Namjoon Fics - Tumblr Posts

Chimni

Ruler: Park Jimin

Crystal: Aquamarine

Capital: Quamari (qua-mar-ree)

Society

Like Sugaru, Chimni also closely follows Armi, keeping the Continent safe with ancient magic the Seers possess. It is a common practice to bless newborns with Armi's luck to let fate guide them as they grow. The people of Chimni are lucky because of this, which sometimes gets them into trouble when visiting other countries. Chimnians are positive and hopeful, a little stubborn too. Peace and harmony are the foundations of every household. The youth are respectful towards their elders. They keep the youth in check, which is why violence is a rare occurrence. Chimni is additionally a popular vacation spot. Its glittering cities and delightful scenery draw people in from other countries and lands, as it is a wonderful place to live out one's golden years.

Economy

Chimni profits from ore in the mountains, such as silver, copper, steel, and iron. The main treasure, however, are the precious gems within the caves. Aquamarine, diamond, and emerald are the 3 native crystals. They are sent out to jewelers and craftsmen across the Continent. There is another crystal as well. It is rare and can be found deep within Chimni's lakes: Omala. It is said to have healing properties. Freshwater fish is another source of income, in addition with grain and livestock.

Environment & Climate

Since Chimni is about halfway through the Continent, it experiences all kinds of weather: Heavy rain, high winds, scorching heat. An occasional winter storm will blow through from Joonia and Kooju. For most of the year, Chimni is gently warm with momentary cold flashes. Mountains and forests are littered across Chimni, lakes and rivers mapping the land. In northern Chimni, the soil is brittle and dry because of the cold. Further south, it is moist and fertile.

Jimin as High Seer

Background

Born to a human mother and High Fae father, Jimin did not have a nice childhood. He was often mocked, called “halfbreed” and “impure.” Because of this, Jimin struggled with his self-esteem and confidence growing up. He began loving himself for who he is in the early part of his first century of life. Losing his mother was incredibly tough. When his father tired of ruling Chimni, Jimin took the helm and became High Seer. The adjustment was difficult. Most of the fae turned their backs on him. The humans, however, loved him, thankful that their new leader understood them. His mother, nicknamed Mother of the Seer, is often included in their prayers. They are grateful to her for blessing the country with a half-human ruler.

Personality

Jimin is a kind and gentle soul. His relationship with his people is important to him. Though his connections with the fae are tenuous, Jimin is close with his human subjects. These are his mother’s people. Jimin is eternally thankful they accepted him. He can be mischievous at times, and his teasing can get him into trouble. He is handsome, and Jimin wields it to his advantage, alluring women and flustering men alike. He is headstrong and brave. Jimin is close with High Priest Yoongi of Sugaru. Yoongi is Armi’s direct voice, and Jimin occasionally receives visions from her. Some are vague; others are clear. Due to Jimin’s gift, this allows Chimni and Sugaru to have a dexterous relationship.

Hierarchy of the Seers

High Seer/Seeress

Seer/Seeress

Novice

Acolyte

Strongest branches of militia

Although the Continent is at peace, each country has prepared forces ready for battle. These forces are for external invasion rather than internal. Chimni's strongest battalion is the aria (airforce). Since a small portion of Chimni is shared with the sea, it is an unlikely place of intrusion. Air patrols are vital to the safety of Chimni and its people.

Religion

Like Sugaru, Chimnians mainly practice armina. This is most common in human households. Other religions – catallia, jedwa, ismala, and lukana – are also present and practiced. The fae previously worshiped Armi, but after her death, they stopped and forgot her.

Important locations

Will be added

thekaykery © 2023

portrait done by @winterofherdiscontent

Traetos

Ruler: Kim Taehyung

Crystal: Amethyst

Capital: Thysta (this-tah)

Society

Like Jinaia, Traetos is a welcoming country, charitable and kind. It is a must for all citizens to be treated the same, the poor and rich. The majority of Traeton population is made of High Fae and fae alike. Humans are a rare presence, but they can be found in Thysta, protected by the High Lord. The fae are loyal to their High Lord, and like him, they are inhumanly beautiful. Humans are often entranced by them. Traetons are independent and strong, especially when it comes to morals and beliefs. They are also friendly and open because personality is important. No one is the same. The High Lord and nobles receive wisdom from the elders, and because of this, Traetos is a neutral country. It wants to keep balance with the other countries in the Continent.

Economy

Traetos profits from the ores found in the southwestern mountains. Steel, iron, and copper are great for construction because Traetos is constantly evolving. Since they have the materials, they borrow Joonia's concepts of electricity and adapt it to their needs. In addition to ore, saltwater and freshwater fish are another source of income. Traeton fish are rare species, so they are considered delicacies. Lumber is an additional source, along with grain and livestock.

Environment & Climate

Being one of the two most northern countries of the Continent, Traetos is cold most of the year. Snowfall and frosty weather is a common sight. Landlocked water sources like lakes and rivers are frozen, so Traetos has built something similar to our water towers, which keeps the water warm during the Deep Frost. This is the period of time where it is coldest in Traetos, even affecting the surrounding oceans. Traetos also have greenhouses similar to Joonia's due to the soil being frozen solid.

Taehyung as High Lord

Background

As the son of the previous High Lord and Lady, Taehyung stepped in when they retired from court. He was young in fae years, but as he grew and matured, he found his place within the court and his country. The people began to love and respect him for his strength and tenacity. Taehyung has governed Traetos for a few centuries, which means he has a knack for ruling. Both fae and humans alike are inspired by Taehyung, grateful for keeping them safe. While Traetos is welcoming to outsiders, they must first undergo a background check for safety measures. Taehyung deeply cares for his people's security, and he will do everything he can to keep them safe.

Personality

According to those who met High Lord Taehyung, they claim him to be an intimidating and serious man. Yet that is merely the facade he wears during court and important events. Taehyung is actually calm and kind, and he is goofy around those he is comfortable with. Trust is important to Taehyung. He knows the way of the fae, their sleight of hand and trickery. This is why Taehyung is loyal to his people like they are to him. He is very hands-on with issues in the community. He likes to be openly among them, witnessing how they live. Taehyung is a handsome man, extremely so thanks to his fae heritage. Unlike the fae, however, he does not have many lovers due to trust issues.

Hierarchy of the Court

High Lord/Lady

Lord/Lady

Sire/Dame

Strongest branches of militia

Although the Continent is at peace, each country has prepared forces ready for battle. These forces are for external invasion rather than internal. Traetos’ strongest divisions are the aria (airforce), armia (army), and navia (navy). A majority of Traetos’ borders are shared with the ocean, so it is important to maintain security. Patrols are often, aerial and naval. The High Lord takes security very seriously.

Religion

Though they are few, humans mainly practice armina. Catallia, lukana, jedwa, and ismala are additionally practiced. The fae used to believe in Armi as well, but like the others across the Continent, they moved on and let her rest. This does not cause them to discriminate against their worshiping neighbors.

Important locations

Will be added

thekaykery ©2023

portrait done by @winterofherdiscontent

Kooju

Ruler: Jeon Jeongguk

Crystal: Red Beryl

Capital: Beryle (Ber-rul-luh)

Society

Economy

Like Joonia, which is home to the dragons, Kooju is the realm of werewolves. Like wolves themselves, Kooju are independent and powerful. Though they may have a bad rep, they are not heathens. They are strong and fierce, cooperative and peaceful; even harmonious. Every wolf has a purpose: Protect, farm, harvest, and other roles. Koojun wolves are energetic and passionate lovers, and they are famous for their savagery in bed. This is why sex is not a taboo topic in Kooju. It is a concept often spoken about. Because of this, love houses sprang up. The most popular houses are in Beryle. Humans are an uncommon sight in Kooju. If there are any, they keep themselves hidden. They were the cause of the Cleansing, so the relationship between wolves and humans are tenuous at best.

Environment & Climate

Lumber is Kooju's main source of income. The three common woods exported to other countries are oak, pine, and cedar. In addition to wood, the forests of Kooju provide berries and a variety of prey. Livestock is not imported because of the wolves' ravenous appetites, but grain is due to the frozen ground. Saltwater and freshwater are additional sources of welcome, along with iron and steel from mines. The pelts from hunts are made into cloaks for warmth and are exported to Thysta as well.

Jeongguk as High Alpha

Sister land to Traetos, Kooju is the other most northern country in the Continent. Temperatures are just as cold – if not colder – which means frequent snowstorms and high winds. Ground and water are frozen all year round, and thanks to Joonian technology, electricity and greenhouses were built. Water towers were also constructed to keep water warm thanks to High Lord Taehyung's generosity. Like Traetos, Kooju sees the Deep Frost as well, so these water towers will be extremely helpful.

Background

As a young pup, Jeongguk lost his parents to an ambush. He was nowhere near being High Alpha at this point in time, so he was powerless against the attacking camp. Many lives were lost that day. Jeongguk had sworn himself that it would never happen again. He trained long and hard every single day, proving himself in fights, both professional and impromptu. He ascended the ranks in his pack quite quickly, and at the ripe age of 19, he claimed the spot of High Alpha. It was a ruthless skirmish, full of tooth and claw, but Jeongguk won. He has protected his role and his pack ever since. He claimed Beryle as his city, where he and his pack now live and thrive.

Personality

Despite being "young" according to the older wolves, Jeongguk is mature and firm. He does not tolerate insolence or unsolicited violence, which is often caused by younger males. Even without a mate, Jeongguk is protective of the females in his pack. Their pups are the future. One of them may even take his place someday. Being the High Alpha, Jeongguk is the strongest and the fastest. The largest too, in stature and girth. He is kind and seductive at the same time. His handsomeness often causes females to fall to their knees at the sight of him. He is stern when he needs to be, even deadly when it comes to the safety of the pack and his position. Jeongguk is also energetic and silly, still just a boy at heart who had to grow up too fast.

Hierarchy of the Pack

High Alpha

Alpha

Beta

Delta

Omega

Strongest branch of militia

Although the Continent is at peace, each country has prepared forces ready for battle. These forces are for external invasion rather than internal.

Kooju’s strongest branch is the armia (army). Werewolves are lethal and fierce, protective of their pack and land. They are confident of their combat abilities. There are stations spread across Kooju where patrols are held for the security of the country.

Religion

Koojun werewolves do not follow a deity. They believe themselves to be unworthy of such heavenly ideas. Humans, though sparse in Kooju, practice armina, along with catallia, lukana, ismala, and jedwa, much like the other humans in the Continent.

Important locations

Will be added

thekaykery © 2023

portrait done by @winterofherdiscontent

Seven With You | KNJ

The Dimple Theory -> Seven With You

This is a follow-up to The Dimple Theory. I highly recommend you read the main fic first to understand all the references here.

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Summary: It’s nearly Namjoon’s birthday and with you by his side, he’s never been happier. But, with Tae waltzing you away more frequently day by day to work on your group project, Namjoon starts to notice your absence in more ways than just one…

Pairing: Namjoon x Female!reader (with Tae and Jimin, the flatmates)

Rating: Explicit (18+)

Genre: University!AU, established relationship

Word count: 5k (I’m SO sorry, I know this was meant to be a small drabble 😭)

Warnings: Angst, smut, jealousy, one mention of previous parental death, mentions of feeling financially insecure, only the fluffiest of fluff to end it all.

A/N: HAPPY (early) BIRTHDAY to the brightest 🌟 in the observable and unobservable universe - our beloved Kiminamikiminamikiminamijun! (I’m sorry for posting it this way too early - I’ll be out of the country during his actual birthday so it’s either now or way too late lol) For reference, it takes place a few months after TDT. (More A/N at the end!) For now, though, ENJOY this work of fiction!

(P.S. It’s 2am and my brain refuses to proof read so please excuse any errors…)

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“Two more minutes, please, baby. Just stay,” come the puppy dog eyes and pout from Namjoon. 

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The Dimple Theory | KNJ

The Dimple Theory -> Seven With You (follow-up fic)

Summary: You’re in your final year at university. You almost have your dream graduate job. If only your arch nemesis, Kim Namjoon, wasn’t applying for the same job at the same firm…

Pairing: Namjoon x Female!reader (with a healthy drizzle of ot7 throughout)

Rating: Explicit (18+)

Genre: University!AU, e2f2l, drama, romcom (ish?), final year student!Joon, final year student!reader, completed oneshot

Word count: 14k 

Warnings: (lots and lots of) swearing, mentions of financial struggles, strained (step)parent-child relationships, mentions of parental death, tae tries it with oc but joon was having none of it (so, jealousy, I guess?), someone gets mugged, knives, blood (it’s not much), brief talk around sexual violence against women, softest ever!Joon, tad bit of angst, eventual smut, fluffiest fluff

A/N: I just wanted it to be a simple ass story with 6-8k words lmao. Huge disclaimer: this is NOT an accurate depiction of university life, Set Theory or Economics or graduate jobs or anything tbh. Please remember this is all a work of fiction and in no way represents any of the persons mentioned in the story. With that in mind, ENJOY! (More A/N at the end of the fic)

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“The answer is B. If X is a subset of Y, then X is equal to Y if and only if Y is a subset of X.”

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Hammer it Home (M) | KNJ

Shared as part of the Similarly Sequestered game with @kpopfanfictrash​, @underthejoon​, @stutterfly​, @fortunexkookie​, & me @gukslut​ :)

{Pairing} Kim Namjoon/ Reader {Park Jimin/ Reader briefly}

{Genre} fluff/ smut/ domestic au/ mild angst

{Rating} Explicit y’all.  

{Prompt} “The FBI doesn’t care about your porn preferences.” {roomates, intimate artistry, awful first meeting}

{Word Count} 22,735

{Warnings} A sad break-up at the beginning, pining, heartache, I don’t know what comes over me when I write Namjoon smut but once again it’s absolute filth, making out, fingering, oral (f/m receiving), size kink, joonie is hung, unprotected sex, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, a mess of clay in like… a sexual way, creampie, SOFT TAGS: watch for my beloved freak-quency couple, best friend hobi, happy endings:)

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Butterfly - KNJ

Notes: Here I present to yall the fic that was supposed to kick off Euphoria before I got too excited and posted Hobi's fic first - sigh- N E way! I hope you guys have enjoyed Fate's Doing and I hope you're as excited as me for the other stories! This was actually written like a month before the euphoria series started living in my head rent-free, so the pronouns are written in she/her format. Okay, enjoy! And let me know what you think!

Part of the Euphoria series - Masterlist

“Your soul mark, as we all know, is your bond to your soul mate. People have different soul marks for different reasons: there are some whose soul mark change depending on their mate's emotions, the rare case of two people having matching soul marks, there are some, where the marks bloom into color once their mate is found. And the common where your soul mark is what's most important to your mate.

There are the lucky few, who find their mates early in life, and there are those, who have to be patient and wait a while before they do.”

How long was a while?

Namjoon had been asking himself that for a very long time. It's been years. He's seen his friends find their soul mates, some at young ages, some of them had to wait a while, too. But even then, they still found theirs before he did. Don't get him wrong, he wanted nothing but the best for his friends, but it was hard to watch them all find their other halves and he was just stuck wondering if he would ever be lucky enough.

He had given up hope for a long time, a very long time ago. It wasn't strange that someone would have a soul mark but not find their mates, it wasn't uncommon, those few to which that occurs usually marry people who hadn't found their mates either. Hoseok met a woman years ago, and they had a child, though they didn't have a happy end like everyone had thought.

The prospect saddened him, why would fate pick out the perfect person for you, only for you to struggle to find them and then in the end, give up completely. His parents weren't soul mates, and his mother had constantly told him since he turned fifteen that not finding your soul mate wasn't a bad thing, you can still find happiness.

He's been trying to find that happiness his mother spoke of. He tried filling the gap drowning in his studies, and working his ass off to be where he is now. He must admit that they were brilliant distractions, but they only lasted so long. There were always small moments when he would remind himself why he was constantly working, constantly trying to fill up the void that had grown in his chest after he realized that there was no chance of him ever finding his mate.

He often wondered if he just wasn't looking hard enough, if he hadn't given up he would've found them by now. But it would be of no use, all that thinking did was send him spiraling downwards into a deep dark place, and he didn't want to worry anyone, just grin and bare it as he always did.

Namjoon sighs, rubbing at his temples as he felt a headache building; maybe it was time for a break. He was clearly stressed out, he could feel how tense his shoulders were, and now the dull ache of a headache was beginning to throb behind his eyes. He's been staring at his computer screen for more than two hours now, trying to get through his work emails he said he was going to stay away from while on holiday.

He should eat, he hasn't eaten anything besides a few snacks here and there, and it's well into the evening by now. Jin, who he shares his apartment with was out for the night at a party that Namjoon currently didn't have the energy for. He didn't want to feel left out and then evidently put a damper on everyone's mood, so he opted to sit this one out, under the guise of getting some work done and then resting.

He wasn't expecting him back for a while, so the peace and quiet was a blessing. He wandered out of his bedroom and into the kitchen. He gazed around at the room, poked around in the fridge, but there was nothing he felt like making. Namjoon stared out of the window for a moment, watching the way the departing sun painted the sky an array of burnt orange and violet. He watched down at his wrist, it was only a quarter past six, the cafe that's not too far should be open, maybe if he walked fast enough.

He frowned when his eyes caught the sight of his soul mark, a strange thing that got him teased as a kid. He always wondered why it was a butterfly, it was small compared to other soul marks he's seen, just covering the expanse of his wrist. The butterfly was blue, a deep sea blue with black along the edges, and one broken wing. He also wondered why that was, but he had long lost interest in finding out.

He grabbed his sweater from his room, hoping to deflect the coming cold of the evening hours, and slipped out of the apartment. He idly swung his keys between his fingers, whistling a tune he heard somewhere as he made the short trek to the cafe.

He always liked the cafe, he's been a regular since Yoongi bought him a coffee from there, which was about a year and a half ago. He made sure to check in a few times if he had the time to do so. It was peaceful there, and sometimes, he went there to unwind when his job was becoming too much.

Namjoon peers in through the glass from his spot on the sidewalk, glad to see that there was no one inside. He fixed his baseball cap over his head regardless, and stepped in, sighing as the tension left his shoulders immediately at the smell of coffee and pastries. He stood a few steps away from the counter, watching the menu screen for a moment, trying to decide what he wanted to go with his coffee.

There was also none of the employees in front, so he had time to choose and not be worried about wasting the person's time standing there too long. He hummed at the options, his fingers tapping at the material of his sweat pants, and his head snapped to the side when a muffled squeak was heard.

He watched as a girl practically run from the back room to stand at the register, Namjoon couldn't possibly hold back the chuckle at her panicked expression.

"I'm so sorry!" She says, tucking her hair behind her ear with flushed cheeks, eyes wide, "I hope you weren't waiting long."

"No, it's alright, I was trying to decide what I wanted," Namjoon offered a smile, noticing that the girl was a new worker here, and it was probably her first day going by the nervous smile she returned.

"Oh, yeah sure. Take your time," She stepped back a bit and smiled politely, she looked down and frowned at a spot of flour on her black apron, rubbing at it while muttering something to herself.

It was then he noticed her soul mark, at the back of her hand was a musical note, it was small and near the knuckle of her third finger. Namjoon tilted his head at it, of course, everyone's soul mark weren't the same, it was very rare to find someone with a soul mark that matched your own.

Since his soul mark had always been filled with colour, he ruled out one of the theories. It never once changed in any shape or form, so that was another one gone. And since it was so rare to have a matching soul mark, it only left the other one, in which it meant something to your mate. Another reason why he paid so little mind to his own after a while, who in the hell liked butterflies that much?

He shook his head, brushing the thought out his mind before stepping up to order. The girl fumbled a bit, but Namjoon only smiled. He knows what it's like working a job like this, he's worked a few getting through school, and his first time was hell.

"Is that all? Wanna add anything else?" The girl smiled with a tilt of her head when he finished giving her his order.

"Ah, yeah that's it,"

He watched as she rang up the till, and he paid, telling her to keep the change. She thanked him and wandered over to the espresso machine to make the cappuccino he ordered.

"It's a bit late for coffee," The girl mused, her back to him, her eyes meeting his briefly, "I mean I'm not one to judge or anything, but it's always weird to drink coffee this late, it'll just keep you awake."

Namjoon chuckled, "Yeah, I'm just doing some work back home, need all the energy I can get,"

The small talk was nice, no one else came in after him so he was free to stand there and watch her work. She was pretty, Namjoon hummed to himself, watching as her every movement seemed effortless. She ran an espresso shot into a small cup, waving her hand to clear the steam that poured out of the wand at the machine's corner. She was focused, barely paying him any mind as she went about her job, smiling at something she must've thought of, and by God Namjoon would be in here every day if she smiled at him like that.

"Yeah I know how that is," She passes him the cup over the counter, now finished with his drink and then slipped off to get the sandwich he ordered as well.

"Want me to warm it up for you?" She rose a brow and Namjoon couldn't help his teasing smile.

"Trying to keep me here are you?" He made sure to keep the amusement light, in case she'd think that her asking was going to be a problem.

"Well, coffee junkie, I'm working alone tonight so I don't mind the company." She smirked and waved the neatly cling wrapped sandwich at him, "Getting this warmed or not?"

"Warmed if it's not too much trouble,"

He smiled at her, and considered her offer of staying, since all he had to do back home was get back to work, but he said he'd take a break, and it would be a nice break. She brought the sandwich back in a brown paper bag a couple minutes after, neatly folded if he chose to leave. He took it and found a seat in a corner of the store.

He sipped at his coffee, scrolling through his phone and the messages Jin had sent in the group chat that he shared with his friends, most of them were photos of the man himself. Namjoon hoped he wouldn't drink too much, knowing that Jin had went to the party alone.

Namjoon was alone with his thoughts for a long while, until he finished his sandwich and the end of his coffee had gone cold. He people watched mostly, sitting facing the window left him with not much else to do. A couple passed by, their hands linked and swinging between them idly and for the second time that day Namjoon stared at his soulmark. He wondered briefly, what it would be like to find happiness in another person and without knowing why, he glanced at the girl behind the counter, and a small light of hope burned his chest. Perhaps, maybe it was possible to find that happiness.

"Hey, can I ask you a personal question?" Namjoon called out, setting down his phone next to his empty cup.

"How personal are we talking here?" The girl spoke up, her form partly hidden by the counter where she was ducked down looking for something. She raises to peek at him with a raised brow and a teasing smirk.

"Have you...Um.." Namjoon trails off, suddenly nervous, "Have you found your soul mate yet?"

"Oh, I see, very personal then." The girl tilted her head, still smiling as she leaned against the counter, propping her chin in her palm. She frowned, absently rubbing a finger against her soul mark. "Nope, still looking though. You know how these things go, it's not like the world lights up when you find 'em."

"Yeah," Namjoon says, nodding a bit sadly to himself. If that were the case, he would've found them by now, he wish it was though, then all the time he's waited would actually lead up to something.

"Chin up, coffee junkie, you'll find them soon. It won't take forever," It seemed as though she said the last part more to herself than anything as it was said so softly Namjoon barely heard.

He did chuckle though, at the nickname he was now branded with, "Namjoon, that's my name," he smiled, laughing a bit at the sparkle in the girl's eyes he could see from where he sat at the offering of acquaintanceship.

"Y/n,"

In the weeks that followed, Namjoon frequented the cafe more times than he could count on his fingers. Getting to know Y/n beyond him just coming in and ordering coffee. They exchanged numbers by the month's mark, and talked when she wasn't busy at work or he wasn't drowning in his. She was a little get away from the stress of it all, of the pressure he felt sometimes and the worry of him not finding his other half.

It was strange at first, when he felt doves in his stomach whenever he saw her at work or when they were up late talking nonsense to each other despite the both of them having early mornings. He had finally found that happiness that his mother spoke of.

He saw less of her eventually when he had gone back out to work, but he'd always stayed in touch. He'd try to go to the café if she was working, mostly it was just to see her and she hadn't dropped his moniker as he continued to order coffee at odd hours. Sometimes he'd surprise her with lunch that Jin made before he'd go off to work, or call her just to ask how she was doing and complain that the coffee at the office doesn't taste right.

During all that time he's made sure to keep his growing crush on the cute barista a secret.

When two more months had passed and Namjoon accidentally made it slip that he liked a girl during the annual end-of-the-month get together with the boys, he was done for. Jin had given him a knowing look that left Namjoon confused. He'd said that he already knew, because apparently whenever he'd come home with an empty cup from the café down the street he'd have a stupid look on his face, it wasn't hard to put together.

"Not like I don't hear you giggling with her at two in the morning anyway," He'd said, winking at him suggestively and laughing when Namjoon promptly chocked on a sip of his water.

"I'm sure it's not like that, Hyung," Jimin says, softly patting Namjoon's back with a worried furrow in his brow.

"Yeah, you should be happy. I for sure thought he'd taken a vow of chastity or something."

Laughs were shared that night, and now that his feelings were out in the open between his closet friends, he'd become hyper-aware of them. He decided to ask her out the week that followed.

The date had gone extremely well, all his awkward nervousness aside. A movie was never a bad idea for a first date, and they'd laughed over popcorn and overpriced theater food. Namjoon could still feel his heart ready to pound out of his chest whenever he thought about her kissing his cheek when he left her at the door to her apartment.

↱❖↰

"Okay, okay, so tell me something I don't know about you. Any dark secrets lurking in those pretty eyes of yours?" Y/n nudged his arm with her shoulder one evening as they were taking a walk to a park. She wiggled her eyebrows, making a humming noise as she laughed.

Namjoon's heart fluttered, still stuck on the fact that she told him his eyes were pretty to answer her question. "Oh, yeah. Sometimes, I lure people into my house so I can lock them in a basement until I'm hungry," He smirks, laughing at the faux disgust on Y/n's face as she reached for her phone in his pocket. The sundress she wore prevented her from keeping it on her person.

"Do I need to call the police?" She asked, chuckling despite herself and knowing full well he didn't have a basement.

"Nah, you'll get bored without me,"

"Don't worry, I'll come visit you in jail. I'll even bring your favorite coffee for you," she smiled, tilting her head up to look at him.

"Oh aren't you just a peach,"

Y/n laughed and nodded, looping her arm with his as they walked, falling into a comfortable silence. Namjoon felt contented, just being like this, in her presence. It wasn't long before she was complaining about the warmth of the midday air, and moved to brush her hair from off the back of her neck with a huff. It was then Namjoon saw it, just at junction where her shoulder met her neck: a butterfly with blue wings and black around the edges, one of the wings were broken.

Namjoon almost tripped staring at it, and he was certain that she could feel his heart pounding a mile and hour where she placed her hand on his chest to steady him. Worry creased her brow, but amusement shown in her eyes, "Are you okay?"

"Is that a tattoo?" He asked, his voice sounding way more breathless than he had intended.

Y/n hummed in question, slim fingers reaching up to touch the spot absently and she nodded. "Yeah, I got it when my mom passed away. She had a necklace she always wore, it was a butterfly but one of the wings had broken off..."

He stepped away from her, still watching her as he pulled the sleeve of his t-shirt up to bunch at his elbow and fumbled with the clasp of his watch. It fell to the ground, and by the crack he barely heard he was sure that it broke, but he couldn't bring himself to care. A sudden doubt was in his mind, what if this was nothing but a coincidence? What if she just happened to have a tattoo that's the exact replica of his soul mark? But he had a feeling, he just knew.

He extended his hand to her, ignoring the slight shake of his limbs, and the feeling that he was gonna pass out if she didn't say anything. She stared at his mark for a long moment, her eyes filtering between it and his face for a good solid minute before she laughed, a kind of relieved sound that barely made it before the tears in her eyes.

"Hey--" Namjoon frowned, her crying was the last thing he'd expected, "Don't cry, please don't c--" his sentence was cut short as he was nearly knocked off his feet, he stumbled backward just a bit as her weight was suddenly thrown on him.

"You have no idea how long I've been looking for you." Her words were muffled against the fabric of his shirt, her arms tight around his middle and her shoulders shook. Namjoon wrapped his arms around her, the realization that this was actually happening finally settling in. It took him a moment, and he laughed, feeling all his worries float up and away, his head going with them; he felt light.

Though it took a while, it was worth it in the end.

—- ✴ ️･゜: *• °* ✴ —-

Euphoria Taglist: @eren-fall @amon-rei @astormunchar

...𝙗𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙨𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙨...

━ type: bts x gn! reader ━ masterlist

━ about: fluff, angst, crack (tiny smut) - the holy trinity/quartet? ━ pictures taken from Pinterest

━ a/n: soulmates are my favourite trope cause of low self-esteem, I hope it is yours as well. The trope, not the issues.

NAMJOON: As it stands to reason, Namjoon knew it was an overcapitalized natural phenomenon with an actual success rate of only 52%. Having just a little over half meant that a whole 47% with a margin error of 1% of the entire world nor had, nor wanted any dealings with soulmates. But even so, he couldn't entirely stop the blush of whimsical fancy whenever thinking of them.

He was, for now at least, documented as an "awaiting registry" in the K-SSA (Korean Soulmate System Association) and all that was needed - time. Often, he daydreamed of his perfect partner with their perfect life much like numerous others, not really festering any bloom of hope and yet -!

Yet he couldn't feel like he was profoundly dunked on by the universe itself as 24 seconds ago writing appeared on his forearm when none had touched it. In a thin, illegible font it said one word and one word only.

𝒸𝑜𝒸𝓀.

He looked away, wiped at it absent-mindedly but as it was not ink, it did not stain. Right. Okay.

Deciding to squash all thoughts and sensations related to his soulmate he moved on with his life telling no one of this discovery. But the dam once unleashed did not cease and never, ever did it wield any sign of intelligence. On top of that, his soulmate seemed to be a perpetual cheat - math, language, history. In a terrible shorthand, Namjoon suddenly found himself abhorrently acquainted with someone's educational curriculum. However, the proverbial chariot finally broke when jet-lagged and sleep-deprived Namjoon could only helplessly watch as word by word, with painstaking accuracy, the dreaded sprawl appeared.

"𝒜𝒸𝒸𝑜𝓇𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝑜 𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝓀𝓃𝑜𝓌𝓃 𝓁𝒶𝓌𝓈 𝑜𝒻 𝒶𝓋𝒾𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃, 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝒾𝓈 𝓃𝑜 𝓌𝒶𝓎 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝒶 𝒷𝑒𝑒 𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓊𝓁𝒹 𝒷𝑒 𝒶𝒷𝓁𝑒 𝓉𝑜 𝒻𝓁𝓎. 𝐼𝓉𝓈 𝓌𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓈 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓉𝑜𝑜 𝓈𝓂𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝓉𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝓉 𝒾𝓉𝓈 𝒻𝒶𝓉 𝓁𝒾𝓉𝓉𝓁𝑒 𝒷𝑜𝒹𝓎 𝑜𝒻𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝑔𝓇𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒹. 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒷𝑒𝑒, 𝑜𝒻 𝒸𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓈𝑒, 𝒻𝓁𝒾𝑒𝓈 𝒶𝓃𝓎𝓌𝒶𝓎."

Having had quite enough of this strange dumbass, he grabbed a sharpie and crossed out the stupid words with one bold, black stroke. A profound moment of silence followed suit and inadvertently Namjoon wondered whether they were sitting still, in some corner of the world seized by an unseen fright of the truly terrifying reality that one is not truly alone anymore. But no such thing happened as a cool and collected reply soon followed.

"𝒪𝒽 𝒸𝑜𝑜𝓁! :𝒟"

Possessing no desire to waste any more time, Namjoon leapt straight to the point.

"You're annoying."

"𝒴𝑒𝓈, 𝓈𝑜 𝐼'𝓋𝑒 𝒷𝑒𝑒𝓃 𝓉𝑜𝓁𝒹 :)"

Floundering at what to say further, he sat frozen for a good while his soulmate seized the opportunity in which to continue.

"𝒴𝑒𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝒾𝓃𝒻𝑒𝒸𝓉𝑒𝒹 𝒸𝑜𝒸𝓀𝓇𝑜𝒶𝒸𝒽."

And even faster as if in a hurried panic, they added.

"𝒯𝒽𝒶𝓉'𝓈 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝓉𝑜 𝓎𝑜𝓊. 𝐼'𝓂 𝓁𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔."

"Learning curse words?"

If he had a single atom of a gracious painter in his body, he'd draw a heavily disapproving grimace.

"𝒲𝑜𝓊𝓁𝒹𝓃'𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓈𝒶𝓎 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉'𝓈 𝓋𝒾𝓉𝒶𝓁 𝓀𝓃𝑜𝓌𝓁𝑒𝒹𝑔𝑒?"

Alright. In what was almost deja vu, Namjoon turned off the light and went to sleep. This was a lot to endure.

The scribbling didn't stop and Namjoon ignored the odd question directed at him, though with a peculiarly heavy heart. Sometimes he had only half the presence of mind and attempted to write something back but always caught his own hand mid-stroke. Life with him would not be easy. And also you were still strangers. Despite the riveting romance stories of the airport stalls, it was not that easy to breach the gap. In fact, it was even more difficult. If two people met in ordinary ways in ordinary circumstances, they could head in any direction they wanted, without the knowledge of "what if". But the only thing Namjoon knew for certain was the "what if". What if he never meets you? What if he screws it up? That would fill him with bitter regret for the rest of his life. But it wasn't until a more sombre message to which he woke up, that he couldn't stay away anymore.

"𝐼'𝓂 𝑔𝓇𝒶𝒹𝓊𝒶𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔. 𝒯𝑜𝒹𝒶𝓎. 𝒟𝒾𝒹𝓃'𝓉 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝓀 𝐼 𝒸𝑜𝓊𝓁𝒹 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝐼'𝓂 𝓅𝓇𝑜𝓊𝒹 𝑜𝒻 𝓂𝓎𝓈𝑒𝓁𝒻."

Then after a while.

"𝒩𝑜𝓉 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒸𝒶𝓇𝑒."

And despite Namjoon being in the middle of the interview, he dished out the pen from his pocket which he may or may have not been carrying this whole time and hastily traced back.

"I care. I'm proud of you as well."

Pause.

"Soulmate ;)"

YOONGI: His pulse was drumming against the skin of his neck, choking down the next breath. No matter how many times he skimmed through the small space no sudden stranger or even a ghost appeared. Nevertheless it didn't change the fact that he was hearing voices.

Yoongi slapped a hand over his own ear as though that was the problem. The conversation persisted.

"No, I don't know, Maeve," the disembodied voice continued in a sigh. "If they wanted to ask, they would have long ago, right?"

Licking his lips, Yoongi croaked a feeble -

"Hello?"

The mysterious stranger fell deathly mute and with eardrums straining to the point of pain, he could vaguely gather they were afraid as Yoongi himself was shocked into a similar stupor not a moment ago. They must think he was the ghost. And though Yoongi didn't know for certain, he supposes that he just might have found his soulmate.

He had spent his whole life counting himself into the 47%. Having neither proclivity for, nor signs of a formed bond, he simply ran with the statistics. 47% of the world was a great number of people and Yoongi was quite content with what or whom he had. So in a manner which thousands must have asked along with him today, he thought "shit, what now?"

Days later, clutching the twin "pending" forms of the K-SSA and I-SSA, he decided to speak. Maybe his soulmate won't like him anyway.

"Hello?" he utters into the empty space of his apartment feeling a tad foolish but bulldozing his way through it "Are you there?"

With a bated breath, he waits then at last -

"Yes, hello."

Yoongi coughs and with an orchestrated indifference states the obvious.

"We must be soulmates."

"Yeah," comes a similarly dispassionate reply. "Though I did think you were a demon."

He snorts in a muted amusement.

"What's your name?"

"______________. Yours?"

His brain errors. Even if a soulmate, he couldn't just freely divulge his persona willy-nilly, so to speak. Being a soulmate didn't prohibit anyone from inflicting harm. The morning news was plenty of affirmation.

"Oh...um...August."

In the five-second span in which no response followed, he could feel just how much you didn't believe him.

"August?" dryly, you echo.

"Yeah, my parents were hippies."

He goes to sit down on the sofa, sinking into it whilst awkwardly clapping his hands.

"Are you a seal?"

He glances down at his hands.

"You can hear that?"

"Yes. Weird isn't it."

Another pregnant pause followed suit.

"So soulmates," he drawled in deep thought. "You're uh...interested in that?"

If he focused enough he could hear a pen clacking against a thick notebook. You must be studying or in an office space. Or simply sitting and tapping away the pen to alleviate nerves.

"I...I'm not quite sure," you answer truthfully. "I haven't agonized over it and I've been busy and..."

You exhale shakily.

"And to be completely frank...I got into a relationship. Yesterday."

Well, that's just on brand, Yoongi thought sourly.

"I'm sorry, August."

He chuckled. You actually sounded sincere. And something in the apologetic lilt of your tone made his heart soften. At entirely the wrong time.

"Don't worry about it. Not your fault."

"Are...are you in a relationship?"

He licks his dry lips and pushes the forms further away and across the coffee table.

"Yeah," he lies. "So it's all fine."

He once again thinks you're a ghost, blinking blearily at your soft voice shaking the still air of the night. Years have passed and he realized that he sort of has missed the sound of your voice.

"August?" you asked timidly in the middle of the night. "Are you still there?"

He rubs his eyes.

"Yes. Hello."

"Hi."

An awkward tension wavers.

"What are you up to?"

"Can't sleep," he mumbles, rubbing now repeatedly his tired eyes. "Insomnia."

"Oh, sorry to hear that."

"Do you always apologize for everything?" he crosses his arms, resting on the pillow like a normal person would whilst talking next to someone in the bed.

"A little bit," you laugh demurely. "You know, I submitted my form and the I-SSA replied back."

He sobered up at that, the faint migraine from the lack of rest pounding a little harder as his breath caught in his throat.

"Don't worry, they were very strict and revealed to me nothing."

"Sorry about that," he couldn't help but sigh however you didn't seem to mind.

"Do you always apologize for everything?" you laughed and he did too.

"Just about this," now slightly soothed he settled deeper into the covers. "What about your...partner?"

"Oh," immediately your voice became angry. "Dumped them. Cheated on me."

"What a fucking prick," Yoongi scoffed.

"Enough about them. Try to sleep, okay?"

You were nothing but a stranger. A stranger talking into his head which not so long ago would have guaranteed him four walls and complete isolation. Yet still, he listened. Found the request, not an order but a nagging sweet sentiment of taking better care. He didn't mind it, and neither did he mind you talking. In fact, the migraine was peculiarly retreating,

"What are you watching?" he asked curiously. Through the winded gaps in your voice and the rustle of the Seoul traffic outside, he could piece together some fragments of what resembled 90's tv show music. "Sounds like old porn."

Abruptly, you burst into a fit of loud laughter and then just as abruptly fell quiet.

"Sorry...no one has joked with me for a very long time," you quietly admitted and something in his chest began to sting.

"You have a nice laugh," with a faint blush, he praised shyly. "Don't you have friends to joke around with? Maeve?"

If you found it odd, he knew the name of your friend, still remembering it from that faint first bond years ago now, you didn't remark on it and he was better for it. Yoongi really didn't need to feel any more of a creep than he had, always chiding himself for being this obsessive over those few minutes of conversation. It seemed that he was not so indifferent about the soulmate thing after realizing they were real for him.

"Not anymore. Who do you think that garbage cheated on me with?"

Yoongi cringed.

"I'm sorry," he bid earnestly, a wrinkle of a frown etching on his forehead.

"Addition to the list?" you teased and he smiled to himself, persistently shy, despite knowing you could not see it.

"Suppose. Though you never answered."

"What exactly?" you hummed and he heard sheets rustling. You must be sleeping as well. Or perhaps simply sitting on the bed.

"What are you watching?"

"X-Files. Felt in the mood for something spooky."

He thought about it for a second before rushing into action.

"Which episode? What minute?"

You were almost taken aback by the brazen curiosity as it hadn't been previously ever heard.

"Season 1, episode 8. Minute 04:47."

As Yoongi grabbed his laptop, he heard the faint dialogue stop. You stopped it.

"Do you...want to watch with me?"

He frantically searched for the episode, fighting for his life to get the ads off the screen.

"Hey, I know that noise," you remarked. "That's the blacklist notice! Say, August, you wouldn't be streaming illegally, would you?"

"You're going to arrest me?" he smirked, winding to the fourth minute. "Kinky."

He couldn't naturally vouch for it but he thinks you reddened. And he found it cute.

"No. Just concerned that you'll find Anna, 32, much more appealing. She's only 1 kilometre away."

It was his time to laugh.

"Don't worry about her. Not my type. I'm hot for ghostly voices whispering in my ear."

You splutter and, laughing quietly to himself, he interrupts your indignance.

"I'm at the fourth minute. Are you continuing to watch or not?"

"Yeah," you replied huffily. "I'm continuing."

It didn't take long for him to fall asleep that night. Or the next. Or the next. And after a year, his doctor declared his insomnia successfully treated.

"You're not watching at all," you whined into his ear and Yoongi pulled the blanket over his body.

"No, I am," he lied. "I'm watching it through your mind, silly."

You scoffed.

"What a bunch of nonsense. We share glamorized auditory hallucinations, not a mind link."

After a pause, all you hear are the familiar sounds of him already quietly snoring away.

"Good night...August."

JIN: He exhaled once, twice, thrice. It took him about three seconds to fully grasp what he was seeing and then with all the might of his tired legs Jin threw himself into the shower curtain and promptly knocked himself out against the tiled bathroom wall.

"Sir, please, calm down!" the nurse urged him frantically as Jin twitched on the bed.

"No, you don't understand! It was a ghost. A ghost! A ghost is haunting my bathroom!"

"Sir, please, there's no ghost!"

He glimpsed to the left and in the metal railing of the bed, he saw a reflection not of himself but of an entirely different face looking right back at him with the same concern.

Jin politely and very masculine screeched at the top of his lungs and graciously passed out amidst the mass of frightened hospital staff.

So...in the end, as it turns out, he was not haunted. The affirmation came in the form of two stocky SSA workers, coming to stop by his room with a thick wad of papers.

Sign here. Sign here. Sign here.

It appears that three years ago someone had registered in the I-SSA and while there were many different systems out there, all with their variations and complications, it was just Jin's luck, his beam of sunshine amidst the raging storm, to be in a system with the smallest amount of sharers. The abnormal diff-diffusion? He doesn't quite recall as he'd sat there head pounding away and sounds distant, staring at his own name and next to it the person, who according to the science of it all, was his soulmate.

But knowing was different from believing. Or at least, not shitting himself every time they stared at him in his own reflection.

"You got to cool it, man," Namjoon drawled in that pure sarcastic deadpan, patting away the soup that Jin had spilt as he lunged himself away from the spoon reflection in which a different eye was reflected through.

"At least, you can see them," Taehyung muttered bitterly, wiping the table clean and all fell silent.

Jin kept the mirrors covered anyhow. It was simply too freaky to witness an entirely different face in the stead of his, soulmate or not. Life proceeded as normal and while Jin kept himself busy and unthinking of possibilities, the lack or rather denial of his soulmate meant little to him. Until the very eve of winter. The first fresh snow had fallen over Seoul and stayed that way. The air was chill and crisp and the world was ready to slumber. At least this part of it. And on this night, no matter how long Jin stared at the fallen snow, he couldn't sleep. His heart was beating out of his chest and his mind raced.

He...felt it. Or rather you felt it and he sensed the echoes of it. Growing agitated over this sensation, he stomped towards the mirror, ready to...well, he was not quite sure what he was going to do but after yanking the towel onto the floor he forgot all about it. For the first time, you were not googling back at him, either in wonder or aggrievance but you were crying, gripping the sink with crushing strength. Crying like your entire soul was just split apart.

"What's wrong?" Jin aske timidly but you did not react. Visual must not also mean auditory. With shaking fingers he tapped the glass and this time you jumped in a way that was eerily familiar to his own. Landing on your ass, you cursed. Or he thinks you did from the way your lips curled.

He thought about it for a second and rushed away to fetch a lip balm before writing on the surface of the mirror.

"Hi."

You leaned your head to the side before, shivering, rising to stand. He watched intently as you dipped your hand underneath the water current and wrote back.

"Hi."

Jin exhaled, battling the urge to not pass out.

"Why cry?"

You gestured all around yourself and he recognized the sterile, removed environment of the hospital bathroom.

"Sick?" he wrote, feeling a heavy thud in his gut, something akin to missing a step in the dark.

"Yes. Tomorrow is the surgery."

He swallowed.

"Dangerous?"

You swallowed shakily and immediately Jin felt bad for asking.

"Moderate. I can live, I can die. All up to the doctors."

He too reaches to grip the sink and though he can't hear it, he can see you chuckling tearily. He frowns and you write.

"We even look the same. In a way."

Jin can offer only a shaky smile and even more guilt for shoving you away.

He was a horrible soulmate to have.

All day and next night he waits by the mirror and then finally when it's dark again, the snow falls in droves underneath the streetlamps and wind rushes through the alleys down below and finally, just before midnight, you appear in the mirror, shuffling in. You looked tired and worn but at least you're alive. Jin springs up.

You're the first one to write, having brought with you a lip balm as well.

"I lived. Clearly."

"Thank Heavens," Jin writes back feeling a rush of emotions dampen his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Gracious, you throw a hand at his words.

"I didn't want a soulmate before this. Thought I was...above it. Stupid really."

He smiles abashed and nods.

"You okay? Will be?"

"Yes, I will be okay," for a second, you lower your hands, gathering strength and then reach out. "You...do you want to talk more after this?"

"Hey, Jin, we're waiting for you!" Namjoon calls out, sticking a head through the door and he turns around.

"I'll be with you in five minutes."

Namjoon glimpsed at the defaced mirror.

"Hangman, really?"

Jin shrugged.

"We both like it. Scram now."

As he turned round he wrote "y".

j__n_y, stood on the surface and Jin sat deep in thought, then he guessed.

"Journey."

You sighed in defeat and confirmed his answer. Jin read the word again, committing it to memory.

"Text me when your plane lifts off," he wrote and you mimicked his soft smile.

"I will. See you in 16 hours."

Jin kissed his palm and pressed it against the mirror where your forehead stood.

"16 hours," he muttered back.

HOSEOK: "What do you think?" Jimin asked. "This one or this one?"

Hoseok merely arched an eyebrow.

"How would I be able to tell?"

Jimin lowered the hangers, with a guilty frown.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think."

Instantaneously, the despondent eyes made him feel guilty.

"Nevermind. I like the...uh left one."

Jimin twiddled guilty with the coloured fabric. A colour which Hoseok couldn't see.

"You want me to help you pick the outfit?"

Not to make him feel any sadder, Hoseok obliged.

Contrary to popular belief, being in the monochrome system sucked ass. He had nearly two million matches in the K-SSA registry, 32 million in the I-SSA and counting the 1% of margin error that amounted roughly to a 340 000 that could be his soulmate but wouldn't act that way due to genetic mutation. The more he thought of those numbers, the more alone he felt. Yoongi at least could hear his soulmate, Jin had seen them and was by now already moved in with them. Being in the more rare section of the soulmate systems they could at least have their soulmates traced via reading brain waves and other gibberish Hoseok never much understood. But no data could come from the monochrome system as the numbers were simply too overwhelming. False positives and false negatives were too great for a sensible person to take that chance. Which left only one option - the good old-fashioned meet and greet.

But with a planet of 8 billion people that chance was small. Growing ever so smaller with each passing day despite the technological advances. Even so, the airport was of late the favourite place of Hoseok's to be at. No place such as an airport to find someones all over the globe, grumpily and quite often with a foul odour, converging their different ways together. He tried to stay optimistic. As Taehyung bumped into him, sleep-ridden and tired, he indeed felt that there was a need to be optimistic. As much as he bitched, it didn't amount to the pain his friend was in at all times.

"Hey, just a little bit," he brushed Tae's fringe back to reveal two swollen eyes. He must have been crying either just now, or the entire night. Either way, it was an upsetting idea to have. Subtly, Hoseok pushed Taehyung into Jimin's direction who eagerly took care of his friend. But they all trodded along no matter how they felt.

"How was that episode good?" Yoongi asked and Hoseok frowned.

"What episode?" he questioned and Yoongi waved a hand, almost like one would when talking over a phone and someone interrupted.

"Oh, you're talking to...never mind," Hoseok grumbled, pushing his head further down.

The sky above the Atlantic Ocean was grey and uninspiring whilst the flight itself was excruciating. Though everything to him was grey. 14 hours in a box in the sky was not what Hoseok particularly enjoyed. Bored, he prodded at the desert. It was of a lighter hue, meaning a brighter colour. Yellow perhaps. Mango.

He took a spoon to his mouth. Strawberry. After all this time, one would think he'd be better at differentiating things. At least, he could remember colours, he thought wistfully, once again thinking of the positives. Some people were born with their bonds permanently established meaning they never knew colour. But Hoseok could at least remember - the colour of the sky, the sun, the green grass around his school. But it was in a way worse. If he could never have it again, it would ruin him. Strange. Such a simple thing really but he missed it dearly. What a weird way to bond people, by depriving them of the basics of life. Was it even love in the end? Or desperation driving them into some form of sick co-dependence?

Trying to be positive, didn't necessarily mean he was one as Hoseok had found out.

New York was a whirlpool. They had to rush fast to their cars through the halls of the airport, barely breathing and at this very moment, in one singular turn, Hoseok saw the beige of Taehyung's jumper.

The red of Jimin's scarf and the brown of Jungkook's eyes as he stared at him in wonder.

They couldn't stop. The insistent push of the bodyguards affirmed it so but if Hoseok suddenly saw the one thing that only his soulmate could grant then that meant his soulmate was not just near. Their eyes had met.

And he held no recognition.

He whipped to look around, the twin sensations of the flashing camera lights and the sheer amount of colours, of their shades and hues, had his head swimming but he saw no one. No one was looking with the echo of the realization, no one seemed to be interested in him any more than the rest. Interested in him as j-hope, the star, not Hoseok, the soulmate.

"We need to keep going," his bodyguard whispered, trying to professionally haul him away.

"No, I...I just met my soulmate. I need to stay!"

But the man did not listen. The crowd swarmed closer and closer and without much more say in the situation, he found himself sitting numbly in the backseat of the car. The neon signs blinded his eyes and for the first time in his adult and teenage life, Hoseok saw the rainbow cascading off the singular snowflake clinging to the window of the black car.

JIMIN: He pushed back your hair from your sweaty forehead.

"Feels so good," he moaned onto your lips. "You feel so good."

When the familiar knot unwound it felt like a truck, or a high-speed train running him down and into a cliff. But somehow pleasantly. Jimin swears he could see the true meaning of the universe, the very makeup of what created the entire life in moments like these. But even so his favourite, to his heart, was the second after, for the crudeness of it all, bust a nut within you, when he laid, holding your body close and panting together in the warm room. He felt brave tonight for once and nuzzled into the crook of your neck. It was all sweaty and damp but he did not mind. It was the only kind of closeness he could have with you.

Five blissful minutes passed and you roused, pushing him away. Gently but still you did. After rushing to the bathroom, you came back to get dressed. Jimin reached to trace a finger on your back as you dragged a shirt over your head.

"Can't you stay?" he hums. There was a scar right above the curve of your hip and he ghosted over it. You didn't like him focusing on your scars.

"I like my own place," you reply casually. "Paid a lot for it."

That was, of course, only an excuse. Jimin may or may have not met another ex-hookup of yours and you had stayed with them. They made you breakfast.

And Jimin wanted to make you breakfast more than anything else.

"Right," he sinks into himself, wanting to stop but not being capable to do so. "Can you...kiss me...before you go?"

Pathetic. To beg like this. But he wanted you to madness.

Perhaps, you looked slightly unsettled but indulged him nonetheless. The way you kissed was like feeling a new breath in his lungs. He didn't understand what about you was so intoxicating but he wanted you around all the time. Your presence was like a wet cloth on the fevered head, a gulp of fresh air after spending hours in a stuffed room.

It was no exaggeration that he was growing obsessed.

And you thought of him as a hookup.

"See you later," you said, stroking his cheek once and the next was the door falling shut. Jimin sighed, rapidly crashing from the height of happiness to the pit of misery. But if anything could distract him it was the horrible pain suddenly flaring through his shin.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," he cursed, cradling the limb.

He honestly thought his soulmate should be nothing but a mangled piece of flesh by now. Ever since 14 years old, he felt nothing but pain from them. And despite it being the main takeaway from sharing the sensations type of bond, he should also be in technicality receiving happy emotions but no. There was none. Just anxiety and regular pain.

Though, in fairness, Jimin assumed he gave off much of the same. Remembering the long practices, and the muscle cramps, he could only recoil. When the ache finally ceased he lays on top of the sheets again brushing the empty space next to him. Soulmate perhaps, but all he wanted was you. If you'd be next to him, he'd look for no one else ever again. Which was stupid, who falls into love with their fuck..fuck-something.

"Literally every protagonist in a romance story," Jungkook muttered before making a loud gagging noise. Jimin almost had half the intention of lodging a spoon in his throat before he hurriedly explained.

"It's not to you! It's just that dumbass is eating sugar. Pure sugar!" he heaved, face getting read. "Oh, I hope their teeth have so many holes they need to eat nothing but carrots!"

"You want to taste nothing but carrots for the rest of your life?" Jimin snarked and Jungkook paused.

"Guess not."

Suddenly Jimin's elbow flared up.

"Oh, come on!" he exclaimed, wincing and rubbing the spot. "How many times a day can this person be hurt?!"

"Hey, guys, why are there so many people outside?" Taehyung asked in confusion, hooking his headphones off. Sirens soon blared and as they looked on, through the crowd, they could see someone laying in the middle of the street. Unmoving.

"Oh shit, is that blood?" Jungkook gasped.

The police coordinated off the area pushing the mass away and to Jimin's surprise, you stepped out of one of the cars with a camera attached to your neck. To even more of a shock, you began to take pictures and Jimin questioned how was it that he didn't know you were a CSI or whatever they were called when suddenly you tripped and fell down, slamming your chin against the unforgiving ground.

"Oh, that must hurt," Taehyung and Jungkook drawled together but Jimin stayed quiet. His chin was killing him.

And what were the chances of that?

"Sensation-coded systems tend to be of more emotional intensity as they echo the same level of chemical fluctuation between persons on top of their own."

As Jimin had learned it at school, he still had it scrabbled somewhere in the high school notebook, touch equated to chemical changes in the body. Dopamine and serotonin increase and in a sensation-coded system, person A could not only feel their own increase but also person B's and vice versa. This is why perhaps he felt like he was breathing new breath when he kissed you. Because he just might.

He can't stop shaking as he texts you to come over, despite doing it hundred times before. But this was different wasn't it? If he was right, he could lose you, if he was wrong, he could also lose you. Either way, he lost. But he had to know. Otherwise, he would be bitter his entire life.

You hug him the second you step over the threshold but for the first time, Jimin steps away. Immediately you frown.

"Something wrong?" you ask and he swallows hard.

"I...I made dinner," actually he ordered it, not wanting it to be bad. "You want to eat?"

He knows you know it was phrased as a question out of politeness. During dinner which is not at all strained into near incapacitating silence, Jimin may or may not drink. A lot. To cope.

"Please, just tell me what it is," you finally break. "Or I'll combust spontaneously."

"I didn't know you were a CSI," he trailed off and you froze.

"Yeah, well, it's not a pretty job and also CSI," you gestured at yourself then at him. "An idol? Doesn't make much sense."

"Maybe it does," he says, shaking again and at last gathering all the courage left in his bones to pinch his arm, so hard it hurt. You flinch as well.

Another blanket of silence descends over the room.

"I think we need to talk."

TAEHYUNG: All he remembers clearly is the pause of uncertainty, the step taken between the childish innocence and the brutal adult reality. The reality of death which in this case was a red string cut short and fraying at the end of his pinky when it should have been stretching across the seas and dreams, across despair and misery. And it's on this hot summer afternoon, sunny and perfect, that Taehyung learns that love does not conquer all.

The office of the IBSSCI, the International Bureau of Soulmate System Crime Investigation respectively, is by far more shabby than he ever pictured. When Taehyung is brought into this two-story building it doesn't look like anything more than some chic obsessed, eco brutalism wannabe cafe he could honestly trip upon in certain streets of Seoul. The office in whose uncomfortable chairs he's been sat in is the size of the closet and looks like one as well. This person was grody. The half-eaten sandwich and cold cup of coffee were all the proof he needed.

____________ ______________, he reads on the glass plaque, you're a pig.

Someone walks in. A mountain of folders on two legs as far as he can see.

"Sorry about the wait, Mr Kim," they huffed. "The printer jammed and you see these papers," with a heavy thud, they dropped it on the desk, falling into the chair with an exhausted sigh. "Is no joke."

He nodded mutely along feeling like it was appropriate to do so.

"Do you want any coffee or tea?" you offered, pushing the mountain away and casting him a weirdly patronizing smile. Immediately, Taehyung bristled.

"Not if it's made like that," he pointed at the dirty cup.

"Depends on what you answer," the smile on your face didn't even flinch. "You do realize why you're here."

"Being scammed is not a crime," he scoffed.

"It is not," you agreed. "But if you gave nearly half a million to one shady group whose to say you won't do it again?"

He wrenched his eyes shut. He didn't mean to. But one by one the guys kept finding their soulmates, hell, even Hoseok, the actual fucking monochrome-based bond found his love. While Taehyung was happy for his friend he was also happy to have someone to be as miserable as him as selfish as it was.

And what would be the worst, he had thought, he would just lose his money and he had plenty of it. For the chance of finding a soulmate, he would give every single thing he owned. The clothes on his body, the sheets on his bed, all of it.

But the worst of it was actually murder. The scam group promised to find Taehyung a new person claiming the statistical basis of there being another in the case of death had in the end murdered one of the doctors who threatened to take this to the police and suddenly Taehyung found himself right in the heart of a criminal case. And while the scammers ran a high-level operation it didn't change the fact that Taehyung was now fundamentally a person involved in something as heinous as murder and it was his money that had guaranteed some of them to escape to international seas.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I never meant for any of this to happen."

"I understand," they spoke and for once they didn't sound mocking. "But Mr Kim, you have money and that is power. You must not give that power out of desperation."

As he opened his eyes, he saw them pushing a paper across the desk, their gloved hand tapping twice at it.

"This is, as you must know, a recovery form in the case of losing a soulmate. The program consists of 18 weeks of mandatory therapy, regular check-ins for a year as well as signing an oath of not partaking in any schemes or offers of finding or rebonding with a new soulmate that if breached can and will be held in court of law. Do you understand?"

He gazed blankly into their eyes, limbs growing stiff.

"Taehyung!" Jimin called out.

"No, you don't get to speak! You don't get to pretend you understand! You have your soulmate! You have a chance! I was robbed of one! You will never understand what that's like!"

As he blinked the memory faded away but still, he felt no one will ever understand what that was like.

"Do you have a soulmate?" he croaked, fiddling with the pen meant to sign the form.

The person blinked and their lips thinned.

"I suppose I did," they said with ease but also with a thin veil of clearly deep inner sadness. "They died when I was an infant."

Taehyung sat straighter.

"So you know what that feels like? To be robbed, cruelly robbed not choosing, not doing wrong but not having anything from the start?"

He grimaced in order not to cry.

"I do but inflicting hurt on others...trying these insane methods and schemes," you trailed off. "It will do no good. No good for you, for anyone. It is evil for the sake of evil and that's it."

You offered him a tissue and he took it gratefully. Perhaps you were not so bad. Despite being grody.

Taehyung signed the form and with weary, tired legs, trailed after you to the main exit.

"As the person assigned to this case, I will be overseeing your check-in period," you explained navigating the cement stairs seemingly spiralling in all logical and illogical directions.

"You're a social worker as well?" Taehyung ironized roughly and you offered him a crooked smile.

"Budget cuts."

As you scanned your ID the doors flashed red.

"Oh, come on," you wiped the chip on the card against your pants but no such luck. Again and again, it flashed red. Finally, with a loud growl of annoyance you yanked the black glove off your left hand to wipe the chip by hand and on it, Taehyung saw a string.

A red string.

Around your pinky.

Cut and frayed in the middle.

Exactly like his.

It unfurled on the ground and dazed Taehyung reached to grasp it. He held the thin yarn like a dying butterfly and pulled at last gently its end. Your hand moved along with it.

JUNGKOOK: He really wants to be happy. And he is. Somewhere underneath the surging wave of anger, he is really happy. And he'll show it to you one day. After he's done scolding you.

Because in the exact moment where he walks through the street, late in the evening, cold rain pouring on his umbrella, he glances through the window of a restaurant and sees a person shoving an entire sugar cube on their tongue.

He feels sugar explode in his mouth.

Pure, unrefined, choking sugar.

And the next thing he knows he's pointing a finger in your unsuspecting face.

"You piece of shit! You actual dumbass!" he yells and people around him are startled. Though none more than you. You, whose sitting in your stupid seat and whose stupid sugar-addicted mouth still chews on that sugar cube like a horse.

"Does dental hygiene means nothing to you? Diabetes?! Health overall?!" he keeps pointing at you at every single word to portray the full scope of what tasting constant sugar every day for consecutive 18 years does to a person.

"How many holes do you have in your teeth right now?! Tell me!"

You blink up at him owlishly and also part terrified. Even the music of the restaurant seems somewhat muted as the crowd looks on at this, the most bizarre of lover's quarrel.

And he shouldn't, he really shouldn't, but he finds it cute.

"Three," you mutter demurely and a pout forms on your lips. Jungkook wonders if they're sweet as well. Should be considering the amount of sugar you consume.

"Just went to a dentist..."

"And you're still swallowing sugar cubes?! WHOLE ASS SUGAR CUBES?!"

"YOU EAT RAMEN AT 3 AM!" you yell back, a sudden fire gaining in your eyes. "OR DRINK SOME SHIT LIKE ICE CUBED VINE!! AND YOU'RE BLAMING ME FOR SUGAR WHEN YOU'RE OUT HERE COMMITTING GASTRONOMICAL WAR CRIMES?!"

And now this one Jungkook shouldn't, he really should not, but he finds you yelling at him hot.

And he wants to know what you taste like.

"YOU EVER WONDERED THAT THE REASON WHY I EAT SO MUCH SUGAR IS TO MASK THE HORRENDOUS ABOMINATIONS YOU PUSH DOWN YOUR THROAT?! AND DON'T EVEN THINK I HAVEN'T TASTED SOMEONE ELSE'S CU-"

In the end, they're kicked out. You stand in the rain, pouting and glaring at him in earnest and whilst doing the same he extends the umbrella over your head.

"I don't like you," you scoff and he does the same.

"Neither do I."

"You're a pig of an eater."

"You're a sugar addict."

A pause.

"I'm leaving," you huff, making no indication to leave.

"Then go," Jungkook snaps, actually taking a step closer.

He thinks he tastes anxiety on his tongue. Whether it's his own or yours he can't tell.

"You're overbearing," you mutter while slightly moving forth.

"You're insufferable," Jungkook is not far behind, neither in space nor insults. He wraps a hand around your waist and finds it perfect. The way you press against him is perfect.

"You make me nauseous," you whisper, gaze dropping to his pierced lip.

"I'm absolutely sick of you," he breathes the air you exhale and then closes the small space and learns what you taste like.

When the umbrella falls out of his hands and falls upon the rain-soaked pavement, he tastes rainwater in his mouth. And as expected that too tastes sweet.

© soraviii, 2022

tagging: @introlxv; @pinkcherrybombs; @devilsbooksworld; @btsiguess-kpop; @mwitsmejk; @belladaises; @mwitsmejk; @halesandy; @seok-jinnies; @themochiverse; @cuteipat; @ratherbefangirling; @manchuria; @chimchimmarie; @smalliechelle; @koostarcandy; @personaarmy; @flitzerj;

Two Sundays in December

Pairing: Namjoon x Readr

Genre: Friends to lovers, Fluffy fluffy fluff, smut

Rating: Explicit, 18+

Word Count: 4.3k

Warnings: Sex without a condom, other birth control in place, swearing, this Namjoon is very, very in love, non-consensual butt pinching from someone’s grandma

A/N: I couldn’t stop writing about this couple, I wanted to know what happened to them after they got together. They just make me feel all cozy. So @augustbutwinter you get a bonus serving of snickerdoodles this Christmas. And you don’t really need to read the original to understand this one. @vyduan @sahmfanficbts @sunshinerainbowsbts - thank you for reading and feedback 🥰

Original Story

Mittens’s Masterlist

——

Namjoon joins you and Tae at your parent’s house. Your dad greets the three of you with cups of spiked eggnog. And you’re swept up in the hustle and bustle of family, eating, drinking, gift opening.

Namjoon is never far from you, but it just feels normal, like he’s been your boyfriend at family events for years. Not like you just publicly declared your love and then made out in a magic bakery a mere two hours ago. Your brother raises an eyebrow and a grin after he sees Namjoon kiss your cheek.

Your parents know him already. You have the geographically closest family and they’ve hosted many Sunday dinners for you and your friends. So they don’t say anything but your mom makes the same face as your brother when Namjoon puts his hand on the small of your back at the buffet.

Later that afternoon, Namjoon brings a cup of spiked peppermint tea to where you and Tae are sitting. His eyes are wide and his face is red. “Your grandma is such a flirt. I thought we were just pals. She was telling me about her bonsai and how she keeps it in this special part of her greenhouse. And then she pinched my butt when I walked away!”

You and your grandma always did have the most in common out of all your cousins.

When you’re leaving, your dad squeezes your arm and shakes Namjoon’s hand. Your mom hugs you and whispers, “I always liked him.” Your grandma comes up and hugs you both. And then, without even pretending to be subtle, says, “Way to land this beefcake, sweetie. In my day, I’d have climbed him like a tree.”

“GRANDMA!” She just winks and toddles off with her cane. Namjoon looks stunned and is staring at the ceiling, waiting patiently for his soul to leave his body.

——

Tae has left earlier, so Namjoon walks you home. The two of you trudging through the snow that is still looking remarkably pretty. Most of the journey is spent holding hands in comfortable silence. A few times he looked over at you and you looked back, kind of incredulous that you’re here and this is happening.

“This is really happening, right?” You smile at him, arriving at the door to your flat. You feel a little tipsy from the day drinking, and from him. “I just straight up pined for you for so long, I need to confirm. You know, for science or something.”

He smiles, but his eyes are intense, moving from your eyes to your lips. Then he leans forward and kisses you. First time really since this morning, except for a few stolen ones during the day. He gently guides you against the door. And you lean against it to help you stay upright.

“Confirmed?” He whispers, lips still ghosting over your face, leaving featherweight kisses on your cheeks, your ears, your eyebrows.

“Yeah, confirmed.” You sigh out.

“Happy Christmas, love.”

You basically throw yourself at him, suddenly missing him now that you’re not kissing. You loop your arms around his neck, and press your lips to his, tongues gliding together. His hand slides from your hip under your thigh encouraging you to wrap a leg around him. Your foot presses into the top of his calf as if you really are trying to climb him.

“We should go inside,” you pant out in between trying to devour him. “But it seems really far.” The door is literally at your back. “I just waited so, so long to do this. ”

“We waited so long, too long,” he counters as your hands tangle in his hair. His hips move forward slightly and you whimper a little involuntarily, that feels very…promising.

“We need to stop or I’m going to-“

“Get a room!” Tae has come around the corner, Santa hat perched on his head, slightly askew. He’d been to Jin’s after Christmas dinner.

He comes over, oblivious to what’s really happening, and wraps his arms around both of you. Namjoon clears his throat and then looks at his friend with a mix of amusement and frustration. Tae gives you each a big, wet kiss on the forehead.

“I am so happy for you two,” he shouts and his face starts to crumple a little. Oh dear, Tae, a notorious lightweight, probably had two drinks and will now be an emotional wreck for hours. “Idiots to lovers, it’s just so beautiful.”

You and Joon blush, you’d thought about that. A lot. You’d tried to press down how wildly attracted you are to him, but now you maybe don’t have to anymore? Tae suddenly lets you go, and you move out of the way to let him get into the door, and he stumbles into the flat.

“I’ll take my cue from him.” Namjoon looks at you shyly, like you weren’t just humping his leg in the hallway.

“Yeah, okay, that makes sense.” It doesn’t really, you just don’t even know what you’re saying being so close to him. You nuzzle at his neck, pressing small kisses, and then lightly grazing your teeth over the skin. He tilts his head to give you more access and you can feel his chest rise and fall more rapidly against your fingertips. “Call me when you get home?”

You look up at him and he’s on your lips again, his hand pressing the wall next to your head. The other stroking up and down your side, caressing your curves.

His lips now move to your neck, “I should go.” His fingers grip your hip.

“Oh, okay.” You can’t really get out much more at this point. But part of you is yearning for some time to process and let all of this settle. The other, a much louder part, wants to push him into your bedroom and pounce.

Your hands slide from his neck down his arms. Your kissing slows and he hugs you tight, mouth at your temple.

“Happy Christmas, I love you.” You whisper, as if suddenly concerned about privacy.

“I love you too. I can’t believe I get to say that out loud.” He’s beaming. “I’ll text you when I’m home.” He gives you one last lingering kiss and then walks down the hallway.

You close the door behind you and lean against it. You can still smell his scent on your scarf. God it is driving you wild and he just left.

Love. Namjoon loves you. Not just likes you, not just thinks you're smart or cute. Doesn’t just like bantering with you. No. Kim Namjoon loves you.

You’ve spent a significant amount of time in the last few weeks interacting with animated gingerbread men, but this seems more improbable.

You don’t realize you're just standing inside the front doors still fully dressed for a snowy day in late December until Tae pokes his head into the hall and raises an eyebrow. He’s in his jammies and is swaying slightly.

“You okay, roomie?” Tae now looks very sleepy. He hiccups.

Your eyes focus and snap to him, giving a small smile as you start to take your coat off.

“Yeah, just none of this seems real, it’s like a snowy dream.”

Tae grins and leans further into the door frame so he can see you. “It’s about damn time. The two of you have been dancing around each other for a full year.”

You’re blushing, staring at the floor as you toe off your boots.

“I tried to keep it to myself, I didn’t want to make things uncomfortable for Joon or anyone. Especially when he was with Nina.”

“Your chemistry is plain to see. It was like I could sparks when you’d interact.”

You raise an eyebrow at this. Thinking you’d met Tae’s family multiple times, you didn’t think any of them were part faerie.

“Why did he leave? I had my noise canceling headphones all ready.”

“Gross, Tae, good night.” He wanders back to his room and you’re alone in the hallway.

Why did he leave? Why did you let him? These few minutes seem like enough processing time. You spent so much time already thinking about your feelings for him.

Boots, coat, hat back on, you open the door and there he is, hand raised up to knock.

“Hi.”

“Hi. I came back.”

“I can see that.”

He giggles, dimple popping, and tilts his head down, “I got to the end of the block and couldn’t remember why I was leaving.”

You wave him in, both quickly removing all your winter things. And as soon as your coat is off, he’s there again, lips on yours, hands cupping your face.

The two of you start slowly walking backwards to your room and Tae’s door opens. “Hey, did I hear the door? Who- oh, ayeeee, byeee.”

Joon smiles against your lips and closes your door.

Your Christmas stocking gifts are still spread out, including the book from Joon. He backs you up to the bed, relentlessly kissing you, until your knees hit the edge. He lies on top of you, planting one hand on the side of your head, the other starts to run up and down your side. God, he is just so sexy and so large and- ouch! Something sharp pokes you in the back. It’s a candy cane.

“Joon, baby,” you press lightly on his chest. He stops briefly at that word, smiling so big. “I’m actually lying on all of my gifts.”

“Oh sorry, I don’t mean to be so eager to get you into bed.” He kind of awkwardly rolls off you and moves to the edge of the bed.

“Like I didn’t drag you in here,” you glance at him over your shoulder smirking and his face looks flushed.

“I’ve never been in here, even with all the time I’ve hung out in this flat.” He takes in the piles of books, overflowing the bookshelf, piled up around the baseboards. Your small easel. You’re by no means an artist, but life drawing and paintings classes are part of your conservation degree. “I really like it.”

You don’t respond, trying to pile your gifts with the other things on your dresser. Then you feel his hands at your waist, mouth at your ear. His touch helps calm you, which you were not expecting.

“Hey, we don’t have to do anything. It was kind of presumptuous of me to walk you to your bedroom.”

You turn around in his arms, so his hands are resting at the top of your ass. “Oh, you didn’t walk me here, I led you here to jump your bones.” He grins at this, his hands tighten. Then you see it again, the little golden light. It’s running like a river over your body, flowing around your breasts, little rivulets down your arms, pooling at your feet.

You feel emboldened by his love, moving him over to bed. When he’s sitting, his face open, dimples soft, affection pouring out, you step back and pull off your sweater. His mouth opens softly at the sight. His hands start gliding around your hips, back to squeeze your ass, pulling you close to him.

He holds you there, his breath ghost over your skin. His lips move to where your breasts swell a little over the top of your bra, his fingers pulling the cup down so he can take your nipple in his mouth. He teases the peaked bud with his tongue and teeth. Your hands tangle in his hair, your fingers pulling a little and he lets out a low hum.

“Oh god, Joon, that feels incredible.” His hands are now pulling you closer and you sit down on his lap. You can feel him hard in his jeans, you can’t stop yourself from grinding down and his hands press tighter. Your mouth finds his as he unhooks your bra, he pulls back and slowly glides the straps down your arms.

“Baby, you are so insanely sexy“, his voice is impossibly low, his breathing seems faster. You’re still circling your hips a little, the friction between you just keying you up higher and higher. “I can’t tell you how many times I imagined this.”

The thought of Kim Namjoon fantasizing about you zips up through your body like your clit is a lightening rod. His lips move to your neck, pulling your skin just a little with his lips. “You’ve thought about me?” You breathe out, it’s getting hard to think straight again.

“All the time, especially in the last few weeks. That night on the couch, if you had stayed, I don’t think I could have held back.”

“You don’t have to hold back any more, Joon. Please.”

And with that he lifts you up and lays you back on the bed. He slots his legs between yours and straightens up, quickly pulling off his shirt. He looks down and with his lips parted, eyes intense, his broad body, he might be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. Better than any work of art. Your hands fly to his chest.

“Grandma was right, you really are a beefcake.”

He pauses for a second, making a face, “Oh, ummm, can we not talk about your grandma right now?”

“Listen, I hope I’m that spry and frisky when I’m her age.”

He rolls his eyes and grins, popping the top button on his jeans. “I’ll keep you young, baby. I’ll chase you around in my walker when we’re 90.”

“I’ll use one of those grabber things to pinch your butt if I can’t bend over to reach.” You give his ass a squeeze for good measure.

He giggles at this, his lips finding that spot on your neck again. You start to unzip his jeans, trying to push all his clothes off at once in your haste. Then the two of you are all hands and movement, pulling and kicking off everything til you’re finally naked.

No more hiding, no more holding back.

His hard length glides over the top of your pussy, your slick covering him. The rigid flesh presses into your clit, pleasure rippling through your body.

“I’m- oh shit, do that again.”

He’s just sliding back and forth now. You could come just like this. Your fingernails dig into his back.

“I am too, are you on-“

“I am, just put- fuuuuuuuuck.” You take his cock in hand, impatiently placing it at your entrance. He tilts his hips gliding into you, so wet and slick, his eyes roll back, mouth open as he presses into you. You arch into him, spreading your legs wider, trying to have more, more of the way he fills you, more of his cock, this connection, more of him.

When your hips are flush, he pauses, and looks you right in the eye. His right hand comes up to stroke your cheek, thumb pressing into your bottom lip, pulling it down. “You’re absolutely incredible.” You bite his thumb, pulling it into your mouth, flicking your tongue against the tip. Your teeth graze along it as he drags it out of your mouth.

Still holding your gaze he pulls out and snaps back in, your eyes squeeze shut in pleasure as he starts to move. His hands and lips feel like they’re everywhere at once. You’re just trying to meet his pace, to press him into you as much as possible, to be impossibly close.

Both of your legs hook around his waist, but his hands move to your thighs pushing them up towards your head. It changes the angle, makes him feel even bigger inside of you.

Your back arches and he lightly bites and sucks at your breasts which drives you wild, bucking up to meet him. The headboard starts to slap into the wall matching your shared rhythm.

You can’t stop looking at his face, he’s glowing, from sweat, from lust, from love. The pressure builds up in your body till you can’t hold it back any longer, pleasure surging out of you. The light in the room pulses like an explosion as you peak. The soft glow enveloping the two of you, flashing again when he follows. Beautiful eyes squeezed shut, he comes into you over and over.

He slowly lowers your legs and you lazily hook one over his calf. You don’t know how long you’re there, just kissing, connected. The two of you entwined in a messy tangle of limbs and love. You sneak away to get cleaned up and when you return Joon puts his head on your shoulder.

“The lighting in here is amazing, you look like you have an actual afterglow.”

You smile, your heart swelling that he can see it too, just a little. You hum a response and start to run your hands through his hair. It’s grown a little long in the back, you love when it gets a little shaggy.

“That day we went to the Soane, that was the day I knew.” He props himself up on his elbow. “You looked so lovely in the snow and you were talking about the art and then watching the movie you were playing with my hair.”

You’re smiling and a few happy tears at the corners of your eyes. “You had a date that night! I was so confused about what was going on.”

“Yeah, I basically ran back to your flat. I couldn’t wait to be near you again. I felt like a puppy sitting at your feet.”

You grin, “I did appreciate the wine and crisps.”

“Well I wanted to bring a movie night snack that said ‘I’m sure I’m in love with you but don’t know how to tell you cause I don’t want to mess anything up’.”

“And salt and vinegar crisps are that snack?”

“Yes.” He nods his head emphatically, leaning over to kiss you. “Speaking of food…shower and then leftovers?”

You make it to the shower to rinse off, then to the kitchen, Namjoon in a too tight pair of your hot pink sweats. You’re kissing and feeding each other leftover cookies from the quasi-magical bakery when Tae pops his head in. His headphones are still on, you can hear the music blaring out of them.

Tae looks warily at the two of you, grabs some cookies from the box and shouts, pointing at his head. “These work great! Don’t worry I couldn’t hear your headboard against the wall. I am not traumatized at all. Maybe you should move your bed out a bit? OKBYE.” He turns and practically runs away.

Back in your bed, safely ensconced in Namjoon’s arms, head on his chest, he strokes your hair and your eyes start to close. You must drift off because you wake up around 3am. When you open your eyes just a little bit, it looks like sparkly snow is gently falling in the room. It softly swirls around the two of you, eddying between your bodies. It starts to move a little faster as Joon opens his eyes.

He gives you a sleepy smile, kissing you, his hands wandering under your shirt. His fingers glide over your hips, moving back and forth as your body wakes up. Your mouth opens slightly to meet his, your leg wrapping over his hip. Shirts off, bodies joined, the two of you light up the night again and again.

——Exactly One Year, 364 Days Later——

It’s 8pm on Christmas Eve, which is also a Sunday this year, so you thought you’d go to the Black Swan and then to walk home tipsy with Namjoon to your shared flat. And then wake up for presents and Christmas Dinner. Instead when you walked out the door to go to the pub, there was a car waiting. You turn and start walking, but Joon gently takes your arm.

“This is us actually, we have one stop before the pub.”

“What? Babe, why? We can just walk to the pub. What’s even open today?” You’re very confused as you duck into the black sedan.

“Is this an Uber Black? That’s a lot to go around to our local?” You’re giving Namjoon a funny look as he slides in next to you.

“We just have one quick stop to make. Oh and you’ll have to wear this.” He produces a red silk scarf from his pocket.

“Joon!” You hiss at him under your breath. “That is supposed to stay in the bedr- Wait. What are you going to even tie me to?”

“Well first of all, it was in the living room after, well, you know. You were there.” Both of your faces turn the same color as the scarf. Joon clears his throat. “This time it’s to go around your eyes. So you can’t peek at where we’re going.”

“Okayyyy.” You are skeptical but this is kind of fun, a small grin blooming on your face.

It’s a relatively short ride, Joon holds your hand, Christmas music playing in the background.

He leads you out of the car and up a short flight of stairs. Inside it’s warm and the air feels perfectly conditioned. You’d taken a job at the Tate as an art conservator after graduating last year and you were very used to how the air felt and smelled in a room that is exactly 60% humidity.

“Are we in a museum?” You give a sniff, oil paint, the wood floor is creaking just a little beneath your feet.

“You’ll know in juuuuust a second.” Joon’s hands are on your shoulders as he maneuvers you into place. Then he gently unties the scarf.

You are in the Hogarth Room at the Soane Museum. The overhead lights are off and the room is lit by candles.

“Are those real candles?!” You start to panic about all the reasons open flames are bad near artworks. Of course this is your first thought.

Namjoon smiles and shakes his head, you can see his dimples in the soft light. “They’re battery powered. I do pay attention when you talk about the appropriate climate for 17th century oil paintings.”

“How did you get them to do this?” Your eyes are so wide they almost hurt. You’re looking around and taking it all in. You don’t see that Namjoon is just staring at you the whole time.

“Oh, umm, I paid their insurance fee, and a rental fee and, for security. And…actually, that’s not very romantic to talk about. This is where we were when I realized I loved you. And I just wanted to do something really special. Do you like it? Are you happy?”

“Joon, yes, I don’t even know what to say. It’s just so incredible.” Your jaw is on the floor, it’s almost hard to get the words out.

“Well, I hope you’ll say-” He pats the pocket on his blazer.

“Wait. That’s not what you were wearing when we left. Why are you wearing a suit to the pub?”

“I, um, wanted to look nice for you. And I needed the pockets to hold this,” his voice gets very soft as he pulls a ring out and gets down on one knee.

A very strange moan shriek sound comes out of your mouth. You would sound like a possum in labor while being proposed to.

“Will you marry me? I want to be yours forever and for you to be mine.”

Now you’re crying and your mouth is still wide open, you must look like a wreck.

“Yes! Yes! Holy shit! Yes!” You kneel down too, kissing all over his face, arms around his neck. The two of you awkwardly stand up. When you’re finally on your feet, he kisses you so deeply your knees buckle. It’s like a dream. But you are actually worried you might topple over on to the art. You pull back to orient yourself and are startled at how bright the room is. It looks like the candles have real flames that are running up the walls and all around you and Joon.

“You know,” he says, his voice a little lower, you can feel it rumble in his chest. “I always get a little horny in museums now that I always go with you.”

“Joon!” You lift your head up, scandalized. “The art can hear you!”

“Baby, this entire painting series is about a dude who gets drunk a lot and sleeps around.”

“Yeah, Namjoon, and then he gets syphilis and dies in, like, a gutter!” You are very passionate about this.

He starts laughing and stroking your cheek with his thumb. “Oh I just love you so much. Also, I’d be more worried about losing my security deposit.”

You shake your head, grinning and squeezing him as tight as you can.

“Let’s go celebrate, there’s a whole pub waiting for us.” He takes your hand and as you head to the door, you take one more look around to cement this place and time in your memory.

“Everyone knows?”

“Well, I told Tae and Jin, and they helped me plan, but now I’m just assuming they’ve told everyone. Tae mentioned something about the blow up reindeer making an appearance.”

You groan. “Though, you know, I’d be sad if it didn’t.” You snuggle up next to him in the car.

The Black Swan erupts into cheers when the two of you arrive. There are now two blow up reindeers, one with a veil and one with a top hat. You grin and pull Tae into a huge hug when he hands it to you. The whole room is a glow and you glance, the man standing next you, holding your hand, the ring cool against your fingers. You give him a squeeze and head in, letting your friends and family lavish you in love.

——

FIVE FRIDAYS IN DECEMBER - KNJ

Alternate Title: Is Love Alive?

Pairing: Namjoon x Reader

Genre: I2L, Fluff, Light Angst with a happy ending

Rating: Teen / PG

Word Count: ~10k

Warnings: Kissing, some cursing, allusion to sex but nothing even remotely smutty. Author is dismissive of the MCU for jokes, plz don’t be offended. Also this fic has every Idiots to Lovers trope ever - bad Jin jokes, misunderstanding, not wanting to ruin the friendship, shared interests, confusing glances and a happy ending. To me these are like cookies at Christmas time, the same flavors bring me joy year after year and I never get tired of them.

A/N: Happy Christmas, @augustbutwinter! It’s me! Secret Santa Snickerdoodle! I really hope you like this and all of my silly cookie messages. I included three of your prompts and they’re in bold. This story is partially inspired by “Winter Song” that August sent me. I had already written most of the bits about love being “alive” in this story and kind of cried when I heard that song. It’s one of my favorites now too. For the Secret Santa exchange.

I also included some Easter eggs for some of the people who have been so encouraging and supportive and have brought me a lot of smiles this year - Hannah, Sunny, Ana, E, Poppy, Sam, Hope, Smash and Ms. CIA (who are not on Tumblr). And all the possums for the encouragement and screeching. Thank you @btsarmy9593 and @sahmfanficbts for reading and your suggestions. @hannahbee12719 @arizonapoppy @xjoonchildx @btsarmy9593 @sahmfanficbts @hobi-gif @vyduan @smasmashie

On the art references: There are links to the art referred to in the text. I know a little about paintings conservation, but I made up all of these details to suit the story. So if there are glaring or offensive errors to any conservators, I did so in the service of fiction. The Sir John Soane Museum is real and being there when they open up the Hogarth wall is very cool.

Sequel: Two Sundays in December

——

——Friday, December 3rd——

You’re settled into the couch on a Friday night, blanket snug around you, basking in the soft glow of the Christmas tree lights. Your roommate Tae insists on putting up the decorations on the first day of December.

You’ve just picked up your peppermint tea with a splash of whiskey when you hear the door open. Tae and his friends, Namjoon and Jin fall into the flat, a riot of drunken giggles, winter coats and take out boxes. You don’t even need to look to know they’ve brought back you a falafel sandwich, you’d recognize the smell of your favorite post-pub take away spot almost anywhere.

“Hello, boys!” You turn slightly, barely moving to greet them, intent on staying in the cozy cocoon. “How was the pub?”

“Oh you know, same old, same old.” Tae has flopped down next to you, placing your food on the coffee table. He’s smiling and loose limbed, he smells a little bit like the pub and of walking home in the cold winter air. “Jin finally asked Colleen out.”

“No way! Well done, Jin!”

You, Jin and Tae had been pretty inseparable since your uni days. Your very handsome friend actually got asked out himself all the time just because he’s walking around with That Face. But despite his good looks and confident personality, he would get kind of shy when he was interested in someone.

Jin and Colleen had been flirting up a storm in the pub, but then one day she wore dangly Mario Bros. Earrings (Luigi on one side, Mario on the other) and then Jin just clammed up. Turns out she was also very into gaming and laughed at Jin’s jokes and then it freaked him out to speak with her.

“Turns out four gin and tonics is enough to build up my confi-Jin-ce.”

Everyone groans - “Turns out five is enough to make your jokes even worse, mate.” Tae moans from an armchair to your left.

Namjoon follows him in, still chuckling at that exchange. He takes a seat on the floor at the end of the couch you’re on. He’s still in his work button down and slacks and the sight of him giving you a little squeeze in your chest, stomach doing flip flop. He turns his head and glances at you briefly, dimples popping, and then looks back at his food. You quickly look away.

—

You used to spend a lot of time looking at Kim Namjoon. He and Tae worked together at the same hedge fund. He joined Tae’s Annual Drinking with Occasional Skiing Trip last New Years and had quickly fallen in with your group.

Movie nights at your (and Tae’s apartment), nights at your local, a raucous weekend away in the Cotswolds where you had not received the deposit back, multiple barbecues in the back garden that your neighbors all hated until you started inviting them too. Group museum visits on the occasional Saturday. Gallery openings. The two of you chatting away about what you saw while the group headed to the pub afterwards.

A tiny, itty bitty little crush started to grow. And it kept growing with every hang out, every time you both loved or hated a piece of art. Every time he smiled or quirked an eyebrow. You tried to keep it tucked away. You liked being around him so much. You finally had someone to talk (really argue) art with, someone funny and kind, and hot. You didn’t want to ruin that by confessing or making things awkward.

Back in June, you’d taken him to the Tate for the first time, he’d only ever been to the Modern, since that is more his taste. You wanted his take on the Turner room.

“He’s a mess. It’s an overrated, glorification of the industrial revolution. A time period that consolidated wealth and solidified racist institutions.” Namjoon’s face is mostly serious, but there’s that little eyebrow raise.

“I don’t think it glorified them, I think they are heartbreakingly sad. Look at his contemporaries, pastoral scenes, trying to hold onto the bucolic past. Turner is mourning this, trying to bring a visual to the literal fog industry brought to this country. He’s acknowledging the pain of that change.” You turn your nose up slightly at the end to taunt him and he grins.

Tae and Jin had just sat there watching as the two of you passionately, but good naturedly, bicker back and forth. Tae took a slow sip of his drink. “I feel like I need to Google all of these vocab words. Why is she so angry about trains again?”

Jin is literally moving his head while the two of you volley points in this debate. “I have literally no idea. But Joonie just did that thing with his jaw when she used the word ‘besmirched’.”

“How do you even spell that?” Tae whispers tapping at his phone.

Jin clears his throat loudly, “WELL, I thought the horse was weird.”

You and Namjoon stop speaking at the exact same moment, turn to him, and in synch say, “That’s the point! Cattelan is a genius.”

“Well at least you agree on something - shall we order?” Tae interjects.

You and Namjoon snapped out of it at that point, looking at each other. His expression is unreadable. Still holding some of the intensity and playful banter of your discussion, but there is something else. “Sure, I could eat,” he said, still looking at you.

For that moment, you let yourself look at him without reservation, without hesitation. The passion that boiled up in your discussion is still running through your veins. You felt tingly and alive under his gaze. His face seems to light up as you respond, “Yeah, I’m hungry too.”

A few weeks later, he’d met his girlfriend Nina at a work event at one of her restaurants and the gallery visits had more or less stopped. Your constant text stream slowed, until you mainly interacted with him on the group chat. You still hung out of course, Nina was a new addition to everyone, but your friendship with Namjoon changed.

That’s also when you stopped looking at him so much. Before they started dating you’d thought maybe there was something there? But this made it clear that while you clicked as friends, even more than people you’d known for a decade, you were not his romantic type.

So now you consciously worked to keep your eyes off him. You squashed that crush down as far as you could. He was your friend, your friend with a lovely girlfriend, and this was your way of respecting that. Even if your heart was a little bit broken.

—

“Oh, hey, where’s Nina? Is she coming later? I got new snail eye patches for us to try.”

“Oh, um, no she’s not. We split up two weeks ago.” Namjoon says in a monotone voice, suddenly very interested in his hands.

This makes you look up. Right at him. Concern on your face. “Oh, Joon, I’m sorry, I thought you two had a good thing going. Nina is great.” You actually do mean that. He looks sad and your heart squeezes for him.

He sighs, “She is. It just, kind of flickered out between us. It was my…” his voice trails off as Jin plops down on the couch wearing a leopard print Snuggie with rhinestone trim and holding four bowls of popcorn at once.

“What?! I thought someone had walked off with that at that party we had a few weeks ago!” You whack him playfully on the shoulder. You and your friends all exchanged silly stocking stuffer gifts and the Snuggie was one from last Christmas. You all took turns wearing it when it was cold. It was unsightly but so, so warm, and, in your drafty apartment, that was your only aesthetic goal these days.

“Someone did,” he says through a mouthful of food. “It was me. Several whiskeys deep I thought it would be a good idea to store it in the bottom kitchen cabinet so I could use it at movie night. I was just looking for extra bowls and there it was!”

You roll your eyes and take a bowl from him. The conversation around you moves on, but you’re processing Nina and Namjoon breaking up. She seemed so perfect for him. She worked for a high end restaurant group doing PR, and was also a Pilates instructor.

She was so different from you in so many ways, it gave you a pretty clear indication of what Namjoon was looking for. Hell, you’d had a little crush on her, she was so pretty and kind. She was always quick to include you, and brought face masks to movie night, you could never convince any of the boys to join you.

Halfway through some Avengers movie - tonight was not your week to pick - you look over at him. The light from the screen flickering on his face deepening the shadows under his cheekbones so look even higher. His lips, even fuller. But his eyes, usually a heady mix of kind and sharp, looked tired. He glances over at you and your face heats up from being caught out. But a small smile moves over his face. And you give one back, forcing yourself to go back to the screen.

To stop looking. Again.

——

Sunday afternoon you’re wandering through the Camden holiday market before your regular shift at the pub. You see a lot of familiar faces after living here for years, wooden toys, a mulled wine stall, lots of bakeries.

There is a cute set of gnomes you think Tae would like - he loves this season and is mainly responsible for the decor in your flat. You get a toy for Hobi and Ana’s cat Chrissy, you Hope she likes it. You and Tae usually open Christmas stockings for each other before heading to your family’s place on Christmas Day. With most of Tae’s family back in Korea, your family had adopted him in the years he didn’t go back.

As you get deeper into the outdoor market, there is one stall you don’t recognize tucked into a corner. There is enough room for three little tables in front of a wood and glass bakery counter. There is a warm glow, but you can’t tell the source of light in the early evening dark. The smell of freshly baked cookies coming from inside makes it look even more appealing. The counter has cookies piled up on top in various containers. There are carafes for coffee and hot chocolate and a complicated looking espresso machine on a table behind the counter. Three large rolling racks of cookies hold the rest of their offerings and a small toaster oven next to them to warm things up.

A small sign is next to a plate of cookies dusted with red caster sugar. “Next week - a free snickerdoodle with every ugly Christmas sweater.” Right next to one that says, “Place Christmas Day orders now! We’ll bake any cookie you want (except o*tme*l r*isin)!”

“Hello, can I get you anything?” You look up to see a young-ish man with blonde hair and full lips walk through a canvas flap at the back of the booth. He is wearing a sweater with a little knit Bee over the heart. Holy cats, he is gorgeous.

“Oh hi, sure, actually, a hot chocolate and a snickerdoodle please.”

You keep looking around, noticing all the details and textures on the cookies. Observing surfaces, really looking at something is part of your work. “Is this your first year at the market? Everything looks so- Oooh! Those mint chocolate brownies look amazing.”

“It is.” He tilts his head - gosh this guy is otherworldly handsome - and asks, “How did you know they are mint?”

“I can see the small pieces of mint leaves and there is a sheen on the top from the peppermint oil essence.”

He smiles and his expression changes to surprise, “Are you some kind of food scientist?”

“Oh, no,” you laugh. “I’m an art conservator, well an apprentice one right now. It’s part of my work, I’m kind of professionally observant.”

“Well, Professionally Observant, I'm Jimin. And that brownie is on the house.” He grins at you as he wraps up your treats. “My half-brother and I started the stall this year, we’d been living in Aberdeen before this and just moved to London. Oh there, he is, Mr. Sunshine-and-Rainbows himself.”

Another man walks in behind you carrying two gallons of milk and sporting a grumpy, but kind, face. “Hello. I’m Yoongi, I see you’ve met Park-I-Swear-We-Have-Enough-Milk Jimin?”

You giggle and raise your hot cocoa in a toast to thank them, looking at the top of the drink. “These marshmallows are incredible, they look hand carved. Each one is different!”

“Yeah, it’s a secret family recipe. We only do them at Christmas time.”

“It was lovely meeting you, I need to get to my shift. I’m at the Black Swan on Princess Road near Primrose Hill park if you have time for a drink after the market closes.”

Jimin raises a hand to wave, “Nice to meet you too, come back and visit?”

Free brownies baked by two super hot dudes? This is the best business model you’ve ever heard of. “I will.”

——

A few days later, you’re at work in the conservation studio. Magnifying visor on, you’re studying a section of a Hogarth painting that was damaged and repaired years ago. But the old fix is degrading, impacting the original painting. You’re studying the edges, noting where the original glaze layer was removed to repair the damage. The previous conservator had added in an appropriate glaze, but the finish and the brush strokes were wrong, so it made the repaired section way more obvious.

You sigh, noting the issue in your records. Your manager, Sam, the head of the studio, comes over as you’re stretching your back.

“Fantastic news. The Sir John Soane Museum has offered to show you their Hogarth with a similar color palette Saturday afternoon. They’re going to take it out of the display and everything.”

Your jaw drops. The Soane Hogarth series - The Rake’s Progress - was installed in a rotating wall that needed a museum docent to open and display to visitors. And they only did that on special occasions. To know that you would get a chance to see it up close was truly incredible.

—

At The Black Swan later that night, you’re behind the bar, while Namjoon, Jin and Tae hang around. The happy hour rush has died down, so you have more time to talk.

“So they’re going to let me in after it closes to see it. AND take it out of the wall.”

Namjoon nearly does a spit take with his pint. “Take it out of the wall?! That is amazing.”

“Is this a thing again? Where the two of you talk about art and we have no idea what you’re on about?” Jin asks. He’s wearing a Santa hat and a t-shirt that says ‘Virginia is for Lovers’.

“So the thing with these paintings-“ Namjoon starts.

“Hold on, hold on, I don’t actually care. Just giving you shit for it. Nice to see the two of you at it again.”

Now that makes you do a double take - at what again? Namjoon turns to stare at Jin, but you can’t fully see his face. Jin is just grinning and wiggling his eyebrows, but you can see the tops of his ears are pink.

“Hey,” you lean over closer to Namjoon. “Do you want to come with me? My boss can’t go and they’re expecting two people. Could you get out of work to meet me early?”

“Seriously?” He grins. “Yes, of course, that sounds awesome.” He’s silent for a second, “It’s been a while since we went to a museum together.”

“Yeah. Well, great.” You smile, “Meet you there at 3?”

—-Friday, December 10th——

You walk out into the cold December air, standing close to Namjoon on that small stoop. You pull on your bright Poppy red wooly hat down low against the chill.

“That was incredible.” You feel kind of starry eyed walking out of the building.

“It’s probably the closest thing I’ll ever have to a religious experience.” Namjoon sighs out. “And I already thought I loved that place. It’s just so endlessly interesting. I could spend hours looking at the bits of columns all over the walls.”

“I love that too, like just these out of context details from somewhere? They would be part of this larger whole, an overlooked detail. But when you single them out, hang them up it makes them-“

“Special.” Namjoon finishes for you.

A gust of wind hits you, and you try to shrink further into your coat. Namjoon moves a little closer to you and asks “Coffee? Let’s get you something warm.”

Americano for him and hot cocoa for you turns into walking to the bus. But the next one isn’t for 15 minutes and you could be halfway home by then. “Let's just keep going til the bus catches up with us?” You’re already walking, trying to get a head start on Namjoons much longer legs.

“Sure, if you can keep up with me,” he winks and laughs, dimples popping.

God, you could look at him for hours. Why did you ever stop? His soft skin and bright grin, it all just made him seem so inviting. There’s something about today, it feels a little like when you first met, before Nina. Except instead of feeling like it’s just the two of you in the larger group, you really are alone. The first time this has happened in months.

The walk does warm you up. By the time you’re at the edges of Camden Town, the steady stream of chatter has morphed into a comfortable silence as your focus switches to dodging and weaving around the holiday crowds.

When you merge onto Camden High Road, a pack of very merry (read: drunk on mulled wine from the corner pub) people in Santa hats are bearing down on the two of you. Namjoon grabs your hand to move you out of the way. You’re pulled into his side, knocking into his soft coat and solid chest. You get a waft of scent, sandalwood, coffee, Namjoon. He looks down and chuckles, “You okay?”

You nod and grin, standing back a little to keep moving. Your heart beating a little faster. “Those were some very aggressive Santas.”

He starts walking again, but keeps hold of your hand. It feels like you’ve plugged into some kind of heat source, warmth and tingles running up your arm. And not just because Namjoon is basically a human space heater.

Once you’re off the main road and headed towards Primrose Hill, it’s less crowded. And it’s started to snow, just a little. Namjoon tucks your joined hands into his jacket pocket to keep them warm. This pulls you a little closer to him, walking so your arms are fully touching. When you round the corner, The Black Swan is across the street.

“Hey, want to stop for a drink? Warm up a little? I’m actually not pulling pints at 6pm for a change. And movie night doesn’t start til 9.”

Joon glances at his phone to check the time, “Yeah, that sounds-“ then stops in his tracks and cuts himself off groaning. He unceremoniously let’s go of your hand, you pull it back towards your body. His head tilted back and an exasperated look on his face. “Actually I can’t. I have kind of a date.” He starts rubbing behind his left ear and frowning a bit. “It’s a set u-“

“That’s okay!” You chirp, maybe a bit too eagerly, looking away from him. Trying to glance over your mild mortification at being turned down. The hand he was holding feels extra cold. Even if there was a good reason, you didn’t have to like it.

“I’ll just-“ you gesture awkwardly in the direction of your flat as you’re both just standing in the middle of the street.

“I’ll walk you,” he says warmly, that same open smile and - to your surprise - the hand holding, making a reappearance. “I have to go that way anyway. I’m meeting-“

“It’s okay, you don’t have to explain. I get it.” You put a smile on, your tone lightly self-deprecating. What you get is that of course Kim Namjoon has a date with someone. Probably more his type, someone sleeker, taller, more elegant. Tears prick at the corner of your eyes and you tell yourself it’s from the chill in the snowy air.

You’ve stopped outside your door. “It’s not such a big deal. I-“ He’s staring oddly at your face. A light from a street lamp hitting your eyes, making everything around him look very glowy. Your cheeks are very cold, snow is starting to gather on both of you as it picks up.

“You look,” he clears his throat. “Um, really nice- the snow….” And then he leans in and, to your surprise, kisses your forehead. “I’ll see you later, okay? I might still make movie night.” Smile popping he looks at the ground shyly and then back at you.

“Okay,” you repeat so quietly it’s almost a whisper that turns to giggles when he trips a bit on an uneven bit of sidewalk. When he’s steady again, he turns and waves. “What the actual f just happened?” You whisper to yourself.

—

Joon does make it back for movie night. He shows up at your place around 9:30, a bottle of wine in one hand, your favorite salt and vinegar crisps in the other. You’re cross-legged on the couch when Tae lets him in. Joon fills your wine glass and sits on the floor in front of you. Twenty minutes later his head is resting on your knee while you gently stroke his hair.

You didn’t realize you were doing it until he pushed his head into your leg when your fingers stopped moving. You start again, relishing the feel of the soft strands between your finger tips. He gives a contented hum, resting the side of his head on your leg.

This feels so good, being so close to him. All this touching, this time, this affection. It’s heavenly. Something you barely even let yourself daydream of before.

But also…he has a date but is kissing your forehead? You’re stroking his hair? It is all kind of exciting but so confusing. Last time you got your hopes up, he wound up with someone else. It’s scary, it’s exhilarating. Is it real?

——

You walk into Jimin and Yoongi’s cafe booth en route to another Sunday shift at the pub wearing your ugliest Christmas sweater. You’d picked it up at a charity shop a few years ago. It looks like it was hand knit, but someone mixed all of the colors up. It was crazy itchy, but for some reason fits you in all the right places.

You’d been to the booth every other day for the last week or so. Some days staying for an hour chatting with them.

Jimin greets you at the counter with a scoff, “I’m offended, you look great in this ugly christmas sweater. This is a scam. No free cookie for you!”

“What? You wound me with your words, Jimin!” You feign offense. “And I didn’t want a cookie anyway,” you huff with a grin. “I’ll just have a hot coco-ohhhhhhh! What the hell is that?!”

You notice movement on the cookie racks. You gasp and shudder at the same time, is it some kind of rat?! You turn away, closing your eyes, and run smack into Yoongi.

“Oh, hi! Sorry! It’s just, ummm, I think there is a problem on that cookie shelf? I saw something moving.” You gesture wildly behind you not wanting to look back, rodents really creep you out.

Yoongi takes your arm, “_______, it’s okay. It's not a rat or anything.”

You open your eyes a little bit and look at him. He nods encouragement and you turn and squint at the rack.

He’s right, it's not a rat.

It’s the cookies.

The shelf is lined with gingerbread men who are moving. Some are standing, others walking. They are going back and forth between a pile of marshmallows in the back corner and a group of makeshift stools made out of round peppermint hard candies.

When they sit down, the gingerbread men take out tiny knives and start caving the marshmallows into snowflake shapes.

“Whaaaaaaaaa…” is the only sound that can come out of your mouth. Your eyes might fall out of your head. “Am I- Is this- What is happening? Is this CGI?” You start to walk towards them with your hand out. Some of the gingerbread men turn away, one closest to you stands and waves. You gasp.

“Jimin. Yoongi.” You are whispering. “This is real?” You are bent low to look into the shelf. “They’re alive.”

“Not really-“ Jimin starts.

“I just saw someone walking out eating one! That’s murder!” You interject.

“Well technically they’re not really alive, just animated with faerie dust. And they kind of seem to like it a bit? Being nibbled on?” You did not think your eyes could get any wider.

“Kinky little freaks.” Yoongi smirks.

You swear one of the cookies stops carving and winks at you with it’s icing eye. You can just kind of nervously laugh, your grip tightens on the edge of the counter.

“Let’s just get it out of the way. We’re part faerie. Well, we think. We’re mostly human. Our Great Great Grandma got a little freaky with her local wood sprite or something and here we are. Gingerbread men cookies making marshmallow snowflakes.” Yoongi details this as if he was reading a grocery list.

Jimin chimes in, “Only other benefits are: we have a really fantastic vegetable garden without trying very hard, occasionally we can hear the moon singing, and sometimes Yoongi glows in the dark. It's very fun at parties, but that also might just be his skin.”

Yoongi mock glares at Jimin and whacks his arm. “Oh, and also we can see love.”

Now you are sure there is some kind of hallucinogen in your drink.

“Am I- what is in this cocoa?” You mutter. “You can do what now?” You look up at them blinking hard several times as if that could help you understand better.

“We can see love, we can see it around people, flowing between people, surrounding towns, buildings, moving across water.”

At this point you’re in shock, just playing along. You’d think he was a nutter, but you also did just see a cookie carving a marshmallow, so your current concept of reality is totally out the window. “And what does love look like?” The tone in your voice is wavering, are you amused or hysterical? Both?

“Basically exactly what you’d expect, sparkly, golden, sometimes tinged blue or pink or purple. An occasional turquoise highlight. Everyone’s color is a little different. Sometimes the kind of love has its own tone, platonic, familial, romantic.” Yoongi is so matter of fact, he could be discussing the weather or Newtonian physics.

“If things aren’t going well,” Yoongi continues softly, some emotion seeping into his voice, his eyes a little glossy. “It’s dull, cloudy, like a gathering storm. That can be…hard to see.”

“So you see this, what, all the time? Only when you want to?” You’re still kind of incredulous, but when you turned your head back to the cookie rack, one gingerbread man gestures for you to come closer. You move closer, because who are you to reject an enchanted baked good. He’s holding a finished carved marshmallow offering it to you. You hold out your hand and he places the marshmallow in your hand. It feels real, maybe this isn’t a dream?

“It’s kind of like white noise. It’s everywhere around everyone all the time. That movie wasn’t wrong, we are all surrounded by love, actually.” Jimin quips. Yoongi snorts a laugh and rolls his eyes.

“Jimin’s right, we can kind of focus on one person or two people, it makes it clearer, we can see the patterns.”

“I need…I need to sit down.” Knees suddenly weak, this is a lot. And the thing is you don’t not believe them? You’re questioning your own sanity a bit but it doesn’t seem as batshit as you think it should.

Yoongi brings you a chair and turns to get you a cup of mulled wine. The spicy, sweet scent perks you up a bit. And a sip warms and relaxes the tension from your earlier shock. You’re still holding the carved marshmallow in your hand. You squish it a little. Give it a lick. Seems real.

Feeling more alert and curious, you play along, “What about me? Can you see love around me?”

Yoongi and Jimin glance at each other.

“Yes.” Jimin says slowly. “But it’s usually not a good idea to share that. In the past…it’s caused some trouble-”

“It’s bright. And very sparkly.” Yoongi blurts out, blushing when you turn to him. You can feel his eyes dance over you around your head, your chest, which makes you feel a little shy til you realize he’s looking at your heart. “It’s has a pale lavender tint in places and parts of it look like it’s rolling, like it’s ramping up and wants to get out but…” he trails off.

“But what?”

“But it has nowhere to go.”

“Oh.” Tears spring to your eyes. You hadn’t thought of it like that. Unrequited love, love that isn’t returned, that you knew. That you have with Namjoon. You want to give your love to him so badly. But the thought that your love is waiting to be let out, that you might be holding it back. That you hadn’t considered.

“I know where I want it to- who I want- yeah.” You wipe a few fallen tears off your face and take in a deep breath. “Yeah. It might be nothing. What if we’re just friends with a little bit of tension? And I ruin it by loving him?”

“Well,” he looks around you again. “It’s not nothing from you. And nothing was ever ruined with love like this.” Yoongi looks right in your eyes.

“Can I see it now too? I’ve had quite a few of these marshmallows over the last couple of weeks.” You chuckle, attempting a lame joke to lighten the mood, to lift your spirits.

“Like magical snowflake marshmallows are going to make all your dreams come true?” Jimin giggles. “If only it were that easy.”

“Magic comes to people who open their eyes. Who really look. That’s why you can see the gingerbread workshop. They’re in there doing this all day and in the thousands of sales we’ve had, here and in our bakery, only one other person has noticed.”

“What happened to them?”

Yoongi’s face gets really red.

“Oh, Penelope? She and Yoongi are dating.” Jimin says with a smile. “Asking someone out is really easy when you can literally see if they like you.” Yoongi’s face gets redder.

“Sorry if this shocked you. No one ever notices. No one. And they actually seem to like you.” There are a few little cookie men standing at the edge of the tray waiting to offer you more marshmallows. “One of them stabbed Pen when she first saw them, so she ate him.”

“Guys, I appreciate that and feel special, but this is 100% Grade A Certified Insanity.”

“Well, welcome to the club. You try finding out your ancestor was a magical creature because your half-brother accidentally turned your face plaid when you were 5 years old.”

“That happened ONE TIME, Yoongi. Twenty years ago! I said I was sorry. And it was a Stewart dress tartan!” Jimin takes a breath and looks back at you. “I meant what I said, the marshmallows aren’t special, but you certainly are. Just keep looking. See what you see. It’s all really there.”

“My dude, that makes even less sense than the living cookies.” Yoongi rolls his eyes. You start to stand, and he takes your elbow to help you up.

“I have to go to work. You’re sure this cocoa is okay to drink?” You smile, still wondering a little if this is a dream.

“Yeah,” Yoongi says, bringing you in for a hug. He feels solid and real. It grounds you. “I think what Jimin was trying to say is - it’s not the food that’s special. It’s you.”

——-Friday, December 17th——

Another Friday, another movie Movie night, Namjoon sits next to you. You’d had class, hours in the studio, and then worked at the Black Swan. The movie started late this week, and you are wiped out. So ten minutes into another Avengers something or other, you start nodding off. After a few times of waking yourself back up again, you push your head into the couch, leaning slightly towards Namjoon.

Everything is blurry after that, you remember someone trying to wake you up? Tae maybe? You try and swat them away and eventually it works.

What you don’t see is your head tilting towards Namjoon. Or him nodding off too. Or how you lean into each other, your head on his shoulder, knees touching his. Or how Tae pulls a blanket over the two of you, smiling at Jin. Your closest friends are gently conspiring. Happy and hoping that maybe, finally, the two of you are figuring it out.

—

When you wake up around 3am, it takes a minute to orient yourself and remember that you fell asleep on the couch. You are also exceptionally warm, the “charming” (read: drafty) windows in this room make it hard to heat. It takes another minute to realize the source of that heat is the heavy arm slug across your body. And that arm is attached to Namjoon and he’s holding you against his chest.

For just a moment, you relax into this feeling of being held, of being so close to him. Namjoon's hand is soft on your waist. You can feel his chest rise and fall with his breath, rhythmically pressing in and away, in and away, against your back. You just let this sensation wash over you.

Then the discomfort starts to set in. From sleeping on the couch and not having washed up before bed, mainly because you really need to pee. But also this uncertainty about whatever is happening between the two of you.

You manage to extricate yourself from his embrace to use the bathroom, wash your face and brush your teeth. Then you tiptoe back into the living room and lean over to pull the blanket up on him. Stopping and looking for a moment at his sleeping face.

Can you see what Yoongi and Jimin see? If you look hard enough, open your heart enough? Could you see Namjoon’s love, what it looks like, where it goes? Who is lucky enough to receive it? Is it you, maybe, after all this time?

“What are you looking at?” He mumbles against the couch pillow, eyes still closed, his tone is soft. You startle a bit at his low voice breaking the silence.

“Come back to bed, love.” He tugs on your arm. Your heart is thumping. He thinks you’re someone else, somewhere else. Surely.

“Namjoon, Joon,” you shake his arm a bit. “It’s me, I’m not Nina.”

He sniffs in sharply, like he’s been started awake and cracks an eye, looking right at you. “Nina? What?” He lifts his head up, you can see where his hair has been smushed into the pillow. “Why are we awake?”

We…?

“Oh, it’s just you kept trying to pull me back…I thought…” He’s propped himself up now, head on his hand looking up at you, eyes half closed, but a small smile on his face.

“Trust me, I’m not confused about who I’m sleeping next to.” His hand, still on your arm, starts to move up and down.

“Oh.” Your breathing slows, your eyes drift from his to his lips and back again.

And just then you see it. Little bits of sparkle floating around him, near his eyes. It moves between the two of you. Joon’s hand alights on your shoulder to pull you closer. Those little flecks start moving faster.

It must be from a passing car or Tae left the Christmas lights on. It’s such an odd effect. You turn to look for the light source. The curtains are closed. The tree lights are off.

You look back, the mood shifted a bit. The little flecks of light are gone, it’s just Joon’s face. His lovely, sleepy smiley face. Back lit by the small kitchen light and nothing else. He looks down at where his hand is touching you. His thumb moving lightly in lazy circles. You swear you can feel every atom in your skin vibrate where he touches you.

“You fell asleep on me and I drifted off too, I woke up around midnight and the tv was off. Tae must have gone to sleep. Too tired to get up.”

He lies back down on the pillow, eyes closing. He moved back closer into the cushions, to make room for you.

You are not going to sleep another wink if you stay out here. You’ll probably be up for another hour at least just thinking about this entire situation.

So you pull the blanket up over his shoulders. “Are you warm enough?” He hums agreement. But when you start to stand he opens his eyes and he pouts a little, he places his hand on yours. “I’m going to sleep in my room, give you more space.”

“But I like sharing with you,” his eyes are closing again. But yours pop open at that.

“I think…I think we’ll both sleep better. Night, Joon.”

He lifts your hand and kisses your palm. It’s like an electrical current right to your heart. His eyes remain closed. “Night.”

You somehow fall back asleep around 6am, spending most of the intervening hours staring at the ceiling. He wasn’t awake, he didn't know what he said. He couldn’t have. Could he?

——

Walking into the kitchen the next morning, you're greeted by Namjoon making coffee in his gym clothes. Complete with sleeveless shirt. You forgot they had some early training session with Kookie today before their indoor football match.

Jeeze, why did you walk away from those arms? Oh right, cause he called you ‘love’ while half asleep. And it freaked you out. Because, even though you stayed up for hours thinking of different ways to deny it, he might have been talking about you.

“Morning.” You give him a little wave. Noticing his clothes reminds you that you're just in a sleep shirt and leggings.

“Morning,” he replies. His voice sounds octaves lower first thing, even deeper than last night, with a little gravelly edge. The air between you seems tight, like an elastic band. You feel pulled to stand right near him.

“Did you sleep okay with more room on the couch?” You’re just gently poking around the edges of last night.

“Kind of,” he gives you a small, not-quite-awake smile. He hands you a mug of tea. He must have boiled water just for you. He moves closer, his hand reaching out to your shoulder, your body aligning with his as he draws nearer. “I meant it, I really didn’t mind sharing the couch with you.”

“Oh, me either.” You smile a little, sure your face must be hot pink right now. Your eyes flit around his face, always moving back to his lips.

His tongue moves out to lick his lips and your breath starts coming out in shorter, faster bursts. “I kind of really liked it, actually…” and he moves closer just as Jin comes bursting through your front door.

“Let’s get it!” He shouts from the door. “Come on, boys!” When no one answers, you hear him start down the hallway.

You and Namjoon move your heads back at the noise, but then he gently presses his forehead to yours, briefly closing his eyes.

“I really liked it, too,” you whisper.

When Jin enthusiastically jumps in the doorway of the kitchen, you and Namjoon are standing next to each other sipping your drinks.

“You’re not Tae!”

“What?!” You should incredulously, staring at your arms, looking shocked. “I’m not!?” You start cracking up. Namjoon chuckles, the feeling of his arm bouncing against yours makes you want to lean into him. To have his arms around you. Again, why did you walk away from that last night, you id-

“Trust me, if you were, it would be much easier to get Joon to go work out.” Jin jokes.

You straighten up a little at this, your face feels so hot. You give Joon a sideways glance and he’s also flushed, and kind of glaring at Jin, who is now laughing harder.

—— Friday, December 24th ——

The week passes in a blur of shopping and working and parties. Your conservation studio party, your graduate program, even the Soane Museums invites you to their holiday drinks. Namjoon and you have been texting constantly, more than ever before. So when Christmas Eve rolls around that Friday, you’re buzzing to see him again.

He and the boys will meet you at the pub, since you’re working the epic annual Black Swan Christmas Eve party. All the tables have been moved to the side for dancing, the lights much lower than usual.

They roll in around 8, waving and shouting their arrival at the door. All coming over to hug you, even Jungkook made it out.

“Happy Christmas Eve,” Namjoon whispers in your ear as he comes around the bar to give you a long, tight hug. You let yourself bask in this attention, resting your head on his chest while he holds you. “I’m going to sit with the boys, but no matter what, I’ll walk you home after you close? That way I can be the first to see you on Christmas Day.”

“That sounds good.” You smile up at him, pretty sure your entire body temperature rises every time he is near. He squeezes your shoulder and heads back to the guys.

Tonight you are going to tell him. Tell him how you feel, what his friendship and affection mean to you. To finally see if he feels the same. You’d been guessing for too long, maybe he had been too. Even if he doesn’t return it. Even if you can’t be friends any more. Your love is a gift you wanted to give to him and yourself.

The night gets raucous quickly, you see so many locals, some who bring you little presents. There is a growing collection of fruit cakes under the bar. Your manager Sam and her partner RM are there. Tae brings his MD, Claire. Jimin and Yoongi and Pen stop by, bringing a box of cookies. They laugh as you look visibly relieved when none of the baked goods move.

Even Nina makes an appearance. She was part of your group for a while this year and doesn’t live far. She waves and you wave back at her, that’s nice she still made it.

It feels like you blink and it's 10:30. Last call. Yoongi and Pen have left, Claire and Jimin are cozy in a corner, nice work Jimin! Tae and Jin are nearby laughing at something. You keep scanning the crowd still waiting to get drinks. And then you freeze, nearly dropping the pint glass you’re filling.

On the opposite side of the pub from your friends, Nina has her arms around Namjoon’s neck. One of his large hands is holding her close to him? Or is he holding her upright? It’s hard to tell in the crowd and the dim pub lights. He’s looking at her, but it’s hard to tell the expression on his face in the dark pub from this distance.

What’s not hard to tell is that now she is kissing him.

Nina is kissing Namjoon in your pub on Christmas Eve. The night you were maybe going to tell him how you feel, to let that love out.

Except this isn’t your pub really, and Namjoon isn’t yours either.

It seems even darker now for some reason, did the fairy lights around the bar go out? You can barely see as Namjoon leads Nina out of the front door. Not even turning to look back at you.

Your heart feels like a clay pigeon just shot out of the air - heavy, broken, part of some kind of cruel pantomime.

The rest of the night is a blur. The crowd and your friends feel louder, almost grating around you. Their hugs and well wishes knocking into you like waves pounding a boat in rough seas. Their good cheer buoys you a bit, but it still feels like your heart is made of cement.

You didn’t drink anything but can barely remember how you got to your front door a few hours later after closing up. It has started to snow. There was a decent amount of slippery slush under your feet, your regular sneakers were soaked but you didn’t even notice til you were pulling off your wet socks.

Plugging in your phone, there is a message from Namjoon.

Joon: : Taking a very drunk Nina to her flat. I will be back to walk you home. [22:08]

: : Okay. Just checking are you alright? [23:45]

No response. The message stays on ‘Delivered’ as you stare at it.

That was nearly two hours ago. And no other messages. You bury your face in your pillow. Maybe…maybe it was the snow? A phone problem? Is he okay? Why text if… you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but what do you have to hold on to? You were maybe, almost a thing before. And then he chose Nina. Maybe it’s happening again.

And ‘maybe’ seems to be all you have with Namjoon. Maybe he feels the same, maybe he just likes bantering with you. He almost kissed you, but maybe he’s in bed with his ex right now.

The only certainty is - it is Christmas Day and you are alone.

—Christmas Day—

You wake up on a surprisingly bright Christmas morning because your lovely, but currently very annoying, roommate is opening your curtains.

“Tae.” You moan pulling the covers over your eyes. “Why, Tae? I thought we were friends. What time is it? That light is so loud.”

“It’s 8am and it’s snowed a lot!!!! It’s so pretty outside.”

You wince at the time, but his enthusiasm makes you smile a little. Despite still feeling like you have a brick sitting on your heart.

Tae is now bouncing up and down next to you, getting higher and higher the longer you stay hidden. “Get up! Get up! It’s Christmas!”

“Tae! Yes, yes, Happy Christmas, love you lots, now please stop jumping on the bed.”

Tae calms himself down a bit, you see his fingers around the edge of the comforter as he slowly pulls it over your eyes. He’s holding your stocking in his hands, you both collect gifts for the other from your friends.

He notices your eyes - red and puffy. “Oh wait hold on, what happened?”

Your face crumples a little bit as you sit up. You’d been trying to push down the tears. You’d never told anyone about your feelings, but you were also a terrible poker player.

“Joon left with Nina last night.” Tae’s head jerks up in response to this. “I saw them kissing right before. I just thought-“ You tilt your head back, blinking rapidly. “I thought I saw the signs that he liked me too. But maybe it’s like last time, I’m not what he wants, really. This is what I hate about the holidays; it reminds me of what I never had.”

He takes a breath, “It’s not mine to share fully, but I don’t know if you misunderstood anything about how Joon feels about you. What I can say is what I’ve seen when the two of you are together. And I think you need to open his gift.”

He squeezes your hand and stands to leave, “But don’t take too long, you need to pick up the cookies for Christmas lunch and we need enough time to walk to your parents in all this snow.”

You nod, still looking at the gift, it feels like a book. You and Tae needed to be at your parents’ at noon and you’d placed a cookie order with Jimin a few days ago. Some stalls were going to be open today for last minute gifts and food.

He leaves, closing the door behind him, and you slowly open the package. It’s a hardback Moleskine notebook, landscape orientation, a little wider than a postcard. When you open it has your name and the date inside the cover in Namjoon’s writing.

The pages have postcard versions of some of your favorite pieces of art. The cards are taped on, so you can lift them up. Namjoon’s written the date you saw them together and a note on each one.

June 12th, Turner Room. Namjoon’s note here looks like it’s been censored, reflecting your disagreement. You laugh as you turn the page to see Maurizio Cattelan, Horse - Tate “‘That weird horse.” - Kim Seokjin’ is the only comment on that page.

February 17th, Caspar David Freiedrich “Winter Landscape” at the National Gallery, Agnes Martin at Tate Modern, it goes on and on. He even included a postcard from the Soane Musuem, he just have gone back because the gift shop was closed when you were there. A quarter of the book is filled, leaving room for you to add more.

The last one:

March 23rd, Barbara Hepworth, “Pelagos” at the Tate: The rare one we agree on. Beautiful lines, curves I want to run my hands over, contained passion, timeless calm born out of a tumultuous time. My absolute favorite.

A tear runs off your cheek and lands on the page. You wipe your eyes, and check your phone. No new messages. Deep breath in, you choose to believe what you see. What you can hold in your hands - this gorgeous, thoughtful gift. The times Namjoon held your hand, the times he made you laugh, remembered what you like, the passion he uses when he speaks to you. You focus on letting your love out, even if you risk it not being returned.

—

A few stalls are open at the market, mainly bakeries and florists, so people can pick up a few last minute things. Yoongi looks sleepy, but the cafe smells amazing. You give the little gingerbread men a wave when you arrive. There are only a few of them lazing around and they wave back.

Yoongi walks around the counter to greet you. “Is everything okay? I’d wish you a Happy Christmas,” he is frowning and looking at the space around your head. “But it seems like maybe something happened?”

Oh right. You’d forgotten, they can see how your heart feels, how uncertain you feel right now. Yoongi reaches out and hugs you tight. You lean into it for a second and let out a big sigh.

“Well, I can wish you a Happy Christmas, and thank you. Thanks for being my friend and for this big ass box of cookies.”

You lift up the box from the counter and turn around to leave, when in runs a harried, out of breath Namjoon. He’s in his clothes from last night, his hair stuck up at the same angle as when he slept on your couch. His shoes are wet, snow covering the bottom of his pants.

“Hi. Tae. Said. You’d. Be here.” He’s still catching his breath and the words come out staccato, he’s bent over, hands on his knees. “So I ran. It is very snowy. And mostly uphill.”

You wave at him, but feel frozen to the spot.

“Oh wow,” Jimin has walked out from the back of the cafe and is looking all around you. Yoongi standing next to him, he takes the boxes so your hands are free. He looks at you and nods, then a huge grin blooms on his face. “I wish you could see what we’re seeing.”

But the thing is you do. Namjoon looks like he’s surrounded by exploding fireflies, there are sparks popping around his head when he looks at you. They’re zooming between your bodies. The ones coming from you are slower to start but quickly ramp up, Namjoon’s swirling around them giving them energy. It lights up the air between you.

His words come out in a breathless rush: “She was drunk and kissed me. I asked her to stop, and she did. Said she was sorry, that it was a mistake. I just took her home and left her at the door with her roommate.”

“Oh, Joon,” you take a step closer to him. The lights and sparks get brighter, they make his face glow.

“It was snowing so hard, I couldn’t find a cab. And then my phone died, so I walked home. And passed out before my phone turned back on. I woke up and came to find you.”

Your hand lands on his shoulder, sliding down as he stands up.

“I would never- I swear. It’s you I want, if you’ll have me. I’m so sor-.“

You stop him by placing your hands on his chest.

You’re moving closer. You can see the mole on his nose, the soft crest of his lips. “I’m going to kiss you now, alright?” You smile as your hands read up to cup his face, he nods.

His lips are so soft and warm. Yours linger for a bit. This feels better than you had even dared to imagine. You need to give your brain time to catch up with your body. Because it's finally happening, you’re kissing Namjoon. When you move back a bit, it’s like inside a snowglobe, sparkly lights swirling all around you.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long. You have no idea,” you whisper, your lips are still hovering, your noses touching.

Namjoon chuckles, kissing your cheeks and your forehead. “I might. I’ve liked you for forever. I just didn’t want to ruin anything. Which, in retrospect, is really fucking stupid.”

You nod, running your hands up and down his back, nuzzling into his neck.

“I don’t care if it ruins it,” he continues. “I don't want to just be your friend. I love being around you, I love touching you. I don’t want to hold back any more.”

You laugh a little, tears pricking at the corner of your eyes, “Joon - I love you, too.”

He kisses you again. This time it’s slower, his lips pressing harder, his tongue caressing yours. It feels like those sparks are lighting all over your body now, popping on your skin and spurring you on. “I love you,” he pants out in between your mouths meeting.

You’ve lost all sense of time and location. You’re just focused on him, on how he feels, on the love surrounding you. Then you hear someone clear their throat. The two of you stop confessing and full-on making out in public and, arms still wrapped around each other, look over at Jimin.

He is standing still holding the box of cookies, tears streaming down his face. Yoongi is next to him, grinning ear to ear.

Yoongi moves towards you, “This is beautiful, really, I’m so happy for you,” he beams. “But there are, kind of, some other people behind you in line now?” You look over and three people are waiting to pick up their Christmas orders. One lady is also crying and smiling at you, the others start clapping.

Both blushing, you and Namjoon untangle and he takes the box from Jimin. He insists on paying for all of the people in line who had to wait as an apology, while you hug your friends goodbye.

Walking out of the market hand in hand, Namjoon asks, “So you liked it? Your gift?”

“I got two gifts today,” you smile playfully pushing him with your shoulder. “But yes, I love it. Love them both actually. Did you get a chance to open mine?”

“Not yet, I really did just run out the door. At least I remember to put shoes on. I’m realizing now, I might have left my keys at home.” He starts patting his pockets.

“Well I can give you a spoiler if you want?” He nods.

“It’s a set of limited edition, coconut scented, ‘Starry Night’ air fresheners.”

He looks very confused and laughs, “Okay, what?”

“It was meant to be a stocking stuffer! Something insignificant! I thought you’d laugh.” You say defensively as he shakes his head. “I bought it for you when you had a girlfriend, I wanted to keep it light! I didn’t know you were going to make me something so damn thoughtful and romantic!”

“When I had a different girlfriend you mean.”

“Huh?”

“When I had a different girlfriend. Not the one I have now, if you want that too? I don’t want to waste any more time pretending that I don’t want to be yours. I really, really do.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. It is.” You’re smiling so hard your face aches. This is so much, all that you’ve wanted. It should feel overwhelming, but it feels like everything is finally, actually where it should be.

You pull his hand to your mouth and kiss it. He responds by pulling you into a doorway, taking you in his arms, and kissing you senseless. Tae and the cookies and Christmas and everything will just have to wait.

——Friday, December 31st——

“Tae! Put the inflatable reindeer down. That is just disrespectful at this point. Let’s go out for the fireworks!” Jin is shouting at Tae who is on the table dancing with a blow up Rudolf.

It’s day two of Tae’s Drinking and Occasional Skiing Trip and things are already kind of going off the rails.

Jimin, Yoongi and Pen, Hobi and Ana, Jungkook, Jin and Colleen are there, some with partners. Claire has come with Jimin and they’ve been attached at the face since they got here. And Tae is your delightful, if slightly manic, ring master.

Walking outside to wait for the fireworks the ski resort is setting off at midnight, you don’t need to guess where your love is. Out of the full group of nearly 20 people, all you can see is him. When you look for it, his love for you shines brighter than any firework, the light in your heart surrounding him.

“I wish we could count this as our anniversary,” Namjoon says softly, with a hint of sadness. You are wrapped up in his arms watching the explosions in the sky.

“Oh, why? I think Christmas Day is a lovely anniversary.” You layer your arms on top of his and give him a squeeze.

“I meant last year on this trip. I thought you were so hot and I didn’t do anything about it. I was so stupid.”

“You whaaat? Really?”

“Yeah, then you had to ruin it by opening your mouth,” you turn and look at him in mock outrage. “And then I knew you were smart and funny and hot. Which makes me extra stupid.” He kisses your cheek and down your neck, your eyes close, head tilting to give him more access.

“That’s how I like ‘em, baby, cute and dumb,” you joke and you can feel Namjoon’s smile against your neck. “So we’re both idiots. But we’re here now, and it’s good. Really good.”

He hums an agreement, kissing along your jaw, down your throat. “But…” he says gently grazing his teeth over the skin just under your ear, followed by his plush lips. You close your eyes and let out a low sigh, completely forgetting where you are. “We could have been doing that for a whole year.” The two of you hadn’t really left your bed in the days between Christmas and leaving for this trip.

You turn in his arms and kiss him fully. Mouths open, his hands slide under your ass, like he’s going to pick you up-

WHAP!

Tae, now sporting a huge Santa beer cozy hat, hits Namjoon with the blow up reindeer. “Save it for midnight, love birds!” Giggling, he runs away as Joon starts to chase him.

The countdown starts and Namjoon makes his way back to you, “Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!” Namjoon picks you up and swings you in a circle, kissing you, the sky lighting up all around.

Tae starts singing “Auld Lang Syne” while the fireworks are popping. But you can’t see them, you just see Namjoon, and your love bursting around him.

Part 2

——

Masterlist

JADE, HEAR ME OUT, OKAY? NAMJOON AS A DAD. That’s it, that’s all I’ve got. I’ll see myself out.

dadjoon is his final evolution, i’m sure of it. if he can raise a jungkook, he can raise an actual baby.

also, for purely selfish reasons, i have created girl dad!joon. i can picture him exploring with a teeny tiny daughter, making sure she knows all the cool science/nature stuff that society thinks little girls can’t/shouldn’t be excited about 🫠😵‍💫🥹

Fate was a funny thing.

For as long as you’d known him, Namjoon had always been honest that his greatest wish in life was to be a father. It shocked you back then, hearing a nineteen-year-old dreaming so openly about domesticity; especially when all his friends could focus on was how many clubs they could hit in the night ahead. But you knew it, even then, that Namjoon was a nurturer. He always was.

Although he wasn’t shy about expressing his emotions, you’d only seen him cry on a handful of occasions. One of those was when he laid eyes on the pregnancy test you held out, trembling with joy and - inwardly - a hell of a lot of panic. For the nine months that followed, people often asked what you wanted: boy or girl? With a sheepish smile, he always answered the same way - a boy, because he knew what that entailed.

Having a little girl? Well, that scared the shit out of him. That was unknown territory and if his sister taught him anything, it was that he had absolutely no idea what kind of strength and finesse it took to navigate the very unique difficulties of girlhood. He was terrified, he said, of fucking up - of making it all harder.

The next time you saw him cry was when he first laid eyes on your daughter. Watching him hold that wriggling, pink-faced angel, there’d been a knot in your stomach. You wondered to yourself if he was secretly disappointed not to have a son, even if he’d never say so. But over the past three years, he proved you wrong over and over and over again.

Fate made the right call - Namjoon was born to be a girl dad.

Sitting on your beach towel, you hugged your knees to your chest and rested your chin where they bent. It was the most at-peace you’d ever felt, lounging in that salty wind, even though the excited squealing up ahead had scared all the seagulls away.

Waddling on chunky legs next her father, Kim Yeong-Ja gripped the same hand that had crafted the braids bouncing against her shoulders. She stared up at him with palpable adoration - like her mother - and her eyes were sparkling wide with wonder - like her father. If you squinted, you could see the purple fingernail on his right index finger; the one she messily painted after barely even having to ask for his permission, receiving all the trust in the world.

“Ja, look!” Namjoon gasped as his hand dipped gently into the tide pool below. When he pulled it back out, whatever he now cupped in his hand was invisible to you. “Do you know what this is, baby?”

Yeong-Ja’s gasp was identical to her father’s. Then that little ham pulled her free hand to her cheek in surprise - another perfectly mimicked trait of his - before her tiny voice replied, “Mermit!”

His eyes crinkled above his all-consuming grin. It didn’t disappear when he bent over and kissed the top of her head, “Hermit crab! Good job, baby. You’re a genius, just like your mama.”

Your heart soared at her reaction, which was to turn and find you with her big, bright eyes and open-mouthed smile. She giggled like a fiend when you waved. You swooned.

“Show mama!” Yeong-Ja barely warned him before she took off, tugging him behind her. He swooped in and tucked her under one arm so she wouldn’t fall on the rocks but, out of respect, kept up her desired pace. Her belly laugh had become the soundtrack of the day. Like the tide below, it crashed over the sand and sprayed in every direction.

Soon enough, your two greatest loves came clambering up to you and dropped clumsily - but safely - on the other half of your towel. You could’ve sat there forever, counting their twin freckles; but there was now a very small child holding a very small crab near your face with extremely cautious hands.

There were two pairs of eager eyes blinking up at you.

“Wow, Jaja! Look at your little friend!” You gushed before pressing a kiss to her damp, chubby cheek, “Is daddy teaching you all about nature?”

There was a tiny wrinkle between two black brows. She corrected you gently, though it made your heart explode, “Mermits, mama.”

“Quite right, Ja,” Namjoon waved his hand in diplomatic agreement before resting it on the small of your back. He shot you a wink but maintained his otherwise serious expression, “Mermits, mama.”

I’d love a Drabble where namjoon takes me to see the tree lighting in NYC for the first time !! I’m a chubby reader btw!

nothing says christmas quite like mlk day! 🥴

established relationship au; ice-skating; namjoon is cold and you’re a lil clumsy, but wow does he love you.

It’s the kind of cold that shocks his system, standing in the middle of his first Manhattan winter. Namjoon had, of course, seen snow before, but not like this. So perfectly soft, falling like miniature clouds as if he’s standing in the center of a snow globe. None of the Hallmark movies you’d shown him did any of it justice.

And that’s saying something. Thanks to you, he’s seen a lot.

There aren’t adequate words to describe it, but Namjoon would settle for picturesque. Ahead, there’s an eighty-foot tree — a Norwegian spruce, he’d read — weighing fourteen tons. That’s the equivalent of eight cars, he’d told you on the subway trip over. It’s wrapped in eight kilometers’ worth of wire, bearing 50,00 LED bulbs. I feel bad for whoever pays that bill, you’d commented.

Still, Namjoon struggles to believe that anything could light up the way you had when you saw it.

Or the ice rink spread out before it. Or the crowd of people, dressed far more warmly than he was, buzzing nearly as excitedly as you. Or the pairs of ice skates Namjoon presented to you after slipping away without you — in your giddy trance — noticing his absence.

You take it all in with a wide-eyed wonder that heats him from the inside out. A warmth second only to your mitten-clad hands on his stinging bare fingers.

“I can’t make any promises that I’ll remain upright,” you warn him as you follow him onto the ice. You’re clinging to him for dear life as he glides backwards, pulling you gently with him as he goes. “But I can apologize in advance for potentially taking you down with me.”

Namjoon tries not to laugh, but it’s getting harder and harder to do. Your grin is laced with an adorable thread of panic as you wobble — a baby deer on legs you’ve just discovered for the first time — and it doesn’t dissipate as you continue moving.

He has to give you credit, though; you say yes to things that make you nervous — like this — because they make you nervous. That takes a special sort of fearlessness. The fact that you’ve got it in spades is just one of the thousand little things Namjoon loves about you.

There’s a moment where your right skate threatens to slip out from under you, but he grips you tight before that tiny squeal can properly exit your mouth. Your face burrows directly into his woefully thin jacket, where your self-effacing laughter tickles chest.

“You good, sweets?” Namjoon asks with an easy grin spreading over his face. He tilts his head to glance down at you as you glance upwards. He realizes then that he could stand perfectly still on this ice all night, looking at you instead of his surroundings, and the trip would still be worth it.

Pink-cheeked, either from the cold or your embarrassment, you return his smile. You chuckle, “I mean, I’m still upright, aren’t I?”

And even though he doesn’t care for peppermint mocha, the smell of it on your breath might be his new favorite scent. When Namjoon leans down and kisses you, it might be his favorite flavor, too.

“Think you can survive until they light it up?” He peeks at his watch, then he nods towards the tree up ahead, “Only three minutes to go.”

You nod firmly, a newfound determination taking root between the brows you furrow in concentration. “I can do it. Just — just don’t let go of my hand, okay?”

Namjoon presses a cold kiss to your forehead, just underneath your hand-knit hat, and echoes your conviction, “Wouldn’t dream of it, sweets.”

hello! i have a song for the game. Thank you for doing this!

I really like Anywhere by Rita Ora and Namjoon.

thank youu x

oh this was such a cute song! 10/10

listen here

ft. boyf!joon, a whole-ass adventure across Europe in the span of 30 days, reader getting zooted after consuming the tiniest bit of an edible.

just take me anywhere / take me anywhere / anywhere away with you

Until now, every bit of your month-long trip across the European continent had gone according to plan.

Well, plan was generous.

Apart from identifying locations in each of your favorite books; purchasing all necessary travel tickets; and making hotel reservations, there had been no real plan. It was simply you and the best boy, taking in whatever sights you could. Good wine, even better cheese, and perfect company.

You’d left Korea on the first of November, landing in London and staying for two days. The turn-around was almost as quick as the Eurostar, projecting you onward over the rails to Paris. Most of those four days were spent nudging Namjoon along through the Louvre, wondering if he’d ever willingly leave. Begrudgingly, after several hours, he did — no assistance from security was necessary.

The first of your horrifying, turbulent, rickety, budget flights — in a tin can with wings — had delivered you to Barcelona. The second carried you to Milan, with your death grip on Namjoon’s hand lasting for the duration of your time in the air. After train rides from Milan to Rome, then Rome to Venice, a bus had carried you off to Salzburg.

When you’d found yourself in those living, Sound of Music hills, you didn’t even have to ask. Namjoon — without question or comment — joined you in spinning like a fool until you both dropped dizzy in the grass. Maybe it was the altitude, but you could’ve sworn the “I love you” he‘d murmured in that moment hit a little harder than usual.

A train to Vienna, a bus to Budapest, then — gulp — another panicked flight; this time to Kraków. Two days there, then — with a whine and several glasses of its homophone, downed quickly at the airport bar — a fourth flight to Prague. Shortly after, you’d boarded a train to Berlin.

By your fifth low-cost, high-anxiety flight, Namjoon had discovered an antidote. If you were at least as high as the plane itself, the creaking of that tiny, shaky hunk of metal was significantly less upsetting. It was fitting, after all, landing in Amsterdam while still floating off one (1) quarter of an edible.

God, what a light-weight.

Your incessant giggling had been overpowered by Namjoon’s, though he was stone-cold sober — just thoroughly amused. There, the two of you realized you’d made a mistake: the phallogical museum you were fascinated by was in Iceland, not the Netherlands.

On the subsequent train ride to Bruges, you’d vowed to hit the world-renowned dick museum on your next trip. Your current trip was now at its end, leaving you to scurry off to Brussels for a commercial flight back to Incheon.

Unfortunately, inclement weather had grabbed Belgium in a chokehold.

With your backs pressed against the wall, you and Namjoon sat weary on the floor near your gate. Your respective legs were sprawled out in front of you. Head resting on your shoulder, Namjoon spent a large portion of your wait in the liminal space between the dream and waking worlds.

If there had been any local hotels available for the night, he might’ve actually gotten some proper rest — in a bed, but likely still using you as a pillow. Instead, you were stuck where you sat: huddled together in the same terminal you’d been in for many, many hours.

Languidly, you traced mindless patterns into the denim fabric holding onto his quads for dear life. You sighed through a frown as you glanced down at him, “I’m sorry we can’t seem to get home, love.”

Too tired to move, Namjoon merely mumbled from where he’d nestled into your side, “Home is anywhere with you.”

if this is all we can do | knj

→ sequel to “hey, it’s me.” and “hi, namjoon.”

✰ pairing: namjoon x gn!reader (idol au) ✰ warnings: what is this? angst? fluff? two idiots finding their way back to each other against the odds? exes-to-lovers? ✰ word count: 1.4k ✰ note: this is a sequel to “hey, it’s me.” and “hi, namjoon.” surprise, i reunited them! inspired by irl namjoon's reflections on loneliness.

✰ listened to: closer (with paul blanco, mahalia) - RM

—

"I'm afraid."

You hear it, in his voice. That wavering, stretched-thin quality it takes when he's unsure of himself and what he's about to say. When he's thinking out loud, off the cuff. You study the expanse of skin on his bare chest.

"Of what?" you murmur.

He closes his eyes. Shifts so that he's lying on his back, pulls the sheet over his naked bottom half. Folds his hands behind his head, and lets out a soft sigh—the one that’s resided in the background like an incessant soundtrack, for years now. A rush of air carrying the world on its shoulders. 

“The future. Everything. I don’t know….”

His voice coils tight, then breaks. The words disappear, drowning in a tear-soaked ellipsis. He throws his forearm over his eyes and turns away. You wish he didn’t feel like he had to hide.

“Namjoon,” you say quietly. 

“I want this. Want you.”

“I know.”

“I just don’t know how.”

You think it might have been a mistake, coming here. But the box full of his things had been collecting dust under your end table for weeks, now: a pair of AirPods, a pen with the cap chewed beyond recognition, a couple of silver rings, a hairbrush. An unopened bottle of whiskey that he’d promised to drink with you one day. A half-filled journal you’d been too afraid to open.

Bring it over, he said, sounding unsure even as the words left his mouth. We should talk, anyway.

No, you shouldn't have come. Because one look at his face—worn into the ground, creased with worry lines, but eyes softening and burning like molten lava when they landed on you—and you folded.

So much for ending things. So much for the deleted voicemail, the missed calls, the photos you swept into a box to look at again someday—when time had created enough of a cushion for you to freely fling yourself into a pit of reminiscence, of nostalgia. 

(Your favorite one is a shot of him falling asleep on a subway car. You remember staring at it for hours after your much-abused Instax camera churned it out. Taking it with you and pinning it up in a surreptitious spot in your office, to look at when work got unbearably tough. 

When being without him felt like starvation. When each day that passed hollowed out another chunk of your soul, chipping away piece by piece at your sanity.

You've gotten used to that feeling since then.)

And how frighteningly easy it was, to let him fold you into his embrace, disguised as a warm welcome for an old friend. How easy it was to agree when he asked if you wanted to stay for a little bit. When he asked if you wanted a glass of wine. When he asked do you want this? Want me?

Of course you wanted. You were always wanting. That had been the problem in the first place.

Namjoon might be your greatest weakness, and you wonder if he knows it. He must know—even if he has no idea how startlingly beautiful you find him, he must know he holds your heart in his hands. Even after all this time.

Might feel a bit more like manipulation, except he's so wholly and blatantly unaware of how much power he holds over you. When he calls, you answer. Simple as that.

How has he not figured that out yet? That he's your drug, tailor-made for you, flowing through your veins as easily as water? So addictive and so satiating that you couldn't walk away, even if you wanted to.

Does he know you'll always stay? That if he just asked, if he just asked you to wait for him, you would—without a moment's hesitation? Does he need you as deeply as you need him, badly enough to ask that of you?

"You... want me," you repeat, after holding him for a while. It feels domestic, cradling him like this as the room darkens—as the shapes in his room grow formless, colorless. It gives you a weird sense of permanence. Like being here at 5 PM, instead of at midnight or 3 AM, is special, somehow. 

Better. Safer. More real.

He always did know how to make you feel special. Without even trying.

"I do. I want you. Whenever I come back home, whenever I'm leaving for a schedule. In the morning. At night. I just want you, here. Waiting for me."

You feel your sinuses start to sting.

"I know you have a life. God, I know you have so much more to do in this life than wait for me. But I...."

He stops short of saying the words, breath catching in his chest. Your hand stops moving up and down his arm. Pauses at his shoulder. Say it. Please say it, because I'll do anything for you, Namjoon. 

No matter how much it hurts me.

He's a coward, you think, letting the silence speak for him like this. Lingering, stagnant, holding its breath. Until he says, "Please love me."

Please love me. Your throat closes up. 

Please see that I love you, too. Too much to let you go. I don't know what I am without you, and it scares the shit out of me. So please... just love me, too.

You speak slowly. "I never stopped, Joon."

"I'm afraid,” he says again. “Of ruining you. Of letting you see me, all the parts that I don’t want other people to see. I can’t ask you to come back when… when I can’t tell you what the future holds for me. For us.” He takes a deep breath, releasing a shuddering exhale into the hollow between your neck and collarbone. “I can’t ask you to come back when I’ve hurt you already.”

You’re hurting me now, Joon. But I’m willing to let you hurt me a million times over, if it means I can love you. “I never left. I’ll never—I’ll never stop waiting for you, Namjoon. You’re part of me.”

His hand tightens on your hip. Digs into the flesh there, like he’s scrambling for purchase. Desperate to hold on. It’s not painful, but it’s sharp enough to make you gasp. “You said—that we should move on,” he says. A plea.

“I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean any of it. How… how could I let you go? I need you.”

He lets out a small noise. Like you’ve pressed on a bruise.

“You were born to be loved, I think.”

A tear drops to your skin, leaves a trail in the valley of your chest. “You said that we changed. That we’re different. I hated myself for that. I hated that I wasn’t the same person you fell in love with.” 

“I said that because I wanted to let you go. So badly. But don’t you see? I can’t live without you.”

“Stop,” he says, the word tripping out on a sob, a gasp. “Stop.” 

He’s afraid. Of what? Of being loved, exactly as he is.

“You,” you whisper into his hair, bringing your fingers up to card through it, “you're everything to me, Namjoon. You're the same person I've always loved. Can’t you see that I love you? That I’d just wait for you if you asked?”

“I don’t know how,” he says again. More tears, collecting in the well of your neck. “I don’t know how to ask.”

“You don't have to,” you manage, a few tears of your own falling into his hair—his thick, dark hair, threaded through with strands of silver, so captivating that you find yourself imagining an entire future with him. “Because even if this is all you can give me, if this is all we can do, I’ll stay. Right where I am.”

He raises himself up now so that his eyes are level with yours, and then he just regards you. Quietly, heavily. Like he’s too afraid to move, or speak.

“You’re enough, Joon. Just as you are.” You lift a hand to press your palm against his cheek, and he leans into it—lets out a breath that sounds an awful lot like a sigh of relief.

He kisses you. A seal on your promise.

It’s not an answer, not really, but it comes pretty damn close.

—

ahhhh omg would you write namjoon + holding back by BANKS

holding back | knj

✰ pairing: ex!namjoon x f!reader (divorced au) ✰ warnings: angst; divorce; ripped the lyrics from the song mentioned above; a tangent on family law that is probably incorrect idk; an ill-advised attempt to climb a person and break into a house; crying; namjoon’s specific brand of longing (he’s a simp i’m sorry); implied reunion ✰ word count: 1.2k ✰ note: ty for the request, sweet friend!!! please note that i did take a class on family law. however, i was dicking around the entire time, and also the law is made up, and also none of this should be taken as legal advice because i am not an attorney (yet). thanks (also i promise this is the last namjoon angst for a while lmao i’m so sorry)

—

These days, the fucking window is what haunts Namjoon most.

You’d insisted on giving him the house in the divorce. He remembers the look on his lawyer’s face when he tried to argue that you should keep the house. The lawyer’s infuriating calm as she explained that, because the property had been acquired during the marriage, it was considered communal, and thus subject to division—however the two of you agreed to do it.

And even if the two of you didn’t agree, you’d already agreed to take most of the other things the two of you had acquired during the marriage. Which meant a judge would probably just give him the house, anyway. Or order it sold, and have the two of you split the profits, and did Namjoon really want this house—designed by the two of you and custom-built, on a highly-coveted parcel by the river—given to a stranger?

Namjoon had never given much thought to how asset division worked. Never thought he’d needed to, really. And at the time, he thought it was generous of you. Too generous. 

Now, he’s thinking it might be a sentence. Live in this house. Remember your sins. Take stock of your demons. 

Now, he’s thinking he should have just taken the advice of everyone—and there had been many—who’d warned him to get a prenup.

Anyway, the window.

He sits back in his chair in the second-floor study. It’s the spot where he’s been going to mourn, lately. Where he goes when his fingers almost hit send, when he comes across a song on shuffle that seems to mock his specific brand of longing.

It’s that night he keeps going back to—the night you forgot the keys. Dumb, Namjoon thinks now, because every goddamn house in Korea has a keypad lock system now, but you’d been paranoid. Been scared that anyone could just walk up and see the worn-out sequence of numbers and deduce the passcode without much guesswork. Wanted to keep the house secure the old-fashioned way. 

And he gave in. Of course he did. He’d never been able to say no to you, even when you weren’t asking.

Except you forgot the keys, and obviously he hadn’t remembered the keys, and the sun had already sunk beneath the horizon when you turned to him, standing on the front step, with that look. The look you always got when you were planning something devious, something that would make him sigh in disbelief. The glint in your eyes, the quirk of your lip—he felt the headache coming on before the words even left your mouth.

Boost me, you’d said. Up to the second-floor window. You left it open again, didn’t you?

And he’d had to stand there while you climbed him like a tree, used the top of his scalp for the final boost—Namjoon swears there’s still a footprint there, a permanent indentation just to the left of his part. Stayed as still as he could while you popped the screen in and climbed through. Nearly had a heart attack when it looked like you were about to fall—threw his arms out to catch you, just in case—and then sighed with relief when you finally made it in. 

Really, it's the laughter afterward that he remembers. Melodic, sweet, floating out the destroyed window screen and spilling onto the sidewalk below. Laughter again when you opened the front door for him and caught the look on his face—thoroughly exasperated, but enamored all the same.

I love it when you look at me like that, you’d said, reaching up to kiss him. Like you can’t help but love me.

You were right, he thinks. He can’t help but love you. Can’t hold anything back when it comes to you.

You’d been so young, then. Both of you.

That fucking window. Tonight, he decides the swell of memories is enough for him to hit call.

He freezes when he hears the sound of you picking up. The sharp inhale—fuzzy with distance—has him stiff in his chair, fingers curling around the arm rest. Dumb, he thinks again, because he’s the one who called you.

“Namjoon?” you say, carefully. 

His heart sinks. Turns to stone, weighs him down. Not Joon-ah, or yeobo, or jagiyah, but Namjoon.

Your way of protecting yourself, he realizes. Protecting him, too.

It’s been a month since you moved out, but it feels like it’s been years when he opens his mouth, lips chapped and tongue arid from not having spoken very much at all—to anyone—since then. “I wrote you a song.”

He hears your breath catch. The hesitation. The air buzzing with the not-quite-silence of the phone line. “Oh.”

“Can I….” He stops, swallows. Walks over to his computer, where the file lays open—bare, exposed, raw and bleeding—and hovers over play. “Play it for you?”

“Okay.”

He closes his eyes, holds his phone closer to the speaker, and clicks.

Love is holdin' back I know I've done you wrong Did I say too much? (Love) Leave me, I'm alright I'll see you in the mornin' And lovin' is holdin' back And I have been in mournin'

Anythin' I want you more than all time I want you more than moonlight I want you more than sunshine I want you more than water I want you more than high tides So don't you say that our time is up Our time ain't up, oh-oh-oh-oh

He tries to hear the song the way you might be hearing it. The melody’s unpolished, still, jagged at the edges, but he likes the way he sounds in the end. Deep, aching melancholy, a man tortured.

The piano, though, is what gets him. He remembers fiddling with it, over and over, changing the chords every five minutes because he just couldn’t get it to sound quite right.

“What sound are you even going for?” his producer had asked, tugging a weary hand over his face.

“Her voice.”

He hopes it gets you, too.

The track stops. It’s short, less than two minutes long. He thought the length of it should mean something: the way the melody drops off, unceremoniously, with no warning. 

“Namjoon.”

“I’m sorry,” he gasps. He lets his head fall over the desk—grips the edge like it’s the only thing keeping him from falling apart entirely, watches as his tears expand on the wooden surface. “I’m sorry for not listening to you when I had the chance. I’m sorry I held back when I should have been open. I’m sorry I went too far. I’m sorry I let you go. I’m just… fuck. I’m fucking sorry.”

“Namjoon….”

“I know you wanted to be free.” Free of me. His lungs shudder, scrambling for air. “I’m sorry. But—fuck. Our time isn’t up. It can’t be up.”

Silence. He looks at the window again. Searches for you in its frame, in the long-replaced screen, in the swaths of ink-black beyond it, glowing hazy with light pollution. Searches for any piece of you, hoping it will make it hurt less.

“Namjoon, can you look out the window?”

He gets up, crosses the room so fast he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, because your voice isn’t just coming from the speaker on his phone—it’s coming from outside, too, floating through that window.

You’re standing there, looking up at him. When you speak again, it’s as sweet as he remembers.

“I’ve been missing you, too.”

—

Namjoon + “sibling’s best friend” except the sibling has been rooting for them to get together for years

combined with your other namjoon request 💕🫶🏻

Namjoon + “stuck in an elevator” bc god of destruction or simply bad luck idm either

the one with namjoon and the u-haul

ft. jeon!reader, moving day, a mild age gap, jk being a lil shit as usual, and blondejoon 🥵 (cw: claustrophobia / brief depiction of a would-be anxiety attack)

If you ever managed to get your hands on your brother, you might kill him.

Of course, you’d have to find him first — and if your sixteen unanswered calls were any indication, Jeon Jungkook might’ve left this mortal coil already. Unfortunately for you and the rented U-Haul parked outside your apartment building, you needed that evasive little shit and his inhuman stamina.

More importantly, you’d needed him an hour ago when that rental clock started ticking.

The minutes you’d burned up already — firing text after unacknowledged text at your twin — were ones you’d quite literally pay for later in the form of late fees. Jungkook knew this, knew you, knew that your neurotic, Type-A brain had calculated exactly how much time would be needed for the two of you to orchestrate your cross-town move. Just like he knew you were simultaneously too weak to move these boxes yourself; and too poor to shell out for the full-day rental package or professional movers.

And yet, there he wasn’t.

You’d worn crop circles into the carpet already with your relentless pacing. One more step, and the pedometer built into your Apple Watch might give up altogether, explode into a cloud of sparks around your wrist. Worse, it might send out an emergency alert to the nearest mobile crisis unit and get your ass pink-slipped. Maybe, you think, you should try being still for once in your life. 

You hit the brakes so suddenly that the inertia makes you wobble, but you don’t fight it. Instead, you let that anxious momentum drop you unceremoniously onto the nearby sofa.

The one was supposed to be loaded up an hour ago.

Not that you’re counting.

Just as soon as you slump with a huff into the cushions, a rhythmic knock at your door yanks you back to your feet. All you see is red as you stagger over a sea of cardboard boxes, wind your way through garment bags, odds and ends to reach the entrance to your apartment. Your hand snaps like a bear trap around the doorknob when you finally clear the obstacle course; and you nearly rip the door off its hinges when your rage propels it open.

The preparatory breath you’d sucked in — gunpowder in your lungs, ready to pop off at your unbelievably tardy brother — instead leaves you in a startled gasp:

“Oh, God.”

Immediately, your face begins to burn with embarrassment. You don’t know what to do with your hands, either; they’re still balled up into fists and ready to swing. Fuck! Sweaty palms! You wipe them furiously on the back pockets of your denim shorts and try to keep the rest of you from liquifying.

“Actually,” comes a surprisingly soft voice from a body so contrary, “It’s pronounced Namjoon.”

Oh, no, no, no, no.

Not that lopsided, tight-lipped smile.

Anything but that.

You, a fool, blurt out the obvious, “You’re not Jungkook.”

Of course, this offering is worthless. The twerp who entered this world three minutes before you was sixty-three minutes late; and his friend — the one you still can’t believe Jungkook manages to keep — was standing in his place. His older, smarter friend, whose massive hands you picture when you —

Kim Namjoon has a laugh that makes less noise the more he means it. Based on the melodic little hiss that erupts in response to your declaration, he finds your buffoonery hilarious.

You are not long for this world, you fear.

“Got me there,” he concedes. Looking up to find him beaming at you, you’re not surprised that staring at his grin — the one that shows all his teeth and makes his eyes crinkle — feels a lot like staring into the sun.

Don’t you dare faint. You’ve survived three years with that face. You can and will be normal about this.

As if that wasn’t enough, Namjoon has the audacity to lay his palm flush against the door jam above your head and lean down and — shit, his biceps just look like that? All the time?

You’re already a puddle at his feet when Namjoon hums, “Heard you needed an extra set of hands.”

You want to ask if he’s psychic — his hands, in any context, are precisely what you need — but you don’t. You clear your throat and throw on your best approximation of nonchalance. Cross your arms over your chest in a way you hope looks casual, tilt your head to the side. 

You raise a single eyebrow before responding, laying it on thick, “So, he lives, huh? Texts you but not his own flesh and blood? Sends his poor hyung as a proxy?”

“I have free will, you know,” Namjoon chides you without any real heat. “And a free afternoon, too.”

He then shrugs his shoulders before pointing over yours. The target he’s acquired sits at the very edge of your peripheral vision, a beast in velvet upholstery. His grin is downright impish when he continues, “Unless your plan is to yeet that couch straight off the balcony, I suspect your options here are limited.”

If you’d been given the opportunity, you’re confident that you may have come up with some witty remark. Instead of ongoing banter, you get a hand on either side of your waist, picking you up and moving your rag doll body out of the doorway. Namjoon smirks as he sets you down, ignores your slacked jaw, and invites himself into your apartment.

On his way to the couch, he spots something that catches his eye. He pauses, bends down towards a laundry basket full of assorted bullshit, and pulls out what can only be described as a cursed object. It’s your most hideous and most beloved possession, having joined you in every major move since you left your parents’ house: a ceramic shelf-sitter in the form of a rooster, the body of which is entirely made of sculpted fruits. 

Namjoon is absolutely baffled by it, open mouth forming a circle as he stares down at his discovery. You should be baffled, you think, it’s God’s ugliest creation. Then, as if the force of his quiet blinking was too much for it to handle, the bunch of bananas composing its tail feathers pops off and promptly falls to the ground.

Horrified, he watches in slow motion as it hits the hardwood below with a thump. You watch as his shoulders sag; unable to tell whether the fond little tug in your chest is based on your weird, broken art, or how completely crushed he looks.

“Ah, fuck. I’m sorry!” He gasps, ducking down to grab the runaway appendage. Fuck the bird — it’s him. Then, he mutters directly to the object looking laughably small in his palm, “What’d you do me like that for? Rude as hell.”

Instinctively, you cross to where Namjoon stands in the center of your living room. When you reach him, you feel him brace himself for your reaction; but all you do is bend at the waist, grab a small tube of super glue from that same laundry basket, and hold it up. He glances from your fingers to your face.

“A must-have when you break shit as often as I do,” you chirp. Then, you gesture with your free hand to the basket. His gaze follows and locks onto the small, strawberry knee joint that you’d accidentally severed as you packed. To say that his eyes light up is an understatement.

Namjoon taps at the “made in” sticker on the bottom of the rooster and smirks, “This is what you get for buying American, honestly.”

_____

You didn’t have “spending time with Kim Namjoon” on today’s bingo card, but you’re certainly not complaining.

Lucky for you, he was stronger than your idiot brother and infinitely less frustrating to be around. The pair of you moved around your apartment like you were ballroom dancing; neither of you needing the steps called out to know them. It was easy, it was synchronized, and you didn’t have to beg him to stay on task.

Absolute none of that would be the case if your day had gone as planned.

In thirty minutes’ time, all of your possessions had been loaded into the U-Haul except one: the couch. Due to its bulkiness, you knew it’d be difficult to maneuver despite its relatively light weight.

Namjoon, boasting more brain cells than you by a long-shot, had suggested using the elevator. So long as it was angled properly, he reasoned, the two of you could make it fit without issue. Then, you wouldn’t need to wrangle the first neighbor you came across to help you pivot the blasted thing around every stairwell.

It was a short trip, only four floors, so you’d decided not to explain why you’d taken the stairs for every previous run of boxes.

Maybe you should have, because forty-five minutes have passed since you entered that elevator, and you are swiftly running out of ways to pretend that you’re fine.

From where you sit cross-legged on the elevator floor, you can hardly see Namjoon, who is believed to exist somewhere on the other side of your couch. Every now and then, there’d been a flash of blonde hair next to one of the couch’s arms — proof of life — but he’s more often invisible than not.

You’re okay with that fact, you realize. It means he can’t see the way your anxiety is manifesting only half a meter away from him.

“D’you think this call button even works?” He calls out to you, unknowingly contributing to the cold sweat slicking the small of your back, “I’ve pressed it a hundred times and — as you know — we haven’t been rescued.”

You wonder if you sound as strangled as you feel. Throat tight, you mutter, “Nothing in this building works. ‘S part of why I’m moving.”

Apparently, you do sound as strangled as you feel. You hear shifting in Namjoon’s corner of the elevator, and then you see his face materialize near the bottom of the couch. His eyebrows were initially furrowed, but the concern he carried there migrated. It settles and causes his eyes to widen when they find you.

“You alright?” He asks immediately. Sweetly.

In the grand scheme of things, yes, you would concede that you are — generally — more or less alright. You’ve been in worse places with worse company, and relatively speaking, this isn’t your ultimate nightmare. You’re capable of far greater panic than this.

In this moment, however, in this godforsaken metal box with walls that feel like they’re getting closer by the second, and stale air that gets heavier and heavier when you try to breathe it into your lungs, the walls of which are also getting —

Namjoon answers for you, decidedly but without even a hint of judgement, “You’re not alright.”

There’s more shuffling from the corner. Within a few moments, he manages to wriggle himself into a standing position. With two hands now on the couch’s spine, he glances urgently in your direction. His eyes soften, but you’re distracted by the loose lock of blonde hair that falls over his forehead, over them.

“If I find a way to you, does that make it better or worse?”

Of course, big-brain Kim Namjoon has the sense to ask. Of course, he’s emotionally intelligent enough to realize that joining you in your space could either calm your anxiety, or force it into X-Games mode. Of course, you feel like you’re being hydraulically pressed, so you don’t have the available brain cells to run a proper cost-benefit analysis.

So, you peep, “I — uhh, I don’t know?”

He purses his lips like he’s trying not to smile — because, as you’ve learned, he’s a good fucking person — but you feel a little bit less like you’re actively dying when you watch the corner of his mouth twitch upwards. Taking that gut reaction at face value, you swallow and wordlessly wave him over.

Only one way to find out, you suppose.

The way he grunts softly when he single-handedly pushes the couch further upright would make your whole body clench if it wasn’t already. The same is true of your rapid heart rate and the simmering desire to swoon. Wait — it’s called “fainting” if it’s a medical event, right? Whatever it is, the urge only gets stronger when he slots himself into the tiny bit of space at your side.

“Here — Oh, hang on,” He says, prompting you to look his way.

Your eyes catch him just in time to watch him wipe his hand off on his jeans, then hold it out to you. Without a second thought, you accept it. Squeezing slightly to express your gratitude, you smile and let your joint hands rest against your thigh. Like a shot of clonazepam, he has you calm in an instant.

A few moments of silence pass comfortably. Eventually, when your pulse returns to safety, you tilt your head back against the metal wall behind you and gaze upwards. The ceiling is back where it belongs, no longer inching towards you with the intent to flatten you against the floor. You breathe deeply then sigh out the exhale.

“I’m so glad I’m not trapped in here with Jungkook,” you announce, “If he were here, he’d be jumping up and down to try to get this thing to move, and I’d be nerve-barfing everywhere.”

“Good god,” Namjoon snorts. You glance at him out of the corner of your eye; he’s thoroughly amused, not at all grossed out by the picture you’ve painted. You know I’m right, you think.

It’s not clear if he knows you’re watching when his smile turns shy. He says it quietly, like he’s divulging some heavy secret, “Glad I called him off, then.”

You hum in agreement before those words actually register in your distinctly soup-like brain. When they finally do, you tilt your head to the side and narrow your eyes at him in confusion. For the first time in three years, he gets to hear what it sounds like when you buffer in real time:

“Sorry, you — huh?”

The math isn’t adding up. The science isn’t — doing whatever it is that science does. The words? Well, they’re failing you. You’ve got nothing.

Namjoon’s free hand rubs against the back of his neck. He smiles sheepishly, so damn cutely. For a second, he nibbles on his bottom lip before coming clean, “I may have asked Jungkook if I could sub in today.”

No thoughts, head empty, just wide-eyed blinking. It’s all you’re capable of with your stomach doing backflips the way it is.

“He was — umm — more than happy to switch swifts, you know?”

Of course, he was. Jungkook is a brat.

Namjoon chuckles and it’s then that you realize you’d broadcasted your thoughts out loud. He shakes his head as if you hadn’t just spit objective fact out into the elevator. Your eyebrows furrow as you try to follow the plot.

“For being an older brother, Kook’s a surprisingly good wing-man.”

Your jaw drops. Finger raised, you interject immediately, all piss and vinegar. “Joon, he is three minutes older. Don’t you dare give him credit for that. His ego’s already hit the ceiling, and I am not calling him oppa —”

Namjoon purses his lips again. The corner of his mouth ticks upward again. He’s apparently waiting for a response that you haven’t given him, again. Your sentence dies out before you can punctuate it.

Oh. Did you —?

Eyes as big as the moon, you sputter, “Wing man?”

“There you go, champ,” he laughs, affectionately nudging your shoulder with his. “Is that lag one of those twin things people talk about, or —?”

You land a playful smack on his bicep, but let your hand linger. Not unlike the way he’d done twice before, you pinch your lips together and try not to grin like the fool you are. Taking advantage of your pause, Namjoon reaches across his body with his free arm and peels your palm from his bicep. He keeps on holding it and you only melt a little bit.

It takes effort on your part, but you squirm in your spot until you’re able to face him more fully.

“Namjoon, you have to tell me the truth,” you demand. You squint back at him, narrowed eyes emphasizing the dramatic tone you’ve taken. “Did you or did you not break this elevator on purpose?”

He laughs so hard that it’s silent. His heads ducks down, too, until his forehead rests gently against your shoulder. From there, he sighs, “I did not break this elevator on purpose.”

After a pause, he sits back up, handcuffs his gaze to yours, then grins with all his teeth. “I’d be a fool not to capitalize on the opportunity, though.”

You close the distance and kiss him with all you’ve got, cotton-candy sweet and fresh-linen soft. It’s easy — the way it felt when your busy bodies swirled around your living room, never once stumbling — and you swear you hear bells ringing.

Namjoon pulls away breathless. He begins to ask the question, but the gentle lurch of the elevator answers before he can finish.

“tomorrow’s ours” by lights follow for dearest joonie, please<3

-> 🔭

hope you like it, my sweet sweet 🔭🌸

listen here

i wanna pull you out and set you in the sunlight / i wanna tell you that your dreams are worth it / it’s all good, don’t give up / you’re gonna be all right

You’d had bad days before, but this one was for the birds.

It started at 2:31 AM with your apartment building’s fire alarms ripping you from sleep. You then spent over an hour outside on a windy city sidewalk, burrowing yourself into your boyfriend’s side — for warmth and for cover — as he miraculously slept while standing up.

Looking your worst with a bird’s nest where your bun should be; Pikachu slippers where your shoes should be; and Namjoon’s giant sweatshirt covering the bits where your pants should be.

The worst part about it all wasn’t your now-public appearance; it was that the fire department dealt with this same situation on a monthly basis. To wit: Your ancient neighbor, Min Ji-soo, and her inability — or, more likely, her outright refusal — to use her electric tea kettle responsibly.

At a reasonable hour.

Like a human being who lives in a society.

This unfortunate embarrassment and lack of rest would’ve been manageable if the universe felt inclined to stop there.

It, of course, did not.

The minimal sleep you got upon returning to your bed wouldn’t be enough to save you from the subsequent horrors.

When your actual alarm insisted, you excavated yourself from Namjoon’s perfectly cozy embrace. After he unconsciously replaced you with a pillow, he went right back to snoring. You showered without washing your hair because you had forgotten to replace the shampoo you emptied two days ago.

Then, because why the fuck not, the dry shampoo you relied on left a cruel and unmistakable white cast in your hair. No amount of aggressive brushing could force it to dissipate. Eventually, you gave up and left for work; frustrated and on the brink of tears.

It wasn’t until you reached your office that you noted the absence of your lunch: the leftovers you were so excited about, which you were sure could salvage this horror-show of a day.

Perhaps you were being a giant fucking baby about it, but picturing that lonely, half-full container of vegetarian lasagna broke your stupid little heart in two.

As a result, you were now crying at your desk like there was no tomorrow.

“Oh, shit.”

Your eyes are faucets when your boss’ voice swings the focus to your doorway.

Kang Ji-ah’s horrified expression doesn’t pair well with her high-end blouse and pencil skirt. It certainly clashes with your desire to fly under her radar; seen, if absolutely necessary, but not heard. The mere thought of disappointing her — the undisputed bad bitch of Gyeonggi — makes you want to curl up in a ball and wait for the sweet release of death.

She slinks into your office like she’s walking on eggshells. To both of your surprise, she crosses to you and places one awkward pat on your shoulder. She grimaces immediately, “That was weird, right? Vulnerability gives me hives.”

You, an idiot, can only blink up at her. There are still tears streaming down your face, sliding over your cheeks and swerving around your wobbling lips. You’d pray to shrink, but at this rate, the universe was more likely to quadruple your size.

“A bit,” you concede with a sniffle. At this, she laughs breezily, but you can’t bring yourself to join her. “Did you need something?”

Ji-ah’s gratitude for the change in subject is written all over her face. She nods once, then says, “I need the designs for the Lotte account.”

You furrow your brows. “I thought I sent them two weeks ago. Did you get my email?”

“I did,” she sucks in a breath through her teeth, priming herself to rip off a bandage on the exhale, “They — well, they passed on them. They want new options sent over by the end of the day.”

You wonder if she can hear in your restrained tone how badly you want to scream until you pass out.

“The first ones took a week.”

Another shoulder pat, another grimace.

“For what it’s worth, I thought they were incredible,” she confesses softly with a smile. You can tell she’s not used to comforting her subordinates; and you wonder if she regrets encountering you like this.

The horrified expression was less jarring than this unexpected validation.

You scrub your hands over your face and keep them there even after you rest your elbows onto your desktop. A sigh withers and dies at the tip of your tongue, so you simply mumble, “Guess I’ll get started, then.”

She can’t get away from you fast enough — for her own comfort, or yours. When she’s finally out of sight, you fish your cell phone out of your blazer pocket.

[To: Joon 🌱] Did I recently acquire a cursed amulet or something…?

There has to be an explanation for the cartoonish awfulness of your day so far. It defies all known laws of nature, leaving you only with hexes and cosmic interference left to consider.

[From: Joon 🌱] Not that I know of. Unless you’re moonlighting as an archaeologist without me. In which case, rude 😒

He follows up immediately with his trademark sweetness.

[From: Joon 🌱] You okay, petal?

What your reply lacks in words, it makes up for in emojis — nonsensical and, frankly, a bit ominous. If he saw your flurry of sad faces, knives, skulls, and bombs, he doesn’t say so. In fact, he says nothing.

You stew over his radio silence for the next several hours as you toil over round-two of digital sketches.

With as hard as you’ve been gripping your iPad’s pencil, it’s a wonder you hadn’t yet drilled the thing all the way through the tablet’s screen. The updated logos you pull out of your ass are nowhere near as cute as your first offerings. This was the sort of generic, soulless shit your corporate clients ate up.

No character, no lovingly-crafted theme to encapsulate the re-branding — just unimaginative content, the graphic design equivalent of a stock image. These will pass with flying colors, you think with a humorless laugh as you email the files to Ji-ah; and drag your dejected husk of a body out of your chair.

It takes twice as long as usual to shuffle home because your first instinct is to give up and drop face-first onto the sidewalk. As you walk, you ruminate on the thousand different ways this day let you down — up to and including the way Namjoon ghosted you.

That tiny pebble of bitterness digs further into your heel with every step.

Finally home, you unlock your door and attempt to push it open — only to find that Namjoon engaged the chain which now prevented you from entering.

Glowering at this last, unbearable obstacle, you’re once again on the brink of tears. You pound your fist once against the door and whine, “Namjoon-ah! If this is you breaking up with me, your request is denied! You’ll have to try again tomorrow.”

He shouts from somewhere on the other side of the door, “Shit! I’m sorry!”

Instantly, you hear rushed footsteps; then the urgent clatter of the chain being pushed aside. His eyes are wide with a combination of panic and guilt when he cracks the door open.

But he’s still blocking your entry.

“I had to make sure you didn’t walk in ahead of schedule,” he offers without actually explaining a thing. “Close your eyes!”

Instead, you roll them.

“Please, petal?” He begs in that rare, breathy, needy tone.

Oh, he’s bringing out the big guns. Namjoon means business.

You finally acquiesce and he’s beaming down at you. The door opens fully and it only takes a millisecond for his large hands to envelop your small ones. He cradles them gently in his palms, leading you carefully inside like you’re the one thing he’d never allow himself to break.

You’re sad when he eventually drops them, but the faint clinking of glass distracts you from your disappointment.

And what is that smell? It’s heavenly: some sweet perfume with too many intricate and complimentary notes making it impossible to identify the source. Floral, but amplified in a way that puzzles you.

“You can open them.”

You cry immediately without any time to process your response.

Your living room and adjoining kitchen are fully canvassed in flowers; every type you can name and many more that you can’t. A gentle, artful explosion of color so breathtaking that you can only whimper:

“Joonie, what is all this?”

He hands you a glass of wine with a sheepish smile, blushing pink like the tulips on display beside him. When you accept your glass, he raises his and says, “Your Today is Over party!”

Oh.

He hadn’t ghosted you; he’d been purchasing every single flower in the city. Running around like a madman to fix what was never his responsibility in the first place.

You set your wine glass down on the counter gracefully, but fling yourself at him more desperately than you ever have. He easily accepts the weight of your jumping body and the legs you subsequently knot around him.

You cup his face in your hands and kiss him deep, with everything you have. He’s soft, he’s warm, he’s the porch light left on to guide you home safely. Most of all, he’s the sun that inspires you to wake up tomorrow, and tomorrow’s tomorrow, and every stupid day that dares to follow.

You’re breathless when you finally break apart, but you say it with your whole chest, “I love you.” You pause, then you quirk an eyebrow with a giggle, “But Joon, how do we — you know — move around and all that?”

He laughs so hard his eyes crinkle. Smiling sheepishly, he glances around at every beautiful, fully occupied surface.

“Honestly, petal, I didn’t get that far in the planning stage.”

Kiss Me More

pairing: namjoon x f. reader

genre: brother's best friend au, one-bed trope, tiny fluff, 18+

summary: Your older brother, Seokjin, is nothing but a schemer when he goes out of town and forgets to mention he's also asked Namjoon to house-sit. Oops!

wc: 1.4k

warnings: none?

date: April 8, 2023

This was wrong! So wrong! But it felt so right. Years of pent-up sexual tension, years of crushing on your brother's best friend, all for this moment.

You’re not entirely sure if Seokjin meant to get you and Namjoon to house-sit while he went off on vacation with his boyfriend, but when you showed up with your bags to find Namjoon lounging in gray sweatpants on the couch, you were very surprised.

You had driven over three hours to be here, and you’d be damned if you drove all the way back. Namjoon had also driven here from the same city you lived in, and he’d be damned if he didn’t collect on his payment. 

The first night had been slightly awkward, avoiding each other as much as possible, both calling Seokjin to chew him out, but all your brother had to say was ‘oops.’

“Take the bed,” Namjoon insisted as he grabbed a blanket out of the linen closet.

“No, you were here first. You take it,” you stated, stomping your foot. Namjoon rolled his eyes. “I don’t want it.”

“I don’t want it,” you said, making him sigh heavily.

“And why not?”

“Because you were here first!” you shouted, huffing as you crossed your arms.

“Oh my lord, you’re just as stubborn as Jin!” 

“I resent that!” you scoff.

“Just take the bed, Y/N.”

“No. Let’s share it,” you suggest, and Namjoon raises a brow.

“Share the bed? Are you mad?” Namjoon scoffs.

“Okay,” you shrug. “I was just trying to be nice ‘cause your big body won’t fit on the couch. Enjoy being folded up like a lawn chair.”

Namjoon looks over at the couch, cursing when he realizes that you’re right. 

Clearing his throat, he says, “Well, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to share the bed.”

“That’s what I thought,” you grin as you head to the bedroom to get ready for bed. Namjoon waits until you’re back in the living room, his gaze trying to focus on anything except the supple skin of your thighs in your tiny sleep shorts.

Were you trying to torture him? Wasn’t it bad enough that he’d always had a crush on you, but now you were essentially forced to share a bed?

“Are you just gonna stare or get in bed?” you ask as you grab a glass of water from the kitchen. Namjoon hesitates for a moment, but the couch is digging into his back and he’d rather not end up at the chiropractor snapped like a glow stick.

Upon entering the bedroom, Namjoon pauses at the end of the bed. You pretend the heat of his stare doesn’t bother you.

“What?” you finally ask, raising a brow in question.

“That’s usually my side of the bed.” he clears his throat, feeling heat rise to his cheeks and on the tip of his ears.

You sigh, scooting to the other side. “Anything else, your highness?”

Namjoon ignores the sarcasm in your tone.

“Well, now that you’ve asked…” Namjoon rubs the nape of his neck. “Would you care if I slept without a shirt? I get stuffy at night.”

You freeze, biting your lower lip. Your body thrums with nerves and excitement, clearing your throat. “Do as you please, Joon. It’s not my house.”

Namjoon shrugs, knowing that’s the best he’s gonna get from you. He grabs his shirt from the back of his neck, obstructing his view and missing the way your jaw drops, nearly unhinged when you take in his smooth honeyed skin.

When Namjoon’s face comes back into view, you’re looking down at your phone, scrolling as if having him shirtless was a normal occurrence.

Without another word, Namjoon gets into bed, pulling the covers over him while he scrolls through his social media on his phone. You’re not sure who moves closer first, or who shares their screen, but soon you’re both laughing at videos and yawning until you’re fast asleep at his side.

Waking up in the middle of the night is unusual for you. For a moment, you panic, not recognizing the room as your own before remembering its Jin’s. Just as the realization hits, your eyes widen when you feel the weight of an arm around your waist. You’re shocked to the core, debating whether to roll over or just try to go back to sleep. However, the arm comes with heat, so much heat that you grow clammy almost immediately. 

Carefully, you tug the covers off you until they bunch at your waist and you finally feel like you can breathe.

Behind you, Namjoon grunts, his arm sliding off your body as he rolls onto his back. You inhale and exhale, slowly rolling to face him. 

You smile when you note he’s still sound asleep. He looks so cute with his hair ruffled on the pillow, his broad chest rising and falling with each of his breaths.

“How long are you gonna stare at me?” Namjoon asks.

You blink, jumping in your spot.

His chuckle makes your face heat. How long had he been awake?

“Long enough,” Namjoon answers with a shrug. He smirks when he sees the startled look that crosses your face. “Cat got your tongue?”

“I was just…” you have nothing to say. No lies come out of your mouth and all you can do is suffer in your embarrassment as you clear your throat.

“Well, goodnight!”

Namjoon laughs, shaking his head as he scoots closer to you. He gently places his hand on your face, making you look at him. “Don’t shy away from me now, love.”

You nod, unable to form a response. Namjoon remains silent as his thumb circles your skin, going to trace your bottom lip.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers.

“What?”

“You’ve always been so beautiful. Inside and out,” he goes on as he traces your lip again. “It’s been so hard to hide my feelings for you for so long.”

“Namjoon,” you start, unsure of where this is going.

However, Namjoon continues. “I’m sure Seokjin set this up, and I can’t say I’m mad.”

“Seokjin knows?” you ask incredulously.

“I mean, I don’t keep secrets from him. I’m sure he noticed years ago.” 

“That nosy, meddling, little snot! I bet he set us up! He was asking me about you the other day and like a dumbass, I told him you were hot!” you exclaim, annoyance bubbling in your chest.

“You think I’m hot?” Namjoon smiles smugly and you scream into his palm. He laughs harder, his shoulders shaking as he hushes you.

“Don’t let it go to your big ole head, Joonie! You know you’re hot! You own a mirror!” you scoff and he rolls his eyes playfully.

“Just admit you like me,” he grins.

You huff, rolling onto your back to stare at the ceiling. Namjoon sits up on his elbow, “Come on, love. Just say it. Admit it, you like me.”

“I liked you more when you were snoring away,” you grumble.

“And now I’m wide awake. Come on, I told you I like you,” Namjoon pouts. You sigh heavily before muttering something under your breath.

Namjoon cups his ear with his large hand. “I’m sorry. What was that? I didn’t quite hear you.”

“You’re so annoying!” you groan. “I said I like you! There! I said it! Now, go to sleep!” you demand.

“You expect me to sleep after that?” Namjoon rolls his eyes as his hand rests on your hip, making you roll over to face him. “I’ve been waiting for ages to hear you say it. There’s no way I’m going back to sleep now.”

“Well, I am,” you lie as you close your eyes. Namjoon giggles as he cups your face, lowering his lips until they brush against yours. You’re surprised but immediately kiss him back, your arms wrapped around his neck to pull him close.

Namjoon kisses you gently, allowing you to lead, and parting his lips when your tongue presses against them in your urge to taste him. Your name escapes him in a breathy moan, sending tingles down your spine before you break apart.

A bashful smile illuminates your face as Namjoon presses his forehead to yours. “That was better than I ever imagined.”

“Oh yeah? How about we do it again?” you grin as you press your lips to his, moaning when he bites on your bottom lip. Namjoon groans, kissing you deeply like he’s always wanted to. He hopes this isn’t a dream as you pull him closer, melting beneath his broad body, hands roaming over his back.

“Kiss me more,” you plead when he trails kisses to your neck. He nips at the column of your throat before making his way back to your mouth, kissing you again and again until you’ve had your fill.

lacuna (knj)

lacuna (n): a blank space, a missing part

In his twenty-eight years, Kim Namjoon had made countless mistakes. Most of them were insignificant and could be shoved easily enough into the back corner of his mind. The worst of them were all tied for first place, keeping him up at night.

Loving you, losing you, and now – picking up the phone. 

Pairing: Ex!Kim Namjoon x Fem!Reader Type: One-Shot (Angst, Smut - 18+ or else.) Word Count: Like, 7K (?!) Content: ex-boyfriend au; exes to something?; literally so much angst; yearning; pov switches; oral sex (f receiving); unprotected sex; p in v penetration; cursing; texts from Yoongi. A/N: For reasons unknown, I decided to break my own heart today! The lyrics you'll see below are from "Sooner" by The Low Blow. There's also a reference to one of my favorite tv shows at the end - did you catch it? (1/9/23) The sequel, Redamancy, is finally here! (3/17/23) There is now a playlist 🥲

Sitting cross-legged on the rug, your weary, unfocused eyes stared somewhere in the vicinity of Min Yoongi. Shrouded all in black, you nearly assumed he was your sleep paralysis demon, hunched over his keyboard with his eyes narrowed in thought – but you hadn’t slept much at all lately. Not with your deadline looming overhead like the sword of Damocles. 

He relayed what was already looping through your brain. “It’s missing something.” 

You scrubbed your hands over your face, too burnt out to care if your foundation stayed where it was supposed to. “I know,” was all you said, though it wasn’t all you were thinking. Listening to this demo – this crushing song about love lost – you knew what was missing.

Or rather, who. 

Once again reading your mind, Yoongi spoke with a wary sigh. This time, he said the quiet part out loud. “Listen, I know that on a personal level, this is a terrible idea. But if you really want this track to ache –” 

“I’ll call him.” 

Yoongi turned to look at you over his shoulder. He, like you, hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours; but his surprise still managed to crack through an otherwise impassive expression.

“You sure you want to be the one?” His frown was microscopic, but it was there and it bruised. “I have to hit him up, anyway, so I can handle this for you.” 

You’d never told him – or any of your friends, come to think of it – the details of your whatever it was with Namjoon. You couldn’t call it a breakup; that would necessitate a relationship. You couldn’t comfortably assign that word to this indescribable something.

But maybe that’s precisely why it hurt to breathe when you thought too hard about it. Maybe the thing that burned in your lungs was the fact that whatever it was wasn’t much of anything at all. 

The universally known narrative was that you met Kim Namjoon at a release party two years prior. After years of putting out extended plays, he was dropping his highly anticipated, full-length masterpiece.

That’s what your label called it; that’s what the press called it; but you couldn’t agree. That word wasn’t heavy enough – it didn’t give due credit to the pieces of himself he broke down and buried within those twelve tracks. You felt seen when you heard it. When you saw him, it was game over. 

As the story goes, you went home with him that night. While true, it was the tiniest fragment sitting sharp at the tip of an iceberg. The rest was an ill-equipped ship, sailing in slow-motion through the dark. 

He'd spent the entirety of his celebration focused on you. What you thought; what you wanted for yourself; what made that tipsy, uninhibited giggle come flying out of your chest. And then, holding his hand like it’d been tailor-made for yours, you followed his lead out of there while confused partygoers murmured in your wake. 

He fucked you like he knew you – on a cellular level – and he looked at you like you were all there was. You’d spent the entirety of the following day there, draped over him or nestled underneath him. You were never not touching in some way – in the little interludes of sleep; while cooking a breakfast too big for the two of you alone; on every surface of his apartment. 

He changed your life in those twenty-four hours, but not enough for it to stick. 

You’d spent as much time with him as you could in the year afterward, until your twin ambitions sent you both rocketing in other directions. Your various obligations never allowed you to be in the same place for long; and when they did, it was over too soon. No amount of time would ever feel like enough, but half a day, here and there, felt like a cosmic joke.

Like the universe was punishing you for wanting everything, all at once. 

Eventually, you came to a fork in the road. His career, though international, was rooted in Korea – home. Yours took you to Los Angeles, to a vastly different time zone, and a schedule that refused to make space. And you tried, but when it came down to choosing – idling together or racing forward alone – your respective dreams were so heavy that they tipped the scales.  

Neither of you could blame the other. After all, you’d both made the same decision. There was some small comfort in knowing that he understood you. That consolation couldn’t keep you warm at night when you’d instinctively reach out and find half of your bed still empty.

It would’ve been so much easier to live without him if there was some horrible betrayal to pin it all on, but he was as perfect when you lost him as he was when you found him. 

Shaky legs pushed you off the ground. Without meaning to, you groaned as your body returned to its regularly scheduled programming. Yoongi simply muttered, “Same,” as he made additional adjustments in his editing software.

You affectionally touched your knuckles to his shoulder as you passed by, though you quickly realized this gesture wasn’t made to comfort him. 

You shut the door softly behind you and headed up the hallway. Having kicked off and subsequently lost your shoes several hours ago, you padded in socked feet across the hardwood. The pattern – the various evolutions of Eevee – clashed so blatantly with the extravagance around you. Glancing down, you chuckled. At least some parts of you were still recognizable. 

The door to the stairwell creaked as you pushed it open and ducked inside. No longer camped out in the soundproof studio, you could hear the smattering of raindrops as they pummeled the exterior walls of the building. Somewhere between a drum roll and machine gun fire, you couldn’t figure out if the noise emphasized or relieved your anxiety. 

Gently, you lowered yourself down on a step halfway up the flight. As you stared down at your phone, your knee bounced of its own volition.

For once, you were thankful for the seventeen-hour time difference. This was the kind of call you needed to make at midnight, but one you didn’t want him receiving at midnight. It felt so much safer in daylight.

At least one of you had eyes on the sun. 

You’d deleted his number from your phone months ago because you thought it might help you let go. It didn’t. And to make matters worse, you still knew it by heart. As you typed it out easily, you wished this realization surprised you. You also wished that you’d catch him at a bad time, so you could simply leave a message. 

You’d never been lucky, though, had you?

Namjoon was half-asleep at a café table when the vibration of his phone against the wrought metal snapped him out of it. In his under-caffeinated daze, he couldn’t determine what that unbearable grinding noise was.

He could, however, see the way the elderly woman nearby was scowling at him. He furrowed his brows and blinked back at her; silently asking what the fuck her problem was. Just as silently, she pointed an angry, wrinkled finger to his tabletop. 

By the time his brain kicked into gear, he was too late. He picked up his now-quiet phone and nearly dropped it in an instant when he saw your name tied to a missed call.

He didn’t think twice before returning it – he should have – having figured there was only one way to know if he was truly hallucinating. You picked up immediately in a voice so you that he couldn’t have imagined it. He knew because he'd already tried.

“Hey.” 

People who didn’t know you often mistook the natural rasp of your voice for tiredness, but he did know you. You were beyond exhausted, more so than the last time he’d heard from you. Five months and twenty-one days ago.

This sounded like another all-nighter; like you got so consumed in creating that you couldn’t sleep until you finished. Remembering you like this opened a black hole in his chest – all this fondness with nowhere to go, collapsing in on itself, pulling.

What kind of masochist was he, voluntarily subjecting himself to this conversation? 

“Hey,” He croaked. Even his voice didn't know what to do. 

He heard shuffling on your end. You always pinned your phone between your right ear and shoulder to start — he immediately recognized the sound of your hair against the receiver when you switched it to your left side. Vanilla and honey flooded his nose despite the thousands of miles that separated him from the scent of your shampoo. 

There were a thousand questions spinning dizzy in his mind, but he couldn’t untangle them to spit one out. The longer you both remained quiet, the worse it got – and the worse he felt for his silence. Even without seeing you, he knew that your brows were knitting together. He knew that quiet made you feel too exposed. 

Namjoon cleared his throat to speak at the same moment you asked, “How are you?” His words echoed, a half-second from being uttered in unison. 

He prayed to any god that he’d stop feeling so nervous. There was no reason to be, not with you. You were his comfort zone, his safe space and – oh. Past tense.

Presently, you were – what, exactly? Could he call you an “ex” if you’d never had a title? It all felt too juvenile, hearing people whisper about his girlfriend. You were –fuck – You were home, and now his house was haunted.

A ghost. 

“I’ve been good,” he said quickly, planting a hollow smile on his face that wouldn’t have convinced you if you were there. Liar, liar, liar. “Busy. You sound –” 

“Awful?”

“– like you’ve been working all night.” 

He heard a sheepish chuckle and his clumsy, thudding heart went flying off into the void.

“That’s actually why I’m calling,” you admitted in a voice so tiny he nearly missed it, “And I wouldn’t be – I promise – if I could’ve bothered anyone else with this. This one, though… when I hear it in my head, I can’t imagine anyone –” 

“Say less.” 

It slipped out of him automatically. He couldn’t stop it. Now it was dangling there in dead air where he couldn’t reach it and shove it back down his throat. He must have said that to you a thousand times, giving you whatever you needed before you could even finish asking.

This was the first time he’d ever said it without punctuating it with a kiss to your forehead, though. And now, his equilibrium was off, like the staircase had one less step than he was expecting. 

When you finally broke the silence, he could’ve sworn he heard you sniffle, but he quickly kicked that thought back into the cage it escaped from. Your voice didn’t sound sad at all, so you couldn’t have been crying. Why would you be?

“I can have Yoongi send you what we have so far, lyrics too. If you’re interested, just let me know – verse, bridge, whatever you want.” 

“You’re with Yoongi?” 

It came out exactly as he hadn't intended – accusatory. It was no business of his who you spent time with, professionally or otherwise. And it didn’t even surprise him that Yoongi would stick around after the – whatever it was. All your shared friends stayed shared. His confusion was solely that Yoongi never mentioned working with you, let alone flying stateside to do so. 

Why hadn’t Yoongi said something? Did he assume Namjoon wouldn’t be interested in hearing about your project? Because he would - he kept up with all of your releases, even if it hurt. Was he scared that the mere mention of you would exacerbate the tailspin Namjoon was barely surviving?

Or was it something else? 

“Yeah, he got here a few days ago. I offered to send the vocals to him, but he said he wanted In-N-Out,” Your laugh, even under the weight of your sleepiness, still packed a punch. “Might be the longest trip anyone’s ever made for animal-style fries.” 

Namjoon felt like he was going to pass out, but for your sake, he tried to echo your laugh. “Sounds like he’s got his priorities in order, as usual.” 

That uncomfortable silence crawled back in and settled in the space between you. It never used to be like this. His mouth remained open as if his broken brain could think of a single thing to say. There were hours in every second that passed, but he didn’t hang up – and neither did you. 

“So, if I figure something out, I can shoot it back over –” 

You interrupted this time.

“No need,” You chirped. You must’ve sensed that his train of thought now consisted only of question marks because you dove right back in, “I’ll be in Seoul at the end of the month, so we can put all the pieces together then.” 

Please be speaking metaphorically. Please say – 

“I’ve gotta hop off now, but it was –” Your voice petered out at the end of your statement, and he didn’t know what to do within the pause.

What pleasantry would you settle on to end this conversation? Was it nice to hear from him, or did you also feel like you’d walked through the emotional equivalent of a car wash?  

It was heavy when you exhaled the amendment, hitting the ground with a thud that could’ve knocked him over.

It was torture, and it drop-kicked him into the abyss at full-speed. No light above, no hope below. A black hole that he kept selfishly refusing to close – all because he answered your call. 

“Thank you, Joonie.” 

Fuck. He was doomed.

You spent a shocking percentage of your life on international flights. It was a privilege – you knew it – to travel to the extent that you did, but it was so lonely.

If you were flying, there were two justifications. The first was the most common – touring. You’d touch down in cities all over the world, stay for a few hours, and then you’d leave again as soon as you could blink.

Your interactions were limited, either one-sided conversations from a stage; or facilitated entirely by a local translator. Never truly connecting, missed phone calls and texts sent too late to get a response. The same stale conversations with the crew that had been stuck with you for months. 

The second was less common, and somehow even lonelier – visiting a home that was no longer yours. 

It always went the same way. You’d touch down at the Incheon International Airport in your home country and feel just as foreign as the tourists bustling around you. You’d gather a suitcase’s worth of belongings and try not to think about the fact that they – and everything else you owned – once lived there, too. You’d hit customs and then, as a reward, snag yourself some boba from the café on your way out the door. 

In all those trips, you’d never once hailed a cab because Namjoon was always waiting. You’d hear him before you saw him with how loud he kept his car’s stereo, but when you did finally lay eyes on him, you’d light up like a sparkler. He’d shower you with affection – publicly, despite his usually private nature – and swap out the luggage in your hands for some thoughtful surprise. Flowers, usually, after painstaking deliberation over the meaning he wanted to convey. 

Now, you stood on the sidewalk with your empty hand in the air. 

Shortly after settling into your cab, you fell asleep. The person who would have gently scolded you for taking this risk wasn’t there to do so. Instead, you woke up stiff and disoriented to the sound of your driver honking his horn. You quickly learned that he wasn’t honking at traffic; he was honking at you with a scowl on his face. 

“Time to go! Wake up – your stop!” 

He was speaking in English, so it took you a few moments to determine whether you were dreaming. Impatient, he honked again.

Did he think you were a tourist? Was he right?

Your cheeks burned with embarrassment as you threw the door open and hurled yourself out. You ran to the trunk, snatched your suitcase, and tried not to remember that you didn't used to have to do this part yourself.

Yoongi had the foresight to give you a spare keycard before leaving California, so you were able to get into his building quickly – before you were honked at again. Spoken to in English again, like this place had never been home.

You, belonging nowhere and to no one, kept yourself together until the elevator doors gave you some semblance of shelter. 

Alone, alone, alone, you cried so hard that your shoulders shook. The mirrored walls around you showed infinite versions of you, all pitiful like you were still that little girl who’d gotten separated from her parents at an amusement park. It was incredible how you felt smaller in that elevator than you did as a child.

And fuck, did that embarrassment make you cry even harder. 

Eventually, those doors would have to re-open, and you’d have to let yourself into Yoongi’s unoccupied penthouse just to wait for his return. You were so sick of walking into empty apartments and hearing nothing but your own footsteps. No warmth, no laughter, just a black hole of your own creation. 

You chose this, you reminded yourself. This is what you wanted, wasn’t it? You were so busy chasing broader horizons, you didn't notice that the sun had disappeared. If you’d known – really, truly known – what the fall would be like, would you have taken that leap of faith? No, you think, but you did and there’s no jumping back into the airplane once you’ve dived out of it.

Ding. 

There was a post-it note waiting for you on the inside of Yoongi’s door that you would’ve missed if you hadn’t taken so much time to shut it behind you. His handwriting was shockingly neat for someone who was always in a rush. His note told you that he’d be home in two hours, that there was food for you in the refrigerator, and that you should help yourself to whatever you needed. 

The sinkhole in your stomach wasn’t created by hunger, so you pushed that down to the bottom of your to-do list and dragged your luggage to the guest bedroom down the hall.

Every inch of his place was undeniably Yoongi – monochromatic and edgy, but still so confusingly inviting. His guest room was similar in style, but with more personalized touches than most visitors tended to expect. Framed photos of friends, and the collaborators he was most proud to work with.

Your eyes eventually found one of you, beaming brightly. 

It hurt to look, but you couldn’t tear your gaze away. It was taken in a photobooth at Kim Seokjin’s wedding last spring. You were sandwiched on a small bench seat between Yoongi and Namjoon.

The former, like you, was captured in the middle of a laugh - smiling at the camera with all teeth, eyes crinkled at the edges but still sparkling. The latter wasn’t looking at the camera at all – just you, like you were all there was. 

Forcing yourself to look away, you returned the frame to its place on the vanity and kept moving. Your primary instinct was to hurl yourself into the plush bed and never leave it. But you felt stale after spending so much time traveling, and you didn’t want to collapse into those beautiful sheets until you’d scrubbed the day off you. 

Shuffling off to the bathroom, you finally remembered to take your phone off ‘airplane mode.’ All at once, the floodgates opened. The onslaught of texts, emails, and voicemails was so overwhelming that your phone froze.

When the flurry stopped, you scanned through your various inboxes for anything that might require an immediate response. Finding nothing urgent, you were about to set your phone down when you saw an email from Namjoon, addressing both you and Yoongi.

His verse, you realized as you opened it. 

I think I lost you sooner than I wanted to  And I know you can't say the same  But I can't hate you for doing what you've gotta do  Cause I'm just in bed sleeping through the pain  Do you see wasted potential when you look at me?  Of what we could be if it wasn't like this  I know you asked me not to try and change myself  But when I was with you, I felt fixed 

It took everything you had not to drop to your knees.

Namjoon was an incredible liar.

He didn’t utilize the skill often – in fact, he was usually too honest – but when he did, he could get himself out of any unwanted scenario.

In the distant past, he’d slip out of obligations made by his label to stay home in bed with you. It worked every single time. Instead of putting on some over-priced suit, wasting his breath swapping empty pleasantries with industry tools; he’d be hooking his arms around your quivering thighs, pinning you to his face as he fucked you with his tongue. 

In the present, he lied again. 

Yoongi asked, “How did it feel to hear from her again?” 

“To be honest,” Namjoon started, knowing full well that nothing he said next would be, “That shit’s behind me, man. I was surprised her number was still in my contacts, you know? She’s been a non-factor for a minute.” 

Yoongi rolled his eyes, “With the number of girls you’ve gone through in the meantime, I imagine it gets hard to keep track.” 

Hook, line, sinker. 

Namjoon offered a smirk and a shrug in response, which Yoongi accepted without further comment. The relief of being believed did nothing to cure the nausea swirling in Namjoon’s stomach, though - not just for the cruelty of his lie, but for the way he’d acted since you left and stayed gone.  

He learned early on that it would take more than fucking someone he didn't know to keep warm, but knowing better didn’t mean he did better. None of them – and there were many – could pull him from the limbo he found himself in without you. There was an emptiness gnawing at his insides that he couldn’t fill, and the more he tried, the more it tore at him.

The only thing he succeeded at was becoming someone he didn’t recognize –someone he didn’t even like. 

Yoongi pulled into his parking garage and turned to Namjoon, staking him through the heart with words alone. “Well, the non-factor is upstairs, so try to remember her name when you see her.” 

Namjoon chuckled, but it didn’t sound anywhere close to convincing. There was a flicker of doubt in Yoongi’s quickly flexed eyebrow, though he kept any questions he may have had to himself. Without a word, they clambered out of the car, and they stayed quiet until they stepped into the elevator. 

“How has she been?” Namjoon asked more quietly than he meant to. Like someone who’s scared of the answer - or worse, being asked why he’s asking. Quickly diverting further inquiry, he provided clarification Yoongi hadn’t sought. “Sounded tired as fuck on the phone.” 

Yoongi glanced at Namjoon before selecting the button marked with his floor number. “You know how she is,” He hummed. 

That one hurt. He knew how you were – past tense.

Except for that one phone call, he hadn’t heard your voice in months. He hadn’t seen you for even longer than that. Your number hadn’t changed, but for all he knew, everything else could have. All he had now was his memory’s pale imitation of you, always in sight but never within reach.

A ghost that disappeared into the walls before he could get too close. 

When the elevator door opened, Namjoon was fighting between running forward and running away. Incapable of doing either, it was Yoongi’s light punch on his bicep that prompted his feet to move. Namjoon trudged along after him until Yoongi stopped short with a groan. 

“The fuck?” Namjoon coughed as he collided with Yoongi’s back. “Don’t tell me you’re already winded, dude. I’m not giving your old ass a piggy-back ride.” 

The scowl he received could’ve scorched the Earth.  

“I forgot my fucking phone in the car.” Yoongi tossed his apartment key at Namjoon. It thudded against his unsuspecting chest only to be caught on the rebound.

Then, Yoongi pointed at the door. “Go play nice and figure out where we’re getting take-out from. I had a dream about bulgogi last night that was borderline sexual, so keep that in mind.” 

Namjoon’s face scrunched up. “I’ll be trying my best to keep it out, so thanks for that.”  

Yoongi had already turned around, waving a dismissive hand as he stalked off. 

As soon as Namjoon heard the elevator doors close, his phone chirped in his pocket and caught him off guard. He glanced down to find a text from Yoongi – who was, apparently, also a liar. 

Yoongi [18:19 PM]: fyi you always say “to be honest” when you’re about to say some bullshit Yoongi [18:19 PM]: "non-factor" my asssssss

Namjoon grimaced and shoved his phone back into his pocket before walking to Yoongi’s door with his heart in his throat.

Clearly, Yoongi wanted Najmoon to fix things with you. He’d crafted some false narrative to get himself out of there, to give Namjoon the time and space to do it. But there wasn’t a single fucking thing he could say to rebuild the bridge you’d both demolished together.

That is, if you even wanted him to try.

After unlocking the door, he froze. A full minute passed before his hand received his brain’s signal to turn the knob, and even then, his feet felt as if they were encased in concrete. If hearing your voice made him spiral, he was terrified of what the sight of you might do.

More than anything, he was scared to see how you looked at him – and he didn’t know what reaction he wanted. If you lit up the way you used to, it might kill him. If you had no reaction at all, it would definitely kill him. 

He would’ve stalled at that threshold all night if you didn’t appear in the hallway, straight ahead. You froze like a deer in headlights, one hand still on the door you’d exited from. Eyes wide, lips parted ever so slightly in surprise.

He didn’t notice the red rims around your eyes right away, but once he did, every cell in his body screamed at him to run to you, to hold you.

But he didn’t.

Touching you now only to lose you again tomorrow - well, that was a scab he couldn’t rip off again. There was only scar tissue where his heart used to be.

“Hey,” You smiled so sweetly when you saw him, but it didn’t reach your eyes. Those fucking eyes! He’d give up everything he had to erase the sadness swimming behind them, threatening to spill out. 

Why were you still so far away?

You glanced around him, noting Yoongi’s absence, but didn’t ask where he was. “I was thinking we could get something from that –” 

The longer he stared at you, the more impossible it became to keep his distance. He couldn’t stand on that doorstep with you over there, trying so hard to look like you hadn’t been crying – like you weren’t about to start again. 

Fuck it.

If he was so dead-set on re-breaking his own heart, he’d do it with you in his arms.

“Joonie, is everything oka–” 

No, nothing was. Nothing had been, not for – fuck, are his eyes getting misty? - a long time. Not since you walked out of his apartment for the last time, and he let you. He couldn’t make any of it okay, but with you there now, he didn’t give a fuck about where you were before. 

Your eyes were as big as the moon when he finally reached you, blinking your surprise up at him.

Did you really think he had any other option than to hold you? Did you have any idea how you looking at him like this - bare-faced, freshly-showered, vulnerable - demanded his immediate affection?

It felt like coming home, sliding his fingers through your still-damp hair. He could’ve fallen to pieces when the familiar scent of your shampoo – vanilla and honey – crashed over him, but he didn’t. His lips collided with yours, and for the first time in a fucking year, he felt whole.

You clung to him so desperately, you could’ve ripped a hole in his shirt. You couldn't care about that, though, because he kissed you and it was pure starlight. He kissed you hard, nicking your lip between his teeth until you opened your mouth against his.

You whimpered into him, drunk on the wet heat of his mouth, melting and falling and spinning and flying. You felt it all fall to the wayside, every second wasted without him, every text you didn’t send, every wrong turn that led you so far away. 

You didn't realize until you finally broke apart that the tears on your cheek weren’t exclusively yours. His gaze locked with yours, and all either of you could do was gasp for air - chests heaving, lips kissed swollen. If not for the arm around your back, pinning you against his chest, you would’ve floated away. But he had you, completely.  

Finally, you felt tethered. 

Your trembling hand settled on the side of his face. Fuck! That face. The warmth of his skin, the heights of his cheek bones, the gentle slope of his nose.

How many mornings did you wake up and miss it? How did you ever fall asleep without it nuzzled into the crook of your neck, without the whisper of warm breath on your skin?

You wanted to scream until the hurt left your chest, but you didn’t dare – not with that face so perfectly close to yours.  

He spoke first, “I’m so –” 

Your eyes followed your thumb as it swiped over his bottom lip, unearthing a quiver that burned you up inside. He was paralyzed by your touch. Enraptured. Leaving that clause hanging open in the air.

His eyes were wide with anticipation as he watched you, pupils dilating when you whispered. “Say less.” 

Faster than you could process, he lifted you off the ground as if you weighed nothing at all. Automatically, your legs locked behind his back; your lips re-captured his and his kiss never faltered as he carried you back into the guest room. Quickly and with a shocking display of control, he kicked the door closed without slamming it – or breaking it. 

Like so many times before, he laid you gently onto the mattress as if you were crafted from porcelain. And when he finally pulled away from you, you gazed up at him in awe.

This was one of the million reasons you couldn’t seem to let him go – the way his eyes softened when you were breathless underneath him, like you were the only thing in the universe worth looking at.

There were too many things to be said that neither of you could verbalize. You felt them all falling down around you like confetti, loose ends to be tied up later. He didn’t need to say a thing, so long as he kept looking at you like that. 

When his fingers landed at the hem of your shirt, you knew what came next. A dance you’d done a thousand times, you lifted your arms for him to pull it up and off. Still damp from your shower, the ends of your hair raised goosebumps as they chilled the bare skin of your back.  

He moved slowly and without breaking eye contact as he unbuttoned your jeans. Your zipper followed, then your jeans and underwear in tandem. The denim dragged so deliciously against your thighs as he slipped them down, down, down. As he tugged them off your ankles, you discarded your bra and tossed it aside. You were entirely bare and shivering with anticipation when his gaze found you again.

His shirt soon joined yours on the floor. Kneeling between your legs, his bare chest burned against your own as he kissed you for the third time. So many more were needed to make up for lost time, but you could feel how much of himself he poured into the kisses he’d credited you with so far. The taste of his mouth on yours was indescribably intoxicating after so much time apart. 

With you sufficiently distracted, the hands that cupped your face began to migrate. You felt so small under his touch, reduced to putty in the warm expanse of his palms. His face lowered too, freeing your mouth to moan as he placed open-mouthed kisses down the length of your neck.

Involuntarily, you gasped when his fingers pinched at one of your nipples. The curve of his smile impressed upon your throat as he suckled at the sensitive skin he found there, leaving clouds of indigo behind. 

As he marked you, he rolled and tweaked your nipples in turn. Your eyes fluttered shut and you keened while your head crashed back against the pillows, “That mouth – feels s-so fucking good.” Your fingers carded through his hair, fingernails scratching lightly against his scalp; his silence broke with a shuddered moan. 

“S’all I want, baby,” He hummed as his lips trailed down from your neck and beyond your collarbone. “To make you feel good.”  

You were trembling when he claimed one of your nipples with his mouth. Then he had the audacity to look up at you from under his lashes when he released it with a lewd pop, causing your back to arch against his chest with a gasp. There was a rumble from deep within him when your grip on his hair tightened, and the sound alone made you gush. 

“To taste you,” His tongue left a wet stripe above your navel as he continued his descent, large hands dipping beneath you to squeeze the doughy flesh of your ass. Shit - you would simply never recover from this. “To devour you until you melt in my mouth.” 

Another sharp tug at his hair, another guttural moan breaking free from your chest.

How often had you dreamed of this in your time apart? How many times did you try to remember how it felt when that timbre whispered sins against your naked body? Fuck. With those words alone, he had you on the brink. 

You whined when he pulled away from you; but it quickly turned into a gasp when he hooked his arms around your thighs and dragged you with him towards the end of the bed. Now kneeling on the floor, he ducked below your knees until they rested over the tops of his shoulders. 

Face so near to your aching core, he growled, and you felt it. “I missed this pussy –” He placed a wet kiss on your inner thigh, prompting you to clench them reflexively. “I missed the way your thighs squeeze around me while you fuck yourself against my tongue.” 

Shivering, slack-jawed, and stupid, you grabbed fistfuls of the comforter below you. He was so painfully close to your cunt and still so fucking far from you. You knew he could see how badly you craved him - you’d beg for his mouth if you had to. 

Of course, you didn’t have to - you never did.

Seconds before your impatience could drive you fully insane, he was on you, tongue flat against your cunt, dragging up against your slit. When the tip of his tongue flicked over your clit, you cried out with a buck of your hips. His grip on you tightened, pinning you flush against him as he teased you. 

“That it’s, baby. Good girl.” 

It’s a miracle either one of you could form words with how relentlessly he licked, nipped, and suckled on your throbbing cunt. All you could do was babble in response to his praise – until the tip of his tongue penetrated your weeping hole, and you screamed. 

A flurry of curse words spilled from your lips; his name sprinkled in between the obscenities. Fuck, you needed more. More, more, more. You extended your arm and reclaimed your grasp on his locks. Once you did, you began to grind yourself against his tongue until your abdominal muscles burned - you hadn’t utilized them to this extent since the last time.

His hand squeezed your thigh, goading you, encouraging you to use him the way you needed to. The pressure of his tongue increased with your pace. You had no control over the sounds you made; the breathless moans escaped you before you could think of trapping them. The coil was tightening, burning red-hot in the pit of your belly. 

So good, so good, so g – 

“Fuck!” 

One by one, your muscles tensed in quick succession until your body shook violently in his grip. Toes curling, back arching, head crashing backwards into the pillows, mewling. 

When you finally gathered the strength to re-open your bleary eyes, there were spots dotting the edges of your vision – and then there was Namjoon, fuck-drunk between your weakened knees, with a mixture of his saliva and your orgasm shining on his chin. 

Lustful eyes locked squarely on your flushed face; his tongue slid from between his swollen lips to attend to the mess you’d made of him. His panting rivaled yours, but unlike you, he was still capable of speech.

“I will never – ever – get tired of watching you come,” he sighed before wiping his mouth against the back of his hand, “You’re so fucking beautiful like this.” 

As he climbed back on top of you, he placed a chaste kiss on your sweaty forehead. “So vulnerable –” Then the tip of your nose. “So vocal –” Then, too briefly, your lips. “Perfect.” 

“Joon,” You murmured against his lips. His mouth curved into a smile at the nickname, which you used almost exclusively to win arguments, or to persuade him to do something. It worked every time. 

He nudged your nose with the tip of his as he tried to conceal his laugh. “Baby?” 

The fond look in his eyes was quickly covered by fluttering eyelids as your fingertips whispered down over his chest. They snapped open and bored into you as your fingers slid over the waistband of his joggers, tracing a feather-light trail over the bulge below. You felt his cock twitch autonomously against the warmth of your palm. 

“Shit,” He hissed through gritted teeth as you squeezed him. Eyes drifting shut once again; he rolled his hips to exacerbate the friction. His neck tensed, head thrown back, when you finally dipped under the elastic and took him into your hand. Skin to skin, burning up.

The next moan from his fawning mouth was something you hadn’t heard in his voice for months – your name. “I need you. Now.” 

In the few moments he pulled away to remove his pants, a chill crept in and settled where the weight of his body had just been.

There it is again, you thought, the feeling of having him and losing him.

When this night was over and he was gone from you, would he stay that way? Should you have gone this far, knowing nothing would be different in the daylight? 

You were blinking fast when he reclaimed the space above you. Something flickered in his eye as he assessed the look on your face, but he didn’t ask. Instead, he leaned down and kissed you so gently that you could’ve imagined it – but so completely that your brain could never have fabricated it. Not successfully, anyway.

You’d already tried. 

Breaking apart once more, he reached down and stroked himself slowly. His eyes never left yours. You both held your breath as he slid into you, millimeter by millimeter, reminding your body – after all this time – how to take him. All of him, to the hilt, until you could finally exhale.

Stretched to accommodate his width, so fucking full, you saw a way out of the nothing that had you trapped like quicksand. It was him, always. Your safe haven.

Neither of you could speak once he began rolling his hips against you. The quiet was electrified by heavy breaths and whimpers. The wet heat of your cunt squelched as your walls enveloped him, just as unwilling to let him go as the rest of you.

Over and over, he grinded into you, dragging his length across your most sensitive places; hips swiveling slightly to the side as he pushed and pulled himself through you, the way he knew you liked it. 

Open mouth beside his ear, you keened and sighed, wordlessly informing him that you wouldn’t last much longer. He was perfectly attuned to your subconscious movements, and he responded to each of them without hesitation.

He’d never need to be reminded that the fingernails digging into his biceps meant faster, and the upward tilt of your jaw meant deeper. That when your eyebrows rose above your closed lids, you were seconds away from your release. 

He remembered exactly how to fuck you through your orgasm when it came – shallow, staccato thrusts that unraveled you further as you writhed against the sheets. The spot on your neck to nip at like some secret switch, praise dripping hot in your ear like honey.

“Such a good girl, squeezing me like this,” He panted, “Taking me so well – so fucking perfect for me, angel.” 

As soon as you crashed down through the atmosphere, his movements threatened to ricochet you right back into space. You keened helplessly with your half-numbed fingers gripping any part of him where they could find purchase.

“I c-can't stop -” You mewled, “How am I s-still c-coming?” 

His response didn’t come in the form of words. His lips collided with yours hard enough to clink teeth as he drove himself deeper and deeper and deeper. Sloppy, kiss-bitten lips laying claim; relentless in their mutual need for closeness. Your walls were still fluttering around him – was this your second orgasm or your third? - when he moaned into your mouth.

Every part of him tensed above, around, and inside you as the flood of his release filled every crevice of your cunt. 

Breathing ragged, his head fell into the crook of your shoulder. Considerate as ever, he tried so hard to keep his full weight off you, but his exhaustion undermined his efforts. You didn’t mind at all – you’d re-build your home there, staying forever between his body and that borrowed bed if you could. 

But you couldn’t, could you? If you felt empty before, how could you feel whole again after this? His name etched itself into your ribcage, and now your body would never re-acclimate to his absence.

Why did you do this to yourself? 

You squeezed your eyes shut tight when you felt tears prickling in their corners.  

Everything you felt for him – over the course of two years – came crashing down over you. You buried your face into his shoulder and tried your best to keep your crying to yourself.

You’d never get his scent off your body now. 

He could sense your shaking; it forced his heavy lids open. 

“I don’t know what to do with it,” you sniffled, silently begging yourself to stop. You felt yourself shrinking under his eye. It would only be a matter of time before you disappeared entirely.

His tone dripped with concern, serving only to deepen that infernal ache in the pit of your stomach. “With what?”  

“All the love I have for you. I don’t –” You sobbed, “I don’t know where to put it now.” 

His breath caught in his throat as if you’d punched him straight in the chest. If you listened hard enough, you might’ve heard his heart break. You could certainly feel it in the way he tensed in your arms.

When he moved off you, you feared the worst – that your incessant crying overflowed the bathtub, and your admission was the toaster thrown recklessly inside. But unlike the last time, he didn’t leave - and neither did you.

The mattress shifted as he claimed the space at your side - where he should have been all this time. Strong arms enveloped you as he turned to face you, and even though he held you, he couldn’t stop you from shattering.

For a while, he let you. Squeezed you hard, stroked your hair the way he used to, let you cry out all the poison that filled the spaces in the cavern of your chest.

And when you could finally breathe again, he kissed your forehead. “I’ll trade you for it.” 

(1/8/23): Check out the sequel, Redamancy, here.

redamancy (knj)

redamancy (n): a love returned in full

Kim Namjoon wasn't known for making wise decisions. He acted first and, on rare occasions, he asked questions later. The path he'd taken so far was left broken behind him, but the light at the end of that tunnel sure looked a hell of a lot like you.

Pairing: Kim Namjoon x Reader Type: One-Shot - sequel to lacuna Word Count: 5.5K Content: Established relationship AU; fluff but some angsty bits, i guess?; pov switches; smut (18+ - MINORS DNI) p in v pentration, shower sex, unprotected sex, multiple callbacks to lacuna, and a gratuitous cameo. A/N: Please read "lacuna" before proceeding! This is a sequel/epilogue, so the context is important. No spoilers, so my actual note will be at the end :) Listen to the playlist here! Tagging: @borahae-k @i-purple-buff-bunni @pamzn @myimaginationsrunningwild @nonbinary-demonbrat @yoongiphoria @bangtansmauyeondan @goddessjichu @ggukkiereads @dearly-somber @jihopesjoint @indgio @junsai-tree @persphonesorchid @mgthecat

Namjoon tucked his black marker into the pocket of his joggers with a sigh.

With the last box labeled, all he had to do was shove it in the corner with all his other possessions. In an instant, he could make it all the movers’ problem instead of his. He hesitated, though, and he didn’t know why.

That’s a lie, he thought, he absolutely knew why. It just felt so fucking childish to mourn a piece of real estate the way his heart seemed so inclined to. It was especially odd in his case because there were only fleeting moments where this artfully decorated apartment felt like a home; and not a museum he’d gotten locked in after failing to adhere to business hours.

There had been a lot of upheaval since he woke up in Yoongi’s guest bedroom with your bare body nestled against his. This was to be expected, after all. He’d blown up his life a year prior and just recklessly, maddeningly continued to set fire to the rubble. Now, he had to glue the pieces back together carefully.

What he broke could absolutely be rebuilt, but those cracks would still be visible, even once they were mended. The biggest of them — the nimbostratus cloud looming over that guest bedroom — was your impending flight back to Los Angeles, and the home you still had there.

Loving you was easy; it always had been. The logistics of loving you, however, had historically proven to be anything but.

Before you left, you said the pieces of your joint failures fell down like confetti. In reality, tying up all these loose ends felt more like cleaning up glitter. Reminders of his mistakes stuck everywhere. No matter how hard Namjoon swept, he always missed a spot. They stuck to him, catching the light.

This move was your clean slate.

If someone were to invade his brain now, they’d undoubtedly be alarmed by the tornado of nostalgia tearing ceaselessly through his thoughts. As it twisted, it uprooted everything and subsequently dumped it all in cardboard boxes. Namjoon was the spinning cow added for cinematic value, hanging on for dear life.

A hand clapped on his back, knocking him out of his thoughts and back into that empty bedroom.

“End of an era, eh?” Yoongi asked with his mouth still pressed to the lip of his coffee cup. He took another large gulp despite the scorching heat of its contents and he didn’t flinch.

“Yeah,” Namjoon conceded. It was a one-worded answer, but it spoke volumes. He didn’t need to look at Yoongi to see if he heard them all. The squeeze on Namjoon’s previously smacked shoulder indicated that he did.

This was where Namjoon decided that he loved you, not even four hours after meeting you. You looked at him then like no one ever had and he heard that cinematic record scratch. Then, the internal narration chimed in to give away the plot — that you were it for him.

Looking over the now-bare hardwood floor, his mind conjured you like a hologram: love-drunk in the corner, wearing his t-shirt and nothing else, serenading him with Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know?” and using an empty soju bottle as a makeshift microphone.

He could hear it now and it gave him the same feeling he had then, like he was on an upswing and he would never come back down. He could hear himself, too, blushing red in the present at his past admission.

“I think I love you,” he’d said it so fast because it already felt like a reflex. A knee-jerk reaction that he couldn’t stop, so bat-shit and embarrassing because he’d only met you a few hours earlier.

Presently, he pictured your coy smile in that moment — the first time you’d graced him with it — and remembering your response had him warm all over.

“How sure are you? Enough to wager on it?”

“At least seventy-nine percent sure,” he’d responded immediately, which would become a habit of his, and relished in the way your eyes twinkled. So, you loved it when he’d buy into a bit — noted. He’d continued, no longer shy, “And yes, I would. All in.”

He could nearly feel the way your touch sparked against his hand once you’d skipped back and crawled over the mattress to settle in front of him. He’d prayed to a god he didn’t believe in that you’d do it again, and again, and again, running so eagerly into his arms.

“Then let’s make a deal, Joonie,” you’d smirked.

It was the first time anyone had called him that without being swiftly punched in the arm. It was the best that stupid nickname had ever sounded, coming out of your sweet mouth.

You’d tilted your head to the side and hummed with a thoughtful finger tapping at your chin, “Two years. If in two years’ time you realize that you were right — and you’re one-hundred percent sure — you’ll win a prize.”

He’d put his hand out to shake on it, but you’d swooped in with your fingers sliding through his hair. You’d kissed him instead and, against your soft lips, he’d mumbled, “Deal.”

Namjoon could’ve stood in that bedroom all day, watching the montage of you that somehow flickered against the bare white walls.

Yoongi seemed to sense this, though, and he intervened. After all, that’s precisely why Namjoon had brought him along: to keep him from getting lost on Memory Lane.

With a gentle pinch at Namjoon’s elbow, Yoongi nodded his head towards the doorway, “Movers will be here in ten. Anything left to pack?

Namjoon initially shook his head, but then he remembered. Fuck! Thank god — or whoever — for Yoongi, who stood there wide-eyed as Namjoon jerked forward and flew out the door.

He dashed to the kitchen and grabbed the only thing still there: his grandmother’s tea pot, bearing intricately painted cherry blossoms. He cradled it in his arms like a child on his way back to Yoongi, who was still standing where he was left. Still wide-eyed, too, like not enough time had passed for him to blink.

“I need you to keep track of this,” Namjoon confessed as he held out the teapot, “I know me and I know that I’ll break this if I’m the one responsible for it. Just — just don’t open it, okay?”

Without batting an eye — or heeding Namjoon’s words in any way whatsoever — Yoongi pulled off the lid and glanced inside. There was no change in his blank face, merely a tiny flex of his eyebrow that Namjoon just barely caught.

True to form, Yoongi asked no questions. His only response was, “You’re right. You would absolutely break this.”

Namjoon would’ve rolled his eyes if he wasn’t so distracted by his own pulse hammering away in his ears. “Right,” he muttered weakly.

“Ready to kiss this place goodbye?” Yoongi changed the subject after noticing how flustered Namjoon had become. He was alarmingly perceptive even when he wasn’t actively working to uncover Namjoon’s secrets.

Namjoon was — and wasn’t. He didn’t know how the fuck to feel, finishing a chapter so conclusively. In the past, all his endings had been ambiguous. They faded out, for the most part, so subtly that he didn’t notice right away.

All but one, that is.

Yoongi studied Namjoon’s face for one silent moment before landing a weightless punch on his bicep. His knuckles barely brushed him, but Namjoon felt it through his shirt, through his muscle, down to his bones. Then, without any response from Namjoon, Yoongi offered him a moment alone.

The apartment door clicked shut behind him. Though inherently quiet, it echoed loudly through the hallway and reverberated through every naked room on its way to Namjoon. As he stood there, silent and solitary, he realized how much he truly hated that sound. What it represented.

“So, is this it, then?” Your face told him that you knew the answer before you asked; but that you simply didn’t want to accept it.

He’d never seen you cry, save for the moments you laughed so hard that your eyes couldn’t contain your mirth. During sappy movies, maybe, but never because of sadness. Never because of him.

Namjoon had to stuff his hands in his pockets to keep them from reaching out to you.

He looked down at his shoes, nudged the rubber toe of one into the rug, then glanced back up at you. It was becoming increasingly impossible to look at you, but it felt so foreign not to.

He’d seen true sadness before — not from you, not until now — but your expression communicated something even deeper than that. Devastation, maybe? Whatever it was, it mingled with your mascara and spilled over your cheeks.

“I think it has to be,” his voice was thick when he replied, and it was a miracle he’d gotten the words out at all, “If you’re going to get everything you deserve in this life — everything you’ve worked so fucking hard for — I can’t be the thing that stands in your way.”

You were crying so hard that your sobs made his chest ache.

“I wanted all of it with you, Joonie, so badly,” You whimpered, then you wiped your leaking eyes on the excess sleeve clutched tight in your fingers, “I need you to know that. If we could’ve found a single way to make this work, I —“

When your voice gave up, his took over. “I know, baby,” and fuck, now he was crying too, “I would’ve lassoed the fucking moon for you if it could’ve made a difference.”

It hit him like a bullet train when you said it. As if you’d ever needed to ask.

“Can you kiss me one last time before I go?”

So, he did. Hard. And then, when you walked away, he let you.

Click.

Namjoon stayed frozen, staring into space, until he heard the movers clambering over the threshold.

You’d never seen more paperwork in your life.

Flipping through the binder, you were even more likely to stroke out than you were to get a paper cut. The sheer number of words made you dizzy; an insurmountable mountain of hangul. An avalanche, ready to overtake you.

After reading and signing for what felt like forty years, complaining all the while, you began to wonder: At what point would your brain simply give up and forget how to read as a form of protest? The thought was tempting — forgoing literacy entirely just to avoid this drawn-out task.

“I don’t understand,” you muttered, turning yet another page. You’d written your initials so many times that they stopped looking like real letters.

Maybe your brain was losing its capacity for language.

Jinseo furrowed her brows with such conviction, you could see them knit together in your peripheral vision, “I don’t know how much clearer I can make it. I’ve explained the terms to you no less than five-hundred times.”

You set down your pen and sat up to meet her exasperated eyes with a smirk, “No, not that. Your unsolicited lecture on contract law has me bar-exam ready.”

Jinseo’s mouth dropped open, always dramatic but never truly offended. You clarified, “I don’t understand why I can’t simply write smell you later on a post-it note, sign that, and be done with it.”

“Oh, I don’t mind all the time this is taking you,” Jinseo swapped out her shock for a wolfish grin, “It’s all billable, baby.”

At this, you rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t contain your laughter, “Unnie, don’t I get the friends-and-family rate?”

“Friends and family don’t forget the guacamole, sweet bean,” she chided you with her fork pointed teasingly at you.

With your attention finally secured, the fork directed your eyes down to the admittedly lackluster burrito bowl you’d traded for legal advice. Oops.

“You get what acquaintances and hot, divorce-seeking strangers get.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Me another margarita,” she purred. With a wink, she lifted her not-yet-empty glass from the table. “And when you’re done breaking up with Big Hit, you can talk me up to the owner of your new label.”

You slumped back in your seat while feigning hesitation. Sucking a breath in through your teeth, you sighed, “Yoongi? Well, I don’t know… He’s married to his work.”

At this, Jinseo quirked an eyebrow. “Did you not hear me about the whole hot, divorce-seeking strangers thing?”

“Menace,” you giggled.

Your laughter petered out too soon and an unexpectedly heavy silence settled between you and the only friend you’d successfully kept in the whole of California. In all of the United States, really.

You didn’t want to say it, but you couldn’t keep it in, either: “I don’t know what I’d do without you.

Jinseo, dropping her chin to rest on the heel of her hand, smiled with only half her mouth. She paused before admitting, “I don’t know what you’d do without me, either.”

Your instinct was to cry, but you’d never hear the end of it if you did. Jinseo, like you, seemed to develop contact dermatitis when confronted with vulnerability and affection. Instead, your friendship was grounded in playful smacks to the arm and glances nobody but the two of you could decipher.

For this reason, you picked your pen up off the table and gestured to the page before you. “You’re sure that catch you on the flip-side, nerds, won’t hold up in court?”

“If you really want to fuck around with Bang PD, I suppose you’ll find out.” She shrugged, then she winked again.

You didn’t, for more reasons than one. The most recent of those was the grace and understanding Bang Si-Hyuk had shown you when you raised the idea of leaving his label. The heaviest of them was the simple fact that you owed him everything — your career, your success, and most of all, the family you’d found through him.

In your best friend, who you’d never have met without Si-Hyuk's help in breaking through the American market. She was your lifeboat in a lonely, intimidating sea of unfamiliar people, customs, language, and food.

In Yoongi, the illustrious Big Hit producer who collaborated with you during the wild hours you kept, no matter what time it was on his end. He was your parachute, saving you quietly and without fail, through every leap of faith. He kept you company when you left Korea — then he started a company to bring you back.

In Namjoon, whose release party changed the trajectory of your entire life. His role could never be adequately described in any words — in any language.

A lighthouse, maybe, guiding you through jagged rocks to shore.

Or a cabin in the woods that you never expected to find, but that held you warmly when the trail ahead couldn’t be found in the dark.

More simply: he was everything.

“Where’d you go just now?” Jinseo’s sudden statement made you jump. There was a muffled knock when your kneecap collided with the underside of the table.

You blinked over at her and watched as her pursed lips curved into a smile. Your instinct was to keep your sentimental nonsense to yourself — after all, this wasn’t goodbye in any way that mattered. The two of you would stay in constant contact, visiting one another at any and every possible opportunity.

Why did you always try to eulogize what wasn’t dead yet?

Again, Jinseo surprised you. “You do know how proud I am of you, right?”

She snorted at your bemused expression: wide, watery eyes sitting between raised eyebrows and a mouth that was neither closed nor fully open.

Just as quickly, she course-corrected, resuming her abnormally solemn tone. “You do hard things every damn day and you always get out of bed the next,” Jinseo continued.

Apparently, her margarita’s rim demanded more than table salt; it wanted tears, too.

“You’re brave as hell — braver than me, that’s for sure. You jump because you know you need to; and I sit on the ground because I’m too afraid of heights.” She reached across the table and gave your hand a squeeze, “And your survival rate, despite it all, is one-hundred percent.”

You wiped furiously at the tears streaking through your foundation. Everything you needed to say to her was communicated with a shared glance, like always. Your friendship was telepathic; it would endure regardless of distance.

What you said out loud earned you the belly laugh you loved so much:

“Imagine what you would’ve said if I remembered your guacamole.”

Namjoon wouldn’t normally use the word giddy to describe himself. Even at his most excited, he was able to maintain some ounce of chill — the tiniest fraction of composure, whether he truly felt composed or not.

Then again, he’d never experienced this level of exhilaration before. Not when he was signed, not when he released his first track, not even when he was nominated for a Grammy.

In a matter of minutes, your plane would land at Incheon and his whole damn world would resume its intended orbit. The tectonic plates would shift back where they belonged; and every natural disaster he’d set loose inside himself would finally — after all this time — subside.

Though he wasn’t the one who left, it felt like his homecoming, too. Even in Korea, surrounded by everyone and everything he’d always known, Namjoon’s recent existence was nomadic. He bounced between surface-level relationships and sleepwalked through events that should’ve mattered; never allowing himself to feel connected to any of it.

Namjoon was a comet — arriving quickly and on fire, then disappearing just as fast. He was ready to stop being temporary, so long as you became permanent, too.

It was that dream of roots that had Namjoon refreshing the flight-tracker once an hour for the thirteen you’d spent in the air. He watched that tiny, animated plane inch closer while your estimated time of arrival began to look more and more like the one on his watch.

When they finally matched, Namjoon slammed his hand down on the steering wheel of his parked car and shouted to no one but himself, “Yes!”

There was an old woman — why did she look so familiar? — glaring at him through his passenger window. He might’ve scared her with his sudden display, but Namjoon couldn’t find a fuck to give. He was too busy grabbing the carefully curated bouquet off the seat to his right, then clambering out of his own.

It was a confusing assortment, and not necessarily a beautiful one. Instead of a single phrase, Namjoon’s choices communicated paragraphs; combining every type of flower he’d ever given you on this very same sidewalk. If you were anyone else, you might take this eyesore and dump it immediately in the nearby trashcan — but you weren't anyone else.

The first addition was white camellias, matching the ones you received after your first flight home. Like they did back then, they confessed how much he adored you from the start. Then came pink roses because he loved you happily, softly, despite the distance.

On your third arrival home, he gave you baby’s breath. Those delicate petals commemorated the pieces of himself that went missing when you went away; all falling back into place the second he saw you again. White tulips followed, begging forgiveness for the increasing time you spent apart and how little you’d get to spend together on that fourth trip.

For this trip, the last you’d ever make alone, he added bridal wreath.

Namjoon read it somewhere recently that this plant was virtually impossible to kill once it was established. It could survive just about anything and remain beautiful despite its hardships. Like the shrub he’d clipped it from, he’d withstand everything with you.

The fondness he radiated must have summoned you because, after ten minutes of scanning the out-coming crowd, he finally saw you. There you were, shuffling on travel-weary legs, with your signature, mint-colored headphones; and your self-congratulatory boba.

Unfortunately, you didn’t see him — miraculous, given the way he was waving his arms like a fool and shouting through cupped hands to get your attention. Instead, your sleepy gaze fixated squarely on your phone.

You must’ve assumed that this arrival would be like the last one.

Before you could summon an Uber – definitely not another taxi – Namjoon dug his own phone out of his jacket pocket. He struggled to text with one hand occupied by his bouquet, so he took the easy way out.

[To: Jagi 🤫] 👋🏻

Your gasp came before he could look back up at you, but he heard it loud and clear. When his eyes found you again, he watched in slow motion as your beloved boba fell out of your hand and clattered against the sidewalk.

The sound of plastic hitting pavement was the starting whistle. Now, you were off to the races.

With shocking speed, you leapt over the spilled tea and flew towards him like your Prada backpack came equipped with rocket boosters. At that cost, anything was possible. He managed to catch you in his arms without losing a single petal.

Once he had you, he kissed you like it was the first time: shy to start, growing increasingly desperate with every passing second. With your arms linked in their rightful place around his neck and your lips so warm against his, he wondered how many times he could shout I love you without saying a word.

Panting, you eventually pulled back with lips pink and semi-swollen from the urgency of it all. You sighed if you weren’t the breath of fresh air, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Namjoon repeated with a chuckle, grinning like a fool.

Though he didn’t want to, he let you slip out of his arms to your feet. After all, he couldn’t complete your airport ritual unless your hands were free. He swallowed hard and tried his best not to blush when he held out the bouquet.

It felt like he was gifting you his whole, beating heart instead.

You froze once the flowers transferred from his hand to yours.

Immediately, his pulse began to race. If he was still holding that massive bouquet, he would’ve beat himself over the head with it. Once again, Namjoon had overthought everything and analyzed a simple task to death.

But your pupils dilated ever-so-slightly when you looked back up at him with swimming eyes. He should’ve known you’d remember. Given you long-due credit for the way you always made him feel seen.

You reached up and did what you’d only done once before — in a dark hallway, five months earlier. Your gaze followed the tip of your thumb as it swiped gently over his bottom lip, and you smiled.

“Say less, Joonie."

After picking you up from the airport, Namjoon promptly whisked you away to the apartment you’d both recently closed on. As a life-long renter, leaving town more often than staying, it was your first major purchase. It was also your first joint purchase.

The old you would’ve been terrified of killing these two, deeply committal birds with one stone; but the person you were now didn’t bat an eye. 

What was there to panic over, anyway? It felt right because it was. 

Given your exhausted state, the tour was brief. You spent it all clinging to Namjoon’s back like a jetlagged sloth in a tree, but your excitement was evident despite the mumbled voice that expressed it.

If there was any moisture left in your worn-out body, it would’ve left you in tears when you saw the combination of your respective design styles incorporated so perfectly throughout the space.

The items you’d shipped internationally arrived before you did. Namjoon seemed to know without asking exactly where you’d choose to put them. Your kitschy trinkets didn’t look stupid next to his art collection in the way you thought they would. Even more shocking was the way your eccentric, eclectic taste meshed seamlessly with his modern neutrals.  

Your home with him was a mirror, reflecting the very specific way you each provided what the other lacked. 

And he’d handled it all himself, taking the daunting task of unpacking off your plate so you could finish your chapter in Los Angeles.

Though he wasn’t physically present for the hours you spent making plans with Yoongi — or the hours you spent explaining those same plans to Bang Si-Hyuk — you felt him. He listened to every complaint and over-caffeinated rant. He gave you patience, reassurance, and equal enthusiasm in return. 

Because you loved him, you could do hard things.

You could navigate the nightmare realm that was moving internationally. You could join your friend in doing what neither of you had ever done before — creating your own label, then your own studio — while you were still stuck on the other side of an ocean. You could move back home without your tail between your legs, feeling like you’d failed to hack it alone. 

You didn’t fail. You simply realized – much later than you should have — that any path worth taking was one you walked with Namjoon. 

When the tour concluded, you fell asleep — at three o’clock in the afternoon — in his arms. When you woke up six hours later, he was still holding you. That is, until you lurched forward and spun around in a frenzy. 

“Joon!” Your exclamation was interrupted by a yawn, but that didn’t undermine the urgency. “Were you trapped under me this whole time? Oh my god, you missed dinner. Aren’t you thirsty? I’m a monster —” 

Namjoon’s entire face crinkled up under the force of his smile. His laughter twinkled in his eyes, too, and threatened to spill out. You stopped rambling mid-sentence and released your death grip on his hand so he could wipe the mirth from his cheekbone.

He was still chuckling despite the horror on your face. 

“What?” You asked incredulously, though you were starting to giggle, too. “What’s so funny?” 

The more he laughed, the more you did. It was a cycle, certainly, but far from vicious. Was this the kind of life you got to live now? One so perfect that endless laughter — caused by nothing in particular — echoed through every room? 

His hands cupped the sides of your face and guided you towards him. Still smiling, you were both catching your breath when his forehead came to rest against yours. Nose tips bumping into one another, he hummed contentedly, “You just sat alone on an airplane for thirteen hours, jagi. If I get to be your pillow for even half as long, you won’t catch me complaining.” 

You kissed him automatically; a reflex your body had acclimated to without requiring your brain to prompt it. It was brief, but you had all the time in the world to kiss him again. For now, you wanted to stare at him for as long as it took to prove to yourself that you weren’t simply dreaming. 

“Hang on,” Namjoon said suddenly. He kissed you before you could pout and then he rolled off the side of the bed. He held one finger up as he stared intently back at you, “Don’t move, okay?” 

After all that time sitting still with your body pushing against his bladder, you assumed he was headed for the adjoining bathroom. He wasn’t; he rushed right past it and disappeared out your bedroom door. You listened to his footfalls against the hallway floor until he was too far away to track.  

What on Earth was he doing? 

You sat there cross-legged in a pool of sheets for several minutes. One eyebrow raised in confusion while your gaze stayed locked on the doorway. It still managed to surprise you when he reappeared — not just because his arrival was sudden, but because he was holding his grandmother’s tea pot in his hands. 

Is that why you didn’t hear him jogging back? Because he was moving at a snail’s pace, protecting that floral-printed ceramic like his life depended on it? 

You opened your mouth to speak, but he cut you off with the same finger he’d pointed at you earlier. Namjoon ignored your furrowed eyebrows, crossed back to his side of the bed, and crawled back into the space he’d left behind. While your eyes darted between him and his tea pot, his never left your face. Uncharacteristically quiet, taking deep, measured breaths. 

No, really — what on Earth was he doing? 

“I can tell by that look on your face that you have no idea what the hell is happening, but hear me out, okay?”

He waited for you to nod before continuing slowly, “I overthink things. Sometimes, it ends up fine, but it usually doesn’t. I try to think before I act, then I think instead of acting — I don’t want to do that now.” 

Namjoon paused for a moment, finally glancing down at the tea pot cradled in his hands. “I asked Yoongi to hang on to this during the move because I break things. I never mean to, but for some unknown reason, all that over-thinking doesn’t make me careful. I ruin things far too easily and I hate that about myself —” 

“Joon,” you frowned. Placing a hand on his bouncing knee, you begged him to look up at you. “You don’t ruin things —”

He shook his head, stopping you from continuing. You’d never seen him look so determined. “I do, but that’s not the point I’m getting at.”

He shot you a tiny smile as if you were the one deserving reassurance. “I let you go when I didn’t want to, let this thing we built fall to pieces. The timing couldn’t have been worse, either — now I’m late cashing in.” 

“Cashing in?” Clearly, you'd lost the plot.

Namjoon laughed, “Two years. You said to give it two years and if it turned out that I was right, I’d win a prize. It’s been a little bit longer than that, but I'm one-hundred-percent sure.” 

Oh.  

You'd replayed that night over and over in your head since it happened. Really, you should’ve caught on immediately; but you thought you were the only one carrying that memory around like a torch. 

Did he really remember that conversation after all this time? Some silly, inside joke that you made after only knowing him for a few hours?

Namjoon took the lid off the teapot and set it down softly on the nightstand behind him.

“It took me too long to realize it, but it’s you — you're the prize. I don’t want to orchestrate some ridiculous, dramatic gesture because this is us. It feels exactly like it did that first night, when I took this bet in the first place.” 

His hand dipped down into the tea pot. When it re-emerged, he was holding a small box made of exquisite black leather. You started crying in the split second it took him to open it. He was blinking back tears of his own when he flipped it around to show you its contents.  

“I’m all in if you are.”

Namjoon was a lot of things, but he wasn't a quitter.

After he slid that ring on your finger, neither of you could keep your hands to yourself. Like history repeating itself, he loved every inch of you on every goddamn surface in that apartment.

In the bed he'd wake up in, next to you, for the rest of his life. On that bright yellow couch you loved so much; the kitchen counter he'd have to clean before making too big of a breakfast for you in the morning. When you christened every other room, the pair of you retired to the bathroom.

Initially, your goal upon entering the shower wasn't sex. In fact, it was to soothe your exhausted, sweat-slicked bodies before collapsing onto fresh sheets and a re-made bed. If you thought you were tired before, you'd sleep for a week now. Every part of him ached in the best way, so he'd welcome the opportunity to rest for several days at your side.

But then he smelled your shampoo — vanilla and honey — and it flipped a switch in his fucked-out brain. The warm water spilling in rivulets over your soft skin pressed the issue; and so did that diamond sparkling up at him through the steam.

He didn't follow you in here to fuck you, but he'd be remiss if he let the moment slip down the drain with the suds.

Experimentally, he pushed your hair away from the back of your neck and brought his lips to the space he'd cleared. Watching your slow inhale, he lingered there for a moment to gauge your reaction. Your head tilted slightly to the side; he considered it an invitation. In lieu of an RSVP, he sent his tongue in a short, languid line.

The moan he coaxed out of you was quiet, but despite the falling water, it reverberated across the glass walls and tile. You followed up with a sigh, leaning your head back against his chest as his mouth moved to claim the side of your neck.

"Shit," you keened with your eyes closed, "We're never leaving the house again, are we?"

Namjoon hummed as he flicked his tongue over your earlobe, "Outlook not so good."

As expected, you caught his reference immediately. You wobbled as you laughed; his arms snaked around the curves of your waist to satiate his need for closeness and his desire to keep you upright. "Mr. Kim, certified genius, is now citing the Magic 8 ball?"

"It's the poet laureate of our generation, Mrs. Kim."

Even if you didn't whimper at the utterance of your future name, Namjoon still would've repeated it over and over again. A mantra, an invocation manifesting a long life in which you matched. So, he did say it again, whispering it into your flesh as his hands slid up your torso.

Mrs. Kim, Mrs. Kim, Mrs. Kim.

Given what they'd been through over the past several hours, he treated your nipples with the utmost care and reverence. Sensitive thing that you were, even his feather-light touch had you mewling. Fuck, he loved that sound.

"Baby?" Your voice was barely distinguishable from an exhale, but that perfect softness hit him hard, "Please."

Your wish was, is, and always would be his command.

Namjoon worried about your trembling legs, so he chose the first solution that came to mind: he turned you gently around, kissed you deep, and lifted you off your feet. As always, you molded so easily against his body. You legs wrapped around him in tandem with your arms.

Carefully, he rested your back against the stone wall and adjusted his grip so that his arms slotted under your thighs. “This okay, Mrs. Kim?" He asked.

Your answer came in the form of your hand dipping down and guiding the tip of his cock to your entrance. He followed your lead, leaving both of you to moan when he entered you.

Like a glove, you enveloped him completely. He'd never believe that you weren't destined to fit together like this. Out of every person, in every timeline, he was the lucky bastard meant for you.

Unlike the previous rounds, this was slow. Deliberate, not underscored by some carnal desire or desperate need to reclaim lost moments. He took his time grinding himself into your unimaginable warmth because he now had it in spades. Namjoon refused to let a second pass without cherishing it fully first.

Your head dipped back against the cool stone, allowing you to tilt your jaw upward. Placing a kiss at the column of your throat, he pushed himself deeper into you.

Breathy moans thanked him wordlessly for his fluency in your body's language. Namjoon had studied religiously to learn your unspoken cues, so your raised eyebrows and closed lids foretold your orgasm before your velvet walls clenched around him.

"Fuck, Joon," you cried out as you shook in his arms.

Your little whimpers lured him to the edge; your tightened grip on his shoulder pulled him off behind you. As he spilled himself inside of you, he screwed his eyes shut and nestled his face into the crook of your neck to muffle his chest-deep groan.

After several moments of silence, you shifted. He rolled his neck to move his head further down your shoulder. From this vantage point, he gazed up at you — the only thing worth looking at, all he ever wanted, the one he got to keep for good.

With a kiss left at his temple, you murmured, "I'm glad you took it back."

"What?" He asked quietly, searching your flushed, smiling face for answers.

"All the love I have for you. I know where to put it now."

A/N: aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH IT'S FINALLY HERE! i cried like a bitch baby when i was writing this - even more so when i finished writing this (aka now) - because this lil series takes up my whole heart. i buried so much of myself in lacuna, so this was my attempt to plant flowers in the achy bits, lol. i left lots of easter eggs, so i'd love to know what you find! also, yes, i did write my damn self into this one. hahahah. lacuna was largely autobiographical (except the namjoon part, obvi) so it felt right to fictionalize myself as the person saying what i would've wanted to hear back then.

i'd love to know your thoughts, so please please please let me know either by replying, reblogging, PMing me, or dropping a line in the ask box.