. But then he starts laughing a full bellied laugh and you don’t know whats so funny.  
 

“You can come out officer,” he turns around looking behind the pillar, where moments ago your eyes were directed. You look at him wide eyed, and your heart drops. Turns out he isn’t as dumb as you thought.  
 

“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that” and he steps out from behind the shadows.Your jaw drops as out walks your best friend.  
 

“You seriously couldn’t have let someone else take this could you, you dumbass!” you scold him but he pays no attention to you.   
 “You two know each other?” Hoseok asks, and for a very brief moment Jungkook freezes. 
 

“No. I have no clue who she is. Did you forget I was famous and that practically everyone knows me?” Hoseok nods because it makes sense. But Jungkook can’t believe how dumb the man is for believing his lie.  
 

He walks towards Hoseok, gun held limply in his hand. His walk itself is powerful enough. He looks at ease and it takes you by surprise. But then you remember he is a police officer. Its his job.  
 

“Well who do we have here? The famous Jeon Jeongguk. Here to apprehend me?” He looks mockingly at Jungkook 
 

“Nah. I am just here to have some dinner” he smirks, cocking a smug eye brow at the guy. You want to laugh but you know that wouldn’t be smart. He’s a wise crack as always. You have only ever heard stories about him dealing with criminals but watching it live in action is definitely something else.  
 

You keep staring at him, feeling in awe of the power he exudes just standing there and doing nothing. Somewhere in the midst you realize that he is actually a very handsome man. Even in such a situation your hormones get the best of you. The rolled up sleeves of his white shirt, the veins bulging in his forearm, his biceps peeking out from beneath the shirt sleeve. It hugs his arm perfectly, the curve of his biceps clearly visible. You only wonder what he is hiding under the shirt. The thought itself cause you to squirm in your seat. You bite your lip, trying to contain that small moan, but it escapes your lips.  
 

Jeongguk glances confusingly at you behind Hoseok’s shoulder, but catching your eyes he winks at you, accompanied by a small smirk. You feel heat rising in your cheeks, heart hammering in your chest.   Control yourself. You are a doctor for fucks sake and he is your fucking best friend. 
 

It was true. They did teach you in med school how to control your emotions. But a certain man was wreaking havoc on your emotions and hormones, just by being present in the room. That man happened to be your best friend. The same best friend you had seen each and every single day for the past 15 years and never once had you ever thought of in that way.   So what changed? Oh maybe just that you actually witnessed him being a cop and it was hot? Maybe it is his confidence because who doesn’t like a man full of confidence. But more so, who doesn’t like a man that could hold his own in front of the bad guys, all the while being smug and sarcastic about it. The answer is everyone. But most of all you in this particular situation.   “How do you think you are going to save her?” Hoseok places his gun on his shoulder, tapping an impatient foot on the ground “Glad you asked. Its easy, First I am going to knock the guy out who is standing behind me right now. Then I am going to shoot the skeleton of a bastard who  is advancing towards me with a gun aimed at my head. Then I am going to take down that fatass you sent over to check up on me, and lastly I am going to drag your ass to jail. So wait your turn big boy” he smiles at Hoseok who looks completely enraged and shouts in anger. You look at Jeongguk in awe and suddenly he seems a million times hotter than any man you had ever known. Not even Channing Tatum could compare. You would have clapped too, but seeing as you hands are tied behind your back, that isn’t possible.   Well something about him is different. Or maybe its just me. “You cocky bastard-’’ but a punch lands on Hoseok’s jaw and he stumbles back. Blood gushes out from the corner of his lips, as he hols his face in his hand, wincing in pain.  Then turning around, in one swift move he disarms the man named Cain, expertly taking away his gun and pointing it at him. Sweat is dripping from his forehead, hair slicking to his forehead. The sight has you gulping once more. Jungkook bends down, levels his face with the guy and knocks him out with a single punch. “Take that you stupid son of a bitch” you yell in excitement and for a spit second it draws Jeongguk’s attention towards you, who briefly glances at you. But it doesn’t do any good for him when he falls back in pain, holding his stomach. 
 “Okay you know what. I love that you are so excited. Its frankly an ego boost, but shut it doc” Jeongguk gets up wincing, glaring at the tall man.   “Really man? I actually fucking liked you. You know you remind me so much of Voldemort and he’s my favourite character in the whole series. Too bad this Voldemort’s end is too close” he advances threateningly towards the tall guy, breaking into a run in the middle and lands a flying kick right on his face. The man falls back, clutching his nose in pain. You are positive its broken and beyond repair.  
 

As he promised he hauls the chubby man by his collars dragging him on the floor. 
 

“Okay stop. Please stop. I swear I’ll go with you to jail or wherever you want to take me” he pleads and Jeongguk stops in his tracks and looks at the man. He rolls his eyes at him and sighs, crouching down in front of him. He leans in close to the guy’s face, and you watch as his eyes widen in fear.  
  

“I really hate fuckers like you. You know that? You assholes have no concept of self- respect or loyalty. But hey you make my job easy” he lets go of his collar. “Now go wait for me in the corner and then I’ll take you out for some doughnuts okay?” He pats the older man’s cheek who scrambles back and does as he is told.  

“Now whose left? Oh yea you” he turns around to face Hoseok who had been standing towards the sidelines after receiving a hard punch to his face.  

Hoseok takes out his gun and points it at Jeongguk who puts his hands up.  

“Okay genius. You got me”  

“I am going to kill you and then I am going to kill her” Hoseok spits on the floor, blood spewing out as he does so.  

“Kill her for all I care” JeonggukJ says casually and you look at him in outrage. You want to protest but he glares at you before you even have the chance to open your mouth.   
 “You sorry son of a bitch. Everyone idolizes you and they dont even know you are an asshole” Hoseok chuckles, still aiming the gun at Jeongguk.  

“I didn’t ask them to. They do. Not my problem” he shrugs.   You are starting to like him less and less by the second. You dont even know what you were thinking before. He is a goon too, but he’s just not labeled as one. Its all about the labels isn’t it. You shake your head, feeling stupid for placing your hopes on this guy. He doesn’t look like he cares one bit about what happens to you.   “Then why the hell are you here if not for her” Hoseok moves out from behind you as Jeongguk takes a few steps back.   “Stop moving you bastard” Hoseok holds the gun firmly and moves forward a few paces. Jeongguk’s eyes glance upwards and you catch it. You look up and you seriously cant believe it.   “How redundant. I told you. I was here to have dinner, and then on my way I see you bastards and I was in mood for some fun so I came here” he looks at Hoseok like its the most obvious thing ever.  

“I am telling you, man to man, dick to dick , that attitude is going to get you killed” Hoseok says.  

“And your stupidity is going to get you killed” Jeongguk looks at him smugly, while Hoseok’s eyebrows crease in confusion.

“What- ’’ he is cut off as the old, musty chandelier falls on top of him, lacerating his face.  

Because while Hoseok was busy trying to be a smart ass, Jeongguk had seen the frail thing was about to drop and he lured Hoseok to the right spot, and he followed like a puppy. The rest was history.  

“Are you fucking kidding me? That was your plan?” You look at him in shock.   “I think a thank you would be nice right about now” he moves towards you ignoring Hoseok’s cries of pain, as he clutches his leg on which the frail glass decoration had fallen.  

Jeongguk unties your hands and your feet, helping you up.  

Hoseok watches you two with anger, and whimper and cries in pain because the glass pierced his skin. He tries to move his leg but it only saves to jam the glass in further and rupture the artery. Blood gushes out. You run to him but you don’t move anything since, it would only make the situation worse. Besides it’s not a one man job.

“Call the police” you look at Jeongguk and he looks at you as if you are crazy.

“Did you forget I am the police?” He chuckles

“Sorry. Then call back up or whatever, and get an ambulance right now. This guy needs to go the hospital otherwise he will loose too much blood” you explain your reasoning to him.

“Why are you helping him. He kidnapped you because you refused to treat him”

“Yea that was when he had people pointing guns at me and patients. He could have shot me. I think getting kidnapped is a better option. But now he is in no position to cause anyone harm. Besides I am physician. Did you forget?” 

He unconsciously smiles as he watches you attend to Hoseok. This is why he likes you. Because you don't back down, but neither do you let your feelings get in the way of your work. Pulling out his phone he dials for back up and an ambulance. 

“But seriously the chandelier? Even for you that is stupid” you speak when he is done talking on the phone.

“A thank you would actually be nice right about now as I saved you life”

“Yeah. Thank you. For a second I thought you would actually leave me here” you rub your reddened wrists, while still sitting down next to Hoseok.
 “I was. But then I thought, the world needs more doctors and I cant take away  one just because I wasn’t in the mood” he raises his eyes brows and shrugs. But the truth was he had no intention of leaving you behind. You stand up and slap him upside the head for that sarcastic remark. He winces and rubs the back of his head while giving you the evil eye.   “Come on you think I was going to leave you here? I just didn’t want that bastard to know you were my best friend. He could have taken advantage of the fact”  

Your mouth contorts in an ‘o’ shape as you nod in understanding.   “Lets see your abdomen. That looked like a hard kick”   “Doc. You haven’t seen anything yet. This is nothing” he tries to brush it off, but you are adamant.   “Jeon are you forgetting I am doctor. I basically treat you fellows every other day at the ER” you lift up his shirt. And as you guessed, he is packed. He is completely ripped. You become aware that you are being carried away so you, so you try to compose yourself. Gently palpating his abdomen you feel that the left side is bruised and tender.   “Whats the diagnosis? Am I going to live?” He laughs but you look at him warningly. You know thats his job, but you hate how he never takes getting injured seriously.   “You are going to live, but we need to get you to the ER, stat. There’s little bit of internal bleeding. Nothing life threatening but we can take care of it”   
 So, despite his protests you drag him to ER and he gives in because its you. He can never say no to you. To his doc.  

While the rest of the battered and bruised gang gets transported to the ER as well, but under police supervision. Later in the day you hear about how Hoseok creates a havoc in the ER and gets transported to psychiatric unit like you had expected, because he had gone into a psychotic episode, accompanied by a bit of delirium.  

The same night you have trouble falling asleep. Your mind refuses to let you forget the feelings you felt when Jeongguk walked into that room. So, you toss and turn in your bed unaware of how much time has elapsed. You give up on any prospect of getting sleep considering your heart refuses to settle down.

The heat makes it way up your body, the more you think about him. The more you try not to think about him, the more you do. You find yourself stuck in a line of thinking, so you rip off your bedsheets, put on your pajama’s and leave the house. You didn’t realize how stuffy your room was until the gentle breeze caressed your face.

The night isn’t bad. Its just the right temperature, not too cold and not too hot. Hence, a walk doesn’t seem like a bad idea. You begin your walk by turning towards the main street, but you forget that you have to pass an alley on the way. Then suddenly the event’s of the day come rushing back, along with the fear which begins to spread like poison through you. But, you remember how your mom used to tell you to be brave, you remember that your profession requires it from. Every aspect of your life requires you to be brave, and so you do.

You reach the alley with hesitant steps, peeking your head from behind the wall of the corner house. It seems to be clear so you begin your leisurely walk. At least for a moment it gets your mind off Jeongguk. And then the thoughts are back again.

You stop mid-step and stomp your foot on the ground in frustration. “Why the fuck is wrong with you dude. Get your head straight. Best fucking friend. Remember those words” you say to yourself and if someone else had been watching you, they would have mentally certified you.

“What are you doing here?” You scream as you jump back in fear. As you open your eyes, Jeongguk’s face comes into view.

“Great now I am hallucinating. Awesome” you say to yourself, shake your head and hopefully with that the illusion and resume your walk for the millionth time.

“I am real. You are not hallucinating. Did you lose a screw today doc?” And then you realize its really him.

Great. Fuck. Frickity frackity fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

You turn around slowly, keeping your eyes trained on the ground because suddenly out of nowhere you can’t look him in the eyes. Because if you do, your heart begins to race and you start feeling nervous.

Jungkook on the other hand is furious. He looks up and finds the surveillance camera, giving a thumbs up before yanking you by the arm, and moving to a safer place.

“Jeon— stop” you try to free your wrist from his grasp but he’s way too strong.

“Shut it. You are coming with me” he looks pissed off and if you could see his face you would be able to tell to. You follow him with a dazed look on your face.

Your hand feels like its on fire.The effect of this feeling  once again has your heart thumping against your chest,  the staccato building each second, and the beat reaching dangerously loud in your ear. For a moment all you can hear is the beating of your heart and it feels as if its going to stop.

The fiery feeling spreads from your arm to your spine where it takes on tingling form, leaving chills in its wake. You can’t comprehend what is happening but you do know its because he is holding your hand. He stops in front of your house, punches the code in, which unlocks the gate.

He then punches the code to the front door. Hand still grasped firmly around your wrist, he leads you up to the bedroom, where he turns the light on and harshly lets go of you. It send you flying on the bed where you land on your elbows. You slowly try to get up once the dizzy feeling passes away. Before you can get a word out he cuts you off.

“Shh” he puts a finger on his lips, and takes steps towards you until he is leaning over you on the bed. You can tell he is getting his teeth because you can see his jaw clench and unclench. You slowly lean back, trying to put some distance since his nose is almost touching yours. But he moves forward again, caging you in his arms by placing them on the bed on either side of you.

“Dont say a word. What were you thinking? What was going on in that stupid fucking head of yours you dumbass. How can you be that dumb y/n” and you know he is beyond furious because he says your name. He stopped saying your name when you became a doctor. Since then it was just doc.

“I expect better for you. Do you have any idea how gravely you compromised your safety by going out at night? Do you?”

You don’t answer because you are too stunned to reply since he has never acted this dominant. But then you realize he is waiting for your answer.

“S-sorry” you whisper, and he leans in further, his nose almost touching yours.

“Are you?” You nods frantically.

“If you wanted so desperately to go on a walk you could have messaged me. A message. Thats all it took and I would have accompanied you”

“Y-y-you would?” You stutter.

He rolls his eyes because even after all these years you cant understand.

“Yes. Yes I fucking would. I would do anything for you. You could fucking call me 3 am in the morning and say you want ice cream I would get it for you. You could ask me to get you that weird ass tea you drink and I would drive the 100 miles for you. I would fight your stupid ex for you, hell I’ll even take a bullet for you. I would fucking do it all for you, if you say it. You just need to say it” he looks at you intently, eyes boring into yours. Your stomach flips and you find that you can’t look at him any longer without feeling nervous and shy.

Shy? What the fuck? “W-well y- you… you don’t have to” you reply, avoiding his eyes and he sighs in defeat because clearly you wont get it.

He lifts himself off of you and begins pacing in your room. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he flops on the bed next to you, looking completely exhausted. You feel bad for worrying him so much.

“Look, I am sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I get that now but I was— I-’’ you pause, inhaling a deep breath.

After a small stretch of silence, which gives you the time to put your thoughts together, you continue.

“I just… I dont know okay? I just fucking dont know” He lifts his head to look at you and he is surprised to see you on edge.

“I am.. I dont even know. Forget it. I am sorry” your bury your head in your hands, feeling inadequate in your efforts to explain to him why you went for that walk.

“You can talk to me about it” his voice is gentle, and calm and soothing. For just one second it takes away all your anxiety.

No I cant. Because its about you, you dumb ass

But you don’t even know what to say to him. You don’t even know how to begin because thats just it. You don’t know yourself. So how can you explain something you don’t understand?

“Come on. Tell me” he urges and you know he is getting that worried look on his face, which tells you that he wont stop asking you now.

“Something happened today okay?” You look at him and hope to the heavens that he would understand the meaning behind your words. Howeer, you realize that would have been possible if only you phrased it better because this was just way too broad.

“Well no shit something happened today”

“No- No. You- y-you don’t get it. I don’t mean me getting kidnapped. I mean…” you pause once more to collect your thoughts. “I- I mean you. Something happened with you, in my head and its just the most fucked up thing ever. Just fucked up completely and honestly and I don’t even know where to begin, and you are the worst person to talk to this about because this is fucking about you. Its about you. You get it?” you wildly gesture and talk in one breath and he just looks taken aback.

“Woah. Okay slow down. What about me?”

You shut your eyes tightly, biting your lip and sighing deeply.

“Something changed today” your voice is calmer, almost a whisper and its a complete stark to the hyper and frustrated state you were in just moments ago.

“Something about you. And I don’t know what it was but when you walked into that room my- my heart just went off. Beating like crazy. And- and then when I looked at you it got even worse. I don’t know Jeon” you sigh once more, your shoulder slumping, hands coming together in your lap.

“I know. I do know. I know all about it” a bittersweet chuckle escapes his lips.

“You do?” You look at him with wide eyes and he swears he would let you rip his heart out and still feel happy about it.

“Yes. This is how it feels. At the beginning at least. Its confusing because you can’t name it. You can’t label it as any particular emotion because you have never felt it before. You’ve never experienced anything that intense and overwhelming and it scares you. How am I doing so far?” He looks over at you, and you nod.

“How do you know all this?”

“Because I have felt it too” he looks at his lap, biting his lip because its finally here.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I am telling you now”

“Who was it?” And as you ask him that question your heart drops and you can feel that little bit of disappointment beginning to make its way in. You feel ridiculous because he is your best friend and you shouldn’t be disappointed if he liked someone. You should be happy but you know you won’t feel happy.

He turns fully towards you, but still maintains a respectful amount of distance.

After a short pause, but what seems like an eternity to both of you, the word slips past his lips. The long held secret is finally out.

“You” he looks at you and even though everything in him tells him look away, to brace himself for the rejection. He doesn’t. His eyes bore into your soul, into the very depths of your being.

It unnerves you, makes you insecure, feel vulnerable.

“Me?” The word leaves as whisper

“Yea you. Its always been you. It has been since that day on the bus”

“I-I dont— dont know what to say Jeon” and its true because you dont. Yes you are happy but you cannot fully express it because for one you are way too surprised and two you weren’t expecting for everything to fall into place so fast. You were expecting something along the lines of him falling for you, and then you telling him how you felt and then the happily ever after. Well, not exactly but this was definitely not what you expected in the least.

“Dont say anything. There is nothing to say. Either you do or you dont” he shrugs, but masked behind that simple gesture is his broken heart. The pain of which he desperately tries to keep away from his tongue and his eyes.

“Go to sleep. Today has been a very long day” he smiles at you but something tells you its forced. You actually feel hurt that he is trying to hide it. You thought he would be honest with you, out all people, just like you were with him.

He gets up from beside you, intent of leaving painted on his face but you quickly stop him by holding his wrist.

“Do you think I am that stupid? You think you can hide it from me?”

“But you don’t” he replies and you pull him down harshly until he sits down on the bed.

“Did you not listen to a word I said? I didn’t say no”

“Yes but you didn’t say yes either” he huffs.

“I know. But that doesn’t mean its a no. Yeah sure it would have been until yesterday. But like I said something about you changed today. For me. I don’t know what it is, but it did. That counts for something doesn’t it?”

He is silent for a while.

“Doesn’t it Jeon?” You gently shake his wrist to get his attention, which is still in your grasp.

“I guess”

“No. No guessing. It does you idiot. I have started feeling something for you. I cant name it like you said. But I don’t exactly see you as a best friend anymore. Not really. You saved me, and you were so brave. You were so fucking awesome and I understand why every woman wants you. It’s just something about you, something that I never took notice of before” you pause looking at him to see if he understands. 

“I saw it today. I saw the goodness in you. I saw the courage in you, the kindness, concern, care in you today. And that did something to me. It changed the way I look at you. Do you get what I am trying to say here? I just need time because this isn’t how I expected for it to happen” you exhale sharply feeling a heavy weight lift from your chest.

“Okay. Lets take it slow then. Your pace. We’ll do what you want, how you want. We wont give this thing a name unless you say so” he smiles at you and overcome with a sudden urge of gratefulness you crash your lips onto his.

He doesn’t respond immediately but when he feels your hand threading through his hair, stopping behind his neck and pulling him in, he does. Its a soft, sweet, gentle kiss. Its perfect for the occasion given that everything so complicated.

You pull away first, and he opens his eyes.

“What happened to taking it slow?” He laughs

“Well, if you are going to be this sweet and considerate then I don’t think its going to take long” you smile and he reciprocates.

“I can be sweeter than this you know?”

“How?”

“Like this” he pulls you into himself, arms wrapped around you tightly. He rests his head on top of yours, trying to take in the moment because he feels happy. He feels thrilled and he doesn’t want to forget it.

“You know I can get you to kiss me again?” And you pull away from him, looking at him suspiciously.

“How?”

“Do you know why I became a cop?”

You shake your head. 

“You. To protect you. Decided that day on the bus”

You look at him in awe because how much sweeter could he get?

“You are right that does earn a kiss” 

So you pull him by the lapels of his jacket and kiss him. You kiss him until you don’t feel nervous, until you don’t feel doubtful about it. You kiss him until it begins to feel right to do so.

“Saved the best for the last” he winks and pulls you into himself once more because he doesn’t want to let you go. He has waited far too long for this and he will make it worth every single second.

You were right. It was something about him. In fact, it was all about him.

Dont forget to click that heart, reblog, leave an ask or comment if you liked it! Let me know your thoughts.  Thanks for reading!!! 

[ahundredtimesover]

Empty Space (01) | JJK

Pairing: Jungkook x (f.) Reader

Genre/Tags: Police Officer Jungkook; ex-fwbs; angst, smut

Warnings: Blood and injury, minor character death, mentions of drug dealing, mentions of a raid, mentions of break-ins, stalking (nothing intense), foul language, explicit sexual content (oral, unprotected penetrative sex [please be safe!]), sex dreams, slight police officer kink (18+)

Word count: 8.4k

Summary: It started as friendship, turned to a casual fuck, then ended in heartbreak. Turns out, he wasn’t who he said he was, and years later he enters your life again, forcing you to face all the emotions you’d been trying to bury. 

OR Officer Jeon looks really hot in his uniform and you wish you didn’t hate him as much as you do.

A/N: I wanted to write a cop au bc I’ve been thirsting for police officer jk but my brain had to make it angst, too. So please enjoy (although my coochie may have written some parts of this fic).

Part 01, Part 02 (completed)

Rough hands pull you down as your soft ones grip his shoulders, half crescent moons etching their marks, and you know that adds to his pleasure. So do your moans, and your pleas for him to go harder, faster, which he does. His hips meet yours - upward in contrast to your push down south. It’s how he likes to finish - looking up at your fucked out face, beads of sweat decorating the wrinkles on your forehead as you chase your high, mouth parted, repeating his name like a mantra. 

“You’re so beautiful like this, fuck,” he moans, voice so hoarse and he looks as fucked out as you. This is how you like to finish, too - admiring the half-lidded eyes of the man writhing below you, bunny teeth biting his bottom lip and even in the dark, in this angle, you can make out the tiny mole that sits underneath. God, he looks so perfect. 

You end the night like this - limbs intertwined, chests heaving, soft laughter escaping you; he’s a charmer that way. Backs laying flat on the bed now, he turns to look at you with such longing in his eyes, a different kind this time, and you take it for something else - hope. 

“Be with me,” you say. 

Silence.

You see the fearful look in his eyes - or is that regret? Guilt? And then...

The dream ends before he could say anything. 

Perhaps that’s better - you know how it ends anyway. Perhaps your messed up mind is kind enough not to let you go through that moment when half of your heart breaks, but then again, it’s that same mind that conjures up this memory every single year, on the same day, without fail. 

It’s the day when your life fell apart, when everything you knew was snatched from right under your feet, and you never saw it coming.

“I meant to tell you this earlier but… you look like shit.”

“Thanks, it’s the same thing my reflection told me this morning,” you respond. 

Yeonjun chuckles. “Wouldn’t wanna be that reflection, then. You probably looked worse.” 

This little brat thinks he’s funny, but you manage a small laugh anyway. He’s the only company you get during this time of the year, and though not by choice, you can’t really imagine commemorating a death anniversary with anyone else. More like, there’s no one else to commemorate it with. The only person you can imagine downing a bottle of black with while reminiscing old times is the one buried 6 feet under. You take another swig.

“Sometimes I wish I was younger,” he says. “That way I remember less of her.” He takes the bottle from you. “That’s better right? Less memories, less pain?”

If he was referring to any other person, you would agree. But not when it comes to your best friend. Any bit of time you had with her was worth every ounce of pain that followed after her passing. 

“Your sister wouldn’t think so. She was glad you were born when you were. Any younger, we probably wouldn’t have let you drink as much as we did,” you laugh. Another swig. 

You and Yeonjun let the silence engulf you, the only other sounds are the rustling leaves and the faint car horns not so far away. The anniversary this year falls on a Friday and you’d taken a day-off to spend it like you always do - back in your hometown, with your best friend’s brother, drowning your sorrows in grease and alcohol. 

I wish it was me. The words threaten to leave your mouth but the man beside you, with all his strength, would probably hit you. “I wish she took me with her. That would’ve been better.”

“She’s probably rolling her eyes in her grave right now if she still had them,” he smacks your arm. “I thought we were over this.”

“Fine,” you say, exhaling deeply. It was just reflex for you to think that way - wishing it was you, then wishing it was with you. The wishing never ends, really.

“I wish she buried my memories with her. At least the ones that didn’t include her.”

Four years of sharing loneliness and grief and he already sees right through you. “You had a dream about him again, didn’t you?”

You take a longer swig of the bottle. You’d denied it the first time but had given up the two times after. “Exact same thing, exact same scene. It always starts and ends the same way. I don’t get it.” You hand him the bottle and spread your legs, arms now laying outward to support your body. “Who dreams about sex like that?”

“Dreaming about your ex happens to more people than you think.”

“He isn’t my ex.”

“Potato-potato. He was dicking you down on the daily and he seemed just as into you as you were into him,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“He rejected me, remember? And he clearly wasn’t who he said he was. It was all an act; I thought that was pretty clear.”

Yeonjun hums in agreement, not wanting to press further. 

“I burned everything we had; I don’t know why he has to keep showing up in my dreams,” you continue.

Limbs still spread out, you look at the orange-purple sky and wish you could see your friend’s face instead.

“Maybe she’s trying to tell you something,” Yeonjun breaks the silence.

“And what could that possibly be?”

“Maybe she wants you to forgive him.”

The 3 and a half hour train ride back is different this time, save for Yeonjun’s head constantly falling off your shoulder like always. You hold his head in place and keep your eyes out the window.

Maybe she wants you to forgive him.

You scoff at the thought. He’d taken everything from you, stripped you bare, then walked away. He disappeared almost as quickly as he entered your life. Like a hurricane, he took your breath away and left you lifeless at his departure.

That day when your world fell apart was when the other half of your already broken heart was torn to pieces. And he remained the culprit. The first time, it was the feelings he didn’t reciprocate. The second time was betrayal; that, you couldn’t forgive.

Why would you want me to forgive him, Yi-soo? He’s the reason why you’re gone.

You toss and turn in bed, as scenes from years past unfold before your tired eyes. You’ve been seeing more of them lately; sometimes even when you’re awake. You’re sure your mind is playing with you and you wish they were made up; but they happened. You hate that you remember that they did. 

Not long after Yi-soo’s passing, she was everywhere - in your dreams, in the photos you’d randomly find in forgotten notebooks and untouched drawers: she’d be in your favorite movies that happen to be on when you’re staying in, in your favorite songs that play in a restaurant, or a store, or on the phone of the person sitting next to you on the train. You cried one night and begged her to stop, and she listened. She left you in peace; she knew how much torture you were in; she probably just wanted to make sure you’d never forget her.

Of course you wouldn’t; you were each other’s lifeline. She’d held your hand when you said goodbye to your grandmother, the only family you ever had that old age had taken from you. You held your best friend’s hand when her deadbeat father was taken to rehab and she watched her mother walk away from the children she never wanted. 

You’d been each other’s family since you were 12. Ten years later, that only family you have is taken away from you, too. 

Four years since she’s passed. Four years since you begged her to stop visiting in your dreams, in your daily life. Now, you wish she’s who you’re seeing instead.

Not the man who moved in next door to your apartment and always hinted at how good the cheese and yam bread was until you finally offered him some. Not the man who kept you up with his video gaming sounds and always apologized by leaving random snacks at your door. Not the man who used to ring the doorbell at 8PM, asking if you had tea because he’d run out, only to learn some time later that he does not, in fact, drink tea. Not the man who used to “accidentally” run into you at the grocery, at the park, at the restaurant where you worked. 

Not the man whom you welcomed in your home, spent nights watching sappy love movies with, whom you kissed one particularly freezing night in February, until it was every night, until they weren’t just kisses anymore. Until his lips memorized the map of your bare body, until you’d learned to react to his every touch, until your lewd sounds had been etched in his brain and his in yours. Until he was spilling his seed into you, almost every night, as if he wanted to be yours and you, his.

You wish you weren’t seeing him on that night when he told you he couldn’t be with you, that he had to go, that he was sorry. You wish the heartbreak wasn’t as bad every time you close your eyes and see him on that fateful day - the raid, the gunshots, the screams, your best friend’s lifeless body on the floor, and Jungkook with his gun and a badge, his colleagues with somber looks on their faces, telling him that the mission was over. 

That day, he spoke to you like you’d never gone on midnight convenience store runs, like you’d never cried to him over the parents you never met, like you’d never shared a bed, kisses, touches. You were distraught, his words of “Young-il,” “drugs,” “undercover” ran over your head, unprocessed. 

“I’m sorry about Yi-soo. I’m sorry about us.” And that was it. 

In one day, you lost your best friend and the man you’d given your heart to. I never want to see you again, you’d said under your breath. 

It’s ironic thinking about it now. Weeks after the 4-year mark of that day, he’s all you see.

The bell rings, signifying your arrival. 

The broad-shouldered man looks up from the counter. “Hey, you’re early,” he states. 

“Couldn’t sleep so I just said, fuck it. Let me go impress my boss and go to work early,” you smirk.

You do a quick change in the staff room then proceed to stand next to him and nudge him away from the display counter. “Let me do this, Jin.”

He gives way, curious about your not-on-the-dot arrival and asks, “is everything okay? This is literally the first time you arrive 30 minutes before your clock-in in like, the 3 years you’ve been working here, and that includes all your afternoon shifts.”

You roll your eyes because who worries about their staff coming to work early? But you soften at his concern. He may be your boss but he’s stood like an older brother to you since you met all those years ago when he frequented the bar you used to work at. You were wary at the start - trauma, you could say; the last person you treated like an older brother turned out to be a criminal, you couldn’t believe he shared the same blood as your best friend. But Jin has been nothing but kind. Awkward sometimes; would take weekends off to go fishing like an old man and rarely ever get a catch, but he lets you taste every new recipe he comes up with and is always honest and supportive of your own ideas for the cafe. Aside from Yoongi, your other boss, you’re the only other person that Jin would trust this place with.

“I just had weird dreams,” you admit the partial truth. “Just decided to stay awake.”

His eyes widen. “Not the Freddy Krueger type, right? Because you literally could be sleep walking right now and he literally could be here somewhere.”

You laugh at his antics. “God, no. I swear, I told Yoongi not to make you watch that movie.”

He shrugs. “It was intriguing but yeah, it was alright.” He pats your head as his form of comfort. “It’s a Tuesday. We shouldn’t be getting that many customers but take a break when you need to, okay?” 

You nod, thanking the heavens that they at least thought you worthy of still having good people around you. 

You set up accordingly, still remembering what you need to do when on the morning shift, considering it’s been a while. Your body clock couldn’t quite recover from the late nights working at the bar so it had been natural for you to take the afternoon shift until closing.

You’re set to meet Yeonjun tonight for your weekly dinner that has been moved to Tuesdays after he started working at a publishing company. You don’t mind it, even if you have to switch shifts for this one day, as long he gets to do what he wants and you still get to see him. You’d taken care of him ever since he was a kid, you weren’t about to stop now, especially when each other is all you have left. 

Tuesdays, oddly enough, are slow. Compared to the rest of the weekdays, the morning rush isn’t as rushed, even with the brunchers then the lunchers and then the snackers coming in. You’d taken short breaks when you felt a little tired, glad that Hoseok, the barista, can hold his own on the counter on the moments you’re a little off. 

Despite the lack of sleep, you’re still able to do the bare minimum of getting orders right and not spilling drinks on customers but still, you’re counting down the hours until you can clock out and catch a nap before dinner. 

You punch in the order of a sleek-looking man with a dazzling smile who’s trying to woo you and he’s kind, at least not disrespectful, so you go along.

“Thank you,” he says, taking his drink from you. “This cafe’s already at the top of my list for the staff’s charm,” he winks. “I’ll see you again.”

You flash him a smile. “Glad to have you, Sir. Have a good day!” You call out. Charm isn’t something you would say you have - you’re convinced you lost that years ago - but you’ll take it; it’s better than customers saying they’ll come back because of your plump ass like what you used to get at the bar.

Hoseok informs you of the added espresso shots that a customer requested, which you enter on her tab. The bell rings to signal an arrival and you look up, the smile that naturally graces your face with every customer coming in starts to fall and your throat dries up, the words that try to escape - Good day! How are you? What would you like to have? - don’t make it out.  

So the uniformed man with a boxy smile starts. “Hi…” he looks at your nameplate, “____. Can we have two iced americanos, please?”

You blink once, twice, and a few more times. With your mouth slightly parted, you try to say something but you can’t find your voice. Your try to transfix your gaze on the man who had just spoken, so that it wouldn’t be on the man to his left, who, from your periphery, is staring at you just the same. 

“Miss?” The man goes again.

It’s the nudge from Hoseok that jolts you awake and you express your apologies. You quickly key in their orders on the screen and you could feel a pair of eyes boring holes at the side of your head. 

Just then, Jin comes out of the kitchen and trudges next to you. 

“Ah, if it’s isn’t my favorite Officer Kim,” he greets. “The usual?”

The man laughs. “Hi, Jin! Yeah, we just ordered.”

The two drinks are placed on the counter, with Hoseok smiling at the two men. “Nice to see you again, Taehyung,” he says, and bows to the other man. 

“Well, enjoy your coffee with our cheese and yam bread. It’s our offer to police officers. My dad recently retired from the force so it’s my way of thanking all you brave and honorable cops,” Jin smiles proudly. 

At the words ‘brave’ and honorable,’ you scoff. Right, more like cowardly and deceitful. 

Jin and Hoseok look at you questioningly, Officer Kim has a curious look on his face, and the other man whom you haven’t had the guts to properly look at bites the inside of his cheek to try and control his emotions. 

“Anyway, I’ll prepare them for you,” Jin says, breaking through the tense atmosphere. He retrieves two containers and places one bread in each and hands them to the two men.

“These smell like they taste so good,” Officer Kim says.

“They do,” the other man states. 

You glare at the screen and bite the inside of your cheek this time. 

“You’ve had them before?” Officer Kim asks.

“Oh, uhm. Stores sold these back home. I used to eat a lot of it,” he replies. You don’t see it but he keeps glancing at you, trying to decipher your expressions, but wishing you’d finally look at him, too.

“Oh, okay. I thought you had these specific ones,” Jin says. “They’re specially made by our very own _____,” he continues, nudging you to look up at the customers instead of tapping on random items on the screen. You do that quickly, flash a smile, and look down again. 

“I’m Jin by the way, part owner of this place.” He puts out his hand in front of the man. “I believe we haven’t met yet.”

“Officer Jeon. You can call me Jungkook,” he responds with a handshake. “I’m Taehyung’s new partner. He says he comes around here often,” he explains, eyes still stealing glances at you.

You’re nipping at your upper lip, your tell when you’re nervous. He wishes he could pull the flesh off your teeth and kiss the red marks that would surely appear like he used to. You always said you liked that, but he doesn’t have the privilege to do that anymore.

“Oh yeah, he’s a sucker for our strawberry cake. But he always enjoyed them ever since we were younger,” Jin laughs. “That’s Hoseok by the way, our magical barista,” he says, pointing to your colleague at the other end of the counter, who responds with an energetic wave. 

“And this is ____, the goddess of this place. She bakes our best-selling pastries and we worship the ground she walks on,” he continues, knowing that kind of compliment - which always earns him your glare - would get you to do exactly that, just so you’ll get your eyes off the screen. You’re stopping yourself though, and it’s not until he squeezes the flesh by your elbow that you finally look up.

“Hi, Officers. Nice to meet both of you,” you flash your fake smile. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some things to check on at the kitchen.” You bow and head to the back, leaving all four men to wonder what’s up with you. 

Officer Kim shrugs and takes the food in his mouth, moaning at the taste of the warm bread and singing his praises. Jungkook follows suit and smiles at the thought that it’s just gotten so much better. 

He remembers how you used to experiment on the different types of cheese and flour, going by sense rather than following a recipe. Even at its early stages of creation, it was already delicious. He’d know; he taste-tested it.

He moved in next to your apartment almost 5 years ago back in Busan, fresh off his intense training from the Police Academy for an undercover mission of busting a group of drug dealers. He’d been at the top of his class, and while undercover cops must typically have a few years’ experience under the force, his excellent skills and youthful look were the requirements for that particular mission. He was supposed to be a fresh college graduate who worked as an IT support staff by day and delivery boy by night. There was a group headed by a certain Choi Young-il who’d been working with small-time drug suppliers and dealing with colleges and high schools in town. 

Jungkook was supposed to infiltrate their circle and get enough information to take them down, but that proved to be difficult, seeing how exclusive and hard-to-reach they were. The plan was to befriend his younger sister who was around Jungkook’s age, but Young-il was said to be a very protective brother; the man would be onto Jungkook if he started to spend time with Yi-soo. 

That’s how the plan turned to befriending you, the sister’s best friend, someone who’s a part of their family, who spends weekends with them, hangs out at their house, and knows the Choi siblings like the back of her hand. You’re either in on the group or not but either way, any information is good information. 

Jungkook was just supposed to befriend you to get to them, be invited to the weekend gatherings, collect enough information, and schedule a raid - in and out just like that. It wasn’t supposed to be complicated; he just had to catch them at a prime moment during a deal. That was it.

But Jungkook, who’d only ever been in love once in his life - to a girl who had shamelessly broken his heart and made him vow he wouldn’t let anybody use him ever again - had to fall for the girl he had to use to take the bad guys down. Bright-eyed Jungkook, who had the Jeon reputation to uphold and a legacy of police officers to carry on, had unknowingly given his heart to you. 

It started with him catching you giving your baked goods to the family living across from you. He’d salivated at the mere scent of the cheese and yam bread. You offered and he took it; you offered your friendship and he took it; you offered your own heart, too. But that, that one he broke. So did your trust, your smile, your thoughtful heart. He’d broken everything he could until there was barely anything left for you to hang onto. 

He’d taken away the older brother you never had and the best friend who’d served as your ray of light and lifeline. Jungkook was that, too, at some point. You’d find out later on that it was darkness he’d bring you. 

Choi’s group was taken down, and even if the mission didn’t go as planned, Jungkook had gathered more information than he expected, leading to other groups and their illegal activities being exposed, and the suppliers eventually being caught as well.

His colleagues commended him for it, for the whole mission, really. An innocent life was lost, he’d said. Just think that we saved more in the long run, they’d replied. I hurt the woman I care about and I will never forgive myself for that, he wanted to say, but they’d think he was a failure then. Don’t ever get attached when you’re on a mission, they’d warned. 

But Jungkook thought too highly of himself, believed himself to not have weak spots. He didn’t prepare himself for you and he should have. 

Four years since the incident and he hadn’t returned home, hadn’t gone undercover again, hadn’t let any woman in. How could he? Four years since he’d told you the truth about him, and you’re all he’s ever thought about.

Jungkook is broken out of the torture chamber of his memories of you with Jin’s amusing laughter, and he blinks to get rid of the tears that have started to form. He glances at the kitchen door, wondering if you’ll come out again, but you don’t. 

You’re still at the back, leaning against a wall, practicing that 4-7-8 breathing exercise you learned to calm yourself down when you wake up from a nightmare or when you get flashbacks. 

At the departure of the two men, Jin finds you with a stunned look on your face.

“Hey, ___. Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

You swallow at the thought. “Actually, Jin, I just did.”

“He’s here? In the flesh? You saw him? What did he do? What did you do? Did you cuss him out? Did you hug him?”

It’s the last question that earns Yeonjun a smack on the arm.

“Why the fuck would I hug him? He’s a fucking coward, shitbag, manipulative traitor, bastard, shitbag—”

“You said that already,” Yeonjun says and refills your glass with Soju. “The question is - is he still charming and stupidly gorgeous and fucking sexy?” 

You glare at him and chug your drink, anger bubbling at the exact words you used to describe Jungkook to Yi-soo and Yeonjun. You pour yourself another glass, chug that one too, cross your arms, and pout.

“I take that as a yes,” he replies. 

“Actually, I don’t know. I barely looked at him. I almost bore holes at the way I was staring and pounding at the cash register screen. But he had the fucking audacity to say that my cheese bread is good?” You bellow, fingers gripping the burger you’re eating. 

“Hmm. How ironic that you meet again after all these years over cheese and yam bread, which is exactly what got you two flirting in the first place. I mean, what are the fucking odds, ___? The universe is telling you something, don’t you think?”

You put down your food and with a hazy mind, you say, “I don’t get it, Yeonjun. Where’s your anger towards him? Why aren’t you resentful? Why aren’t you—“

“He didn’t pull the trigger, ___,” he levels with you. “I’m angry at Han who had the gun on him and I’m angry at my brother who put all of us in danger. They’re why Yi-soo is gone. Not Jungkook.” 

You look at the young man who’s matured way more than you have over the years. He was but an 18-year old who got the call that his sister had been killed and his brother was being imprisoned for drug dealing. He’s the one who got himself together and earned a scholarship in a university in Seoul, thereby taking you with him, worked his ass off to get a good job, managed to accept what had become of his life, mourned for the people he lost but remained thankful for the one he has left. While you, on the other hand, hadn’t done much accepting nor proper mourning nor any thanking. 

“I miss her everyday and I swear I could still hear her laughter but she’s gone, ___. We can’t take her back. She would’ve wanted me to graduate and chase my dreams and that’s what I’m doing and I—“ He pauses at the sight of you slumped over the table by the foot of your couch, arms crossed over your face trying to muffle your cries. He goes to you and takes you in his arms to calm you down. 

“I’m such a bad guardian to you, Yeonjun. You lost your family and I’m the one who can’t move on.”

He grips you tighter. “My brother had always been a stranger. You and Yi-soo were the only family I knew and I still have you.” 

He takes your face in his hands. “I know you lost more than family that day, ___. You lost him, too. And that’s another kind of pain on its own.”

A week later, you see him again. You’d heard from Jin that he and his partner came back two days after you’d first seen them, with Jungkook seemingly looking for someone, prompting your boss to ask you about your relationship with the officer.

“Knew him from home, now I don’t,” that’s all you said. Jin softened at you, knowing that while you’re not normally an open and expressive person, it takes a lot for you to be bothered like this. 

This time, when the two men enter, you’re prepared. Yeonjun had helped you practice an unwavering, professional smile and speak without stuttering, like you’d never done this before. Of course, they don’t train you when you have to serve the man who betrayed you and pretend that seeing him doesn’t break your heart all over again. 

“Hi, Officer Kim, Officer Jeon. Nice to see you again,” you say, bowing in their general direction but turning to the former. “What would you like to have?”

“Please, just Taehyung,” he smiles, acting like he’s not curious as to the change in demeanor. “The usual, two iced americanos please. And…” His eyes move to the glass counter. “Do you still have that free bread for us?” He asks, fingers drumming each other. “Or not, I mean, we could totally pay—“

“Don’t worry about it, it’s still free for the next couple of months,” you say, practiced smile on display. Jungkook notices this and his heart hurts at how hard you’re pretending. 

You hand both of them their orders and ask if there’s anything more they need, to which Taehyung replies that there’s none. You smile again and glance at Jungkook who lingers by the counter, seemingly wanting to say something, until you call out, “Okay, have a good day!” You turn around and ask Hoseok to cover for you while you take a short break.

He shows up again the morning after on his own this time, then the next, then the next. It’s Friday of that week when Jin takes Jungkook’s order and finally asks, “not to be blunt, Officer, but how bad must it have been between you and ___ for you to be coming in everyday and for her to keep dodging my questions about you?”

Jungkook sighs. “Busted, huh?” 

“You’re not that subtle, actually,” Jin laughs. “I won’t tell you her shifts apart from the Tuesday one you already know, though.”

“I won’t ask, that’s why I’ve just been coming in everyday to see. I have access to the street surveillance cameras but I wouldn’t go that far…” 

“I was hoping you wouldn’t.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m not a creep. I just… wish I can properly say hi and not get tongue-tied when she’s standing in front of me after 4 years of not seeing her and—“

The bell rings and you’re bursting through the door, hands full with paper bags filled with pastries you’d experimented on the night before for the team’s taste-test.

“You’re… here,” Jin says, concern laced on his face, eyes flitting from you to Jungkook.

“I texted you about having an earlier shift,” you say, immediately regretting that you’d basically given away that you start later than 2PM on Fridays. You shake your head. “I’ll fix up.”

Jungkook takes this chance to walk towards you and call your name. But you’re too fast and seemingly undisturbed to respond to him, and you make it to the staff room before he gets too close, and sigh. 

It had been so long since you last heard him call your name and you hate the way your heart skipped a beat at the sound. Four years later and he still has that effect on you. Who said anything about moving on?

It’s snippets this time that plague your mind as you try to sleep. Every change in movement - lying on your right, then your back, then a turn to the left - is like a channel change; it’s accompanied by another scene each time. 

A random night at your apartment with Yi-soo and Jungkook playing board games and trying your coffee bun. Turn. 

A celebration at the Choi’s over Yeonjun’s swimming competition win, with Jungkook’s arm around your waist. Turn. 

Jungkook fondling your breast under the covers at the backseat of the car at a movie drive-in, head turned outside the window. Turn. 

Jungkook seated at the passenger seat of the police car you’re in as you’re driven to the station for your interrogation. Turn. 

“I’m sorry about Yi-soo. I’m sorry about us.”

“I swear, she’s trying to tell you something,” Yeonjun insists over the phone. “Why don’t you just listen to what he has to say?”

“How are you even sure he has anything to say? He had four years to do that and he never did.”

“You said it, he’s been showing up at the cafe even without his partner. He even called out to you that one time!”

“And he didn’t do it again!”

“Because you ran away from him!”

“I didn’t run away, I…” You massage the bridge of your nose. At this point, you don’t know what’s irritating you more - Jungkook’s perpetual presence at the cafe or Yeonjun’s insistence that there’s something more to this supposed serendipitous meeting after four years.

“Just hear him out. Maybe the dreams will stop.”

You’re already anticipating another appearance, as Jungkook knows your Tuesday shift and Jin said the two cops end theirs around lunchtime, hence the regular visit. Your back is turned to the door as you’re serving a customer who’s engaging you in conversation. You don’t hear the bell ring and you turn to serve a table by the door when you crash into a brick wall, which you realize is actually someone’s chest because you feel a hot breath glaze over your forehead. And something wet. 

You look down at the pitcher of water that’s spilled on the man’s clothes and you look up to say your apologies because this is an absolute no-no in this profession but of course, it just had to be him.  

“I, uhm… I’m sorry, I’ll just…” You stutter and try to turn but a chair is blocking your left and he encompasses the area to your right and he isn’t budging. 

“Do you mind?” You ask, eyes looking at the floor. You see his feet make way and you walk towards the counter to retrieve some napkins and you walk back to him, suddenly aware that you can’t bitch around because you just spilled water on a customer and while you don’t think it’s anyone’s fault - shit just happens - you apologize anyway. Other people are looking at you and you can’t break.

You hand him the napkin, teeth biting your lower lip and you finally look at him. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

He takes them and a small smile forms on his lips; his month is already made, he thinks. “Don’t worry about it, I should’ve been more careful.” He proceeds to wipe the mark on his button-down shirt and honestly, you don’t even know what that could do. But you’re standing there and looking at him, suddenly lost in the little action he’s doing of wiping water off of him and your eyes trail his fingers, then his forearms, then the scrunch on eyebrows and his…

You snap yourself out of the daze you find yourself in. You can’t fall into this. This is how it started in the first place - him doing something mundane and you thinking it’s the most spectacular, attractive thing in the world. 

You bow at Taehyung, who found the entire exchange amusing and oddly satisfying, considering that he knows how his partner has been coming back here to try to talk to you. “The usual?” You ask Taehyung with the smile that you recover.

“The usual,” he replies with his signature smile. He turns to Jungkook and offers his partner the jacket on his back to cover the water mark, which the man in question takes - arms spread out to try to fit into the piece of clothing that’s probably a half size smaller. At that moment, your brain decides to glance at him and of course you see his shirt buttons fight for their lives and you gulp loudly, fearing that they might have heard you. 

They walk towards you and you offer their drinks and just as Jungkook is about to say more, you bow at them again and excuse yourself for another break. He groans at your absence and knows he’s got to be more intentional. 

How he constantly blanks out and stutters in front you is a mystery to Taehyung. He knows his partner to be firm, deliberate, calm yet impassive. This Jungkook doesn’t seem like that rookie cop who busted drug dealers from years back; but this Jungkook had always been different when it came to you.

Meeting you had been calculated - befriend the best friend, “accidentally” run into her after researching everything, seem uninterested when with her friends - but spending time with you - from movie and game weekends, convenience store and market runs, to the nights you’d laid naked together, talked about your dreams, and woke up to the smell of coffee and pancakes - those were real. 

His laughter with you, the blush on his cheeks, the way his heart skipped a beat whenever you mindlessly took his hand - those weren’t calculated. He wasn’t undercover police officer Jeon Jungkook then. He was simply Jungkook, bright-eyed man who had fallen for the woman with golden eyes and heart-shaped lips, the woman who’d lost her family so she treated everyone close to her like her own, who handled her pains with such grace, no one would think she was hurting in the first place.

He couldn’t tell you all this, though, afraid it would break his heart even more, the same way it would break yours. That fateful day, he delivered his scripted speech, led you to the police car and into the station, gave his statement, and asked for a transfer. He walked away without saying goodbye; he had to, but you didn’t know that. He was trying to protect you, but he can’t blame you if you wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t even look at him. 

He betrayed you in the name of duty, and broke his heart in the process. The only way he could protect you was to break yours even more.

You enjoy Friday night closing because as the greeting to the weekend, customers flock for dates, post-school or work stresses, family bonding, or chill drink nights because yes, your other boss Yoongi insisted on spiked coffee drinks to sell. 

He accompanies you during closing hours - being around people and tiring himself helps with the insomnia, he says - and you’re thankful for another older brother you can trust. 

It’s almost 11PM and the last customer has left, leaving you clearing out the counter and Yoongi checking the inventory. Jimin clocked out half an hour ago after the kitchen’s last call, and you’re just about to imagine spending the night with a good book under your thick covers until the door opens and in comes jacket-clad Officer Jeon, breathing heavily as he stands at the cafe’s entrance. 

“____,” he calls out. 

Your eyes turn to him with a glare, partly out of frustration and partly out of nervousness. Yeonjun kept on insisting that this is bound to happen and you know that, too, but you can never be prepared for confrontations like this. So you say, “Officer Jeon, we’re closed.” Emphasis on the officer because you’re petty and bitter that way.

He turns to the man sitting on one of the tables then checks his watch. “It’s 10:58. I still have time.”

“No, you don’t,” you insist, walking towards him to try to escort him out. 

“Please, ___. Just, hear me out.”

You turn to your boss who’s telepathically asking you if you’re okay and you nod. He steps out and tells you he’ll be back when you’re done and you nod again, then you turn to the other man, eyes cold and unblinking. All the emotions you’d been feeling the last 4 years meld together and come out in huffed out breaths. 

“What do you want, Jungkook?”

“I… Uhm, I just wanted to…” He fidgets, suddenly going blank and suffering from amnesia over what he wants to tell you, what he wants you to know that he should’ve said all those years ago.

“For fuck’s sake, Jungkook, what the hell do you—“

“I’m sorry,” he breathes out.

Your nose flares because that was literally the last thing he said to you before he left. I’m sorry about us. You don’t know how much of it he meant then and how much of it he means now.

“Is that all?”

“I… I’m so, so sorry, I—”

“Is that fucking all, Jungkook?” You cross your arms across your chest to build an invisible wall and to hold yourself together because you feel the tears start to form.

“I trusted you and you betrayed me. You got close to me just so you could get information and because of you, my best friend is gone! Do you know how much that hurts, Jungkook? To lose someone you love? You care about?”

“I—” I do, more than you know.

“And even after she died, you just fucking left. I needed you even if I hated you but you didn’t care! You disappeared, didn’t bother to stay around and I’m—” you’re breathing heavily even more and the tears start to fall— “I exposed all my layers to you - my heart, my soul, my body and you didn’t care! You needed a successful mission under your belt and a good fuck while you were at it because that’s all I was other than your key to success, right? A tight pussy you can fuck every night after a full day of being a complete shit and you treated me like your little whore because it wasn’t enough that you used me to get to them, you had to use me for your own sick pleasure, too.” 

You’re heaving, head hurting from all the emotions that you’ve kept for so long and that have decided to spill out. 

“___, no, please. You have to listen to me. I—”

“I hate you. Get out.”

You’re stood in front of Jungkook, tears trickling down your face and he wants to wipe them away and in the deepest crevice of your heart, you want him to but you can’t. 

You’re angry, upset, humiliated - everything you felt all those years ago after your world fell apart, you’re feeling them all again. That includes all the adoration and desire and longing you had for him, and you hate yourself. You hate yourself for being vulnerable again in front of him, afraid he’ll take advantage like he did before. He can’t see you break even more; you won’t let him.

But you do, just a little. With closed eyes that cause a waterfall down your face, you beg him. “Please, Jungkook. Please leave.”

And with a sigh of defeat, he does just that. 

At his departure, Yoongi comes in and catches you before you fall to the ground. You grip on his arm - all the strength you had disappeared in an instant - and continue to cry, the most you’d done in front of anybody since that day. 

“I’ve got you, ___. It’s okay, I’m here.”

“I’m coming over,” Yeonjun says over the line.

“No.”

“___, you’ve been ugly crying for days. I know that because you won’t put the video on when I call you.”

“You brat. I don’t put it on because I’m under the covers and you won’t see anything anyway.” You just know he’s rolling his eyes. “But really, don’t come here. You just got back from a work trip and you need to be with your girlfriend.”

“Hana won’t mind it, she loves you.”

“And I love her, too. So just stay with her. I’ll crash your date when I’ve reached my absolute lowest point, I promise,” you sniff.

“Okay fine but be honest, how does it feel to finally let it all out?”

“I don’t know. I’m not in the processing period yet. It’s been 2 days but I’m still dealing with the aftermath of my outburst. Which is a lot of crying and inability to sort out whatever it is I’m feeling.”

“I love you, okay?” He says after some time. “No one expects you to be okay but I hope you will be.”

You say your goodbye and bury yourself under the covers and all the thoughts and emotions that you’re allowing yourself to feel. You’re not sure what you were expecting from a confrontation, which isn’t really what happened because it had been all you talking and Jungkook looking immensely guilty and lost and speechless. And you wanted to hug him and tell him it was all okay then hit his chest right after because you’re still hurting.

Is this even normal? To feel so much anger and hatred and yearning and affection for someone who’d hurt you? To want to lash out at him yet want him to try harder, to make amends, to lie to you again so you could hear him say that he cares about you? 

You meant what you said, that you needed him to comfort you even if you detested him. That hasn’t changed. Because at this moment, when you’re falling deeper into the hole of despair because of him, you want nothing else but to feel his strong arms around you, cradle you in his chest, and tell you that everything is going to be okay.

Your mind is a mess, moreso your heart. You want him, you hate him. You want to see him, but you don’t. It’s the latter that always wins, though, as you requested for collective action from your entire team on Operation Avoid Officer Jeon. At least one person is tasked to watch the door on the hour he usually comes and when he does, someone else takes over the counter for you. You’re signalled when he leaves and you never know what to do with the information of him asking if you’re on the clock. 

But he’s a police officer and you’re sure he knows. Your friends may be supportive but they’re terrible actors, what with Hoseok not making eye contact, Jimin constantly checking the kitchen door, and Jin going overboard with his jokes and his laugh that it’s pretty obvious; heck, even the other customers would probably think so. But he lets you all do your act. He can’t force you to speak with him if you don’t want to. He’s the one who got all tongue-tied, anyway. A few weeks pass and the act continues, but by this time, everyone is in on it, even Jungkook. 

The dreams are less, but they still happen. It just feels odd knowing that he’s literally in the same town that sometimes you don’t know if you’re hallucinating or if he’s real but you try to distract yourself with other things, like taking cooking classes.

It’s right after your morning cooking class one Saturday when you get a call from Busan Police Department, informing you that the case from 4 years ago has officially been closed and you and Yeonjun can collect Yi-soo’s possessions from that day and some items that were left in the home. 

You’d forgotten all about the police keeping Yi-soo’s things from that day, her body being examined, clothes kept in evidence boxes. Their house was cordoned off even months after you and Yeonjun left town and you don’t really know why it had taken so long to close the investigation. 

But you agree, thinking about the other half of the friendship bracelet that you’ve been meaning to get back. You decide not to prolong the inevitable and take the train that same day with Yeonjun. It should be a quick one - get the items, then leave.

“Senior Inspector Kim,” you greet the dimpled man in front of you. It’s been a while, really, but you can’t forget that face, that smile; it was the only calm amidst the storm around you that kept you at bay that day.

“It’s so nice to see you two again,” he returns the smile. He seems to mean it. 

He leads you to a room with the box of belongings and you tell him there’s no need to put them out one by one; you remember what’s in there - you wish you didn’t have the memory of her body in the morgue but you do, you weren’t afforded a proper goodbye, anyway. 

You absentmindedly go through the fine print and sign the papers. 

“I’m really sorry about you two losing her, ____,” SI Kim starts. “I didn’t think it was appropriate to say it then but that was really brave of her, what she did. I just hoped it didn’t have to end that way.”

The writing stops and you turn to the man, a mix of anger and sadness in your eyes. “There’s nothing brave about what she did, Officer Kim. She didn’t wake up that day and decided to die,” you say, hands gripping the pen. “It was some rat who decided to call on the raid in their home. That’s why we lost her.” 

The man’s face goes from confused to enlightened in a span of 5 seconds. “You didn’t know…” He mumbles.

You catch this, and you hear alarm bells in your head. “What do we not know?”

He closes his eyes and debates with himself on whether he should tell you. It’s been years and he doesn’t know how you would take the truth.

“It was Yi-soo… Officer Jeon’s mission wasn’t to raid their home, it was to raid the dock where the exchange would take place the next day.”

You swallow hard and try to make sense of what the man is saying. 

“Yi-soo knew what was happening. She was the one who called the police. That raid wasn’t part of the plan. She wasn’t supposed to die.”

Next

masterlist

[jeonstudios]

dextrocardia | 14

Dextrocardia. Originally a medical term, but also a way to describe someone who's got their heart in the right place.

"She's been moved to another operation to help out. This pairing is necessary because you'll be undercover as spouses. I know you two can be professional about this."

"What?!" It's Jeongguk's upset voice that sounds, and for once, you share his displeased opinion.

Spouses.

pairing: cop!jk x f detective!reader

genre: undercover cops, fake marriage, e2l au, angst, fluff, (smut?)

word count: 9.7k

warnings: a LOT of bodyshaming and fathobia and sexism

rating: NC-17 – Adults Only

masterlist

part 14/? 

<previous | next>

© dextrocardia is copyright jeonstudios. this fic can not be modified, re-posted, or translated without my permission.

“I hope you know that I appreciate all the things you’ve been telling me. I know it can’t be easy, all the things you’ve gone through. So I appreciate it, even if I unfortunately…”

“Don’t have much to say?” you smile at him as you turn to close his bedroom door behind you.

“Yeah. It’s a lot different than when I’m talking to someone who maybe just got out of a… situation because, while that’s always hard, you just have to listen and assure them they did the right thing, going to the cops and that we’ll guide them through the rest and hopefully help them get justice. That it wasn’t their fault, you know? But you know all that already, and I’m not much help; in fact, I was a big part of your problem and going to the police probably made it worse in your case because we let you down instead of helping you.”

It’s sad, the way he says it, reaching for the collar of his t-shirt at the back of his neck. He pulls it over his head before he suddenly stops, the shirt stuck across his lowered arms. You meet his deer-in-the-headlights eyes and see how it dawns on him that despite explaining earlier that he wants to keep his shirt on–at least with you in the house?–he hasn’t actually been committing to that promise. You wonder if it had anything to do with his scars, if he wanted to spare you from seeing them or just not risk you being uncomfortable.

“It’s fine, take it off,” you comment casually, “but do know that I might warm my cold feet against your skin.”

He grins, finally removing the shirt entirely and throwing it onto the chair in the corner. “Feel free.”

Flicking the lights off, Jeongguk joins you in the dark, getting under the duvet and getting comfortable.

It’s silent for a while, and you’re halfway between sleep and consciousness when Jeongguk says something you definitely weren’t expecting.

“Are you still scared of me?”

You roll over to face him, even though the room is almost pitch black.

“Do you want me to be honest?”

“Of course.”

“I think that I will always be aware… of what you can do. Even right now, if you in this moment decided to hurt me, there would be nothing I could do about it. I can spend my days in the gym but odds are a vast majority of men could overpower me anyway. If I were to trust my gut, it would say that you’re a… good guy, but I know that most women murdered by a man they knew or even their male partners didn’t fall for someone openly abusive. They’re sweet at the start, and then they change. Hoseong was like that too; kind until he wasn’t. I know you know that because he fooled you too.

“When it comes to you, I think the only reason I’m here with you is because of what you did that night. I would’ve found any reason to believe that you were still playing a game of making me trust you, just waiting for the right moment to strike, if I hadn’t seen you fight them. No matter how talented of an actor you are, they were prepared to kill you, and you… were prepared to die.

“And this…” you move your hand under the sheets, tentatively finding his chest and the scar. “I don’t like looking at it, and it feels like it’s my fault your mom almost lost her son, but it’s also… almost a relief. I don’t have to second-guess if you really want to help me or if it’s just a long con to… finish something. But like I said… just because you haven’t tried to kill me yet doesn’t statistically mean you won’t. I don’t think you will, but then again, there are a lot of dead women who probably wouldn’t have imagined their murderer being someone they knew.”

Jeongguk places his hand over yours on his chest. “For what it’s worth, I could never hurt you. I know I did; that I hurt you emotionally and scared you, but not even when I thought you were the most selfish person on the planet would I have physically hurt you.”

“I will let the fact that I came to live with you speak for how I feel about you, or at least want to feel about you. Also the fact that I’m sleeping in your bed with you.”

“That you find me entirely irresistible, dying to be close to me at all times?”

You roll your eyes, however, blood rushes to your cheeks. “Yeah. Absolutely.”

“Good that we’re on the same page then, cause I’m kinda stuck on the fact that you kissed me.”

Inevitably, your cheeks warm up further, but it’s okay since it’s dark anyway.

“I did. It was a good kiss.”

“Yeah. I totally wouldn’t hate it if you did it again. In fact, I am open to kisses anytime, just as I am hand-holding.”

“You’re sure? Even from me?”

You hate that you have to ask, but… you do.

“Absolutely.”

You consider it for a moment, but eventually decide to trust his words, at least tonight. Empowered by the dark, you move your hand from his chest. It travels over his warm neck before it reaches his jaw. Your heart beats so hard you’re almost convinced he can hear it, but you ignore it and move closer. Despite the dark, you see his face and how he’s smiling, patiently waiting. It’s both a blessing and a hellish curse how handsome he is; he truly takes your breath away. 

Using your hand, you move your hair away, and you lean down to connect your lips. His are so soft, and he kisses you back so sweetly, letting you set the pace. You move your mouth against his, pulling back an inch just to do it again. Jeongguk lets his hand hold your waist, and even though kissing him is… a dream, you’re reminded that there’s a limit you’re not comfortable crossing.

So you pull back, but you still let him hold your waist.

“There.”

You fall asleep quicker than the nights before. A few hours later–and a few hours before morning–you blink your eyes open, finding yourself entangled with him. You’ve got your arm thrown over his middle, your cheek resting on his naked chest, right below his chin, and one of your legs lies between his.

For a while, you listen to his breaths, thinking about what it is that you’re doing. He’s so warm, and he feels so… safe, but there’s still a certain thought in your head.

When you wake up the next time, you’re once again alone in Jeongguk’s bed, and the first thought crossing your mind is how unnecessary boarding up your window really was when you’re practically almost always sleeping in his bed these days. Also, does he count on being able to hear a potential intruder trying to break in through his window? Because there is one, and it’s definitely not boarded up.

Your curiosity grows when you hear Jeongguk move throughout the house, and the sound of a…. what is that?

Rolling out of his bed, you yawn as you open the bedroom door to almost run head first into a stressed-looking Jeongguk. The sound you heard you identify as the now turned off blow dryer, something you’ve borrowed yourself but never seen him use. Looking up, you realize that, yeah, his hair is still wet from a shower and blow drying it means that he either doesn’t want to wait for it to air dry or he can’t.

“You’re going to the station?” you ask, noticing that he is actually indeed wearing his dark blue, almost black uniform.

“Yeah, uh, multiple trafficking victims on their way. Want to be there before they arrive.”

A very specific feeling moves through your chest; an uncomfortable sadness that someone has most likely been through hell, but there’s a warmth there too, for Jeongguk.

“What are you looking for?”

He looks around, patting his pockets, “Uhm, I have my phone, wallet, house keys. I need the… bike key and the helmet. The helmet is probably in the garage, but I’m not sure where the key is.”

You blink, trying to remember what jacket he was wearing the last time you recall him using the bike. The leather one, right? You step up to the coat rack, looking through the jackets until you find it. Swiftly, you search the pockets until… 

“Found it. Do I put it in your uniform jacket?”

“Oh, thank you. Yes, please,” he says over the sound of the blow dryer that he grabs once more.

You watch him dry his hair, incessantly running his fingers through it to speed up the process. A few minutes later, he turns the machine off and runs his fingers through the black hair one last time, “It’ll have to do.”

Then, he’s gathering his stuff, taking the jacket from your hands and heading toward the door leading to the garage as he throws it on. “Not sure when I’ll be back, it might take a while cause I don’t know how many they are or what they’ve been through, but I can update you?”

“Jeongguk?”

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Come here for a second.”

Confused, he takes the four steps until he’s in front of you looking down curiously but a little stressed at you.

You smile at him, at how pretty and caring he is. “Be careful.”

He grins, a little surprised. “I always am. But it’s mostly just letting them talk and writing it all down, and–”

“I meant on the road. With the bike. I know you can handle the case.”

“Oh. Will do.”

For a millisecond, he looks at you, his bottom lip bitten. Then he’s pulling you closer by your waist, pecking your lips sweetly.

“I’ll see you later.”

With warm cheeks, you watch him enter the garage, thinking of his kind, brown eyes. You don’t know what to feel.

When Jeongguk returns, he’s angry. He doesn’t say much except frustratingly relaying that apparently, one of the women had called the police about a creepy neighbor appearing to watch her house six months ago. The two officers sent did absolutely nothing at all. Couldn’t offer any protection, didn’t talk to the neighbor, couldn’t even give the woman any advice, just left. Two weeks later, the neighbor takes her. You understand Jeongguk’s frustration toward the system, but when he’s spent two hours in the gym without any kind of break, you decide to check up on him.

You hear the brutal beating of the punching bag long before you spot him.

“How are you doing? You’ve been in here a while…”

Jeongguk stops and looks at you from behind the sand-filled bag, breathing heavily. He’s shirtless, and there’s sweat covering his skin and wetting his hair.

“I’m alright.”

But you can tell that he’s frustrated by the turmoil in his eyes. Although it’s hot to see him work out, you don’t like seeing him like this. It has an uncomfortable feeling growing in your stomach.

“You’re doing what you can.”

“Yet there’s always more to do. It never ends, and it’s never enough.”

He’s definitely right about that, but does it help to be so worked up about it? Or are you the weird one, more likely to go apathetic when reminded of the injustices of the world these days?

“But you did your part today, and I know you made an impact in their lives.”

He looks disappointedly at the sandbag, as if your words didn’t affect him at all.

“Hey,” you call softly. He looks at you.

“If it weren’t for you, I probably wouldn’t be here right now.”

‘Right now’ as in alive.

“But I–”

“If you never transferred, they would’ve gotten me at this point.”

“Bare minimum,” is all he mumbles.

“It meant a lot to me. Everything, actually. And I’m really grateful.”

At that, he finally smiles a little, and you find yourself dangerously lost in his eyes again.

Thirty minutes later, at nine p.m., the power goes out. You stop what you’re doing, your hand, holding the kettle frozen in mid air over the mug. Even the very, very low humming of the fridge and freezer stops. You put the kettle down, glad that you probably managed to fill your mug with enough tea water.

Where is your roommate? Last you heard, he was about to take a shower. 

“Jeongguk?” you call, but the moment you peek out into the hallway, you run straight into him, still wet from the shower and with a towel around his hips, you think. 

“What happened?” he asks, his hands steadying your elbows.

“Uh? I don’t know? I was pouring tea and the lights and everything went out.”

“Oh? So that means it wasn’t our doing. I’ll check if there’s a blown fuse; you never know.”

“Okay,” you pat the pockets of your sweatpants, “Here’s my phone if you want a flashlight.”

“Thanks,” he nods, grabbing it from your hand.

He taps the screen to turn the flashlight function on, the light pointed down immediately illuminating every little crevice in his abs and the glints of water still on his skin. The white towel hangs low, exposing a bit of a happy trail.

You look away, and Jeongguk, seemingly none the wiser, turns around to find the fuse box somewhere other than in the kitchen, guided by your phone.

Sighing to yourself the moment you’re alone again, you go back to your tea, removing the bag from the mug. Opening the fridge, you’re once again reminded of how dependent on electricity you are when the open door doesn’t trigger the built in light. Still, you find the milk, and you manage to pour a little bit into the mug and put the container back in the still chilly fridge.

By the time you finish stirring the tea spoon around, you hear Jeongguk’s steps approaching you, and you see the ray of light illuminate the floor in front of him.

“No blown fuses. I’m gonna see if there’s anything on the provider’s site or else I’ll give them a call.”

“Are you gonna get dressed as well, or?” you joke, watching him smile cheekily. 

“Yeah. I was just barely done washing my hair when the light went out.”

“I can see that; you’re dripping all over the floor.”

“Sorry,” he says and shakes his head like a dog, launching drops of water at your clothes and face. 

 “Jeongguk!”

Laughing, he leaves the kitchen and steps out into the dark.

“What if I slip and fall?” you call after him, wiping the drops from your face before returning to your mug to take a test sip. It tastes good, but you’ll definitely try to remember to buy honey next time you go grocery shopping because you’re a sucker for a little sweetness.

Half a minute later, you hear footsteps approaching, and when you turn around from the sink, Jeongguk is drying the floor with the towel he was just using, now wearing what looks like a pair of sweatpants of his own. He doesn’t say anything, just makes sure the floor is dry and then he leaves again, much to your amusement. Like you said; you’re a sucker for sweetness.

While he’s gone, you use your phone’s flashlight to pour the rest of the water into another mug in case Jeongguk wants some tea too. Then you venture carefully into the living room, trying not to spill the hot contents. It goes without accidents, and so you set the mug down onto the coffee table before reaching for the remote. Which doesn’t work. 

“Fuck, no TV,” you mutter to yourself. And you’ve used your laptop without the charger all day. Even more fuck.

“Jeongguk, is your laptop charged?” you call out, praying to the gods.

“Uh, yeah,” he appears behind you, having matched a black hoodie to his gray sweatpants.

He’s holding something in his arms, a lot of smaller things. Candles, you realize when he leans down to gently dump them onto the table. From his pocket he then produces a lighter.

“You wanna watch something?” he asks, lighting the candles one by one, the coziness factor doubling with every flame added.

“I was gonna watch this documentary, but my laptop isn’t charged,” you pout. “Oh, and also, the Wifi won’t work.”

Jeongguk chuckles. “Mine should be fully charged. And we can use my mobile data.”

Wow, way to flex.

“Great. I made tea, do you want some?”

“Sure. Thank you.”

While he goes to grab his laptop, you return to the kitchen to fix his mug of tea as well, returning as he’s setting everything up, the screen illuminating his face where he sits on the couch. The flickering candles are doing their best too, casting a more yellowy glow across the room.

“Thanks,” he says once more when you place the mug in front of him. “Here.” 

You accept the laptop, navigating to the specific streaming site and the documentary released just last week about the development of the space shuttles. Due to the size difference between Jeongguk’s TV and that of his laptop, you take your seat closer to him than usual.

Jeongguk sips his tea, but the moment he’s put the mug back safely on the table and is leaning back against the couch and watching the screen, he slowly lets his hand find yours. 

In turn, you find yourself moving closer, leaning your head against his shoulder. He smells nice, and he feels nice. And it’s suddenly like someone started some kind of wordless game. You don’t say anything, but there’s also a kind of tension that builds, no less in your body. 

Perhaps also feeling the… electricity building, Jeongguk makes his next move, this time slowly lifting his arm to put around you, making you lean against his chest instead. The action has his hoodie riding up just a little, exposing a sliver of his stomach.

When it’s your turn again–and you feel your shared anticipation grow–you try to psych yourself up. He likes you, he likes you. 

So, you place your hand on the exposed section of skin, caressing it carefully with your thumb.

Besides the documentary, it’s quiet, although you’re almost positive Jeongguk can hear your heart beat erratically; it’s definitely beating loudly in your ears. For his next turn, Jeongguk somehow both swiftly and slowly pulls you onto his lap, and before you know it, you’re straddling him, staring down at his smiling face.

The narrator speaks in the background, but you can only focus on Jeongguk and how your heart might soon beat its way out of your chest. 

You could kiss him. You could.

He looks at you like he’s hoping for it but not expecting it, and you pray to God he actually does want you to. Because you want to kiss him so badly. 

He’s got his gentle hands on your thighs, and you place yours softly on his face, holding his jaw and rubbing your thumbs slowly over his cheeks. Until you move one thumb and press it even softer against his lips.

This man is too good to be true, he has to be. As you let your eyes admire him, you think about the fact that, even if you disregard how he literally took a sword to the heart for you, he’s done more for you in the short period of time you’ve known him than any other man in your life.

So you move your finger from his mouth, nervously switching it out for your lips. You can’t even describe how much you like kissing him. When it’s sweet and innocent and just lips and a wordless confession of ‘I like you,’ or when you use a little tongue, and he chooses to follow your lead, kissing you back with the same growing heat. But there’s still something bothering you that you can’t ignore.

In the midst, you pull back an inch, eyes glued to his lips to avoid his eyes. “I like kissing you, but… “

“But what?” he wonders, his hands drawing innocent shapes on your thighs. Your heart pumps even harder as you choose your next words.

“I’m not really your type.”

He smiles, looking carefree, “You are. I think you’re a sweet girl.”

Jeongguk kisses you again, and you try not to think about it, but even with his lips against yours, it’s hard. A sweet girl. Letting one of your hands fall from his face, you grab the collar of his hoodie, clumsily placing your hand inside it to touch his chest, feeling for the scar.

Taking it as you wanting it off, he pulls away to yank the hoodie over his head, and it ends up somewhere toward the end of the couch. Even without it, his bare skin is just as warm under your hands, but before you know it, you’re on your back on the couch, and he’s above you. He’s very sweet, and in this moment–with your hands splayed across his back and the scar there–you know he won’t hurt you. 

A sweet girl.

Right?

A sweet girl. You hear the voices and feel the anxiety and fear return to fill you. You go with the flow, unsure of what to think or do. Jeongguk helps you out of your shirt and then your bra, and you watch him sit back to throw them onto the floor somewhere. 

But the moment he returns his attention to you underneath him, he stops. Because you’re covering your naked chest with your hands like your life depends on it, eyes teary and absolutely and helplessly begging him to look anywhere but at you.

He still does, and you can tell he’s surprised, his wide eyes taking in the situation from above you.

So you plead quietly, “Please don’t look at me.” 

It takes half a second, and he’s immediately closing his eyes, turning to feel around for something behind him. Your shirt probably lies somewhere farther away on the floor, and so his black hoodie is what he ends up grabbing, handing it to you still with his eyes closed.

And he of course moves off of you, the only sounds in the room being the documentary, the slight rustling as you’re putting the hoodie on, and your quiet breaths.

When he assumes you’re dressed, he opens his eyes, heart visibly breaking when he sees how absolutely shaken to the core you look, hugging your body and sitting up. You turn your eyes to the documentary on the screen even though both of you know you haven’t been watching it.

“I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” he starts to explain, sounding genuinely apologetic.

“It’s fine,” you say quietly, wanting desperately not to make a big deal out of it. If you could just will your hands to stop shaking.

“No, I–”

“Jeongguk, please. I’m fine, okay. I’m not… I’m not ready, but… Can we not talk about it, please?”

Reluctantly, you meet his eyes and see the somber worry in them as he watches you from where he’s sitting, still shirtless.

“Okay. If there’s anything I can do…”

You smile tentatively at him, desperate to move on from the subject, “Watch the rest of the documentary with me?”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” you repeat, “I’ll, uh, go and change so you can get your hoodie back.”

“No, no, it’s alright. Keep it,” he’s quick to rise to his feet, already on his way somewhere–presumably his bedroom.

The forty seconds he’s gone you use to calm your breathing and stabilize your voice. It wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t going too fast or not listening to you. He listened to what you gave him; you, yourself only figured out where exactly the line was drawn when it was basically already crossed.

He’s wearing a black t-shirt when he returns, taking a seat next to you and focusing his eyes on the screen, probably more so for your sake than his. “I hope you know that you can tell me anything. And I have no certain expectations you have to fulfill or so.”

You already know that he’s not asking sex for rent, if that’s what he’s wondering. But regarding his first statement… there are definitely things you don’t want to talk to him about.

“Yeah,” you answer regardless.

When the credits roll only a few minutes later, you know that you have two options. If you sleep in your own bed like you ideally want to, you risk there being an awkwardness tomorrow and that you definitely don’t want. Or you sleep in his bed with him like you have the last few days, and sure, it might be a little awkward, but he probably realizes you’re not up for cuddling, and it’ll be easier tomorrow.

“Oh. Finally,” Jeongguk exclaims when the ceiling light flickers on, signaling the return of the electricity. “I was starting to worry about all the food in the freezer.”

Subsequently, he leans over the coffee table, blowing out the small candles one after the other. It’s late anyway.

“So, uh…” he rises from the couch, “I’ll keep my door open, but I’m not offended if you choose to sleep in your bedroom.”

“Okay,” you nod at him, watching as he leaves to brush his teeth and get ready for bed.

You stand up too, but no matter how much you want to crawl into bed next to him and have him hold you the entire night, you get ready for bed, and you lie down in your own room. You’re still wearing his hoodie because it smells like him, and it ironically brings you comfort. Still, you lie there in the dark, and you think about his face, and his eyes, and his body. His voice, even, and how he might actually be a good guy. Maybe even everything you want, even if it doesn't matter. And you curl up, a few tears running silently down your cheeks. Because Jeon Jeongguk is so very far out of your league, it’s not even funny.

After waking up, you trudge toward the kitchen, still feeling half asleep. After everything that happened yesterday, you still managed to sleep pretty well, most likely because you were exhausted and sleeping alone.

“Morning.”

You stop, hands mid eye-rub. 

“I… thought you’d be at the station?” you say, redirecting your focus to taming your hair. Jeongguk is sitting at the kitchen table, donning a white t-shirt and black, what looks to be cotton, shorts.

“No, I’ll use today to go over some of the potential leads you helped find. Can do that from here.”

He takes a bite of a cupcake, and you catch his eyes linger a second on your body and how a small smile pulls on his lips before he looks into his phone in front of him. Glancing down, you realize that since you didn’t expect him to be home, you didn’t change out of his hoodie so what he saw waddle into the room was you, swallowed by his hoodie, sweater paws rubbing your eyes.

“It, uh, smells good,” you mumble quietly, realizing way too late that it’s not that great of a defense. “But I’ll wash it and you can have it back.”

It smells good because he smells good.

He waves his hand, still looking almost… fond. “It’s okay, keep it as long as you’d like. I have a ton of them.”

“Okay, uh, thank you.”

“No problem.”

At least the awkwardness was for another reason.

You decide to do a bit of laundry, although skipping the black hoodie and hiding it away under your duvet for a little while longer. Doing the laundry, vacuuming most of the house, and emptying the dishwasher takes you almost an hour, and then you find yourself outside Jeongguk’s office, knocking on the open door and peeking inside. 

“Making any progress?”

He lifts his head from the laptop screen and swivels around in his chair to face you, a pen in his hand. 

“No,” he sighs, “I’m looking into the girlfriend angle and so far, we’ve put detectives on a recent ex of Seunghwa’s and on two of Ryung’s flings, but it hasn’t resulted in anything. Regarding Hoseong… I’m not sure I ever actually heard him mention anyone by name, at least not any name that I can seem to match to anyone.”

“What about… I remember him talking about this Jimin?”

“Who’s that? I think we’ve covered most of his friends?”

You search your memory, but it’s hard to remember details. It’s been years since the conversations you try to recall, and as far as you remember, he only mentioned her in passing. “It was a woman, and I think they were more than friends. Or at least she wanted to be.”

“I didn’t even think of that; I only know male Jimins. Tell me more,” he urges, and you can tell he’s trying to recall if there was ever a mention of a Jimin.

“Well, I heard him complain about her a few times; said she was clingy and honestly a little obsessed with him. He made it sound like he didn’t care for her that much. In retrospect–besides being a very red flag–it sounds like something he could’ve said about me when I liked him.”

“Someone who maybe is mostly just a regular woman and would still maybe help them if they’re desperate enough to ask. Or him, at least.”

“Yeah.”

For a few hours, you and Jeongguk work together in his office, and you nearly forget about yesterday’s mishap, trying to find more info on this ‘Jimin.’ Until you find yourself nearly chest to chest with him after turning around too quickly and not expecting him so close. Instead of meeting your eyes sweetly and slowly lowering his head to kiss you like he probably would’ve even yesterday, he smiles and… backs up a few steps. 

“Hey, should we take a break? Have a late lunch?” Jeongguk stretches his arms out in front of him. 

You continue noting down some last names from your phone onto a paper, using the chair Jeongguk wheeled into his office specifically for you as a table while sitting on the floor. “Uh, you go ahead. I had a late breakfast.”

He stands up. “Oh. I didn’t notice.”

“Mhm, you were already in here.”

“I can wait then, and we can eat together.”

“It’s alright; go ahead.”

He mumbles something you don’t quite catch, but he does leave you to your notes and disappears from the office.

For the rest of the day, it’s just as if you’ve taken two or even three steps back. You don’t… touch a lot, and you definitely don’t kiss. A part of you misses it, but another part is relieved that he’s giving you space. He’s still very, very sweet, of course. You didn’t expect anything else.

Like when you open a cupboard, gaze set on a specific mug of his you’ve taken a liking to thanks to the very big ear that prevents the hot tea from burning your hand even through the ceramic. Compared to your male roommate, you’re lacking a little more in the vertical department and for some reason, whoever emptied the dishwasher placed the mug on the top shelf.

You look at it for three seconds, debating on whether you should grab a kitchen chair and climb or simply admit defeat and choose the next best mug. You’re about to go for the latter option when your hero swoops in, wordlessly and casually picking it down for you, a mug of his own raised to his mouth.

“Thank you,” you take the offering from his hand, a smile growing on your lips.

“You’re welcome.”

Or how he’ll still open whatever door you run into for you, to the point that it wouldn’t surprise you if he tried to open the automatic doors and hold them open with his hands when he takes you grocery shopping.

And sometimes, you do touch. Whenever he’s quick enough to exit the driver’s seat and open the passenger door for you, he holds his hand out for you, and when you take it, he helps you out as if you can’t step out of the car on your own. 

When you watch a movie, you don’t sit glued to each other, but he’s not scared to gently pull your feet–which you’ve complained all day of being tired–onto his lap to briefly massage them for you. He smiles at you, all crinkle-cornered sparkly-eyed and dimpled. On two short occasions, he holds your hand carefully, something you don’t object to because it feels nice, it really does.

But despite all these things, you still sleep in your bedroom. You don’t lock the door, but you do sleep alone.

Three days after the incident during the power outage, you’ve worked a long day in Jeongguk’s office. Alone, because he had to leave for the station at nine a.m.. You’ve had a lot of time to think, not only today but ever since what happened–and before that honestly–and it’s become very clear that you need to make a decision. Maybe you should simply gather your courage, give it a shot, and tell him how you feel about him, no matter what happens after?

Despite feeling somewhat determined and having some kind of honestly not very thought out plan, you’re anxious, wandering around the house as you wait for him to return. 

An hour before he comes home, you find yourself in front of the washing machine, throwing the black hoodie into it finally. With the machine on, you head into the kitchen, pouring yourself a glass of wine. It helps a little, and the remaining nerves that still reside in your chest, you decide to just try to ignore.

The sound of his bike is what notifies you of his return, and you leave the kitchen to meet him in the garage, watching as he swings his leg over the bike and takes the black helmet off, holding it under his arm.

“Hey,” he greets when he sees you waiting, a genuine smile on his face. “How was your day?”

“Uh… good. Narrowed down the Jimins a bit, I think.”

“That’s great,” he grins, his elatedness infecting you too, causing you to smile a little hesitantly despite the nerves devouring you. “Have you eaten yet? I know it’s kinda late but if not; I could cook something?” 

He puts the helmet on one of the shelves that line one of the walls, and then he comes to stand before you. 

You keep your eyes on the jacket with the police emblem on it before you peer up at him. A little hesitantly, you reach for the zipper of his jacket, fiddling a little with it.

“I, uh… actually have something else I want to do. Something I’d like to try… If you’re up for it…”

Tentatively, you reach your hand out, fingers pulling down the zipper of his jacket. He watches you curiously, doing nothing to stop you.

“What is it? That you want to do?” he asks, his warm voice definitely sounding curious but not overly so.

You swallow, deciding to just go for it and slowly placing your arms around his neck, “Well… Do you have any… handcuffs?”

He tilts his head, holding your waist while looking at you, searching. “For me? I do, but we don’t have to do anything; you know that, right?”

“Yeah, but if I really want to? Or maybe you…” you realize that he might just not want to. Like, at all. Oh, how embarrassing.

Seemingly noticing the way you take a step back, lowering your arms from around his neck, he stops you, his hands keeping them there.

“No, no. I’m always willing to let you do whatever you’re comfortable with. I don’t mind.”

His encouragement has a more genuine smile pulling on your mouth.

“Meet me in your bedroom then?” you ask, “And bring the cuffs.”

Not waiting for a confirmation, you drop your hands from his neck, and you turn around to head inside the house. Your heart is pounding, going absolutely haywire while you wait for him on the edge of his bed. Maybe you should’ve worn something else? Something other than just a pair of mom jeans and a blue sweater, but it’s too late now, you guess.

He shows up only a minute later, eyes curiously observing the heavy chair you’ve moved from the corner and into the middle of his room. The first thing he does is unbutton the dark blue shirt of his uniform, sliding it down his arms and throwing it onto the bed. You look at his chest and his arms and his stomach, and you see how he notices. This… humble confidence looks so good on him, and it’s so insanely different from how he acted during the mission. You’ve never seen anyone so attractive. 

The next thing he does is approach you where you’re sitting, offering you his hand all while smiling sweetly… but still a little cheekily.

Placing your hand in his, you’re pulled up to your feet, basically chest to chest with him. There’s heat in his gaze, but it’s not scalding; it’s just warm. 

You give in.

“Kiss me?”

He searches your eyes for hidden answers, but you really do want him to kiss you, and so he does. He places one hand on your lower back, moving your body with him as he steps back and sits down on the chair. Ending up sitting across one of his thighs, you open your eyes when he pulls away just enough to speak.  

“I don’t mind you doing… whatever you want to do, if that’s just sitting on my lap or… exploring me. I’m all for it. Do what you want to do. But,” he says, emphasis on that last word. “Only do what you actually want to.”

You nod, and he reaches down to pull something out of his pocket. The handcuffs. You take them from him, pocketing the small key.

“By the way, how did you get out of the cuffs at the house?” you ask, weighing the metal in your hand.

“I went and got another key before. So I threw you one key and kept the other.” 

You feel your forehead crease as you think about what that means. You were only able to relax when you thought he couldn’t hurt you, but he… could? At any point, he could’ve simply unlocked the cuffs himself?

“I didn’t keep a key because I had ulterior motives or anything. I was just worried you might hurt yourself or pass out for real, like, stop breathing and everything, so I needed a way to get to you if that were to happen.”

“I didn’t even think about that,” you admit quietly. It’s true; the fact that you had multiple pairs of handcuffs with you to the house, and they all use the same universal key entirely slipped your mind. “But of course. How stupid of me.”

“It wasn’t stupid. You were under a lot of stress, and I used that to my advantage, hoping you wouldn’t think about it.”

Standing up, you round the chair to kneel behind it. Without having to be asked, Jeongguk puts his hands back and waits for you to cuff them together.

“So I’m tightening these extra hard and making sure I have all keys,” you joke, still fastening them tight enough for him not to be able to slip them off.

“If that’s what you need to feel comfortable. But I hope you know that I’ll always listen to you.”

You nod, maybe more so to yourself when you stand in front of him again. He looks up at you where he sits, shirtless and looking gorgeous and absolutely mouthwatering.

You bite your lip briefly. “Can I… kiss you?”

“Whatever you want,” he grins, a smile that widens when you sit down on one of his thighs again.

“Okay. Close your eyes?”

Without a word, he obeys your request, and you feel yourself get almost hypnotized, looking at him. You’ve truly never seen anyone so stunning, even to the point that you could sit and gaze at him for hours. The best of mankind but still very much a man. You remember how you used to hate him, thinking God wasted this incredible beauty on someone so ugly, but although you’re not entirely sure how you feel about him, you know you don’t hate him.

Carefully, you trace your fingers along his sharp jaw, and despite his eyelashes fluttering, he doesn’t open his eyes. Unable to help yourself and because you truly don’t think he minds, you allow your gaze to drop. His neck is relatively thick, and the veins are only slightly visible compared to when he’s physically active. Your eyes then land on his collarbones. Then his wide, muscular shoulders and pecs. Then the scar, before traveling across his abs.

“You’re so pretty,” you state quietly, looking up at his face just in time to watch him smirk.

“Pretty is for girls; I’m a man.”

You can’t quite explain the emotional wave that hits you as you come to terms with what you have to do–the decision he’s made for you–but you know that you have to hide it, can’t make a sound of hurt in the silent room. Pressing your lips together, you look around the bedroom before you rise from his thigh.

“What are you doing?” Jeongguk asks, still smiling and oblivious, his eyes closed.

Already at the window, you untie the white curtain’s tieback and hold it up. “What about this?”

He opens his eyes and looks at the white piece of fabric in your hand, but doesn’t appear too skeptical. “For what purpose?”

“Blindfold.”

Trying to keep a positive and somewhat fear free mindset, it still hurts when you see how he immediately connects the blindfold to how you shielded your chest from his eyes. There’s pain and there’s guilt swimming in his dark eyes.

“You can, but please don’t do anything you don’t want to.”

“I won’t,” you promise.

“Okay then.”

With his permission, you place the folded sash over his eyes and tie it in the back, careful not to trap any hairs. When you’re done, you take another second to look at him. There is something so irresistible about him, something that has your heart yearning and your body pulled in. He’s so warm, both body and presence. You bite your lip, using your hand to trace his cheek softly while thinking about how he’s so conflicting. What if you want to stay here forever? Curl up like this where he can’t touch you, and lean your head against his neck where he can’t see you?

Like the time when you kissed three days ago, you touch your thumb to his soft lips, and you let the smile and the mask you’ve been wearing fall. Quietly, you stand up, and you take a step back.

“I thought you were going to kiss me?” Jeongguk jokes lightly.

You don’t know what to say, stuck in your footing to the floor and how he can’t see you. It’s like a weight has dropped from your shoulders, but your heart still feels heavy.

“I’m sorry.”

Not picking up the real meaning behind your words, Jeongguk tilts his head. “Okay. It’s alright. Why don’t you uncuff me and we can maybe order dinner instead?”

“I’m leaving tonight.”

“Wait… what?” he straightens up, struggling to process your words, “Why?”

But you go silent again, unsure of exactly how you’ll ever be able to tell him everything. He calls your name, sounding stressed, and you hear how he tugs on the cuffs.

“You scare me.”

He stops, and you can tell by the way he seems to almost be holding his breath that it wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear.

“I… I understand that you’ve been through a lot, but I’m never going to hurt you.”

You keep your eyes on him, feeling like he, himself most likely believes what he’s saying. But it’s not that easy.

“I know… that all in all, you’re a good man. You want to help me and others, and I know you said that not even when you thought I was the most selfish person in the world would you be able to hurt me physically. But you had no problem hurting me in other ways.”

“I know, and I’m so sorry for what I did. I’ve apologized for that, and I’ll keep doing it.”

“I don’t know how to read you,” you add, disregarding what he said because he has apologized, but not in the way that you needed. Not in a way that really matters to you. If this man hasn’t had you broken in a thousand pieces and still insisted on stepping on the remains.

So you keep going. “You look sweet–you’ve been sweet, but you look just like him. Hoseong was sweet too, until he wasn’t. And you… you have this desire to hurt, you want to inflict pain on those who wrong you or who you think have done you wrong. What happens if you think I’ve done something you don’t agree with?”

“I’m not jumping to conclusions without talking to you, I’m not making the same mistake again–”

“What if I actually do something you don’t like?”

For a few seconds, he goes quiet. “I’m not going to hurt you ever again, I promise.”

You fiddle with your hands, glancing down at them. “Are you sure? It was so easy for you, using all my weaknesses against me and breaking me down without ever asking me for my side of the story. And it scares me how you, during the mission, showed just how easy it was for you to one moment act like you could stand me–looking just as sweet as you do now–then angrily tear me down the next.”

It hurts in your whole body but the worst pain originates from your chest. You feel small, insignificant, but also like you take up too much room.

“I know that you probably don’t want to hurt me physically, and that you’re a better man than most, and at first when we came back, it wasn’t too difficult to ignore what you…. think of me, but now…? I kissed you, and you kissed me back, and it just… everything is coming back. I’ve been trying to tell myself that you wouldn’t hurt me at all anymore and that maybe you even like me like I like you, but I know that you don’t. Which in turn makes it hard to know why you’re doing all of this. I think maybe you feel guilty or want to be nice? Give me a chance even though I’m not your… type. But I… I like you. I really, really like you.”

It’s easier to admit than you originally thought, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. “I want to look at you every second of the day and my hands absolutely yearn to touch you all over. But I don’t want you to touch me. I don’t want you to look at me. I don’t want to be perceived at all. I know that if I stay here and show myself to you, you will not like what you see. You will be disappointed.”

Jeongguk shakes his head, not straining against the cuffs anymore but taking on a calmer approach. “It’s not true. I really do like you, and I think you’re really pretty. Please, I apologized for the things I said, and I’ll do it again. I’m really sorry; I just said those things because I wanted to hurt you. “

“You did. You hurt me, and I’m hurt. You apologized for wanting to hurt me, but you’ve never impli–actually, It doesn’t matter. I know what I look like, it’s kinda hard to forget when you’re constantly reminded. You and your friends came for every single flaw of mine, Jeongguk. “

“I only continued because you never seemed fazed by it.”

“‘I never seemed–’”, you stop to chuckle in disbelief. Your eyes are tearing up as you recall the moments you’re about to remind him of. 

“Are you saying that you never noticed that I stopped eating lunch at the cafeteria after what you did? Hoseong said that maybe someone would actually like me if I ‘ate less,’ and you laughed like it was the funniest thing you’d ever heard. That was the day after you walked past me in the cafeteria, saying ‘leave some for the rest of us, why don’t you?’ Jihyo brought cookies for her birthday two weeks later, and you suggested–in front of everyone–that maybe I should do something else with my mouth besides eat. I criticized the fact that no male officer wanted to work on ‘low-rewarding’ cases like my trafficking case, and you… Do you remember what you said?”

Your eyes are already blurry with silent tears, and you feel the humiliation drown you. There’s no way to go, nowhere to hide. People like Jeongguk are watching, inspecting and observing every little part of you. Your bottom lip trembles.

Jeongguk is silent. If he could see, he’d be looking at your feet. You were right to blindfold him because you would’ve never been able to speak so earnestly had you not. Although you like him, and he’s been so kind and sweet to you, you’re back to feeling like nothing in his eyes.

“‘It’s not about the case; it’s about you. You couldn’t pay me to even look at you. In fact, I bet not even the traffickers would take you, otherwise we would’ve definitely traded you.’”

The pain radiates from your chest, leaving no cell of your body unaffected at the implications. You are so ugly and disgusting to him that if he had the chance, he would’ve sacrificed you to a fate no one should ever have to face. 

He doesn’t give you a reaction now either; he just sits there with his head lowered. But this is your one chance to tell him how you really feel. You take a big, shaky breath.

“I was doing okay before all of this. Sure, I’ve always known that I have a lot of flaws, but I was doing okay. But you’ve said over and over again that I disgust you, my body makes you want to hurl, you wouldn’t fuck me if your life depended on it, etcetera. It takes its toll. Eating around men gives me anxiety, even if I try to hide it. I cover up my… shoulders as much as I can because I can hear you describe them as ‘manly,’ and how every man within earshot chuckles. 

“I wear thick bras and tops, especially around you, because you made it a habit to comment on my breasts and how unfortunately shaped and sized they are. I remember how you asked me how on earth I ever expected Hoseong to like me when I had the ‘saggiest tits in the district.’ And I remember the field day you had when you found out they’re a bit uneven, finding a way to lower your rating of me from a 0.5 out of 10 to a 0.1. Then you asked the other men for their opinion and rating. Or how you’ve so kindly informed me that I didn’t have the tits for that pretty, blue dress and that it looked awful on me. Are you saying that you didn’t notice that whatever you’ve commented on, I’ve never worn again? Not even anything similar?

“I don’t wear tighter pants without a longer shirt to cover my ‘misshapen,’ ‘unfeminine’ hips and the ‘weird dips’ you’ve laughed at, and whenever work dress codes require me to, I’ve avoided you and other men the best I could.

“I wore a skirt to work once, and when I ran into you before changing into my uniform, you said that skirts are for pretty girls and that no one wanted to see my… cellulite. You took every chance to remind me that I have myself to blame for being undesirable, and that men weren’t the problem, I am, and ‘how wasn’t I ashamed for thinking someone like Hoseong could ever like me?’

"Believe me, I was ashamed. I am ashamed. Do you think I never considered just… drinking the poisoned coffee? Or just starting the car even though I knew the brakes wouldn’t work? If there was a way to get rid of one’s body, believe me, I would’ve. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t know what he did to me at the time because how I looked never changed. But looking like you do, I get that you don’t understand how it is to walk around, filled with shame for existing in such an unfortunate body, but I can tell that you want to be better. Maybe you feel bad and want to give me a free trial of how it is to be with a Good Man. Or you want to do the ‘right thing’ so that your dad would be proud? I don’t know, but I can’t ignore the fact that I know how you really perceive me and how you are so far out of my league, it’s embarrassing to even stand here and say it.

"So while I appreciate everything you’ve done for me cause I’d be dead and gone without you, I can’t stay here. You want someone to hold hands with and to buy flowers for, but that’s not for people like me.”

Finally done, you wipe the tears that fall, and you shakily swallow the lump that’s formed in your throat.

“Take the blindfold off and uncuff me,” he begs, once again straining against the handcuffs. You know he isn’t getting out of them, and while he could stand up, the chair is too heavy for him to just pull along with him when he’s got the blindfold on and no sight. He knows, just as well as you, that there’s no use.

“No.”

“Then listen to me; none of that was true. You are so pretty, so breathtaking. I like you so much.”

“Forgive me for not believing you. If you really thought I was even remotely pretty, there have been countless opportunities for you to say so. Or even just a ‘hey, you know you’re not actually as revolting as I told you.’”

“I… I didn’t want to overwhelm you or have you doubt my intentions, but I’m telling you now that I’ve always thought you to be beautiful.”

You scoff sadly. “Yeah, now when the consequences of your actions have arrived,” you glance down at your feet, feeling so insignificant. 

“Please don’t leave.”

“I’ve already packed my stuff.”

“Where are you going? You can’t go home; it isn’t safe there.”

Truly, at this moment, your safety doesn’t seem like your top priority. “I’ll be careful.”

“Can’t you stay with someone, at least?” he bargains, “Jihyo or Sana?”

Another tear falls, and your voice goes quiet. “I want to go home.”

You really do. You haven't been home in months, and you feel like a child sleeping over at a friend's, missing your mom so much it hurts and just wishing she'd come and pick you up.

“I know, but you just gotta hold out a little bit longer. Call Jihyo, please. Do you want me to watch your house twenty-four seven, cause I will.”

You consider his words, and if there’s anything you don’t want, it’s to have him so close again. “Fine. I’ll call her tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah…”

With nothing really left to say, you pull your phone out of your pocket, opening the Uber app.

“I’ll uncuff you in a few minutes, I’m just ordering an Uber.”

Luckily, a car is only three minutes away, and so with quick fingers you confirm it. You packed your stuff three hours ago in case this would be the outcome, something you’re very grateful for now. Maybe, maybe, if he had said something, you would’ve kissed him and decided to stay, hoping that he was being honest. But you know that you might be a sweet girl to him, but you're not a pretty girl.

A minute passes, and you sigh sadly. “Okay, I’m gonna open the handcuffs, but I’m begging you, Jeongguk, stay there until I’m gone, okay? Don’t remove the blindfold, please?”

It’s his turn to seemingly consider what you’re saying. What you did, agreeing to call Jihyo, was for him and respecting his wishes. So he has to respect yours. He can’t rip off the blindfold the moment you twist the key in the cuffs and try to persuade you to stay, no matter if he wants to. 

“Okay.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

You decide to trust him, and with the key belonging to the cuffs, you round the chair where he’s sitting. Kneeling like before, you manage to unlock one of the cuffs in two seconds, and the metal clinks as it falls off his wrist. Instead of freeing his other wrist as well, you grasp his free hand and put the key into his palm, closing his fist around it.

Though you shouldn’t have expected him to be entirely quiet and still, because while he doesn’t make any move to rise from the chair or remove the blindfold, he does swiftly grab your hand, holding it firmly. Despite being blindfolded, it definitely feels like he’s staring straight at you behind him.

“Don’t believe anything any of us said, please. You really are so gorgeous, and not only that but you’re incredibly smart and hard-working. You’re amazing, and I will regret what I did to you for the rest of my life.”

But you hurt so much on the inside that you don’t say anything to that, you just pull your hand out of his grasp.

<previous | next>

author's note: so.... anyway, uh... like, comment, and subscribe <333

[jimikkyu]

i'll just... drop this here before going to sleep ig. have a laugh... idk. it was funny to me

[flowerwrites06]

Hey!! Can I request a Doctor! Husband! Jungkook plssssss??

Anon: Hospital doctors au + jungkook

send me an au + boy and i’ll make a scene out of it

                                       ≿————-　❈　————-≾

Plot: Jungkook takes care of his wife after a field case gone wrong. 

Pairing: Doctor!Jungkook x Detective!Reader (Belle) 

Warnings: mentions of injures, mentions of a gunshot wound, minor injuries, married flirting (idk lmao) 

                                        ≿————-　❈　————-≾

“What happened?” Jungkook looked up from his clipboard for a second to see Belle walking beside a roll away bed with her partner, Seokjin groaning in pain. 

“He got shot.” His wife glanced over at Seokjin giving his shoulder a light pat before the staff dragged him into an emergency room. “Turns out crazed gunmen don’t like being chased.” Sarcasm oozed through her tone. “At least we got caught him I guess.” 

Jungkook sighed, eyes flickered over the trail of blood trickling down her forehead and a forming bruise on her temple. “How’d you get that?” He reached out, brushing her hair away to see a cut just under her hairline. 

“Oh—he wacked me with the gun, it’s fine.” 

“It’s not fine, you could have a concussion.” 

“I think I’d know if I had a concussion.” 

“Well it still needs to be cleaned.” 

Jungkook led her towards one of the private rooms with a first aid kit. Not that she needed one but he figured they could borrow an empty one for the time being. 

Belle sat down on the bed with a light sigh. “Are you gonna a full body check-up, doctor?” She smirked. 

“This is still a professional setting.” He couldn’t help the small smile tugging at his lips as he fished through the kit and pulled out an antiseptic with some cotton. 

“Oh, come on that’s never stopped you before.” 

“And isn’t that why you specifically told me no fooling around on the job?” Jungkook kept his gaze on the wound though a brow raised up as he spoke. 

“Well you do moan loud during blowjobs.” Belle nodded slowly. 

“So no fooling around.” He placed a gauze on the wound before sticking a bandage on top. 

“What about a kiss? Kissing isn’t fooling around.” 

Jungkook smiled, leaning in near her lips for her to fall into him. Quickly he moved up and pressed a tender kiss on her bandaged wound. 

Belle chuckled. “I’ll take that for now.”

“Just wait till we get home.” 

“Oh?” 

“I’ll do a full body check then.” 

[yoonmindatabase]

Further From the Sky

AO3: Further From the Sky

Author: roebling

Rating: M (some mention of violence of sex, not that expicit tho);

Paring: Yoonmin;

Chapters & Status: 18/18 // Completed;

Words: 107561;

Tags: AU!Criminals; AU!Idols; AU!Police, Police Officer!Min Yoongi, Minor character death, Smoking & Drinking, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn (like reeeally slow), Angst; 

Summary: Officer Min Yoongi knows his boss hates him, but it’s never been more clear than when he gets his latest assignment: go under cover as an idol trainee and figure out the truth behind Golden Calf Entertainment. He’s determined to crack the case, but first he needs to survive dance practice led by star trainee and Grade A asshole Park Jimin

[My Opinion]: That fic is unusual, it's not like something that you've already seen. There are some plot twist, and it never bores you. The relationship between Yoongi and Jimin develops slowly, and overall I really liked how it turned out in the end. (Bonus: the author is a good writer). 

[kmelanin]

OFFICER JEON JUNGKOOK

OFFICER PARK JIMIN

OFFICER KIM TAEHYUNG

.

.

these are the visuals for the upcoming story ‘Life After Murder’

[namkookficrecs]

i feel it coming (i feel it coming, babe)

Title: i feel it coming (i feel it coming, babe)

Author: Behindthecities

Rating: Mature

Tags: police officer jk, detective nj, fluff, angst, police/detective au

Status: Completed; 1/1 chapters (2,080 words)

Summary:

//in which senior detective kim namjoon is utterly flustered by newbie police officer jeon jungkook, and his big doe eyes.